Nicole remembered how frightened she had felt at that moment, and was so glad to know now that he had not meant he would kill her, himself, if she stayed there.
She truly felt as though she could relax now, and continue offering him help without fearing that in the end his thank-you would be to kill her.
“Will you allow me to continue helping you?” she asked. “I can stay with you long enough to bring down your fever by bathing your skin with cool water from the stream. I can even feed you, so that you can regain your strength and return to your people a strong, well man.”
“Why would you do this for me?” Eagle Wolf asked, more amazed by this woman as each moment passed. “I a Navaho and most whites would call me a savage.”
“You are a human being,” Nicole said softly. “I do not judge people by their skin color. My parents taught me differently.”
“Where are your parents?” Eagle Wolf asked. “Why are you traveling alone? Why are you not with them?”
She didn’t think she could bear to talk about how she had found her parents. The pain of speaking about it would be almost the same as being there again.
Instead of answering him, she asked a question of her own. “Are you strong enough to move closer to the stream?” she blurted out. “It will be more convenient for me as I bathe your feverish brow with cool water. The water will help bring down the fever.”
Again touched deeply by her kindness, he nodded. With Nicole’s help, he stumbled to the stream, then collapsed in a dead faint beside it.
Nicole gasped at just how weak he was; his fainting was proof of that. She hoped that she wasn’t too late to help him.
She believed this man was not to be feared, but admired. There was something majestic about him, as though he might be more than a mere warrior.
He had the demeanor of a mighty chief.
As she slowly bathed his face, her eyes were drawn again to admire his handsomeness. She relived how his voice had sounded, so deep, so masculine, and so kind.
As she continued to bathe his hot flesh, she prayed that the treatment would work. She would hate to see such a man as he die!
Her jaws tightened in determination, vowing to herself that she would not let him die.
She wondered about this wife who had died. Had she been so beautiful that he could not see beauty in another woman?
Could he ever care for a woman whose skin was white?
Knowing how foolish she was to allow herself such fantasies, Nicole forced her thoughts elsewhere as she continued to bathe his body.
The future. What did it hold for her? Where could she go when she felt it was safe enough to wander from this mountain?
She truly did not want to return to St. Louis and live with her aunt Dot and uncle Zeb. She had felt stifled there.
So then…where could she go?
Who else but them could she turn to?
She again gazed at the Indian. She could not deny that she was drawn to him. He had awakened feelings within her that she had not known existed, and she knew that was because he was a man who had made her feel like a woman.
Chapter Ten
As the setting sun painted an orange glow on the mountain, and the birds called to each other as they settled into their nests for the night, Nicole was feeling a loneliness she had never known before. This would be her first night of having no parents.
As dusk fell, Nicole hugged herself.
When Eagle Wolf groaned softly in his sleep near the campfire she had managed to build, she looked down at him.
Before he had drifted off to sleep again, Eagle Wolf had told her how to build the fire. She had never had a reason to know how before now.
After she had gotten the rest of the campsite ready for the long night ahead, she had pulled her own blanket from her travel bag, and a shawl, which she’d wrapped around her shoulders to ward off the chill she felt as fog drifted in on all sides of her.
Starved, Nicole had found berries enough to fill her emptiness until she got the courage to hunt something more substantial. But not until morning.