Gray Hawk's Lady: Blackfoot Warriors, Book 1 (17 page)

He moved forward; she backed away.

She said, “You…you believed that I…?”

He nodded.

“How could you?”

“I did not know you.”

“But—”

“Your trappers took me captive. It all fit, or so I thought.”

“It wasn’t true.”

“None of it?”

She shook her head.

“Then why,” he repeated, “why are you not married?”

“I…I…you… I do not have the time.”

He frowned. He stopped. “I do not understand.”

“My father. All my life I have traveled with my father. I have devoted myself to him, to his work. I am his assistant. I do the same work he does. I help him. I have no time for anything else, anyone else.”

“And your father allows this?”

“Why would he not?”

“When he dies, what happens to you then, if you have no husband?”

“I…” Of course, she had thought of this once or twice, but she had never seriously considered the possibility. Her father had always been spry, young for his age, full of life and energy…at least, until recently.

Said Gray Hawk, “I think you should consider marriage.”

“And I think you should mind your own business.”

“What is this business that I should mind it?”

“You know what I mean.”

He smiled. “Has the white woman escaped her father and come into Blackfoot country looking for a husband? If so, I should tell her that I am not available.”

“As if I would… I thought you were not married.”

“So am I not.”

“Then why are you not ‘available’?”

“I told you once why this is so. Think back, Little Captive, to what I said to you in the past.”

She lifted her head, jutting out her chin. “Why should I when I am not interested?”

He took another step forward. “Are you not?”

“No.”

She might as well have waved a red flag at him. Without warning he reached out and pulled her into his arms, his head swooping down over hers.

His lips dangerously close to her own, he said, “Tell me again that you are not interested.”

She glared up at him. “I am not interested. I could not care less about your marital state.”

He smiled then, but she didn’t have time to ponder its meaning.

He said, “Your breath is so sweet when you say that.”

And then he captured her lips with his own, his tongue sweeping forward to tantalize her.

She pushed at his chest; he pulled her in closer.

She pounded on his shoulders; he took her hands in his own.

His lips left hers briefly to trail kisses over to her ear, down her neck, up to her eyes, back to her lips, his tongue tracing their outline, then to the other side of her face, the action repeated.

“Gen-e-vee.”

It was the first time he’d ever said her name. It was the first time she’d ever heard her name whispered with such a note of passion, the sound of it foreign, titillating.

His lips hovered over her ear; then he swept down over her neck, his lips, his tongue kissing every single part of her skin.

It was all too much. It was her undoing.

She shut her eyes as crazed yearning swept through her.

“Gray Hawk,” she murmured, little knowing that she’d said anything. Her lips seeking his, she turned her head. She touched his lips with her own.

Explosion. It was the only way to describe what happened next.

She leaned in closer, he bent farther down.

They met. They kissed, their tongues seeking each other’s as though paying homage to one another.

She gave, her whole being engulfed by him. He took.

His sweet taste filled her mouth; his scent, masculine and musky, enveloped her. His touch, firm yet gentle, aroused her to a point where she had no idea of time or place.

Her arms went around him, and even as he caressed her back down to her buttocks, pulling her in closer, she stroked her hands up and down his back—his magnificent, bare back.

The imprint of his sexuality pressed against her stomach, and she nestled up closer to it, glorying in the fact that only a piece of rawhide separated him from her.

And all the while, his lips had never left her own, his tongue stroking inside her mouth, in and out, as though only in this way could they obtain pleasure.

She shivered, desire racing through her blood.

She wanted him. She wanted his bare skin against her own. She wanted more of him, every part of him. And she would give him all that she had to give.

She swooned, arching her back and pressing her breasts to him in open invitation.

His lips left hers, and she smiled lazily up at him.

He said, “Tell me now, Gen-e-vee, that you are not interested in me as a husband.”

He shouldn’t have spoken. He shouldn’t have said a word. He should have just taken what he wanted, anything he desired…

But he didn’t. He broke the spell. And worse, he’d just made her feel terribly wrong.

Her reaction was strong, if not immediate. And she realized right away what she had allowed to happen.

Embarrassment overwhelmed her.

She gasped. She’d wanted him, yes; she would have made love to him too, without even thinking about it, so lost had she been in his arms. In truth, she’d been his for the taking.

It shouldn’t have been. She should have resisted him. But how could she? She would have had to have been a saint to turn him away.

She’d not been able to help herself. Emotion had encompassed her, emotion more forceful than anything she’d ever experienced. She’d always been attracted to him, more so lately. But this?

He’d held her, simply held her, but the sensuality that had coursed through her veins made her realize she’d been awaiting this moment for weeks. And she wouldn’t have denied him anything. Not when the intoxicating taste of him was upon her mouth.

She moaned as the truth hit her. She had
feelings
for him, powerful, strong feelings for him.

But with his words, his misplaced humor, all that potency, all that wonderful, pent-up emotion, was turning on him. It was shifting on her, too, her passions mixing up, becoming unsteady, crashing in on her as though she stood in the middle of a lumberjack’s forest.

It was all too much for her.

“Oh!” She pushed at his chest at last. “How dare you!”

He grinned. “Easily.”

“Oh!” she said again, stepping back. She threw her hair over her shoulders and stuck out her chin. She said all at once, almost in self-defense, “I don’t want you.”

He raised an eyebrow. He put his arms over his chest. He smirked.

