The Endless Sky (Cheyenne Series) (6 page)

      
Her trembling began to abate. His trembling began to accelerate when her small hands reached around his shoulders. Stephanie levered herself more tightly against him and felt the buttons on his shirt press into the tender skin of her breasts, which had inexplicably begun to ache. The tautness of that ache quickly spread lower into her belly and throbbed in her most secret place when his rough wool trousers scraped against her lower body.

      
If only he had removed his clothes
, some devilish inner voice whispered, as she clung to his big, hard male body. The idea of their flesh pressed together without any barrier of clothing should have horrified a proper Boston virgin. However, Stephanie Renee Summerfield had been raised by a free-thinking woman little concerned with the strictures of society. But Aunt Paulina had been a spinster, completely unaware of the powerful currents that could surge between a man and a woman.

      
Stephanie had overheard the tittering whispers of classmates at the academy but until her debut the past spring, she had virtually no contact with boys since childhood. And none of the young men courting her had interested her in the slightest—intellectually or physically.

      
No one but Chase...

      
And now fate seemed to have gifted her with him...alone...half-naked...in a bed! She could feel the pounding of his heart and sense the tension in his bunched muscles. He was holding himself back from her. Being honorable. Or, the shattering thought suddenly struck her—what if he did not find her desirable? She was just a green girl, too thin and too plain for his jaded taste.

      
Stephanie had to know. With the wisdom born of Eve, she ran her fingers down the swelling biceps in his arms, then glided her hands across his chest, reaching between them to unfasten the buttons of his shirt. He groaned and buried his face in her hair but did not stop her as she placed her fingers on the springy pelt of night-black hair on his chest. When she nuzzled her face against the hard slab of muscle, he shifted his weight suddenly, almost like a bucking horse. His hips ground down into hers and she could feel something hard prodding low against her belly through the placket of his trousers.

      
If Stephanie had felt any lingering doubts, she no longer did, even though in her innocence she possessed only the vaguest intuition about what men and women did in bed together. The sudden change in his anatomy and the harsh rasping of his breath certainly indicated that she was soon to find out. Instinctively she raised her face to his and pursed her lips for a kiss, murmuring softly, breathlessly, “I love you, Chase.”

      
I love you, Chase.

      
He felt the virginal innocence of her lips, primly closed, pressing against his as the words registered. The fiery heat of a moment ago evaporated as surely as if he had been dropped beneath the ice in the Neponset River. He rolled from the bed flinging the covers back over her with an oath, still gasping for breath like a drowning man. The rigid erection in his pants was not as easily subdued as he stood towering over her with his shirt hanging open and his fists clenched at his sides.

      
When she let out a soft gasp of dismayed surprise and sat up, reaching out for him, he backed away, snarling angrily, “Cover yourself before you catch pneumonia.”

      
Tears of mortification and misery welled up in her eyes as she coughed. Clutching the blankets, she pulled her knees up to her chest and laid her head on them, letting her unbound hair fan down her bare back as she sobbed. “I...I'm sorry, Chase. You m-must despise me.”

      
He cursed again and dragged in a deep gulp of air trying desperately to bring his body under control. Looking down on her huddled there so small and forlorn with all that glorious bronze hair spilling across her milky shoulders made his groin ache with renewed viciousness.

      
“I don't despise you, Stephanie.” He barked a harsh, self-deprecating laugh. “Hell, look at me. Do I look like I don't want you?” When she raised her head and timidly inspected his body, blushing at the protrusion against the soft wool of his trousers, he muttered, “You don't have the slightest idea what you do to me, do you?”

      
Her cheeks blazed fiery hot. “I thought...that is, I hoped you wanted to...”

      
“Oh, I wanted to all right.”

      
Her eyes dared to meet his. “But then, why did you get angry and jump away?”

      
“Among my father's people it is a great shame to a man if he takes advantage of a maiden before they are properly wed. I may have broken most of the rules of Cheyenne honor, but this is one thing I will not do.”

