He slumped back on his haunches, dragging deep, calming breaths into his lungs. When the cold water had cooled the fire within him, he finished his bath and returned to the wagon. He pulled on a fresh pair of drawers and collected the jar of salve. The skin tied over the mouth of the jar was saturated with the oil inside and spread the sweet scent of mock orange flowers. He tucked the base of the jar near the embers at the edge of the fire, letting it warm while he shaved and did his teeth.
Sarah lay between the cool cotton sheets. She'd washed them just that morning. They smelled of sunshine and fresh air and moved against her bare skin in unfamiliar ways. She was used to wearing a nightgown to bed, except for the dark months when she wasn't allowed to wear anything at night in Swift Elk's camp. It had been better when he had taken her as a wife, simply because he shared her less frequently with the other warriors. Some nights she'd been able to sleep through without any demands being made upon her person.
The memories flooded her mind, chilled her body, reminding her why she couldn't be intimate with Logan. She couldn't do it. It would hurt.
The wagon shifted as Logan entered. The sun had dropped below the horizon, but it was still light enough beneath the canvas covering to make out the pale glow of Logan's gray eyes. Sarah swallowed hard and looked away. She gripped the edges of the sheet in a white-knuckled hold. She could do this. Logan wouldn't hurt her. It wouldn't be like before. Just get it over with, she told herself. Tension threaded through her stomach until she feared she would be ill.
She looked at Logan again. He was naked except for his drawers. The terrible bulge between his legs was less pronounced. He held a small clay jar. A sweet, floral scent drifted up to her. It was a pleasant smell that she filled her lungs with.
“I hope you like this salve. Laughs-Like-Water makes several batches a year. The people of her village rely on it to ease their wounds and sore joints.” He climbed up to sit on the edge of the bed. “I have warmed it at the fire. Will you trust me to touch you again?”
Sarah studied his icy gray eyes. He had shavedâhis face looked a bit less stark. She did trust him. It was her memories she didn't trust. It was as if an invisible wall stood between him and her, as unscalable as a fortress. She nodded.
“Then take the sheet off you.”
She hesitated only briefly before drawing the sheet away. She lay back, blanking out her mind, concentrating only on the sweet scent of the oil Logan was pouring into his palm. He sat at the end of the bed and lifted one of her feet. He massaged the oil into the bottom of her foot. She was embarrassed to have him touch her scars, but his hands kneaded and massaged until her tension seemed to fall away. She looked up at him, meeting his eyes. He finished with her first foot and started on the other one.
A breeze blew through the wagon, making a muted sigh as it caught on the edges of the opening, stirring the sweet scent of the salve around them. “Close your eyes. Sleep if you will. You are safe with me, Sarah Taggert.”
She did close her eyes, but only because his look sent a heat swirling through her that she was not willing to accept, a heat that told her surrendering to Logan would be a wonderful experience, that whispered he was the missing answer to a question she'd long held.
His hand rubbed the heated oil into her calves, knees, and thighs, kneading her muscles, melting her bones. His hands brushed the tops of her thighs, almost touching her hips. It was all Sarah could do not to push into his hands. Her reaction made no sense to her. She hadn't wanted any man's hands on her like this, not even Eugene's.
Logan tipped the oil jar and poured out a thin stream of the warm liquid on her belly, drawing a line from hip to hip. He set his hand on her lower abdomen, spreading the oil into her skin, moistening his fingers with it. His face was a mask of concentration, but a slight flush gave away the fact that he wasn't as unaffected as he pretended to be about what he was doing. He moved a hand up to her ribs even as his other hand moved the oil into her feminine curls. He massaged the oils between her legs, letting his hands slip into the folds at her entrance.
She tightened her legs, bringing her knees up defensively. His hands stilled as his eyes sought hers. Slowly, he shook his head, watching her until she'd straightened her legs out once again. He moved his hand from between her thighs, easing the oil up to her ribs, careful to work the healing salve into the old scars of burns, cuts, and lash marks.
He tipped the jar and poured thin streams slowly around one nipple, then the other. A low vibration began somewhere deep inside Sarah, like the beating of distant drums, visceral and rhythmic. His big hands palmed her breasts, pressing, massaging. It was entirely too stimulating. When his thumbs and fingers trapped her nipples, rolling the peaks back and forth, she almost cried out. What was he doing to her? It was torture. It was wonderful. She couldn't take any more. She wanted it to never stop.
Her hands came up to capture his, holding him to her. He smiled, a dark and lazy curving of his mouth, a mouth she suddenly wanted to taste.
It was the oil. It was giving her a madness. A fever. She ached all over. Wantedâsomething. Not his body. Not to surrender. Never that.
He took her arms and drew them up over her head, capturing her wrists in one hand as he continued his ministrations with his other hand. She stared into his eyes, wondering if he knew what was happening to her. He was leaning on one elbow, his chest so near hers, his heat singed her.
He flattened his hand, rubbing it so just the hard peak of her nipple brushed his palm, back and forth, around and again. Her breath was coming in short gasps. He smoothed his hand over the blue drawing on her chest. He reached over and spilled a bit more oil onto her chest. He rubbed it into her skin, up both sides of her throat, his fingers massaging the base of her neck.
He turned her face to him as he massaged the oil into her jaw, her cheeks, her forehead. “You are beautiful, Sarah.” His voice was a raw whisper. Her gaze dropped to his mouth, which hovered so near her own. He grinned. She sensed he knew about the madness stealing through her, closing in around her fear, urging her to reach for him.
“Time to roll over.”
Sarah closed her eyes, severing the strange connection she felt between her and Logan. She rolled over, lying still while he repeated the whole process from her feet up. He took great care to ease the oils over her back and shoulders, where old marks discolored her skin. By the time he'd made his way back down to her hands, she doubted she could have formed a coherent sentence.
