Black Horse
LACK
H
ORSE
V
ERONICA
B
LAKE
LEISURE BOOKS 
NEW YORK CITY
“And what about you? Do you want to marry me?”
“I—yes, I do,” she whispered as she remembered the promise she had just given her father. She would not waste one second. Her gaze rose up until it was locked with his. She tossed her head back and sighed deeply before she gave into the urge that she could not deny any longer. She leaned closer to him and Black Horse’s hand immediately slid around her waist as he pulled her the short distance to him. Then, his lips descended on hers with abandon.
Although she hadn’t been able to comprehend that their second kiss could even begin to compare with their first one, Meadow was certain Black Horse was trying to outdo himself. They were standing in the middle of the village where everyone could see them, yet she gave no thought to modesty. His strong arms were surrounding her again, and his mouth was doing the most amazing things. Meadow let her own lips imitate his and returned his kiss without reservation. She had her own hunger to satisfy, and it was obviously equal to his appetite.
For Albert…my hero
And for my amazing grandsons…Derek, Devin & Kaden Blake
“See? That’s him, that’s Black Horse,” Gentle Water whispered. She put her hand over her mouth and stifled a giggle.
“Quiet! He might hear us,” Meadow warned with a stern glance. She tried to look serious, but the sight of the young war chief on the other side of the thick brush sent her heartbeat racing and caused a strange fluttering sensation in the pit of her stomach. She turned away from Gentle Water and focused on the man down by the riverbank.
Even from this distance he appeared to be slightly taller than most of the Sioux men in their village. Two thin braids wound with brass wires framed his handsome face and dangled over his bare chest. The rest of his dark hair hung to his waist. A large necklace of grizzly-bear claws encircled his neck—potent medicine for a warrior to posses. Black Horse was a chief warrior, which at his young age meant that he held a powerful position in the tribe.
Everything about him was impressive, Meadow noticed. His shoulders were outlined with bulging, sinewy muscles, his belly lean and defined. A white breechcloth encircled his hips, and tan leather leggings hugged his muscular thighs.
“Do you want to meet him now?” Gentle Water
asked. Her voice rose slightly above a whisper. She muffled another giggle when her friend shook her fist at her. Gentle Water leaned close to the other girl. “Your face is red, Meadow. I think you want to do more than just meet him.”
“I’m leaving,” Meadow whispered through gritted teeth. Before she could turn around to crawl back through the thick brush, a deep voice bellowed from the riverbank below.
“Who’s there?”
Meadow instinctively fell down flat on her stomach and held her breath. Pressed against the hard ground, she could feel her heartbeat thudding uncontrollably. Beside her, Gentle Water was also lying facedown in the underbrush. But now she was also being quiet as death. Meadow silently cursed herself for letting Gentle Water talk her into coming down to the river today. Nothing could be more humiliating than getting caught in this compromising position.
When his cry was met with silence, Black Horse grew wary. He pulled his antler-handled knife from the sheath at his hip, bent his knees and began to inch up the sloping riverbank. His dark eyes darted back and forth. The dense brush of alders and willows made it difficult for him to see. Black Horse knew how easy it was to hide in heavy brush such as this. He had done so on many occasions when he had been hunting game, or waiting in ambush for an enemy.
Sensing there was someone—or something—hiding in the bushes, Black Horse didn’t call out again. He continued to take cautious steps toward the bushes. He had moved only a few feet, though, when his keen
ears picked up the slight sound of rustling brush. His footsteps halted. Every muscle in his body tensed. A light sheen of perspiration broke out on his chest and face as he prepared to go to battle again.
For several moments Black Horse did not move. When another faint sound came from the bushes, he pinpointed his prey’s location. He moved like a crouched mountain lion toward the bushes to his left and then peered into the heavy underbrush. He smiled.
Through the low-hanging branches of the willows he could see the distinct forms of two females lying facedown on the ground. He studied them for a moment. Black Horse was certain they were just a couple of curious young girls. His smile widened.
“I must have been imagining things,” he said out loud. The girls did not move a muscle. The urge to chuckle tickled the back of his throat, but he resisted.
As he sheathed his knife, he turned and walked back to the river with a nonchalant stride. Humming to himself, Black Horse untied the belt that held his elaborately decorated knife sheath. He placed the weapon down on the ground, then presented his observers with a full view of his hind side as he bent over to pull off his tall, beaded moccasins. He kept his movements slow and provocative. I’ll give them something to see, he thought.
Unable to keep the smirk from his lips, Black Horse kept his back to the bushes until he could control his expression. He wanted to make sure that the girls were still watching. He didn’t want to waste all this effort if he no longer had an audience. With a feigned look of indifference, he turned around. There were still no signs of movement on the hillside.