      
“So, it would seem you're more honorable than I am,” she said, swallowing down her tears. “After all, white civilization teaches the same thing.”

      
“There is seldom honor among the
veho.
..but you...you're different. Pure and good and honest. My only happy memories of this place came from my time with you. I don't want that to change.”

      
“You're remembering our childhood, but we're not children anymore. Things have to change.”
Do you still care about me, Chase?

      
He turned away from her and paced over to the window where a wilderness of white howled outside the frosted panes. “You live in Boston, Stephanie. Things never change there. And we're stranded alone until this storm abates. We have to think of your reputation. God knows I've none of my own to worry about.”

      
“Oh yes, you do. You've worked hard building a reputation as a carousing libertine. Is it permissible in Cheyenne society to carry on with married women?” Her jealousy was out of control and she knew it, but she also wanted to know why he lived as he did.

      
His smile was rueful. “Well, it can get pretty expensive. A man has to make restitution if he dishonors another's wife—sometimes as much as his whole herd of ponies, his lodge, all his possessions. Unmarried men live under the same rules of chastity as unmarried women.”

      
“But here among the
veho
—is that what you call us—you've abandoned the rules.”

      
He shrugged. “I had some encouragement,” he replied bitterly. “Hell, you should remember how it was even when I was a boy—‘the dirty Indian.’ When Jeremiah found us fishing in the creek, after your father's servants dragged you home, the old man caned me within an inch of my life.”

      
Stephanie remembered that day, the last time they had played together. It was etched forever in her memory, the heat of the afternoon and his tall, skinny, twelve-year-old's body. He had stripped down to his trousers, rolling up the legs so he could show her how the Cheyenne caught fish with their bare hands. It looked like such fun, she had wanted to try it, too. With her typical eight-year-old pluck and disregard for convention, she had taken off her shoes and socks and hiked up her skirt between her bare legs to wade in after him. She could still feel the fierce wriggling of that fat trout she'd caught. The sounds of their childish laughter echoed through the tall stand of alders as they tossed the slick, plump fish onto the bank, splashing each other with water in the process.

      
Now, she looked at his tense body, the broad shoulders hunched as he leaned his hands on the window sash, standing barefoot across the room, so long-legged and tall, refusing to face her. The harshly beautiful profile of his hawkish face gleamed like a copper mask of some fierce Aztec god. Her throat constricted remembering the lonely boy, always an outsider. “Was that what made you run away back to your father's people?”

      
He stiffened as the old shock and dread seized hold of him. “No. I endured lots of beatings before that one. Old Jeremiah tried his damnedest to whip the Indian out of me. Couldn't change the color of my skin no matter how much he prayed or used the hickory cane. The only reason I'm tolerated in society now is because of the size of the Remington bank account. Most of the good mamas of the city lock up their daughters when the dirty half-breed walks in.”

      
“And you've taken pity on me because I don't have a mama to protect me.”

      
The trace of impatient asperity in her voice caused him to turn around and face her. Unwillingly, he felt himself start to smile. “All this nobility is wearing on both of us. Why don't you bundle up in those blankets and I'll see about getting us some of that soup Essex made this morning?”

      
The mention of the manservant suddenly brought back visions of him stripping a bloody bandage from Oliver Standish's head. She bit her lip and asked, “Is Oliver all right?” Overcome by guilt, she added, “He was bleeding.”

      
“Not nearly as much as he deserved. I saw the entire fool accident from the hill. He could’ve killed you.”

      
Remembering the insane way Oliver was driving, she couldn't argue with that. “But he's going to live?” she persisted.

      
He grimaced as he tugged on his cold boots. “Yes, he'll live.”

      
He started toward the door as she called after him. “You will come back, won't you? I mean...not send that servant?”

