He nodded. “And so there must be. For my part, I believe we Seneca should learn to make those things the trader brings us. Either that or do without them.”
“Perhaps you are right,” she said. Then, changing the subject, she uttered, “Hmm … after this massage, I am thinking that I might obtain a good night’s sleep.”
“Have the cramps awakened you from your sleep at night? ”
“They have, indeed.”
“I was unaware of that. Usually I awaken easily, but I have not heard your plight.”
“That is because I have not given one. I have done all I can to remain quiet.”
“But if you are in pain, then you should tell me so that I may help. It is not in my mind that you should grieve.”
“I will remember that.”
“And now, if your pain is less, I think that I might bring in the fresh meat that I hunted this day. I believe we can make dry meat with it and some soup to help you on the path back to health. If you can, try rolling over and standing.”
She did as he asked and came onto her back, so that she lay faceup, but she said, “I fear, sir, that I might still be too weak to stand. When I am on my own and have tried it before, I seem to do nothing but collapse.”
“But I am here now and if your legs cannot hold you, I will catch you.”
“Very well, then. I will try. Perhaps you could assist me to stand? ”
She sat up and as she did so, his arms came around her. It was nothing unusual, nothing to set off a spark within her. After all, he had been assisting her and holding her for days and days now.
But at this particular time, there was something different about him. This day, when he helped her rise, and they stood chest to chest within each other’s embrace, there was a seductive pull that Sarah would have been hard-pressed to ignore. Indeed, she swooned in toward him.
It was a tense moment as he caught her, made more acute by his gentle breath upon her hair.
She looked up at the same time he glanced down at her, and they stared at one another until at last, he said, “You are most beautiful.”
“I? Beautiful? After being almost drowned and lying here with a raging fever?”
“Indeed, I think you are beautiful.”
Then he kissed her on the cheek. Perhaps it was meant to be no more than a light peck, a gesture given to bring comfort. But something went wrong with it.
She turned her face into his so that all he had to do was move his head ever so slightly, and … He seized the opportunity and kissed her, this time on the lips, fully, completely and without restraint.
Although Sarah little understood what drove her, this she did grasp, she wanted more. She wanted to be held closer, loved and cherished. Little able to stop herself, she swooned in toward him. It was a mistake. She knew it at once.
However, it felt so incredibly good …
Seven
It was a moment of rapture. It was a moment set out of time, reminiscent of the Englishman’s heaven. But it was wrong—the wrong time, the wrong place, the wrong woman. Yet contradictorily, something about her was right, and White Thunder felt himself surrender to the softness of her curves, her scent, her taste.
However, it had to end. It should have never begun. After all, he had his duty, and she … she couldn’t even remember who she was. Might she not belong to another?
Common sense demanded he withdraw. Instinct, however, saw him reaching down and pulling her buttocks in even closer toward him.
She didn’t object. This was his downfall.
He thought he might go mad with desire. He deepened the kiss, opening his lips so that he might explore the warm inner recess of her mouth.
He groaned. She sighed and fell in toward him. So close was she, he guessed that he could feel every feminine hill and valley of her form. The knowledge sent his mind spinning, and his body reacted with all the pent-up frustration of an aroused male. His heartbeat raced and he could barely catch his breath.
In the end, he had to breathe, and he ended the kiss, but not so the embrace. In fact, he pulled her in even closer. They both gasped for air.
He should say something. But what? At last, all he could think to utter was, “I am sorry.”
She didn’t respond, not by word or by action. Indeed, she remained fixed in his arms.
After a brief hesitation, he decided he should explain himself, and he said, “I am sorry because I, who have told you that you are safe with me, have yet taken you in my arms.” He shook his head against hers, but he didn’t release her. In essence, she was still so close that he figured he could commit her physical form to memory.
At last she spoke, her voice soft and breathless as she said, “You have nothing to be sorry for, sir. If I remember correctly, you promised that as long as I didn’t desire your attention, you would not give it.”
He nodded. “That I did.”
“However, sir, I fear that I am as much to blame as you are.” She paused. “You see, I wanted to be kissed.”
She stared up at him, and he pulled away from her to glance down at her, though his arms remained firmly locked around her. Surveying the look in her eyes, he realized at once the truth of her words, plus he recognized something else … something more profound. Passion, amorous and sensual, stared back at him from the depths of her gaze.
His heartbeat leaped into furious action, and blood surged through him with alarming speed. At once, his body was ready for her. He feared she could feel it.
He uttered, “Do not tell me these things if you do not mean them, for I fear it encourages me very much. I have taken it on myself to care for you, which does not and must not include making love to you.”
“That’s not necessarily true. In this instance—”
“Do you tease me? ” he interrupted her. “You must know that I am already thinking I will not let you go until we have explored one another as a man and a woman might.”
“As a man and a woman might? Of what are you speaking, sir? ”
He didn’t answer.
“In my society,” she continued, “men do not speak such words to a woman unless that man is contemplating marriage, for to do so is unseemly. And yet I can hardly believe that this is your intention …”
He gulped. Marriage? His heartbeat stilled. Even his arms loosened from around her. Luckily, with that distance came a ray of sanity.
