She wanted to enjoy the kiss.
She wanted to enjoy him.
All of him!
She closed her eyes and laced her fingers through his hair as she urged his lips to hers. When he kissed her, everything within her melted into a wild bliss, the urgency of wanting to be free to love giving way to a dismayed, wonderful pleasure.
And then, like those flashes of lurid lightning that were erupting along the sky outside, came the face of the blue-eyed Yankee. His laughter rushed through her like a black dread. Her mother’s screams swept through her like wildfire.
Lauralee shoved Dancing Cloud away and grabbed up her blanket and rushed away from him, stopping where the light of the fire still reached and lit up the dank gloom around her. She lay down on the blanket and pulled its corners around her. She curled up on her side, trembling, her eyes wild.
Dancing Cloud sat in a stunned silence, thinking that she was lost to him, forever. Never again would he attempt to kiss her, much less anything more sensual. He was anxious now to get her to Mattoon. He would leave her there and never look back, yet knowing that his heart would remain there with her. He doubted that he could ever love again, for she would always be there in his memory, so beautiful, so gentle, so sweet.
And so totally frightened, he thought despairingly to himself.
Chapter 8
All tastes, all pleasures, all desires combine,
To consecrate this sanctuary of bliss.
—CHARLES SWAIN
Lauralee fell into a fitful sleep, then awakened quickly when she heard something that sounded like the rush of wind approaching her. She turned over and noticed that the fire had died down to glowing embers. She could hear that the rain had stopped outside the cave. And Dancing Cloud was asleep on a blanket several feet away from her.
The strange sound that awakened her grew closer and louder. Lauralee clasped her blanket up tightly beneath her chin as she rose slowly to a sitting position.
A scream froze in her throat and her eyes grew wild and wide when she finally discovered what was making the sound.
Bats!
Hundreds of bats were entering the cave in a massive cluster of black. The embers of the fire gave off just enough light for her to make them out in the semidarkness as they swept by her overhead. A dizziness overcame her when she realized that they were so close she could reach up and touch them.
Never had she been as afraid.
She could not move.
No sound would come from her throat.
The thunderous roar of the bats flying overhead awakened Dancing Cloud. He sat up quickly and looked in awe at the flying creatures as they continued to sweep past.
Then he shifted his eyes quickly to Lauralee. Earlier she h
ad spoken to him of her fear of bats. He could see the fear in her eyes now, the wildness, as she stared up at the rushing throng of black creatures.
Although he could see that she was stiff and pale from fear, he could not go to her. He knew the dangers of making any movement. If even one bat became alarmed and flew away from the others, that could possibly change the direction of the rest of them.
They might even be confused and fly around in a frenzy, attacking anything they might come in contact with.
Yet Dancing Cloud saw that he must go to Lauralee, to assure her that he would protect her. Although she had given him good cause to ignore her, his love for her sent him quickly to his feet.
He kept himself bent low as he moved slowly and stealthily around the glowing embers of the fire. When Lauralee turned her frightened eyes toward him, he gave her a look of warning. If she jumped to her feet without thought, she could alarm the bats into a wild frenzied flight of fright.
“Do not move,” Dancing Cloud whispered. “I will come to you. Stay quiet, Lauralee. Just . . . stay . . . quiet.”
Lauralee tremored as she waited for him to reach her. She hugged the blanket around her shoulders, her eyes again on the bats. How could there be so many? They just kept coming and coming!
Warm, comforting arms were soon around her shoulders, enveloping them. As Dancing Cloud knelt down over her, she turned to him and clung desperately to him. “Thank you for coming to me,” she sobbed. “I’m so frightened.”