Savage Courage (15 page)

She had heard tales of how it hurt the first time.

She was prepared, for she had also heard that after the hurt came exquisite pleasure.

“I shall be gentle,” Storm whispered against her cheek, tamping down the raging hunger inside.

“I know you will,” Shoshana said, reaching a hand to his cheek. “You could never be anything but.”

Again he kissed her.

His hands slid down and reached around to her buttocks, where he splayed his fingers against her soft, copper skin.

In that way, holding her in place, he began filling her softly yielding folds with himself. Gradually, the heat within her blended with his.

And then when he reached that barrier inside her, he paused, gazed into her eyes, and leaned slightly away from her.

She smiled sweetly at him and nodded.

He returned the smile, then kissed her pain away as he thrust deep inside her.

Shoshana withstood the pain, for she knew what came next. And it was even more incredible than she had ever imagined. She gave herself up to the rapture.

The wondrous bliss that swept through her made her moan repeatedly against his lips. She felt his hands move upward now, then cup her breasts.

She sighed as his thumbs circled her nipples; his lips soon found their way there, his tongue replacing his fingers.

“It is all so wonderful . . .” Shoshana said, twining her fingers through his thick black hair. “Please . . . please . . .”

With each stroke came more heat for Storm. Again he kissed her lips, his arms sweeping around her to draw her body even more closely against his.

His mouth scorched hers, and they groaned together as he moved faster within her, his movements sure and quick.

Overcome by a feverish heat, Shoshana sighed and seemed to float above herself as his steely arms enfolded her even more tightly. Their bodies strained against each other.

And then he thrust more deeply within her, over and over again, and a euphoria filled her entire being.

It overwhelmed her as the pleasure spread through her. The quaking of his body against hers proved that he had found that same pleasure.

When they both lay quietly beside one another, with the fire’s glow on their gleaming bodies, Shoshana thought of the miracles that had come into her life this day.

First she had found her true mother.

And now she had known true, passionate love!

“Is this real?” Shoshana asked, turning to gaze at Storm, not even feeling bashful that she lay there nude beside a man for the first time in her life.

“Yes, it is real,” Storm said, turning toward her. He reached out to cup one of her breasts, his thumb slowly circling the nipple.

“I have had many dreams in my life about things that came to pass, but never could I have dreamed anything like this,” Shoshana said, slowly running a hand down his flat stomach.

Daringly she touched the part of him that had given her pleasure, surprised that it was no longer as large as before.

Her eyes widened as she touched him there and found that part of him growing again, as though it had a life of its own.

“You are good at giving pleasure,” Storm said, closing his eyes and gritting his teeth as he felt ecstasy approaching again.

“Do you want me to stop?” Shoshana asked, seeing how he was gritting his teeth as though he were in pain.

He reached down and touched her hand, then twined his fingers through hers and showed her how to give him the most pleasure.

“
To-dah
, which in our Apache tongue means ‘no,’ ” he said huskily. “Continue, but know that soon you will see the seed that is the result of your pleasuring me.”

She watched him, mystified that a man should be so different from a woman in this way. Then she sucked in a wild breath of wonder when his body shuddered and he spent himself in her hand.

He smiled at her, sat up, and reached for a buckskin cloth to clean her hand.

“You had best not do that again to me tonight, or I might not be able to walk from my lodge,” he said, laughing throatily. “You will have drained me of my energy.”

“I don’t want to do that,” she said as he laid the cloth aside. “But I do wish to talk awhile before returning to my mother’s bedside.”

She hung her head, then looked at him again. “Then I must return to the fort so that everyone will know that I am all right,” she said softly.

She wondered why her words caused Storm to look wary, but brushed her curiosity aside when he sat up and fetched a soft pelt from his stack of many.
He placed it around her shoulders, and then took the end of the very same pelt and brought it around his own shoulders so that as they sat before the fire, their shoulders touched beneath the pelt.

