Chase the Wind (54 page)

“You come here in the winter?”

“I come here whenever I can. This is where I was the night of
the dance. I camp down there, between the trees and the lake.”

“Show me.”

Chase led the way down to the lake and around to the place where the ring of stones still sat from his last fire. They dismounted, turned the horses out to graze, and spread a blanket for their lunch. They listened to the sounds of the horses browsing, the gentle laps of the waves against the shore, the scream of a hawk that circled above. Then all those sounds faded into the beating of their hearts.

Chase laid his hand against Jenny’s cheek and gently kissed her, their lips barely touching as they began to explore the newfound feelings inside. Her hand once again found its way inside his shirt and lay against his chest, feeling the beat of his heart. He kissed her eyelids, enjoying their flutter against his lips; his mouth moved to her temple, where wisps of baby-fine hair curled against her skin. He watched while her eyes deepened in color as his mouth moved down to take hers again, only this time he was more insistent, demanding, and she returned his kiss and gave him more. Her lips parted, and he took full possession of her mouth, plundering with his tongue, his arms wrapped around her, crushing her to his chest.

They finally broke apart, panting for breath, drawing in reserves for the next kiss, and soon they were lying on the blanket, their legs tangled together, their hair wild around them. Chase couldn’t get enough of her, and Jenny couldn’t drink her fill of him. She had unbuttoned his shirt and spread it open to give her better access to the skin that she wanted to taste with her mouth; her trail of kisses was driving him wild, driving all logical thought from his mind. He rolled over on top of her, catching her arms underneath his, and he captured her face in his hands, stopping her innocent pursuit.

“I want you, Jenny, but I won’t take you here. I want you for a lifetime.”

“Chase,” she began, her eyes dark with desire, but he stopped her with a quick kiss.

“I want us to marry, but we’re not going to rush it. I want you to be sure.”

“I am sure.”

“I want you to be sure tomorrow when you wake up and aren’t caught up in the moment. I want to give you time to think about us like I have, I want to know that you have no doubts, because it won’t be easy for us. There won’t be many that approve.”

“I don’t care what people say, and besides, the people we care
about do approve.”

“I know they do, but I want you to be sure, because I couldn’t
stand it if you looked at me one day in the future and said that
you were wrong.”

The dark eyes above hers showed his pain and his weakness, and Jenny’s heart skipped a beat when she realized that she held
his heart in her hand.

“Chase, I know without a doubt that I love you, and I would marry you today if I could, but I’ll wait if that’s what you want, because I want you to be sure about me.” She moved beneath him to escape a rock pressing into her back, and he groaned in agony, dropping his forehead down to touch hers, his hair falling around
them like a curtain.

“Move like that again and I’ll change my mind,” he said between
clenched teeth. Jenny actually considered it for a moment, then he
moved off her and pulled her to her feet. “I need to cool off, and
the lake is the perfect place to do it.” Jenny gave him a lecherous
look. “Keep your hands to yourself,” he added.

“The same goes for you, if you can.” She stood there looking at
him, her hands on her hips, her hair wild around her, and he
couldn’t help himself, he pulled her to him for another devouring kiss that left her weak in the knees and leaning against him as his
hands roamed over everything within reach.

“I can’t,” he admitted when he stopped. He stood her upright
and dropped his shirt on the blanket. “I’ve got to cool down.” He took off at a run down to the lake, pulling his boots off and dropping his pants on the shore. Jenny was treated to the curve of his backside before he hit the water with a slicing dive that took him out into the deep before he broke the surface again with a splash.
The water slid down his chest in sheets as he popped up from
below, then settled, his arms slowly moving to keep him afloat as
he faced the shore where Jenny stood on the blanket.

“I can’t either,” she said to no one in particular and sat down to
pull off her boots.

“Jenny, what are you doing?” Chase asked from the lake.

“Going swimming.”

“You can’t.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m out here.”

Jenny stood and unbuckled her belt. “It’s a big lake, Chase. There’s plenty of room.” Her pants fell to the blanket and she kicked them off.

“Jenny, you’re making things difficult.”

She started walking towards the water, her shirttail billowing out
in the quick breeze that skimmed the lake surface.”No, I’m not. I need to cool off, too.”

“Jenny, this lake will boil if you come any closer.” Jenny started to unbutton her shirt. “I mean it, Jenny, I can’t be responsible for anything that happens if you don’t stop.”

“What are you going to do, beat me?”

He took a few steps towards her, then stopped when he realized that coming any closer would reveal more than he wanted. Jenny tilted her head to get a better look as the water lapped under his navel, and then the wind blew the tail of her shirt up, puffing it around her face like a sack. She threw her arms up and wrapped them around herself to keep from flying off like a kite. When she looked again, he was gone. The lake was smooth except for the gentle ripples that broke the surface from the breeze.

“Chase?” she called out, concerned that he had been under too long. She waded out into the shallows, placing her hand over her brow to shield her eyes from the sun. “Chase, where are you? This isn’t funny anymore.”

The next thing she knew, she was flying through the air out into the water, where she landed with a big splash. She came up coughing and spitting, with her hair heavy in her face. She shoved it back and saw Chase standing on the bank with his pants back on, his legs set wide apart and his arms crossed across his wide bare chest, looking down on her like he was a king and she a disloyal subject.

“It wasn’t a beating but it will do for now,” he said as he perused her dripping features.

