Erica laughed in affectionate disbelief and wondered if Gold Ridge was ready for Wis-sah Gallatin.
ONE OF THE tribe’s councilmen came to the door of the Tall Wolf house that night as everyone was finishing dinner. Travis looked surprised to see him, but made no comment about the visit. He introduced the man to Erica as Jack Brown and gave him a beer.
Everyone gathered in the den. Brown, who was one-quarter Cherokee, ran a hand through a head of thinning red hair and told Travis bluntly, “James hired me to build you a house. He’s already paid me.”
Becky gasped. Grandpa nodded with satisfaction. Echo wiped tears from her eyes. Erica knotted her hands together and hoped that Travis would accept.
“I can’t take it,” Travis said. “I already told him that Erica was going over my old blueprints to see how much the house would cost now. I can pay for it myself.”
Erica found the councilman looking at her curiously. “I’ve heard about you,” he said. “You fixed the roof on Sally Turtlehead’s cabin the other day.”
“She brought me some apples. It was a fair trade.”
That wasn’t true, and he knew it. The roof had taken all day and cost fifty dollars in new materials. But he just smiled politely and looked at her with approval.
“I can’t take James’s offer,” Travis repeated grimly.
There was no arguing with him. Brown shrugged, finished his beer, and told Travis to call him if he changed his mind. After Brown left Echo said in soft rebuke. “Oh, Trav. You know it’s not a handout. This is a family thing. Take it.” “No. All those years when he wouldn’t come home, he sent money. I never took it then, and I’m not takin’ it now. He’s not proud of being one of us, and this is how he buys off his guilt.”
“You’re wrong,” Erica replied. “You’re still his idol. And all he’s ever wanted was to make his family and his people proud of him. Do you know that he took steroids for years, just to be able to keep playing football, because he thought he had to be a symbol of what Indians could accomplish?”
Everyone looked at her blankly. No, they hadn’t known, it was obvious. Travis’s eyes narrowed in distress, and he cursed softly.
“Steroids?” Grandpa Sam asked, bewildered. As Becky explained what they were, Sam grew mournful. “He didn’t have to do that.”
“Yes, he did,” Erica said gently. “Because he has so much pride in being a Cherokee that he wanted to represent the tribe the best way he knew how.” She went on in a low voice, telling them some of the horror stories from James’s football career.
When she finished, Travis was sitting with his head in his hands. Becky and Echo were crying. Grandpa Sam was fumbling with his pipe, his hands shaking.
“I’m telling you these private things because he won’t say them himself,” Erica murmured. “He doesn’t want anyone to feel sorry for him.” She looked at Travis. “Travis, let him build a house for you. Nothing would make him happier.”
Becky went over and stroked her brother’s hair. “Go call him. Tell him you’ll accept his gift.”
Travis got up and went to the phone on the kitchen wall. There weren’t many private conversations in the Tall Wolf family. Erica had learned. So everyone followed him, including her.
She sat at the kitchen table between Grandpa and Echo, while Becky sat on the counter by the sink. Travis called a hotel number James had left.
When the hotel operator put him through Travis said, “James? Hmmm, sorry. Is James Tall Wolf there?”
Erica straightened slowly, her breath shallow. Who was in James’s room? Travis frowned, glanced at her, then glanced away, frowning harder. His reaction alarmed her more.
“It’s Travis. So you want to build me a house? Hmmm, yes. All right. Then I accept.” Suddenly Travis grew very still and calm, as if having made a decision. “James, is there a woman in your room?” he asked sternly. “Stephen’s friend. Where’s Stephen?”
Travis looked at Erica and nodded solemnly. “When’s Stephen coming back? Oh? Oh? Say, little brother, any messages for Erica? Yes, she’s right here. “ Travis held out the phone to her.
James had a woman in his room, and his whole family knew it. Dammit, it wasn’t fair. Now they felt sorry for her.
Erica was determined to sound normal. She got up, took the phone, and asked cheerfully, “Hi, Wolfman. Are you being naughty?”