      
Her uncertainty was matched by her tenacity. He had always admired that in the stubborn little tomboy. He smiled. ‘‘I'll come back, Stevie.”
And may the Powers protect us both.

      
Essex had the Standish boy well in hand, liberally dosed with good brandy, bundled in blankets and sleeping soundly on a chaise placed in front of the hearth. It was twilight now and the storm raged on. Little help for it, they would be snowed in at least overnight, perhaps for several days.

      
Chase had come up to the deserted country place for a few days of peace away from the Remington clan. He had needed time to think about what he would do with the rest of his life. The day he had been captured at the massacre when Custer's soldiers stormed Black Kettle's camp on the Washita, the wounded young warrior had sworn a blood oath to return to the Cheyenne.

      
Upon learning he was the half-breed heir of the powerful Remington dynasty, the Blue Coats had not killed him, although there had been one young officer who had tried his damnedest to convince Custer to disregard the orders to take him captive. Custer, ever eager to curry favor with the powers in Washington, had refused to listen to the second lieutenant. They had been forced to shackle the boy hand and foot in order to place him on the train headed back to Boston.

      
Over the years that followed, Chase continued his white education, marking time, gaining knowledge of their civilization, but always assuming that his destiny lay west with the Cheyenne. That was before Stevie came back into his life. He cursed to think it was the old man who had introduced the insidious idea of marriage. And even worse that he had instantly thought of her.

      
Deep in thought he stirred the steaming kettle of thick vegetables and venison, the latter a product of his hunting skills. There were times when he had to cleanse the stink of the city from his body, even if his soul was still tainted.

      
That need was what had caused him to desert the delectable Sara's bed and go hunting in the bitter New England winter. “What the hell will I do about her?” Chase muttered aloud as he dished up the fragrant food. He was not thinking of the diva but the innocent lying in his bed down the hall. Damn, it had been a near thing, climbing in bed with her that way. Only an idiot would have placed himself in such an impossible situation.
Maybe you intended to deflower her. Then you 'd have to marry her.

      
He almost dropped the bowl. Was that what he'd been about? Would marrying her be so awful? Bitterly he realized that it would. It would mean accepting the Remington name and living the rest of his life surrounded by men like Jeremiah...and Burke. No matter how brave and hardy Stevie was, she could not survive on the plains. Look how his mother had ended up—widowed and starving with a sick child for whom she had sold her soul and her sanity.

      
No, if he chose the girl, he would have to abandon his Cheyenne heritage. He rubbed his eyes as a headache thrummed behind them. “I have to think.” But thinking under the same roof with Stephanie Summerfield was not all that easy. As he returned to the bedroom with their supper, he prayed the storm would clear by morning.

* * * *

      
The day dawned gray and cold with snow still falling. The sounds of clanking pots from the kitchen awakened Stephanie. She blinked and sat up, alone in Chase's big bed. They had talked little as they shared the simple meal he brought. He had been taciturn, deeply preoccupied, answering her questions with monosyllables or turning them back on her. She had been exhausted from the ordeal and he quickly insisted she go to sleep.

      
Chase had brought back one of his servant's old nightshirts, explaining that he owned none. She had blushed at the sudden image of his bronzed body naked between the white sheets and accepted the soft cotton garment which was nearly a fit. Essex was a slight man and she was tall for a female. Stephanie gingerly threw off the covers and swung her legs across to the icy floor. Someone, probably Chase, had kept the fire blazing all through the night while she slept, but now it had burned low.

      
Experimentally, she stretched and stood up. There were a few bruises but considering she had a near brush with death, nothing of note. Her feet were freezing. Picking up the old plaid robe Chase had left her—it did belong to him—she bundled up in it, belting the tie around her slender waist, then rolling up the sleeves that hung ridiculously long on her. A wardrobe stood across the room. Surely somewhere inside the massive piece she would find some house slippers or at least a pair of warm woolen socks, no matter how much too large. She opened one massive door, knelt down and began to rummage.