White Owl (25 page)

“I’ll be getting that water,” he said, grabbing the bucket from her. “Where is the water well, or should I get it from the river?” Fleetingly, he thought about being seen if he went to the river to get water, but her next words took care of those worries.

Rose chortled. “Oh, wait till you see this. My aunt has water right here in the house . . . it’s the latest modern invention.” She led him back into the kitchen to a strange contraption that looked like a long handle attached to a curved pipe. He stared at it quizzically. When she pulled down on the long handle several times and water came gushing out of the curved pipe, White Owl nearly dropped the bucket.

“How is that possible?” he asked as he tried to look up the pipe where the water was pouring out.

“There is a pipe running all the way down to the river from right here in the house,” Rose answered with a chuckle. “It is truly amazing!”

White Owl glanced away from the modern wonder and looked at Wild Rose. A frown drew his dark brows together. “Life here is so much easier than it will be with me, you know?”

Her face grew serious and she narrowed her eyes. “The past few months have been the hardest times of my life, White Owl. Don’t you ever suggest that I would be better off here, do you hear me?”

The angry expression on her face and her forceful tone convinced White Owl that he should change the subject. “Well, taking a bath in a white man’s tub is still not as good as the river.”

Wild Rose grinned and her eyes glazed over for a moment. White Owl hoped that she was remembering the baths they shared in the Green River during their wedding trip. His mind was certainly dominated by those passionate memories, and his groin was reminding him of how long it had been since they were together.

“Now, you start hauling that water to the tub and I’ll heat some water up to add to it.”

White Owl snapped out of his trance and did as he was told. When she ordered him to remove his filthy clothes and step into the deep warm water in the tub, he was glad he had been obedient. The
cold waters of the rivers and streams did not even begin to compare to the luxurious feel of this bath. Of course, he didn’t admit this to his wife.

As he soaked the trail dust from his body, Rose put his clothes in a washbasin filled with soap and water and began to scrub them against a washboard until they were clean. She took them outside to hang from a line in the backyard.

“Here, let me wash your hair,” Rose said as she hurried back to White Owl. She produced a round bar of white soap from a shelf and dunked it into his bathwater. The room filled with the scent that White Owl loved so much. It was the exhilarating smell of her hair, and reminded him of the way the forest smelled after a rainfall. He was helpless to stop the rise of his manhood in the warm water.

Wild Rose was busy scrubbing his scalp with the wonderful-smelling soap and oblivious to his reaction. He tried to ignore the urges that were causing him enormous distress as she began to dump water over his head to rinse the soap out of his hair. The delicious-smelling soap, combined with her nearness, was too much for a man who had been without his woman for so long. When she leaned down to wet the washcloth, White Owl could not control himself.

He grabbed her by the arms with the intention of pulling her down and merely kissing her, but she leaned forward at the same time he pulled her to him, and the next thing he knew, she was lying on top of him in the big tub. The splash of the
water went everywhere, and by the time he realized what had happened, the sound of her giggling was also filling the room.

“You could have just asked—I would have climbed in with you,” she chuckled.

White Owl could not stop laughing as he looked at the way her wet hair was hanging around her face. Her luminous eyes were shining like a high country lake in the brightest sunshine as her laughter joined with his.

His eyes were drawn lower and he suddenly became serious. Her white cotton gown was nearly transparent and he could see the fullness of her breasts above the roundness of her belly where the fabric clung to her skin and revealed every inch of her blossoming body. He groaned.

“Am I clean enough to make love to you yet?” he asked in a raspy voice. He didn’t wait for her answer as he put a hand over one of her breasts, reveling in the fullness that she had not had in the past.

“And here I thought maybe you were worn out from the trip. But now I can feel that you must not be too tired,” Rose teased.

White Owl had been far too long without intimacy with his wife to wait any longer. Without hesitation, he began pulling her dripping gown up over her head. She raised her arms to make this task easier. She wore nothing else underneath, so once the gown was out of the way, their wet bodies melded together as White Owl turned her around so that she was facing him and sitting in his lap. He entered her the moment she was settled on top of
him; they fit together like a hand in a glove. The months of being alone, dreaming of her, and being afraid of never seeing her again disappeared like a puff of smoke.

They moved together as one—connected by body, heart and soul—as the water splashed up over the sides of the tub. White Owl tried to be gentle, reminding himself of her condition. It was obvious that she was not as limber as she had been before, but he was surprised to discover that even though the feel of her round belly pressed against him, she was as eager and passionate as ever. The idea that she was still so exuberant about making love to him, even as she carried his child, only expanded his own ardor. He moved his hands up to her full breasts as she arched back and cried out in ecstasy. As their love filled every fiber of his body, he made a vow: he would never let anything, or anyone, separate them again.

Rose had fantasized about the first time they would make love after their reunion throughout the past few months. But her musing had always envisioned them being together after the birth of their baby. When White Owl had not attempted to make love to her when he first arrived, she had worried that he didn’t plan to be intimate with her until after the baby was born. The moment she had been in his arms again, she had yearned to feel him inside of her. Was that normal for a woman in her condition, she wondered?

Now, she realized that she didn’t care whether it was normal. She desired her virile husband, and nothing—not even the baby growing within her—could quench that need. With her back to him now, she reclined against him in the tub after their exuberant lovemaking. He tenderly rubbed her swollen belly, and she heard him sigh in contentment. She couldn’t imagine feeling any happier. Everything that she had prayed for and dreamed of since her father had torn them apart had just materialized, and months before she had anticipated. She only hoped she was not dreaming this
time, but if she was, she never wanted to wake up again.