How could the conversation have progressed so far in only a few minutes? He realized he had to tell her. He had to be truthful.
However, there was a problem. How does a man explain the truth of his life to a woman who is as sweet and desirable as this one? How does he tell her what’s in his heart without tearing out hers by doing so?
He breathed in deeply, then took the plunge, his voice barely a whisper as he confessed, “Know this, I would make love to you and give you all that I could that is within me to give, but I cannot ever marry again. At least not until my duty to my deceased wife is fulfilled.”
She was silent for so long, he almost wished he hadn’t spoken.
“To Wild Mint? ”
“
Nyoh
, yes.”
“Oh.” It was all she said before she backed away from him, her countenance gradually mirroring her understanding. She said, “I fear this conversation has gone too far, much too quickly.”
He agreed, yet he felt bereft without the warmth of her body next to his. However, in this case distance was not to be so easily gained. While it might have been a good intention on her part—to restrain herself from him—her legs wouldn’t hold her up, and almost as soon as she stood on her own, she collapsed. He caught her easily, and held her in his arms momentarily until she again struggled against his hold.
“Do not fear,” he said. “I will take you back to your sleeping robes, where you can invoke your need to be away from me if you choose.”
“That would be most kind.”
He picked her up in his arms and stepped toward her bed. No sooner had he started, however, when she said,
“Sir, I fear there are further problems. If I do not recover my memory, there will be no option for me but to remain close to you. This would be difficult for us both, I think.”
He dipped his head in agreement. “True,” he said, “but if we have to do it, we will. I cannot leave you here on your own. To do so would be as to commit murder, for I do not think that you could easily forage for yourself.”
She paused. “Yes, of course.” She stared away from him. “But let us pray that my memory does return, the sooner the better. For the well being of us both, I think.”
“
Nyah-weh
. I will pray that it will be so.”
He set her down on the softness of the pine boughs and blanket, and as soon as he did so, she lay back and took several deep breaths. He watched as she gazed up at the ceiling of the cave. She was silent. He was the same.
At some length, she said, “’Tis quite a dark place that you have chosen for our shelter, is it not? ”
“That is the way in which caves and other passages underground are formed, for they do not have the warmth of the sun to light them.”
“Aye. I have wondered,” she said. “When I first awoke, I heard water running here in the cave, but I have not been able to find the source, since my legs will not hold me. Tell me, is there water near here? ”
“There is an underground stream that flows not more than a hundred or so feet from us. It is farther into the cave and so there is no light there. It would be hard to find on one’s own.”
“Ah, that accounts for it,” she said, then she sighed as she turned her face away from him.
Watching her, he felt helpless. He realized his words might have seemed harsh to her after he had held her in his arms and kissed her, but there was little he could do about what he’d admitted to her. He had spoken the truth.
After some deliberation, however, he decided to talk of trivial things, much as she was doing, and he said, “I have brought us fresh meat. It is a deer and should provide a good source of food for days. We can make dry meat, and from the bones, we can boil a broth that should supply you with the necessary nourishment to keep your muscles from becoming painful.”
“I … thank you, sir.”
He hesitated and stared at her. “I will bring the carcass near the fire, where we will be able to skin it at our ease. Would you like to help me? ”
“Yes, very much, I think.” But she didn’t sound as if her heart were in it.
Feeling utterly powerless, White Thunder rose up to his feet and stepped to the front of the cave. Retrieving the game, he placed it around his shoulders and brought it toward the fire, where he set it down.
“Would you like me to take you up and bring you to the fire? ”
She didn’t reply at once. He waited.
At last she said, “I think I would like you to prop me up so that I am in a sitting position, and can watch you from here.”
He did as she suggested, being careful not to touch her overly much. “Are you comfortable? ” he asked.
“Yes, I am, and thank you.”
He nodded and returned to the fire, where he set to work over the deer.
To ease the undercurrents that were awash between them he continued to talk, and he asked, “Have you ever skinned a deer? ”
“No, sir, I have not.”
“It is not a hard task to accomplish if you know how to do it. If you will come here, I will show you the way of it.” Almost sheepishly, he asked, “Will you? ”
“Yes, sir, though I fear you must again help me to the fireside, for I cannot make it there on my own.”
So quickly did he jump to his feet to come to her aid, he wondered if he’d startled her. Reaching down to take her in his arms, he said, “Know that if I were able, I would—”
“Please, sir,” she interrupted. “There is no need to belabor the point. You are committed, and I … I don’t remember my past. I could very well be committed, also. We are both doing the best we can in a very poor situation, so do not feel there is a need to explain.”
He nodded, and placing his arms beneath her, carried her to the fireside. But it was like magic. It took no more than a mere touch to again send his body into readiness.
Were he not sworn to his obligation, were he not consumed with duty, he might like to come to know this woman better. But these ideas were useless to consider, for they could not be.
Indeed. They simply could not be. Why, he wondered, didn’t that feel right?
“ You make a slit here in the belly of the animal from the rump to the throat, and when you pull the skin away, it comes off whole with little trouble.” He showed her how to do it.
Sarah nodded, but at the first sight of blood, she realized that this was a skill she might never use. Propped up so that she was in a sitting position, she watched him work, her attention focused on his hands.