CHAPTER 19
Skylar had slid back into the doeskin when she heard a soft call coming from outside the tipi. It was Little Rabbit, one of Hawk’s cousin Pretty Bird’s daughters. Little Rabbit peeked into the tipi, smiling shyly. She made motions with her hands to show Skylar she meant to take her to wash her face.
Skylar smiled and went along with her.
They walked some distance from the camp, downriver, until they came to a place where a number of the women, both old and young, were bathing. They had lain their clothing upon the shore and slipped into the water. They laughed, splashing one another, and called out to her in words she could not understand. She felt somewhat shy herself about stripping completely before such a large group, but she found herself surrounded. The dress was pulled over her head, and she was being led into the water.
The cold water was shocking. She would have leaped from it had she been allowed. As it was, she found herself in the middle of a massive water fight, studied by many of the giggling women.
The Sioux women came in all sizes and shapes, slim and plump, short and tall, young and old. Many of them were very pretty, but one woman stood out, Skylar noted. Not only was she exceptionally well-shaped, but she had unusually beautifuleyes, which slanted slightly upward, and she continually carried the curve of a secret smile about her lips. Her every movement was sensual. Someone said something to the woman, and she laughed, looking over to the embankment. A man was standing there, in the shadows hidden by the brush, so Skylar couldn’t see who he was. The sensual Sioux woman made no move to duck beneath the water. Instead, she cupped it in her hands, sluicing it down over her body. None of the women seemed concerned about the situation. It must not have seemed unusual to them.
In time, the women came out of the water, found their clothing, and dried their hair in the sun. Skylar saw the exceptionally built young Sioux woman slip off into the bushes. She watched her, then thought no more of it. She wished she knew where Hawk had gone. She hadn’t imagined that he would disappear so early and not come back. He was perfectly at home. He was home. She wasn’t exactly suffering, but she couldn’t speak with these women, and she didn’t have the least idea of how she was supposed to spend the day.
Hawk’s little cousin provided her with a comb that had been carved out of bone.
And she prayed that it wasn’t human bone.
She worked on her hair, then saw that the women were beginning to drift back to camp. She followed along, but halfway back, noticed that she had dropped her comb. She fell behind the others to search the ground for it, then realized that she had taken a turn from the water as she had done so. She had turned into an area where little alcoves jutted from the hills, almost like caves. She couldn’t be lost, she assured herself. She hadn’t come that far. Then she heard a woman’s laughter. She followed the sound into one of the grass-carpeted alcoves, surrounded by berry bushes. There stood the sloe-eyed beauty from the stream. She hadn’t bothered to dry herself. Her doeskin dress, so soft it might have been cotton, was molded to her body. Shetalked to the warrior in front of her, a man dressed in leggings, breechclout, moccasins, and no more. She laughed softly again, doing most of the speaking, and though the language was Sioux, Skylar was well aware that her words were both sultry and seductive. She started to back away, hoping to disappear without being seen. But then she heard the man’s reply. Again, she didn’t know the words.
She did know the voice.
Hawk’s.
She was completely unprepared to discover him where he was and with whom. She didn’t think, she reacted, and her reaction was frightening. She felt as if she had been knifed cleanly through the lungs, and the pain was staggering, as if she could no longer breathe.
And she felt like a fool.
Believe him, take him at face value. Well, he constantly admitted to his past. The past kept catching up with them now. And this woman seemed a very determined piece of his past.
Furious, Skylar turned and stumbled from the alcove. She walked straight into a bramble and was almost blinded. She spun around, the bramble catching her hair. As she tugged to free the wayward strands from the bushes, another set of hands came in to help her.
“Stand still.”
Hawk.
She wrenched at her hair, trying to free it from the bush and his grasp.
“Let go of me.”
“Skylar, stop it, stand still?—”
“Get your hands off me!”
“Skylar, I’m warning you?—”
She was free. She’d left half her hair in the bush, but she was free. She spun around, hands on her hips, meeting his gaze andhoping she wouldn’t burst into tears. Just when she had thought that…
That what? she mocked herself. He had fallen madly in love with her? That despite the circumstances of their marriage and everything he had said about other women, he had come to long for only her? A whore in town was perhaps easily forgotten. Perhaps he had intended on meeting an Indian lover here all the time. But what difference could that make? He had told her he wouldn’t allow her to really mean anything in his life when she had insisted that she wouldn’t go back. Why did she care?
“You had no right to drag me here. None. You could have ridden here on your own without humiliating me, you could?—”
“Shut up, Skylar.”
She inhaled instead. He looked wickedly dangerous. Half naked like any pagan on the plain, sun-bronzed, lean and muscular. She hated it—hated it! She wanted to be reasonable, but jealousy and pain were overwhelming her. She fought it as best she could. “You could have just left me alone, you mixed-race bastard. You could have left me at Mayfair and come here and done—done whatever you chose to do without causing me?—”
“Skylar!” His green eyes narrowed sharply; his voice lowered. “I’m warning you, lower your voice.”
“Don’t you dare warn me about anything—” she began, then gasped. She hadn’t chosen to be silent. She simply gave up speaking because all the air that had been in her lungs had been swept out of them when he’d wrenched her up and thrown her over his shoulder. She tried to push up against his back. She slid—his body had somehow been subtly greased. She slid down against his flesh, but managed to inhale again, growing worried despite her anger as he walked long and furiously down a path through the brush that fronted the river.
