Yellowstone Romance Series - Bundle (# 2-5) (75 page)

Danica groaned. She was too stiff and frozen to move. She tried to move her right leg to swing it over the horse’s back. It felt as if someone had tied a sack of river rocks to it. She could barely move it. It would have been easier if she could have leaned forward, but her heavy bulk and the saddle horn prevented her from any attempt at gracefulness. Suddenly, Josh pulled the robe and blankets away from her, and the icy wind blasted her anew.

“What are you doing?” she gasped.

“I ain’t waiting around all day for you to decide to get off that horse,” he said impatiently. In the same instant, he grabbed fistfuls of her buckskin dress at either side of her waist, since he obviously couldn’t get a good hold on her with her expanded midsection, and pulled her from the saddle like a sack of flour. She had no time to react before she found herself in Josh’s arms, cradled against his solid chest. He was so warm. Danica flung her arms around his neck.

“You’re going to rip your shoulder open again,” she whispered breathlessly, her face inches from his.

“It’s healing fine,” he said dismissively, then added, “but you are a mite heavy.” The sides of his lips twitched. His gaze lingered briefly, before he abruptly broke eye contact and stepped up to the cabin door. Somehow, he managed to push down on the handle. With his elbow, he nudged the door open, and stepped sideways into the cabin.

“Why, Josh Osborne,” Danica exclaimed dramatically, a wide smile on her face. She tightened her grip around his neck, and batted her eyelashes at him.  If he could make sarcastic remarks, then so could she. “Do you realize you just carried your new bride across the threshold of your home? A girl might get the wrong idea.”

Josh’s eyebrows furrowed, and any hint of a smile left his face. As if he realized what he’d just done, he abruptly set her on her feet. She clung to his neck to keep from collapsing to the ground, her frozen limbs too weak to support her fully. Her legs tingled from the bottoms of her soles upward as blood rushed through her veins. Her racing heart would surely speed up her thawing out process.

Josh reached up and extracted her arms from around his neck, and took a step back. His eyes narrowed, his mouth drawn in that familiar hard line.

“Don’t play games with me, Dani. That might work on other men. I’m not like the man you may have seduced, and whose child you’re now carrying.” His cold words matched the icy winds she’d endured all day.

Danica pressed her lips together, then raised her chin and looked him squarely in the eyes. Gone was the man from three days ago, the one who tenderly rubbed the pain out of her back. She couldn’t figure him out. He could be kind and thoughtful one moment, and in the next, tear her heart out with a few cold words. Tears blurred her vision. Regardless, she was sure of one thing. Josh Osborne could never do the things her baby’s father had done to her.

She took a deep breath. “No, Josh,” she whispered, not daring to speak normally for fear her voice might crack and betray her hurt. “You’re most definitely nothing like him. Because if you were, I would have to kill you, too.”

Chapter Ten

Josh stood in stunned silence, thinking about her words. She would kill him if he acted like her baby’s father – whatever the hell that meant.  Dani fisted her hands at her sides and glared at him.  

“You’re no different than my father, Josh,” she said in a much too calm voice. “He made assumptions about me as well.” Her voice grew louder with each word. She hastily swiped at the tears running down her face. Josh cursed himself silently. Holding her in his arms, carrying her into the cabin, had stirred something in him that he didn’t care to explore further, something he’d been trying to avoid for the last three days.

She threw her hands in the air. “No questions asked, not giving me a chance to speak, and explain myself.” She inhaled deeply, and turned away from him as quickly as her bulky form allowed, still slicing her hands through the air in an agitated manner. “You and he simply drew your own conclusions, based on my appearance and condition. Well you’re both wrong.” Dani spun around to glare at him again, and Josh’s hand reached out reflexively, afraid she’d trip and fall with that quick maneuver. She swiped his arm away, and laughed a bitter laugh. Her eyes narrowed on him, and he swallowed. If she didn’t stop her rant soon, he was tempted to pull her in his arms and kiss her just to shut her up. To keep himself from doing exactly that, he folded his hands across his chest, a gesture that seemed to only spur her on.

“You made unfounded accusations against me five years ago when we first met,” she accused, advancing on him. Standing almost close enough for her protruding stomach to touch him, she challenged him with her blazing eyes. “You called me a silly female, simply because I accidentally bumped into you. What the hell do you even know about me, Josh? I’ve never looked at you to see an Indian standing before me. You’re a man, like any other.” She assessed him boldly as her eyes traveled up and down his body to make her point. He shifted his weight, groaning silently when heat pooled in his gut.

