He fished and she read her history books. Periodically she stuck her injured foot in the water and solemnly repeated the formula he’d given her. Now she knew how to say it in Cherokee.
After he’d had time to think about the upsetting scene in the briar patch, he’d continued to keep his flirting lighthearted. Despite her nonchalant assurances that she wasn’t afraid of him, she seemed to feel uncomfortable every time he got close.
Lord, he couldn’t blame her. The little doll had been through hell—raped at twenty, too scared to fool with men for years after that, then so lonely that she married the first man who made her feel loved and safe.
Nathan had learned enough to know that she’d been married for three years to an ambitious car salesman in Miami. How had she described him? He just wanted to many a housekeeper until he could afford to hire one.
During her marriage the Flying Campanellis had flown back to Italy and joined a circus there, so her divorce two years ago had left her jobless. With no skills outside the circus, she’d decided that professional wrestling was her best opportunity to make a living.
Nathan emptied his pipe into the fire and got up wearily. It wasn’t wise for him to get to know Kat so well. He’d been happier thinking of her as a sexy clown with bad taste and no brains. Now he was in a dilemma about the Gallatin land, a dilemma built on promises he’d made to his grandfather. Nothing was ever to happen to the land as long as Dove Gallatin was alive. Grandpa Micah had told him, but after she passed on, the family debt needed to be paid. Grandpa had been an old bastard in some ways—part of the feud was his fault—but in this case he had had a point.
Nathan picked up a bucket and doused the campfire. He stood in darkness lit only by a new moon, gazing at Kat’s tent. That activity seemed to be his only hobby these nights. He’d insisted that she keep his air mattress. Injured foot and all that.
Hell, he really just wanted to know that she was lying where he’d lain. Did she sleep naked? He had a disturbing vision of himself affectionately nuzzling his air mattress after she gave it back.
This kind of nonsense had to stop.
He should be discouraging her interest in her Cherokee past and this land. He ought to tell her the ugly details not only about Holt Gallatin but also about Holt’s daughter. Dove. Kat’s grandfather Joshua had been Dove’s brother, so what did that make Dove? Kat’s great-aunt?
But Joshua Gallatin had had nothing to do with the Chatham-Gallatin feud. He’d joined the Sheffield Brothers Circus as a kid and left home for good. He’d raised Kat’s father in the business, and after her father married a full-blooded Cherokee woman from the reservation up in North Carolina, he’d taken her back to the circus with him.
Kat was born in a circus dressing room, a Cherokee in name only, a damned Gallatin in name only. Kat was innocent. Kat ought not to suffer because of old feuds and old promises.
Nathan rammed his hands through his hair. All right, he had ways to make it up to her—lots of money, more money than she’d ever dreamed possible, and luxuries she couldn’t imagine.
After she learned the truth about him and what he intended, he’d show her how generously he could apologize and how effectively he could change her track record with men.
SHE COULDN’T GO on this way, and yet she never wanted to leave. Kat peeked out of her tent, watching Nathan heat a pot of coffee over the fire. He wore his fringed buckskin breeches, leather hiking boots, and a T-shirt he’d gotten at the Olympics in Korea.
Before going to work for Tri-State the man had hunted for gold all over the world. Now that she knew where and why he’d acquired the tattoo and the pierced ear, she was more fascinated than ever. Kat felt a familiar ache of sadness.
He was friendly, helpful, and very, very kind. He really put her at ease. But then, so did a Boy Scout.
Kat sighed. She didn’t want a Boy Scout, she wanted the wicked man from their first encounters. She wanted him to make her forget good sense and indulge the reckless sensations that seethed inside her so much of the time.
She plopped down and slipped her feet into her pink Reeboks, leaving the laces on the one on the bad foot untied. She could walk pretty well now, dammit. There were no excuses for him to carry her anymore.
Leaving her tent, she put on a bright smile. “Morning, harmonica man.”
