He nodded grimly toward a heavy leather tote bag on the floor. Then he caught her gaze and held it. “Moving in.”
Her eyes widened, and she looked like a wild mare about to paw the ground. Lord, he’d liked to have been the man who gentled her to ride.
“Why do you want to stay here?” she demanded.
“One, I own the place. Two, there’s an extra bedroom.” He looked around drolly. “Two extra bedrooms, apparently. Three, I hate motels.”
“You have a bedroom with nifty football pennants on the wall and a rock collection glued to the window-sill. Yes, I lifted the curtain and noticed. Why don’t you stay with your rocks?”
James wasn’t about to explain how much it hurt to visit a home filled with photographs of his parents, Echo’s husband, and Travis’s wife. He wasn’t going to explain that he wanted to cry when he overheard Grandpa Sam solemnly reading the newspaper aloud to them, so they wouldn’t miss out on tribal happenings.
And he wasn’t going to tell her that the day’s fishing trip with Travis had been a bitter fiasco of grief and anger that had ended with Travis telling him quietly that they were no longer brothers.
“I’m moving in,” he repeated fiercely. “I won’t bother you, so don’t sit there like a spinster-on-the-half-shell, looking as if you’re afraid I might take a bite.”
He tracked the rise of fury in her fair complexion. With her face flushed and her hair tangled like a chestnut mane she looked not only wild, but violent.
“I’m not afraid. I know what to do and how to do it right,” she said in a seething tone. “I know where to put what and what happens if I put it there.”
“Now if you could only get somebody to put it there for you.”
She twisted the blanket in one fist and pounded the bed with the other, all control gone. “I was married for eight years! It’s not my fault that I’m a virgin!”
They stared at each other in shock, she looking as surprised as he felt. Then her head drooped, and she covered her face with one hand.
“I’m joking. What a dumb joke. You didn’t even smile.”
“You’re not joking. Too late for a recall.”
James looked for a place to sit down. All this time when he’d teased her about her attitudes he’d never dreamed she was a virgin. He’d never encountered a virgin before, much less one over thirty.
He went to the ugliest green couch he’d ever seen, sat on the edge of a cushion, and waited until Erica lifted a troubled gaze to his.
He watched her shiver visibly.
“I should have gone into journalism.” She moaned. “I know how to broadcast news without thinking first. Congratulations. You’re the only stranger I’ve ever told my sexual history to.”
“Well, Erica Alice,” he said numbly. “Well.”
She shook her head in defeat. “When I tell people I’m an old maid, they believe I’m kidding. I’m not. There. Think what you want.”
“Doll, you’ve gotta explain how you could be married for eight years and still qualify for volcano sacrifices.”
“Catch my story on Oprah Winfrey next week. The Oddities of Nature’ show.”
“Look, we’re going to be housemates. I’m not a stranger. And I’m great at keeping secrets.”
“We’re not going to live in this house together. If this community is so traditional and conservative, what will people say?”
He arched one brow. “Relax. If they say anything at all, they’ll blame the big bad wolf for corrupting you. You’ll get sympathy.”
“Why didn’t you tell me up front that you intended to stay here?”
James pretended to study his watch. “Can we discuss this tomorrow? I can’t wait to get a good night’s sleep on this comfortable couch.”
Her voice was ragged. “This is just another way to antagonize me into leaving. Dammit, you’re really cruel.”
James stood ominously. “If I were cruel I’d lock your butt out of my house and say to hell with the consequences.”
“You wouldn’t like the consequences, I promise.”
The day’s frustration and fatigue boiled over. James strode to the bed, snatched the blanket with both hands, and jerked it away from her. She backed off the bed like a cornered animal, hugging her arms over her breasts.
“Out,” he commanded, and pointed toward the front door. He figured he’d let her sit on the porch for five minutes, then toss her the blanket and apologize.
She gaped at him as if he’d lost his mind. “No!”
