Whitefeather's Woman (14 page)

She knocked again, louder this time. Still John did not open to her. Had he gone out after Caleb's departure…to check on a horse or something?

Jane tried the knob. It turned. John wouldn't want her hanging around outside, faintly visible from the house if anyone should look this way.

Pushing the door open, she slipped inside.

For an instant, the dead stillness in the cabin made Jane think it must be empty. Then John raised his head and looked at her.

With a strangled squeak she jumped back, one hand rising instinctively to her thundering heart. Then she laughed at her own foolishness.

“You frightened me. When you didn't answer my knocks, I thought you must have gone out. Did you not hear me?”

He continued to stare at her, as if seeing her for the first time. Was there something wrong with the way she looked? His eyes glittered like the fast-flowing, icy water of that upland stream.

And he didn't answer.

“John, what's wrong? Did Caleb bring bad news from Miles City?”

“Oh, he brought news, all right.” John's voice had the harshness of a cracking bullwhip. “A letter from your fiancé back in Boston. Is that what you came here to tell me, Jane? That you wormed your way into a man's heart so you could steal from his family? That you don't want to go back to Boston because you're a thief on the run?”

Jane began to tremble. Emery knew she was here.

But that was not the worst of her troubles.

The worst was that John Whitefeather had learned the truth about her past. And he hated her for it.

 

“Did you really mean to come here, or did you have to change plans quickly when you lost your loot in that train wreck?” John squirmed a little in his chair, furious with himself that Jane Harris still had the power to rouse him now that he knew the truth about her.

His mind hammered with questions and his heart writhed from the sting of her betrayal. His pride smarted, too, because he'd been so easily deceived.

It wasn't as though there hadn't been plenty of signs if he'd been shrewd enough to read them. Jane's evasiveness about her past and the circumstances of her arrival in Whitehorn. Her insistence on not returning to Boston.
The nagging sense that she was always looking over her shoulder.

Caleb had been wise to her from the beginning. He hadn't been fooled by her fluttering, helpless act. Dr. Gray, Reverend McWhirter and Henry Hill probably would have seen through her soon enough, too. No wonder she'd been so nervous around them.

Here John had been congratulating himself on winning Jane's trust where they'd all failed, when he'd clearly been her target all along—the dumb Indian, too simple to see through her wiles.

Had the brutal lessons of life taught him nothing?
Ve'ho'e
were tricksters, always presenting to the world a face at odds with the heart. They were earnest negotiators of treaties written to be broken. Fatherly Indian agents who stripped children from their families. Self-righteous teachers who corrupted the students they were pretending to
civilize.

He'd been worse than a fool to accept Jane Harris at face value, especially since that face was so full of contradictions. The timid little mouse who'd braved a solitary journey clear across the country to settle in a place still wild and dangerous by Eastern standards. Desperate for a job to mind children and keep house, when she clearly had little experience with either. Going out of her way to cultivate a friendship with the rancher's half-breed brother-in-law, whom most other whites politely shunned.

If any harm had come to Ruth or her family because he'd failed in proper brotherly vigilance, John knew he would never have forgiven himself.

All these thoughts and emotions scoured through him as he waited for Jane to answer. What could be taking her so long to find her voice? Was she spinning a fresh web of lies to patch the holes he'd blown in her first ones?

“There wasn't any train wreck.” This sounded more like the truth.

Had Jane just gotten more cunning, or was he still so deeply in her thrall that he was willing to believe anything?

Her skin had paled, growing as white as the first snow of the Hard Face Moon. In her pink cobweb of a dress, with her hair falling around her shoulders, she looked younger and more vulnerable than ever. John sternly reminded himself it was all a cynical act.

“I lied about it to explain my injuries and having no luggage. I didn't lose anything, because there was nothing to lose.”

“So you're saying you never stole anything from this Mrs. Endicott? I'm surprised you told us her real name. Guess you figured a bunch of bumpkins on the frontier would be too dumb to check out your story.”

Jane wrapped her arms around herself. “Very well. I did take that brooch of Mrs. Endicott's. I know it was a wicked thing to do, and I never would have done it if I hadn't needed the money for my train ticket. It wasn't one of her most expensive ones, or one she liked best.”

