Wayward Wind (12 page)

“A couple of years ago, in order to prevent a lot of killing, my mother faced him in the middle of the street in Junction
City with all the townspeople looking on. She walked out between two rows of armed men and told him the man he was trying
to kill was his own son. You see, he had another son—by a Cheyenne woman—who was raised in Saint Louis by an uncle who left
him a great deal of money. He came out here and bought up the land Clayhill wanted, and Clayhill and his stepdaughter trumped
up a charge against him and tried to get him hanged. He despises Logan because of his Indian blood. But there’s not a finer
man than Logan Horn. I’m proud to call him my brother.”

“It must have been hard for your mother to see Adam Clayhill after all those years.”

“It was. She knew he was in that part of the country when we got there, but she avoided him. He recognized her that day she
faced him down and called her by name. Then he looked at me—I’d already had a few run-ins with him. Logan knew what she was
going to do and tried to stop her, but when Ma makes up her mind, it takes a lot to stop her.” There was a smile in his voice.
“She went up to Clayhill and smacked him across the face. She told him that she should shoot him, but the slap would have
to do. It was the first time she’d come face to face with him in all the years we’d lived there. I was never more proud of
her, but I can’t tell you the feeling I had when I realized that Clayhill was the man who had caused my mother so much pain.
I went a little crazy and smashed into him with both fists, knocked him to the ground and spit on him. My mother and Logan
made me see that he wasn’t worth the trouble it would cause me to kill him.”

“Your mother was right. Oh, I’m so glad you didn’t kill him.” Lorna’s arm slid around his back and she hugged him to her.
After a short silence, she asked, “How does he feel about you and Logan now?”

“He steers clear of Logan. It galls him that Logan is building a ranch that equals or is better than his, but he’s afraid
of him, too. Logan walks tall. He bows his head for no man.”

“I would like him,” she stated simply.

“You’d like his wife Rosalee, too. She married him knowing what life would be like married to a half-breed in this country.
They had a boy this past winter.”

“And you? Is Adam Clayhill afraid of you?”

Cooper grinned. “Let’s just say he’s careful around me. At first he thought he’d win me over with the promise that I’d inherit
his ranch. The man has guts he hasn’t used yet,” Cooper said with bewilderment in his voice. “He actually thought I’d be pleased
to know that… we’re blood kin. He expected me to move to the ranch and live with him! I’d not touch anything the old sonofabitch
has with a ten-foot pole! He’s rotten to the core and that gives me some worry. I can’t help it if I look like him, but I
don’t want to be anything like him!”

Lorna’s hand cupped Cooper’s cheek and turned his face down toward hers. “You’re not like him or you’d have gone bad before
now. You and Logan came from strong women and have overcome his bad blood.”

“Lorna!” He moved her hand around to his mouth and gently kissed the palm. “Lorna,” he said her name again. “You’re… just
so sweet and fresh.” He stared down at her face somberly. It was pale and calm, her eyes seemed to burn with a blue light.
“I’ve never talked to anyone as I’ve talked to you.”

“I’m glad,” she whispered.

“I heard you singing last night.”

“I was singing for you.”

Her arm slipped around his neck. He gave a long shuddering sigh and wrapped her in both of his, hugging her close.

“Oh, Lorna!” he whispered in an agony of confusion.

“Don’t try to understand it, my love. Just be glad we’ve found each other.”

“I don’t want to think about it. I just want to look at you and hold you.”

She smiled a smile of pure enchantment. “I’d like for you to kiss me… if you want to. Do you?”

“You know I do!”

“Is that why you’re trembling?”

“I guess it is,” he said helplessly.

He bent his head and his lips moved gently but insistently over her hair, her closed eyes, and down to her cheek. She turned
her head so that their lips met. His mouth closed over hers and moved with supplicant pressure until her lips parted, yielded,
accepted the wanderings of his, then became urgent in their own seeking. Her mouth was warm, sweet beyond imagination, but
he held back, unwilling to spoil the mood by demanding more than the instant of sharing. He raised his head and looked down
at her, his lips just inches from her lips, her breath in his mouth. Each sensed a mystery and loneliness and aching beauty
that was precious beyond their comprehension. Their lips met again, clung and released, clung again and parted reluctantly.

