Wind Song (20 page)

Although it was the end of March, spring whispered of its imminent arrival in the brisk, nippy wind. It was an almost perfect day for the Easter egg hunt before spring vacation began, yet she lamented the fact that the landscape had about as much grass as her living room floor.

In the classroom the children chattered incessantly, eager to begin the hunt, a novelty for them. For three weeks they had worked on their Easter baskets, made out of shoeboxes. Karen Many Goats won for the best-looking basket; hers looked like a rabbit, with its coat-hanger ears covered in fluffy cotton balls. Leo Her Many Horses won for the best-decorated egg, painted to look like an ear of corn. Robert, naturally, had refused to make a basket or paint an egg at all.

Abbie had mixed emotions about the egg hunt. All the teachers had enthusiastically contributed their time to the project. Some teachers pitched in at the cafeteria to boil the hundreds of eggs, others colored them, and still others painted names and designs. But when Becky had volunteered to hide them while the other teachers corralled the rambunctious students, Abbie had had no idea that the younger woman would run into Cody at the trading post and ask for his help.

Abbie hadn’t seen him since the day he had driven her into Flagstaff, and she dreaded this face-to-face meeting. Somehow she felt as if her secret were printed on her forehead with scarlet letters. The worst was that she continued to think about him during the day—unconsciously doodling his name—and to dream erotic fantasies about him at night.

It did little good to tell herself that CodyStrawhand was a lone wolf, that he was as contemptuous of her high society breeding as she was of his nonconformity. The image of his body posed over hers—and other images that crimsoned her skin—ate away at her like a cancer. She had always thought that she was ready to face any challenge, but she was afraid to meet Cody again, afraid of the sensual weakness she had discovered within herself.

Any hope that Becky had cherished of making eyes at Cody was crushed when, on the morning of the hunt, Miss Halliburton posted herself next to him. And any hope that Abbie had entertained of avoiding the man was extinguished. His gaze riveted her where she stood with her students.

When Miss Halliburton asked him something, his gaze released Abbie from her paralysis. She forced herself to calmly approach the two. Cody was pointing out to the principal the perimeters within which he had hidden the eggs. The spring wind had picked up, whipping Cody’s mane of hair, bound though it was by the bandana, across his chiseled face. It was all Abbie could do to hold down the hem of her dress that danced dangerously high about her thighs. His gaze ran up and down the length of her legs. She didn’t miss the provoking grin he flashed at her predicament.

“I would offer to help . . he challenged.

Miss Halliburton raised a censorious brow. “Mr. Strawhand!”

“My apologies.” But his eyes laughed at Abbie. She had read something somewhere about the laughing eyes of the Navajo, and now she understood. His laughter was infectious; it was all she could do to keep a straight face.

Then suddenly his eyes narrowed in sharp scrutiny. His gaze scanned her face in an unnerving fashion before dropping to peruse her breasts in such an intimate manner that she blushed. He couldn’t possibly know. No, she was just becoming paranoid.

Still, she swung away to join the other teachers, who were already herding their charges out onto the far-reaching stretches of red sand sparsely splotched with wretched clumps of desert grass. Miss Halliburton and Cody followed closely enough that she could hear his deep, rich voice. “Since there was no place to hide the eggs,” he was telling the principal, “I buried them with my boot heel so that just a little of the paint shows.”

The Easter egg hunt was like nothing Abbie had ever seen. She had expected a wild stampede when Miss Halliburton gave the signal. Incredibly, the children fanned out in a line as straight as a cavalry flank and slowly moved forward. Their eyes, the observant eyes of the true marksman, swept over the ground before them. Their sight homed in more accurately than any metal detector. Even more surprising was the way the children retrieved their booty—not all rushing to pick up the discovered egg but letting the child directly in its path collect it.

