C
otannah turned and walked away from her older brother, Cade, all the way to the other end of the porch, but it didn’t do a bit of good. Stubborn, bossy soul that he was, he stayed right on her heels and kept on berating her.

“I’m not putting up with your wild ways anymore, Cotannah. I’ve just fired one of the best vaqueros who ever rode for me because of you.”

He was so furious he was shouting. She could not recall him ever being this furious before, at least not with her. Well, he had no right to be. She whirled to face him and shouted right back.

“It’s not my fault! Can I help it if Tonio can’t stay away from me?”

He answered with a glare so ferocious that she had to resist taking a step backward. What in the world was he so angry about? It wasn’t as if he’d never fired a vaquero before and wouldn’t fire one again.

But it wouldn’t do to say that to him; Cade was in a
fit this afternoon like she’d never seen him. Well, if she knew anything, she knew a person could catch more flies with honey than with vinegar, so she drew a deep breath, smiled, and forced a conciliatory tone into her voice.

“Really, Cade, this isn’t my fault—I clearly told Tonio that I’m not seeing him anymore!”

“Maybe in words. But then, no doubt, you batted your eyelashes and flashed him a smile to show that you didn’t really mean it. You should never have been seeing him at all, Cotannah. You never cared one breath for him, yet you couldn’t rest until he was pie-eyed crazy over you.”

“That is not true! I did not!”

However, his harsh voice rode right over hers.

“What you did was go too far. You broke the man’s heart and lost him his job into the bargain. Now, aren’t you proud of yourself?”

Her conscience stabbed at her, but she ignored it.

“Tonio’s a big boy. Twenty years old, the same as I am, so he can take care of himself! I’m sick and tired of hearing this lecture—first from Maggie and then Oleana and now you, Big Brother. Why can’t you all see that I’m only growing up and learning how to be a woman?”

The look of scorn that swept over his face took her breath. He pushed his hat back on his head, placed his hands on the porch banister, one on each side of her, and leaned down so his face would be close to hers.

“Your education about womanhood is just commencing.”

His eyes were like a stranger’s, hard and black and completely empty of the love she usually saw in them; they made her want to shiver. She wouldn’t, though, and she would not look away, no matter how much she wanted.

“What do you mean?” she asked, a little uncertain.

“I mean that I’m sending you back to the Nation so you can learn how to be a real woman in the old Choctaw way. Emily and Aunt Ancie and Auntie Iola will teach you.”

The shock of it, the incredible cruelty of the idea, stopped the blood cold in her veins.

“Emily isn’t Choctaw.”

“But she’s a real woman in the old tradition: she takes care of her husband and child, she helps the teachers at the school, she shares with the less fortunate, she contributes to Tay’s position as Principal Chief. In other words, ’Tannah, she thinks of other people, not entirely of herself and what she wants from daylight ‘til dark.”

She struggled to make her brain work, to defend herself.

“So?” she cried. “Are you comparing her to me? Are you saying that I think only of myself?”

“Right.”

“Well! Now I understand why Tay broke my heart and chose Emily instead of me—she’s a saint, and I’m nothing but a selfish sinner!”

His face softened slightly but not his voice.

“Tay broke your pride more than your heart. He and Emily were destined for each other, you’ve said so yourself a dozen times, and what I’m saying is that if you want to find the man destined to stay with you for life, you’d better change some things.”

“I’m not looking for a man destined to stay with me for life! For ten long years I thought Tay was that man, but I was wrong, so I’m never going to think that way again.”

He snorted.

“You’d better start thinking that way instead of thinking one man after another is put in your path for you to
use and then throw away. Someday you’re going to cause a killing or some other disaster.”

The remark stabbed her, cut her deep.

“Better I should discard them than for them to discard me! I’d rather break their hearts than for them to break mine! I’ll never let my heart be broken again, and I won’t be humiliated again, either, so you’d better stop preaching and listen to me, Cade Chisk-Ko. I’m not going back to the Nation.”

“Yes. You’re going.”

She set her fists on her hips and glared up at him, pure fury rushing over her skin hot and fast, washing away shame and guilt like a blistering rain.

“How embarrassing would that be, for me, of all people, to go and stay with Tay and Emily? My former betrothed and the woman he chose instead of me, won’t that be a fine holiday for me? And for them! Are they to govern my behavior?”

“Yes. And Ancie and Jumper will be there to help them.”

“What! You’re sending them, too?”

