Savage Heat (27 page)

The Sioux were a handsome people. The village had more than its share of tall, strong-bodied braves and straight-backed pretty women. Cute, healthy children clung to their mothers’ dresses and grinned at Martay. The warriors, married and single, looked on her with admiration, but with no hint of flirtatiousness. She supposed that was because they considered her the property of Night Sun. Some of the prettiest of the women stared at her with barely veiled expressions of jealousy, and it was not difficult to figure out why.

Of all the tall, strong warriors, none was quite as tall, quite as strong, quite as handsome, as Night Sun.

Typically female, Martay, relishing the envy she evoked, pointedly moved closer to Night Sun and, smiling charmingly up at him, slipped her hand around his arm, allowing her fingers to clutch possessively at his impressive rock-hard biceps.

She saw his black eyes flicker and read his thoughts. What is she up to now? But he didn’t move her hand away, and Martay felt she had won a small victory of sorts.

Now, stepping inside the dim lodge, feeling wonderfully alive from the morning’s excitement, she said happily, not wanting the pleasure to end, “What shall we do now?” She whimsically put her hands beneath her heavy blond hair and pushed it atop her head.

Night Sun drew off his shirt, tossed it aside, and picked up his rifle. “I’m going hunting.”

The blond hair came cascading down around her shoulders. “I’ll go with you.”

“No you won’t. I’m going with Lone Tree and some of the other braves. Women don’t go hunting.”

“When will you be back?” she asked, frowning.

He shrugged wide, bare shoulders. “Sunset.”

“Sunset!” Her green eyes took on an angry glow. “What am I supposed to do all day?”

Laying the loaded rifle aside, he picked up the small, square mirror from atop the pine chest, handed it to her, and walked away, saying, “I’m sure looking at yourself all afternoon will be sufficient entertainment.” He turned to face her.

“Oooh,” she screeched, and hurled the mirror at his dark head.

His reflexes lightning-quick, his dark hand flew up and plucked the hurtling mirror from the air. Calmly placing it back atop the pine chest, he suggested, “Then why not join my grandmother in the …”

“I’m not about to spend my days with an old … with …” Her words trailed off and she looked fearfully at him.

His eyes held that wintry look. Coldly he said, “Then see if you can amuse yourself for once in your life.” He picked up the rifle and was gone before she could reply.

Fuming, Martay stalked about after he’d left, growing angrier with each step, and hotter. Suddenly it was much too warm inside the close tipi. She rebelliously stripped off the hated buckskin dress, flung it on the floor, then flung herself down on her bed, thinking August in South Dakota was every bit as hot as August in Chicago.

Martay sat straight up.

August! She’d almost forgotten. It was August. What was today? The eighth or … no, the ninth. Only two weeks until her nineteenth birthday. She felt the familiar lump rise to her throat. She would spend her nineteenth birthday far from friends and family, with no presents or parties. No one here would even know it was her birthday. And back home they all thought she was … was …

Her hatred of Night Sun flamed anew. He was mean and cruel and insulted her at every turn. Handing her a mirror as though she were a foolish, vain, self-centered woman! Well, no one else thought she was. Well, except for Lettie, but …

Martay sighed wearily. Maybe she was a bit selfish, but who wasn’t? Mr. Jim Savin Night Sun certainly was! He’d left her here to go off and enjoy himself, uncaring that she was alone and frightened and bored.

She ground her teeth. She was glad he had gone hunting, glad he was out of her sight, glad he wouldn’t be back before sundown. She wished the selfish half-breed would stay gone forever.

Nothing would make her happier.

* * *

Astride the big black stallion, Night Sun rode away from the village, laughing, feeling more lighthearted than he had in weeks. It was good to be back with old friends. Good to roam these plains again atop a fast, responsive horse. Good to feel the hot Dakota sun beating down on his bare head and back.

With Lone Tree riding knee to knee with him, it was easy to forget the last four years had ever happened. That he had ever left his beloved Powder River home. Had ever gone East to Harvard.

That the beautiful Martay Kidd was waiting in his tipi, because he had never met her, did not know that she existed. His bare, bronzed chest constricted and he dug his heels into the stallion’s sleek flanks, determined he would forget, if only for a while, that she did.

