Tallchief for Keeps (29 page)

The dyes should have faded in Una’s shawl, yet the colors remained strong, just as his love would remain for Elspeth. The shawl had been well loved and taken care of, just as he planned to do with Elspeth…if she didn’t break her neck first.

“You’re in for it,” Alek snapped, meaning it. He slapped his hat against his chaps. Riding the edge of fear had set him off. “I can’t find one bit of patience in me right now, lady. You’d better get off that horse now. You’re an evil-hearted—”

“Save the sweet talk,
Petrovna,” she shot back, her eyes flashing steel at him. “You ride that killer horse and—”

“You would say that to me, a Petrovna? I finish what I start.” Alek’s leather glove shot out to grab Delight’s reins; he glared up at Elspeth, not shielding her from his anger or his need. “Say you love me. Come out and say it. Say you were afraid what happened to me, just like that day you came running to save me from Duncan. You loved me then and you love me now. We’ve loved each other since this all began…we’re a part of each other, lady, and you know it.”

Delight pranced, sidestepping as the shawl fluttered around Elspeth’s rigid body. “You’re a hard ride,” she said finally, employing a western term that meant he wasn’t an easy man.

“I won’t leave you. You won’t wake up some morning and find that I’m off to cover a war. I won’t hurt you. I’ll love you all the days of my life and then some. I’ll give you children, if you want, and I’ll be by your side when you need me. You might not like hearing the truth, but I’ll always give it to you. I’ll be your best friend, if you’ll let me, and ready to love you with my body in a heartbeat. You’re moving in with me, and the next time you decide you’re going to try something like this—” He fought the cold ripple of fear skidding along his skin, not wanting to think about the next time.

Tears shimmered in her eyes, dropping
to the shawl. Fear rasped in her voice, her face pale with terror. “Promise me you won’t ride Diablo. Promise.”

Alek took a long look at the woman he loved. It would cost him a measure of pride to walk away from the horse. But with fear riding Elspeth, his pride meant nothing. She’d been through so much, and he hadn’t been there for her. But he was now, in every heartbeat.

Alek reached up, grabbed the shawl and hauled her down for his kiss. He had to know that she was all right, that she tasted the same, smelled the same, looked at him with that same dark, mysterious, heavy-lidded stare after he kissed her.

“It will cost you,” he said finally when her lips were ripe from his. “And you’ll promise me that you’ll never ride like that again, not until we’ve—a together ‘we’—have talked about it.”

She blinked and glanced at the pink bow tied neatly in his hair. Alek didn’t want to explain Talia’s good-luck charm. He slapped on his hat, walked back to a fence and swung up on it.

Elspeth followed on Delight. “Alek! Where are you going?”

He took off his hat and lifted it to the silent, watching crowd. Spellbound, they’d seen him grovel and break Petrovna’s law. They knew he loved Elspeth and that she’d come around. But right now, none of that helped, not while he was wearing a big jagged hole for his heart. “Ladies and gentleman. I am going fishing. And hell yes, I like to wear pink ribbons in my hair. Hell yes, I love stubborn, muley Elspeth Tallchief. If she rides like that again, I’m holding the whole damn town accountable.”

He hopped off the fence and walked away, still caught by the terror of seeing Elspeth swing from her horse. Alek dashed away a tear with his leather glove and let his Russian curses roll over the sound of the cheering crowd. He’d lick his wounds in peace; he’d done it before.

So much for his patience. So
much for
his pride.

Thirteen

“W
hat do you mean, Alek is a champion rodeo rider?’” Elspeth demanded that evening as her brothers sprawled on her front porch. Talia, Sybil, Emily, Megan and the Petrovnas—minus one Alek Petrovna—were stuffed with burgers and potato salad and awaiting the freshly churned ice cream to ripen in the wooden bucket. The ice cream would be topped with Talia’s double-rich, super-chocolate-frosted cake.

At almost seven months into her pregnancy, Sybil had eaten her cake before her bean burger and potato salad. At the baby-finish line, Talia picked at her food.

The hair on Elspeth’s nape lifted as she rounded on her brothers—the rangy, raw-boned, hard-minded, un-tamed Tallchiefs wearing smirks. She pivoted back to Mr. Petrovna. She began again more quietly, spacing her words. “Is Alek a rodeo champion?”

“My son is a born-and-bred Texan, no matter what foreign countries he’s been in,” stated Mr. Petrovna proudly. “When he was just a pup, he started hiring out to ranches during the summers.”