“Tell me about
your
mother,” Shoshana said, seeing a strange haunted look enter his eyes.

He turned and gazed into the fire and did not respond right away; then he looked at her again. “My mother was white,” he said, drawing a soft gasp from Shoshana. “Yes, Shoshana, my mother was white. And she had such golden hair. I remember that when I touched it as a child, I thought it was made of silk. She was a golden-haired Apache princess after she was taken captive and fell in love with her captor, who was my father.”

He gazed into the fire once again. “I have always longed to find my mother’s hair so that I could give it back to her,” he said, his voice breaking.

“Your mother was scalped?” Shoshana gasped, drawing his eyes back to her.

“Yes, scalped,” Storm said thickly.

“I . . . am . . . so sorry,” Shoshana gulped out, imagining renegades coming into his village, killing and scalping.

“You have lived the life of a white person, as my mother, who was white, lived the life of an Apache,” Storm said, his voice drawn. “How do you feel about it?”

“I grow weary thinking about these things,”
Shoshana said, sighing. “Especially thinking about the man who allowed me to live that day instead of killing me like all the others. But there is one thing about him that you must know. He spent his lifetime trying to make me happy. I know now that it was surely to help ease the guilt in his heart over all the wrongs he had committed against innocent people.”

“Is that man truly regretful of what he did?” Storm asked guardedly as he stood and dressed while Shoshana put on the lovely beaded dress that was made by her mother’s own hands.

“He says he is,” Shoshana murmured, running her fingers through her hair to remove the tangles from making love. “And, yes, I truly believe he is sorry,” she murmured. “Don’t you see, Storm? That is why he came here to Arizona to help find the scalp hunter who preys on the Apache.”

“I, personally, do not believe that any man who killed as Colonel George Whaley killed could ever truly be sorry about it,” Storm said. “He killed with too much ease, too much authority.”

“How do you know so much about him?” Shoshana asked.

“How?” Storm repeated. “The man who brought death into your life also brought it into mine. He . . . killed . . . my parents.”

“How do you know this?” she asked, her pulse racing. “You were so young. Surely you were not present
when your parents were slain or you would not be alive.”

“I arrived almost immediately after the massacre,” Storm said thickly. “My
ahte
, my father, was alive long enough to tell me what happened, and the name he had heard that day—the name of the man who had murdered and scalped my mother.”

“Lord,” Shoshana gasped, remembering that only moments ago Storm had said that his mother’s golden hair had been taken by the man who murdered her.

And he knew that this man was Colonel Whaley!

She stumbled to her feet. She stepped slowly away from Storm, then turned and ran from the tepee.

Storm followed and caught up with her. He grabbed her around the waist and turned her to face him. “Why did you run?” he demanded as his eyes searched hers.

“I’m not sure,” she said, swallowing hard. “I just can’t accept that George Whaley, the man who raised me with such love and tenderness, had a role in killing not only my people, but also yours . . . and that he could actually scalp someone.” She lowered her eyes. “Oh, surely you are wrong,” she gulped out.

He placed a gentle hand beneath her chin and raised it so that their eyes could meet. “
To-dah
, I am not wrong,” he said, his voice drawn. “My father spoke the man’s name to me. He told me that Colonel
George Whaley was the one who took my mother’s scalp. My father shot his last arrow into Colonel Whaley’s leg. Had my father not sunk back to the ground as though dead, your father would have came back and killed my father, too. As it was, Father lived long enough to tell me the truth about the tragedy that day, and who was responsible.”

“It’s so horrible,” Shoshana said, her heart sinking.

“And you still respect the man after knowing this?” Storm asked, his eyes again searching hers.

“I’m not sure if I ever truly did respect him after the truth was revealed to me in bits and pieces in my dreams,” she said softly. “But the fact remains that I am alive because of him.”

“Are you well enough to ride?” Storm asked, reaching a hand to her cheek. “I would like to take you somewhere tomorrow.”

“Yes, I am well enough, and, yes, I would love to go with you,” she murmured.