She heard him set the jar of oil aside. The bed shifted as he stretched out beside her. She pushed herself up. “I should dress.”
“No.” He looked at her, his thoughts impossible to read. “I want to hold you like this tonight, skin to skin.”
She scooted in close to him, resting one of her knees between his. She could feel the press of his erection against her belly, but she gave no sign she was aware of his arousal. He pulled a pillow up under her head. She wrapped an arm around his chest, leaning in to him, hearing his heart beat against her ear.
“How do you feel?”
Sarah heard the rumble of his voice through his chest. “Warm and tingly on the outside. And very, very afraid on the inside.”
“Afraid?” He moved so that he could look at her. “Of what?”
“Of losing you. Of needing you. I want to know if this is real, if it will last.”
When you'll become like all the other men I've known.
He smiled a lazy, very male grin. “You'll have to stick around and see. Maybe you can tell me the answer in fifty years or so. Go to sleep now, sweetheart.”
It was a long time before sleep claimed her. She kept thinking he would realize he held a naked woman in his arms and assert his marital rights. If that happened, she schooled herself, she would forgive him. He was a kind and gentle man. He was fearless, full of light and love and joy. If he needed her, she would not turn him away. She would not.
Despite her vow of acceptance, she held herself very still, fearing as much as hoping he would bridge the divide she'd set up between them. But he did not. He simply held her, slowly stroking her back. His breathing was even, almost inaudible. She wondered if even in his sleep he still sought to comfort her.
Eventually, her mind surrendered to her fatigue. Sleep twisted her senses. The arms that held her became someone else's. Swift Elk had bartered her yet again in a game of chance. And lost. One of his warriors was pulling her away, forcing her out of the village, over to a slight dip in the prairie, giving them privacy only when they lay on the ground. She didn't fight him, didn't resist. Swift Elk would punish her by letting all of his men have a turn with her. One was better than seven.
He pressed her to the ground, freeing himself from his breechclout, pushing up her dress. She fought the terrible panic, the rising nausea, the need to run. She fought it and lost. She clawed at the muscled arms binding her, raked her nails down his hard chest. She screamed. She screamed and screamed and screamed.
And woke herself up.
She was in a bed, in a wagon. Her attacker was near her, also sitting up, his hands stretched toward her as if he would grab her. She was naked, as he seemed to be. Where was she? The nightmare wouldn't leave her mind. It flashed back and forth until she didn't know which reality was true.
“Easy,” the man said. She knew that voice. “Easy.” Logan. He didn't touch her. He didn't need to. He was poised to pounce on her. She would never get away. She gulped a deep breath of air.
Logan watched as Sarah blinked at him, watched the last vestiges of the nightmare retreat back into her soul. She was balanced precariously on the edge of the mattress, near the back opening of the wagon. “You're okay, honey. No one's gonna hurt you. No one's gonna make you do something you don't want. We got our agreements, remember?”
He slipped off the bed, into the core of the wagon to find a pair of pants he could pull over his drawers. Holding her bare body, skin to skin, had been hours of torment. His body burned for hers. The pants would at least help cover his raging need. He should never have made her sleep naked. He'd finally given in to the sleep he needed, leaning in to her warmth, resting partly on his stomach, partly on her, one leg between hers. It was heaven. Until she started screaming.
He lifted the chest beneath the bench seat at the table and withdrew a nightgown for her, then fetched another blanket. She sat where he'd left her, the sheet drawn to her chin. She stared at him with wide-open eyes, her gaze dark in the shadowy space of the wagon. “I've brought a nightgown for you. Will you put it on?”
She tucked the sheet beneath her arms and reached for the nightgown. She pulled it over her head, buttoned the sleeves and the front opening, then rose to her knees and drew it down the length of her. Logan fetched a tin cup of water and handed it to her. She held it a moment, staring vacantly at it. Her hand was shaking. She tried to fight off the wave of sorrow that threatened to consume her. She held a hand to her mouth as the sobs came.
“Whoa there.” Logan climbed back up to the bed. He set the water aside and pulled her huddled body into his arms. “You just go ahead and cry it out, my sweet wife. Cry as much and as long as you need to. I've got a hold of you, and I'm not letting go.” He pretended a bravery he did not feel. Her sobs sliced at his soul even as her tears burned the cuts she'd opened on his chest.
He wished he could undo what had been done to her. An empty wish. How many women who had been taken captives didn't survive their return to white society, their spirits so broken, they couldn't fight off common illnesses. All he could do was show Sarah another path, one filled with love, and stand impotently by while she decided to live or die.
He closed his eyes. This was his fault. He'd pushed too far this evening. Her sobs began to subside, but tension throbbed through her body, tying her to her fear. He lifted her face, smiled down at her as a crazy idea took root in his mind. He swept his thumbs across her wet cheeks.
He eased free of her and slipped off the bed. He grabbed a shirt and pulled it over his head. She frowned at him, looking as disgruntled as a wet kitten. He grinned, then turned from her to keep himself from taking her back into his arms. He fetched his moccasins from the bench trunk where his things and the beadwork he'd purchased from Laughs-Like-Water were stored. He dug through until he found a pair of moccasins that would fit Sarah. “Come outside. Don't change.”
A few minutes later, she came around to the back of the wagon. Her stride was hesitant. She looked at him, a worry frown wrinkling her brow.
He smiled. “Sit down,” he said, directing her to one of the two chairs they used when the table was folded down. She did as he ordered. He knelt before her. Lifting her nightgown, he untied her boots and drew on the exquisitely beaded moccasins he'd bought with her in mind.
“Logan, what are you doing?”
“We're going for a run.”
“You want to run. Now? At night? Give me back my boots. I'll ruin these.”