I’ll buy you a dozen chandeliers, Justis had told her later, gruffly trying to be kind.
Justis. Katherine lifted her face to the moon and gazed woozily into its pale light. “I wish he had loved me,” she whispered.
“HER NAME IS Katlanicha Blue Song,” Justis Gallatin told the grim-faced Cherokee matron. “But she goes by the name Katherine, too. I just want to find her. I don’t mean the gal no harm.”
He squatted by the campfire and pushed a wide-brimmed hat back from his face so that the woman could study the honesty in his eyes.
She stared hard into their green depths, then studied his chestnut hair and frowned at his moustache. Finally she scowled at the luxury of his heavy fur coat and warm wool scarf. Without hesitation he pulled the scarf off and handed it to her. She ignored the gift.
“You call her ‘Beloved Woman,’ ” Justis said, speaking slowly so that she’d understand his poor Cherokee. “Everyone on the trail has heard of her. She knows white medicine and white ways.”
“I hear nothing of such a one.” The old woman stirred hominy gruel in a chipped kettle set on the embers at the fire’s edge. “Go away.”
No one was talking. They didn’t trust him, and so they protected Katherine. He understood why they loved her—Lord, how he understood. If only Katie had believed that no one, Cherokee or white, could love her more than he did.
Justis stood wearily, his shoulders slumped. He was a strong, no-nonsense man, used to hardship and self-denial, but tonight he was nearly beaten by the fear and fatigue that had swallowed him during the months since Katherine’s disappearance. Dully he noticed a lanky young Cherokee man hurrying toward the campfire.
“Mother!” he exclaimed in Cherokee. “The Beloved Woman won’t eat! And she’s gone to walk beside the river alone!”
The woman gasped. “Be quiet!”
Justis ran for his horses. Behind him he heard the woman yelling for help.
KATHERINE SWAYED AS a gust of wind hit her. She leaned forward, placed both hands on the blanket, and braced her arms. Five-foot-long strands of thick black hair floated behind her as she tilted her face up even more toward the high, cold moon. She could feel its silver fingers running over her.
This same moon was shining on Georgia, blessing the graves of the parents and sisters who kept watch over Blue Song land. Katherine’s head swam, and she shook it groggily. Somehow, some way, that land would always belong to her family, even if Justis produced a thousand deeds bearing his title to it.
She cried out sadly. Justis Gallatin had become part of her soul, but he’d never own her, any more than he owned the land in Gold Ridge. Some things had to be won through love, and love alone.
At first she didn’t hear the repetitive thudding of horses’ hooves racing up the slope to her sitting place. When she did, she lurched to her feet. Katherine staggered, then caught her balance and looked wildly toward the sound.
The moon silhouetted the dark figures of a tall rider and two big horses. The horses were only a few strides away, and they were charging directly toward her. The rider reached out in her direction.
The horse’s shoulder bumped her, and she nearly fell down. When Katherine felt the rider’s hand winding into the neck of her dress, she began to claw at him and struggle.
“Katie, girl, calm down!”
Justis. Stunned, she stopped fighting, and he pulled her onto the saddle in front of him. His long arm went around her waist like an iron band.
She sagged groggily against him, her hands digging into the wide, furry wall of his coat, her face burrowed in his shoulder. Her feverish mind knew only that hope had come back into the world, and she couldn’t understand the distant sounds of men shouting and horses’ hooves racing in muffled rhythms. Justis held her tighter and clucked to his horses. They went into a smooth, rocking lope following the river-bank north.
Katherine tilted her head back and tried to look at Justis in the moonlit darkness. Love overwhelmed her, until all she could manage to say was a plaintive, “Home?”
He bent his head close to hers, brushed a kiss over her forehead, and whispered, “Someday.”
KAT’S TALE
CHAPTER 1
NATHAN CHATHAM HAD lived in places so remote that even the National Geographic wouldn’t visit them. He was an adopted member of primitive tribes in various regions of the world, including one in South America whose witch doctor had tattooed his right buttock while the whole village watched gleefully.
