Sunflower (44 page)

A rock had slipped between Scorpio’s hoof and shoe, forcing Caleb to slow his pace. Stopping at his hiding place to change into his Sioux clothing had caused another delay as well as the time it took to kill the pheasants in order not to return empty-handed. Caleb finally arrived, only to hear the women softly talking about the white captive, speculating as to how she had come upon their camp. His heart seemed wedged in a steel trap of his own making when Caleb heard them describe Analisa. He had no idea how she’d located the camp alone and unseen in broad daylight, or how she’d found her sister so easily, but now that the damage was done, he was forced to think of a way to rescue her and take her out of the settlement.

All that led up to the moment at hand was quickly forgotten when he heard the gasping sobs that pierced the stillness in the darkened interior of the tepee. He knelt, at the same time setting his bundle down beside him. Reaching out, his hand connected with Analisa’s shoulder, and he leaned forward to wrap her in his embrace. The soft sound of her anguish became muffled against his shoulder as he knelt with her in his arms. Caleb stroked her bare arms and felt the chill on her skin. The faint scent of her talcum was so familiar that he found himself forced to choke down the knot that lodged in his throat. His hands quickly found the rawhide ties that bound her wrists, and he swiftly drew his knife from the sheath at his waist and sliced the bindings. Setting her away from him, he pulled her arms forward and rubbed the circulation back into her hands. She had not spoken a word, nor had she acknowledged him by name. Caleb waited to speak until she had calmed.

“Anja ...” He again cradled her with one arm while he continued to stroke her with his hand. “Are you all right? Come on, say something.” He whispered near her ear.

“Oh, Caleb ...” Her voice was ragged between sobs. “I was so ... scared. I did not know it was you. I saw ... Meika ... and she didn’t ... she didn’t even ... know me.” Her last words were nearly inaudible.

Caleb felt her arms encircle his neck and could tell by her weak attempt to draw him close that she was near collapse.

“Shh. Let me light a fire to warm you. I have some food and water.” She did not respond to his words, nor did she lessen her hold. “Anja? Come on, now. Let go.”

He reached up to unlock her arms from his shoulders and draw her hands down to her sides. With quick efficiency he unrolled a length of buckskin and removed from it a few pieces of firewood, a water bag, and a packet of cold cooked pheasant. From a small pouch at his waist he drew a shard of flint, and soon a low fire crackled in the stone-ringed pit. The dim, shimmering light cast its glow upon Analisa, and he glanced across the small distance between them to find her staring at him, her knees drawn up to her breasts, her matted hair hanging about her shoulders.

The firelight played upon the swell of her breasts beneath the thin camisole. The tattered bodice of her plaid dress hung open, providing little protection from the chill of the night air. Her short pantalets revealed the curves of her long, shapely legs all too clearly. His anger at her impulsive act and his fear of losing her dissolved at the sound of her broken sobs. He added another small piece of wood to the low-burning fire and watched the smoke curl up toward the apex of the tepee. Drawing the water bag toward him, Caleb returned to Analisa’s side and crouched beside her, offering her the container,

She took a sip and then another, all the while avoiding his steady gaze. Finally, her thirst slaked, she poured a small amount of water into the cupped palm of her hand and bathed her face With it. Reaching down, she drew up the corner of the torn bodice and wiped at her eyes. Still she avoided looking at him. Caleb watched her silently for a moment, the sight playing havoc with his insides. One part of him wanted to rail at her. Was she pleased with the mess she’d gotten herself into? The rest of him wanted to hold her close until the frightened, wary look was banished from her eyes. The overwhelming sense of relief that flooded him only stoked the fire that burned in his loins. Now that he’d found her safe and relatively unharmed, he longed to press her down on the earthen floor and move within her as he’d done so often, reveling in the feel of her, always pleased and awed by her immediate response. But Caleb knew he had to wait. What she needed now was his love, not his lust.

“Are you hungry?” He leaned close, brushing her hair off her cheek and tipping her chin up so that he could see into the blue depths of her eyes. They sparkled with unshed tears.

“No.” The word came out a whisper, and she cleared her throat. Her eyes did not leave his face, but clung to his as if she feared he might disappear.

