Native Silver (3 page)

Maybe things would have felt different if he hadn’t gone away to university in the East. Maybe he would have been satisfied with life here in this backwater part of the state if he hadn’t gone away for so long. Maybe he would have been satisfied with nothing changing, with life on a slow boat to nowhere. Maybe.

But he had gone back East and he’d found out a lot about himself—that he was damn good at a lot of things. His friends were all on their way to important, exciting careers in engineering or computer science. And here he was, back at the ranch.
 

This was what he’d been born for. That was what his father had always said. But he’d never expected his father would die so soon and leave all the responsibility on his shoulders. He was restless. He couldn’t deny it. He had a vague feeling that something had to give. Glancing over at the beautiful girl who had jumped so providentially into his life, he wondered briefly if she could be the catalyst for something new. Might be. Time would tell.
 

David hadn’t said a word to Shawnee for at least ten
minutes, so when he spoke, she turned towards
him, surprised to see that he’d pulled himself up out of
the
water and was sunning on a huge boulder on
the far side of the stream.

Quickly, she turned her
gaze away from his shiny flesh.

“How did you find this place?” he was asking
curiously. “I didn’t think anyone else knew it was
here.”

She hesitated, the truth on the tip of her tongue. But no. She didn’t want to tell him who she really was. And she didn’t want to lie. So she evaded the
issue.

“You didn’t really think you could keep a place like this a secret, did you?” Her voice had a low, husky quality and she didn’t know why that was, but it seemed right for the setting, so she didn’t try
to change it. “I’ll bet this has been a secret hideaway
for lots of people, since the days of the earliest
settlers.”

Now why had she put it that way? He’d think she
meant it was a place for lovers to meet, and that wasn’t the point she wanted to make at all.

“You’re probably right.”
 

She didn’t look fully at
him, but she could tell he’d shifted his position. His voice took on a dreamy quality that might have surprised her if she’d been paying more
attention.

“Who knows? Maybe we’re re-enacting
history here.”

“Oh?” She was edging her way towards the shore, wondering with half a mind how she could make a
run for it with the least public display of skin, trying
to keep track of what he was saying with the other
half. “In what way?”

He was leaning out over the water now, his chin in his hand. “Can’t you picture it?” he asked musing
ly. “The lovely Indian maiden---” He cocked an
eyebrow at her, the devilish gleam in his eyes
hardly shuttered at all, “—that’s you—swimming in
the waterfall, her inky-black hair spread out
around her. She’s stolen away from her tribe to find
a moment’s privacy, to think, to dream.”

“To get clean,” Shawnee countered drily. She
couldn’t tell for sure if he was teasing her, or if he
really enjoyed gazing back into the past, but she
wasn’t going to let him catch her flat-footed. “And my hair’s not inky.”

He frowned his disapproval for her mundane
view of history.
 

“She’s stolen time to dream,” he said firmly. “As she floats in the water, she hears the sound of hoof beats
coming closer—closer.”

“And she runs for her life,” Shawnee offered.

David sighed with mock impatience. “She does nothing of the sort. She waits, alert, sensing some
how that this visitor is going to be someone who will
change her life.”

He was surprising her with this turn for the romantic. She would never have guessed he had stories like this floating around in his head. She
found herself fighting hard to hold back her curi
osity.
 

“And the visitor?” she asked with attempted
casualness.

“The visitor is a tall, handsome caballero on a
black stallion, newly arrived from Spain.”
 

She couldn’t resist a chuckle at that. “Gee, I couldn’t guess who
this handsome guy might be.”

David
threw her a mock glare. “It’s me, of c
ourse. Who else?” He narrowed his eyes, looking back
in time. “He’s dressed in dark twill pants with silver buttons lining the seams. His white linen shirt is
open at the neck, and a red sash is tied about his
waist.”

Shawnee smiled, remembering that she’d seen
David dressed exactly that way in a Californio Days
parade years before. He’d been riding a palomino, though. She’d thought at the time he was the
handsomest man she’d ever seen, even if he was a
Santiago.

“And what happens when he arrives?” She was caught up in the story now, intrigued and moving
towards the boulder he was reclining on rather than
away, looking straight into David’s dark eyes,
totally forgetting that the two of them were naked
as the day they’d been born.

“He reins in his horse, seeing the lovely girl in the
water. For a long moment, they gaze at one another. The girl feels no fear. The caballero can
hardly believe his eyes. Slowly, he slides down off
the horse and walks towards the stream.”

“And then?” Her voice sounded breathless, but she hardly noticed.

“He’s been on a long voyage from Spain, and an even more tiring trip on horseback up from Mex
ico. It’s been a long, long time since he’s seen a
woman, especially one as beautiful as the girl he
sees before him. For a moment, he thinks she must
be a mirage. He goes down on one knee to take up a
handful of water and drink, his eyes never leaving her.”

Somehow Shawnee had come close enough so
that David could easily reach out and take a strand
of her wet hair in his fingers, but she had no
inclination to stop him, or to move away again.

His voice was so low now, it was almost a whis
per. “She moves toward him in the stream, as
though drawn by an irresistible force. He can see
her naked body through the clear water, her
rounded breasts, her white thighs. He can hardly
breathe. Suddenly he needs her more than he needs
the water to slake his thirst.”

