Wild Desire (31 page)

“How do you think Pure Blossom will react to Adam's death?” Stephanie asked as she gazed over at Runner, the fort now left far behind them.

“It is time that Pure Blossom faces up to many things,” Runner said, scowling. “By sunset tonight, Gray Moon will know all the truths about my sister. If Pure Blossom does not have the courage to tell him, then her brother will.”

They rode in a slow trot so that Stephanie would have no trouble holding the child safely in her arms. And when they arrived at the village and their horses were let loose inside the corral, they went together to Pure Blossom's hogan. Runner had decided that Pure Blossom would be the first to be told about Adam's death, and about Adam having fathered another child.

Gray Moon was sitting dutifully at Pure Blossom's bedside. She was resting comfortably in a sitting position, her back against a cushion. She was laughing playfully with Gray Moon until Runner and Stephanie entered. She could not help but wonder about the child Stephanie was carrying.

Runner and Stephanie went on the opposite side of the bed from where Gray Moon was sitting. They knelt down on their knees beside the bed. With trembling fingers, Stephanie drew a corner of the blanket away from Jimmy's face, so that Pure Blossom could get a good view of it.

“The child?” Pure Blossom said, leaning closer to take a better look. “Why did you bring this child into Pure Blossom's hogan? Whose child is it?”

“Adam's,” Runner blurted, knowing that perhaps what he was doing was cruel, but quite necessary. “The child is Adam's. The child's mother
and
Adam are dead. Stephanie and I will raise Jimmy as our own.”

Pure Blossom paled and grabbed at her throat, her eyes wild and wide. “Adam . . . is . . . dead?” she gasped. “And you say . . . this . . . child is his?”

Runner began explaining gently what he could about what had happened to Adam, and how the child happened to be involved.

He then turned to Gray Moon and gave him a silent look, and then turned back to his sister. “I have told you much today,” he said. “Now, my sister, do you not think that it is time for you to tell Gray Moon what he does not yet know?”

Pure Blossom raised a hand to her eyes and smoothed tears from their corners. She looked sheepishly over at Gray Moon. He had been far too quiet while Runner had been talking about Adam and the child. He had grown even more quiet when he had seen her reaction to everything that Runner had told her. This man who was so gentle and caring was soon to know the truth that might send him away from Pure Blossom, yet she knew that it was only fair to him that he knew.

She realized that he should have known even before now. If he could not accept the child she was carrying, it would be harder now for him to forget this camaraderie—this bond—that had been magically spinning between them since Gray Moon had saved her life and had revealed his hidden feelings for her.

Looking lovingly at him, Pure Blossom reached for one of Gray Moon's hands and placed it on her abdomen.

“Gray Moon, beneath your hand grows a child within my womb,” Pure Blossom said, her voice soft and guarded. “The father was Adam. The man who died today. The man who planted his seed in another woman's belly, whose child is even now held within Stephanie's arms. I was foolish in who I shared my love with. But now my love is not foolish. I love you. Can you still love me even though I carry another man's child within my womb?”

There was a strained, hushed silence as everyone waited for Gray Moon's response.

Tears came to Stephanie's eyes when Gray Moon finally gave his answer. He took Pure Blossom into his arms and held her close, his one hand caressing her stomach.

“My love for you is not that easily destroyed,” he said thickly. “When I fell in love with you, it was not measured in who you loved before me, or who you might have slept with. Not even the child makes any difference. My love for you is sincere and deep enough to include the child. We will be married soon.”

Stephanie and Runner rose quietly to their feet and crept to the door and left.

“And all is blessed today,” Runner said, smiling down at Stephanie.

She smiled up at him and nodded. “It does seem so,” she murmured.

Chapter 34

 

It was now the fourth day of the “Chant Way Ceremony.” This ceremony had involved the creation of several sand paintings selected from the dozens used in the Chant Ways.

These paintings had been made primarily of colored sandstone ground into a fine powder. The “singer” and his assistants had trickled the pigments onto a bed of fresh sand on the floor of Runner's hogan. Since Runner had asked for the ceremony, he had sat on the paintings, bearing a gift of cornmeal, facing east, the direction from which all Navaho blessings came.

Attracted by the ceremony, supernatural powers had entered the paintings and had made it their home, blessing Runner and his people for a long and happy life.

The “Blessingway” had been used to bless two new marriages—Runner and Stephanie's, and Gray Moon and Pure Blossom's. In these sand paintings, the Holy People had been painted in pairs, standing on rainbows, their means of transportation.

The delicate balance between the good and evil powers in the Navaho universe having been restored, the celebration drawn to a close, Stephanie and Runner lay naked in front of the fireplace on the exact spot where the sand paintings had been drawn and eventually taken away.

“The last several days were exhausting, but lovely,” Stephanie said, molding her body against Runner's. The fire before them had burned low and sent off a pleasant glow into the hogan. The blankets and sheepskins were warm beneath them. “My happiness is shameful, my darling.”

“Our happiness has only just begun,” Runner said. He smoothed a fallen lock of hair back from Stephanie's brow and bent to kiss her cheek.

Runner rolled Stephanie beneath him and enfolded her within his solid strength. A delicious shiver of wild desire quavered across Stephanie's flesh as he reverently breathed her name against her lips in a soft whisper, then his mouth seized hers in an all-consuming kiss.