He shifted his body slightly to form a more comfortable cradle for her, and she leaned her head back against his shoulder.
The moon shone on her face and he could see that her eyes were closed, her lips slightly parted. He was certain, now, that
she held some part of his heart.

“Tell me that I’ve made you happy,” she whispered.

“You’ve made me happy. In all my life I’ve never been as happy as this. I can’t resist you.”

“No more than I can resist you. Oh! I’m so happy! I’m so happy I want to sing!”

And she did. Her voice came to his ears softly, beautifully, from where her head rested on his shoulder. He could feel the
drag of her hair on his chin when she tilted her face to watch his while she sang.

“Life’s morn will soon be waning,

And its evening bells be tolled.

But my heart shall know no sadness,

If you’ll love me when I’m old.”

When she finished the song, she sat up so she could look into his eyes. “Light and Maggie loved each other more than life.
My granny said they loved the same when they were old as when they were young. They even died together. It could be the same
with us, my love.”

His hands lightly gripped her shoulders and held her away from him. He looked down into her face. Oh, God! She was so beautiful.

“Tonight I’ve felt things I never dreamed of feeling, but it’s too soon, Lorna.” He lifted a hand to stroke the hair back
from her face with fingers that trembled. “We can’t let the attraction we feel for each other get out of hand. I won’t tell
you I’m as sure about this as you are. God knows I’ve got a hunger for you that makes me ache. But I’ll not pour soft words
into your ears and take you to… satisfy that hunger. I can’t do that to a woman like you—”

“It’s all right. Don’t fret about it. You need some time to get used to the idea,” she said soothingly, and stroked his hair
in an age-old maternal gesture of understanding. She slipped down off the rock and stood looking at him. “We’ve got time.
We’ve got the rest of our lives.” She placed a kiss, as soft as the touch of a feather, on his lips, then turned and ran,
as fleet as a deer, up the path.

Puzzled and troubled by confusing emotions, Cooper watched her until she was safely inside the cabin. She was like someone
who wasn’t quite real; a fairy, or a shadowy woman out of a dream. On the heels of that thought came another—she was a real
flesh and bone woman. He’d held her in his arms, felt her small warm body against his, kissed her sweet mouth. She was soft
and feminine, and yet he’d seen her hold off three men with her knife. At that moment she was deadly. That soft, gentle, sweet
little woman would have killed Dunbar if he’d made a move.

He sat with his puzzled thoughts until the moon disappeared behind the old, scarred pine at the western rim of the valley.
A restless lobo howled his frustration at the night’s failures and his defiance was heard and answered by another of his own
kind.

More out of habit than the need to rest, Cooper threw out his bedroll and stretched out on it and looked up at the stars.

“Lorna. Lorna…” He wasn’t even aware of saying her name. Only the winds heard and moaned softly in the treetops above his
head.

It was dawn.

Lorna opened her eyes. Her awakening was instantaneous, none of her usual meanderings in the trance world between sleep and
sensibility. This morning, her adolescent dreams had become a reality that jolted her mind and muscle into vivid awareness.
Cooper! Cooper! Oh, my love!
She stretched and curled her toes in pure delight. She’d never felt so happy in all her life. Her future was with Cooper.
This morning she felt an awesome kinship with her Grandma Maggie, and wanted to be alone in the forest they both loved to
think about it.

She stepped out into the cool morning and stood beside the door. A gray squirrel paused briefly to glance at her and scold
before scurrying off for the nearest tree. A bluejay chattered angrily and flew in furious indignation to a branch of an oak
tree and from that vantage point hurled insults at the old black crow searching in the berry bushes for a scrap of food. Bold
in his hunger, the crow added his own croaking comments before flapping to a more productive berry bush, where he ignored
both the jay and the woman. Lorna stood as still as a stone, absorbing the familiar morning sounds, listening for an alien
one.

