Untamed (42 page)

Had he overheard her one-sided conversation? Assuming that he had, she explained, "Then you know that I can never be the kind of wife and mother you and the boys deserve. There's no way I could replace Tangle Hair in your lives. Ever."

Daniel nodded thoughtfully. "No, I doubt that you could. She was a good and eager cook and very willing housewife. She was also a wonderful mother to the twins and would never have referred to them as little pisspots."

Biting her lip as much to keep from laughing as crying, Josie glanced down at their dark little heads. "You and the boys must miss her terribly."

"I'm sure the twins will always miss their mother in some ways. As for me..."

Daniel took her into his arms then, a child still dangling from each of her legs like a pair of baby possums, and whispered, "She wasn't half the woman you are, Ma Jofessine. Please don't go. We love you."

Chapter 25

The temperature stayed better than forty below zero for three weeks whether it snowed or not. During that time Daniel lost track of most of his cattle. The few he did locate on his rare treks outside were frozen dead in their tracks. Winter hung on through March with a tenacity he'd never seen before—and hoped never to see again.

During the long periods they were trapped inside the cabin, Daniel continued urging Josie to teach him how to cook several of his and the twins favorite things. He didn't do this in anticipation of her leaving, but as part of his campaign to win her love. Since he already knew how to make fairly decent biscuits, it didn't take long for her to instruct him on methods of making them lighter and fluffier. She even complimented his cooking, claiming that his soups and stews didn't need any improvements, and moved on to the proper way of seasoning and roasting large clods of beef. Getting the hang of molasses cookies, however, looked as if it might just take a few more months. Or even years.

Romancing Josie was turning out to be even tougher than learning how to make those damned cookies. As a man raised in the wild, a hunter and a trapper, Daniel had absorbed a couple of hard, fast lessons through the years about all living creatures. Foremost was the rule that sometimes a wild thing could be tamed, and sometimes it couldn't. Those that wouldn't be tamed couldn't be trapped or they'd soon die. Daniel felt as if he were walking a fine line between taming and trapping Josie on an almost daily basis.

As it was, he'd nearly waited too long to recognize her wild side for what it was, and had come perilously close to pushing her right out of his life. If he hadn't accidentally overheard part of the conversation she'd had with herself in the widows' lodge, he figured she might even be back in Miles City by now, blizzards and all. Daniel now knew the only chance he had of keeping Josie with him was to love her exactly the way she was when he'd found her—unconquered and untamed.

There wasn't a lot he could do about their baby except try and be both mother and father after it was born, but there was plenty to do around the house. To help ensure the success of his plan, Daniel took the lessons he'd learned to the boys, teaching them to clean up after themselves, to make up their bed, and even to keep the floor of the cabin clean with a pair of little brooms he'd fashioned for them out of pine boughs. Josie still insisted on washing the dishes, although Daniel doubted she enjoyed it much, but now that the weather had cleared, she was spending more and more time outdoors or in the barn. Now that the sun was shining again, that could be a problem. Soon he would have to go in search of what was left of his herd, which meant that Josie would have to care for the twins and pretty much be confined to the cabin again.

Daniel glanced out the window at the new beginnings of spring. Although there were slushy puddles everywhere, higher sections of ground were covered with tufts of grass that seemed to have grown overnight. Some of these lush green mounds were splashed with clumps of bright yellow bells and lavender crocuses. Into this welcome change of scenery, Josie suddenly burst around the corner of the barn and dashed toward the cabin. As colorful of any of spring's bounty, her sun-kissed hair streamed out behind her, as free and untamed as the woman it adorned.

Afraid Josie might slip and fall on the snow melting on the stairs, Daniel hurried out the door to meet her. "Hey, what's the big hurry?"

"Walking Strange and Little Skunk are taking their tipi apart." Her cheeks were as colorful as cherry blossoms as she paused to catch a breath. "Do you think they're leaving us?"

"Could be." Daniel stepped out from under the porch and into the warm chinook winds. "We've got a real snow-eater blowing out here. We put their tipi up in the best spot to protect it from ice and wind, but now that the snow is melting so quickly, it'll soon be sitting in a big puddle of slush."

"Then maybe we ought to help them move it to a drier spot."

"First let me talk to them to see what they're up to." Daniel glanced over his shoulder. "The twins are napping and ought to be out for a while. Why don't you lie down and rest, too?"

Josie hesitated, clearly attracted by the idea, but said, "I will, but first I have to find out what my Indian friends are up to. Mind if I go with you?"

Daniel didn't mind Josie's company a bit, especially after they reached the side of the barn and discovered that the tipi was already down and transformed into a large travois. Both of their guests also had their babies tucked into cradleboards strapped to their backs.

"Going somewhere, ladies?" asked Daniel in Cheyenne. After they answered, he translated for Josie. "They're leaving the ranch. The weather is warming up so quickly, they want to return to the encampment now and send some family members back to collect the bodies of their dead husbands."

"Oh, my God." Josie grimaced and clutched her stomach. "I forgot about the men in the wellhouse. Are you going to ride along with the women to make sure they make it to Lame Deer?"

Daniel had considered the possibility, and even suggested it, but his' offer was turned down. "They said they'll be fine, and that they know this area better than I do. I'm going to the barn to get the horse Wolf Lies Down left behind, so maybe this would be a good time for you to say your good-byes."

"Oh, do I have to?" Again a grimace. "I know I'll cry."

"These days you cry just because the sun comes up. I'm sure they're used to it by now:" With that little reminder of her condition and a quick smile, Daniel turned and headed for the barn.

Girding herself and thinking of her husband as a coward for leaving her to face the chore of making her farewells alone, Josie approached Walking Strange, who was still dressed in dirty, torn clothing.