Nothing in the letter from Emery Endicott mentioned the extent of Jane's theft, only that she'd stolen jewelry from her former employer. John's sense of fair-mindedness chastised him for jumping to the conclusion that she'd cleaned the old lady out.

He ignored the call of his better nature. Jane Harris had played him for a fool. Made him believe he was the first and only man she'd ever cared about. If he'd been ruthlessly honest with himself, John might have admitted that's what galled him worse than her theft or her lies. The fact that she had already run away from one man who cared about her.

And he'd been ready to lay his heart at her feet so she could trample it into the dust.

“So you admit you did steal from Mrs. Endicott.” John crossed his arms in front of his chest, just in case one of those fool winged babies might still be flying around with a quiver full of arrows. “What made you so all-fired desperate to get out of Boston? And what really happened to your face and your luggage?”

She took a step toward him. Then, heeding the threat in his eyes, she retreated again.

“That's what I came here to tell you, tonight.” Her voice rose to a brittle pitch and her lower lip began to quiver.

That was the last straw.

He jabbed his forefinger at her. “If I see you dare shed so much as one tear, woman, I swear I'll toss you out that door and let Caleb and Ruth deal with you any way they see fit.”

Jane turned her back on him. Her slender frame shook in silence and she drew several shuddering breaths before dragging one hand across her eyes and facing him again.

“I know I haven't given you much reason to believe me, and maybe I shouldn't care if you do or not. I came to Whitehorn with only the clothes on my back because I ran away from the infirmary before I was officially discharged. Mrs. Endicott came to visit me there and I noticed the brooch on her shawl. When she stepped out to talk to the doctor for a minute, she left the shawl hanging on the chair by my bed. I didn't have much time to weigh the rights and wrongs of it. All I knew was that I had to get away from Emery, and I thought I'd have a job with Ruth and Caleb if only I could get to Whitehorn.”

He wanted so badly to believe her it was like poisoned honey on his tongue. But she'd reminded him of yet another clumsy lie. Surely she'd had time to concoct a more probable story since then.

“This is all a bit twisted for a poor, ignorant horse trainer
to follow. You see, I can't reckon for the life of me how you knew you
had
a letter from Caleb without knowing he and Ruth didn't want to hire you.”

The fire had burned low. John strode to the hearth and hurled a couple more logs onto it. A smoldering bit of wood popped, sending sparks flying.

Behind him he heard Jane whisper, “Emery got hold of Caleb's letter. He burned it right in front of me before I had a chance to read it. Then he…beat me. That's how I ended up in the infirmary. I told the doctors I'd fallen downstairs. I'd had lots of practice at lying about my injuries. Once you get used to doing that, it's hard to stop.”

John felt as if he'd swallowed a shovelful of red-hot coals from the fire. Slowly he turned to Jane.

“How do I know you
didn't
hurt yourself in a train wreck or falling downstairs?” Especially if that's what he wanted to believe. “How do I know
this
story isn't just another lie?”

Jane swept her hair back. Then she pulled down the short puffy sleeves of her dress to bare her shoulders. As she walked toward him, John found himself retreating until his back pressed against the stones on one side of the fireplace.

“Tell me how I could have gotten these marks by falling downstairs, John.”

The haunted look in her eyes told him the truth. But John still forced himself to look at her delicate white flesh marred by two crescent-shaped scars on the front and eight smaller matching ones on the back.

He struggled to breathe.

Even stripped of all her clothes, that night at her bedroom window, she had not looked so completely exposed.

She drew a shuddering breath. “I suppose you wonder why I didn't tell you about this sooner.”

John shook his head. “I understand why you kept it a
secret.” He tugged open the buttons on his shirt. “I reckon I must be the biggest fool in the world for not guessing.”

As he pulled his shirt off, Jane backed away from him. John dropped to his knees to give her a better view.

“I won't touch you, Jane, I swear. Just look. Then you can go if you want. Or stay.”