Following the students, Cody walked alongside Abbie and the stern-faced Miss Halliburton and joked every so often in Navajo with the children. Then it happened. That horrible moment when the wind swept Miss Halliburton’s wig from her head. “Oh, no!” she yelled in anguish. Her hands flew up to cover a head that was sparsely covered with short, brittle hairs. More scalp than hair was exposed.

The children—the teachers—Cody and Abbie —all stopped and turned to stare in confusion at the phenomenon of an almost-bald woman, while the wig hurtled along past them. The principal glanced desperately about her. “Oh, get it!” she cried out when nobody moved. “Oh, please, help me!” Tears of shame spilled over her veined hands. The nearest to her, Delbert and Joey, took out after the bouncing ball of hair, but sprint though they might, the wind blew the wig just ahead of their short legs.

“It’s all right, Miss Halliburton,” Abbie said, touching the woman’s arm in a consoling gesture.

Then Cody did something utterly unexpected. He unknotted the bandana from about his forehead and, covering the woman’s naked head, tied it under her quivering chin.

Abbie saw the look of deep gratitude Miss Halliburton bestowed on Cody. The woman’s trembling hands wiped the tears that furrowed her powdered cheeks. She leaned her head into his shoulder. “When I was a child—scarlet fever—” she hiccoughed. “The illness—it took all my hair. No man could ever want me.”

Abbie stood openmouthed. The dragon had changed into a kitten.

“I bet you never gave any man half a chance, did you, Miss Halliburton?” Cody said gently.

The woman sniffed into his shirt. “I was too afraid
...”

“Of rejection,” he finished for her. Over her head his gaze met Abbie’s, and she read the challenge in his eyes.

Deliberately she looked down just as Delbert ran up with the wig clutched in his hand. When she looked up again, Cody was leading Miss Halliburton, her wig now safely in hand, back to her office.

Damn him! Little children and old ladies. He should have been a Boy Scout.

* * * * *

Her purse under one arm, a stack of papers that she had meant to grade over the Easter vacation in the other, Abbie shoved her apartment door open with her hip. As she should have expected, the sheaf of papers slid onto the floor, the homework scattering like blown leaves.

“Hell,” she muttered and went down on all fours to collect them.

It had been a record day for testing the validity of the Peter Principle. Everything that could have gone wrong, did. First, Cody showing up for the Easter Egg hunt, as if his prime purpose was to annoy her. Then Miss Halliburton’s wig blowing away. For the rest of the day the woman had made St. George’s dragon seem tame.

But the worst had been when Robert’s father hadn’t come for him at the end of the day, when Easter vacation began. She had watched helpless ly as the boy, hands jammed in his jean pockets, his foot kicking at random rocks, made his way back to the dormitory. Before she left for the week, she had stopped by the dormitory to warn Dalah to keep a close watch on Robert. That was all she needed now, for the boy to take flight.

The one bright spot in the day had been Marshall’s visit—and his invitation. The Easter vacation had loomed like seven long, boring days at Kaibeto, but Marshall’s invitation for a three-day spree in Las Vegas had been like a visit from one’s guardian angel or an IRS refund—unexpected but desperately needed. Her slightly hesitant response had prompted Marshall to add wryly, “No strings attached, Abbie. Only the pleasure of your company.”

But it wasn’t merely the lure of a pleasant way to spend the Easter holidays that had prompted her to accept; if word got back that she had spent three days in Las Vegas with Marshall—yes, that could be the solution to her problem.

Scooping up several more wayward sheets, Abbie had to smile smugly at how adroitly she was working out what had threatened to be a sticky situation . . . until her eyes encountered the scuffed boot before her. Slowly, reluctantly, her gaze followed the jeans leg upward. There Cody sat on her sofa, arms spread across its back, one ankle propped on the other knee.

“How . . . how did you get in here?” she asked in a low voice.

His smile didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Oh, we Indians have devious methods of breaking and entering.”

She pushed herself up on her knees and shoved a swath of hair back off her forehead. “Now that you’ve entered, you can just leave.”