A few years later he’d added to his ornaments by getting the top of one ear pierced. The African chieftain had given him a choice—either have the ear pierced or have it cut off. Being a practical man, Nathan had chosen to get it pierced.
As a kid growing up just over the Arkansas border from the Cherokee reservation, he’d assisted Cherokee shamans in ceremonies held for many purposes—from curing arthritis to conjuring up ghosts and talking wild birds down from their roosts.
Once as a very young man he’d shaved off his mustache and sprinkled the hair on a rose bed, just to see if it would really make the roses grow faster, as a shaman had said it would. The shaman had been right, much to Nathan’s delight.
In short, Nathan had an abiding love and respect for other people’s customs. But he’d never seen anything half so bizarre as this female wrestling match in the civilized environs of South Carolina.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” the announcer bellowed into his microphone, “get ready for … four hundred pounds of Lady Savage, the Valkyrie!”
A huge, mean-looking woman shoved the entrance curtains aside and came marching down the aisle, giant metal cones thrust forward on her chest, a horned helmet perched atop her short, punk-cut blond hair.
The announcer said in solemn tones, “Only one woman in professional wrestling has the talent, the heart, and the sheer raw courage to face Lady Savage!”
The loudspeakers sent hokey tom-tom music reverberating through the room. “Fans, put your hands together for that fabulous Indian, that pride of the Cherokee people, the incredible Princess Talana!”
Kat Gallatin, alias Princess Talana, bounded through the curtains and scampered up the aisle with the lithe, graceful stride of a gymnast. A colorful war-bonnet covered her head and fluttered all the way to her moccasined heels. Her face was streaked with gaudy war paint.
Nathan simply stared at her. She couldn’t have been much more than five feet tall, with a lovely little face despite the goo, and a body that was curvaceous and slender. Every curve knew its place, he thought. Man, did it know.
Ail she wore was a buckskin miniskirt and a fringed buckskin halter top. Her skin was a beautiful honey color and she’d oiled her legs so that their movements produced a symphony of delicate, gleaming muscle.
She leaped to the edge of the ring and perched there holding the top rope, one arm raised to salute the crowd. Cheers rocked the ceiling when she blew kisses and gave everyone a dazzling smile which crinkled her deep-set eyes impishly.
“Me heap happy to see you! How!” she yelled, and held up one hand, palm forward in a gesture no one outside a bad B-rated Western had ever used.
“I know how, just give me a chance!” someone shouted.
Nathan felt grim disgust settle in his stomach. What kind of woman would willingly make a mockery out of her heritage for the entertainment of a bunch of drooling rednecks?
Five generations of Chathams had lived close to the Cherokees, starting when great-great-grandfather Nathaniel settled his family near Indian Territory before the Civil War. The Chathams had a lot of grudges against the Gallatins, but they’d always respected the Cherokee culture.
Obviously, Kat Gallatin did not.
Men and boys were going berserk around Nathan, stomping their feet, shouting her name, calling out blue remarks.
“Whip the Valkyrie’s butt, squaw!”
“Tickle me with those feathers!”
“Let me be an Injun lover!”
“Take me to your wigwam, baby, oh
, take me to your wigwam!”
This joke of hers wasn’t funny at all.
Nathan hadn’t expected Kat Gallatin to use her heritage like a bawdy gimmick. He hadn’t counted on her being so lovely and graceful that he wanted to haul her away from these damned gawking men and warn her about the snickering comments they made in low voices that she couldn’t hear.
She climbed into the ring, took her warbonnet off, and shook free two black braids that fell all the way to her hips. Then she grinned and gave the crowd a cheerful thumbs-up. She managed to look adorable and mischievous rather than tacky.
Nathan sat down, frowning. He hadn’t counted on feeling this guilt either. He’d just wanted to see one of the Gallatin cousins up close before he took revenge on them and their land.
SOMEONE HAD ONCE told Kat that wrestling was really a simple morality play—good versus evil, right versus wrong. Having gotten no more than a very basic high school education from tutors hired by the circus, Kat wasn’t too sure what a morality play was.