He must have been embarrassed and annoyed by the whole situation, because it was a second before he managed to say anything. “I’m doing my best.”
In the background Erica heard a television playing. Something with lots of car chases and guns, apparently. A woman laughed—one of those high-pitched, girlish, cute laughs.
This woman was definitely not part of the sound track.
Erica shut her eyes. If she got through this conversation without crying it would be because the shock hadn’t worn off yet. “Well, I’m staying busy too. Sally Turtlehead is going to teach me how to make baskets.”
“Good.”
The woman laughed again. Erica dug her fingernails into her palms. To hell with being polite.
“You should have just told me about her, James. You didn’t have to make up an excuse for going to Washington.”
“She’s my partner’s friend,” he said in a low, taut voice. “She’s drunk. They stopped by here after a concert because she was threatening to throw up in his Porsche. He’s gone downstairs to get a room for her.”
“Ah. Okay.” She simply didn’t know what else to say. He was probably telling the truth. No promises, no regrets, he’d offered, and she’d accepted. So she didn’t have the right to pry.
“Listen,” he said, his voice hard. “You’ve got your deal back. The deal with George Gibson. I was going to tell you tomorrow, but I might as well do it now.”
Erica grasped the countertop for support. “How did you know about that?”
“Stephen told me a few days ago. I talked to Gibson. He hired your old pal to take your place. Harold Brumby. But Brumby’s in hot water with one of the unions, and Gibson doesn’t like controversy, as you know.”
James paused. “Stephen and I have some business deals with Gibson. We pressured him to take you back. If you want to accuse me of pimping for you, go ahead.”
“No.” Erica’s shoulder slumped. He was simply trying to get her out of North Carolina as quickly and as honorably as possible.
“So take the job, okay? I’ve seen your work—I checked out the project that won the award for you. You won’t have any trouble with Gibson, now that he’s going to give you a chance. You’re good. Damned good.”
“Thank you.” She couldn’t have cared less about her work at that moment. “So I need to haul my fanny back to D.C. right away?”
“You got it.”
“This ruins our bargain.”
“No. You win. I’ll get Dove’s papers for you, and you can have her place.”
“No. Only the papers. Not the home.” “Erica,” he warned, the word full of tension.
But she was furious and heartbroken. She’d at least wanted to end their relationship in person, with kind, thoughtful words and a final kiss. Instead it was ending over a long-distance telephone connection, while some bimbo chortled in the background in sync with a cops-and-robbers show.
“Thank you for helping me with the Gibson deal,” she said, and wondered how her straining throat could produce such calm tones. “When you get home to North Carolina just ask Grandpa Sam to interpret Dove’s papers for me. We’ll be square then.”
There was a long pause on his end of the line. “Sounds like you’re not coming back.”
“Not for a while. The Gibson deal will take a lot of supervision. That shouldn’t surprise you.”
“No,” he said softly. “Nothing surprises me anymore.”
“Well, I’ve gotta go. Stop by my office in D.C. sometime before you leave for home. I’ll buy you lunch.”
“Lunch.” He sounded bored, or exhausted, or both.
“Well
, here’s Travis again.” Erica planted the phone in Travis’s surprised hands and walked stiffly out of the room without looking back.
She went out the front door, crossed the yard, and leaned against the trunk of an old oak tree. Echo and Becky traipsed after her without the least bit of hesitation.
“What in the world was that all about?”
“You can’t tell us that you don’t love James.”
Erica stared into the darkness of the mountains around them, thinking. “Let him be sorrowing as he goes along, and not for one night alone. Let him become an aimless wanderer, whose trail may never be followed.”
She’d made a mistake by meddling with a Cherokee love formula, because it had worked only on her.
CHAPTER 10
THE TALL WOLFS came from a proud people who’d always fought to protect what was theirs. If he let Erica Gallatin walk away without a battle, he ought to have his name changed to Worthless Wolf.