Satisfied all was as it should be, she ran toward the bluffs behind the cabin and began the steep climb to the top of the
wooded shelf. She followed her own trail, holding to branches of scrub trees to keep from falling. Halfway up she stopped
to look back toward the place where Cooper had thrown his bedroll, but she couldn’t see it for the thick tangle of berry bushes.
She continued her climb. At the top of the bluff she surveyed the area with quick knowing eyes before she showed herself.
Nothing moved. Always cautious, she ran several hundred feet to the right and stopped beside a large blue spruce to look and
listen. She darted from tree to tree until she’d circled the place where she had come up from the cabin.

Confident that she was alone with only the creatures of the forest to observe her, she went to the edge of the bluff, straightened
to her full height and stretched her arms to the rising sun. She was free. Here there were no confining walls around her.
Here she could pretend she was at home on Light’s Mountain. She ran a few steps, jumped and twirled around and around with
graceful abandon. She dipped and swayed and laughed aloud. She was happy, so
happy!
She wanted to dance and sing, giving herself up to the sheer bliss, the wonder of knowing she had found her mate for life.
She
had
to sing. The feeling inside her had to have an outlet, a celebration of this wonderful discovery. She no longer feared Brice
would come and take Bonnie. Cooper was here. He’d stand with her against anyone.

The song she sang was an old one Maggie had taught her granny. It was about a very young girl who waited for a lover who had
gone wandering over the sea to seek his fortune, but returned home when he realized the treasure he was seeking was his own
true love. It was a haunting love song with a compelling little tune. Lorna sang softly and swayed from side to side, her
voice, sweet and clear, filled the air around her and carried on the breeze to the cabin below.

Cooper, coming up the stony path beside the stream, paused and listened. He felt his heart still. A spell of enchantment engulfed
him as if the sweet, lilting notes clinging to the fresh morning air were coming from another world. He was pulled toward
the sound, irresistibly drawn by it. His feet seemed to have no will of their own. As he strode past his bedroll he dropped
his hat and ran his fingers through his wet hair.

He scaled the bluff behind the cabin, following the prints of small moccasins on the steep, narrow path that wound around
boulders and gnarled mountain pine. He paused to catch his breath, digging in his bootheels to keep from sliding, then hurried
on. As he climbed the singing grew louder. When he pulled himself up the last few feet so he could see over the edge he found
himself looking into laughing, blue-violet eyes. Lorna held out her hand; he took it and stepped up onto the grassy plateau.

She whirled and left him, jumping and spinning, her hair whipping around her. Her feet scarcely seemed to brush the ground
as she skimmed over it, twisting and turning to the tune of the music that came from her throat. “Tra-la, tra-la, tra-la-la-la.”
Her arms reached to welcome the morning sun that glistened on her blue-black hair, and then swept low to the ground as though
she performed some pagan dance.

Cooper watched every delicate movement, heard the trilling music, and could not believe what he saw. Could this beautiful,
happy woman dancing with such innocent abandon be real?

In all his life, he’d never seen such beauty as she possessed. It was more than physical. It was in every delicate movement
of her small, slender body. It was in the melodious sound that came from her throat, in her triumphant, happy smile, and in
her eyes that gazed at him in open admiration. Her cheeks and lips were red against her pale skin and her glorious, blue-black
hair danced around her face and tumbled down her back to her waist in reckless abandon.

A fierce rage of longing, an enormous desire, began to stir in Cooper’s body as he watched her twisting in a final, joyous
spin and stop before him, her eyes glowing up into his. The soft, breathless laugh that came from her lips was as dearly familiar
to him as if he had heard it a thousand times—he didn’t understand it, or know what was happening to him. He backed away and
tried to view her as others would see her—a girl in worn Indian moccasins, britches, an old cloth shirt that hung to her hips
and a cloth sash wrapped tightly around a waist he could span with his two hands.

“I knew you’d come.” She reached for his hand and held it in both of hers.

“How did you know?”

“I don’t know.” She laughed up at him. There was no pretense in the eyes that moved lovingly over his face.

Cooper’s head was spinning, reality was slipping farther and farther away. He felt a tremor running through him, as if the
earth were going to part under his feet. He had to say something, but what?