But she knew that Lady Savage was definitely evil, wrong, and just plain ticked off.
“Jeez, Muffle, calm down. You’re the winner tonight,” Kat choked out at a private moment while Lady Savage had her down on the mat in a pretzellike contortion. “I know you’ve had a bad day, but don’t try to kill me.”
“Sorry,” Muffie grunted. “I hate men and this is a good outlet for my aggression.”
She let Kat thump her in the neck and fell backward, flailing her beefy arms dramatically. Kat staggered to her feet, feeling so pummeled that she didn’t have to fake it as she usually did.
Rent. Car payment. Those were her silent mantras as she wavered to the ropes and slumped over them. This was a heck of a way to make a living, but the money was decent.
The crowd yelled at her to watch out, that Lady Savage was coming up behind her. Kat took a reviving breath. Okay, so she’d struggle pathetically to get off the ropes, then turn around and kick Muffie in the stomach, just like in rehearsal.
“Arrrrgh! Svine! Indian svine!” Muffie clamped a hand to the back of Kat’s neck, then wound the other hand into her leather skirt. Kat grimaced with discomfort as Muffie jerked her off the ropes. The leather skirt had built-in leather panties.
Lord, she hated getting a wedgie.
But the men in the audience loved it, of course, because they paid to see good bodies as well as good body slams. Kat had spent most of her life wearing revealing costumes of some kind or other, so like any other professional athlete, she barely noticed the ogling.
She just wished she knew what Muffie had in mind.
Muffle hoisted her overhead and walked around the ring, snarling. Kat tightened her torso so that her back wouldn’t get hurt, then hung there looking desperate and trapped.
Kat bit her lip to keep from smiling as the audience immediately began to chant insults at Muffie. This was a very effective change in the routine.
But then Muffie bellowed, “Men!” and launched Kat at the front row.
There was no warning and no time to coordinate her fall. She broadsided a hard masculine chest and bounced her forehead off the victim’s chin. His folding chair skidded backward and collapsed, dumping both him and her on the auditorium’s concrete floor.
Wincing from the pain in her forehead, Kat was only dimly aware of his grunt of discomfort as she sank an elbow into his thigh. He grabbed her hands, pulled them around his neck, and slid his arms under her.
“This means he gets to keep her!” someone shouted.
Kat heard other, more bawdy observations on the victim’s luck, and she began to get embarrassed.
“Sorry, man, sorry,” she whispered between gasps for breath. “The routine doesn’t usually get this crazy.”
“I want combat pay.”
The deep, slightly drawling voice made her tilt her head back and look at him. And the sight of him was more of a jolt than having been tossed by Muffie.
Gunmetal-gray eyes looked back at her with an intensity that belied the lazy, sensual droop of the lids. They were part of a weathered face with a handsomely battered nose and a dark brown mustache over a wide, strong mouth.
His face looked as if it had visited a lot of places where life was interesting but not easy. His nose looked as though the visits hadn’t always been welcome.
His chocolate-colored hair was neat but rakishly long, and he wore a gold stud in the top of his left ear. Ouch. He had either been very stupid or very macho when he had got his ear pierced right in the thickest part of the cartilage.
Danger, girl, danger, she thought.
“Just let go of me,” she whispered.
“You look like you’re in pain.”
I always look this way when I’m hypnotized.
“It’s part of the act,” she said softly.
“Oh.” His eyes narrowed in dismay and he loosened his grip. “You have to let go of me, too.”
Kat realized that she’d wound her hands into his V-necked sweater. Its soft blue material had an expensive feel to it, as if it might be cashmere, and she had twisted it into wads.
“Sorry, dude.”
With that blithe reply she let go and rolled away from him. Once she was out of his startling embrace, she connected with the world again and realized that the crowd was in a frenzy and Muffie was headed straight for her.
Muffie had a wild look in her eyes.
“Oh Lord,” Kat said plaintively.
She decided to act terrified—since that wouldn’t take much effort at the moment—and covered her head with her arms. Peeking out, Kat saw Muffie grab a folding chair and raise it menacingly.