James got out of a taxi on the back street of a suburban office park and strode quickly into a two-story office building. He found the correct suite number on a list in the lobby, took the fire stairs in his hurry to reach the second floor, and went straight to a door with a neat little brass sign on it.
Gallatin Construction Company.
Let the war party begin.
A sturdy dark-haired woman rose from a desk in a small, plainly furnished reception area. She was plainly furnished in a beige suit, and she eyeballed him like a drill sergeant with a troublesome recruit.
“You must be Mr. Tall Wolf.”
“You must be Marie.” He smiled jauntily at her and sat down. “Is Erica busy?”
“She just got back from a meeting.”
“With Mr. Gibson. I know. I arranged it.”
The office manager glared at him. “I’ll tell her that you’re here. She may need a minute to call for the cavalry.”
“Urn. White woman speak with forked tongue.”
Marie’s eyebrows shot up and her lips clamped shut. She picked up the phone. “Erica? Mr. Tall Wolf is here to see you. Have you got a minute?”
Marie put the phone down and said primly, “She has just a minute.”
James blew Marie a kiss and headed for a door across the room. Erica opened the door and stood there gazing at him, looking calm except for the bright blush her fair skin could never hide.
Wait. It wasn’t a natural blush. She had on makeup, and her hair was pulled up in a soft but classic style, and she was wearing a beautifully tailored white suit with onyx jewelry and a black handkerchief peeking from the breast pocket. She was even taller than usual, in high-heeled black pumps that made her legs look about two miles long and worth every inch of the journey.
“I took your advice,” she said simply, and waved a hand at her outfit. “I went shopping.”
“Good Lord.”
“No. Lord and Taylor. Come in.”
He stepped inside and glanced around at functional colors and spartan furnishings that would have done justice to any finely decorated government office.
“Oh, don’t worry, I’m having it redone,” she said crisply. She settled behind her desk as James shut the door. His fingers moved so carefully that he knew she didn’t hear him lock it.
“No more frumpy,” she announced, gesturing at the room. “I’ll change it all. Have a seat. What can I do for you?”
James took a seat on the corner of her desk, the corner nearest her chair. He drew one leg up, let the other dangle near her knees, and in general made himself provocatively comfortable while he watched a real blush creep slowly up her cheeks.
He loosened his blue tie a little, unbuttoned his blue-gray jacket, and flecked a piece of lint off the knee of dusky blue trousers.
“Blue,” he said cheerfully, pulling his jacket open so she’d get a good, close look at everything he had to offer. “In honor of your clan.”
She blinked rapidly and made a great show of clasping her hands just so on her desk. Very impressive and businesslike, he thought with pride, except that she bumped a file folder and it slid to one side, revealing a very unbusinesslike paperback book.
James flicked a hand out and stole it just as her mouth popped open and her fingers reached anxiously for it. She pursed her lips and rapped newly manicured nails on the desk. “Do you mind?”
“Savage Endearments,” James read solemnly. “He was a fierce Sioux chief, determined to take revenge on the settlers who had killed his people. She was a strong-willed schoolteacher from back east, determined to civilize a brutal land. But when he kidnapped her, she fell under the spell of his”—James paused dramatically—“Savage Endearments.”
“There’s a lot of history in that book,” she said between clenched teeth.
James looked at her silently, sorting out his feelings. She was caught up in the Indian fantasy, then, like other women he’d known, and that was one reason she was attracted to him.
But it wasn’t the only reason she liked him; he was certain of that, and so he could still hope. The best offense was a teasing defense.
James pointed to the book cover, where the chief embraced a schoolteacher so voluptuous that she was bursting from her low-cut gown. “What I want to know is, how come you never wore a dress like that to provoke my savage endearments?”
She took the book away and put it in a desk drawer. When she faced him again he saw a sheen of humiliation in her eyes, and it made his stomach twist with regret. The last thing he’d wanted to do was hurt her feelings.
“I brought you something,” he said gruffly. James reached into his jacket and handed her a sheaf of folded papers. “I checked on your great-grandfather. Here are some copies of what I found.”
