Warrior's Embrace (39 page)

“It’s the Chickasaw motto. Unconquered and
unconquerable.” Eagle was smiling when he said it, but Marcus and
Jim didn’t doubt for one minute that he meant every word he
said.

Later that evening as Marcus consoled himself
over his resounding defeat—he’d lost all five games—he saluted
Eagle with his beer.

“My mama didn’t raise no fools, and I can
tell you one thing, I’d hate to get in a real battle with you.”

“You’d lose, Eagle said.

o0o

Witch Dance

Eagle stood on the bluff with his arms lifted
toward the sky. A red-tailed hawk arose screaming from his nest and
bands of Indian paintbrush nodded their scarlet heads in the wind
that swept across the plains. Below the ridge he could hear the
music of the Blue River.

With his arms uplifted, he paid homage to
four Beloved Things above—the clouds, the sun, the clear sky, and
He who lives in the clear sky.

“Loak-Istohoollo-Aba,” he chanted, addressing
the Holy One above. “
Alail-o
.” The ancient words filled
him with power, and he tipped his face upward so he could feel the
welcome sun of his homeland. “I am come,” he said. “I’ve come
home.”

All the years he’d been gone melted away, and
he was once again a native son, fully, passionately in love with
the land. Soon he would exchange his car for a Chickasaw horse so
he could ride wild and free, feeling the wind on his face.

His mother would be waiting at home to greet
him— and also his father, Winston Mingo, governor of the Chickasaw
Nation. He’d see his twin brother, Cole, and Cole’s wife and
children whom he’d never met. His younger siblings, his beloved
sister, Star, and his brother, Wolf, would be so grown-up, he’d
hardly know them.

Eagle was eager to reunite with his family,
but his most pressing need was to embrace the land, to bond once
more with the mountains and the river and the sky that had spawned
him.

Leaving his car parked on the ridge, he made
his way down to the river. The lone hawk sailed low, calling its
plaintive welcome. A cottontail rabbit scrambled out of the bushes,
studied him with pink eyes and twitching nose, then disappeared
over the horizon. In the distance the mountains watched him with
silent majesty. The only sounds were the music of the animals and
the music of the river.

He was alone, alone in the magnificent,
far-reaching land he called his own.

o0o

The watchers were there again, standing on
the hillside above the building site in a solemn, silent
semicircle, their enmity evident in the set of their faces and the
rigid lines of their bodies.

Kate put down her hammer and wiped her face
with a faded bandanna. Anxiously, she glanced at the intruders. Dr.
Colbert poured two cups of water from the thermos and offered one
to her.

“Don’t worry about them, Kate. They’ll get
used to you in time.”

“How can I be their doctor if they hate me?
How can I cure their ailments if they won’t even come near me?”

He laughed. “You’ve been here only a week;
the clinic is nothing more than a vision in our minds, and already
you’re worried about the sick. Patience, Kate.”

“You’re always saying that to me.”

“Could it be that you need to listen?”

“Who, me?” She did an elaborate pantomime of
the innocent, with widened eyes and rounded mouth. Then, laughing,
she sank onto the ground and crossed her moccasined feet. Deborah
at the general store had sold her the moccasins. She’d tried to
sell her a hat too, insisting that Kate would burn her fair skin in
this hot country, but Kate loved the wind in her hair. There would
be no hats for her.

“You’re too generous with me, Dr. Colbert.
I’m not sure that I have the temperament to carry on all this.” She
waved her arms to encompass the clearing in the trees, the studs
that would soon be walls of a clinic, and the watchers on the
hill.

“I chose you for the job because you are
perfect.” As always when they had these discussions about the
clinic, Clayton Colbert kept his darker motives hidden. No one
would be served by the truth—least of all, Kate Malone.

She gazed at him with such luminous trust
that he had to turn his back.

“Why don’t you take the rest of the day off?”
He busied himself by filling his carpenter’s apron with nails.
Soon,
soon
he’d have to leave, or all his dreams would go
up in flames. “Go sight-seeing. Take a picnic. It’ll be good for
your soul.” And perhaps the salvation of his own.

“Doctor’s orders?” she teased.