He was already watching her intently from his seat by the fire. Kat shivered inside. If he wasn’t interested, why did he study her like some new kind of native each morning when she came out?
“Sleep good, Kitty Kat?”
She smiled at the teasing nickname. It had grown so familiar that she cherished it. “Yeah. But I got a crick in my neck.” She rotated her head, making sure her hair slipped forward like a silky black wave. “Would you mind braiding my hair for me? Until my neck loosens up, it would really hurt for me to do it myself.”
He hesitated, and Kat’s hopes fell. But he cleared his throat, fiddled with the blackened coffeepot, and said lightly, “No problem. Have a cup of tar.”
Using a towel, he lifted the steaming metal pot and poured thick black coffee into a metal cup that, thank goodness, had an insulated handle. Kat sat down beside him, put an elastic hair band and brush on the ground, and took the cup carefully.
“Ya know, Nathan, this stuff would make great paint remover.”
“It’s good for cleaning carburetors, too.” He took a swallow from his own cup and made a deep, half-growling sound of satisfaction. “Puts hair on my hair.”
“Hair.” She smiled sweetly, turned her back to him, and waited.
After a moment his hands slipped over her shoulders and pulled the thick mane back. Kat’s eyelids became heavy with a languor that had nothing to do with sleep. Good grief, he’d barely touched her and already a warm, tickling wave of pleasure had begun in her belly.
“Don’t ever get this cut,” he said gruffly.
“I haven’t had it more than trimmed since I was ten years old. It looked real dramatic in the circus act—this little bitty girl with hair longer than she was. ‘Course, it really gets attention when I wrestle. Everybody loves it.”
“The men in the audience, huh?”
“Well, yeah. It’s pretty sexy-looking. I wouldn’t be honest if I said I didn’t know that.”
“How do you feel about the things they yell?”
“I don’t much hear ’em.” She hesitated for a second. “I guess there are a lot of ugly things I don’t want to hear.”
He slid his hands down her hair, parting it, lifting it, winding his fingers through it, and then letting go. Nathan’s technique told her a lot about his nature—this was a man who loved to touch. He worshipped her hair, and she suspected that he’d treat the rest of her with the same slow attention.
Kat sighed with pleasure. Asking him to braid her hair was one of the best decisions of her life.
“You don’t deserve to have men treat you like a piece of meat,” he said grimly.
“Well, long as they’re in the audience and I’m in the ring, I just look at it as harmless show biz. They’re not drooling at me, they’re drooling at Princess Talana.”
“You can really separate yourself from it that way?”
“Most of the time,” she said softly. “But some nights I feel embarrassed.”
“What would you do if you could do anything in the world besides wrestle for a living?”
“I’d teach school,” she said immediately. “To me that’s the best of both worlds. It’s show biz, sort of like wrestling, but it’s respectable. And you have to go to college to do it,”
When he finished laughing he said, “Kat, I want to be in your class some day.”
She grinned. “Teacher’s pet.”
He ran his fingers through her hair from the crown of her head to the curve of her back, skimming her spine with his fingertips as he did. Kat fought a desire to earn her name by purring.
“You’d make a great hairdresser,” she said. “You’re awful familiar with the clien
t, though.”
His hands halted. “Want me to stop?”
“Not on your life.”
“You’re one honest woman,” he murmured. “I like that.”
Kat pursed her lips ruefully. She hadn’t been honest about the crick in her neck. With his fingers woven into her hair, she couldn’t feel much remorse. “Yeah, I try to tell it like it is.”
“So what do you do when people aren’t honest back?”
“I drop ’em like hot rocks.”
“Hmmm.” He kept running his fingers down her hair, slowly, tugging just a little, touching her back just a little, delighting her in ways he probably never suspected. “You don’t give people the benefit of the doubt?” he asked softly, stroking the back of her head. “A second chance? Even if they apologize?”