His expression hardened again.

“Naturally. You have to have a chaperone—we can’t have you on the trail alone with a bunch of handsome vaquero outriders, now, can we?”

The implication infuriated her. And brought back the guilt she hated.

“I haven’t done one iota of what you did in your young days! In your Wandering Year—which lasted for ten years—I begged you to come home and live with us and really be my brother! You have no call to be so self-righteous, Cade!”

“I’m a man. There’s a world of difference.”

“Oh, yes,” she cried. “There is a world of difference, isn’t there? No man who was twenty years old ever got
sent away from home like a naughty child in disgrace!”

“You disgraced yourself. This is the consequence of your own actions.”

“That’s what you think. I’m not going!”

“Pack your bags.”

He wheeled and strode away down the length of the porch, his spurs ringing fast and loud.

Chapter 1

Choctaw Nation

Three weeks later

C
rossing the Kiamichi River meant they were almost there. Cotannah longed to jump off her mare and into the water, into the deep, swift-running current and let it carry her far into the wilds of the mountains, where she’d never have to see another human soul. Especially not Tay and Emily.

Her hands shook with the effort it took to hold the reins and keep riding toward Tall Pine, where Cade meant to leave her for no telling how long. Never, not even in her most humiliating nightmare, could she have dreamed that Cade would make her a prisoner living in shame under Tay and Emily’s charitable supervision.

Well, she didn’t care if he had sent messages ahead to Tay and Emily and had surrounded her with eight outriders and Uncle Jumper and Aunt Ancie, all ten of them determined to fulfill his orders to the letter. Somehow she’d show him, she’d show them all. Cotannah Chisk-Ko did as she pleased; she was a woman grown, now, and they’d all have to learn to live with that fact.

The sudden crack of a rifle shot tore through the air. It sent her horse, Pretty Feather, bolting through the shallow ford toward the north bank of the Kiamichi so fast that for one, horrible moment Cotannah was afraid that the mare had been hit. She threw herself along her mount’s neck as she scrambled up the rocky incline and ran her hands over every inch of sleek horseflesh she could reach. By the time they’d topped the bank and hit the road running, she’d decided that Pretty Feather was only scared. Her own heart was pounding as hard as the mare’s hooves against the ground.

Juan Caldero, one of the two outriders who were farthest ahead turned back, shouted for her to take care. Then she heard the coach wheels behind her and Pretty Feather’s frightened whinny entirely filled her ears. She glimpsed an animal, a dog or a coyote, darting into their path from out of nowhere and then the mare was skidding to a stop, rearing up onto her hind feet, rising and rising into the air, reaching for the sky as if she meant to tear down the sun. Cotannah nearly unseated, clung to the horn and slid her feet from the stirrups so she could fling herself free of the mare if she flipped over backwards. Lord! Pretty Feather never, ever acted this way!

The mare’s forefeet finally touched earth again but only for an instant because the wild animal or whatever it was ran right between her trembling legs the moment they hit the ground. She reared again, came down briefly and then raised herself wildly once more, this time staying up forever.

Suddenly, a man appeared, darted out of the woods and into the road. Cotannah locked her legs against Pretty Feather’s sides and looked down from her vantage point in the air, caught helpless in a moment that wouldn’t end. The animal—it was a coyote, she could
see that now—ran in a frenzied circle beneath her and she caught a glimpse of gushing blood before it dropped to the ground directly beneath her horse. Pretty Feather snorted and started trembling worse than ever, scrabbling her hooves against the ground, swiveling and swaying, walking, actually walking on her hind feet!

How could a horse do that and not fall over backward? She’d be crushed at any moment! Her brain froze in panic. Should she jump now or cling to her mount with all the strength in her legs? She couldn’t decide. She couldn’t move, couldn’t do anything.

The man ran toward the fallen coyote, she saw a flash of his hot, light-colored eyes and glimpsed a stunningly handsome, broad face beneath a knotted cloth headband. Somehow, he seemed familiar. And fearless. He ran directly underneath Pretty Feather’s flailing forefeet! The mare took in a long, whistling breath as her instincts against trampling a human being made her shy from him, but she made no move to come down.

The man—wearing skin breeches with an old-fashioned cloth hunting shirt and shoulder-length hair with the headband, carried the look of the wild about him. He lifted his hand toward her teetering mount. Cotannah’s breath stopped completely. The slightest unbalancing push could send them on over backwards and mash her to death beneath the horse. She stared, terrified, at his long, brown fingers as they touched, then stroked Pretty Feather’s shoulder.

