Deborah Camp (8 page)

Blade backhanded his mouth, smothering a lusty chuckle.

“See you at supper,” she called cheerfully to him as she took Penny by the hand.

“I’m partial to Airy’s beans and corn bread,” he drawled as he moved with long, easy strides to his patient mules. “She stirs up a tasty bread pudding, too.”

“Sounds like a wonderful meal to me.” Elise
stood there for another moment, watching the grace of his stride, the proud width of his shoulders, the cocky angle of his head. He wasn’t such a bad sort, after all. And he was quite attractive.

Her palm tingled as she recalled the rigid muscles of his chest. Heat engulfed her and she whirled away in a wild tangle of skirts.

“Come on, Pen! I’ll race you back to the house!”

And she ran, letting the air cool her hot skin and blow out the flickering flame of forbidden desire.

I
t was a good thing Homer and Sam knew the fields instinctively, because for the first hour after Elise’s visit, Blade was in a fog and offered them no guidance.

He kept remembering how she looked—as if she were flying across the field, her hair fluttering against her back like autumn leaves, her skirts flashing up to provide tempting glimpses of her slim ankles and shapely calves.

His mind drifted to how she’d felt in his arms, so small and fragile. Her heartbeats had tapped against his chest and her body had trembled with her heart-wrenching sobs. She’d smelled of spring—honeysuckle and tea roses—and her hair had been warm and soft against his cheek, in his hand.

Holding her in his arms had not aroused him, but his heart had opened to her … just a little. He wasn’t given to overt displays and he wasn’t the type to make friends easily, so he’d surprised himself when he’d reached out to her, cleaved to her, comforted her. She had a way about her. Like a newborn kitten, she was hard to resist.

“Whoa, Homer and Sam.” He pulled on the reins
and the mules stopped. Homer swung his head around to look at Blade. They’d come to a halt in the middle of a row. Blade gazed out at the fields to check their progress and focus again on the task of plowing under the winter wheat.

He removed his hat and ran a handkerchief over his face. “I know, I know,” he said to Homer. “We’re not supposed to stop here, but I’m getting my bearings.”

That gal sure had rattled his brain. He hadn’t dwelt on another woman since Julia’s death. It was a relief to think of someone else for a change.

Replacing his hat, he knotted the leather lines again and looped them around his waist. Gathering them in his gloved hands, he clucked his tongue and the mules set off again, straining against the leathers to drag the plow over the field and bust through the earth.

He tried to pay attention to the rows, occasionally tugging on the lines or uttering a command to correct the mules’ progress, but his thoughts returned to Elise. It was difficult for him to think of her as his wife. In fact, he rejected the notion so strenuously that he hadn’t allowed himself to contemplate their unconventional union. After all, he hardly knew the woman. Not that he wouldn’t enjoy getting to know her. He’d like nothing better than to kiss those pouty lips, to hear her moan with passion as he stretched out on top of her, to take her breasts in his hands and her nipples in his mouth …

He jerked his mind away from the picture of such delights. Sweat rolled into his eyes. He was overheated, and not from the sun.

There were huge gaps in what he did know about his new wife—frustrating gaps. She was
from Baltimore, but what sort of life had she led there? Why had no relative come forth to keep the siblings together?

Among the Apache, there were no orphans. On the contrary, relatives campaigned for children who had lost their parents. Elders of the tribe often had to make the difficult choice of which relatives could take in the child or children.

But Elise’s relatives had turned their backs—why? Did their attitude have something to do with Elise or with her parents? Questions about her whirled in Blade’s head like spokes on a wheel. Why hadn’t she stayed in Baltimore and wed someone there? Why had she insisted on remaining under his roof? What circumstances had forced her to marry a stranger? Since it seemed that she was bound and determined to stay, he figured he might as well discover what he could about her.

A vision of her laughing blue eyes and the dimples that winked at the corners of her mouth obliterated all else for a few moments. He didn’t realize that he was smiling or that the mules had stopped again until Sam snorted and yanked on the lines.

“What is it?” Blade asked, shaking his head to emerge from his pleasant stupor. He lifted the lines over his head and moved toward the team. Homer blew noisily through his flared nostrils. Sam stamped a foot. Neither tried to go forward.