Kat had her eyes shut. Her body hummed with the kind of delicious alertness that made it feel too heavy to move. She had to think hard to get her mouth in gear. “Well, okay, I’m not hard-nosed if somebody really apologizes. Hmmm.”
“Nothing hard about you,” he agreed. His fingers pressed into her shoulder, massaging. “Where’s the crick?”
“Hmmm. That feels good.”
Any second now she’d curl around his legs with her back arched.
He picked up the brush and put it at the top of her forehead. Slowly he pulled it back, letting each bristle caress her scalp. Kat’s head tilted back loosely.
“What’s that?” he asked. “Did I hurt you? You made a noise.”
She forced her head forward and tried to control herself. “Nah.”
He divided her hair and began to braid it down the center of her back, his fingers skillful and unhurried. Obviously concerned about doing a good job, he stopped frequently to smooth his hand over her head, tickling her earlobes, brushing the edges of her face.
Kat pressed her palms together and found them hot. She had to transfer this heat to Nathan, had to tell him that she adored him and would love to show how much. Surely he found her desirable; he had seemed to at first, before she’d frightened him with the briar incident.
She began to turn Her head. “Nath—”
“All done,” he said abruptly. With a quick pat on her shoulder, he got up and walked toward the food supplies hanging in a nearby tree. “Let’s eat something simple for breakfast. Now that your ankle’s better, we ought to start exploring the land.”
Kat sagged like a rag doll and braced both hands on the ground beside her. She watched him blankly, a groan of dismay trapped in her throat.
He had to have felt her quivering; he had to have known that she was helplessly desperate for his touch. He was either biding his time to make her crazy, or he was politely ignoring her interest.
Lord, she hoped it was the first one. Kat drank her coffee in several huge gulps. Jolt. Caffeine. Reality. She tried to connect her muscles to her bones again.
Hunched over the net full of supplies, his back to her, Nathan fumbled with various items, his hands trembling. In about five minutes he might be able to walk back to the campfire without revealing how he’d made a new sort of camping tent in the front of his buckskins.
Her hair, that was the key. When she was ready to be seduced, he’d start with her hair.
HE FROWNED AT her dedicated attempt at walking, dropped his canvas knapsack, backed up to her, and pointed over his shoulder. “Climb aboard.”
“The top of the ridge is just up there.”
“Never turn down a free pony ride. Come on.”
Kat grinned. What was she, an idiot? “Never.” She grasped his shoulders as he reached behind him and scooped his hands around her thighs. Oh yes, she thought, this pony ride was a wonderful idea.
She straddled his lower back, clamped her arms around his neck, and leaned forward just enough to let her breasts brush his shoulders. He groaned loudly as he bent over to pick up the knapsack.
Good. He’d noticed that she had a bosom.
“You’re getting heavier,” he said in a strained voice. “Here. Take the knapsack.”
Kat thought about biting his ear, but decided against it. She had no place to put the knapsack except in front of her chest. She sighed with resignation and wedged it there. “Hike on, mule.”
Despite his jovial complaints he easily carried her up the last part of the steep hillside. When they reached the top, sheltered by huge oaks and maples, he turned around. Kat peered over his shoulder at the magnificent valley. She could make out the stream winding across the far side.
“It’s so beautiful it makes me kind of hurt inside,” she whispered. “I want to hug it.”
“Your great-great-grandmother and her family must have hated to leave here.”
“When was it that all the Cherokees got kicked out? I forgot.”
“Eighteen thirty-eight. Soldiers and state militia rounded ’em up like animals, and mobs of settlers came along behind taking over the farms and stealing everything that wasn’t nailed down.”
“Katherine, I mean Katlanicha, met Justis and married him, so we know she survived the Trail of Tears,” Kat said softly. “But we figure her family didn’t. We don’t know anything about them.”
Nathan turned around, gazing at the forest. “This timber probably hasn’t been touched since the family left. Some of these trees have got to be nearly two hundred years old.”
