“But we are going home.”
“I will take you to England. I will have to leave again, but I will never force you to stay here again. I had never imagined anything such as this massacre.…” His voice trailed away. They both knew then that hundreds of the English settlers had been slain throughout the Virginia colony. One of the greatest tragedies was that John Rolfe, the widower of the Princess Pocahontas, had been slain by his wife’s own people. Thankfully their young son remained behind in England and had come to no harm. “I don’t want you to have to be afraid again,” he whispered to her. “I don’t want you to be in danger again.”
She twisted around, looking up at him. She touched his cheek, growing dark with the growth of beard. “I am not afraid,” she said.
“I will see you safely home.”
She hesitated, then pulled in on Windwalker’s reins herself. She threw her leg over the horse’s haunches, leapt to the ground, and stared up at him indignantly.
“Why did you come after me, my great Lord Cameron, just to get rid of me?”
“I said that—”
She smiled suddenly, thinking of her sister’s words, and she interrupted him curtly. “You married me, Cameron, and you’ll not get rid of me so easily. I am home!”
“What?” He raised a doubtful brow and stared down at her. To his amazement she cast a wicked blow against his thigh. “I am your wife. I have a right to stay, and I intend to.” She hesitated and added more softly. “I am home, Jamie, I am home.”
He leapt down from the horse, taking her by the shoulders, the fires of hope leaping into his eyes. “We have no house!” he said harshly. “Except for the brick cornerstone foundations, we have nothing left. Nothing at all.”
She bit her lip, aware that tears threatened to spill from her eyes. “If we have the foundation, haven’t we really got everything that we need?”
His fingers clasped her arms so tightly that the grip was painful, but she did not cry out or protest. She studied the burning heat and tension in his eyes, and she began to tremble beneath his hold.
“You really would stay?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Why?” she repeated.
“Why?” he thundered, and there was no mercy in him. He was as hard and ruthless as she had ever seen him.
She wrenched away from him, the tears spilling from her eyes at last. Her nails dug into her palms, and she shouted back, “Because I—because I love you, you stupid, arrogant knave!”
“What?” he thundered again, coming toward her. She gasped, wondering if he meant to shake the insolence from her, but when she would have fled, he caught her about the waist and spun her around. She struggled against his hold, and they both landed hard upon the dirt. He straddled her and caught her wrists, then pulled them high above her head, laughing. “Tell me. Tell me again!”
“Stupid, arrogant—”
“No!”
“You told me—”
“The other. Tell me the other. Damn it, say!”
The tears were in her eyes again. She wanted to shout. She whispered, “I love you, Jamie.”
“Again.”
“I love you.”
His lips fell upon hers. Sweet, hungry, exciting, evocative. He kissed her with a fascinating leisure for their curious position upon the forest trail. He kissed her as if nothing else in the world mattered, and maybe, beneath the green shadows of the forest, nothing else did. And when he ended the kiss, his smile so tender and gentle, she cried out and threw her arms around him again. He held her so for a long time without speaking, then he ran his thumb softly over her cheek and whispered to her at last. “Can you really love me?”
“I do,” she vowed. “Oh, Jamie, please don’t send me away.”
“I never wanted to send you away. I only wanted to give you the freedom you wanted. Jassy!” He held her close, and his voice was filled with passion. “I did not marry you to survive this place, or to have a woman who could be dragged to a wilderness. I married you because of the spirit and fervor and passion in your soul, in your eyes. I married you to touch those things, and when I did touch them, I was not appeased but floundering ever further beneath your spell. Jassy, I fell in love with you so long ago—”
“I could not tell!” she interrupted in awe and reproach, and he laughed.
“Well, you were pining after Robert Maxwell. I am a proud man.”
“I had not noticed!” Jassy laughed, but then she sobered and reached out, brushing the hair from his forehead. “Oh, Jamie, I was so wrong! It was you all along, wasn’t it? You paid for my mother’s coffin, not Robert.”
He held silent, and she smiled. She would never tell him of Robert’s lack of valor on the day of the massacre. It wasn’t necessary. The truth was. “I fell out of love with Robert long, long ago, milord.”
“How so?”
“He could not fill my heart or mind once you had set your claim upon me. Never, from the very beginning, milord, have I managed to forget you, as you promised me that I would not. And when you turned from me, I did not think that I would be able to bear it.”
He groaned, burying his face against her throat. “I thought that you despised me still, and I could not love you and force you to remain any longer.”
“Oh, Jamie! Could you not tell! When you touched me and I fell so swiftly to your command …”
“We are both proud and stubborn. It almost cost us so much. Oh, Jassy, I knew that I had your passion. I wanted your love.”
“You have it all, all of me, Lord Cameron.”
The trees rustled above them, a soft breeze moving over the land. He kissed her again, slowly and deeply, and the fires of spring came alight within them both, radiant and as beautiful as the burst of the sun, for their whispers were of love.
Jamie looked up and saw where they lay, in the dirt, in the road. He rose and swept her into his arms, carrying her into the brush, into the verdant leaves. He laid her down upon a field of green earth beneath the swaying branches of an oak, and he spread her hair against the earth. Then he laid himself against her, and he made love to her as he never had before, for her whispers of love filled his senses to bursting, and his passionate vows and promises urged her on to ever greater heights. And when it was over, they both lay in the wilderness, watching the canopy of the trees, naked and content in the green darkness of the forest.
He whispered again and again that he loved her. And she responded with awe, touching his cheek, adoring him.
At last he helped her dress, and they journeyed onward again. It was a long trip home but a good one for them both. During all of the journey they touched each other, talked of their pasts, and spoke of the future.
At last they came to the Carlyle Hundred, and when they were spotted, the people came milling out to greet them, waving excitedly. Jassy leaned back against her husband, trembling.
“Jamie, we are home.”
“Home, love, is that burned-out shell.”
She twisted to meet his cobalt stare, darkened with amusement and a curious tenderness. “The foundation is good. And upon that foundation we can build.”
“We can build, my love. In this wilderness we shall build.”
He smiled and laced his fingers with hers, and they both knew that the foundation was not within the bricks in the ground but within their own hearts.
Jamie urged Windwalker forward at a greater pace, and then the horse sped into an easy gallop. Home lay before them, and their infant son, and the sweet golden promise of tomorrow.
To Scarlet & Joe Rios
with lots of love
Also by Heather Graham from Dell:
LOVE NOT A REBEL
A PIRATE’S PLEASURE
GOLDEN SURRENDER
DEVIL’S MISTRESS
EVERY TIME I LOVE YOU
THE VIKING’S WOMAN
ONE WORE BLUE
HEATHER GRAHAM lives in Coral Gables, Florida, with her husband and their four children. Formerl
y a professional model, she has written nine best-selling historical romances and over thirty contemporary romances.
Heather Graham, Sweet Savage Eden
(Series: North American Woman # 1)
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