When Passion Calls

Cursing beneath his breath, he struggled into his clothes, then his boots, almost toppling over when he found it hard to balance himself.

Fully clothed, he lumbered to a peg on the wall and yanked his gunbelt down and fastened it around his waist, the pistols heavy at each hip. Last night, when he had arrived home, he had

Sauntering from his bedroom, he saw that Melanie's door was ajar. An eyebrow raised inquisitively when he saw something on the floor just inside the door. Going into her room, he bent to one knee and started picking up colored beads. Then he looked toward her bed and saw the distinct signs of a struggle in the rumpled sheets.

His heart grew cold, again studying the beads. Then he found a piece of thin leather, the sort that Indians used in stringing their necklaces.

Growing ashen, Terrance thrust the beads and thin leather into his pocket. He ran from Melanie's room and went through the house questioning the servants. None had seen Melanie since the last evening. Her personal maid had wondered why she hadn't slept in her bed, or why it was so unkept. She even commented on having seen Indian beads scattered across the floor.

The sound of a horse approaching drew

Terrance's attention. He rushed to a w

indow and looked out and saw that it was Shane. Anger flared in his eyes. Cold hate caused the features of his face to become distorted. If anything happened to Melanie, it was all Shane's fault. The presence of Indian beads in Melanie's bedroom pointed to only one thingthat Chief Gray Falcon had decided to take out his hatred for Shane on Melanie!

Blinded with rage, Terrance broke into a run and jerked the front door open. Grabbing a pistol from his holster, he ran down the steps and fired it wildly at Shane as he was dismounting close to the porch.

"It's your fault!" Terrance screamed, tears streaming down his face. Out of bullets, he threw the pistol at Shane, who dodged it easily. Terrance fell to his knees on the ground, sobbing and hitting his doubled fists into the earth. "Damn you, Shane. Damn you all to hell."

Stunned by this strange sort of greeting, Shane looked down at Terrance for a moment, then saw more in Terrance's attitude than mere hate for himself. A coldness soared through him. Melanie. The dream. Something had surely happened to her!

Shane went to Terrance and drew him roughly to his feet. "What has happened?" he asked, his pulse racing.

Terrance struggled to get free. He raised a fist and attempted to hit Shane, but Shane was too fast and grabbed the fist in mid-air.

"Where's Melanie?" Shane growled, looking toward the house, then back at Terrance.

"She's gone," Terrance sobbed, wiping his nose with the back of a hand. He jerked away from Shane and slipped his hand inside his pocket and withdrew a handful of Indian beads. "I found these in her room. There must have been a struggle. It was surely Chief Gray Falcon."

Shane turned quickly and mounted his horse in one leap and began to ride away.

"I want to go with you!" Terrance shouted, running after Shane.

Shane looked over his shoulder at Terrance. "You are not capable of watching over your sister when she is in your house!" he shouted. "You are surely not capable of fighting for her in an Indian village! Worthless man, drown your worries in whiskey again! That's all you're good for!"

Terrance teetered to a stop and wiped his mouth with the back of a hand, Shane's words stabbing him like a knife into his gut. Downhearted, he turned and walked slowly back to the house and up to his room. He threw himself across his bed and cried until he fell into a fitful sleep.

Melanie blinked her eyes nervously. She had not allowed herself to go to sleep while traveling on the horse with the Indian, and now she was limp with exhaustion. Every bone in her body ached from being held so tightly against the Indian for so many hours.

Dawn's glow was seeping through the night fog. If Chief Gray Falcon was her abductor, his village should be reached soon. Shane had said that the Chippewa village was not even a sleep away from

their farms, which in the white man's terms meant that traveling by horseback it would not be a full day and night away. Her abductor had traveled without stoppingnot for a drink, not to stretch, not for anything.

She looked over her shoulder and gave the Indian an angry scowl. The only decent thing he had done for her was to remove the damnable gag after they had traveled far into the forest. The buckskin cloth had tasted so vile that even now she could taste it on her lips!

"O-nee-shee-shin gee-gee-shayb," Gray Falcon said, looking down at Melanie as he caught her glaring at him. "Soon we reach my village. You will be fed and then you can rest." He smiled. "You are stubborn, woman. You should have slept instead of forcing yourself to stay awake."

Melanie's eyes widened in disbelief. This was the first time the Indian had spoken to her since the one brief moment when she had discovered him in her bedroom. To her amazement, he spoke English. And he did not seem at all threatening. His tone was gentle.

"Who are you and why did you do this to me?" she asked in a rush of words.

Gray Falcon ignored her, not liking any woman making demands on him. Especially not Shane's woman. After watching Shane's house for many days and nights and seeing Shane with this woman so often, he felt no doubt that she was his woman!

To satisfy his lust to avenge Shane's having stolen from him, Gray Falcon had stolen some-

thing of more value to Shane than horses and pelts!

When Shane discovered Melanie missing, he would see that Gray Falcon was the more clever of the two. He would come for his woman and this did not matter to Gray Falcon. The pleasure would be in watching Shane humbling himself to come and speak for her! He would not enter the village with fighting on his mind. Shane loved the Chippewa people too much.