“He can outride any man around,” Duncan, an expert on the subject, offered. “Not the fancy trick-riding stuff, just good old bull and bronc riding.”

Elspeth pivoted to him. “He’s not much in a race.”

Birk snickered; Elspeth shoved his plate of chocolate cake up into his face. Lacey burst out laughing, and Birk, in turn, pushed her mouth into the cake. She licked her lips and grinned through the circle of chocolate covering her face. “That was worth it, bub.”

Calum cleared his throat. “I believe Alek prefers to ride behind you, Elspeth. There’s…ah…certain advantages in that. And when he’s feeling abused, he likes to pit himself against a real challenge, not one he wants to kiss. I’d say Diablo was what Alek needed at the moment. We had a hard enough time unloading that horse at Alek’s after the rodeo.”

“My boy will have that bronc eating out of his hand in no time.” Mr. Petrovna licked the frosting-covered finger Megan held up to him. “I haven’t set up a tepee in years. When I figured he’d be needing something to hole up in until he wanted to…until he calmed down, Duncan told me to borrow yours from his barn. Yep. That was something there at the lake…Junior looking hard as iron and twice as mean as that killer bronc.”

Mr. Petrovna didn’t
know about
the tepee, about how the Tallchiefs had started bringing their brides to it, reviving Una’s legends. First there was Duncan and then Calum, and Elspeth had always known Birk would be the next to find his true love. She glanced at Duncan and Calum and found them looking at her, kneading the same thought. To Mr. Petrovna, the tepee served as whimsy, a family toying with their birthright, nothing more. Later they’d tell him, but not now, while Elspeth picked through her relationship with Alek.

She’d wounded Alek, torn the heart from him once, and time had passed, smoothing the edges for both of them.

She resented his damn contract, and he’d pay for that when they argued…because Alek Petrovna purely savored a good argument and Elspeth intended to let him sharpen his teeth on the bones she tossed at him.

Her mother had always said that the making up was worth the fight and that arguments cleared the fog between lovers. Elspeth smiled; Alek had torn her castle walls down, and he deserved a nip or two.

Elspeth looked straight at Sybil, nestled against Duncan, then at Talia, a tall, cool blonde in the midst of the Tallchief clan. Elspeth’s brothers had pushed away the shadows; they’d found love, fought for it.

Images of other children
danced by her, and she turned to Birk. He’d be finding love soon, because the rogue of the lot, he’d been searching longer, plowing through likely women with a charm that didn’t give them a chance. One day he’d find a woman who didn’t care for his charm and wouldn’t have him on a platter, and then his hackles would lift—because if the Tallchiefs liked anything, it was a hard ride. He’d find Una’s rocking chair and the woman to go with the legend, and then he’d be at peace.

Elspeth’s gaze drifted to Lacey, and she corrected the thought. Birk would be blissfully happy, because the woman he chose was not likely to be a peaceful one; she would have her own shadows.

Fiona would come tripping to Amen Flats, tired from battling the world. And then she’d hunt Una’s sewing chest, with its tatting shuttles, shoe button hooks and doilies and bits of her life. The buyer had wanted the tiny chest intact with its lovely feminine clutter, and Una—to save Tallchief land—had given her heart in the lacy heap. But still she’d loved the chest, as would Fiona.

“It cost Alek not to finish that ride,” Birk stated. “Any man who’d walk away from something he’d started in front of a rodeo crowd has it bad.”

Mrs. Petrovna stroked Elspeth’s hair. She tugged Elspeth to a stool in front of her and began to braid her hair. “You see, honey, Alek has all sorts of rodeo belts and medals. You only saw his journalism scrapbooks. I kept all of his other things separate.”

“They were a good match—that
horse and my son. He’s been feeling evil lately,” Mr. Petrovna said.

Elspeth took in a long, steadying breath, and let Mrs. Petrovna finish her hair. Edges, she thought. Just like Una’s edges—when she’d made her decision based on love and the man who had placed himself in her care. Elspeth smiled to herself. Tallchiefs weren’t easy to capture, and she’d given Alek a good run, while she wound through her shadows to come full circle. Nothing had changed since that night in Scotland when he’d strolled toward her, wearing a grin that would knock the senses from under any reasonable woman. A second go-’round, and Alek had stepped into her shadows, tearing her from them. He’d taken away the distance she’d placed on her life, replacing it with himself. She’d tasted his dreams and found them true, and still she’d hovered in her shadows, until he made her so greedy for him that she’d stepped out.