“Doctor’s orders.”

She needed no further urging. A stop at the
general store to buy wine and cheese, then a quick run to Dr.
Colbert’s house to rinse the sawdust off her face and put her
purchases in a picnic basket, and she was all set to explore.

Soon she was striding along the wide open
spaces, basket in hand. She scooped her hair off her neck with her
free hand, then let it go flying about in the wind as she released
it. White clouds were piled as high as cotton candy in a sky so
relentlessly blue, it hurt her eyes. She’d brought her
bird-watching book and her binoculars, but the thing she wanted to
do most was get to know the land she now called home.

It was a beautiful land in a raw, exciting
kind of way, and Kate was already in love with it. A wilderness,
her father had called it. But it was her wilderness, far away from
the jurisdiction of the senator from South Carolina.

She skipped along the way she had when she
was fourteen and her two younger brothers thought she was the next
best thing to buttered popcorn. Since there was no one around to
cover their ears, she opened her mouth to sing ...and that’s when
she saw the man in the river.

Mesmerized, she stood on the bluff, gazing
down at him. It wasn’t his nakedness that held her enthralled, but
the sheer beauty of it, the glorious perfection.

He was standing with his face tipped skyward
and his arms outstretched, every well-toned muscle and finely tuned
sinew clearly delineated by the sun. The artist in her swooned, but
the doctor in her exulted. He was a magnificent specimen,
exuberantly male, passionately Chickasaw.

She didn’t drop to her knees and try to hide
behind the small scrub bushes, but stood tall on the bluff,
watching him with unabashed pleasure. He looked as if he not only
belonged to the land around him, but was a part of it.

He spoke strange and beautiful words in a
powerful voice that sent shivers down her spine, then waded deep,
where the water became swift and turbulent.

Unconsciously, Kate clenched her hands on the
handle of the picnic basket. The water was chest-high on him now.
With one last look at the sky he plunged under.

Kate held her breath, waiting, watching for
him to resurface. Overhead, a large bird screamed. Hairs along the
back of Kate’s neck stood on end.

“Come on,” she whispered. “Come on.” She
shaded her eyes, straining for a glimpse of his dark head rising
above the rushing river.

Could she have missed it? Was he too far
downriver for her to see?

Clutching her basket, she began to make her
way down the side of the bluff. There was still no sign of the
Chickasaw.

He’d gone under and he wasn’t coming back up.
Kate began to run, blood roaring in her head ...and memories
filling her mind, always the memories.

“Kate, Kate.” A pair of hands clutched at
her, glanced off her swimsuit, then disappeared. She couldn’t see.
Wind and rain whipped the ocean into a frenzy. Where were they?
Where were they?

She must not panic. She must not. Brambles
tore at her shorts and scratched her legs as she raced down the
bluff.

“I’m coming,” she screamed. “Hold on. I’m
coming.”

Her picnic basket hit the ground as she let
go, bounced once, then overturned.

The sailboat was overturned. She couldn’t
get it to stay upright. The wind had been too strong ...and the
waves. She fought the panic that made her arms and legs heavy.
Couldn’t stop, couldn’t stop swimming now. She had to find them.
Where were they?

She was beside the river now. Sharp rocks bit
into her moccasins as she hit the shallows running. Hoping the
water was deep enough, praying she’d be strong enough, she arched
her body into a perfect bow and sliced the water.

There was no one to save him except her.

There was no one to save them except her.
She was the oldest. She was responsible.

Swimming hard, she fought the water. She
couldn’t let it win. Not this time. She went under, searching,
searching ...and saw a leg.

“Brian,” she screamed. Bubbles rose to the
surface. “I’ve got you, Brian.”

She couldn’t hold on. He was struggling
against her. She was losing him, losing him in the darkness and the
rain and the winds that howled over the ocean.

“Stop!” Panic billowed through her as she
fought to hold on to his leg. “Stop struggling, Brian. I have to
save you ...I have to save you.”

Brian cried as he fought her, screamed as
he clawed her face. She couldn’t hold him. He was pulling her down.
And where was Charles?

