Tender savage (6 page)

"Wait, I will go with you to see you reach home safely."

"I've seen no one lurking about the river but you, and if you go one way and I another then I will surely reach home without coming to any harm." Yet when she took another quick step, he came right along with her, exasperating her all the more.

The Indian had never apologized to a woman, but for a reason he could not even begin to understand, he did not want them to part enemies. "I have never talked with a white woman. If I said the wrong thing, I am sorry."

When Erica turned to look at him, she was shocked to find the Indian actually looked contrite. His woebegone expression made her feel so guilty, she slowed down to a sedate pace. "I'm sorry, too. Perhaps we are simply too different to be friends."

"I did not think it was a friend you wanted," the Indian admitted slyly.

Erica couldn't help but laugh, since what he had obviously thought was so plain, and in her mind completely wrong. "You were mistaken."

"Yes, I see that." Still, he could not ignore the nagging suspicion that if he were attracted to her, then she must feel some of that same sweet excitement when she looked at him. 'You need not worry, I will not wadk you to your door. I will go only to the edge of the woods before saying good-bye."

The man did raise his voice rather often, but it had not been the anger that had frightened Erica. Now that he was again speaking and behaving politely, she tried to erase from her mind the erotic images of him cavorting in the river, but unlike Mark's elusive memory, the Indian's stubbornly j^ersisted to taunt her.

"You are a very handsome man," she announced suddenly. "You must have plenty of pretty Indian women waiting for you to come home."

"Indian women are very shy. None has ever told me I am handsome."

"Would they say such a thing to their husband?" Erica mused aloud, thinking it no wonder he thought her

forward if their customs were so different. She had been raised from the cradle to flatter men, and apparently Indian women weren't.

"I don't know. I will have to wait and see." The Indian thought his joke amusing, but when Erica did not laugh he offered a fact he thought p>erhaps she did not know. "There are some braves with white wives."

"Oh, really?" Erica mumbled nervously, certain she had again led their conversation in completely the wrong direction. She had not realized she had gone so far from town until they had started back. Perhaps it had been a good idea for the Indian to escort her most of the way. When they were within sight of the steamboat landing she stopped when he did. "Thank you again for finding the letter. It really is an important one I must answer."

"The man who wrote it did not say that he loved you."

Since she would never see the Indian again. Erica thought there would be no harm in telling him the truth now. "He does love me, though. We had an awful argument before I left to come here, and that's why he sounded so cool. You should not have read the letter, by the way, but I will forgive you since you returned it to me."

The Indian was tempted to ask if she loved the man who had sent the letter, but fearing what her answer might be, he posed another question instead. "May I have a reward, then?"

"But I told you I'd forgotten to bring any money."

"I don't want money."

The man was forever stepping too close to her, but this time Erica was too curious about what it was he did want to move back. "What did you have in mind?" she asked softly.

"You have kissed the man who wrote the letter?"

Erica looked away, thinking the afternoon one of the loveliest she had seen since coming to New Ulm. But it had also proven to be one of the most uncomfortable. "Yes, I've kissed him," she finally admitted, but didn't add that she had lost count of how many times.

"Then kiss me." The Indian did not wait for the slender blonde to argue, he merely slipped his arms around her tiny waist, and pulling her close, lowered his mouth to hers.

Taken by surprise, Erica couldn't decide what to do with her hands. First she placed them on the man's smooth bronze chest, then upon his shoulders, then, as his lips continued to caress hers with a heartbreaking tenderness she had never dreamed he would jx)ssess, she wound her arms around his neck and lost herself in the magic of his affection. When he drew away slightly, she deftly lured his mouth to return to her.

The Indian had kissed women, but never one who put such passion into it. But after his initial surprise, he enjoyed Erica's affection too much to complain that she lacked the modesty of an Indian maiden. He thought only that it was a great pity she did not want to make love, and tightened his embrace.