Then the horrible, heart-stopping, icy fear when she knew Alek would ride Diablo. She’d hesitated outside the arena, sitting on Delight. Then Alek—his face hard and grim—had lowered himself onto Diablo. With Alek in danger, she had had no choice but to show her love. He’d given her everything, his dreams and hopes and his aching past; she couldn’t imagine life without him—and she’d given him nothing, not a crumb.

The image of Alek lurched
into Elspeth’s mind—Alek slapping his hat along his chaps and stalking toward her looking twice as mean as the horse he chose to ride.

But now the time had come to claim him well and good.

She intended to run Alek Petrovna down and—

She stood when Mrs. Petrovna
said, “Come here, Talia. It’s been so long since I’ve braided your hair.”

Elspeth remembered the pink bow glistening in Alek’s curls. “What about the bow?”

Talia smiled tightly and eased herself
onto the stool. “It’s my good-luck charm. He always wore my bows and usually won.”

Elspeth stood still, remembering Alek in the arena, how firmly he spoke his vows—vows, she decided. Alek had made his vows to her right there in the September sunshine with a crowd of people straining to hear.
I’ll be your best friend…I’ll love you all the days of my life and then some
….

She’d come to the same edge as Una, to a moment when the awakening changed, deepened, ripened and clung.

She quite simply loved Alek
Petrovna. He was hers; he’d always been from the first moment Images flashed through her as she rode toward her love—Alek, laughing outright. Alek, impetuous, burying her in a mound of wildflowers. Alek, playing with her—her friend. Alek, telling her how much he ached for the war-torn countries. Alek, her tender lover…her love…her future.

Her mind racing forward to the moment when she faced Alek, Elspeth walked to Delight, tethered and grazing in a wild field near her house.

Watching her from the porch, Duncan shook his head. “I don’t know if I can make it through all this.”

Sybil patted his hand. “Darling, you’re just emotional now. In another two months, you’ll be just fine.”

“She’s hunting what she wants. She just needed time. It will all come together.” Calum spoke from experience; he’d placed his shadows aside with his wife’s help. He took Talia’s hand and drew it to his lips. “Honey, are you okay?”

Talia pressed her lips together, her knuckles white as she gripped Calum’s hand. “I want my black boots…now!”

He plucked her up from the stool in a
heartbeat and stood holding her in his arms. He looked as if he wanted to carry her off to keep her safe and wasn’t certain which direction to take. Talia kissed him and grinned. “Hi, Pops. Just see that I get my boots and don’t let the doctor bully you into taking them off—Ohhhh!”

“Boy. Don’t you dare
faint. Not while you’re holding my daughter,” boomed Mr. Petrovna.

“She’s having the baby now. Here.” Mrs. Petrovna, who had been keeping her hand on Talia’s stomach, beamed. “I knew it. They’re coming two minutes apart. Talia is unpredictable. I knew she wouldn’t give us proper notice and that she’d pick a time when the doctor was out of town. This baby is on its way…fast.”

“For once, this isn’t my fault. It’s Calum’s. I thought it was the excitement and the hot dog at the arena….
I want my boots!”

Birk placed one hand on the porch railing and used it to swing down to the lawn. He landed at a run, heading straight for Calum’s house.

Duncan turned to Sybil as if seeing her potential danger for the first time. “You wouldn’t do this, would you?”

“Darling. I’m
predictable as rain. The Petrovnas are another matter,” She grinned at him over her shoulder, just enough to make him question what she’d just said.

Mrs. Petrovna and Lacey helped Calum carry Talia into Elspeth’s house and bed. Mrs. Petrovna hummed between giving orders. Talia tugged Calum down on the bed beside her and started cursing him in Swahili. By the time another pain hit, Mr. Petrovna started the Russian music blaring. “To help my little girl. She always loved this music,” he explained.

Birk arrived with the boots, and Calum placed them on Talia’s feet. “Man, I can’t wait to wear these things again, Tallchief. You’d better make good with your promise to wear those leather pants while we’re dancing to that music. Look at him, Mom. Isn’t he cute? Right now, he’s trying to remember everything in all the books he read—the methodical stuff, steps one through—”

Then she screamed, bearing down. Calum went white
and took her hand. Talia gasped, grinned weakly at him, and said, “Well, I’ve got my boots on. Let’s get this gig on the road. Mom has done this before. She’s an experienced midwife. Calum, don’t you dare pass out.”