She took a wary step toward him. Now that he understood what had happened to her, John knew what courage that step took.

Jane raised her hand, pushing a few strands of his long dark hair off his shoulders. With a touch as gentle as a prayer, her fingertips traced the slender white scars on his bronzed skin.

T
he thin ridges of scarring on John's shoulders seared Jane's fingertips.

“Who?” The word almost choked her. “Who did this to
you?
”

Kneeling before her, John looked up into her face, his breathtaking eyes truly unmasked to her for the first time. “A teacher at residential school in Saint Louis. The Indian agent sent me there after my parents were killed. Bruises, black eyes, even broken bones healed. This left scars that still show. My Cheyenne friends probably wondered why I always wore a cotton shirt in the summer instead of going bare chested, like them.”

Jane expelled a long, quivering breath. No wonder she'd felt such a bond with this man and he with her. On some level deeper than words or actions, even deeper than old hurts and defenses, they had recognized and called to one another. Understood each other as no one else ever had or could.

The helplessness. The secrets. The shame.

“Does anyone else know?” She could not coax her voice above a whisper.

When he shook his head, she was not surprised.

“I told myself it was a test of my courage not to cry out. But in my heart I felt less than a man for not fighting back.”

“You weren't a man.” She clasped him to her bosom, letting his hair graze her cheek. “You were just a little boy. Not much older than Zeke. I had so much better chance to fight back, but I was too frightened to take it until Emery left me no choice.”

John's arms slipped around her waist, strong and warm but infinitely gentle. Through the flimsy fabric of her dress, Jane felt the delicious heat of his bare chest against her belly…and below. The sweetly scalding vapor of his breath against her bosom.

“Oh, Jane. What can I do to make you forgive me for doubting you?” He sounded more grieved about that than about the old, tainted wounds that she'd reopened.

Her body ached and burned with the mystery of what she wanted from him. Did she dare ask for it?

“You can start by…kissing me. And touching me. All over. You can teach me what a man and woman do together. The thing that makes their eyes soften and their lips curve into a sly little smile when they remember it.”

She wasn't asking him for promises or protection, though in her heart she yearned for both. Right now all she wanted was to erase the memory of Emery's violent hands with something wondrously different. “Will you do that for me, John?”

“Taa'evâhe'hame.”

“What does that mean?”

“It's my Cheyenne name, Night Horse. Do you think you could learn to call me that…sometimes?”

She knew what he meant. At special times. Intimate times. Like tonight would be.

“Taa…?”

They practiced it together as their hands explored and their bodies welcomed the exploration.

Taa'evâhe'hame.
Jane said it over and over until she forgot every other word she'd ever known.

She spoke it in a beseeching whisper at first, like a novice rider warily prodding her mount to a walk. He responded by unfastening the hooks of her dress at a deft, deliberate pace until she wanted to scream in anticipation.

She purred it deep in her throat as the lacy garment melted off her body and he pressed his hot, tender lips to her neck, her scarred shoulders and the rounded tops of her breasts. Purging her ugly memories of Emery's violence. Healing less visible wounds.

She gasped it as he lowered her onto the fleece rug. With the firm, bronzed flesh of his torso bathed in flickering firelight and his long dark hair falling free, he was the most magnificent male creature Jane had ever imagined. He silenced her with a deep, potent kiss that set her blood ablaze.

And his. With restraint and patience burned away to ashes, he grappled with the hooks on her corset and feasted on her breasts. She arched to meet his mouth, plunging her hands into his hair. Urging him closer, deeper.

The leaping flames in the hearth consumed the dead wood with a low, sensuous crackle and hiss. The banked fire of their passion purged the lovers' fear and mistrust. It fueled their power and kindled their special gifts. When his lips were free, which was not often, he crooned a continuous Cheyenne litany of her beauties.

And she understood every word.

They shed the rest of their clothes with lazy urgency and reveled in the contrast of her flesh against his. Hers the color of milk warm from a woman's breast. His the hue of juicy roasted meat and bread hot from the fire. Her rounded softness and his taut, lean strength. Her vulnerable delicacy and his fierce, restrained might.

