Larkspur (38 page)

Chapter Twenty-four

K
ristin awakened when Buck lifted her from the horse. She was dazed with fatigue and her legs were numb. He held her until she was able to stand alone, then led her into the tepee where a small fire burned in the center, the smoke going out the hole in the top of the cone-shaped structure.

“Stay here where it’s warm. I’ll unsaddle the horse.”

He had thrown the stirrup up over the saddle to unfasten the cinch when she appeared beside him, shivering from the cold.

“I’ll stay with you—”

He slipped out of his coat and put it around her shoulders. When he carried the saddle into the tepee, she was right behind him. The boy who had taken his horse that morning appeared and spoke to Buck, his dark eyes stealing glances at Kristin.

“Iron Jaw say take Lenning’s horse.”

“What’s your name?”

“Three Toes. Soon I bring water and food.”

“We would thank Three Toes for water that is warm so that we can be clean.”

“Iron Jaw has commanded that I do that.”

After the boy left Buck explained to Kristin what had been said, then took his bedroll from behind his saddle and rolled it out on a pile of furs beside the fire. Kristin watched him. Her hair was a tangled mass framing her white face, her blue eyes clouded with fatigue.

He went to her and grasped her upper arms. In the dim light of the flickering fire he could see the tired lines around her eyes. He didn’t want to add to the distress that had already been heaped upon her, but there was a thing he had to say.

“We must spend the night here . . . together. They believe we are man and wife. You’re not to worry that—that I’ll—”

“I want to sleep with you—”

“Sit down, honey. The boy will bring water for you to wash in and some to drink. He’ll bring food.” He eased her down to sit on his bedroll.

“You don’t want to sleep with me.” She said it in a resigned tone of voice.

He knelt down beside her and began unlacing her shoes.

“I want to sleep with you. God, how I want to!” He could not look at her for fear she’d see the longing in his eyes. “But I don’t want you to do something tonight because you’re worn-out that you’ll regret tomorrow.”

As he was removing her shoes the boy came with a kettle of water. He set it beside the fire and went out again. Buck opened one of his saddlebags and removed a cloth and a small slab of soap.

“I always carry this. I never know when I’m going to fall in a mud hole,” he said in an attempt to lighten her mood.

He wet the cloth in the kettle, handed it to her and sat back on his heels to watch her. Her hair, her beautiful hair, was short on one side and jagged where he had cut her braid with his knife, the other side was snarled and hanging down her back.

She wiped her face with the warm cloth and groaned with pleasure.

“Oh, it feels so good.”

When she finished, she rinsed the cloth in the warm water and, on her knees beside him, she ran the cloth lovingly over his rough cheeks, his forehead and into the corners of his eyes where dust had gathered. Dark lashes hid his eyes, but she knew they were on her face. He remained perfectly still as a long-buried memory of someone washing his face with loving hands came tumbling through his mind.
Was it the mother he had long forgotten?

When she was finished, Kristin placed soft kisses on his forehead as if she were comforting a small child. Then with her arms around him she drew his head to her breast. With her lips in his wild dark hair and her eyes tightly closed she prayed:

Dear God, please find a way for me to be with this man for the rest of my life. I will be a good wife to him. He is so deserving, and he has been so long without anyone to love him.

The boy came in with a basket, set it down and left without their noticing he had been there. She continued to hold Buck and stroke his head and his cheeks.

He closed his eyes and gave himself up to this wonderful moment. He could hear the steady beat of her heart against his ear. He turned his head so that his lips were against her soft breast. He gloried in the scent of her woman’s body. It was heaven—it was hell not to wrap her in his arms and blurt out his love for her.

When he moved, her arms fell away from him and she sat back down on the bedroll.

“I’ll go out if you want to undress and wash all over.”

“No! Don’t go.” She reached under her skirt, and rolled off her stockings and rubbed her tired feet.

Buck wet the cloth and lifted her feet to rest on his thighs. He washed one gently with the warm cloth, then did the same to the other foot. Kristin’s love for him grew. Never had anyone risked so much, or tended her as gently as this man she had known for only a few short weeks. She had not imagined there was a man like him and now he was woven into the fabric of her life, making her depend on him, making her love him.

