Nan Ryan (38 page)

They lingered at the table long after they’d finished their meal and the dishes had been cleared away. Uncorking a second bottle of the excellent wine, they talked quietly in the comfort of the dining room, as two old friends might. Unobtrusively Diane asked Star questions about his childhood, about his present life in Nevada. And she listened intently as he spoke of the happy times at Wind River, of the loneliness he’d felt when he first left the reservation and went away to school.

He spoke of the four years he spent at the Colorado School of Mines. He was telling her how valuable those years were, how much he had learned there, when Diane, abruptly interrupting, said, “Star, tell the truth, was it awful for you there? How did you feel that first day at college when those white students held you down and cut off your black braids?”

Star looked steadily into her arresting violet eyes. “Naked,” he said flippantly, still unwilling to share his personal hurts and disappointments with her or anyone.

“Oh, Star,” she said softly, “you
were
hurt. Of course, you were, and I’m sorry.” Diane longed to reach out and touch him, but it was not the time to do so. “I’m so sorry.”

Star shrugged, poured more wine into her glass, smiled, and said, “I looked much better without the braids.”

Then, hardly realizing he was doing it, Star sat there across from the beautiful violet-eyed woman and revealed to her a great deal more about himself than he’d ever told anyone else. And he listened as Diane told him about herself, her life on the road when she was a girl. The political position in Washington, D.C., she’d left to help her grandfather’s failing troupe. She spoke candidly of her regrets, her hopes, her dreams.

She shared with Star her growing worry over the Colonel’s financially troubled show. Said she didn’t blame Star for hating the Colonel, but the aging showman was her grandfather and she adored him, faults and all.

“I’m so afraid,” she confided, “that Pawnee Bill is going to make good on this threat to take over the show. If he does, it will kill the Colonel.”

Star listened attentively, his dark eyes never leaving Diane’s lovely, expressive face as she disclosed how deeply in debt her grandfather’s traveling wild west show was and that if something didn’t happen soon, he would surely lose it.

The hour grew late.

Diane had become charmingly tipsy from the wine. Star was enchanted by the appealing young woman in his black silk robe. So enchanted he didn’t pull away when she suddenly stopped in mid-sentence, rose up to her knees on her padded, high-backed chair, leaned across the table, and curled her fingers around the wide silver bracelet on his wrist.

“Tell me about the scar,” she said, slurring her words slightly.

Lounging comfortably back in his chair, Star said gently, “Now, Diane, you know all about the scar. Golden Star surely told you.”

“I want
you
to tell me.” Diane released her hold on the bracelet, placed both elbows on the table, and put her face in her hands.

Star smiled. “Strange as it seems, I don’t remember a thing about it.”

Diane laughed. “Gosh, I’m surprised.” Then: “Daughter-of-the-Stars surely told you everything. So you tell me. Please, Star. Please.”

Star raised his wineglass and took a drink. “I’ll tell you, but then it’s time you go up to bed. Agreed?”

“Agreed,” she quickly assured him.

Face cupped in her supporting hands, elbows on the dining table, Diane knelt there in her chair like a child, eagerly waiting. Star began to speak in that low, flat voice she found so irresistible.

“It was thirty-five years ago. A hot, windy July night in 1860. I was one week old and asleep in my crib in a small frame house which sat on the banks of the Nevada’s Carson River.”

Diane’s wide-eyed gaze was riveted to Star’s dark face as he spoke of the long-ago night which had so drastically altered his life.

His black-sapphire eyes half hooded, Star took a drink of wine, swallowed slowly, and said, “Deep in the night a fire erupted in the valley. It swiftly spread across the rain-starved plain and moved toward the house where I slept beside my parents’ bed.

“Just before the deadly flames reached us, a mighty Shoshoni chieftain and a small band of his braves rode out of the trees on the mountain high above. Chief Red Fox spotted the frame house in harm’s way. The chief immediately kicked his big paint and came plunging down the mountainside, his warriors following. Before they could reach the house, it was fully engulfed in flames.”