Oh no. If Muffie didn’t do the chair bit just right, it would be curtains—hospital curtains—for Princess Talana. Muffie didn’t look too interested in technique at the moment.
“She’s not pretending,” Mr. Pierced Ear observed grimly.
“You got that right,” Kat told him. She leaped to her feet. One of the cardinal rules of wrestling was to keep the mayhem out of the audience. Promoters didn’t like lawsuits from injured fairs.
“Just stay on the floor,” Kat ordered. “I’ll head her off.”
But this fan didn’t want protection. In a flash he was on his feet, too, pushing her aside with an out-stretched arm. Kat bumped into the arm and stopped, gazing at him in shock as he stepped in front of her.
He wasn’t overly tall or overly big, but there was a powerful, long-legged body inside that cashmere sweater, those faded jeans and—how odd, she thought—those leather moccasins.
And Muffie was going to kill him.
Kat grabbed his shoulder. “Her sister ran off with her husband today,” she hissed into the stranger’s unpierced ear. “She hates men right now. Get out of her way.”
Instead he held up both hands to Muffie in a placating gesture. Muffie raised the chair higher and advanced like a runaway bulldozer. The announcer was calling for the security guards. The audience was calling for blood.
“Put the chair down,” that deep, resonant voice told Muffie calmly.
“I’ll put it down your throat if you don’t move!” she retorted.
She swung the chair and he caught one leg of it with a deft twisting motion of his hand. Muffie lost her hold and the chair fell to the floor.
She balled her fists and took a swing at him. He stepped back and the punch missed him by a bare inch. Kat felt the wind of it on her face.
Kat groaned inwardly. Pierced Ear was a gentleman. He wouldn’t fight back. She admired that, but she couldn’t let him get stomped because of it.
She ducked around him and charged Muffie, who kicked her in the ankle. Kat gasped as a pain like hot needles stabbed through her leg. She didn’t have much time to wonder what the snapping sensation meant, though, because she had to save this fascinating man who wouldn’t save himself.
Raising one fist, she cuffed Muffie on the jaw. Muffie pressed both hands to her face and staggered back, looking pitifully shocked. Kat ran u
p to her and said sadly, “I had to do it, kid. You can’t trash members of the audience.”
“You hit me on my abscessed tooth!”
“I know. I’ll do it again if you don’t behave.”
By then the security guards and a bunch of the other wrestlers were on the scene. They grabbed Muffie and tugged her toward the exit amidst frenzied booing.
Kat’s pulse felt thready and a sick prickling sensation ran over her shoulders. Her ankle was on fire.
The stranger grabbed her elbow. “You’re limping.” His voice held concern, but then he added sarcastically, “Or is it just part of this stupid routine?”
Kat turned to look at the rebuking expression on his face, and her admiration was replaced by dull fury.
She knew that look, that aura of disgust from men who thought she was a low-rent joke, maybe not much different from women who mud-wrestled naked in a strip joint.
“It’s part of the routine,” she told him, and pulled her arm away. “Thanks for playing along.”
“The routine stinks.”
“Hey, sweetcakes, when I want a lecture, I’ll go to college.”
“Do that. Get a real job. And stop selling yourself as a Cherokee. It’s an insult.”
Her stomach churned queasily from embarrassment and pain. What did he know about the way she’d grown up? Nothing! Who was he to act arrogant? “I should have let Muf—Lady Savage beat your brains out,” Kat replied. “It would have been a small job.”
She whipped around and hobbled toward the exit, blushing with humiliation and anger. Thanks to her skin tone, she knew Pierced Ear hadn’t noticed the blush.
Agonizing jolts shot up her leg as she tried not to limp on it. He was responsible for this. If he hadn’t tried to be a nice guy when he really didn’t want to be …
The audience was cheering wildly. People reached out to slap her on the back and tug playfully at her braided hair. One of the other wrestlers. Maniac Mary, trotted up and put a supportive arm under her shoulders.
“Lean on me, Kat. Think something’s broken?” she whispered.’