Tallchief: The Homecoming (18 page)

Outside snowflakes swept across the small farm Liam had always wanted, and the big basket on the floor beside her was filled with her own dreams—a garden and ideas for more remodeling. For inside Michelle nestled a new life, so new that it was only hers alone—she wanted to be certain before telling Liam. She wanted to reassure him with a doctor’s verification that she was in good health and ready for children. Liam’s dream of growing things would come true, and not only vegetables and animals, either.

Michelle sighed, drifting in the peaceful moment. Helping the high school counselor test graduating students for their aptitudes was exciting, placing young lives on a path best suited for them. The women’s shelter offered another challenge, helping unfortunate women straighten their lives and provide for themselves, helping them retrain for suitable jobs. Every day was filled with excitement, the hunt for Adam intense. From the facts they had gathered, Adam had apparently walked out of his hometown as soon as he could. He left no forwarding address, and his share of the inheritance had been left in an attorney’s safe keeping. To all appearances, Adam Tallchief did not want to be found. Liam’s parents’ and his grandmother’s estates, had gathered a vast, unused, bank interest. Proof of his legal identity would place half in Liam’s hands, yet he’d wanted to wait for Adam.

She frowned slightly, thinking of Liam’s mysterious and somewhat boyish mood, the secrets he kept from her. Michelle studied the small chest on the fireplace mantel. She still hadn’t discovered the meaning of the two rocks, but she would. Then, as if the woman from another century called to her, Michelle opened the journal and began to read.

An hour later Michelle hurried up Duncan’s steps, the two flints captured tightly in one hand and the tinder box in the other. She dismissed the other Tallchiefs’ pickups and rapped at the door. J.T. swung it open. “Mama!”

“Hello, my little man. Where’s your daddy?” She would leap upon Liam the first moment she had, tear him to pieces. He’d made her wonder and pry and question and held her away from the truth.

J.T. pointed to Duncan’s living room where all the family had gathered, dressed in kilts and tartans. Elspeth fussed at their hems and broaches while children squirmed in their arms and toddled around their legs.

Liam scowled at her, and her mouth went dry as she stared at him. Dressed in a ruffled white shirt, a tartan sash and kilts, Liam was gorgeous. All rugged, untamed male, his features fierce in a scowl. He looked just like what he was, the descendant of a Native American chieftain, clad in a tartan as a reminder of Una, the bondwoman. “Now, you’ve done it,” Liam said flatly.

“Me? I did what? You’re the one who kept the secret of the legend. But I know now, Liam Tallchief. I know what the flints and the tinderbox represent. Watch—” She bent to the fireplace, arranged straw upon a stone and struck the flints together. A spark leaped onto the straw, igniting it. “That’s us, isn’t it? Flint and fire. That’s how Elizabeth and your namesake were.”

“Now you’ve got it, and you’d better not laugh at this skirt,” he brooded, standing with his fine-looking strong legs apart, his hands on his hips. “It’s for the wedding. And family tradition says that we’ll have a proper wedding and you’ll get that honeymoon in a bridal tepee. I want more for you than standing up in front of a judge with the Tallchiefs around us. That ceremony served the legal need to make you my wife as fast as I could, but I want you
to have everything other Tallchief brides have had. All this was supposed to have been a surprise. Elspeth has been sticking pins and needles in me for a week.”

“Ingrate,” Elspeth muttered, just as she would to one of her brothers. “It’s a good thing Liam has you to keep him civilized, because I’ve done my duty with my brothers and husband.”

“Have I told you today that I adore you, lady with dragon-green eyes? Rose of my heart?” Liam asked in a wary tone.

“Don’t try to distract me,” Michelle said when her mind started rolling again. The sight of Liam with all the Tallchiefs was enough to momentarily take away her breath. He’d come such a long way from the harsh man he’d been, stripped of dreams. Now he spoke of raising calves and plowing and planting and fixing tractors with excitement. He wanted to learn how to ranch on a larger scale, and that would take time. She’d be at his side, every step. Building a home and a ranch and loving Liam were enough excitement to keep her busy for a lifetime. Things had gotten very exciting indeed when she’d put that dent in his pickup fender and ground the straight-stick gears. Liam hadn’t ranted, but he’d walked rigidly away from the sight of his beloved truck. Later, working beside him underneath it, he’d been much more pleasant.