“How did you get here, Anja?” he asked, trying to keep his voice light and understanding. He rested an open palm on her shoulder. Her skin had warmed.

She took a deep, shuddering breath. “I took the pony you brought home to Kase. Zach said it would return to its home if it was turned loose.”

“Why?”

“I guess ponies do that.” She shrugged.

“No, Anja. I mean, why did you come here?”

He watched her blink twice as if unsure of his question, or perhaps, unsure of her answer.

“You already know why I came here: I came to find Meika.”

“How did you know she was here?”

“I knew because of what I saw in your eyes, what you did not tell me. I knew that you had seen her, but trapping Hardy was more important to you than freeing my sister. So I came to get her myself.”

He sat beside her, drawing her into the circle of his arm.

“Why do you always rely only upon yourself, Anja, never anyone else?”

“I am used to having only myself to rely on.”

“When will you realize that has changed?”

“You told me Meika must wait, Caleb.”

“And I would not have forgotten my promise. Now I must get you out of here before Red Dog changes his mind.”

She sat up straight and looked into his eyes again. “He said I could go?”

Caleb felt her shiver and rubbed her arm. She leaned against him and curled her legs beneath her.

“Not in so many words, but he didn’t say I
couldn’t
take you out of here.”

“You told him I was your wife? Did you have to tell him what you are really doing here?”

He looked down into her eyes. There was so much to explain. “No. I didn’t tell him you were my wife and I didn’t tell him why I’m here. I bargained for you; I reminded him that he owed me a life.”

Analisa was silent for a moment, gauging his words. “So ... he gave me to you?”

Caleb nodded.

“For ...” she asked.

“For whatever I wanted to do with you.”

She turned to him then, her breasts brushing against his naked chest. Caleb caught his breath as he looked down into his wife’s eyes.

“You would probably like to beat me.” A tear slipped over her lower lashes and ran down her cheek. “Caleb, I’m so sorry.”

He reached out and held her chin in the palm of his hand. With his thumb he gently brushed away the tear and then used both hands to lift her hair away from her face. His fingers caught, in the tangles, and he gently pulled them free.

“Your face is bruised.” He stroked her purpled cheek with his fingertips and wished he knew who had inflicted the pain.

“I fell.”

Her eyes met his briefly before they moved to his lips. Analisa mirrored his movements and reached out to hold his face in her hands. Tears continued to slip down her cheeks.

“I knew you would come,” she whispered.

Caleb’s full lips met hers in a soft, tender kiss that built in intensity as the tip of his tongue touched hers. He felt her hands creep up to link behind his neck, and she pulled herself against him. He drew her closer, pulling her onto his lap, and sat with her cradled in his arms, tasting of her honeyed sweetness, exchanging a kiss that said what his words had not. His relief at finding her alive, his need for her, his anger, too, at her defiance, all were communicated through the delicate exchange of that one heated kiss. Above all else, he hoped his love was apparent to her. Finally, she was forced to pull away first and take a deep breath, all the while staring up into his eyes.

Pulling her back to him he whispered against her lips, “I want you, Anja.”

“I am afraid.”

He stroked her hair. “Of me?”

She shook her head. “I am afraid in this place. What if they come back?”

“No one will enter without asking.”

“No?”

“No one.”

He kissed her once more and, as he did, began to press her back upon the earthen floor.

She glanced toward the doorway. “Shouldn’t we leave?”

“Not yet. Not until the camp is quiet. Until then, you need not worry.” His hands stroked her hip and moved down along her thigh. “Relax.”

“Caleb?” She linked her arms about his neck, and he stretched out above her.

“Hmm?”

“Is it strange that I want to ... that I need you here in this place?”

“No. Not strange. I feel the same way. We came close to losing each other. To share our love now will be an act of celebration.”

Her breath fanned warm against his cheek as she spoke. “A celebration.”

A log in the fire ring popped and broke in two, shattering into ash and embers. Caleb slipped his arms beneath her shoulders and cradled the back of her head in his hands. His fingers buried themselves in the wild tangle of thick silken tresses. He let his lips play upon her languorously, prodding hers into response. Soon, as he knew it would, her kiss intensified and she clung to him, unconscious of time and place, lost in a world of sensation and pleasure.

