LeClerc 01 - Autumn Ecstasy (26 page)

“I’ll throw you over my shoulder and carry you like a sack of flour!” he threatened.

Linsey stood and placed her hands on her hips. “Aye, ya might get me there, but ya canna make me stay!”

“I’ll put a guard on the door!”

“Won’t that make you look just a little silly to your friends?”

“Hell with the way it looks! I don’t care what they think. Ail I care about is your safety, and if guarding you is the only way I can do it, then so be it!”

Linsey had the grace to feel a little shame. His only concern was protecting her. Somehow she had to show him that she didn’t need that kind of protection.

“Luc, when you got here, were you able to break down the door?” she asked quietly.

“What the hell does that have to do with anything?”

“Answer my question. Were you?”

“No.”

She approached him and placed her hands on his arms. “Few men are as strong as you. If you couldn’t break in, do you honestly think anyone else could?” Her reasoning was sound; he could feel himself sinking but couldn’t give up the battle quite yet. “Zeke got in!”

“That’s because I foolishly left the bar off the door. If I hadn’t been in such a hurry to take a bath, I would have replaced it, and nothing would have happened.”

“But it did!” Her soft emerald gaze pleading with him, he found it difficult to continue insisting that she do something against her will. “I only want you to be safe,
mon ange.”

“As much as I like Morning Moon, I don’t want to spend every day, all day, with her.”

“I can’t protect you when I’m not here, and I can’t be here all the time.”

“I promise to bar the door when you leave and not remove it again until you return.”

Bear folded her in his arms, his head resting on the top of her head. He’d lost. How could he refuse her? He shuddered when he thought of what could have happened when Zeke broke in. The possibilities had played around and around in his mind until he thought he’d go mad.

As if reading his thoughts, Linsey quietly soothed him. “It won’t happen again. I won’t let in anyone I don’t know and trust.” She moved back slightly until she could look into his eyes. “I want to stay here. This is my home.”

The phrase echoed through his mind as he again pulled her against him.
This is my home.

For the next few days, Bear left the cabin without comment but giving her a look that spoke volumes. He would wait outside the door until he heard the bar drop into place. Several hours later Wolf would come by, stay for a short visit and then leave. Finally Wolf’s visits ceased. Linsey was left to enjoy the solitude while she waited for evening and the return of the man she loved.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

“Enter, my sister,” Morning Moon called, hearing her friend outside.

Linsey raised the hide and walked into the warm lodge. As usual, Chattering Squirrel squealed and ran to her with arms spread wide. Linsey lifted the toddler and kissed the soft, copper creases of his chubby neck.

“You’re getting too big for me to pick up,” she said, tickling his ribs and grinning as he giggled merrily.

“Me big boy!” he said proudly.

“You sure are. Pretty soon you’ll be as big as your daddy.”

Linsey carefully set him on his feet and turned to greet Spring Flower, who raised red and watery eyes to her, smiling shyly.

“What are you making?” Even as she spoke with the child, Linsey’s eyes narrowed in concern. Spring Flower sneezed several times, followed by a hard, dry cough, rubbing the back of her hand over her runny nose.

Her English vocabulary was more limited than her mother’s, and she wrinkled her smooth brow as she concentrated on the correct words, fingering the colorful carved beads she was stringing together on a thong. “Beads for baby chew.”

“They are beautiful, Spring Flower.” Linsey admired the beads. “I’m sure your new brother or sister will appreciate them when new teeth start coming in.”

“The baby will be brother.” Spring Flower seemed so certain, Linsey did not have the heart to point out that the baby could just as easily be a girl.

Finally Linsey turned to Morning Moon. “I always seem to greet you last.”

“You honor me by showing affection for my children,” Morning Moon replied softly. “I did not expect you today, Lin Zee.”

She removed her coat and sat down on a mat on the floor. “I need to ask you a couple of questions, if that is all right?”

Morning Moon spoke softly in Shawnee to Spring Flower, and Linsey watched as the child set her beads neatly aside and picked up Chattering Squirrel. She balanced him on her slender hip and quietly left the lodge, but Linsey heard her racking cough marking her passage down the road.

“I didn’t mean for you to send the children away. Spring Flower shouldn’t be outside; the child is sick!” Morning Moon shrugged. “It is only a cough that sometimes comes with spring. Several people also share it; it is of no concern, Lin Zee. They go visit their grandmother, who will fix her a soothing drink and fuss over her.”

Hugely pregnant, Morning Moon moved gracefully around the room. She poured liquid into two cups but had to hand them to Linsey before she could sit down.

A sneeze caught her unaware, and she grabbed at the huge mound of her belly. “Baby come soon,” she said, lowering herself to a mat.

Linsey tasted the liquid and found that it was the juice of some kind of berry, lightly sweetened with maple syrup. “This is delicious. Perhaps you will show me how to make it?”

Morning Moon nodded, then waited patiently for Linsey’s questions while Linsey searched for the way to ask them.

“I think I’m pregnant,” she finally blurted.

“Yes,” Morning Moon replied with a smile. “Bear very much … ah, warrior. It no surprise!”

“My breasts are swollen, and my stomach’s not flat anymore.”

“You lose morning food?” Morning Moon asked.

“I feel like I’m going to, even when I haven’t eaten!” Linsey’s grimace expressed her thoughts, and Morning Moon giggled, showing no sympathy.

“It will pass soon. You have woman’s time?”

Linsey had had her monthly flow only once since leaving Philadelphia. She smiled as she remembered the embarrassment she had suffered when it had been necessary to ask Bear for some rags.

“Not since the first snow.”

Morning Moon patted her swollen stomach. “Our sons will be brothers. They will grow together and learn much from each other.”

