To Find You Again (19 page)

After a moment, he lifted his head. "So how did you learn to play poker?"

She smiled. "How else? From a book."

Ridge laughed, and the rare sound filled Emma with both longing and pleasure.

"You have a beautiful laugh," she said.

His laughter faded, replaced by a man's hunger for a woman. He stroked Emma's cheek with a featherlight touch and shivers coursed through her body to land in a hot pool in her belly. It would be so easy to surrender to passion again, but their talk of love reminded Emma of more important matters, like caring for her son. If she got with child, it would make planning for the future even more difficult. She only hoped she didn't already bear the result of her reckless behavior in the cabin.

Ridge drew back, frowning. "What is it?"

He must've sensed her sudden anxiety.

"I should be getting Chayton settled for the night," she said, hoping he didn't notice the huskiness in her voice.

"I'll carry him," Ridge offered.

Unable to resist, Emma nodded and allowed Ridge to lift him into his arms. He rose carefully with Chayton sleeping openmouthed against his shoulder. Holding Chayton with one arm under his backside, Ridge offered his other hand to Emma to help her to her feet. She released him and opened the flap of their tipi, allowing him with his precious burden to enter first. Emma let the flap fall behind her, muting the drums and chants of the celebration.

She remembered nights like this vividly, except it was Enapay, not Ridge who accompanied her into the lodge. And after Chayton was asleep, Enapay would take Emma, usually gently, but sometimes fiercely, although he was always careful not to hurt her.

But tonight, Emma would sleep with her son, and Ridge would have a separate skin. She couldn't afford to let her body's demands dictate her choices anymore.

"Lay him down over there," Emma said, pointing to a pile of buffalo hides on the far side of the fire pit.

Ridge gently laid the boy down, and remained squatting beside him. With one callused finger, he traced Chayton's cheek. "He looks like you," he whispered.

Despite herself, Emma knelt beside Ridge and gazed down into the beloved boy's round face. "I always thought he looked like Enapay."

"He's got your stubborn chin and cute button nose," Ridge said.

Emma's throat felt thick and she rested her hand on Ridge's forearm, feeling the muscle cord beneath her fingers. He made her feel like a young girl again, giddy and awkward, yet with a woman's knowledge of what could be if she allowed it.

"Emma," Ridge said, his warm breath fanning across her cheek. "We should get some rest, too."

She nodded jerkily and withdrew her hand from his sleeve. "It's been a long day," she managed to say. "I'll sleep with Chayton."

"Good idea."

He crawled over to the other pile of buffalo hides, pulled off his moccasins, and removed his coat. He slid between the thick skins and turned his head toward the tipi wall.

Emma's palms moistened, urging her to glide down beside Ridge's hard body and join with him. They would both enjoy pleasuring the other, and even just after one night together, Emma found she missed sleeping with him spooned behind her with an arm draped around her waist.

She sighed and tugged off her moccasins, then lay beside her son. For the first time in five months, she could sleep knowing Chayton was alive and well.

Ridge awoke, instantly alert, but heard nothing but the wind whispering through the budding trees and low snores emanating from nearby lodges. It took him a moment to figure out it was the absence of sound—the drums and chanting—that had awakened him.

The fire in their tipi had burned down and a chill seeped in. Ridge took a deep breath, preparing himself for the cold air, and threw back the heavy hides. He added some wood from the small pile beside the pit and watched a tiny flame flicker to life, only to die and struggle to return. He leaned down and blew gently across the embers, which flared and the added wood burst into flame. This time it remained alive, and Ridge held his cool hands above the growing fire.

A movement from the other bed caught his attention and he spotted Chayton crawling out from between the buffalo hides.

Ridge intercepted the boy before he could slip out of the tipi, and lifted him into his arms. "Where're you going, little fella?"

Chayton pointed down at himself.

Ridge grinned wryly. "I'll go with you, pard," he said quietly, not wanting to wake Emma.

The boy bounced in his arms.
"Wana."

"Okay, now." Ridge swiftly carried Chayton outside and set him on his feet. The boy lifted his tunic out of the way and aimed toward a bush. While he relieved himself, Ridge shrugged and did the same.

