The Coyote's Cry (18 page)

“Anyhow, the night Feeny was murdered I found the medallion. Other men had searched the same rooms of the old depot and never saw it.
I
found it, and after I determined it wasn't evidence I started carrying it in my shirt pocket. You see, it had the head of a coyote on it, and I thought it odd that I was the one who spotted it.”

“It
was
odd, Bram.” She took his right hand and held it. “But it didn't disappear in the night. You'll never convince me of that, even if I have started believing in messages from coyotes and golden foxes and…” She stopped, then continued in a rush. “If you would have returned my calls yesterday you might not have been shot! Your great-grandfather—”

“Willow told me all about it last night at the hospital.” Bram narrowed his eyes on Jenna. “So you've become a believer of Comanche omens and portents.”
That's because you're part Comanche yourself, love of my life.

But he knew now that he was never going to tell her what he'd unearthed in those old books. Carl Elliot would wriggle away from the truth if someone hit him over the head with it, so really, nothing at all had changed.

“Bram, I heard a coyote myself. Nellie was with me and heard nothing. It was the night you called and asked me to feed her. Anyhow, it sounded close enough to touch, and I…I don't think it was…uh, real.”

“Oh, Jenna.” Sighing, Bram put his hand on the back of her neck and drew her toward him. “It was real, Jenna. You're not hearing things that aren't real. You're just spooked by being around the Coltons for so long.”

She looked directly into his eyes. “I said I'm in love with you and I am, Bram. Can't you say the same to me?”

He put his chin on the top of her head and shut his eyes. “I wish I could,” he said softly. “I can say I want you, but please don't make me talk about love. Is wanting you enough?”

Tears welled, but she blinked them back. “Maybe it's enough for tonight. May I sleep with you?”

“I'm a fool, sweetheart, but not stupid enough to say no to that question.”

“You're neither stupid nor a fool.” Jenna eluded his chin, leaned closer and pressed her lips to his. “I'll check on Gloria and get into a nightgown. Be back in a minute.”

Gloria was sleeping, and Jenna quickly shed her clothes and donned a lightweight robe rather than the nightgown she'd mentioned to Bram. All the while her heart pounded with anticipation. Bram might not have yet reached the point of being able to talk about loving her, but she was
sure he would, and she was deliriously happy that she had found the gumption to confess her feelings.

She returned to his room, his bed and his arms. Rather, to his one arm. She was careful not to bump his bandaged left arm, and tried to avoid that purple bruise on his chest, as well.

But once they were both naked and kissing wildly, nothing else seemed to matter, and it wasn't long before their lovemaking reached a fevered pitch that blocked out the rest of the world.

“Jenna…Jenna,” Bram kept saying in that hoarse way he had of speaking during lovemaking.

“At least you know my name, darling,” she replied seductively.

“I know who I'm making love to, don't ever doubt it,” he growled.

“I couldn't possibly,” she whispered, and raised her legs to encircle his hips, drawing him deeper inside her. “Not when we're locked together like this.”

“It's heaven, pure heaven.” He began moving faster, taking her with him on that final joyous ride.

They cried out together and held each other while their breathing slowed to normal. And then, suddenly, frighteningly, they heard it, a sound in the night that each had heard before—the cry of a coyote.

Bram froze and mumbled, “My God.” In the next second he rolled from the bed. Pulling a blanket around himself, he got to his feet and left the room as fast as he could go. No longer was he pain-free, and he'd obviously been a little too careless during lovemaking. His arm hurt like hell and so did his chest.

But he wasn't thinking of himself, and the second he saw Gran he knew that she had passed away. Dropping to his knees near to the bed, he hid his face in the blankets next to her and wept.

Jenna rushed in. She had grabbed her robe and pulled it on while following Bram. Tears began flowing down her cheeks, and she went to Bram and laid her hand on his shoulder.

He shocked the breath out of her by pulling away from her touch and saying bitterly, “I never even saw her today, and I could have. Instead of spending time with her this evening I welcomed you into my bed.”

Wounded heart and soul, Jenna backed away from him. He never noticed, nor did he notice her leaving a short time later, fully dressed and carrying a suitcase.

She cried all the way to Black Arrow. She had never had a chance of winning him over. Why had she been so positive about that all day?

“Fool…
fool!
” she said, and sobbed even harder.

 

Jenna didn't call anyone at the hospital or anywhere else, nor did she take any calls. She stayed in her room in her father's house and barely talked to him when he attempted conversation through the locked door. She had never been this unhappy before, and she knew she was dangerously close to an emotional breakdown. But she didn't have the will or the desire to pull herself out of the bottomless pit of despair in which she floundered.

But then Martha rapped softly and said, “Jenna, darlin', Mrs. Colton's funeral is going to be held tomorrow at two. I just thought you might want to know.”

Jenna turned over on the bed and stared at the ceiling. “To hell with what anyone thinks,” she said out loud. She was going to that funeral, and if Bram dared to even glance at her crossways she would send him a look he would never forget. He'd get the message, the wretch; he'd get it loud and clear.

And the next day she put on her nicest black dress, dark hosiery and black high-heeled pumps. She started to put
her hair up, then decided to wear it down. After all, wasn't she the golden fox? she asked herself cynically. A golden fox should flaunt her mane, shouldn't she?