He was
talking
to the mare, she could hear a crooning of low-pitched Choctaw words beneath the roaring thunder of her own pulse beating in her head and the galloping of the vaqueros’ horses as they rode back to see about her. Pretty Feather immediately, softly, dropped all four feet to the ground and stood quiet.

The woodsman kept stroking her, kept talking to her.
He had the most beguiling voice—deep and slow as an old wise man. The sound of it brought a sudden calm to the terror rolling deep inside Cotannah and she knew how Pretty Feather felt. Relief flowed through her like a warm river and carried the trembling from her body, out through her toes and the tips of her fingers.

The man glanced up at her, and she saw that he wasn’t old at all, he was near her own age, heartbreakingly handsome with topaz-colored eyes, a straight nose, and a broad, sensual mouth. She’d never seen his face before or she’d remember. She managed a smile, made it flirtatious.

“I thank you for calming my horse.”

He didn’t answer. Immediately he bent over the coyote again, picked it up in his arms, turned and ran back toward the woods that lined the road. Just as he reached a thicket of redbud trees he turned and looked over his shoulder at Cotannah.

It was a quick flash of acknowledgment, a fast look to see that she was still all right and Pretty Feather still calm, but it was a look of such power that it stripped away everything superficial as though he could see straight into her heart. His strangely pale eyes seemed filled with light. Somehow, they captured hers in a gaze so strong and sharp that she could not have looked away if someone had thrown a rope around her neck and tried to turn her head.

He knew her. Deep down to her soul. For the first time in her life she was looking into the eyes of someone who
knew
her. It gave her the most peculiar feeling. It made her shiver.

Then she was staring at the yellowing leaves and gray limbs of the old, gnarled redbud trees and the woodsman was gone, vanished so fast it seemed, suddenly, as if he’d never been there at all. But he had been. And she
knew him from somewhere, she did! But how could that be? She would have remembered that face! Maybe Tay and Emily would know him.

They had to know—he was too different from most men, too powerful in his looks and his manner to escape notice. Disappointment stabbed at her. He was different from most men, also, in that he hadn’t smiled at her. Nor had he spoken to her. Not even to accept her thanks. He’d been too fascinated by that coyote, of all things! Any other man would be more interested in her than in a scruffy old coyote!

“
¿Señorita, como está?
”

Juan Caldero was talking to her, but his gaze was fixed on the trees where the woodsman had disappeared. Only then did she realize that she, too, was still watching that spot as if she believed the man would reappear. The coach clattered to a stop behind her and the rest of the vaqueros gathered around.

“
¿Quien es?
” one of them asked, staring, as she and Juan were still doing, at the last place the woodsman had been.

A spate of Spanish filled the air, and she caught enough words to know that all the men were as amazed as she that the coyote was being cared for instead of being hunted. Juan declared that the man was magic, pointing to Pretty Feather’s sudden and continuing calm as proof. Aunt Ancie and Uncle Jumper agreed—they, too, had been near enough to see what he had done.

“There went an
alikchi
,” Ancie declared, “like in the old days.”

He was a man of magic or there was something else special about him. As they all started moving on toward Tall Pine again, Cotannah thought about the way he’d looked at her. She relived every moment of their encounter and made a solemn promise to herself as she
rode that last mile and a half. The woodsman was specially sensual and magically handsome, and she was going to find out who he was and make him take notice of her or her name wasn’t Cotannah Chisk-Ko.

Her chance to fulfill that vow came sooner than she ever expected. She had to blink her eyes and look again when they rode up into the front yard at Tall Pine, because there he was, kneeling, bent over the hurt coyote at the foot of the majestic pine tree that gave the house its name! He had arrived first even though he’d been on foot, so it must be that he could run like a deer.

Or maybe he had used medicine to fly through the air, maybe he was a shape-changer who’d turned himself into an eagle carrying the coyote in his beak. A new shiver passed over her. This was a man like none she’d ever seen before, and here he was, right in her path again!

Her heart skipped. Had he guessed that Tall Pine was her destination? Had he come here because he wanted to see her again? Perhaps he wasn’t so different from other men after all!

Emily came around the corner of the house as Aunt Ancie and Uncle Jumper’s coach pulled up at the steps and Cotannah brought Pretty Feather to a stop halfway between the porch and the tall pine tree. The sight of the woman who used to be her best friend carrying her and Tay’s baby girl, Sophia—took Cotannah’s attention from the woodsman and made her stomach give a strange, twisting lurch.