 ”You, of all people, I would expect more from,” she continued, and mercifully took a step back. Josh fisted his hands under his armpits. “I’m sure being of mixed blood has made some people wary of you. People like my father, who can’t see past the color of a man’s skin.  Yet here you are, seeing me only as a pregnant woman without a husband, then drawing the conclusion that I must have loose morals, like some . . . some common saloon whore.” Her body shook as she drew in a fresh breath. “Perhaps you’re not the man I thought you were,” she added after a brief pause, her voice eerily quiet.

Josh moved away from her when he was reasonably sure she was done talking, and headed for the hearth. Time to get the cabin heated up, not that his body needed it. With his back turned to her, he reached for some kindling in the wood box. The last time he’d received a tongue lashing that came close to Dani’s had been fifteen years ago when he was ten. His grandmother had caught him spying on his cousins while they bathed in the river. After a thorough dressing down, he hadn’t been allowed to go hunting with his grandfather for an entire month.

“You’ll find blankets and a clean bed in the room to your right,” he said for lack of anything better to say, without turning to look at her. He focused his ears for any sounds behind him. All was silent momentarily, then the squeaking of some floorboards as Dani moved in the direction of the room. Only when the bedroom door opened and then closed softly, did he turn around. He stared at the door, ran his hand through his hair, and expelled the breath he’d been holding. He felt about as low as a snake slithering through the grass.

Several hours later, Josh stood motionless, gazing out the window at the gloomy landscape across the meadow. Devoid of the lush green color it would take on in a few months when spring’s renewal brought forth a thick green carpet of grass, the meadow looked brown and drab, patches of ice and snow sprinkled everywhere like a sugar dusting on his grandma’s sweet rolls. It would be dark soon, even though it was early in the afternoon yet. The ominous gray sky promised a blizzard. Since breaking camp this morning, the weather had turned from cold to downright freezing. The further onto the plateau they traveled, the colder it became, and Josh had pushed as fast as he dared with Dani in tow, to reach the Madison Valley before it started to snow. He hadn’t bothered telling her about the impeding blizzard. No reason she should have to worry about the weather.

He muttered a curse under his breath. He’d been so focused on getting to the valley, he hadn’t paid attention to the woman riding behind him for hours that morning. In truth, he’d kept his distance as best as he could since leaving Virginia City.

His reaction to her three days ago in his aunt’s bedroom disturbed him. Since when had he ever given a fair-haired white woman a second glance? Growing up in both the white man’s world and in the Shoshone traditions, he’d come to realize at an early age that acceptance among white people would not come easy. Josh considered himself lucky to have grown up within a family that didn’t buy in to the prejudices of most white men. He knew his white father had loved his Shoshone mother. They’d been married in the traditions of her Akaideka clan, as well as by a white judge.

His mother,
Tatsawani Uma
, had chosen to abandon her life in her clan in order to be with her white husband. She had shortened her Shoshone name to the English version Summer, and taken her husband’s last name. Josh knew his father hadn’t asked her to give up her traditions and customs to live as a white woman. She had simply done it out of love and respect for her husband.

Josh didn’t remember his mother. Try as he might, his mind could not conjure a clear image of her face. Vague visions of a woman with long raven hair came to mind. He remembered his mother laughed a lot. He knew she’s been happy while married to his father. His fists clenched at his sides. Her life had been prematurely taken in the most brutal way possible. Staring death in the face, she’d selflessly saved his life when he was barely two years old by throwing him in a nearby huckleberry bush. After finding the dead body of his wife, Josh’s father had found him tangled up amongst the leaves and branches.

Anger raged through him as it always did whenever he thought about how his mother had been violently raped, and then murdered by three white trappers. How often had he killed the men in his mind? His father and uncle had dealt swift justice to the murderers. Josh scoffed. White men were so quick to jump to conclusions about Indians, but it was the white man who committed such unspeakable atrocities.

He’d learned long ago to ignore the suspicious looks he’d endured from white men whenever he visited his father in the city. Fancy, proper society ladies looking down their noses at him and gave him a wide berth, probably wondering if he would come and scalp them, or worse. Sweat beaded on Josh’s forehead as he stared out at the frozen landscape. The first snow flurries drifted through the air outside. An ominous feeling of dread swept over him.

He turned his head in the direction of the bedroom where Dani slept. She was right. Not once since he’d met her over a week ago had she looked on him with disdain. She hadn’t asked or commented about his heritage. Her father was another matter. The man ranked right up there with the worst Indian haters he’d encountered. Why the hell, then, would Jensen force a marriage on her to someone of obvious mixed blood? It would have made more sense if the man had shot him rather than bind his daughter to a filthy red man. What had she done to provoke such deep hatred?