“You want me to carry you out?”
She heard the determination in his voice and edged warily toward the short hallway that went to the kitchen and bedrooms. “Let me get my things,” she said between gritted teeth. “And I’ll go to a motel.”
“No.” He waved a hand at her nakedness. “You want to be a native, then go outside like a native.”
“You’re despicable!”
He smiled with malevolent pleasure. “I don’t use my seat belt. I drop cigar ashes in houseplants, and I thought E.T. was a so-so movie.” He pointed. “Out,”
She had nothing left but dignity, and she used it. His heart twisted with admiration and self-rebuke as she straightened imperiously, lowered her arms, and walked past him to the door.
He caught the unadorned, squeaky-clean scent of her hair and skin. He saw the pride outlined in every inch of her backbone, though muscles quivered around it. She had to know that he was looking at everything below her backbone, too, but he suspected that she didn’t know how perfect that part of her was.
She didn’t have much padding, but it had found the right places.
Without looking back she slung the door open. James cursed under his breath. “Forget it,” he said gruffly. “It was a dumb joke. I’m entitled to one myself.”
She paused for a moment, glanced over her shoulder, and said with icy disdain, “I’m going to prove something to you. I may be an old maid, but I’m a hell of a tough old maid, and I don’t need your patronage.”
Then she stepped onto the porch and slammed the door behind her.
James followed her to the porch. She descended the steps and walked across the yard, looking incredibly majestic even in the harsh lights of the flood lamps. His mouth opened in dismay. How the hell could a man deal with a woman like her?
James watched in disbelief as she strolled into the darkness. “You’ll get bitten by gnats, and the nights are cool up here even in the summertime,” he called.
“Cold gnats are preferable to staying in the same house with you,” she called back.
Then he heard only the silence of the night; it had captured her, taking her away for who knew what purposes. He’d either have to go after her and drag her back, strip naked and go sit with her, or let her suffer nobly.
He didn’t think she’d appreciate any of the options.
James paced the porch, unwillingly thinking about Utluhtu, the spear-fingered monster who haunted the forests, stealing people’s livers; and Uktena, a giant, dragonlike creature so dangerous that just looking at it could be fatal.
He chuckled harshly. And those two were just the tip of the arrow, where Cherokee monsters and evil spirits were concerned. No matter how modern and questioning and cynical he became, a part of him would never forget the stories he’d learned as a boy.
And Erica was out there thinking gnats would be her worst problem.
When he heard her scream he flung himself off the porch and hit the yard at a dead run. James pushed blindly into the woods, his shoulders scraping against the dark shadows of trees, feeling thorny vines tear at his jeans and golf shirt.
He heard a commotion that sounded like devils with giant wings trying to escape from the trees. Ahead of him in faint starlight he saw the ground drop away in a deep gully. The top of a small pine tree showed over the rim, and the branches were swaying wildly.
Erica screamed from somewhere in the gully.
James dived over the rim and landed hard on the exposed roots
of a nearby oak. He flung out a hand and caught Erica’s arm. She was huddled on the gully floor, and when he grabbed her she jumped like a rabbit.
Then she hit him across the stomach with a tree limb the size of a baseball bat.
He groaned. “Thanks.”
“James!”
“No kidding.”
He pushed her onto her side and curled around her spoon-style, one arm protectively flung across her head. They lay there panting and listened to the unknown terror in the pine tree.
Finally it got free of the limbs, emitted a ridiculous gobbling sound, and flew away on ponderous wings. James groaned again, this time in disgust.
“A damned turkey.”
“A bird?” Erica asked in an apologetic tone.
The adrenaline surge ended, and pain rushed through James’s bad knee. He bit his lip and rolled onto his back, then drew the knee up gingerly and described turkeys in terms that had nothing to do with Thanksgiving. He got to his feet and threw his shirt to her. “Follow me back to the damned house and don’t give me any more grief.”