Jenny sank back under the water to straighten her hair, then made her way towards the bank. When she came out of the water, Chase decided that dunking her hadn’t been such a good idea because her shirt had become transparent and clung to her curves, revealing more than it covered. He couldn’t tear his eyes away, and Jenny took some pleasure in knowing that he was pretty much in the same condition that he had been in before his swim.

Chase picked up the blanket and wrapped it around her, then handed her his shirt so she could change out of hers. She pulled her hair up on top of her head and tied it with a piece of rawhide string, then spread the blanket back out on the ground. She tucked the shirt tail under her as she sat after spreading her own shirt out on the grass to dry in the sun. She patted the blanket next to her invitingly, and he sat down, his eyes wary, watching for her to seek some revenge.

“Why is it,” she started, “that you and Jamie have this need to throw me into whatever water is available?”

Chase laughed and stuck a blade of grass in his mouth. “Maybe it has something to do with our visions.”

“What visions?”

“We went to Gray Horse after we left the mission, and he wanted us to have visions to guide us in our quest. It’s the way of most Indians—we have spirit guides—and Gray Horse wanted us to find ours before we set out. So we performed the ceremony and we both had visions, and we both saw lakes in our visions.”

“Tell me about your vision.”

Chase stretched out on the blanket and laid his head in her lap, taking the blade of grass out of his mouth and twirling it between his fingers. “I followed Jamie. He was flying across the plains like a hawk, and I was behind him. I could hear you calling to us, so we went towards the sound. I saw you swimming in a lake, so I stopped, but Jamie went on.”

“Then what happened?”

“I joined you—we were together.” He drew the blade of grass across her cheek. “Really together, in the lake. It was like we were one. That’s how I knew we would find you, because we were one. There were wolves around us, too, but they would not attack. They were afraid of the water.”

“I had a dream about wolves, too. You were fighting them, protecting me from them.”

“I guess that just goes to show that the heart knows before the head,” he said, his eyes dark. Jenny ran her fingers through the drying strands of his silky hair and bent over to kiss him gently.

“But what about Jamie’s vision? You said he saw a lake, too.”

“He saw you drowning in a whirlpool and pulled you through and then left you with me. He never would really say much about it, except that he wished he could be as sure as I was that we would all be together again someday.”

“Maybe it’s because he is white and isn’t conditioned to believe
in those things.”

“It came true for me—except for the wolves, that is.”

“That could still happen.”

“And I will protect you from them.” He pulled her head down
and felt her shiver from the cool breeze that had kicked up with
the setting sun. “We’d better be heading back.”

“I don’t want to leave.”

“We’ll come back again.” They gathered their belongings and mounted up to head back to the ranch, letting the horses set their
own pace as they rode side by side.

The days of summer flew by, but time was split into just two segments for Chase and Jenny: the time they could be alone together and the time they were apart. Jenny would go to bed at night dreaming of the day they would be married. She began to make plans for their life together, as her mind roamed back to the
home she had grown up in. The thing she most regretted losing
was her mother’s quilt. It had been in her life as long as she could
remember. Whether spread on the ground for a picnic or folded
at the foot of her parents’ bed, it had always been there, a symbol of their family. Her mother had told her that her own mother had made it in anticipation of her own marriage, so Jenny went about
gathering scraps to start on a quilt herself. During the long summer
evenings they would sit on the porch of Grace’s cabin, Chase and Jenny in the swing with Jenny sewing pieces of fabric together, Jamie in a chair with his leg propped up and a book in his lap,
reading aloud as he used to. Grace would sit on the steps and listen to his voice, and the cowboys would often come around and listen, or talk, or have Caleb draw illustrations to the story. Jake had never
learned how to read and would let Jamie work with him some,
until he could pick up a newspaper and proudly show off his new
found skill.

Jake began to open up to the group, sharing some of his troubled
past as they talked long into the warm summer nights. His father
had been a preacher, who would talk of forgiveness in his sermons,
then go home and beat his wife and son for imagined transgres
sions. His sisters would try to hide Jake from his father’s anger, but the preacher always found him. His father said he had the devil in
him, and the only way to get rid of it was to beat it out of him,
until one day Jake left without a word, determined that no one
would ever beat him again. He taught himself how to shoot and
made himself fast on the trigger, so fast that no one would want to come up against him, but a few foolish ones had tried. Jason
had found him trying to hide from his reputation and brought him to the ranch, seeing a sensitive soul underneath the brash exterior.
Jake would gladly give up his life for any one of his friends, but they still treaded lightly around his quick temper.

Towards the end of summer, Jake’s temper was wearing thin after a week of hard rain had kept the hands confined, except for the
necessary chores that always needed tending. As soon as the
weather cleared they were going to drive the cattle to market in
Independence. Everyone would be going except for Grace and
Caleb, who drew the short straw this year. Jamie was on his feet
again, his broken leg nothing but a memory now, except for teasing
reminders about what a difficult patient he had been. He was anxious, like everyone else, for the adventure of the drive and paced
the confines of the cabin like a caged tiger.

Zane, Jake, Caleb and Ty were playing cards while Cat watched,
her chair drawn up next to Ty’s. They were in Grace’s cabin, gath
ered around the table, trying to pass the rainy day the best way they could. Chase and Jenny missed being able to go to the lake but were surviving somehow, passing the time with the rest of
them.