Tay had chosen unselfish Emily in spite of the fact that he’d ridden all the way to Texas to make Cotannah his bride. Unselfish best-friend Emily, who had betrayed her. Thanks to Emily, she had lost the man she had always planned to marry and the woman who was her one and only best friend at the same awful, bitter time.
Two years ago. Two years that seemed a whole lifetime ago, two years that had seen her grow wilder and bolder and completely distrustful of long-lasting friendships with women and romantic attachments with men.

Emily was smiling straight at her, though, that sweet smile that came straight from her truly caring and generous heart. How could she blame her, a small voice demanded from the depths of her heart. Emily and Tay
had
been meant for each other and Cotannah had said so many times, just as Cade had reminded her when he’d sent her here.

Emily was smiling at her as if they’d never exchanged a single hateful, hurtful word, as if Cotannah had never accused her of betraying their deep friendship, of deliberately stealing Cotannah’s intended husband away. Emily was smiling as naturally as if Cotannah had never participated in that cruel, taunting testing of Emily that Auntie Iola and the other Choctaw women had used to torture her when they couldn’t believe that Tay would choose a white girl as his bride.

Now here she was, the white woman, Emily Harrington Nashoba, wife of the Principal Chief of the Choctaws, Tay Nashoba, and mother of his child, not only accepted but beloved by his people. Cotannah’s people, the People of the Choctaw Nation.

To her own surprise, though, she didn’t feel as bitter as she had expected. Maybe Cade had been right about that, too—maybe it had been her pride that was broken more than her heart.

Her stomach settled right back into place and her hands relaxed on the reins. Emily was running to greet her, smiling a smile that she could never forget.

“Oh, ’Tannah,” she cried, “get down from there and give me a hug. I thought you never would get here!”

Then Cotannah was on the ground and Emily was
hugging her hard with her one free arm while the baby flailed at her with two chubby hands.

“I’m so glad you’ve come to us,” Emily whispered. “Cade’s message said you’ve had some troubles of the heart and Tay and I want so very much to be able to help.”

“I’m sure that’s exactly the way Cade put it—troubles of the heart,” Cotannah drawled sarcastically.

Emily pulled away a little to give her a solemn, measuring look. Then she grinned.

“We-e-ll, maybe those weren’t his exact words, but I want you to know right now, ’Tannah, that whatever has happened, I’m not judging you one bit, not after what you’ve been through. I’m just glad that you feel comfortable coming to us.”

Cotannah felt a twinge of the old, deep hurt, then, but when she looked into Emily’s kind brown eyes it simply didn’t grow. It stayed there, but it didn’t get any bigger. How could she ever feel comfortable coming to Tay and Emily talking of other beaux, other courtships? Of course, in a way, if she were absolutely honest, she had to admit that Tay had never truly courted her at all, or been her beau, except in her imagination and his own thoughts and unacted-upon intentions.

“You and Tay were destined for each other,” she said simply. “I’ve said that lots of times. And I’ve meant it. It’s just been hard for me to accept.”

“We never set out to hurt you,” Emily said, as the baby leaned forward to reach for the stampede strings dangling from Cotannah’s hat. “We’re hoping you’ve forgiven us and all the hard feelings have faded away forever.”

Yes. They have. No. They haven’t
.

Cotannah opened her mouth but she couldn’t say either set of words. She didn’t know how she really felt,
and she didn’t want to think about it. Emily—being Emily the peacemaker who loved to make everyone happy—was trying to get the big problem out in the open and disposed of as soon as she could so that things could be easy and warm between them the way they used to be before Tay ever came to Texas.

And why shouldn’t they be? Tay was far in her past and she had captivated plenty of men since then.

“All of that was ages ago,” she said, with a careless shrug.

She looked away from her old friend to tickle the baby’s fat neck with the tips of the hat strings.

“This baby is so beautiful,” she said. “Her looks are a combination of you and Tay both, although I’d have said that wouldn’t be possible.”

“Well, her behavior is a combination of you and Maggie,” Emily said, laughing. “She’s barely a year old and she’s running everywhere and into everything.”

Cotannah laughed, too.

“Is she as wild as Miranda?”

“Almost. Yes, I’d say it’s a close contest between the little cousins.”

BOOK: After the Thunder

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