He started climbing the gully wall, his movements slow and painful. He had to stop halfway up the gully to catch his breath.
Erica chuckled fiendishly. “I think I’m going to enjoy this.”
“RED! BRING ME a glass of water!”
“In a minute.”
“Now.”
“When I finish this chapter.”
Sitting at the kitchen table, Erica lifted her gaze from a history book and smiled. For three days it had been that way—James in bed, bawling orders, her in the kitchen, ignoring them as long as possible.
She heard furious rustling in the living room, then uneven clumping. Alarmed, Erica put the book down and looked toward the kitchen door. James appeared in its whitewashed frame, his swollen knee half-bent, his hair disheveled, his eyes black with aggravation.
And he was naked.
Erica felt the pulse throb in her neck. She folded her hands in her lap to hide their trembling and said calmly. “Nice crutch.”
He emphasized each word slowly. “From now on, every time you ignore me I’m going to get up, find you, and wave this thing until I get attention.”
“You think I’m so mousey that I’ll faint? Just because I’ve never had personal contact with one of those doesn’t mean it terrifies me. It’s just another part of the male body.”
Her stomach shrank under his evil, slit-eyed smile. “Oh? Then you won’t mind if it moves closer.”
He hobbled toward her with a great deal more menace than she’d expected. Erica jumped up and sidled around the table, using it as a barricade.
To her chagrin, he began to laugh. He braced both hands on the tabletop and chortled heartily, his deep-set eyes squeezed almost shut, his teeth flashing white in an uninhibited show of victory.
Erica walked to the battered old metal sink, picked up a big glass from the drain rack, and filled it with water. She held her hand under the faucet for a moment. Mmmm, well water was so wonderfully cold. She turned gracefully, her chin up, and tossed the whole glass on him.
He jumped, knocked his bad knee on the table edge, and shot her a look of pain and exasperated shock. Water dripped from his eyebrows and nose; rivulets of water ran down the center of his sleek chest in a southward journey that ended in hair even blacker than that on his head.
To her amazement, the anger faded from his eyes. He sighed and shook his head. “This would have been a hell of a lot simpler two hundred years ago. I could have just kidnapped you.”
They gazed at each other while golden afternoon sunshine poured through a tiny window over the sink. It cascaded onto the table between them as if marking a common ground for friendship.
Erica was amazed at herself. She was calmly grinning at the most enticing man in the world, he was stark naked, and he was grinning back at her. Her life had certainly gotten more interesting in the course of one week.
“What are those marks on your chest?” she asked.
He glanced down. “Under my pecs?”
Somehow she hadn’t expected to get this detailed. Erica thought he made “pecs” sound very sensual. “Under them, yes.”
“Stretch marks. You get ’em from taking steroids. The steroids make your muscles grow faster than normal when you lift weights, and the skin can’t take the stress.” He paused, looking troubled. “In college we were proud of them.”
“You can be proud of them now,” she assured him gently. “Because you went through a lot of hell to do what you thought was right.”
There was a vigorous change in attitude low on James’s body. She couldn’t help staring. Really, it was impossible not to. Erica’s legs went weak, while a languid heat made her belly feel hollow and ready to be filled.
Would his body have reacted to any woman who stared at him? Erica shoved that worry aside.
James glanced down at himself and murmured distractedly, “Looks like I’ve got my own Uktena.” Then he was silent, studying her reaction.
She whimpered silently as heat scorched the skin below her navel and moved higher, tightening her breasts until they ached, then finally warming her face with passion. Erica turned toward the sink and fumbled with some dishes there.
“Sorry about this,” he said softly.
“I’m not embarrassed. I’m a normal woman with a normal reaction to a man in your … condition.”
“I understand that. I’m just sorry, that’s all.”
She glanced back at him. He was scowling—if not at her, precisely, then in her general direction. He pursed his lips as if thinking, then turned and quickly limped out of the room.
“Would you mind bringing me some water when you get a chance, Red?”