She drove to the cemetery, parked behind a long line of cars and approached the crowd around the flower-bedecked grave site on foot. She met no one's eyes, not even Willow's, and she stood away from the family. The service was almost over before she saw her father. He was standing inconspicuously behind a huddle of mourners, and when Jenna spotted him she could hardly believe her eyes. What on earth was he doing here? He hated the Coltons, although he'd probably thought them to be no worse than the area's other Comanche families before she'd moved into Bram's house to care for Gloria.

But now that she no longer lived there, perhaps her father had forgiven the Coltons for breathing and her for trying to keep one of them alive. It was a bitter thought, and Jenna felt ashamed of herself for thinking something so awful. She dabbed at the corners of her eyes with a dainty white handkerchief just as the minister completed his final prayer.

People began going over to the Coltons to offer condolences, and Jenna turned to leave. She would contact Willow some other day, and perhaps Thomas and Alice and Jared and…

She loved them all, and she wasn't going to slink away like some thief when her only crime had been to fall in love with Bram! She didn't have to talk to him, didn't even have to look at him, but the rest of the Coltons deserved her sympathy. She turned around and had started walking toward them when she saw her father suddenly push ahead of some people and stop in front of Bram.

“What'd you do my daughter?” he snarled. “She won't eat, she won't talk, she's barely alive and I know you did
something to her. Be a man, if you can, and tell me what it was.”

Jenna nearly fainted. Every eye was on her dad, every ear tuned to hear his unjust accusations.

Bram hadn't seen Jenna arrive nor did he look for her now. He had gone through hell during the last few days. Considering the mess he'd made of the John Doe case and his sorrow over that, over Gran's death and over Jenna, plus a dozen or so other problems, such as what had happened to the coyote medallion, and how come both he and Jenna had heard the coyote's cry the night Gran died, he was in no mood to put up with Carl Elliot's insults.

“Get out of my face,” Bram said menacingly.

“Or you'll what? Have me arrested?” Carl taunted. “Like you arrested that Feeny fellow for bringing drugs into Black Arrow by the truckload? Be a man,” he repeated snidely, “and tell me what you did to make my little girl cry all the time.”

Bram had heard enough. Something snapped in him. He didn't care if Carl Elliot was white, Comanche or Chinese, and he didn't care if the whole damn town heard what he had to say.

“Nothing would make me happier,” Bram said with an icy glare at Jenna's dad. “I fell in love with your little girl, only she isn't a little girl, is she? She's a woman through and through. I will love her till the day I die, and I would marry her tomorrow, if she'd have me.”

A tornado could not have moved faster or with more force than Jenna did. She got through that crowd like a hot knife cuts through butter, and she nearly knocked her dad down when she threw herself at Bram.

“She'll have you! She'll have you!” she cried.

Bram held her close to his heart and whispered, “I love you, Jenna.”

“I love you, Bram. You
know
I love you.”

He tipped her chin, gazed deeply into her eyes and said it again, clearly and loud enough for everyone to hear. “I love you, Jenna. I've loved you for years.”

The Coltons, weeping and sad only moments ago, were suddenly laughing in spite of their wet and teary faces.

Bram saw Carl Elliot turn and walk away with his head down. That man is no Comanche, Bram thought, but he
is
Jenna's dad.

“Go after him, sweetheart. No matter what he did in the past or does in the future, he's still your dad.”

Jenna took a look behind her and saw the forlorn slant of her father's shoulders. Giving her beloved a soft smile of utter adoration, she left his embrace and ran after her father.

“Dad! Wait a minute!”

Carl stopped walking and waited for her. “You're going to marry an Indian,” he said sadly.

“And I couldn't be more proud of it. Dad, please listen to me. You'll always be welcome in my life and my home, but it's going to be Bram's home, as well, and you're always going to have to remember that.” She saw tears in his eyes. “Why are you crying, Daddy?”

“Because I love you.” He turned and walked away, and Jenna watched for a moment, then turned and looked at Bram. His family was taking turns hugging and congratulating him, and Jenna had never seen a more moving sight. She walked toward the Coltons, her own family soon, and heard Bram saying, “I've loved her for so long and foolishly almost lost her. It won't happen again.”

She smiled and Bram smiled back at her—a beautiful smile, such as she had never seen before—and just then George WhiteBear approached his great-grandson. “You won the golden fox. She will give you many sons.”

Jenna started laughing and tried to conceal it with her hand. After all, this was still a funeral, hardly an event for
uncontrollable mirth. But “many sons”? And then her laughter stopped as quickly as it began, for with all the proof of his psychic powers that she'd encountered first-hand, how could she possibly laugh at anything George WhiteBear said?

She was mulling over the high probability of becoming a mother to “many sons” when George looked around at his family and said quite clearly, “Willows are meant to blossom and will bloom during the brightest midnight.”

Jenna's eyes darted around, searching the crowd and finally finding Willow. From the look on Willow's pretty face, the poor girl must have realized George's message had been aimed at her, but didn't know if it was good or bad news.

Bram came over to Jenna and put his good arm around her. “I think it's Willow's turn,” he said in her ear with a small chuckle. Jenna turned up her face and Bram kissed her. “Let's go home, sweetheart,” he said softly. “We have an awful lot of talking to do.”

“Among other things,” Jenna murmured, bringing a twinkle to her lover's romantic dark eyes.

They walked away, arm in arm.