Analisa was trapped in his arms as surely as he was trapped in her heart. He released her hair, feeling the need to explore her with his hands. She relished the feel of his callused, gentle palms as they rode over the plains and valleys of her skin, and waited in rapt anticipation for him to unerringly find and fondle all the secret, sensitive places that he knew gave her so much pleasure.

She burrowed her face into the hollow above his collarbone and let her tongue slither across his heated flesh. Partly because she feared intrusion from outside, but mainly because of her mounting need, she began to tear at his clothing with sudden urgency. Caleb needed no further invitation, but pulled away from her in order to slip out of his buckskin leggings.

A blush heightened her coloring in the vibrant glow of the firelight. She lay pliant and waiting, lips parted, her breathing uneven and shallow. He peeled off her remaining garments and knew a throbbing urgency as she readily opened her thighs in welcome. Blood thundered through his veins as he gazed down at her, so open and willing, lying there on the earth.

They did not speak. Words were unnecessary. The act of love was older than time, alive long before the need for language. Words could not express what Caleb felt for Analisa. His heart stretched with a fullness that caused him to ache with want of her in every fiber of his being.

Their shadows entwined on the wall of the dwelling. Analisa was mystified by the giant, wavering images that swayed with every movement of the flames. She stared up at Caleb, shuddering with her need of him, trying to slide nearer that part of him that only teased and probed the beckoning entrance to her velvet womanhood.

His well-honed muscles rippled in the firelight as he reached down and held her still, his hands on her shoulders. She mirrored his movements, reaching up to meet him as he lowered himself toward her to fuse them together. Their shadows merged and beat against each other, larger than life, capturing Analisa’s attention with their erotic movements. Her body was alive and pulsing with the primitive beat that echoed between them, charged with frantic energy as they engaged in the ritual of celebration and exchange in the confines of the buffalo-skin tepee.

Caleb burrowed deeper, delving into the farthest recesses of her body until she was forced to lock her limbs about his waist to still the frenzied staccato movements of his hips. She clung to him, enfolding him with her arms, thighs, and inner core until he gasped out her name and shuddered convulsively in her arms.

The velvet warmth that spewed from him at the peak of his ecstasy sent Analisa vaulting into an abyss of pleasure. Caught in a storm of quicksilver sensations, she hung suspended, pulsing with supreme satisfaction, savoring the echoes until they died away.

“I don’t think, at this point in time, you have any reason to lie there looking so smug, Mrs. de la Vega.”

“Smug?”

“Self-satisfied.”

“Ah.” She shook her head in understanding. “But I do. I have discovered that when my husband becomes unbearably angry, all I have to do is take his mind off of his anger.”

He smiled tenderly in response. “I had every right to be angry. You placed yourself in great jeopardy.”

“Speak English.”

He slowly enunciated each word for her: “Thanks to you we are not safe at home in our own parlor.”

She answered him in kind: “Thanks to you we are not even safe when we
are
at home in our own parlor.”

“What?”

Analisa ticked the names off on her fingers. “Ruth, Abbie, Kase, the cat ...”

“Kase we already had.”

Her eyes took on a faraway look, and he watched them fill with tears. She whispered,
“
Ja
. Kase I already had.” She turned her head away.

“Anja,” he asked softly, “what is it?”

He sensed her change of mood and knew the reality of their situation had once more come crashing down around her.

“When they brought me here, all I could think of was Kase. I knew I had to get out of this for him.” She turned to him. “Caleb, if anything ever happened to me, you would care for him always, wouldn’t you?”

He realized that he was seeing her through his own film of tears. He rapidly blinked them away.

“Of course.” He nodded to emphasize his words. “You know I think of Kase as my son.” He pulled her close, anxious to still the erratic beating of his heart at the thoughts her words had conjured up.

They were silent for a time. The dry wood popped and spit in the fire pit as the flames burned low. Caleb rocked her gently as she lay quiet in his arms, and smoothed her long hair against her back.