Must be a hole, Blade thought, stepping carefully over the ground until he located the depression. Gopher hole. He took his place behind the plow and looped the tied lines over his head and shoulders again to hang at his waist.

“Gee, Homer, Sam,” he coaxed, and the mules high-stepped gingerly to the right, around the hole and past it. “That’s good, boys. Haw. Haw, Homer.”
The mules moved left, straightening the rows.

Homer curled back his lips and snorted, then shook all over. Sam tossed his head, jerking the lines.

“Okay, okay, settle down. I’ll pay better attention,” Blade promised, grinning a little at his mules’ contrary behavior. If everything didn’t go just so, they revolted. Mules were like women that way. Hard to please, but necessary to good living.

Sam strained the leathers again and skinned back his ears. Homer issued a coughing neigh. Blade gripped the lines with focused determination and put all thoughts of blue eyes and beribboned petticoats aside.

“Would you mind placing this rocker on the porch for me? You can bring it back in later.”

“On the porch?” Blade scratched his head at Elise’s request. “What’s wrong with it staying right where it is?”

“Oh, nothing. I just wanted to sit on the porch for a while, now that Penny’s settled in bed for the night. It’s rather warm in here, and the air smells lovely this time of the evening. Would you mind? You could join me, if you wish. I’d appreciate the company.”

He grabbed the arms of the rocker and lifted it from its place in front of the hearth, then carried it out to the porch. She talked funny, he thought. She used words like “rather” and “quite.”

“Where were you reared?” he asked as he set the rocker where she indicated.

“In Baltimore. All of us were born there. Mama, too. Oh, wait. Papa was from the Virginia hill country. He had come to Baltimore as a young man
looking for work when he met Mama at church.” She fluffed out her skirts before easing herself into the rocker. A heart-shaped brooch glistened at her throat. She touched it and rubbed the ruby surrounded by seed pearls. Sighing with contentment, she looked up at him. “This is pleasant. Will you join me?”

He shrugged and sat on the top porch step. Leaning back against a post, he waited for her to speak, hoping she’d talk more about her life in Baltimore. But she seemed mesmerized by the deep purple horizon where stars were being born.

“Didn’t you have a man back there?” he asked.

She gave a start, clearly nonplussed. “A m-man? You mean a beau? No, not anyone in particular. If I had been spoken for, I wouldn’t have traveled here, would I?”

He smoothed a palm over his bent knee where the fabric of his pants had worn thin and needed patching. “Thought your man might have given you that ruby pin.”

“No. This was my mother’s. She gave it to me.”

He regarded Elise again—his new bride. Starlight painted her face with an ethereal glow. “How come you didn’t have a man interested in you? You’re easy on the eyes.”

She arched a brow. “Why, thank you for that stingy compliment, Mr. Lonewolf. As a matter of fact, I had several marriage proposals before—” She snatched her attention from him and directed it back to the night sky.

“Before what?” he prodded, although that went against his rules. His Apache teachings ingrained in him patience and a respect for others’ secrets. “And where are your people? Why did they allow this?”

“Allow what?”

“This!” He motioned around him, at himself. “This marriage, this journey of yours to a faraway place. Why did they allow your sister and brother to be placed on that train?”

A sigh whispered past her lips. “You ask a lot of questions, but I can certainly understand how peculiar it all must seem to you. My people, as you call them, are cowards, trembling at the feet of my grandparents, who are as empty of feelings as corn husks.”

He studied her more intently, waiting for her to reveal the source of the bitterness coloring her voice. She twined and untwined her fingers in her lap and rocked with a more agitated pace.

“You see, they never approved of my mother’s choice in a husband. They felt that she’d married beneath her station. Mama was an only child, doted on and spoiled. She was supposed to marry into one of the old, respected families of Baltimore society, but she fell in love with a courtly young cobbler from Virginia, from a family of coal miners.”

A firefly glowed in front of her, distracting her. She issued a soft gasp and reached out to catch it. Curling her fingers carefully around the insect, she held out her hand so that he could see the glow between her fingers.

