Savage Beloved (19 page)

When Proud Wind still said nothing but merely sat quietly gazing back at her, Candy felt that she had not made a good impression. She wondered now what the future held for these two powerful young chiefs—and for herself. Would Two Eagles choose his friendship with this chief over his love for her?

She prayed it didn’t come to that.

“We will return home now,” Two Eagles said, feeling a strange emptiness in the pit of his stomach. His friend had obviously not accepted this woman who would be Two Eagles’s wife. “I wish you much happiness, my friend, and again, it is with a sorrowful heart that I mourn the death of your father.”

Two Eagles rose to his feet and reached a hand down for Candy. She took it, glad that this meeting was coming to a close, yet sad that the outcome was so bleak.

She rose to her feet slowly. In the next moment, she was stunned speechless when Proud Wind suddenly came and whisked her into his arms for a gentle hug.

“I accept your apology,” he said thickly. “I am sorry it took me so long to make up my mind, but I have never felt opposing emotions as those I have known today.”

He stepped away from Candy and peered intently into her eyes. “I truly forgive you for having a father such as Colonel Creighton,” he said solemnly.

Two Eagles was relieved to see his close friend finally accept his future bride. Had he not, Two Eagles would have lost a friend, for he would not tolerate anyone being cold to his woman, not even a man Two Eagles counted as his brother.

“Thank you,” Candy said, flinging herself into Proud Wind’s arms. “Oh, thank you so much.”

Proud Wind embraced her again, then stepped away and turned to Two Eagles. “We should not wait so long before seeing one another again,” he said, then hugged him. “I appreciate such a friend as you. Thank you for . . . for . . . bringing back to me what I sorely wanted.”

“Come soon to my village,” Two Eagles said, clasping hands with Proud Wind. Then they all left the tepee.

Smiling, Two Eagles, Candy, and the warriors rode from the village.

They traveled for a while, then stopped to drink from the river.

While there, Two Eagles showed Candy how his
father had taught him to search in the sand along the river to find places where rats had hidden caches of ground beans. He and his father had stolen the ground beans from those caches to eat them.

“You actually ate what you took from a rat’s house?” Candy said, shuddering at the thought.

Two Eagles laughed at her reaction. “
Ho
, we did, often,” he said.

Candy marveled over what he had told her, realizing that she might hear many more things like this now that she was living in a much different culture from her own. Smiling, she mounted her horse when Two Eagles got on his and rode onward.

The weight of the world seemed to have been lifted from their shoulders now that they were past the ordeal of returning Night Horse’s head to his son.

Two Eagles felt as though he could begin truly living the rest of his life. And how happy he would be now that he had found the woman he was destined to love.

Nay, answer not, I dare not hear,
The words would come too late,
Yet I would spare thee all remorse,
So comfortable my fate.
—Adelaide Anne Procter

While Two Eagles and Candy were gone, the women of the village had decided it was time for the village’s annual corn roast. They had waited to actually begin cooking until Two Eagles returned, so he could give his permission for the roast.

Although it was soon after Short Robe’s death and burial, Two Eagles knew that his uncle would want him and his people to go on with the business of living.

The day after their visit to the other Wichita village, the annual corn roast would begin.

Candy was already awake this morning but leisurely lying at Two Eagles’s side. He was still
asleep. Suddenly she heard a woman shouting outside.

Two Eagles was quickly awake. “Who is that?” Candy asked, rising and quickly dressing, as did Two Eagles. “What is she saying?”

“Come outside with me,” Two Eagles said, reaching a hand out for her. “This is the beginning of a very good and satisfying day for my people.”

They went to the entrance flap and Two Eagles held it aside just as the woman called out again. This was a yearly ritual before the corn harvest could begin,

“The corn is ripe! The corn is ripe!” Bright Sunshine shouted again as she ran toward Two Eagles’s lodge, carrying an ear of corn.

When she reached Two Eagles, Bright Sunshine held the ear out to him. The people of the village had come from their teepees to watch.