Her eyes brightened until she looked through the material. “It’s true, then. Ross Gallatin was shot for being a spy.”
“Erica, he must have been a very brave man. It was no dishonor to die that way.”
“I know. I just wish my family had stayed closer to our Indian heritage. I mean, my great-grandfather Ross was a soldier, my grandfather was an actor, and my father flew fighter planes for the navy. I guess I don’t have a very ethnic Cherokee background.”
“Look what I got from the records in Oklahoma,” James told her patiently. “Ross grew up on the reservation—no, I’m forgetting. It wasn’t a damned reservation at that time, it was still the Cherokee Nation. A separate nation.”
James pointed to a list. “See there? By the mid-1850s the whole Gallatin family was living in the Cherokee Nation in the Oklahoma territory. Justis, Katherine—Katlanicha must have been her Cherokee name—Silas, Holt, and Ross. He was raised Cherokee.”
James added gently, “And when he died, at least he was killed by my great-grandfather and other Cherokee soldiers who knew he was a brave man and didn’t look down on him for being an Indian or even a Union soldier.” He touched her cheek. “You’ve got a lot to be feel proud of, kamama egwa.”
Tears rose in her eyes as she gazed at him. James had to struggle not to reach for her. Patience, he told himself. In a good game plan, timing was everything.
“How did you get this material from Oklahoma?” she asked.
“Oh, I had somebody do a little research and send it to me.”
She shook her head in disbelief. “Did you go to Oklahoma last week?”
“Well I’ve always wanted to visit my mother’s relatives out there—”
“Oh, James.” She got up and started to touch him, then wavered, smiled wistfully, and sat back down. “Thank you,” she said, her eyes brimming with tears.
James tried not to look disappointed. After the intimacies they’d shared, after all the long, lazy conversations and all the laughter, couldn’t she even bring herself to hug him in gratitude?
“I wish you could have stayed in North Carolina a few more weeks,” he said as casually as he could. “You really ought to consider coming back after this Gibson project gets under way.”
She chuckled and swiped at the te
ars on her bottom lashes. “I have an aversion to lime-green motel furniture when it’s in a—what?”
James had taken a handkerchief from one pocket and now dabbed mascara off her bottom lids. “You forgot that you have on makeup.”
“Oh, hell.” Looking embarrassed, she sat rigidly still and stared at his hand.
“That could make you cross-eyed. Why not look at me?” He arched a teasing brow. “Or do you still act wimpy when men admire you?”
Her gaze snapped up. “Is that what you’re doing?” she asked softly, but with anger. “I don’t understand why you came here today.”
He put his handkerchief away slowly, as if thinking very hard. “I still don’t understand why you lost interest in North Carolina so quickly.”
“I didn’t. You set up a deal for me. I have work to do.”
“Once the project gets going you won’t be needed on the site. Why don’t you come back to the reservation for a few more weeks?”
She held up her hands in exasperation. “If you wanted me to stay longer, why did you go to so much trouble to get the Gibson contract reinstated?”
“I owed it to you. I was responsible.”
“Responsibility!” Her tone was sardonic. “All you had to say was, ‘I’m through being your teacher,’ and I would have moved out of Dove’s house.”
“I’m not through.”
She shook her head wearily. “Look, you’re moving into Dove’s house permanently, with all your personal possessions. You’ll be making it a real home. So I can’t stay there—”
“Why not?”
“Do you plan to stay somewhere else?”
James grimaced. What had happened? Why in the hell didn’t she need him anymore, even for sex?
Frustration and distress boiled over suddenly. He stood up, planted a hand on each arm of her chair, and stared grimly into her eyes. “You wanted to learn everything,” he said in a low, seductive voice. “Do you think I’ve already taught you everything I know?”
“I don’t want to play your games anymore,” she whispered.
“You don’t like this anymore?” He lifted one hand and trailed a fingertip down the silky off-white blouse showing between the lapels of her suit. When the breath soughed out of her, James slipped his hand under the jacket and stroked her breast.