“Charles! Charles!” Tears streamed down her
face, and water, so much water. She gasped for air. “Oh, God. I
can’t find Charles.”

Hands grabbed her shoulders. Panic filled
her, and such soul-searing agony, she wanted to die.

Charles was there now, and Brian,
clinging to her, crying ...Help me, Katie. Help me. Praying and
crying, she swam. But which way was the shore? She couldn’t see.
Brian was pulling her under ...and Charles was too heavy. They
would all drown.

“No!” she screamed. “I won’t let you
die.”

“I won’t hurt you. Stop fighting.”

“No. You can’t die.”

But they did. First Brian slipped away,
his little face contorted as he called her name, his hair floating
around his head like a pale halo. Then Charles. In slow motion he
drifted, always beyond her reach, until at last she couldn’t see
him. She couldn’t see either of them. The sea swallowed them,
swallowed her brothers, then spit her out onto the cream-colored
sand. She hadn’t been strong enough. She hadn’t been good
enough.

She closed her eyes, wanting to die. Why
hadn’t she died?

Strong arms held her close. “Are you all
right?”

That voice. It was the same one she’d heard
moments earlier, the voice of thunder that beseeched the sky in a
strange and wondrous tongue.

Coward that she was, she lay against his
sun-warmed chest with her eyes shut. It was easier than looking
into the face of the man she’d saved from the river.

“Are you all right?” he asked again as he
lowered her to the ground. Oh, God, she remembered how he’d looked
standing in the river, gloriously naked. He probably was a marathon
swimmer who could take on the English Channel without ever getting
winded, and here she was, wallowing around in his arms, getting
goose bumps listening to his voice ...and getting ideas
besides.

“Of course I’m all right.” She sat straight
up, intending to act efficient and intelligent as befitted someone
who had earned the right to be called doctor. But then she saw him
close up. And she nearly swooned.

He was more man than she’d ever seen. And
every gorgeous naked inch of him was within touching distance.

For all he seemed to care, he could have been
bending over her in a Brooks Brothers suit.

“What impulse sent you into the river?” He
squatted beside her with both hands on her shoulders, and she’d
never felt skin as hot in her life.

“I thought you were drowning.”

His laughter was deep and melodious, and as
sensual as exotic music played in some dark corner of a dimly lit
café where lovers embraced.

“I am Chickasaw,” he said, as if that
explained everything.

“Well, I’m human and I made a mistake.” She
pushed her wet hair away from her face. “Why can’t you just admit
you made a mistake, staying under the water so long, I thought you
were going to drown?”

“You were watching me?”

“No ...Yes . . .” His legs were powerful,
heavily muscled, bent in such a way that the best parts of him were
hidden. He leaned closer, intent on answers. How did he expect her
to think straight with his leg touching hers like that? “Not
deliberately,” she said. “I was on a picnic. How did I know you’d
be cavorting about in the river without any clothes on?”

He searched her face with eyes deep and
black. Then he touched her cheeks, his strong hands exquisitely
gentle.

“I’m sorry I ruined your picnic.” Ever so
tenderly his hands roamed over her face. Breathless, she sat beside
the river, his willing captive. “You’ve scratched your face ...here
...and here.”

Until that moment she hadn’t known that every
nerve in the body could tremble. Now she could attest to it as a
medical fact.

“...and your legs.” He gave her legs the same
tender attention he’d given her face. She would have sold her soul
to feel his hands on her forever. “I have remedies for your
injuries.”

Oh, God. Would he kiss them and make them
well? She almost said it.

“I can fix them....” How? She could barely
breathe. “I’m a doctor.”

“You came to Tribal Lands to practice
medicine?”

“You doubt my word?”

“No. Your commitment.”

“Is it because I’m white that you think I’m
not committed, or because I’m female?”

“Neither,
Wictonaye
.” In one fluid
movement he stood before her, smiling.

And in that moment her world changed. Colors
and light receded, faded until there was nothing except the bold
Chickasaw with his glowing, polished skin and his seductive voice
that obliterated every thought, every need except the most basic
...to die of lust. Sitting on the hard ground, looking up at her
nameless captor, she wanted to die in the throes of passion.