LeClerc 03 - Wild Savage Heart

A VISION OF BEAUTY Molly wrung water out of her long hair as she walked, enjoying the feel of the grass beneath her bare feet. She smiled sweetly as she approached Hawk, then sat down on a quilt he had spread out for her.

“I have never had anything feel so good!” Molly sighed as she pulled a brush through her hair.

You have never felt me touching you,
Hawk thought to himself, fighting the urge to speak out loud.

“That water felt like satin.”

My touch would be a feather stroking your skin.
“If it hadn’t been a little chilly I’d still be in there.”
There would be nothing but heat when I touched you.

“And that water tasted nearly as good as it felt.”
Nothing could compare with the taste of you,
Hawk thought feverishly, his desire running rampant throughout his body.
I would taste and touch and sample until neither of us knew where you began and I ended.

Molly stopped brushing and stared at him. “You’re awfully quiet. Is something wrong?”

“No, Molly. Come over here …

WILD SAVAGE HEART

PAMELA K FORREST

For Helen J. Price

I love you, Mom.

Me II

ZEBRA BOOKS KENSINGTON PUBUSHING CORP.

ZEBRA BOOKS are published by Kensington Publishing Corp. 475 Park Avenue South New York, NY 10016

Copyright (c) 1993 by Pamela K. Forrest

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.

Zebra, the Z logo, Heartfire Romance, and the Heartfire Romance logo are trademarks of Kensington Publishing Corp.

If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the Publisher and neither the Author nor the Publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”

First Printing: January 1993

Printed in the United States of America

PROLOGUE

Ohio River Valley

Late Winter 1785

The morning sun painted a radiance of golden light as it slowly rose over the eerily quiet Shawnee Indian village.

Days earlier the voices of happy, excited children had rung through the clearing as they played games in the deep snow, cheered on by parents and grandparents. Sometimes, in the very excitement generated by the childish contests, those same spectators would forget that they were no longer children and would briefly join into the game in progress.

White puffs of breath had risen past reddened, chubby cheeks and sparkling black eyes to be lost in the air somewhere above glistening blue-black heads. The children had no reason to fear the men who joined their games. A warrior, whose terrifying countenance struck fear in the hearts of the white people at the nearest settlement, could be an uncle; that one an older brother; another a cousin. The stern faces of the warriors would break into smiles as they were willingly brought to their knees by the combined forces of the children.

Now the only sign of the deep snows that had fallen were pristine white patches hidden in the shadows beneath the trees. Even that final proof of winter would be melted by the end of the day. Only deep in the woods, well hidden from the sun and the warm spring breezes, would the snows last for another day or two.

Garden plots, whose boundaries were carefully laid out and fenced, waited for spring thaw. Winter had been harsh but the people of the village had been prepared, sharing both the labor and the fruits of that labor from their gardens.

In the fall, game had been plentiful and had been carefully dried and preserved for the days when winter winds made hunting impossible. The snug, warm lodges had been a gathering place of happy people as the snow flew and the winds howled.

When the cold drove even the strongest inside, stories were begged for by the youngest and happily told by the oldest. Mothers hid their smiles as grandfathers told tales so tall that childish ebony eyes grew wide with wonder.

It had been a peaceful time to sew the hides that had been carefully tanned earlier, to repair or replace weapons, to prepare for spring.

But as the sun began to warm the new day no sound of laughter was heard; nor were childish screams of excitement or voices raised in greeting.

There was no visiting from lodge to lodge, no measuring of the thawing earth to see if planting could be begun. In the village of several hundred people the silence was oppressive.

Linsey McAdams walked outside of the lodge of Wolf and Morning Moon to allow them some privacy. With her arms wrapped around her waist in a disheartened manner, her troubled green eyes searched for sight of Luc LeClerc. She desperately needed his strong arms to hold her, to reassure her that this nightmare would end. He was somewhere in the village but she could not find the strength or willpower to go in search of him.

Seeking solitude the evening before, Linsey had walked through the village. She knew that the sounds that had drifted from the lodges would forever haunt her dreams: agonized coughing as pain-racked bodies searched for one more breath — groans from the dying and from those still alive as loved ones left on their journey to Manitou — whimpering of the babies too sick to cry — the sounds of anguish as the people died from a disease that was a legacy of the white man.

A few short weeks earlier, Linsey, too, had been terrified of the Indians. She firmly believed every horror story she had ever heard. But Luc, known to the Shawnee as Bear Who Walks Alone, had taken her hand in his and shown her the truth of the people so different from her own. With his patient understanding and the friendship of Wolf and his gentle wife, Morning Moon, Linsey had come to know and love the Indians.