“The stalks are heavy laden with ears, and near the bottom are many suckers,” Bright Sunshine announced, knowing that was what must be said to prove their crop was good this year. “Is it not a good day for roasting?”

Candy saw the woman stand there, anxiously watching, as Two Eagles examined the ear of corn. Then he nodded, smiled, and handed it back to Bright Sunshine.

“
Ho,
it is a good crop,” Two Eagles said. “And today is a good day for roasting.”

Candy saw the anxiousness leave the woman’s eyes and the broad smile she gave her chief.

She watched as Bright Sunshine was joined by
many other women. Then they all went into the garden together. They carried on their backs bags made of scraped hide into which they would toss the ears of corn as they gathered them.

“Should I join the women?” Candy asked as she and Two Eagles went back inside his tepee.

“No, no one expects you to,” Two Eagles said, drawing her into his embrace and hugging her. “They will be back with the corn before you could even get there to help them. This is a day they all look forward to. They will pick the amount of corn they need quickly so that the roast can soon begin.”

“How are you feeling today?” Candy asked, searching his eyes. “The last two days have been quite trying for you.”

“I have learned how to endure hurts,” he said thickly. “After losing my mother and father not so long ago, I learned what strength it took to accept such things. Losing my uncle was hard, yet I will endure it.”

He framed her face between his hands. “I have you to help me through my hurts, trials, and tribulations,” he said. “Together we can get through anything.”

“Yes, together,” Candy murmured, her breath stolen away when he pulled her hard against him and kissed her so passionately, she felt she might swoon.

Then he lifted her into his arms and took her back to their bed and laid her down on it.

She watched him remove his clothes, then giggled when he knelt beside her and removed hers.

“I feel shameful,” she murmured. “The other women are working, yet I—”

“Yet
you
will keep their chief busy doing things he hungers to do before he resumes his duties to his people,” he said, tossing her clothes aside. “My duties first today are to
you.
”

“Your duty?” Candy murmured, laughing softly. “Am I a duty?”

She gasped with pleasure and forgot her question when he lowered his lips to a breast and flicked his tongue over and around the nipple.

Matching passion with passion, he brought his mouth down on hers and pressed a warm kiss to her parted lips.

Her body pliant in his arms, Candy gasped when he slid his manhood into her and began his rhythmic strokes, every thrust promising rapture.

Very aware of her warm flesh around his swollen, throbbing member, he moved and slid and quietly groaned. He reached a hand down between them and stroked the soft golden patch of hair between her thighs, eliciting a moan of ecstasy from her when his fingertips found her tiny bud of pleasure and caressed it.

“My love. . . .” Candy whispered against his lips. “What you are doing to me—”

“You feel it,” he whispered back. “You feel all of it.”

“Yes, oh, yes,” she said, giving a cry of sweet agony when he slid his lips downward, across the hollow of her throat, and then brushed his tongue across the smooth, glossy skin of one breast.

She clung to him as he kissed the nipple, sucking it, then flicking it with his tongue, all the while his heat was moving in even strokes within her.

Candy was almost mindless with pleasure as she was suddenly overcome by an almost unbearably sweet pain. The fire was burning higher and higher within her.

Two Eagles paused for a moment, then again pressed endlessly deeper within her. His shoulders swayed with his own passion. Beads of sweat broke out across his brow.

Aflame with spiraling need, Candy moved her body sensuously against Two Eagles’s, very aware of how their naked flesh seemed to fuse, their bodies sucking at each other, flesh against flesh, in sensual pleasure.

Candy’s breath was ragged as surges of ecstasy welled within her. She felt his body tremble, and just as she reached that wondrous peak of ultimate passion, he held her, and they both went over the edge into total ecstasy.

Breathing hard, they fell away from one another.

“Will all mornings begin like this after I am your wife?” Candy asked, still feeling a sensual tingling at the juncture of her thighs, where he had fed her hungers with the wonders of his body.

“Is that what you would want?” Two Eagles asked, slowly running a hand across her belly, then caressing her love bud with a finger, eliciting a guttural moan from deep inside Candy.

