Yet, even as she challenged Blue Wolf’s word, she knew it had to be true. While Emmet Caruthers wasn’t blood related, a son to the woman who married her grandfather after her grandmother died, her uncle was every bit like her father. He treated women poorly.
She stared at Blue Wolf. His wet eyes shamed her for thinking he took pleasure in saying he was not Brant’s father. At the same time, she thought of how Brant’s life had been hard because people believed he was a half-breed.
Then she thought of how Blue Wolf said she should go.
“Emmet wasn’t my father’s real brother,” she told him, concerned he thought she and Brant were related.
“The brothers shared her.”
“No.” She refused to believe Blue Wolf. He didn’t like her and he’d say anything to keep her and Brant apart. “Pardon me, I have to get something for Charlie to eat,” she said.
Afraid he’d say something to convince her, she rushed back to the cook pot over the fire. As she ladled the soup into a wood bowl, her hands trembled. She walked back to the lodge, ducked under the flap and looked at Charlie and Sully talking.
“Eden?” Brant’s voice startled her and the bowl tipped out of her hands.
“I’ll go get more,” she said, rushing out of the lodge.
Feeling sick to her stomach, she hurried around to the other side of the building. What if it wasn’t her uncle Emmet that was Brant’s father?
“What is wrong, Eden?” Lucy said from behind. “Are you ill?”
Eden frantically wiped the tears from her cheeks as she turned. “No, just tired. It’s been an overwhelming few days.”
“Charlie is better, so you will get rest now.”
Eden tried to think of a way to broach the subject of Brant’s father. “Lucy, did you know my father, William Caruthers?”
“I had met him a long time ago, before you were born.”
“Did he… Was he…” There was no way to ask if Emmet was Brant’s father and no reason to know why Lucy let her and Brant see each other if she knew they were related. “Brant wants Charlie and me to return to Boston. I told him I wouldn’t go, but I think it is best for everyone.”
Lucy’s eyes misted. “I will miss you and Charlie, but you must do what you feel is right.”
No argument? It was as if Lucy was answering her unasked question.
“I have to go get Charlie’s food. He’s probably wondering where I disappeared to.” Eden left Lucy and walked back around where she met Brant coming out of the lodge.
“I got him something to eat. Where did you go?” he asked.
She put a hand on her midsection. “It’s my time of the month,” she lied.
The statement stopped most men. Brant gave a nod and held the flap of the door open. She looked inside and saw Charlie intently listening to a story Sully was telling him.
With her back to Brant, she whispered to him, “We’ll go back to Boston, so you can take us to the ranch first thing in the morning.”
“The wagon and horse will be gone.” He reminded her.
“Then you can leave me a horse. I need a couple of days to pack some things since it will be the last time I’ll be there.”
“I will help you.”
“I know you’re in a hurry to get us out of your life, but I’d prefer to spend some time alone with Charlie in the house I grew up in. Tomorrow, just take us to the house and then you can go.” Without waiting to hear what more he might want to say, she eased inside the lodge and sat next to Charlie on the pallet of furs.
Chapter Six
Brant used a blanket as a bed on the floor on the far side of the lodge, leaving Charlie and Eden to sleep in his old place. He spent most the night debating whether he was right in sending her away. Yet, with her agreeing, how did he tell her he changed his mind and demand she remain there in the village as his wife?
When sunrise finally sent a beam of light under the doorway flap of his lodge, he got up and went outside anxious with a plan. Without telling his mother and father of his decision, he went to them and made arrangements. Then he paced the camp and waited for Eden to wake.
“We’ll be ready to go as soon as Charlie is awake.” She emerged pushing her blond hair back and gathered it in one hand to tie a strip of leather to hold it like a pony’s tail.
“We can go now,” he said taking her arm.
“I don’t want to wake Charlie yet. He’s still weak from the fever and his leg is hurting him.”
“He is not going.”
“If you think you’re sending me away and keeping my son, think again, Brant Sullette.”
“He will stay here to rest until you pack your things at the ranch.”
“And I’m just supposed to believe you’ll bring him to me after the way you came the other day and tried to snatch him away. No, thank you, I am no fool.”
“I told you before I will help you pack. My father will bring him to your house in three days,” he assured her.
“I don’t want your help.”
“You have no say.” He grabbed her arm and pulled her through the village to the horses he had readied.
“Brant, I want to tell Charlie where I’m going.” She tried to break the hold of his fingers on her arm.
“My mother will tell him.”
“He might worry.”
“Sully will see that he doesn’t.” He lifted her up on the smaller horse.
“He’s a little boy. He’s been through a horrible ordeal.”
“And he will be looked after by my mother. Maybe in three days you will see that you need to let him grow up.”
A low squeal of annoyance came with a flash of anger in Eden’s eyes.
He mounted his horse and led hers behind him until they were beyond the village. Then he brought her alongside and handed her the rope.