As the handsome Indian's kiss grew more fervent, Erica felt its searing heat burn all the way down to her toes and suddenly realized that, unlike Mark, he would have absolutely no reason to control his passicMis to protect her. She would never have to beg this man to make love to her. All she need do was continue to return his kisses with equal ardor and he would just do it. Shocked to think that should she lead him any further there would be no way to stop him except with the satisfaction of total surrender, she hastily disengaged herself from his arms and stepped back.

"You better go," she stated as firmly as her shaking knees would allow.

"I will come back soon," the Indian promised hoarsely, praying it would not take too many visits to convince her to share his blankets.

Erica didn't understand what had come over her, but knew she shouldn't encourage the Indian to think they would ever share more than that one nearly endless kiss. "No, I think you better stay closer to home." Mark's letter was now so thoroughly wrinkled she used both hands to try and smooth it out. "Please just go home and stay there."

The blue-eyed woman had said something far different with her kiss, and the Indian chose to believe her unspoken words rather than her softly voiced lies. Untying his necklace, he removed one of the wicked-looking claws. "Keep this, to remember me." When Erica

seemed reluctant to accept it, he reached for her hand, placed it in her palm, and folded her fingers over it. "It will bring you good luck," he promised. He then drajjed the gruesome necklace back around his neck andretied the ends of the thong. Drawing his knife, he sliced off the end of one of the startled blonde's long curls before she could gasp a refusal. He laughed at her stricken expression as he replaced his knife in its sheath. "Did you mink I would give you a claw for luck and then slit your throat?"

"Well no, but you might have warned me what it was you meant to do before you drew your knife." Erica watched him wrap the curl around his index finger and thought his hands as handsome as the rest of hmi. He definitely had the looks of a fine gentleman, even if not the manners. "Before you go, won't you please tell me what I should call you if Viper isn't correct?"

"Call me Beloved and I will answer." With a teasing wink, the brave bent down to kiss her slightly swollen lips lightly, then sprinted away so quickly he was immediately lost in the thick foliage that bordered the path.

Erica looked down at the claw and the letter, thinking the men the tokens represented were as different as two men could possibly be. But she couldn't deny that the warmth of their kisses filled her with the same indescribable longing for the fulfillment she had never known. TTiinking that surely it couldn't be possible for the kiss of a savage to affect her as strongly as Mark's always had, she discounted the heady effect he had had upon her senses as the sorry result of loneliness rather than something far more unique. She would keep the daw, though, as it would lend credence to what she was sure would be the most amusing tale she would have to relate when she again saw her friends in Wilmington.

The piercing whistle of an approaching steamboat reminded her she had been away from home much too long, and she turned back toward the path into town. Before she had taken a single step, however, she saw her cousin, Gunter, standing not twenty feet away. He was looking at her with an expression of such agonized disbelief that she feared he had seen more than she could ever successfully explain away.

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Gunter had dropped his sack of wood scraps and bolted before she could reach him and Erica could do no more dian pray he had been so mortified by what he had seen he would not rush straight home to tell his mother. She had only just gotten to know her Aunt Britta, and out of regard for her own dear mother's memory she did not want the woman to think the worst of her niece.

As Erica hurried toward home, lugging the sack her cousin had left behind, she began to worry Gunter might have gone to his father instead. Her Uncle Karl had advised her only that morning to avoid the Indian, so undoubtedly he would be infuriated to learn she had been seen kissing the man in the afternoon. On the other hand, she was probably exceedingly lucky it had been Gunter who had seen her in the savage's arms rather than someone else.

She slipped her hand into her pocket to touch the cougar claw and thought that, despite the owner's promise, it most certainly had not brought her good luck. Knowing it might be wise to hurl it out into the river, she nevertheless kept it clutched tightly in her hand until she reached her aunt and uncle's home. She tossed Gunter's sack by the porch steps and entered through the back door.