David’s eyes were dark, but it was a misty darkness that pulled her in and let her wander like a lost
thing in a fog. She felt as though she could stare into
them forever and never, ever get bored.

“Then what happened?” she whispered when he
didn’t go on.

But the mood had shifted. David was staring
back at her, and suddenly she had the idea that
something about what he saw disturbed him. When he finally spoke, his voice was almost harsh, a direct
contrast to the ambience he’d created with his story.

“He waded in and grabbed her, what do you think
happened?”

Her head snapped back and she stepped away
from him, as shocked as if he’d dashed her with cold
water. “No!” she protested.

“Of course he did.” David sat up, seemingly tired of the whole affair. “He threw her across the saddle and took her back to his camp with him.”

“Like a deer he might have caught for dinner?”

The new turn outraged her and she wouldn’t stand for it. “He did
nothing of the kind.”

David looked at her speculatively. “Oh no? Then what do you
think happened?”

She avoided his eyes. “He took off his clothes and
joined
her in the stream,” she said tentatively and
immediately regretted it. That was much too close to what had actually happened here today.

But David didn’t even seem to notice the connec
tion. He hooted his opinion of her version. “He didn’t do that, I promise you. Men in those days never took their clothes off for anything. They
wore the same thing for years at a time. He would have fought to the death before taking his clothes
off in front of a woman, anyway.”

She knew he was probably right, but she still
couldn’t accept his ending to the romance. “All right. All right.” She thought fast. “Then he
watched her for a few moments, hardly able to breathe, just like you said. And then . . . and then he ran for his horse and sped away, not daring to
look back.”

“What?” David’s face exhibited his disdain for her
version.

“Yes, that’s what he did.” She raised her chin with false bravado. “But he held the image of her beauty
in his heart forever.”

“Totally unbelievable.”

“It is not. Men in those days had more respect for women. Things like rape were almost unheard of in
the old West.”

“Who said anything about rape?” Now she’d really offended him. “She’d made it obvious that she wanted him, too.”

“And just how had she done that?” She would
have laughed at how seriously he was taking this if she weren’t being just as silly herself.

“By looking into his eyes,” he stated with com
plete certainty. “By moving toward him in the
water.”

By doing just what she’d been doing for the last ten minutes? Shawnee began backing away as fast
as she dared.
 

“You take a lot for granted, Mister,” she murmured, wondering if she could get to her
horse in less than five seconds. “I think it’s time for
me to leave.”

He looked after her sternly, then his face relaxed into a crooked grin. “Don’t worry. I’ve got no plans
to throw you over my saddle.”

“Good thinking,” she retorted, looking back over
her shoulder. “If you did, I’m afraid I’d have to
shatter a few of your precious assumptions about
women and what they want.”

As she watched, he dived into the water, his body
a flash of brown strength as the sunlight reflected along his length, and she found herself stopping to
watch it, her breath caught in her throat. He had
the physical beauty of an animal from the wild, and
she knew she couldn’t count on him to be any tamer, either. It was high time she vacated the scene.

He rose from the water, shaking the drops from his hair, and she paused. “I’m getting out now. I’m
counting on you to look the other way.” She tried to
make her voice very sure and bold, hoping he
would do what was obviously right. But one glance into his laughing eyes and her heart sank.

“Not a chance,” he told her lightly. “You’ve still got to pay
for your trespassing ways. As the injured
party, I decree that payment shall be in the form of
one long look at your lovely white body as you rise with sensuous
dignity from the water.”
He narrowed his eyes teasingly. “I
think that’s a pretty
light sentence, don’t you?”

She was annoyed, chagrined and flattered, all at the
same time, and she held back the sharp reaction
that sprang to her lips. She was hesitating at the
edge of the pool, trying to gather courage for the run
up the shore. Staring at him for just a fraction of a moment, she realized it was now or never. Something in his gaze told her she’d better make a
run for it while she had the chance.

Turning, Shawnee gritted her teeth and began a
quick scramble up the bank, out of the cool water.
She didn’t have to look back to see if he was
watching. She knew he was. But she wasn’t going to
let it paralyze her.

The bush that held her clothes looked a hundred miles away. She ran for it, but her steps seemed to
take so long, just as they did in dreams, reaching for
a goal that never came any closer.

Finally she was there and she stepped behind the
bush, knowing it offered scant concealment, but
willing to use anything she could get. Now to pull on her clothes as quickly as possible and get out of
here!

Everything stuck to her damp skin, making her
wish she’d had time to sun herself dry as she’d
always done in the old days, when she’d been the
only person in the world who knew about this
special place. Before David Santiago had come
pushing his way in.

She wondered where he was right now, what he
was doing, but she didn’t dare look. Then she had her boots pulled on and was ready to jump up on Miki and ride off when she heard his step behind her. She whirled, backing up against her horse,
surprised to find David dressed in his riding-
breeches and boots, with his shirt slung over his
tanned shoulder.

“That’s a beautiful animal you’ve got there.”
 

He
was looking at Miki, not at her. She ran a nervous
tongue across her lips.

“He’s all right,” she answered evasively, wishing
David had stayed in the stream. She wanted to
leave right away. If he should notice anything amiss
with her horse, all her plans would be so much dust
in the wind.