He leaned forward and she almost jumped, she was so edgy. Calmly he clasped his hands between his knees. “I will when I find out the answer to my question.”

“Try the school. I’ve finished answering questions for the day.”

“This isn’t a student’s question.”

She came to her feet and turned away. “I only get paid to answer students’ questions,” she flipped over her shoulder with a nonchalance she was far from feeling, and continued into the kitchen. “Now, would you please leave?”

In three strides he was across the room. Jerking her around by her arm to face him, he cornered her against the counter. His eyes blistered hers. “I want to know the answer—now.”

Tomorrow, she promised herself, she was going to buy five cartons of cigarettes. “And what will you do if I refuse to answer you—seduce me like you did the last time you showed up at my apartment?”

His voice was unnaturally soft. One hand came up to caress the angle of her jaw. “I would hardly call that seduction, my love.” She tried to avert her face, but his fingers held her jaw firmly. “That was total unconditional surrender on your part.” Her lids drooped before those penetrating eyes.

“You’ve got your history mixed up. It was the Indians who surrendered, and surrendered and surrendered.”

“And you’re forgetting Custer’s fate. Now, are you going to tell me what I want to know?”

She forced her eyes to meet his unflinchingly, forced the firmness into her voice that she would have used with one of her recalcitrant students. “Cody, whatever happened between us didn’t work out. But there’s no reason why we can’t establish some sort of friendship.”

He released her jaw then, but blocked any avenue of escape by locking his hands on the counter’s edge to either side of her waist. “Yes, there is Abbie. What’s between us is too powerful to contain in some mild-mannered friendship. It’s either everything or nothing.”

“Well, then, I choose the latter.”

“You’re not the only party involved in this relationship. And I mean for it to be the former.”

Her eyes flashed up into his. “And just how do you propose to achieve this feat?”

He lifted a brow. “Didn’t you know that Indians are relentless?”

“And has Miss Halliburton told you yet that my one vice is indomitability?”

“When two equal forces collide . . .’’He grunted. “Abbie, I’m finished bantering words around with—”

“—with someone who speaks with a forked tongue?” she asked archly.

“Damn it, Abbie.” He grabbed her shoulders, his fingers bruising her flesh. “You’re pregnant, aren’t you?”

“No!” she gasped out.

“Don’t lie to me. I know your body as intimately as any doctor or your husband ever did. Your breasts—they’re fuller. Your complexion—you practically glow with sudden robust health.”

She pushed aside his arm. It would be fruitless to deny the pregnancy. He would find out soon enough, when she had to resort to maternity dresses. “Yes, I am.” She moved past him to stand in front of the vertical window next to the door and putting distance between them. “But what happened between you and me,” she continued in a toneless voice, “does not give you any right to interrogate me.”

“It does when you’re carrying my child,” he rasped out behind her.

If ever she was to escape, to be her own woman . . . Slowly she turned to face him. He watched her with the intensity of an Old West tracker. She would have to be convincing. “When? How about ‘if,’ Cody?”

The light in the room was growing dim, and his eyes glinted with the incandescence of some night creature’s. His voice, when he spoke, was measured. “I don’t like guessing games. What exactly are you implying?”

She drew a deep, fortifying breath. “Cody, I hate to damage your supreme masculine ego, but you’re not the only man I have been seeing.”

He crossed the intervening space to stand before her. His hands cupped either side of her head, at the base of her skull and pressed oh so firmly. “You may be seeing Marshall,” he said quietly, “but I would know if you have given yourself to him. And you haven’t.”

She played her last card. “That’s merely your male vanity speaking. How can you be so certain? Why else would I be going off to Las Vegas with him tomorrow for the Easter holidays?”

Chapter 10

W
ith one of those unexpected reversals characteristic of high desert weather, winter howled back through northern Arizona. The wind blew across old Flagstaff, down past the railroad tracks and up Santa Fe Avenue, making the tum-of-the- century buildings look even more decrepit than usual, as if they huddled against each other to shield their worn facades from further aging.