Josh turned away from the window, knelt down by the hearth, and added more wood to the crackling fire. The cabin was slowly warming up, but he’d need a lot more firewood to keep the place heated for the cold night he knew lay ahead. If it had just been him, it wouldn’t matter. Dani’s the one he worried about. She might be a hot-tempered female, but her body had dealt poorly with the freezing temperature outside. His lips curved in a grin. She’d unleashed her anger on him but good before storming off into the spare room he’d offered her.

Josh conceded silently that he deserved every heated word that came out of her mouth. He knew he’d been harsh with her, and she’d been right about everything she said. He had drawn his own conclusions. He had been on the receiving end of unfounded accusations. His words had clearly hurt her. She didn’t strike him as the weepy kind of female, but her tears at that moment had been real. In truth, he knew nothing of her baby’s father. Why had he callously accused her of being a seductress in the first place?

Carrying her into the cabin had ignited the same fire in him as when he stared at her sleeping form three days ago, and neither time she’d done anything deliberate to entice him. With her arms wrapped around his neck, and her face so close to his, it had taken all his willpower not to lean forward and taste her full lips. Her teasing comments about a silly white man’s tradition of carrying a bride over the threshold of their new home had sent reality crashing down on him again.

Josh tossed several more logs on the fire, sending up glowing embers. Anger at his adolescent reaction to her had provoked his comment, he told himself firmly. It was definitely not because of visions of Dani in the arms of another man that seemed to creep into his mind every time he looked at her. Her bulging stomach was a constant reminder of her passionate side, and he found it difficult to ignore.

What was it about Dani Jensen that fueled his desire, and brought about a need to keep her safe? Josh dismissed his question. He didn’t want to know the answer.

What the hell had he been thinking, dragging her through the wilderness with him? Another four days to Helena in this freezing weather might kill her. She was too damn stubborn to tell him when she needed to rest, or that she was cold. At least he could be more prepared when they left in a couple of days. The wool blankets she had up to this point didn’t offer much for warmth. Several buffalo robes would be better.

Dani could make it, he told himself firmly. They had to make it. She couldn’t stay here. Her baby would be born soon. The thought sent a shiver of dread up and down his spine. Looking out at the ominously darkening sky, and the increasing volume of snow fluttering from the heavens, his gut filled with foreboding. Late winter blizzards were common, as was being snowed in for days, possibly weeks. Josh’s heart rate increased, and a cold wave of fear hit him. 

*****

Josh opened the door to the cabin and elbowed his way in, a tall stack of firewood cradled in his arms. With the heel of his foot, he kicked the door shut behind him. A blast of icy air followed him into the warm room. He dumped the wood in the near-empty woodbox by the hearth, and shook the snow off his buffalo hide robe. Running his hand through his wet hair, he straightened his back, and slowly turned to the right. Dani stood under the doorframe to her bedroom.

He stared at her from across the room. He swallowed several times even as his mouth went dry.
Dammit, Running Wolf. What the hell’s the matter with you?
At what point had Dani changed from a simple white woman to the most breathtaking female he’d ever laid eyes on? She stood motionless, not wavering from his gaze. Her long yellow hair framed her delicate face, highlighted by the dancing flames from the fire. Her puffy eyes told him she’d been crying. Had she even slept? It had been a good three hours since he sent her into the bedroom.

She stepped out into the room, firmly clutching a blanket she’d wrapped around her shoulders. Her bare feet didn’t escape his notice, nor her bare ankles. Josh’s heart hammered in his chest. Was she wearing anything under that blanket?

He cleared his throat, and shook his black forelock out of his eyes. The silence between them was deafening. What the hell was he supposed to say to her?

“Did you get any sleep?” He groaned. Couldn’t he think of anything else to say? The heat in the room became unbearable. Josh fumbled with the sleeves of his heavy coat, and pulled it off. His cotton shirt clung to his back. He turned and moved to hang his coat on a peg near the door.

“I slept a little,” she said behind him. “I think three days in the saddle have made my back sore. It feels better to move around.”

Josh slowly pivoted to face her again. She’d moved toward the hearth, a content smile on her face, one hand pressed into her lower back. He realized the bedroom must still be ice cold. When their eyes met again, Dani raised her chin.

“I hope you don’t mind, but I found some cotton shirts in the bedroom. I didn’t know if they belong to you or Kyle, but I’m wearing one right now. It feels good to get out of that buckskin dress.” She pulled the blanket from her shoulder to give him a glimpse of one of his blue cotton shirts. The idea of her dressed in his clothes sent a warm wave of desire through him.