“I hate to move,” White Owl whispered again her ear, “but I think we should be in a more acceptable position before your aunt returns. She might not be so understanding if she walks in on us like this.”

As much as Rose hated to admit it, he was right. Besides, her legs were starting to hurt, and her back felt as though it was breaking. Even worse, she was certain she could not raise herself from this awkward position. “I need help. I’m too fat to get up,” she admitted in a disgusted tone.

White Owl chuckled, but quickly grew silent when she glanced back over her shoulder and cast him a deadly look of warning. He instantly placed his hands around her expanding waist and helped her to stand up in the tub. He rose with her and carefully lifted her over the side of the deep tub. She grabbed a heavy knit blanket and wrapped it around herself as quickly as possible as she felt a hot fire shoot through her body and settle in her face.

“Why are you acting like that?” White Owl demanded as he stepped over the side of the tub and stood in front of her. “Are you ashamed of my daughter growing in you?”

“No—never!” Rose swallowed hard. “It’s just that I look so different now with your son inside of me, that I was afraid—”

“You have never been more beautiful,” White Owl said as he reached out to cup her chin with his wet hand. He raised her face up so that they
were staring directly into one another’s eyes. “As my daughter grows, so will my love and desire for you.”

His tenderness made her tremble with happiness, in spite of the fact that he insisted on arguing with her about the sex of the baby. Her love for him encompassed her with such a rush that she felt weak and swooned against him.

“Wild Rose,” he yelled as he caught her in his arms. He scooped her up and held her against him as he rushed from the room with her in a blind panic. When he reached the end of the long hall, he looked around until he spotted the settee in the drawing room at the front of the house.

“I’m fine,” Rose gasped. He would never want to make love to her again unless she could convince him that it was not unusual for a woman to feel faint when she was with child.

“White Owl,” she said firmly as he placed her on the paisley velvet settee and pushed her back against the pillows. “Listen to me, I am fine. Women in my condition get light-headed sometimes.” She could tell by his worried expression that he wasn’t convinced.

“We harmed my daughter with our lovemaking,” he said angrily. He kneeled on the floor beside her, oblivious to the fact that he was naked and dripping wet. His waist-length hair hung over his bare shoulders and was plastered against the sides of his face and down along the bulging muscles of his chest.

Rose rolled her eyes upward and grunted with
aggravation. “Oh, we did not, and it’s a son, not a daughter.” She couldn’t help chuckling when his worry faded into a deep frown and he pouted in a way that made him look like a five-year-old boy. The slamming of the front door interrupted Rose’s moment of mirth.

“It’s such a beautiful spring day, the children and I are going to have a pic—Oh!” Maggie Carroll stopped dead in her tracks in the doorway of the drawing room.

White Owl shot up from the floor, but then realized his precarious position. He threw his hands over his groin area, but that did little to distract from the situation.

Rose sat up on the settee and exhaled sharply. “Aunt Maggie! What—I mean—oh dear Lord!” She glanced down and realized that the blanket was wadded up around her midsection and her swollen breasts were raised attentively above the blanket. Grabbing the blanket, she yanked it up over her rapidly heaving breasts. Her gaze flitted to White Owl, who was standing in all his naked glory at attention just like her breasts; only he had nothing to cover himself with. She gasped again as her horrified gaze flew to her Aunt Maggie’s face.

Maggie had thrown her hands over her eyes in shock. She swung around and presented them with her back. “I-I-I, oh,” she choked out. “I’ll be-be in the kit-kitchen.” She disappeared as she took off running down the hall.

White Owl slowly turned to look down at Rose. His dark skin was a ruddy hue of scarlet, and his
hands were still clasped securely over his man parts. Rose could not control the burst of laughter that flew from her mouth. He was supposed to be a feared warrior, yet standing here now, there was nothing fearless about him.

“This is not funny,” White Owl growled through gritted teeth. “Your aunt—”

“Will laugh about this someday, too,” Rose cut in. She pushed herself up from the settee and wrapped the blanket around herself, tucking the ends in securely above her breasts. “I’ll go grab your clothes. I hope they are dry enough.”

White Owl huffed. “I don’t care if they are soaking wet, you bring them to me now!”

Rose started to smile, but decided against it. He still did not appear to be finding the humor in this yet. “Don’t go anywhere while I’m gone,” she could not resist adding. If possible, his scowl grew even deeper.

She rushed from the room and headed down the hall, past the doorway to the kitchen and into the washroom. The floor had more water floating on it than was in the tub. She would worry about the mess later. She had a green velvet dressing gown hanging from a hook on the wall, and she quickly slipped it on and tied the long belt around her protruding waist as she entered the kitchen. To get to the backyard and White Owl’s freshly washed clothes, she had no choice but to face her aunt.

“Aunt Maggie, I’m so sorry. But it’s really not
what you are thinking—I mean—we weren’t doing anything there—well, not right then—”

Maggie’s hands flew up in the air as she turned toward her niece. Her face was a shade of red that Rose had never seen before, and she shook her head from side to side as she threw her hands over her ears. “No—no. I don’t need to know any details. Just get that man of yours some clothes before one of my students decides to come over here to look for me.”

“Oh,” Rose gasped as she rushed out the back door. They didn’t need to traumatize anyone else today, especially one of the students. But most of all, the very last thing they needed right now was for anyone to know that White Owl was here. Hatred of the Utes since the White River Massacre had not diminished, and in fact, was growing worse.