Her breath quickened when she felt him enter her with one quick thrust, magnificently filling her, his hands moving wildly over her slim, sensuous body.

Runner's thrusts stoked fires within her that were spreading. When his hands moved to her breasts and began making maddeningly designed circles around her nipples, she moaned, the curl of heat growing in her lower body.

Runner pulled his lips away for a moment and gazed down at her, and Stephanie could see that his eyes were glazed and drugged with desire.

She closed her eyes and threw her head back as his mouth went to the slender, curving length of her throat and licked her flesh. She shuddered with building ecstasy as his tongue slithered downward and flicked across first one nipple and then the other. His warm breath stirred shivers along her flesh as he pulled away from her and knelt over, kissing his way across her abdomen, and then below.

Stephanie sucked in a wild breath, and stifled a cry of pleasure when Runner's tongue found her pulsing center of desire. Her insides tightened and grew warm as his tongue parted her pouting lovelips, then titillated her spot. His mouth was warm and moist, his tongue swirled gloriously.

Intense pleasure bubbled over inside Stephanie as Runner started kissing his way back up her body.

Curling shadows spread within her as he gave her another heated kiss and pressed himself once again into her softly yielding folds. She locked her legs around his body and molded herself against him as his lean and sinewy buttocks moved in rhythm.

Silvery flames licked their way through Runner's veins as he was overcome with a feverish heat of wild desire. His steely arms enfolded her and drew her closer into his embrace. The euphoria that filled his entire being was almost more than he could bear. He buried his face between her breasts and groaned as tremors surged through his body. He held her as though in a vise as he felt her own body quake with release.

Then they rolled apart, their hands still entwined. “It's hard for me to remember ever living anywhere but here, with you, darling,” Stephanie said breathlessly. “It seems all so natural. So right.”

“And why should it not?” Runner said, leaning up on an elbow so that he could get a better look of her exquisite face. “You are now my wife. It is my duty, as your husband, to make you forget your past life, and those in that life who caused you pain.”

“Adam was the only one who caused me any heartache,” Stephanie murmured, scooting over to cuddle close to him. “One day I must return for a visit with my father and stepmother. I am all they have left.”

“You are wrong,” Runner said, placing a finger to her chin so that her eyes would be directed into his. “They have more now. They now have a son-in-law and a grandson.”

“Ah, how they will love you and little Jimmy,” Stephanie said, emitting a contented sigh. “And one day soon, there will be another grandchild too.”

Runner raised an eyebrow, then he laughed throatily. “Yes, one day we will have children of our own,” he said, for a moment having misjudged what she had said. He had thought that she was implying that she was pregnant now.

“It might be much sooner than you imagine,” Stephanie said, rising to kneel beside him. She reached for one of his hands and held it against her flat stomach. “Of course, you can't feel anything. But you can imagine, can't you, a small child forming within my womb, even now? Our child, Runner. Yours and mine.”

Runner rose quickly onto his knees before her. “You are saying that you are with child?” he said, an anxiousness in his voice and eyes.

“I can't be absolutely certain,” Stephanie said, laughing softly. “But, yes, I do believe that being late with my monthly flow means that I am pregnant. Never have I been two weeks late before. Not until now, darling.”

Runner grabbed her into his arms. “A child,” he whispered as he ran his hands caressingly down her back. “Our very own child.”

Sudden wails broke through their blissful sharing. They fell apart, laughing softly.

Stephanie pulled on a robe, then went to the crib that sat in a corner far from the fireplace. “Jimmy may not be our very own by birthright,” she murmured as she gathered the baby up into her willing arms, “but inside my heart, he is.”

Runner slipped his fringed breeches on and padded over to stand beside them. “Also mine,” he said, then slipped Jimmy out of Stephanie's arms. “He cries for milk. I will take him to Velvet Eyes for his feeding.”

Stephanie watched him leave, then hugged herself. “Return to me soon, my White Indian husband,” she whispered, giggling. “I cannot get enough of you tonight. What wild desires you have unleashed within me!”

 

Hannah Kody came to her brother's ranch in the
Kansas Territory to be his eyes, as his sight was
failing fast. Yet his misfortune couldn't dim the joy
she found in the wide vistas of the Western plains.
And the excitement she found in the presence of
Strong Wolf. The future chief of the Patawatomis
stood tall and proud, and Hannah dreamed
she had traveled there to meet him . . .

 

But for Strong Wolf, Hannah was supposed to be the
enemy, allied not only to the settlers he distrusted,
but to the brutal foreman of her brother's ranch.
He felt only sorrow could come of their attraction,
until the day Hannah rode to his lodge, fell into
his arms, and launched a journey neither
had the desire to deny . . .

 

 

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Copyright © 1994, 2015 by Cassie Edwards

 

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First published in May 1994 by Topaz, an imprint of Dutton Signet, a division of Penguin Books USA Inc.

 

First Zebra Books Mass-Market Paperback Printing: April 2015

ISBN: 978-1-4201-3674-6

 

First Zebra Books Electronic Edition: April 2015
eISBN-13: 978-1-4201-3675-3
eISBN-10: 1-4201-3675-5