Warrior's Embrace (19 page)

Her chin held high and her step firm, she
made her way to bed and was asleep almost before her head hit the
pillow. She didn’t stir until the phone woke her the next
morning.

“Virginia, this is Dr. Mason...”

She gripped the receiver so hard, her
knuckles turned white.

“I didn’t expect to hear from you so
soon.”

“I didn’t expect to call you so soon. The
test results are in.”

Virginia drew a deep breath. There would be
no tears and no trembling for her today, just a good firm resolve
that she would face whatever lay ahead with grace and courage and a
tenacious will to win.

“What is it... who is it...” Jane sat up, her
eyes still heavy with sleep and her hair poufed like a giant
Christmas bow that had been battered about.

“Shhh... it’s Dr. Mason....” Virginia held
the receiver close to her ear, hardly daring to breathe. “What was
that?... I see... You’re sure?... Yes, so am I... Thank you, Dr.
Mason.”

Virginia’s legs wouldn’t hold her. She sank
onto the edge of the bed.

“I can’t believe it. I just can’t believe
it,” she said.

“What?” Jane raced across the room, her sheet
tangled in her pajama buttons and dragging along behind her. “What
can’t you believe?” Virginia merely stared at her. “I’m going to
have a heart attack... Virginia, was it that bad?”

“It was amazing, a miracle. That’s what Dr.
Mason called it, a miracle.”

“Then it’s not cancer?”

“It’s not cancer.”

The two friends stared at each other, then
they began to laugh and cry at the same time. Jane did a victory
dance around the room, whooping and hollering, then threw herself
onto the bed.

“Tell all. What did he say?”

“Because of the X rays from the mammogram and
the location, Dr. Mason was certain it was cancer. So was the
pathologist. When he saw the mass during surgery, he was furious
that I had refused to sign so that they could remove my
breast.”

“That’s why Dr. Mason wouldn’t tell us what
the pathologist had thought.”

“Exactly... Then the result of the frozen
section came in.” Virginia beamed. “It’s a miracle, Jane.”

Jane went into the bathroom to blow her nose
and came back trailing toilet paper. “Shoot, it looks like I’m on a
crying jag and fixing to wallow in it all day.”

“Go ahead and wallow; you’ve earned the
right.”

“What about you? What are you going to
do?”

“Laugh, dance, sing, bathe, shampoo. Not
necessarily in that order.” But there was one thing above all
others that she had to do. “I want to see Bolton. I need to see
Bolton.”

She picked up the receiver and dialed the
cottage. The phone rang and rang.

“I must have dialed the wrong number.” She
dialed again and waited, listening to the insistent rings in a
cottage that obviously was not occupied. She tried his cell, but
there was no answer.

“I guess he had second thoughts,” Virginia
said. “Who can blame him?”

“Hey, chin up, pal. This is not the end, you
know.”

“No, it’s not.” Smiling, Virginia slipped on
her robe. “As a matter of fact, it’s just the beginning.”

“You’re darned right.”

“Jane, I don’t know what I would do without
you.”

“The same right back at you.” Jane sniffled
into a wad of toilet paper. “Let me get out of here before I start
again.”

After Jane left, Virginia called Candace,
then shut herself into the bathroom for a major overhaul. In
bubbles up to her bandage she fancied that she heard music, a
melody that reminded her of mountains alive with birdsong and newly
greening trees and spring flowers.

She toweled her hair dry, sprayed herself
with perfume that smelled like flowers in the summer sun, then put
on her pink robe and shoved open the door.

“Hello, Virginia.”

Bolton stood in her bedroom smiling. The
music was distinct now, Leonard Bernstein playing Copland’s
“Appalachian Spring.” For a moment Virginia was speechless, lost in
the absolute beauty of the man who had shared her bed and claimed
her heart.

“You brought the music,” she said.

“Yes. I brought the music.”

Bolton crossed the room in three long
strides. Only when he was standing in front of her did she notice
what he had in his hand, an Indian blanket, brilliantly hued in all
the colors of the rainbow.

“I’m glad you’re wearing the pink robe,” he
said, draping his blanket around her shoulders. Then tenderly he
lifted her into his arms. “It’s perfect.”