Ridge closed his trousers and adjusted Chayton's tunic, in the pre-dawn's gloom. Another hour or two and the Lakota would be rising.

"Chayton," came Emma's fearful call.

"C'mon, cub, we'd best get back inside before your mama has a fit," Ridge said.

Chayton only yawned and knuckled his sleep-filled eyes.

Ridge took the boy's hand and led him back into the lodge, where Emma was readying to leave, her expression frantic. She gasped and dropped to her knees in front of

Chayton, hugging him close and kissing him.

"You frightened me, Chayton. I didn't know where you were," Emma said hoarsely.

"He had to go outside so I went with him," Ridge explained. "I thought you were asleep."

With her arms still around the boy, she gazed up at him. Fear filled her eyes. "I woke up and he was gone. I thought—" Her voice cracked.

"It's all right, Emma," Ridge reassured her awkwardly, not liking the haunted expression in her eyes. "Chayton's just fine."

She bowed her head, revealing the pale skin at the back of her slender neck. Ridge remembered how sweet her soft skin had tasted there, and her breathy moans of pleasure as she'd begged for more. He dug his fingernails into his palms to keep from reaching for her, to offer her comfort, and anything else she might need. Or want.

"After I was brought back to my parents' ranch, I had nightmares. I couldn't save him no matter how hard I tried." Emma's voice was muffled by Chayton's shoulder. The boy protested her snug grip and she immediately loosened her hold. She drew a hand across her eyes and Ridge could see the effort it took to smile at her son. "Sleep," she said in Lakota to her son.

As Emma resettled Chayton and herself in their bed, Ridge slid back between his own furs and laid on his side, facing them. She sang quietly to her son, and Ridge closed his eyes to listen to her achingly sweet voice. Just as with reading, Emma's singing was easy on his ears and made him recall the only time in his life when he'd felt loved and protected.

Once Chayton's breathing evened out, Emma's song faded away. A hollow yearning filled Ridge, along with bittersweet memories and wishes that were best left locked away.

"I had one of his moccasins in my pocket when the army took me from the village."

Emma's confiding voice startled Ridge out of his musings. He opened his eyes and focused on the dim oval of her face.

"I managed to keep it hidden from my parents," she continued. "But every night when I'd go to bed I'd take it out of its hiding place and hold it against my chest, imagining I was holding my son. It kept me from going crazy."

Merely thinking of Emma's anguish made Ridge's gut ache. He could picture her in her room late at night, the tiny piece of hide clutched to her breast.

"Why didn't you tell your family about him?"

She laughed softly but bitterly. "What do
you
think my father would've said if I had told him?"

Ridge could only imagine, and what he did imagine wasn't fit for a lady's ears.

"I'm fearful about taking Chayton back there," she confessed.

Ridge levered himself up on an elbow. "You're planning on taking him back to your father's ranch?"

"Of course. He's my son."

"He's Lakota."

"He's as much white as he is Lakota."

As much as Ridge understood her dilemma, he also knew how she and her child would be shunned. He had personally seen how white women with half-Indian children were treated. "Have you thought this through, Emma? I mean, folks ain't going to take to him."

"I'll protect him," Emma said and Ridge could almost see her chin jut out stubbornly.

And who'll protect you?

"What about school? No one's going to let a half-breed attend school." Ridge deliberately used the slur others would use as a dirty word.

"I'll teach him myself." He could feel the burn of Emma's glare across the lodge floor. "Why are you saying these things? Once I found my son, did you think I would just abandon him again?"

"He's happy here."

"He's my son! Where I go, he goes." Emma rolled over, turning away from Ridge, and effectively ending their conversation.

Ridge lowered himself back to his bed. Emma was serious about raising Chayton in a world that had little compassion for someone like him. Couldn't she see how much better off he was here with people who loved and cared for him?

Ridge was intimately familiar with how hurtful other children could be to someone who was "different." He wouldn't wish that kind of childhood on anyone, especially an innocent boy like Chayton.

