Wild Abandon

He had to be sure that nothing robbed her of those traits now. Not only because she was Boyd’s daughter, but also because she was the first woman who Dancing Cloud had ever allowed himself to love.

And he did love her.

He loved her with all of his heart and soul.

He would chance even losing his rights to chieftainship to be with her for eternity.

He was afraid that the big fight would come when he tried to prove to her that she belonged to him, not the Petersons of Mattoon, Illinois.

Somehow he would convince her that she would receive much more in life by being his wife, than by being Abner and Nancy Petersons’ daughter.

He feared that the true, main obstacle to his plans might not be Lauralee at all, but instead the Petersons. Judge Abner Peterson had fought for the Union during the Civil War. He might not want anyone near him or Lauralee who had fought for the Confederacy cause, especially a Confederate Cherokee.

But Dancing Cloud had several days to gain not only Lauralee’s love, but total trust. Then the Petersons would not have a say in the matter. Lauralee was old enough to make up her own mind about things, even about loving a Confederate Cherokee.

When Dancing Cloud showed no signs of arguing the point of money with her, Lauralee became unnerved. “Dancing Cloud, the money that you earn by escorting me to Mattoon is money that will buy many seeds and garden supplies for your people’s planting season,” she said quickly. “Isn’t corn your people’s staple food? The money could also buy clothes for the children of your village.”

Her gaze went to his buckskins, then she looked up at him again. “Or do your women still only make clothes from the skins of deers?” she said softly. “I know the buffalo are gone. Surely that has made a hardship on your people.”

“I hope to show you one day how my people do live. Then you will see that our lives do not vary much from the white man’s.”

Lauralee’s eyes widened with that remark. She started to make a comment, but he turned from her and went to his horse and removed his saddlebags.

Lauralee followed him through a thick cluster of bushes, wincing when the thorns of a blackberry bush ripped the skirt of her black dress. She shielded her face with one of her arms as she bent beneath low tree limbs. She was relieved when they came to a clearing where Dancing Cloud lay his saddlebags.

When he started to walk back to his horse, to get his buckskin travel bag, she was surprised when he took a wide step around a vine of poison ivy, addressing it as he would a friend at the same time that he was avoiding it.

She realized then just how much he was a man of total mystery to her. His customs and his way of living differed so from that which she had ever known.

Yet she could not help from loving him, this man whose dark, midnight eyes sent her into a tailspin of rapture.

She worked with him to get the campsite ready. When a half-moon spilled its silver light over the sky she had already bathed in a private cove in the river and had shared a meal of roasted rabbit with him that he had cooked over a fire that was only now shimmering its faint light into the darkness.

She now lay huddled between blankets beneath the stars. She was bone-weary from the journey and felt emotionally washed out from the loss of her father.

Yet sleep would not come to her.

Perhaps she was too tired, she argued to herself.

Or perhaps being alone with Dancing Cloud was the cause.

Besides the priest who had escorted her to the orphanage, and her beloved father, she had never been alone with a man since her mother’s rape. She knew that Dancing Cloud could be trusted, but she could not relax enough in his presence to go to sleep.

Deep down inside herself she knew that lack of trust was far from the reality of why she could not sleep. It was, in truth, because she wanted to snuggle into Dancing Cloud’s arms. She wanted to take his offer of protection to the limits. She wanted him not only to hold her within his embrace. She wanted him to kiss her and give her the experience of wild bliss for the first time in her life.

Until she had met Dancing Cloud she had never thought it possible to have the need of a man. Now she wanted nothing

less than to experience what her mother had felt when she had been held within the protective arms of Lauralee’s father. Their love had been sweet and special. It had been picture-perfect.

Lauralee now saw that it was possible for her to have the same sort of sensual relationship with a man.

When Dancing Cloud rolled over on his blanket and gazed her way, Lauralee’s insides melted.

She turned her back to him when she suddenly recalled her mother’s rape.

How could she truly be free to love Dancing Cloud when there were so many bad memories that would not allow it? she despaired to herself.

Tears streamed from her eyes.