An interesting man with neat little edges to explore as the years went by, Liam had kept a secret from her. “You could have told me about these flints earlier, and you actually used Elizabeth’s journal as a guide to understand women.”

Liam shot a glare back at the Tallchief males, who were making smothered chuckling noises. “I had no other reference for handling a woman like you. I was desperate.”

“You actually read another woman’s thoughts to see
how she would react to her beloved, what he did to please her. You used her thoughts for a manual on giving me the things I’d love most. Of serving up those sweet words to stun me. You couldn’t just tell me of the legend. Oh, no, you had to make me hunt for it.”

“I gave them to you. They’re yours, and so am I.”

Michelle shook her head. “So this is the secret you’ve been keeping all these weeks. And the legend of the flint and the fire. That’s exactly how we are, combustible. I’ve lost sleep over this, Liam. I’ve worried that I’d never be able to discover why the flints were wrapped as if they were precious. They were—they were Liam’s gift to Elizabeth. You could have told me right away.”

“But then there wouldn’t be a game, a challenge for you, would it? At first I didn’t believe it myself—that romance and love could come into my life—and then the legend proved true. You responded perfectly…. She’s getting wound up,” Liam murmured in an aside to the Tallchiefs. He tried not to grin, because Michelle’s gaze was wandering, warm upon him. From the steamy look of his wife and soon to be his bride again, she loved what she saw. He recognized the warm flush easing up her cheeks, that sultry look beneath her lashes. The flick of her tongue across her lips told him that later she’d be tasting him in a way he loved to return.

He bent to brush his lips upon hers, in the new way he’d discovered to stop her rising temper. Waylaid on the way to scolding him, Michelle whispered, “Your family is right here, Liam.”

“That’s right, they are my family, and so are you, lily of my heart.” Then he wrapped his arms around her and kissed her hungrily. He stepped back to watch her expression. Just the sight of Michelle igniting set off his need to carry her away. Moments later, in the closet next to the
kitchen, Michelle’s warm mouth parted for his. Her arms locked around him tight, her hands still filled with the flints and the tinderbox. “You’ll marry me then, this way?” he asked, uncertain of his appeal while dressed in a skirt.

“I’ll take you any way I can get you,” she returned against his lips. “We’re a family now, boyo. And you’re wearing your namesake’s ring when we marry. You’re quite the romantic, you know.”

Liam wrapped his hands in her rippling, silky hair and studied his beloved’s heart-shaped face, her meadow-green eyes. She would always look the same to him, years from now—the woman of his body and his soul. His future was here, against him, warm and soft and secure. His past was eons ago, dropping away more every day.

“I didn’t think all this was possible,” she murmured in the shadows as he caressed her. “I look back at what I was and how much I have now. Sometimes I think it’s a dream.”

“Dream this,” Liam whispered against her lips. After a kiss that spoke of dreams and years together, he started smiling. Then he began to laugh, joy bubbling from him into the tiny shadowy room, echoing in his heart.

“You’re beautiful,” she said, her hand smoothing his cheek, her eyes adoring him. “And you’re blushing. You’ve come home, then, my love.”

“Aye, I have. Home with you.”

“Liam? I’ve noticed that all the Tallchiefs have that same little scar on their thumbs as you have on yours. First I noticed Duncan’s, then Calum’s and all the rest. Why is that?”

“Accidents, I imagine,” he said, and settled back to watch his beloved take the bait. “Nothing to think about.”

“No? Why do you have that grin as if you’re holding back another secret? I’ll find out. You know I will.” Then
she grabbed him close and kissed him hard, and when they both couldn’t breathe, the heat simmering between them, Michelle said, “Aye, I do.”