“For what?”

“For making a fresh start.”

As he left the room and headed down the
stairs, the Bernstein orchestra segued into Copland’s lusty,
dashing “Fanfare for the Common Man.”

“Where are you taking me?”

“On a journey that has no end.”

Music drifted around them as Bolton strode
boldly through her living room, across the foyer, and out the front
door. One of her white Arabians was just beyond the front porch,
bridled and covered with another Apache blanket.

Virginia didn’t even consider protesting as
Bolton carefully lifted her onto the stallion then mounted in front
of her. Her curiosity was aroused, and she had to find out what he
was up to. But more than that, she was filled with a sense of the
inevitable, of being swept along on a wave that she could no more
control than she could dictate the tides of the ocean.

“Hold on tight, Virginia. Don’t let go.”

“I won’t.” She wrapped her arms around
Bolton’s waist and leaned her head against his back. “I don’t want
to ever let go,” she whispered, but her words were lost in the wind
and the pounding of hooves.

Overhead the sky was as blue as a robin’s
egg, and spread out around her was her land, its hills and meadows
and forests and lakes polished by the sun and strewn with the
colors of autumn. Exhilaration filled Virginia. The land was solid
and enduring, a continual source of strength.

What did it matter the curves life threw her
as long as she had the land? What did it matter where life took her
as long as she had Bolton?

They passed the barn and the paddocks,
rounded the lake and topped a hill, and there in the distance was
Bolton’s tepee, rising almost as tall as the trees around it.

“How in the world did you get that here?”

“Callie dismantled it and shipped it
express.” He drew the Arabian to a stop and dismounted, handling
Virginia as carefully as if she were breakable. “We didn’t finish
what we started, and since you can’t go back to the mountain for a
while, I brought the mountain to you.”

“You’re a remarkable man.”

“So are you—a remarkable woman.”

He opened the blanket and stepped into its
protective folds, drawing it around their shoulders so that they
stood thigh to thigh, chest to chest, heart to heart.

“I love you, Virginia Haven. I’ve loved you
since the moment I saw you riding like an Apache on your white
stallion.”

She pressed closer, and he claimed her with a
kiss so sweet, so tender she almost cried.

“Bolton... there’s something I have to tell
you. Something very important.”

“Nothing is important now except this.” He
carried her inside, spread the blanket on the floor of his tepee
and lay down with Virginia cradled in his arms. Bending over her,
he kissed her hair, her eyebrows, her nose, her cheeks. He lingered
over her lips, then moved his attentions downward, caressing her
throat with lips and hands. Only when he caught the sash of her
robe did she remember her bandages... and the damage they hid.

She caught the neck of her robe and held it
tightly closed. He covered her hands with his.

“I’m scarred, Bolton.”

“The only scars that matter are the ones that
damage the heart and the soul. You are whole, Virginia.”

Suddenly Virginia realized that there would
be no halfway measures with this man. If she loved him, she would
have to give herself completely to him, scars and all.

She released her hold, and Bolton spread her
robe open. He touched the bandage almost reverently, and then
leaned down to kiss it.

Such love filled her that she didn’t know how
one woman could contain it.

“Do you love me, Virginia?”

There was no hesitation in her now, only a
beautiful certainty.

“Yes, Bolton. I do.” What she had found with
Bolton Gray Wolf was true love; their meeting had been no accident
but destiny. Finally Virginia was free to love and to be loved as
only the unencumbered can.

“You have my heart, Virginia. Say you’ll take
my name, as well.”

The generosity and complete faith of his
offer astounded her.

“You’d marry me without knowing whether I
have cancer? Without knowing whether I have one breast or two?”

“One of the most beautiful creatures of
legend has only one horn.”

“The unicorn?”

“Yes, the unicorn.” Bolton stroked her hair.
“A creature gifted with powers of magic. Only a fool would throw
away magic.”

Virginia smiled. “Is that an answer?”

“That’s my answer.”

“My left breast is scarred but otherwise
intact, and I don’t have cancer. Dr. Mason calls it a miracle.”

