Follow the Sun (52 page)

“Facedown on the ground. Spread-eagle. Say a word and I’ll turn you into cheddar cheese … Swiss cheese.”

Kat grimaced. She was so intimidating. She couldn’t even get her cheeses right.

The giant shrugged, sighed, and lowered himself with surprising grace to the forest floor.

“Eat the ground,” she ordered, feeling desperate with fear. He sighed again and stuck his face into dark humus that was damp from an afternoon rain.

“Yo, Kat!” Nathan called from somewhere in the woods near camp. He sang coyly, “Here, kitty, here, kitty!”

“Naaaathaan!” she screamed. Within seconds she heard him crashing through the forest, taking a shortcut to the trail.

He burst onto it, his hand wrapped around the hilt of his bowie knife. “What?”

“I caught this guy on our land!”
Our
seemed appropriate. It had just popped out.

Nathan ran up to her, halted in midstride, and stared at the captive, who still had his face buried in the forest floor.

Kat watched in consternation as Nathan dropped the knife, clasped his stomach, and bent over laughing. “D-Drake L-Lancaster.” He wheezed. “Caught by my Katie.”

Oh no. Drake Lancaster, Nathan’s co-worker? She stared at the huge man in horrified embarrassment. He remained flat, but his back quivered with laughter, and he raised his head slowly.

She’s perfect for you, Nathan.”

D
RAKE RETURNED FROM
his room in Gold Ridge early the next morning, met them at the site of the Blue Song home, and squinted at Kat in amusement when she solemnly apologized one more time.

Then he stripped down to hiking shorts and boots, grabbed a shovel, and attacked the house site like a human bulldozer. Nathan wore only jogging shorts and his hiking boots, and Kat felt positively overdressed because she had to wear a bra and T-shirt with her shorts.

But after Drake returned to the inn for the day …

She followed the two men, picking up the things they unearthed, smiling when Nathan looked over and made clucking noises at her.

She really did feel like a little hen searching for goodies, and she found plenty to cluck about. By noon she’d stacked twenty window sash weights in a neat pyramid beside a smaller pile of nails, hinges, and miscellaneous metal.

But her big find was four buttons and a handful of musket balls.

“Nathan!” She went over to him excitedly and presented the items in her cupped palms. “Look! They were all in the same spot!”

After carefully scratching dirt off one button with a twig, Nathan’s expression became pensive. He held it so that a stripe of sunlight would illuminate the features.

“It’s got a U.S. Army insignia.”

She frowned. “But what would that be doing near the musket balls? Nathan, are you saying a soldier was killed here? But there’s no skeleton!”

Drake came over and examined the items. He was a very quiet, private person. Kat had already noticed, and he seemed to feel awkward around her, though he certainly wasn’t shy. She judged he was just self-conscious in the manner of large, brutal-looking men who were accustomed to being feared whether they warranted it or not.

As he volunteered technical information about the musket balls, Kat eyed him curiously. Nathan had said that he coordinated on-site security for Tri-State mines, and it was obvious he was a weapons expert.

“So what you’re saying,” Nathan observed when
he’d finished describing the balls, “is that these probably hit hard objects—stone or metal—not people.”

“Yes. If the buttons fit the time period when the Cherokees were removed, then it’s possible the army was up here, and these could be musket shots they fired inside the house.”

Kat gave Nathan a troubled look. Her heart felt like a fist in her chest. “Damn,” she said softly.

He laid a hand against her cheek. “There could be a lot of explanations.”

“Yeah, I know. But that one jibes with history. There was a lot of violence when the Cherokees were rounded up.”

“Well, could be that soldiers came into the house after the family left,” Drake offered. “And shot the place up just for the hell of it. One of them could’ve left a jacket behind. The jacket rotted but the buttons didn’t.”

“But I thought white settlers took over the deserted houses and cabins,” Kat said. “Why would they let this one sit here until it fell down?”

Nathan stroked her cheek. “Justis owned it, remember? Nobody’d try to move into the house if the place was claimed by an important man like him.”

“Great,” Kat said bitterly. “So the only thing that saved the place was the fact that he stole it from Great-Great-Grandmother’s family. Real noble of him. I wonder why he didn’t move his white wife up here. Heck, maybe he did.”

“Aw, Katie, it wasn’t like that.”

Kat stared at him. Whenever he spoke in that strange, certain way, calling her Katie, a feeling of trust came over her.

His eyes locked on hers as if he were trying to remember something and looking at her helped. “Don’t know,” he said after a few seconds, wearily, and the intensity faded from his eyes. “It just seems to me that Justis was most likely a decent man. Maybe I want to like him for your sake.”

She smiled a little then. “That’s a good enough reason for me, sweetcakes.”

“Let me take these buttons and musket balls into town,” Drake told them. “There’s a gun shop there run by an old codger who knows local history. He might confirm the button ID.”

“Yeah, okay,” Nathan answered. Looking at Kat, he said, “I’ll walk to camp and bring back some lunch. Why don’t you sit down and prop your ankle up on something?”

She nodded. “I’d kinda like to be alone here for a while.” Kat looked around wistfully. “To think.”

Drake got into a mud-spattered Jeep and drove away. Nathan hugged her tenderly, then swung off down the front side of the ridge, his proud, athletic stride holding her gaze until he was hidden by the trees.

Kat sat down on a log and stretched her injured leg out. Well, she had Nathan, she had her land, and even if there was a lot of sadness connected to her family’s history she was going to love living here.

Especially if Nathan would live here with her.