She spread her legs as though astride a horse's broad barrel and keened for something she could not name or imagine. With his fingers, lips and tongue, he set wild pleasure galloping through her. Nostrils flared, silky mane tossing, she bucked beneath him again and again until a high ecstatic cry broke from her.

As she lay there, heavy limbed and sated, he mounted and eased himself into her. When he balked, hovering above her like a ripe, hot summer night, she urged him on.

“I won't, Jane. This is going to hurt you and I don't ever want to do that.”

“Will it hurt every time?”

Her body ached for him all over again. Her shattering release had bordered on pain in its intensity. Perhaps
that
was the mystery of this intimate rite. By some blissful alchemy it forged golden pleasure from the dross of pain.

“Only the first. Then maybe a little until you get used to it.”

She caressed his face and strained to reach his lips with hers. “Then don't stop. Please. I choose this. I want you.”

Like a gathering storm, the muscles of his loins tightened and he bent almost double to clamp his lips on hers. Then he thrust past the flimsy resistance of her virginity and filled her with raw, life-giving energy.

John hadn't lied to her—it hurt. Though Jane gripped a fistful of his hair, she refused to give voice to her pain. What Emery had inflicted on her had robbed Jane of so
much—security, confidence, trust. In some mysterious way, John's lovemaking had begun to restore what she'd lost.

When he drew back from their kiss, his gaze searching hers, Jane swiftly covered his lips with her hand. She could not let him spoil this wonder with foolish words of regret.

“Somethings are worth the hurt,
Taa'evâhe'hame,”
she murmured. “And this is one of them.”

Taa'evâhe'hame.
Night Horse. John Whitefeather. He was no longer sure of his name, or the time of day, or whether his heart and lungs still worked.

Nor did he care.

He only knew he had a willing woman beneath him. A woman who set his body on fire. A woman who helped him unravel the baffling riddle of his heart. A woman who gave him his first true taste of belonging—to their very own nation of two.

When she tensed against his entry and stifled a cry, his heart begged him to stop, as fiercely as his body urged him to continue. Her husky murmur of reassurance roused him all over again. Cautiously he drew back, then pressed ahead, the exquisite friction whetting his desire to a pitch sharper than Spanish spurs.

He wanted to lose himself in a tangle of limbs, questing mouths and mingled breath. Jane wriggled beneath him and her lips grazed his chest, mouthing his name. Together they moved to the rapid drumroll of their hearts. Harder. Faster.

A stampede of unbridled pleasure overtook them. Plunging. Wheeling. Rearing. They were borne to the stars by the elemental forces they had given free rein.

John clung to the saddle horn of consciousness just long enough to roll onto his back, taking Jane with him. Then
his body stopped obeying him and his heart knew true peace for the first time in many long years. His thoughts wandered, almost in a dream vision, aware of little in the earth world but the comforting warmth and weight of Jane draped over him.

Later, as dawn began to break over the Big Sky, she stirred. Lifted her face to his, like a prairie flower to the rising sun, for the morning kiss that would bring her to life.

She ran her smooth white hand over the dark stubble on his cheek and gazed at him with those enormous hazel eyes. Eyes the rich brown of earth and bread, mingled with the vital green of forest and prairie. This morning, frets of shimmering gold danced in them, too. Splinters of magic, left from last night?

“How do the Cheyenne say ‘thank you'?”

“
Néá'ese.
Why?”

“
Néá'ese, Taa'evâhe'hame.
For giving me what I asked, and so much more.”

In the sweet hours of flame-kissed darkness, when he and Jane had become a nation of two, his Cheyenne name had been a sort of mystic incantation. Now, in the cool light of morning, it held the shadowy power of a curse. What would the elders say if they knew what he'd done?

His father's people did not consider the mating of a man and woman dirty or shameful, as many whites seemed to. For the Cheyenne it was a select activity, reserved exclusively for marriage. They prized chastity in unwed girls, encouraged long, modest courtships and expected husbands and wives to be faithful all their lives. None of that had entered John's mind last night. Proof, perhaps, that his heart was not as truly Cheyenne as he'd always claimed.