“Maybe I was hasty taking off your shoes.” His voice was husky with emotion. “If you need to go outside, I’ll slip them back on.”

“Will you go with me?”

“Sure.”

“Let’s go then.” Kristin slipped her bare feet into the shoes. Buck draped his coat around her.

“I had my shawl last night. It got lost along the way.”

“Can you make another out of that blue yarn?”

“The sky blue? You’re afraid I’ll knit socks for you out of that yarn,” she teased.

They walked out into the darkness. Behind a thick fir tree, Buck stopped.

“You’ll be all right here. I’ll not be far away.”

“Don’t leave me. I don’t care if . . . if you stay.” Her voice was a mere breath of a whisper.

“I’ll be just a few steps away. Call me.”

“Don’t go far.” Kristin fumbled with her clothing, squatted down and quickly relieved her swollen bladder. She stood and called out to him even as she rearranged her clothing. “Buck.”

“Here I am.” His hand reached for her. She went to him eagerly.

With his arm holding her securely to his side, they went back to the warm shelter. Buck closed the door flap and put more sticks on the fire. He brought the food basket to the bedroll.

“You may not care for Indian food, but you should eat. We’ve got miles to travel tomorrow.”

“Do you like it?”

“I’m used to it.”

The basket held cold roasted grouse, flat Indian bread and a food Buck told her was
wasna,
a pemmican made with dried meat pounded with chokecherries and stuffed into sack casings instead of a buffalo bladder as was done in days of old. There were also wild plums and grapes.

“A feast,” Kristin said, and smiled.

“It is. The only thing lacking is Indian turnips, cane shoots, mushrooms, boiled onions and a hindquarter of . . . ah . . . meat.”

“What kind of meat?” Kristin pulled away a piece of the grouse.

“You don’t want to know.” His eyes smiled into hers.

“Yes, I do. This meat is very good. What kind of meat?” she asked again.

“Dog.” He watched her, his eyes shining with amusement.

“Did you say—?”

“Yes.”

“Like . . . Sam?”

“Yes.”

She raised her brows and her mouth formed a silent O. Then she took a deep breath and smiled.

“I can’t let it spoil my supper. This
wasna
isn’t bad. It’s kind of gritty though.”

“That’s the chokecherry seeds in it. Very little in the way of food goes to waste.”

The fire had burned low by the time they finished eating. Kristin wiped her hands on the wet cloth, then offered it to Buck.

Into the silence that followed Kristin asked, “Do you think everything is all right back . . . back home?”

“If not, wouldn’t your cousin have told you?”

“I mean at Larkspur. Wisconsin is no longer my home.”

“Your cousin wants to take you back there.”

“He hasn’t mentioned it because he knows I wouldn’t go. He knows my heart is here now.”

“You love him?” The question was so important to him that he couldn’t look at her.

“Yes. I love him the same way Bonnie loves Bernie. He is almost my twin. After my mother died, he was the only person who cared about me. My brother, Ferd, took me into his home because it would have looked bad if he hadn’t, but he never really cared for me. Maybe it was because we had different mothers.”

After another long awkward silence, Buck said, “I’ll put out the fire if you want to take off your dress and lie down.”

“You don’t have to put it out.”

Kristin’s fingers worked at the buttons on the front of her dress. She averted her eyes in sudden confusion.

“Reckon I’ll step outside,” Buck got to his feet.

She didn’t ask him to stay or if he would be nearby. She followed him with large questioning eyes. When she was alone, she stood, removed her dress and her drawers, leaving only her thin shift covering her body. Feeling wanton and scared, but determined, she lay down on the bedroll, turned on her side and pulled Buck’s blanket up over her.

After a while she began to feel a little fluttering sensation in her stomach. Would he come back? He had said they must stay together tonight. He had not answered when she asked if they would sleep together. He would have come to take her from the Indian out of loyalty to her Uncle Yarby. That was the kind of man he was. But had she misread his intentions when he called her his love? Honey? Sweetheart?