“How could I want you?” she went on, her words, her feelings, spontaneous, any affinity she’d felt toward him changing quickly to the opposite, to malice. And she could little control herself when she said, “You are a savage, Gray Hawk, a heathen, an
Indian,
and that makes you no better than an animal in my eyes. If ever I were to look for a husband, it would never be among a member of a different race of men, I can assure you. I would sooner die.”

The atmosphere around them grew suddenly cool and very quiet.

She should have taken heed.

She didn’t. She couldn’t. Tender emotion, turned ugly, now raged within her, feeding on itself, tugging at her, dictating to her, holding her in its grip.

“Tell me,” she mocked, “how would you deign to support me if we married? Where would we live? How would you even think to raise your head in my society, where it is believed as a fact that the Indian is no more human than a wild animal?” She glared at him. “Do not mistake my words, Gray Hawk,” she said, oblivious to the sting of what she said. “I would never look to you for a husband.”

Had Gray Hawk been a lesser man, he might have taken her by force at that moment, if only to prove his point.

He could have. All he would have had to do was kiss her again.

But Gray Hawk was not the animal she accused him of being.

Yes, he might mock her, he might tease, but Gray Hawk knew himself to be a gentleman, within the true meaning of that word. Gray Hawk was chivalrous to a flaw.

He was Pikuni. He was Blackfeet.

He could no more have taken sexual advantage of this woman, despite the fact that she was white, than he could have killed his own mother.

And so Gray Hawk did the only thing he could do.

He grinned. He smirked. He raised an eyebrow and said, “We will see, little Gen-e-vee. We will see.”

“Is that a challenge?”

Again he smiled and, turning his back on her, began to walk away. But before he left her completely, before he began his daily chores, he looked back over his shoulder at her. And he grinned as he said, “Perhaps.”

Chapter Eleven

What on earth had gotten into her?

How could she have said such things to him?

Genevieve might have been many things, but cruel was not a word that anyone who knew her would have used to describe her. It never had been. She cared too much about the welfare of others ever to have earned such a label.

Then how could she have said such things to him? Her words, her meanings, were, by anybody’s definition, brutal. And whether they represented the true “thinking” of her society or not, it wasn’t up to her to speak them.

She fretted over it the entire evening. She wanted to say something to lessen the damage she’d done by her careless words, anything to ease it, but she couldn’t bring herself to do so.

To bring up such a topic now would only stab him again with the realities of what she’d said. And she didn’t want to do that. She had caused enough damage.

Genevieve focused her attention on something else. She gazed at the curling hills of the prairie, which lay all around her. Dusk had brought the hues of pink, orange and red to the sky, and the colors were, even now, reflecting themselves upon the hills, the sky’s shimmering tints of color painting the brown carpets on those hills as though their rolling character were a canvas.

It was one of the most beautiful sights she had ever seen.

The air was cool, fresh and invigorating, and the wind, which seemed incessant, blew locks of her hair across her face. She inhaled the air, fragrant with sage, and, shutting her eyes, imagined she was at home in St. Louis.

Overhead a nighthawk squawked, breaking into her reverie, and she opened her eyes to the reality of where she was.

It wasn’t so bad.

She sat beside a smokeless campfire, a prelude to traveling. She’d even come to think of this time, this meal that they shared at this time of day, as their breakfast, though it must have been close to seven in the evening.

Gray Hawk, she noted, sat across from her, quietly singing, another thing she’d become used to with him. He sang almost constantly when they were in camp—strange songs, with little melody that she could discern, and all in a minor key. She remembered once asking him about the meaning of the songs, knowing this data would make an interesting contribution to her father’s works, but Gray Hawk’s answer had been so vague, she had chosen to stop trying, and to simply listen and enjoy.

He also chipped away at a stone, making the object into a deadly point. And this was another thing that amazed her: he was resourceful. It was the only word she could think of to explain it. From the hides of animals, the branches of bushes, from trees and stones and the very earth itself, they suddenly had many serviceable items. All handmade by Gray Hawk.

She had tried to help; in fact, she did, her job being to skin the animals he brought into camp. But that was all that she did. She didn’t seem to possess the energy or the know-how to do more than that, and Gray Hawk, as though sensing it, hadn’t pressed her.

“Gray Hawk,” she asked, interrupting his singing, “have you noticed something odd?”

He glanced up at her.

“I have been thinking…”

He had discontinued his song.

“Isn’t it odd that we don’t run across more animals than we do?”

He shrugged. “That is a good thing.”

“But I remember seeing so many different animals roaming these plains as I looked out at them from the steamboat. I have seen some deer, some elk, buffalo, and I hear the wolves at night, but not much else. Why are we not running into more of them when we travel?”

“Because,” said Gray Hawk, “I am a good scout. I do not want our path to come upon a dangerous animal.”

“Dangerous?” She laughed, her tone mocking. “If I remember correctly, I saw some elk from the boat, and a buffalo or two. They were big, Gray Hawk, but hardly dangerous.”

He looked as though he were about to say something, but he didn’t. Instead, he grinned. “Then you have never experienced the grizzly bear or a pack of wolves. These animals would not only kill you; they would do so slowly and painfully. And you must not yet have experienced the buffalo bull in mating season, who will gore anyone who comes close to him or to his mate. And of course, there is the
ca ca boo
.”