Diane’s face was now screwed up into a worried frown. Her wide eyes had darkened to deep purple. Engrossed, she stared at Star, waiting, listening intently.

“The heat was fierce.” His voice dropped, was barely above a whisper. “The roar of fire, the breaking of glass, and the creaking of burning timber were almost deafening. But Chief Red Fox felt drawn to the blaze. As if a powerful voice from the Spirit World were telling him he must go inside.

“The brave chief kneed his terrified mount closer, so close his face was punished by the blistering heat and his eyes stung. Undaunted, Chief Red Fox moved closer. And closer. Until he heard the faint, unmistakable sound of a baby crying.”

Star fell silent. Diane swallowed anxiously.

“It was you. You were crying. You were the crying baby trapped in the burning house,” she said breathlessly.

“Yes,” Star calmly replied. “The chief leaped off his horse and ran straight into the burning house. He found me crying in my crib beside my dead parents. He snatched me up, wrapped me in a blanket, and crashed through a window to safety just as the roof collapsed.”

Star told Diane all he had learned of that fateful night when the Shoshoni chieftain had saved him from the fire. He was a master storyteller, and his soft, low narration was filled with colorful details and exciting drama. Diane felt as if the events were taking place before her very eyes.

She listened enraptured as Starkeeper led up to the climax of the fascinating and true tale.

“It was nearing dawn when Chief Red Fox rode back into his High Sierra stronghold with me in his arms. He dismounted and ducked into his lodge, ordering everyone out. Hopefully he laid me beside his distraught young wife, who had lost their firstborn son only days before.

“Daughter-of-the-Stars regained her lost strength the minute she saw me. The beautiful Indian princess’s black eyes flashed with angry denial when the chief told her I was the white man’s son.”

Again Star paused. Seconds passed before he spoke again. A hint of a smile touched his sensual lips as he looked back into the past.

“Daughter-of-the-Stars boldly grabbed the sharp hunting knife from Red Fox’s waist scabbard, took my right wrist, slashed an
X
on the inside, bent, and kissed the blood away. She pricked the tip of her finger, stuck it into my mouth, and I automatically sucked on it. Then my beautiful Shoshoni mother possessively clutched me to her breasts and defiantly announced to the chieftain, ‘
Now
we are same blood!
My
son. Mine!’”

His story told, Star concluded by saying, “So you see, I
do
have Shoshoni blood. I’m Indian, Diane.”

Diane said nothing.

She looked into his beautiful navy blue eyes, and her hands again went to the wide silver bracelet on his right wrist. Gently she turned his dark hand over atop the white tablecloth. She carefully pried the wide bracelet apart, slipped it off, and laid it aside.

For a long moment she held his hand in both of her own and studied the perfect white
X
adorning the inside of his dark wrist.

“Yes, Star,” she murmured, “you are Indian. My darling Indian, my love.”

And Diane bent her head and pressed her open lips to his wrist, lovingly kissing the telltale white scar.

Chapter 35

Diane’s silky tongue was like liquid fire on Star’s flesh, and the words she’d softly spoken rang loudly in his ears. “My darling Indian, my love … my darling Indian, my love … my love … my love …”

Diane felt the tendons in Star’s dark wrist constrict beneath her lips. She pressed the tip of her tongue to the center of the white
X
, then slowly lifted her head. Their eyes met. Hers dreamy, adoring. His narrowed, skeptical.

Star drew his hand free. He pushed back his chair and stood up. He hesitated a moment, then leaned across the table, reaching for Diane. He plucked her out of the chair and lifted her up onto the table with such swift ease it took her breath away.

Diane sat back on her heels atop the white-clothed dining table, expectancy shining out of her darkening violet eyes. Her pulse quickened alarmingly as Star’s right hand went into her hair, his lean fingers tangling in the heavy raven locks. He looked at her mouth for a long time.

Diane’s heart began to pound with sweet anticipation. Honed muscles curved beneath Star’s perfectly tailored white shirt, and his handsome face betrayed all the emotions he was fighting so hard to conceal.