A few months earlier Linsey would have been horrified at the thought of her child playing with an Indian child, now the idea delighted her. But not nearly as much as the knowledge that she carried Bear’s child.

She did not stay long. It was obvious that Morning Moon was catching her daughter’s cold as her nose and eyes began to water. Suggesting that she take advantage of her children’s absence and get some rest, Linsey thanked her for the confirmation of her pregnancy. Now she was anxious to be alone to savor the idea.

At the top of the hill overlooking the peaceful village, Linsey leaned against a rock to catch her breath. The coat that had provided necessary warmth earlier now seemed too heavy, and she let it gap open. The happy shouts of children at play floated on the breeze as the sun shone brightly on her face. Where the snow had melted, patches of rich, black earth made a geometrical pattern on the ground.

The days blended one to the other, and it was easy to lose track of the date, but she didn’t need a calendar to know that spring was almost here. The snow disappeared a little more each day, and though the nights remained cold, the days were almost warm.

She placed her hands protectively on her abdomen and felt its gentle slope. His child rested warm and safe in her body, and sometime late in summer she would present Bear with a cub. She wondered briefly why he had not noticed the changes in her. After a winter together, he knew her body better than she did.

Turning away from the scene below, she began the journey back to the cabin. Bear had been gone for three days, bringing in his traps and checking on the ice in the river. He had wanted her to stay with the Shawnee, but Linsey convinced him she would be safe alone. It had been lonely, and she’d never liked him being gone over night; but she’d survived and could barely wait for his return.

Overhead, a bird chirped loudly, the call cheerfully answered by another. From beneath them, the trees still appeared bare, but at the village, Linsey had looked at them from a distance and noticed a hint of green on the branches. Spring. She had dreaded its arrival; now it was here. She had to decide what to tell Bear about the baby. Would he still insist on taking her back once he knew? Or would he let her stay and then someday grow to feel trapped by both her and the baby?

He liked children. She had seen his reaction to both Chattering Squirrel and Spring Flower. He played with the other children in the village, at times getting so involved he seemed to forget he was the adult in the group. He gently teased Morning Moon about the new baby, delighting in his role as uncle to the child.

Linsey wanted to stand on the tallest mountain and shout to the world that she carried his child. She felt that her heart would burst with pride from the fact. But how would Bear react?

If the warmth of the sun and the hint of new leaves were not enough to proclaim the arrival of spring, the tiny buttercup-shaped flower she saw peeking through the snow seemed to shout the message. Linsey knelt and carefully brushed the snow away from the small petals, so vibrantly yellow against their backdrop of white. Standing, she took two steps away before returning and carefully picking the flower. It had survived against all odds, and so would she.

Long after dark, just when Linsey decided she would spend another night alone, Bear arrived. She greeted him as she always did, by throwing herself into his arms and kissing him passionately.

“I like the way you say hello,
mon ange.
It almost makes going away worth it.” Bear hugged her tightly, then carefully set her aside so that he could remove his pack and coat.

“Are you hungry?”

“I am starving.” His voice lowered, and his eyes swept her body. “For food but mostly for you!”

“Well don’t starve yet. It’ll take a few minutes for me to warm something. You can have food now so that you’ll have the strength to have me later!” She moved to the fire that was already banked for the night. When it was burning brightly, she placed a pot of water and another containing left-over stew on the bar and pushed it over the flames.

The familiar sounds as Bear moved around the cabin were reassuring, and Linsey hungrily drank in the sight of him. When the food was ready, she spooned it onto a plate and sat across from him while he ate.

“Did you get all your traps?”

He shook his head and drank some coffee. “One was missing. I hate to think of a wounded animal forced to try to exist with it connected to its foot. There were signs that it gnawed through the leather to get free.”

“Why don’t you use steel traps?”

“Too much trouble. They rust badly and need constant attention. Besides which they can damage the furs, and then an animal has died for nothing.” He grew silent for a moment. “I am thinking this will be my last winter trapping.”

“Why?” Her heart jumped to her throat as she awaited his answer.

“My father was a farmer. It was a life I always enjoyed, planting the ground and watching it grow. We trapped occasionally for food, but it was only when we came here that we started trapping seriously.

“Because of the snow, you haven’t seen the field I’ve worked to clear. I think I will plant it this spring and see what happens.” He shrugged. “If it doesn’t grow, I can always go back to trapping.”

She had feared he would tell her that he was tired of this area and was planning to move on… which meant he would take her to Philadelphia first. But he was talking of making this site into a permanent home, and her hopes soared.

He talked of his plans until he’d finished eating, then leaned back in the chair with a contented sigh. His eyes narrowed as he closely watched her face at his next statement.

“The ice has broken up on the river. If the weather stays warm, it will be clear in a couple of weeks.”

Linsey looked down at her hands folded in her lap and searched for something to say. He was waiting for a response, but she did not know what he wanted to hear. That she was happy she’d soon be going home? It would be a lie. This was her home, and while she knew there were things that needed to be resolved in Philadelphia, she did not care if she never saw the city again.

Bear waited impatiently for a response. Would she ask when he could take her home or would she ask to stay?

A voice from outside startled them. Bear rose and walked to the door, opening it to find Wolf, his face sheathed in worry. The two men spoke briefly in Shawnee before Bear turned and grabbed his coat.

“What’s wrong?” Linsey asked as Bear closed his coat and reached for his rifle.

“I’m not sure,” he replied, cradling the long rifle in his arms. “I’m going to the village. I don’t know if I’ll make it back tonight or not.” He bent, his mouth meeting hers in a rushed kiss. “Bar the door.”