In the hour it took to ride to the old house, Eden didn’t say anything. He sensed something strange about her mood from the moment she had agreed to return to Boston.
Even though it was his idea for her to go, he never thought she’d do it. And after a night thinking about it, he thought he had the solution.
In the beginning, when he had come for them, she had suggested that she and Charlie live in her house. If them, why not him as well?
When he and Eden arrived at the house, he dismounted and walked back to help her down. She jumped from the saddle by herself and rushed past him.
He watched her walk up to the door of the house and just stare at it.
“Is something wrong?” he asked.
“I haven’t been inside in five years,” she sighed. “You took us away before I got a chance the other day to see what had changed about the place.”
“Do you want it to have changed?” He pushed the door lever down and swung the door open.
“I don’t know.” She moved inside.
He rested his hands on her shoulders and she bolted from them as if he had hit her.
“I will try to remember not to surprise you like that.”
“It doesn’t matter. In three days, I’ll be gone from here.” She strolled around the room, running her fingers across the furniture.
He followed her from one room to another. When she stopped in the doorway of her bedroom, she didn’t move.
“Are you not going in?”
“Can we go back and get Charlie today? I don’t want to take anything from here. I want to go away and never think about this place again.”
“I do not want you to go.” Brant slid his arms around Eden and tried pulling her back against him.
“Let me go,” she shrieked. “You can’t touch me like that ever again.”
“Eden?”
“It’s not right. We should never have been together.” She ran her hands over her head, a frantic expression wrinkling her face. “Oh God, Brant, the feelings I had, I still have for you. I’m going to hell for the sins between us.”
“Eden, calm down,” he grabbed her by the arms.
“They
should have told you,” she cried. “How could your mother let you be with me? What kind of morals do the Pawnee live by?”
“Eden, what are you talking about?”
“Your father.”
“Blue Wolf?” he asked confused.
“No, your real father.”
“My mother told you about what happened to her?” It was unbelievable. His mother had been so reluctant to tell him for fear he’d leave her.
“No, your father did. He told me all the sordid details.”
“Oh,” he said, knowing that Blue Wolf’s story was very different from his mother’s. “You need to let me explain.”
“You know and you didn’t tell me! You made love to me knowing I was your cousin or your sister.”
“Eden.” He dragged her forward and hugged her tight. “You are neither. What my father told you isn’t the whole truth.”
“Why would he lie,” she sobbed.
“Because my mother lied to him.”
“She wasn’t kept captive by my uncle?”
“No.” He moved to sit on the edge of the bed with her.
“When the raiding party took her, she was not with child. That happened at the hands of the Skidi Pawnee brave. He wanted her for a slave to take the place of his dead wife.”
“You are sure?”
“Yes. My mother told me long ago when I told her I would one day take you as my wife. She said Blue Wolf would oppose, but I should never tell him the truth.”
“Oh Brant.” She hugged him around the neck. “I thought I was going to die of sinful shame when he told me.”
“And now that you know the truth?”
She pushed him back on the dusty covers of the bed and kissed him. “Don’t ever scare me again by telling me to leave you.”
Brant folded one arm under Eden’s and slid it around her back. He maneuvered her beneath him, never breaking from her kiss. “Never.”
Lost in caressing and hugging, time passed without him giving much thought to the plans he wanted to make with her. When he paused to discuss the new arrangement he wanted, her fingers against his lips shushed him.
She wiggled out from beneath him and climbed off the bed. “I used to lie where you are now and dream of the many ways you would touch me.”
She unfastened the ties of the doeskin dress at her shoulders.
Rising from his propped position on his elbow, he sat and watched the dress drop to the floor at her feet. While his peripheral vision caught sight of her nakedness, he continued to gaze into the shimmering blue of her eyes.
“At night, in the dark, I’d imagine your hands slipping over my breasts.” Her arms moved, but he couldn’t tear his gaze away from the seductive allure of her stare.
Brant rose to his feet. He walked toward her.
Eden shuffled back a few steps until the wall stopped her.
Brant unfastened his pants and kicked off his moccasins.
She bent down and kissed his abdomen. Her grip on him tightened as she ventured lower. Entranced, he watched her mouth as it enveloped him. A groan rumbled up his throat as she drank him in.
After his tense muscles relaxed, he pulled her up and ran his fingers in her hair gripping the sides of her head.
They kissed and leisurely explored each other’s bodies. The re-acquainting eventually hardened him again.
With a coaxing grip on her buttocks, he lifted her up and slid into her wet sex.
She folded her legs around his hips, wrapped her arms around his neck and stared into his eyes. “You’ve always fit me, Brant. My place is with you.”
Brant pushed her up against the wall and rocked his hips against her. “I know.”
Her watery eyes sparkled with hope. “You’ll take me back to the village with you?”
“No.”
“You want me to stay here at the ranch?” A strange worry furrowed her brow. “I don’t know if I can live here alone with Charlie.”