Kat propped her chin on her hands and stared at the ground, trying to re-create the Blue Song house from its ghosts, wondering what had happened the day the soldiers came. How had Katlanicha escaped? When had she met Justis? Some things would always be a mystery.

A few minutes later she lifted her head at the sound of a vehicle driving up the trail. Hmmm, Drake must have forgotten something.

But the car that pulled to a stop a few yards away from her sitting place was a fancy, late-model station wagon. And the person who got out was not Drake.

Kat rose in surprise as a statuesque, curvaceous young woman came toward her, head up, eyes imperious, majestic even in soft leather boots, jeans, and a ruffled white blouse. The woman’s dark eyes and ethnic features, her bronzed skin and long black
hair convinced Kat she was about to meet a fellow Cherokee—and an extraordinary-looking one.

“Hi ya,” Kat said, cheerfully impressed by the stranger. This babe could make a mint if she ever wanted to wrestle.

The woman stopped less than two feet from Kat, tried to freeze her with a dignified glare, and said softly, “Tell me where he is, and then get out of my sight.”

CHAPTER 7

S
HOCK MADE A
raw and brassy taste in Kat’s mouth. She jammed her hands into the front pockets of her cutoffs and the soft denim bunched under her clenched fingers.

“If you were important, I’d have heard about you,” she told the woman.

Dark eyes gleamed fiercely. “Where is he?”

Kat shook her head.
Please, this isn’t happening. Nathan couldn’t have another lover
. She lifted her chin proudly. “I don’t know what you were to him, but it’s over now.”

“Oh? Just let me talk to him. Is he even here, or did he desert you the way he deserted me?”

A tone of despair rang through the visitor’s voice. Kat looked at her wretchedly. “He walked over to our, over there”—she pointed limply—”to get something from camp. He’ll be back.”

“Are you the one he bought the bra for?” The woman measured Kat’s chest size with a gaze that held anguish. “No, you’re too big.” Her shoulders slumped
and she said in a small, stunned voice, “Oh lord. He’s got another one besides us.”

Weak-kneed, Kat hobbled to the log and sank down numbly. “I don’t believe it.”

“Believe it. I saw the bra. It had a pink bow tied on it.” Moving wearily, ramming her hands through hair even longer than Kat’s, the woman lowered herself to the ground and sighed in defeat. “How long have
you
known him?”

“A few weeks.” Kat tried to ignore the dread knotting her stomach. “How about you?”

“A few weeks. He left without saying good-bye-three weeks ago. I thought he’d come back, until I heard about you.”

They traded stricken looks. The visitor shook her head and struggled noticeably not to cry. “I’ve known other men who had a thing for Cherokee women, but I thought he was different. I thought he was sincere when he said he loved me.”

Kat wanted to die. Nathan had never said that to
her
. “I just cannot buy this story,” she said with renewed defensiveness.

“Me either,” the woman said with a catch in her voice. “He seemed so special. I’ve never met anyone like him before. I mean, it was like I’d known him all my life.”

Kat covered her face. “Oh no, it’s true.”

“I’m from the reservation up in North Carolina. Where are you from, around here?”

“Miami.”

The woman made a soft sound of misery. “He
said
that he traveled a lot.”

Kat got up and moved away, trembling. “I can’t talk about this anymore. I don’t want to be bawling my eyes out when he comes back.”

“No.” The visitor sniffed tearfully. “You’re right.”

“I guess we should introduce ourselves,” Kat said, her throat on fire. “My name’s Kat Gallatin.”

“I know. Erica’s cousin.” She held her head and looked at Kat with despair. “I’m Echo Tall Wolf.”

“Not from Grandpa Sam’s family!”

“Yes. That’s how I heard of you.”

“Oh no!” Kat hugged herself to keep from crying out loud and turned her back. “N-no more talk.”

“R-right.”

Kat limped farther from her and leaned rigidly against a dogwood tree. She and Echo Tall Wolf waited in silent, shared misery that seemed to last an eternity.

Finally Kat heard the rugged sound of a powerful engine and knew that Drake Lancaster was returning. She turned around and saw Nathan top the ridge, his knapsack hanging jauntily over one shoulder.

Great timing, harmonica man, she thought. Now Drake can be our audience.

She walked over to Echo, who got up hurriedly, brushing leaves from her jeans and looking from the approaching Jeep to Nathan. “I guess we’re going to have an audience,” she said grimly.

“Yeah. A friend of his.”

“Well, it couldn’t be any worse than it is already.”

They stood side by side, waiting.

After he studied Echo Tall Wolf for a second, Nathan looked at Kat quizzically. His stride casual, he never faltered. Kat couldn’t take her eyes off his lean, tanned body covered only by shorts and hiking boots, the body he’d shared with Echo Tall Wolf only a few weeks ago. She was dimly aware of the Jeep door slamming as Drake Lancaster got out.

“He’s always so damned calm,” Echo murmured hoarsely.

“Yeah.” Kat gritted her teeth. Nathan didn’t look more than a tiny bit intrigued to see two of his lovers waiting where only one had been before.

Drake strode toward them, frowning, one enormous hand clenched lightly over the front of the T-shirt he’d donned for the trip to town. He and Nathan reached them about the same time and stopped.

“Who’d you give the bra to?” Kat asked coldly. “You know, the bra with the pink bow on it?”

“Bra?” Nathan asked.

“What kind of work do you really do?” Echo interjected.

Kat touched her arm and their eyes met. “He’s a geologist.”

Echo gasped. “He told me that he was a biologist studying pollution for the forestry service.”