“Star,” she said, placing a splayed hand on his chest, “my beautiful Indian. My love.”

Star groaned aloud.

And then … their long-delayed embrace, full of emotion and past any misunderstanding. His lips on hers were eager, urgent, wildly exciting. Diane thrilled to the mastery of his kiss and to the lean, deft hand that moved between them to yank decisively at the tied sash of her black silk robe.

When finally their lips separated, their hearts were beating wildly, their blood was running swiftly, hotly through their veins.

“Sweetheart,” Star muttered hoarsely, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry for all the—”

“Don’t, darling. It doesn’t matter. I love you,” she whispered breathlessly. “I do, Star, I do.”

“Diane … ah, baby …”

Both knew the idea of waiting until they climbed the stairs to his bed was out of the question. They couldn’t wait. The burning need they shared could not be denied nor delayed. They wanted each other.

Right now. Right here.

Star climbed up onto the table with Diane, dropping on one knee to kneel before her. “God, I want you,” he told her hoarsely. “Sweetheart, I have to have you.”

“I’m yours, Star,” she assured him, realizing sadly that he hadn’t said he loved her. “Yours, whenever or wherever you want me. I love you, my darling.”

And then all manner of civility and restraint disappeared as pent-up passions were swiftly unleashed. Both were so anxious they began frantically undressing each other right where they were.

Whispering his name like a litany over and over, Diane clawed at the buttons of Star’s white shirt. Murmuring tender endearments to her, Star snatched the untied sash from Diane’s robe and tossed it away. Her violet eyes darkening to purple with growing arousal, Diane rose fully up on her knees, frantically tugging the long tails of Star’s shirt from his tight beige trousers. His dark eyes gleaming with fierce sexual heat, Star swept Diane’s robe apart, pushed it to her shoulders. Heart fluttering in her naked breasts, Diane’s searching fingers went to Star’s belt buckle and then to the buttons of his beige trousers.

They anxiously kissed and intimately caressed and wildly wrestled halfway out of their clothing, so hot and impatient for each other they were incapable of waiting until they were totally undressed.

When their yearning bodies came eagerly together, one leg of Star’s beige trousers was still twisted stubbornly around his ankle, snagged and caught on the moccasin that remained on his right foot. A bunched-up sleeve of Diane’s black robe was tangled around the elbow of her left arm, the robe itself swirled out and draped over the table’s edge.

It didn’t matter.

Lying flat on her back on the long dining table with the darkly handsome Star looming over her, Diane felt pleasure swamping her. She thought she would surely faint when Star came swiftly into her, the heat and hardness of him awesome. Wondrous. Her head was leaning back into his cupped hand, neither of them kissing, but their mouths were very close, her lips full and parted.

As soon as Star thrust fully, deeply into Diane, he drew her long, slender legs up around his back, leaned down, and kissed her parted lips. Diane moaned into his mouth, tightened her strong thighs around his waist, and arched up to him, wanting to feel him move within her. Star wanted the same thing.

He slid his hands up her delicate ribs to her underarms. He rose onto his knees, bringing Diane up with him. His hot, hungry mouth remaining fused with hers, he sat back on his heels, spread his knees wide, and settled Diane astride his hard thighs.

Diane finally tore her burning lips from his. Her breath was loud and rapid, her face awash with color. She wrapped her arms around Star’s neck and trembled with pleasure when he lowered his head to her breast, the hot tip of his tongue flicking out to sear her aching nipples. She inhaled the fragrance of his clean raven hair and forcefully ground her pelvis down on the hard, pulsing flesh rapidly expanding inside her.

Star raised his head. He drew a deep, ragged breath and said with appealing honesty, “God, you’re good. You’re loving me so good, baby. So damned good.”

Diane smiled, pleased, clasped her hands behind his dark head, stiffened her arms, and leaned back to look into his sultry dark eyes. Star’s strong hands were at her waist, urging, guiding, bringing her to him. For a few lovely seconds the pair enjoyed the incredible thrill of watching each other closely as they engaged in the age-old act of lovemaking.