Tears of frustration and confusion were trickling from between her closed eyelids when she heard him enter the tepee. Regardless of her doubts, her resolve was firm. She would have this night with him. She opened her eyes and saw him squatting beside the fire.

“Come to bed. I know you’re tired.”

“Kristin—” His voice was strained. “I’m too dirty to sleep there with you.”

“Not if you . . . take off your clothes.”

“Oh, Lord—” Could he endure the gut-crushing agony of losing her if he was unable to control his desire for her and she was repulsed by him?

“Come.” She folded back the blanket in invitation. “What harm is there in us sharing these blankets?”

The hunger to be with her, sleep with her in his arms, was too great. He stood and pulled off his shirt. Kristin could not pull her eyes away. His dark hair, wild as usual, matched the mat on his chest that tapered to his navel. By the dim light of the dying fire she could see that his shoulders were broad, heavily muscled and that his skin was darker than hers and smooth.

He sat down on the end of the bedroll and removed his boots. He was as still as a stone for a full minute as if trying to come to a decision. His big, shaggy head turned toward her.

“These . . . britches are filthy—”

“So was my dress.”

He stood, worked at his belt and stepped quickly out of the heavy duck pants. She had seen the knee-length underwear he wore when she washed his clothes. It looked different now on his magnificently sculptured body than it had when she hung it on the line. She held her breath at the wonder of being here with him like this.

He slid under the blanket. A moan escaped him when his arms closed around her, and he pulled her into the curve of his big, hard body.

“Ahhh—” she breathed joyously, and tugged the blanket up and about his naked shoulders. She was safely ensconced against his firm, wide chest. She felt the sigh that went through him before she heard it.

“This feels good—”

“More than good—wonderful,” she snuggled against him and whispered against his shoulder.

“More than wonderful. Much more.”

For an endless time he held her clamped to him, desperate in his hunger to feel every inch of her, breathing hard into her hair. She tilted her head. His lips unerringly found hers. They caught and clung, released and caught again. They laughed together, low, intimate, joyous. Her moist breath on his neck preceded her lips that fastened and made little sucking movements reducing him to a quivering mass of pleasure.

“Humm . . . I’m so warm,” she murmured and giggled happily. “I didn’t know you had . . . hair on your chest.”

“I wish I had shaved.”

“I don’t mind.” Her fingertips went to his cheeks, to his lips. She laughed again, her face in the curve of his neck.

“I’ll scratch your face.”

“I have so many sore spots, one more won’t matter.”

“Where? Where do you hurt?” His arms loosened. “Am I hurting you?”

“No.” Her arms tightened about him. “Buck? Do you think I’m a . . . bad woman for wanting to be with you like this?”

“Why would I think that? I wanted it, too. I wanted it so bad my insides were tied up in knots.”

“We can be together like this . . . all night long.” She yawned. “I wish I wasn’t so tired.”

A great wave of tenderness washed over him. She was wonderful, magnificent, and had stood up far better than most women would have under the circumstances. If he had nothing else, he would have this night with her to remember. The niggling fear that she might not want him after they returned to the Larkspur and she was with Gustaf again lingered in the back of his mind.

“Go to sleep, sweetheart,” he whispered with his lips against her forehead.

“Will you sleep, too? Oh . . . I’m so comfortable. Are you? Are you warm?” She tucked the blanket closer about his shoulders.

“I could sleep on a pile of rocks with you in my arms.”

“What a lovely thing to say! Will you tell me that in the morning?”

She sighed. Her head was pillowed on his arm, her legs interlaced with his, her breasts pressed to his chest. The feelings they had for each other were wholly without passion. More than thirty-six hours of physical and mental stress had taken a toll on their young bodies.

Kristin was first to fall asleep. The man holding her wanted to stay awake in order not to lose a minute of this time with her. But after two days in the saddle with a scant two hours of sleep, his body demanded rest.

He awakened several times in the night. Once was when Kristin turned, and pressed her back to his chest and her firm, round buttocks to his groin. He settled her head on his arm and went back to sleep. Another time he awakened to find his hand cupping her breast and her hand on his holding it there. His face was buried in her hair. He sighed with contentment and went back to sleep.