"I wasn't figuring on you two leaving us so soon," she said, twisting the rawhide fringe on her bodice. "In fact, I was kind of hoping you'd be here when the baby came."

She patted her swollen abdomen, and immediately Walking Strange seemed to understand. The Cheyenne widow began murmuring soothing phrases and even gave Josie's tummy a comforting pat.

"If you're telling me that everything's going to be fine, I hope you're right. I have to admit that I've never been so scared in my life as I am when I think about having this baby, and not just the birthing part of it. How good a mother can I be when I don't even want to be a mother?"

Walking Strange smiled, looking as if she knew exactly what Josie had said, and threw her arms around her for an unexpected hug. Again murmuring Cheyenne phrases, she patted her shoulder, then released her and backed away. Josie thought she might have been crying.

Little Skunk approached next, wary as usual, and muttered something under her breath.

"Same to you, I guess."

Little Skunk didn't respond or even meet her gaze. Josie put a touch of amusement in her tone. "I expect you probably think I'm crazy doing all this talking when no one can understand a word I'm saying, but it sure has been good conversation for me. I thank you for putting up with me, even though you must think I'm nuts."

"I doubt she thinks you're nuts," Daniel said from behind as he returned with the widow's horse in tow. "You might be a little peculiar from time to time, of course, but never crazy."

Josie flashed him a grin. "You do have exceptionally good hearing, don't you?"

"Yes, ma'am, I most certainly do. In case you haven't noticed, I'm exceptionally good at most everything I do."

The look he gave her after that suggestive remark was intimate, to say the least. A little embarrassed, even though she knew the Cheyenne women couldn't understand what Daniel had said, Josie turned her back to them and faced her husband.

"I've already said my good-byes." Her eyes prickling with those confounded tears, Josie blinked them back. "I think I'd better go to the barn now before I start crying. Would you meet me there after the women have gone? I think something's wrong with Sweetpea."

"I'll be along in a minute."

Daniel watched Josie as she walked away, far more interested in her than that damned buffalo. He always wanted her, but something about watching her bloom with his child, as if she were another flower of spring, really woke up his libido and set his blood to boiling. Their lovemaking had taken on a new wildness now that Daniel no longer had to withdraw at crucial moments, but Josie still held something back from hire, a part of herself she refused to release. As she had the night after they wed, she still refused to undress in front of him, claiming a modesty she sure as hell didn't show once she got him beneath the covers. Today Daniel intended to see every beautiful inch of his wife, to feast his eyes as welt as his body as she writhed beneath his touch.

His thoughts going more and more to the moment when he could hold Josie in his arms, Daniel hurried the Cheyenne widows off of his ranch, and then headed straight for the barn. He found her standing near the feed bucket, an overturned can of precious grain at her feet. She was braced with one hand against the backside of a stall, and holding her belly with the other. She was also staring off into the distance, her features rigid with shock.

"Josie?" Daniel asked quietly. "Is something wrong?"

Her eyes went to him, then cleared, but her voice sounded dazed. "No, I just had a little bubble of gas or something."

Thinking he knew what that bubble might have been, he made a guess as he drew near. "Did the baby move?"

"Baby?" She released her tummy. "No, nothing like that."

As always, Josie grew remote when talk turned to discussion of their child. It was as if speaking out loud about the miracle growing inside her body made it too real for her, and that by ignoring the subject altogether, it wouldn't be true. Daniel hated that Josie felt that way, but loved her so much he was willing to accept her attitude. Her pregnancy was such a forbidden subject that even Daniel tried not to think too much about the coming baby, refusing to let himself wonder if it would be a boy or a girl, a single baby or twins. Or which of them the child might favor.

"Daniel," she said, cutting off his musings. "I want you to have a look at Sweetpea. I think she—"

"Let's have a look at you first." Before she could stop him, Daniel took her by the waist and pulled her to him, caressing, her hips and following the contours of her bottom. He hiked up the hem of her dress, feeling the nude woman beneath the buckskin. "Oh, my," he murmured huskily. "This is a nice surprise."

"It's wash day," she said, her voice catching. "Stop that."

"Stop?" He cupped the mound of her sex, then caressed her there in a teasing, circling motion. "Are you sure that's what you want?"

"Yes," she hissed, leaning into his fingers. "For now, anyway. Tonight we can—"

"Now would be even better." Daniel not only left his hand where it was, but worked his fingers through the mat of burnished hair there until he felt nothing but moist, lusty woman. "Your Cheyenne friends are gone, the twins are asleep, and spring seems to have sprung up on me in the damndest place. Want to see?"

Josie's eyes rolled and her lashes fluttered. Her breath came out in a shaky sigh as she said, "Daniel, for heaven's sake. Why can't we wait until tonight?"

"Because, my love, I can't wait that long."

With very little resistance from Josie, Daniel lifted her up onto the apple crate directly behind them, bringing her hips level with his. Then in one swift movement he raised the dress over her head. She immediately snatched it out of his hands and tried to cover herself with it.

"Daniel. Have you gone crazy?"

"Why is it crazy to want to have a look at you? How can you still be so shy?"

Josie chewed on her bottom lip, her expression filled with concern, not modesty, as if she were puzzling out a great problem.

"All I want is the pleasure of looking at you," he whispered. "I love you too much to ask for more than that."

"Oh, Daniel, I wish—"

He placed a finger across her lips. "I swear, this will be enough."

Her eyes suddenly swam with something Daniel didn't dare believe was love, and then Josie released the dress and stood there naked before him, her gently rounded tummy somehow adding to her magnificent allure.