Jane had not demanded any commitment from him when she'd offered herself. Though she had been engaged to that
cowardly monster back in Boston, John knew beyond a doubt that he was her first and only partner.

That left only one honorable course open to him.

His heart welcomed it, eager to charge ahead. His reason shied from taking a risk he'd flirted with embracing just last night. The letter from Boston, and all that had followed it, had sown poisonous doubts in his heart.

Marriage to Jane would be like trying to ford a surging, swollen river. So many dangerous currents pulling at them. So many sharp rocks on which swift-moving events might dash them. Contrary as it seemed, if he cared for her
less,
he might have been more willing to risk it.

He kissed her again, stalling for time so he could think. And so she would not see the dark clouds of doubt gathering in his eyes. Oh, but when he kissed her and wrapped her in his arms, he
couldn't
think. Nor could he remember any of the reasons why a union between them would be doomed from the start.

Jane subsided against him. “You're the most comfortable bed I've ever slept on.” She chuckled and the vibration of her body on his made him dizzy with delight.

“Well, I reckon you're the warmest blanket I've ever slept under.” He'd spent his whole life being sober and serious. Why had no one ever told him how good it felt to spout fond nonsense like this?

From outside came the first distant sounds of the ranch waking to a new day. A dog barking. Someone splitting kindling for the stoves. Cookie banging on the bell to call the ranch hands for breakfast. The real world threatened the borders of his and Jane's tiny private nation.

She shivered for the first time all night. “How am I going to get back into the house without Ruth and Caleb knowing I've been here all night?”

“Don't worry.” Was he talking to her or to himself?
“Caleb's probably gone by now, and I can keep Ruth busy in the kitchen while you slip in the door by the parlor.”

What would his sister say when she found out about this? John's warrior courage almost deserted him at the thought.

“It won't likely matter much.” Jane sighed. “After Emery's letter, I expect they'll turn me out today, anyhow.”

She burrowed deeper into John's embrace and her voice took on a scared, hunted note. “Could Caleb show that letter to the sheriff and make him send me back to Boston to face charges?”

“Hush, now, hush.” John stroked her hair. No wonder she'd been so skittish when she'd arrived in Whitehorn, wary of trusting anyone. “I'll talk to Ruth and Caleb about that letter. I'll tell them what you told me. Some of it, anyhow. When they stop for a minute and think, I know they'll take your word over that bast—that
ve'ho'e
back East.”

“Emery!” Jane looked up into John's eyes. He could feel her heart racing, but not the exciting way it had raced last night. “Now that he knows I'm here, what if he takes it into his head to come after me?”

How desperately she needed someone to protect her. That urge swelled in John's heart, almost overpowering him. But at the same time a poisonous suggestion of doubt hissed in the back of his mind.

Had Jane offered him her body last night in hopes of snaring herself a protector?

 

All her old fears threatened to overwhelm Jane, but they didn't quite manage to. Even Emery lost some of his power to intimidate her when she rested in the charmed circle of John Whitefeather's protective arms.

If only she could stay here forever.

“Shh.” John's voice comforted her as no sound ever had. “Don't worry. I'll get Caleb to wire Endicott that you've already moved on. I won't let him hurt you ever again.”

How could John promise her such a thing? Unless…he meant to be a part of her life forever? The blissful possibility left Jane breathless.

She hadn't thought of it last night. She hadn't thought of anything past her astonished recognition of their common bond and her undeniable desire for this man. In the cold light of day, it seemed the perfect solution to all her problems.

By some miraculous providence, she had found a man she could trust never to hurt her. One who was also strong enough to protect her from the rest of the world. If she was his wife, an entire regiment of Bismarck widows couldn't displace her from the Kincaid ranch. She'd be part of the family she had come to love. A sister to Ruth. A doting aunt to Barton and Zeke.

It wouldn't be a completely lopsided partnership, either, with John giving her so much and gaining nothing in return. She would look after him, feather the kind of cosy nest this wild hawk craved in his deepest heart. Give him the children he'd been destined to father. Soothe his darkest wounds and share his most secret joys.