“It would be all I need to exist,” Candy said
huskily, her heart throbbing hard as she felt the pleasure rising again where he still caressed her.

“You would need no food, no water, no—?” he began, but she interrupted him by sealing his lips with a finger.

“I would need nothing else but you,” she said, feeling the heat rush to her cheeks as pleasure spread within her.

She reached down and took his hand away.

Then she placed her hand around his manhood, which was grown again to its full size, hot and throbbing against the palm of her hand.

Oh, so wanting him again, she guided him inside her, her legs spreading out more widely in order to allow him to move further inside her this time.

“It is so wonderful,” she sighed, closing her eyes as he kissed her hard, his body moving rhythmically against hers until again they reached that plateau of pleasure that only those who were truly in love could experience.

Again they lay together, filled with love and devotion for one another. Then Candy looked toward the entrance flap when she heard the commotion of the women returning from the fields.

She gazed up at Two Eagles. “So soon?” she asked, an eyebrow arched. “Did they harvest the corn this quickly?”

“They only brought back what will be required for today’s roast. They will return another day and complete the harvest,” he said, smiling into her eyes. “That day the women will gladly accept your help,
for there is much corn to be taken from the fields for storage for the long winter ahead.”

“I will gladly do anything that is asked of me, for I want to be fully accepted by the women of your village,” she murmured. She blushed. “And, of course, the men.”

“You have already been accepted,” Two Eagles said. “By everyone.”

But even as he said it, he knew there was one person who resented Candy’s presence: Hawk Woman. He knew he had to deal with her, one way or another, soon.

They quickly dressed, then left the tepee together. Shadow was now awake and walked beside them.

Candy gasped at the amount of corn the women had harvested so quickly. They were in the center of the village now, near the huge outdoor fire that still burned.

Each was emptying her bag, dumping the corn into one big heap. The pile soon became so high that it looked as if wagons had been used to haul it instead of the simple carrying bags.

“The next step is to build a long, narrow ditch with mud embankments along each side against which to lean the corn,” Two Eagles explained.

“And then what?” Candy asked, truly curious as she watched the women dumping the last of their corn on the pile.

“They will build a big fire and throw the ears into it,” Two Eagles said. “The women will take turns reaching their hands in and out of the flames to turn the ears over. They are skilled at doing this, and no
one ever burns herself. When the wood burns down, the naked ears are left to roast in the coals. Sometimes the ears roast all night, as this gives them a delicious flavor, but today the women will just leave the corn in until the sun begins lowering in the sky. Then whatever husks remain on the corn will be removed and the women will proceed to cut the kernels from the cobs. For this purpose they will use a clam shell, but kernels from small-grained ears are removed with a knife.”

“It sounds so tiring,” Candy said. “Are you certain they don’t want me to help them?”

“They are very practiced at this, so they would not consider asking you to join them now. But soon, when the full crop is to be gathered, they will welcome you at their sides,” Two Eagles said. “But as you can see, today they are doing fine without you.”

Candy saw some of the women spreading large hide covers over the ground, then pegging them down tight until they were smooth. “Why are they doing that?” Candy asked, glancing up at Two Eagles.

“The kernels of the roasted corn will be spread out there,” he said. “The blue corn will be separated into three groups by size, small, medium, and large. Then they will be winnowed and put into sacks made of tanned hide. After each sack is full, the women will beat upon it with a long stick to make sure that the grains are settled compactly into the bag. They will place a lid inside the bag and pull the drawstring closed. After all the bags are filled, there will be a big pile of them.”

Candy had heard everything Two Eagles had said, but her eyes had been drawn elsewhere, to where children stood in a circle around another cluster of plants that grew where no tepees had been built.

“What are they doing?” she asked. “They seem to be having so much fun, but all I see beside them are plants. I believe those are bullhorn plants, aren’t they? I’ve seen them, but never went close to really look at them. The thorns looked very sharp. I’m surprised the children aren’t being cut by them.”