24

W
hen, the very next morning, Martay awoke to find that Night Sun had already departed, or else had never returned the night before, she felt her chest tighten with concern. A jolt of alarm slammed through her. If something had happened to him, what would become of her?

She shoved her hair behind her ears and hurried to get dressed. Not daring even to consider the white silk, she pulled the hated buckskin dress over her head, tied the belt at her waist with trembling fingers, crossed the tipi, and threw back the flap.

Barefooted, she headed anxiously up the path toward the center of the village, where only yesterday all the Lakotas had assembled to greet her and she had felt, for a brief time, almost happy. When she reached the edge of the clearing, Martay hesitated.

There was much activity in the village; people milling about, laughing, talking, horses neighing, dogs barking, campfires blazing. Unnoticed, she stood searching for that one dark face amid the others, her heart beating in her ears.

The minute he ducked out of a tipi on the east edge of the camp, she knew it was he. He crossed the clearing with those long, supple strides, and conversations lulled and every head turned. Smooth and powerful, he had that don’t-fool-with-me presence she’d come to know so well, and to grudgingly admire. With his finely sculpted cheekbones and quick catlike movements, he radiated sheer magnetism that was impossible to ignore.

It was the first time Martay had ever been able to observe him without herself being observed by those piercing black eyes. Her finely arched brows knitted, she carefully studied the tall, lean copper-skinned specimen of manhood and felt her stomach flutter.

Night Sun reached a trio of men and stood, moccasined feet apart, hands shoved into his pants pockets, the soft buckskin shirt pulling across the hard, flat muscles of his chest. His raven hair, in need of a cut, touched his collar. His hard handsome face soon wore an expression of deep concentration as he stood and spoke quietly to the handful of nodding warriors.

All at once the fierce intensity was gone; his black eyes softened and he smiled that same brilliant smile she’d seen for the first time yesterday. It was so infectious, she smiled herself, and looked about for the child or children that had caused those wide, sensual lips to stretch into that appealing grin.

Abruptly, a couple of the warriors moved apart, opening up the small circle to her view, and Martay’s smile fled.

A quartet of pretty dark-haired maidens had joined the braves; their presence was responsible for the swift change in Night Sun. If the women had lifted Night Sun’s mood, they had the opposite effect on Martay. She felt suddenly betrayed and resentful. Foolish as it was, under such bizarre circumstances, she considered Night Sun to be hers.

Leaning against a heavily-leaved conifer for support, Martay shook her head at her own naiveté. How did she know that one of the women was not Night Sun’s sweetheart? Anxiously she scanned the faces of the laughing, chattering women and felt her heart fall to her feet. Every one of them was pretty. And every one of them was looking up at Night Sun as though he were a god.

Martay’s emerald eyes darkened with jealousy.

Her knees felt weak as realization swept over her. Night Sun had not returned to their tipi at sunset last evening as he had promised. When, finally, at well past midnight, she had fallen asleep, he still had not come home. And when she’d awakened this morning, he was not there.

Martay’s eyes flew from him, across the camp to the tipi she’d seen him leaving. Was it the tipi of one of the pretty women standing with him now? The lodge of his sweetheart? His lover?

Green eyes rapidly turning greener, her narrowed gaze went back to the black-haired man who stood a head taller than the laughing, admiring girls surrounding him. Squinting, Martay observed each feminine face, sure she could pick the one who was Night Sun’s sweetheart. It was easy, of course. She was the prettiest of the four. Small and delicate, her midnight hair, skillfully braided, reached well past her tiny waist. She looked very sweet, very quiet, very trusting, and Martay immediately surmised the small, pretty girl was exactly to Night Sun’s liking. Someone he could order about as though she were a servant and she would obey him without complaint, as a well-trained puppy would. Then, after being bossed about all day, she was, at night, more than willing to allow him to … she would accept the burning kisses and … lie in the darkness and …

Martay spun around, half ill, and raced all the way back to their tipi. Inside she crumpled to the floor, clutching her churning stomach, while before her watering eyes swam visions of the small, beautiful Lakota girl, long braids unbound, lying naked in Night Sun’s strong bronzed arms while he kissed and caressed and loved her through the long hot August night.

