Dressed in his full buckskins, his long black hair drawn back from his eyes with a leather band, Strong Wolf scooted closer to Hannah. He took her half-emptied cup from her and set it aside, then snuggled her closer as they stared into the fire.
“In the spring, the Potawatomis women are eager for greens,” he softly explained. “The early sprouting green plants are added to the soup kettle. They use fiddleheads, marsh marigold leaves, fresh milkweed shoots, and sprouts of bracken fern in their cooking. Also roots of lilies, jack-in-the-pulpit, cow parsnips, and American lotus.”
“I never knew there could be so many that could be eaten,” Hannah said, gazing up at him.
“Often the plants we eat are not only for the pleasure of eating, but also eaten to heal,” he said, then realized that Hannah tensed when her pinto whinnied outside.
“I must really go,” she said, searching his face with her eyes, adoring him.
“Stay,” he said thickly, placing a gentle hand to her cheek as she withdrew away from him.
“I can’t,” she murmured. “My brother. You know that he needs me.”
“I need you,” Strong Wolf said, then shook his head, as though to clarify what he had just said. “But I will not be selfish. I understand your brother’s needs.”
He placed his hands to her upper arms and drew her close so that their lips were only a breath away. “But I understand my need of you, and I am not certain how long I can go now without having you again,” he said huskily, his eyes dark with passion. “You must find a way to be with me. And not only for an afternoon. For always.”
He twined his fingers through her hair and yanked her lips against his. He gave her a fiery kiss, his free hand reaching inside her half-buttoned blouse to stroke a breast.
Breathless, shaken by the intensity of their feelings for one another, Hannah wrenched herself free. “I don’t know how I can work things out,” she murmured. “If at all.”
She rose to her feet and went to the door.
He followed her, took her by the wrists, and swung her around to face him again. “You must find a way,” he said, his eyes imploring her.
She sighed, then she flung herself into his arms. “Please understand,” she cried. “Please don’t put such a demand on me. I so love my brother. I feel sorry for him. He is struggling for his very own survival! We, you and I, at least have each other.”
He tilted her chin with a finger. “That is not enough,” he said thickly. “We . . . must . . . be together!”
“I must go,” she softly cried. “Although the maids are there to care for my brother’s needs in some respects, he needs me for others. It is late afternoon. I should have left long ago.”
“The horses?” he questioned. “You didn’t choose a horse.”
“As I said earlier, Strong Wolf, I didn’t come to choose a horse, only to look,” Hannah said, then slowly smiled up at him. “And I’m not sure yet if I came even for that reason. It seems not.”
“Never regret what we have done here today,” Strong Wolf said, troubled by his fears of ever loving a woman, or taking a wife.
Would she find out?
Would she understand?
Was there a need for her to know, he wondered. Only one woman knew, and she had only been ten winters of age.
But even then she had turned her head away with disgust when she had discovered the truth about him!
Would . . . Hannah . . . do the same? he despaired.
He believed that Hannah’s love for him was strong enough never to turn away from him.
And was not her heart big toward her brother’s affliction? Surely if she ever witnessed that which abhorred so many, she would not be repulsed.
They stepped outside together. A young brave had brought fresh hay for Hannah’s horse. She thanked him as he looked up at her with wide, admiring eyes.
Then she gazed at the sky. Purple flecks of night were already appearing along the horizon.
“I will see you safely home,” Strong Wolf said. “Little Sky, go for my horse.”
The young boy nodded anxiously and left to do as he was told.