“The Father Creator heard my prayers.”

Bolton kissed her brow, then propped on his
elbow and studied her as if she were priceless.

“Yes, Virginia, it’s a miracle, but the
greatest miracle of all is love.”

Virginia never tired of watching the sunset
in the mountains. She swiveled her chair toward the window so she
could see the sky change from blue to rose and gold then fade to a
dusky pink that gave way to deep purple. Only when the shadows lay
across the mountains did she turn back to her computer.

She typed the last word of the last sentence
in the last chapter of her latest novel, and then she typed the
dedication.

“To my beloved, whose love defines my
minutes, my hours, my days, my years.”

As soon as Bolton entered the room, all her
attention was focused on him. His cameras were slung around his
neck, and his dog Bear followed at his heels. He wrapped his arms
around her from behind the chair and rested his chin on her hair as
he read over her shoulder.

“Is this
beloved
someone I should
know about?” he said, teasing her.

“Maybe. He stole my heart two years ago, and
I’ve dedicated every one of my novels to him.”

“He’s important to you, is he?”

“He’s my life, my love, my heart.”

Laughing, he picked her up and carried her
outside.

“What do you see?” he asked.

“A barn. Horses. Trees. Pasture. A
mountain.”

“What else?”

“You.” She ruffled his hair and kissed his
lips.

“What else?”

She wrinkled her brow then glanced upward. “A
sliver of a moon and the first pale stars of evening.”

“Anything else?”

“No...”

“You’re sure?”

“Bolton... what is all this mystery?”

He set her on her feet and draped his left
arm over her shoulder. Then with his right he pointed to the
clearing beyond the first ridge of the mountains.

“I see a house, one large enough for at least
a dozen people. I see a basketball court and a swimming pool
surrounded by a running track. I see flower gardens and pets and a
kind older couple with enough love in their hearts to spare for
battered and abused kids.” He paused, smiling down at her. “I see a
place called Safe Haven.”

He grabbed her hand and raced back toward
their house. Inside, he pulled a blueprint out of his back pocket
and spread it across the coffee table.
Safe Haven
was
printed in large blue letters at the top, and beneath was the
architect’s concept of a spacious home that would shelter the
children society forgot, teenagers in trouble at home, children
whose parents had no jobs and no way to care for them, children
battered and bruised with no place to go.

“Just think,” Bolton said. “We can see those
kids two or three times a week, teach them to play ball, to fish,
to read good books, to care for the environment, to love and
appreciate nature. What do you think, Virginia?”

She cupped his face, pulled him close, and
kissed him.

“I think the same thing I thought when I
first met you. You are remarkable, and I am the luckiest person in
the world.”

“The same right back at you, Mrs. Gray
Wolf.”

-The End-

PEGGY WEBB

This book is dedicated to Governor Bill Anoatubby,
his wonderful staff, and all the proud people of the Chickasaw
Nation.

Before the Treaty of Pontotoc in 1832,
Mississippi was one of the homelands of the Chickasaw Nation. After
that treaty and the subsequent Treaty of Doaksville in 1837, the
Chickasaw Nation relocated to Oklahoma. The present seat of tribal
government is Ada, Oklahoma. For purposes of this story, I have
taken literary license with history and left this proud nation in
its Mississippi homeland.

I gratefully acknowledge the help of Governor
Bill Anoatubby and his staff in providing a history of the
Chickasaw Nation. All characterizations, incidents and history are
used fictitiously.

Black Hawk stood high on the ridge
overlooking Tombigbee Bluff. The lights of the city beamed into the
night, and on the outskirts of town, Tombigbee Forest was so
silent, it appeared to be sleeping. Not a breeze stirred, not a
sound gave away nature’s creatures, busy with their nocturnal
errands. It might have been any other summer night in
Mississippi.

Black Hawk knew better. Straining his eyes
into the darkness, he saw the silent line of Chickasaws,
his
people,
ringing the forest three deep, keeping watch over
their ancestral lands. When morning came, the Chickasaws would be
facing a line of equally determined politicians and developers of
Tombigbee Bluff, intent upon turning a portion of tribal land into
a shopping mall.