Now a different type of horror stalked Linsey.

With every passing hour the death toll mounted. Young or old, infant or warrior, few of the people were surviving more than a few hours of the disease. Their fever-racked bodies could not fight an illness that had been unknown to them before the white man invaded their lands.

Spring Flower, only daughter of Wolf and Morning Moon, had died quietly the evening before. Linsey had sent their son Chattering Squirrel away with the old trapper, Kaleb Smith, but she worried that it might be too late and the precious toddler would succumb to the disease.

Inside the lodge, Morning Moon, heavily pregnant with another child, fought for her life — a fight that Linsey feared the gentle Indian woman would lose. The baby, as if knowing that time was an enemy, had chosen now to be born. Morning Moon’s labor had begun days too early and at a time when she was far too weak to survive the strain.

Later, Linsey would remember this day as the longest of her life.

Morning Moon moaned, the pain of labor or the disease viciously attacking her body, reaching through her delirium. Linsey continuously sponged her overheated flesh, hoping to bring her temperature down. Wolf and Bear had come and gone frequently during the day, giving Linsey news of any development in the village. When the death toll had climbed to over two hundred by midafternoon, she quit asking.

The grandmother, a woman so old that even the oldest members of the tribe couldn’t remember her as a young woman, had also stopped in several times. Somehow the old woman had not caught the disease and she worked unceasingly to ease the suffering of the sick and dying.

“Lin Zee?”

“Morning Moon?” Linsey’s attention was quickly caught by the Indian woman.

“Spring Flower?”

“She’s resting.”The lie came easily to Linsey’s lips as she pushed damp hair off her friend’s fevered brow. There would be enough time later for Morning Moon to learn that her oldest child was dead.

“Squirrel?”

Linsey smiled into the glazed eyes. “Kaleb took him to our cabin so that he wouldn’t get sick. They were going to see how much trouble they could get into.”

“My baby?” Her hand tried to move to the mound of her child but fell short of its goal.

“Your baby moves frequently.” Linsey placed her own hand lightly against the firm flesh. A smile crossed her lips, the first in days, when she felt the baby kick against her. “He is strong and wants to be born.”

“Lin Zee,” Morning Moon stopped to cough, a sound that was far too feeble. “You will care for my children.”

It was neither a question or request. It was a statement of fact and Linsey busied herself with wringing out a rag and placing it on Morning Moon’s brow. “Until you are better,” she replied firmly. Her troubled emerald eyes met a knowing ebony gaze.

“Until I am better,” Morning Moon whispered raggedly. She closed her eyes as she drifted back into a delirium that offered protection from the debilitating truth.

Sometime in the late afternoon, Morning Moon’s labor stopped. The old grandmother examined her patient and shook her head sadly. At Linsey’s insistence, and in spite of the old woman’s doubt of its success, she showed Linsey and Wolf how to massage Morning Moon’s extended belly in hopes that labor would once more begin.

The afternoon turned slowly to evening. Linsey and Wolf worked well as a team, Linsey massaging while Wolf sponged his wife’s fevered body. When Linsey tired they traded places.

When Linsey thought she’d drop from fatigue, Bear returned from an errand and understood the situation at a glance.

“Show me what to do.”

Bear was startled by the heat beneath his fingers when they first touched Morning Moon’s body. He almost withdrew his hands in shock as the baby kicked.

“It moved!” he said in amazement.

Tired beyond exhaustion, worried beyond hope, Linsey and Wolf looked at each other and suddenly grinned.

“What did you expect?” Linsey asked. “That poor baby is all scrunched up in there and wants out.”

The light moment was over as quickly as it had come. Linsey rested while the two men worked, returning shortly to relieve Wolf, who rested, then returned to relieve Bear. Through the darkness of the long night, they shared the loving chore of saving Morning Moon and her child.

The inky darkness of the night slowly turned to shadows with the rising of the sun. The grandmother returned, her knowing eyes seeing the fatigue on the three faces as they stood back and watched her examine Morning Moon.

The words were Shawnee, but the tone might as well have been English. All of their work, their nightlong labor of love had done nothing. The child would not be born.

Lost in their dejection, they were not prepared for the sudden movement from the bed. Three pairs of eyes clouded with horror as Morning Moon suddenly stiffened then thrashed wildly; her eyes opened wide before rolling up into her head. The grandmother nodded grimly, her shoulders slumping with defeat. The convulsion lasted for a fraction of a minute but seemed to go on for hours as they stood back helplessly.