Black Horse untied the belt that held up his leggings. He rolled the fringed leg coverings down past his knees, lifted one foot up, then the other, until he was free of the leggings. Clothed only in his breechcloth, he turned toward the river again. He remained in this position for a moment to give the two visitors a chance to leave before they saw more than they were expecting. Or maybe that’s what they want, he told himself. Why else would they be hiding in the bushes while he was preparing to take a bath? He turned sideways to the bushes where his audience hid, and slowly untied the strings at his hip.
In the scanty cover of the bushes, Meadow watched every one of Black Horse’s movements in breathless awe. He was the most magnificent man she had ever seen, and the way he was undressing was like nothing she had ever witnessed. In the pit of her stomach, and even lower, she felt an unfamiliar ache. Her insides were on fire, and every time Black Horse discarded another article of clothing, the heat within her grew more consuming.
He was facing the bushes now, and Meadow knew there was no way they could leave without being seen. They would have to wait until he was in the water. Then, they could flee. Once they were away from the river, she planned to tell Gentle Water what a trouble-maker she was to have suggested this scheme. But now that they were here she could not tear her gaze from the warrior’s seductive movements.
His stark white breechcloth made the young chief’s smooth skin shine like glistening copper. His legs were long, with well-defined muscles along his thighs
and on the backs of his calves. As he moved, every muscle of his body strained and contracted with exact precision. At that moment, Meadow could not have taken her eyes off him even if the bushes around her had caught on fire and burned to the ground.
When the ties that held his breechcloth together were dangling long and loose in his hands, Black Horse was still facing the bushes. He parted his powerful thighs as he slowly pulled the breechcloth out from between his legs and then casually let it drop on the ground at his feet.
Meadow felt perspiration running down her body as she continued to stare. She had seen very young boys running around naked in the village, and she’d helped her adoptive mother prepare dead men for burial. She knew what a male looked like without his breechcloth. But little boys and dead men did not even begin to compare to the virile male who stood at the river’s edge now.
Yearnings that Meadow had never experienced before ballooned inside her until she thought she would burst apart. It seemed as if Black Horse knew he had an audience. But that was ridiculous; he had no idea they were hiding here in the bushes. As soon as he dove into the water, they would get away from here, and this embarrassing situation could be forgotten. Even as that thought passed through her mind, Meadow knew there was no way that she would ever be able to forget the sight of this handsome man, who now stood before her naked as a newborn babe.
The gasps coming from the thick brush almost made Black Horse laugh out loud. More than anything, he
wished he could see the faces of his inquisitive observers. He knew, however, it would not be long before he would encounter at least one of them again. When he saw them hiding in the underbrush, he had noticed one of them had hair that was the shade of the prairie sun—a half-breed, most likely. She would be easy to find in the Sioux village, where most of the women had hair as black as midnight.
Smug and filled with satisfaction that he’d given the curious virgins an eyeful, Black Horse lingered for a second longer. As though he had grown bored with the charade, he turned and sauntered to the river’s edge. Without pausing, he walked into the cool water until it was up to his hips and then dove under the surface. Staying completely submerged, he swam out to the middle before coming up for air. He turned back toward the bushes.
A deep laughter escaped Black Horse when he glimpsed the two spies hurrying up the hillside on the other side of the thick clump of bushes. They were both dressed in the long fringed dresses and knee-high moccasins worn by all the females of the tribe, but the thing that caught his attention the most was the alluring way the buckskin dress caressed the curvy hips of the taller one—the one with the long yellow hair.
Black Horse began to splash around in the deep water of the river. He let the cool water wash away the dirt from the last of the long, hard trails he had ridden for the past few months. For a while, he let his mind clear. At dawn this morning he had crossed the Canadian border. He hoped Canada would offer a peaceful haven where he could rest.
Barely more than three months ago he had ridden
with his comrades in the battle at Greasy Grass River—the battleground the white men called Little Bighorn. But victory over the long-haired General Custer and his men had been short-lived. Within weeks of that successful attack, Black Horse’s people had been defeated again and again.
But for the first time in a long time he had something besides fighting and killing on his mind. He was thinking of the two girls in the bushes, and of the fun he would have when he had a chance to meet the light haired one face-to-face. His mind recalled the way the wavy locks of her flaxen hair had swung back and forth above her shapely hips as she scurried up the hillside. He hoped she looked as enticing from the front as she did from behind. Another carefree laugh escaped from his mouth. He was looking forward to his stay here in Canada.