Two days later, boredom and bitterness mounting, Martay again strolled down into the camp. She’d not seen Night Sun for two days; she’d seen no one, and she was about to go mad. Cautiously peering at the sea of bronzed faces, she hunted his and, not finding it, asked a woman who was seated before a tipi and bent to some menial task if she knew where to find Gentle Deer.

The woman, unable to understand English, nonetheless smiled and nodded enthusiastically at the mention of the Gentle Deer’s name. And she helpfully pointed. Martay looked in the direction of the pointing finger, then, shaking her head, turned back to the woman. “No. Not that one. I’m hunting Gentle Deer’s tipi,” she said. “Night Sun’s grandmother. Gentle Deer.”

The woman rose, bobbing her head, still smiling. “Gentle Deer,” she said, and continued to point. She was pointing directly to the tipi Martay had seen Night Sun exiting two mornings before.

“Thank you,” Martay said, and feeling a measure of relief, headed straight for the lodge. The flap was raised to the sun. Standing just outside, she hesitated, then called softly, “Gentle Deer, are you there?”

“Come in,” came a deep, unmistakable male voice, and Martay felt the blood zing through her veins.

Blinking, she stepped inside the dim tipi and saw, lolling lazily on his stomach, elbows bent, chin supported in his hands, Night Sun. She felt a quick surge of affection slam through her. He looked for all the world like an innocent, precious little boy, his hair disheveled and falling over his high forehead, an appealing half-sleepy look to his hooded black eyes.

Near him sat his grandmother, mending a garment, smiling.

“I … I was …” Martay, feeling shy for the first time in her life, realized she was stammering and hated herself for it. “I wanted to visit Gentle Deer.”

“I have been waiting for you to come,” said the beaming, gray-haired woman. To her grandson: “Get up and make my guest welcome.”

Night Sun stayed as he was. Almost imperceptibly he inclined his head, indicating Martay was to have a seat facing his grandmother.

When she started to sit, the blind woman said, “No, child, not way over there. Come closer.”

Wondering how Gentle Deer knew how far away she was, Martay reluctantly came nearer and, dropping dutifully to her knees, frowned when Gentle Deer said, “A bit closer. Here, beside my grandson.”

Martay obeyed, and found herself sitting not two feet from the sprawling sleepy-eyed man. Feeling ill at ease, she exchanged pleasantries with Gentle Deer, explaining she had meant to visit sooner but hadn’t wanted to intrude. She saw Night Sun’s heavy black brows rise accusingly at her lie.

Ignoring him, she made polite conversation with his grandmother, amazed at the aged Lakota woman’s perfect command of the English language. As though she knew what Martay was thinking, Gentle Deer’s sightless eyes crinkled at the corners and she said, “My grandson patiently taught me to speak the language of the white man.” She looked fondly at him and added, “We had some good times playing school, did we not, Night Sun?”

“We did, Grandmother,” he said, his drowsy eyes never leaving Martay.

Finding it hard to imagine Night Sun being patient with anyone, Martay said, puzzled, “But Night Sun just returned home. When … how did you learn English so rapidly?”

Gentle Deer’s laughter filled the tipi. “I did not learn fast. Night Sun visit the white world each summer since he …”

“Grandmother,” his slow, deep voice cut in, “explanations are unnecessary.” And he smoothly changed the subject, effortlessly catching, and holding, the interest of both women with an amusing tale of a prank his friend Lone Tree and the others had pulled on him up in the hills.

As she listened, Martay’s eyes were drawn, of all places, to Night Sun’s hard, lean buttocks as he continued to lie on his stomach. The fabric of his leggings stretched snugly across the taut flesh and she felt her throat go dry as he flexed his long legs and the muscles pulled and danced in his boyishly slim bottom.

It was the very first occasion when Martay imagined what it might be like to make love to Night Sun. Horrified that she could even consider something so scandalous, and at such an inappropriate time, she couldn’t help herself. He was lying there flat on the floor, the firm muscles of his buttocks enticingly dancing and rippling under his buckskins, and Martay wondered how it would feel to be lying beneath him, to have his hard belly and slim hips pressing hers, his …

“… and I assured him …” Night Sun stopped speaking. “Is something wrong, Martay?” he asked.

“What? No. No, nothing, I was just …” She swallowed, feeling the heat in her face, hoping to God he couldn’t read her mind.