“You will be safe with me.” He kissed her.
“You’ll live here with us?” She let out a whimper as he thrust quicker.
“Yes.”
Words eluded them as Eden released sounds of delight and he concentrated on his own release.
When he finished, he carried her to the bed. He dropped down with her, exhausted from the lack of sleep and the energy he expelled.
She rubbed her finger against the scar on his chest. “Blue Wolf told me about this. I’m sorry.”
“It is the past.”
“Still, you risked your life for me.” She kissed his jaw.
“Something I would do again,” he said without hesitation.
“Brant, just for my peace of mind, will you tell me the whole story about your mother.” She slid her hand over his chest in a slow, circling motion.
“She was the wife of Emmet Caruthers and she was treated by him in much the same way your father treated you.” He held her cradled in his arms.
“Is that why she so readily accepted me, because she was once my aunt?”
“In a way. Remember, this happened before you or I were born. Though, I do think she said once that she knew your mother.” He lifted her hand and kissed her fingers.
“She did? Oh that would be wonderful if she could tell me about her. So why did Blue Wolf think my uncle was your father?”
“Because she felt she owed Blue Wolf a life for saving her. She had only been a captive of the Skidi for a short time when my father Blue Wolf was there to trade with the tribe. He saw the brave mistreating her and asked why. One of the other braves said the white girl had been taken as captive to be a sacrifice to make the ground fertile. The brave challenged the tribe’s decision, claiming he had rights to the girl to replace his dead wife. The tribe agreed, but they still needed a sacrifice and the brave’s daughter was chosen. The brave blamed my mother and vowed to never make her forget it.”
“That’s horrible.”
“The Chawi Pawee stopped performing the morning star ritual long before then. So when Blue Wolf heard the story, and saw the abuse, he felt sorry for her. He offered the brave a horse for her. The brave said he would not let her go for any price, but Blue Wolf would not be put off and in the end, he got my mother for two horses and three wolf hides.”
“Was that a lot?” She looked at him.
“For a white woman, it is a very large sum.” He slid his finger down her nose. “If it were you, I would have given more, everything I owned.”
There was nothing he wouldn’t do to always have her smile at him as she was now.
“Then why did he do it?” she asked. “Surely, not out of just compassion.”
“I think he saw something in her the way I saw something in you, an irresistible courage. He does not speak of his feelings, but he shows them in little ways. Things no one else would notice unless they took the time to look. I grew up looking for the signs and saw them.”
“Tell me.”
“A stroke of her arm to calm her when she was upset. An offering of food before he ate. Things that only someone who cares might do.” Brant fingered back a strand of hair from Eden’s face.
“Your father didn’t question you were born too early?”
“Are you still concerned we might be…” He lifted her face with a hand under her chin and kissed her.
“No,” she answered, but he heard the hesitancy in her voice.
“She said he was away on a buffalo hunt when I was born. They can last a long time, so he probably was not sure when I would come. Besides, she was his slave, not his wife. He would not care about such things.”
“But then he made her his wife?” she asked.
“One of them, yes.”
“And he raised you as his son.” She kissed him.
“His other two wives never bore him a live child. I think I was his last chance, so he overlooked that I was not of his blood.”
“Why didn’t your mother want him to know that the Skidi brave was your father?”
“Because s
he was frightened that he would feel obligated to give me back to the Skidi brave and as my mother, she would go too, placing her back in the position to be mistreated.”
“That won’t happen now.” Eden yawned and snuggled against him. “You’re a grown man and you can tell Blue Wolf the truth. He needs to know that we are not living in sin.”
Brant stroked Eden’s arm, encouraging her to fall asleep. He wasn’t ready to think of the changes in his relationship with Blue Wolf or how to tell Eden that if the Chawi knew he was Skidi, he’d become an outcast.
At least living on the ranch would separate him from those problems.
“Brant, do you love me as much as I love you?” Eden murmured sleepily, as if she had read his troubled thoughts.
He squeezed her tight, letting the happiness he had finally found again chase away the unforeseen problems of his future with the Pawnee. Eden was the only future he needed.
“I love you more than all the stars in the sky and all the grains of sand on the ground.” Brant kissed Eden’s forehead. “I have loved you forever, and it will forever be so, my Eden.”
“You have always held my heart captive, Brant.” She rose up and kissed him on the lips. “Make love to me again.”
“You are tired.”
“In three days, Charlie will be here and we’ll find less time to be alone when we have a four year old underfoot.”
She sat up with a smile that lit a fire in him. Besides that he could never deny her anything.
About Brenda Williamson
An eclectic author, seductive in any era. Brenda Williamson lives in a small rural town in Alabama. She writes in most sub-genres of romance. Multi-published and award winning, she has authored dozens of books, articles and poetry. She’ a member of Romance Writers of America and The Authors Guild.
Brenda welcomes comments from readers. You can find her website and email addresses on her author bio page at www.ellorascave.com.
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