Britta was seated at the kitchen table and looked up from the apples she was peeling to greet her niece. "It is such a lovely day. I wish I had chosen to work in my garden or to

go for a walk with you rather than to bake a pie. Why don't you brew us some tea and sit with me a while?"

Erica was relieved to discover she had beaten Gunter home, but if he had gone to the store to fetch his father, then she was in serious trouble indeed. She knew there was an outside chance her aunt might be sympathetic to her

Clight, but her uncle surely wouldn't be. She washed her ands and put the kettle on to boil before taking the chair opposite Britta. She thought it might be wise to tell her what had happened before Karl rushed in to accuse her of carrying on with Indians, but her aunt spoke before Erica could summon the courage to make such an outlandish confession.

"I'm sorry you don't like Ernst as much as we do, dear. Is it only that you have no wish to become a farmer's wife, or has another man already stolen your heart?"

It seemed far too late to mention Mark was her fiance, so Erica left his letter in her pocket and answered only the first part of her aunt's question. "It's not that I don't like Mr. Schramberger. The problem is I don't like him in the way he likes me. New Ulm is a nice town and I've found the people friendly here, but I won't deny how anxious I am to return to Wilmington."

"If only so many of our young men hadn't joined the army, I'm sure you would have found one who could have changed your mind about staying here. I know it is partly selfish of me to want you to live here with us, but you know you'll always be welcome in our home."

"Thank you." Startled by its piercing sound. Erica leaf)ed to her feet with the tea kettle's first shrill whistle. She got out the china teapot, filled it with boiling water, then put in some tea leaves to steep while she took the cups and saucers from the cupboard. She knew honesty was a highly esteemed virtue, and deservedly so, but she couldn't bring herself to confide in her aunt. How could she explain any of her encounters with the Indian in rational terms when clearly the whole episode had been totally irrational? She would sound daft if she said she had been reading a letter from her fiance, whom she had not bothered to mention, and had been so startled by the sight of a handsome Indian brave playing naked in the river that she had dropped it. That much was damaging enough,

but to have had conversations with the Indian on three more occasions would very likely brand her as a harlot, if not simply mad.

Her mind made up, she served her aunt tea and decided in this case, honesty was the last thing she needed. She turned the conversation to the fabrics that had been ordered for sale in the fall while she waited anxiously for Gunter to appear. When he finally did come home, he was alone and he did not even glance her way before he dashed upstairs to his room.

Britta apologized for her bashful son's antisocial behavior, "I hope you 11 forgive Gunter. I'm afraid he's more than a little smitten with you. It is a shame he is not the elder, for you two would make a very handsome pair."

While it was not uncommon for first cousins to marry. Erica could not imagine herself falling in love with Gunter regardless of his age. "I think he is very sweet, but you're right, there's a vast difference between a boy of sixteen and a girl of seventeen. I am a woman, and he is still a youth."

"I think Eva's death forced you to grow up a bit too fast, Erica. It's no wonder you're not anxious to marry when you had to take over so many of your dear mother's duties while you were still so young. I'm surprised we've not heard nrom your father. I thought he would write to you long before this."

"I know the army needed physicians very badly. I'm sure Dad's just been too busy to write." Since her Uncle Karl had not come home with Gunter, Erica assumed the boy hadn't told his father what he had seen and immediately seized upon the idea of relying upon his affertion for her to insure his continued silence. "Speaking of letters," she said as she carried the now cold teapot back to the stove, "there are several I have neglected to write. If you don't need any help with the cooking, I think I'll go and write a few now."

"No, I'm fine. You go write your letters, dear."

Erica gave her aunt a kiss upon the cheek, then left the room at a sedate pace she had to force herself to set. She climbed the stairs as though she had not a care in the world, but rather than stopping at her room, she went on up to the attic to see Gunter. He was sprawled across his

bed, his face turned to the wall, and she took the precaution of closing his door so their conversation would not be overheard.

"Gunter, I know what you saw shocked you rather badly, but I wish you hadn't left before I could explain."