Closing his eyes, Ridge tried to sleep, but found slumber elusive. His eyes flew open as another thought struck— would the People even allow one of their own to be taken away? Even by the boy's own mother? The Lakota treated their children as children of the tribe, and they belonged to everyone, not just the parents who brought them into the world. Children were raised together and women looked after all of them, regardless of blood relationship. Mothers allowed other babies in addition to their own to suckle from their breasts.

Ridge gnashed his teeth. If he'd known Emma's real motive for finding her band, he would never have allowed her to bribe him with one hundred dollars. Chayton was better off here than he would be in a world that would treat him no better— probably even worse—than a stray dog.

Chapter 12

Emma straightened from her task of scraping an antelope hide and stretched her back, hearing a collection of pops along her spine. She'd forgotten how toilsome the day-to-day drudgery could be, but she was determined not to be a burden.

When Fast Elk had handed Emma over to Talutah all those years ago, she had vowed to carry her own weight in spite of being frightened and homesick. The tall, grave Indian had saved Emma's life and she owed him for that. However, as she gained more and more knowledge of the language and their ways, she realized she wasn't a slave, but an adopted daughter. And dutiful daughters were expected to help their mothers with everyday tasks.

However, after spending months away from this life, she ached from her exertions, but being able to look up and see Chayton playing with the other children was more than worth the labor. He and a handful of boys and girls had sticks they used to hit rocks back and forth. Soon, the boys would begin the first stage of their training. Chayton and the others would learn how to trail game, starting with squirrels and rabbits, then they'd begin to practice with

their bows to bring down those same small animals they tracked, as well as birds and rodents. By wrestling with his playmates, Chayton would learn how to defend himself and how to defeat an enemy in hand-to-hand combat. All of his fighting skills would be learned under the guise of games, and in a dozen years or less, Chayton would join the ranks of the warriors for his first raid.

Emma used the back of her hand to push aside strands of sweat-dampened hair that stuck to her brow. She would take Chayton away before he even began his training; her son would not die as young as his father had.

"You have become soft like a
wasicu,"
Talutah teased.

Emma smiled at her adopted mother who was chopping tubers into the venison stew that would simmer above the fire pit all day. "Yes. It has been a long time since I've prepared a hide."

Talutah knelt beside her to help. "Your world is different than ours."

When Emma understood enough of the Lakota language to follow a conversation, she'd been intrigued and a little shocked by their beliefs. At the time, she'd been too shy and wary to speak of her own world. Now, however, it saddened her to realize how far apart their cultures were. There seemed to be no middle ground and she was fearful the Indians would lose their way of life, which relied heavily upon open range and wild game, especially buffalo.

Emma sighed and continued her backbreaking work. Shimmering Water, whom Emma had known before, joined her after Talutah left. Emma described her return to her parents and subsequent escape to find Chayton.

Then their talk turned to gossip, both serious and amusing, and the work didn't seem quite as difficult.

One time Emma glanced up and saw Ridge playing a game of dice with three men, including Fast Elk. She couldn't help but notice with a note of pride, that Ridge had the most sticks piled in front of him. He caught her eye and winked, and her cheeks bloomed with heat. Her reaction didn't go unnoticed by the other woman.

"He is handsome for a
wasicu,"
Shimmering Water commented, elbowing Emma. "I would take him to my skins if my husband asked it of me." She batted her eyes in Ridge's direction.

It wasn't uncommon for a husband to share his wife with a visitor if he wanted to impress him or make him feel welcome. Emma had never been comfortable with that practice and fortunately, Enapay had never asked it of her. She wondered, however, what her reaction would've been if he had. She suspected Enapay wouldn't have liked her response.

She glanced at her friend, who had smooth skin with almond-shaped brown eyes and glossy black hair. Would Ridge accept her company if given a chance? What man wouldn't?

The thought of him lying with Shimmering Water stabbed her heart. She didn't want to imagine him with any other woman, bestowing those same gentle touches as he had given to her with his lips and hands. She didn't want another woman to feel him enter her body as she had rejoiced in feeling him deep within her. She had no right to be possessive, but couldn't deny the jealousy that made her fists clench and her head pound.