“Isn’t it magical?” she whispered, her eyes shining as softly as the light in her hand. “It carries its own lantern.”

So do you,
he thought, admiring the shimmer of her eyes and the radiant animation on her face. She opened her fingers, and the insect lifted from her palm and floated into the gathering darkness. A
rooster crowed twice, and she swiveled her head in its direction.

“That’s Red,” Blade told her. “He’s probably showing off to his hens, just to remind them who rules the roost.”

“Males,” she teased. “They’re born to strut and make noise.” She ran a hand over her skirt, then pleated it with her fingers. “I saw Bob today.” Her eyes sparkled. “He’s a pinto, right?”

Blade nodded. “That’s right. Black and white with a little brown on him. He roams free most the time.”

“How do you catch him when you want to ride him?”

“I whistle for him.”

Her blue eyes widened. “That works? You whistle and he comes running?”

He smiled. “Sure. He likes me.”

“Oh, of course.” She looked at the pleats she had made in her skirt. Her thoughts diminished her inner light and she drew a breath that quivered when she expelled it. “I’m trying to think how to explain my situation to you … Well, you see, my grandparents provided our family with an allowance. They were always a bit cold and distant, but I never dreamed how void they were of compassion until Mama died. They acted as if she were the only one of their family and that the rest of us were nothing to them. They refused to allow Papa to be buried next to her. I spent what money was left to me, burying Papa as close to Mama’s plot as I could manage. Oh, it was so cruel and so unnecessary.”

Anger built within Blade, slow and steady. He had to look away from the pain evident on her face. His admiration for her grew. She was brave, he allowed.
For one so young and sheltered, she showed grit. “They are your only kin?”

“No. I have a smattering of aunts, uncles, cousins, all on Mama’s side. We never knew Papa’s family. His parents are dead and he only had one brother, who never married. I believe he died in a mining accident several years ago. Anyway, none of Mama’s relatives would go against Grandmama and Grandpapa Wellby’s wishes, fearing they, too, would be financially ruined.”

“It’s good you left that place and those people.” He bounced a fist on his knee to relieve some of his ire. “Someday they’ll regret their actions.”

“Oh, I do hope so,” she said fervently. “They can keep their money and their big mansion and servants and all their jewels and china and crystal!” She stroked the ruby brooch, and he wondered if it was the only jewelry she still owned.

He thought about what she had said as the purple light failed and dark blue blanketed the sky, broken by sheets of stars. He felt a stab of misgiving about the life she’d described. She was so unlike him. She’d never fit in here.

“Your life in Baltimore was among the privileged,” he said after a while. “You had servants and fine things.”

“Yes, that’s right.” She shrugged. “The money my grandparents sent my mother each month was sufficient to allow Papa to pursue his passion.” She glanced at Blade. “Poetry.”

If she’d said, “Spitting in the wind,” it would have made as much sense to him. He examined a white scar across his third knuckle to keep from catching her eye until he could ward off the mocking laughter clamoring in his throat.

“What kind of job is poetry for a man?” He knew
that his question was inappropriate the moment it was out. Her glare scalded him. “He earned a living with it?” he asked, trying again to pose a suitable query.

“No, but Papa’s poetry gained plaudits from high sources. He had one poem published in
Scribbler’s Quarterly
.”

“And he was paid money?”

She pressed her lips together in that firm line he was beginning to recognize as a sign of irritation. “No, but he received a copy of the quarterly without charge. I told you he didn’t have to worry about making money as long as the Grandparents Wellby continued their allowance.”

“No wonder they didn’t cotton to him,” Blade mumbled into his chest.

“What? What did you say?” she demanded, clutching the chair arms and leaning forward to dare him. “You said something derogatory about my father. Now what was it?”

He grimaced, wishing he’d kept his thoughts to himself. “I only said that I could understand how your grandparents might be disappointed in him—him not working and all.”

“He did work! He toiled in the arts.” She sat back in the rocker, her jaw jutted out, her eyes blazing blue fire. “We were proud of him, and his poetry was lovely. He was well thought of among our circle of friends. In fact, he was often asked to recite his poems at dinner parties and other special occasions.”