“No problem.”
“Thanks, doll.”
Erica slumped in a chair and put her head in her hands. He didn’t want her, even when she couldn’t hide the fact that she was ready, able, and extremely willing.
Erica wiped tears from her eyes. “Water,” she said in a ragged, angry whisper. “There’s your water, Mr. Tall Wolf.”
WRAPPED IN A thin blanket, she sat cross-legged on the foot of the bed and listened to James tell stories. The bedside lamp cast cozy light on him, softening the planes of his face and making his hair look like polished onyx. He kept the bedcovers pulled up to his chest, which told her that he was politely avoiding another scene like that afternoon’s.
Erica sighed. He had a lot of kindness in him, and that made her want him even more.
Beyond the living room windows owls “Whoo’d” in the June night, and inside, the house still smelled delicious from the steak dinner she’d fixed.
Erica pulled her blanket more tightly around herself. They’d had a wonderful dinner, and he was wonderful company. She should be content with that.
“How did the Tall Wolf family end up in North Carolina?” she asked. “How did they avoid the Trail of Tears?”
“My great-great-grandfather lived in Tennessee. When the soldiers began rounding up the Cherokees, he escaped and hid in North Carolina. Here in the Smokies.” James smiled. “The Tsacona-ge. Place of the Blue Smoke.”
“So most of the North Carolina band came from refugees?”
“Some. Others had lived here a long time, and the mountains were so rugged that it was too much trouble for the soldiers to hunt them down.”
“Do you think your ancestor survived like the other refugees did, by hiding in caves?”
He nodded. “We have records made by a Quaker missionary.”
“What kind of records?”
“Aw, that’s not important. People nearly starved, hiding from the soldiers the first year, but then—”
“James, what kind of records?”
He looked annoyed at her persistence. “A family Bible.”
“But why would the missionary record anything about your ancestor in his family Bible? Unless—” Erica whooped. “Did the big red wolf marry a little white lamb in the missionary’s
family?”
“Yeah, but—”
“Then you’re part white. All right! We have something in common.”
James crossed reddish-brown arms over his chest and feigned dismay. “Funny, I don’t feel like a Quaker.”
She rocked nonchalantly, smiling. “I understand that after you move back here for good you’re going to find yourself a nice Cherokee wife.”
“Hmmm. That’s always been my plan.”
“Keep the bloodline pure.”
His gaze was riveted to hers; she wasn’t certain what was going on behind those dark eyes, but she doubted it had anything to do with Erica Alice Gallatin’s bloodlines.
“Travis’s wife was white. Born and raised in Chicago. She left him five times. He always took her back. She made him miserable.”
Erica looked at James wearily. The bitterness in his eyes defeated her. “I’m sorry. I like Travis, and it’s too bad that his marriage didn’t work. But maybe it had nothing to do with his wife’s being white.”
“You’re right. It only had to do with her being an outsider.”
Erica tried to sound flippant. “So you’re just having fun with the palefaces until you find the right woman here at home. Hmmm, a practical attitude.” She looked around as if searching for a clock. “Well, heavens, it’s getting late. I must be off to my new bed. I’m so glad Tom’s Trader Inn had one more lime-green beauty to spare.”
Erica uncurled her legs and started to get up. James’s broad hand latched on to her ankle.
“Not so fast. You owe me a story in return.”
She had to get out of that room before her smile broke. Not only wasn’t she sexy enough for him, she wasn’t Cherokee enough.
“Well, let’s see, I know a story about the great Boston Harbor sewage monster, but I don’t think it’s as charming as your stories about Uktenas and Utluhtus and other native things that go bump in the night.”
“I want to know about your marriage.”
“Ah. No way. You might have a tendency toward diabetes, and the story’s too darned sweet to be safe.”
“Red, quit stalling,” he said softly. “I can keep a secret. Come on. Give.”
“Really, it’s a ridiculous story and I don’t want to—”