They embraced; and then he walked her back to her mother’s tepee. “I shall see you tomorrow then?” he asked, framing her face between his hands.

“Yes, tomorrow,” she said, then flung herself into his arms. “I do love you so. And . . . and you make me feel safer than I have ever felt before in my entire life.” She gazed up at him. “You . . . you . . . make me whole,” she murmured. “You make me feel Apache again!”

He smiled at her, gave her another kiss, then walked away from her as she disappeared inside her mother’s lodge.

As she sat down beside the fire, she tried to come to terms with what she had just learned. Now that she knew so much more about George Whaley and the evil he had committed, she felt sick at having ever considered him her father.

Had she allowed herself to forget too easily through the years? Surely she never should have given that man her love and respect.

Tears filled her eyes as she gazed at her old, bent mother, who was not as old in years as she appeared in the flesh. Oh, how that terrible day had changed her.

A part of Shoshana now detested George Whaley more than she could have ever thought possible. How would she behave when they came together again after she left this stronghold?

Would he see that she could not help detesting the very ground he walked upon?

“The wooden leg,” she whispered to herself.

An even more disturbing thought came to her. He had gotten that injured leg
after
he had taken her into his home. Even the act of saving an innocent child had not changed his mind about killing more Apache.

Suddenly she felt a loathing for George Whaley she had never known was possible. She was now
more determined than ever to return to the fort, for she had a few things to say to this man she now knew was a demon.

She hung her head and tears fell from her eyes as she realized how much she had allowed herself to forget. She knew that her mind had shut out the past because she was a child who needed love just as any child did. She had just accepted it from the wrong person.

Thank heavens Dorothea Whaley had also been there to love and nurture her as she was growing up.

“But you are gone now,” she whispered as she wiped tears from her eyes. Her jaw firmed. “But your husband, Colonel George Whaley, is still alive and I have a score to settle.”

Not as all other women are
Is she that to my soul is dear.

—James Russell Lowell

On his steed, his hands tightly wound around the reins as he traveled with the soldiers in single file up the small mountain pass, George could not stop worrying about what their Apache guide had said just before he headed back down the mountain, alone. The guide had warned everyone that they should return with him to the fort, not go farther into the mountain.

His eyes and voice frantic, he had said that all who traveled on this mountain today were in danger of being attacked by “ghost sickness.” He’d explained that ghost sickness overwhelmed a person
with extreme nervousness and fright. He said he had already been struck by it. That was why he was retreating.

He claimed that this ghost sickness was often brought on by the hooting of a nearby owl at night. The whole camp had been disturbed by an owl all night after the storm had passed. It had not ceased its call until daybreak.

George had awakened just in time to see the owl flutter away, higher up the mountain. It had been huge and white, its wingspan even larger than any eagle he had ever seen.

George had further questioned the guide about this ghost sickness. The guide had said that the Apache had an excessive dread of owls, and that if an owl hooted near one’s camp, it was an omen of the most frightful import. The Apache believed the spirit of the dead entered into the owl and came back to warn or threaten them.

Not believing in such superstitious hogwash, George had ignored the guide—even when the man refused to travel onward.

“We must travel on foot until the pass widens again,” said the soldier who had taken over the duties of the guide. “Let’s head toward that growth of aspen trees over there. There seems to be a path worn in the grass that leads to those trees. We may just find something interesting.”

They followed the path, leading their horses behind
them, and when they came to the aspens and made their way through them, what they found on the other side made George’s heart skip a beat. From this vantage point he could see a well-hidden, newly built cabin nestled on the floor of a canyon, with a cluster of trees on each end standing like sentinels, guarding whoever lived there.

“Surely it’s the scalp hunter’s cabin,” George said, his heart pounding.

He struggled up into the saddle again and rode with the others until they reached the cabin and surrounded it.

“Come out with your hands in the air!” Colonel Hawkins shouted. “Don’t try anything funny. You’re surrounded.”