“Dove’s will didn’t say anything about any of the Gallatins coming back here to live—not in four generations.”
“Well, for a long time they wouldn’t have been welcome. You know, the only thing that saved this land from being claimed by a white settler was the fact that it was in Justis Gallatin’s name. The law said Cherokees couldn’t own property in the state of Georgia.”
She exhaled heavily. “The world’s a crazy place, Nathan.”
“Better than it used to be, in some ways.” He bounced her a little. “Hang on. I’m going to my truck.”
“I still haven’t figure how I missed it when I drove in.”
“You’ll see.”
He piggybacked her to the end of a narrow trail just wide enough to drive a car along. He walked past her Mustang and down into a deep hollow on the other side of the trail. There sat a shiny black 4X4 with massive wheels and a black camper hood over the bed.
“Oooh. Lots of chrome. And a gun rack!” Kat noted coyly. “Why, men who drive these kinds of fancy toys are the type who love wrestling.”
“Hey, only party girls drive Mustangs with bad paint jobs and rusty mag wheels. Party girls with names like “Beulah Ann’ or “Fanny Mae.’ They cruise into town with their beehive hairdos sprayed stiff and they—yow. Get your teeth off my ear!”
She eased her teeth from the gold nugget and chuckled victoriously.
Nathan set her down by the truck and glared at her, though his mouth quirked under the mustache. “Hellion.”
“Thank you.” She blew him a kiss.
The truck had a plush red interior and more gadgets than a gourmet kitchen. He lifted her into the driver’s seat so that she could study the cellular phone, state-of-the-art stereo system, and CB radio.
“Where are the flight controls?”
“I love my truck,” he said solemnly, and went around back to retrieve something from the camper.
When he returned he held a small shovel and a long contraption that looked like a Geiger counter on a microphone stand with a dinner plate at the other end. “Metal detector,” he told her.
“You use that to find gold? I thought those things found metal only near the top of the ground.”
“That’s right.” He clicked a switch and pointed the plate end toward his truck. Inside a panel on the control box a needle bounced crazily.
“You found it, Nathan. It’s a truck all right.”
He eyed her with amusement. “I’m not looking for gold with this, I’m looking for evidence of people. Find where the people were and maybe you’ll find the sites of old mines. Get it, Kitty Kat?”
“Got it.”
/> “Besides, it’s fun to hunt for things in the dirt.”
She nodded. “I lost a baby tooth once. I went through a pile of dried elephant manure to get it back. It was worth a quarter from the tooth fairy.”
He slid one arm around her waist and pulled her out of the truck, then held her against him and growled with mock lechery, “I could really go for a woman who plays in pachyderm poop.”
Kat laughed so hard that she didn’t get a chance to protest when he stepped away sooner than she liked. Smiling weakly, she took the shovel and followed him out of the hollow.
Back on top of the ridge he stopped and looked around, squinting his eyes as he thought. “The trees,” he said in a soft, fascinated tone. “Hmmm.”
Kat gazed at the huge hardwoods with a feeling of awe. “This would be a great place to build a house. With the valley in front and a big, flat ridge in back. There’s room for barns and stuff up here, too.”
“Exactly.” Nathan pointed toward the valley. “The trees down there are younger than these. I bet that whole valley used to be farmland. And up here—” He looked around, his gray gaze searching, excited.
“Turn on the metal detector,” Kat urged.
“Easy, gal. There are dozens of places on this land where the Blue Song family might have built. And they most likely didn’t have anything fancy.”
“But this is where the trail comes in from the road,” she pointed out. Gal It was a good sign when he said gal “Let’s look around.”
He switched the metal detector on and they started across the ridge. Nathan swung the detector in a slow arc as they walked, while Kat hobbled along with the shovel poised for digging.
“How’s your ankle?” he murmured, his eyes on the ground.
“Fine. Everything’s nice and flat up here.”
“Put your shovel at ease, soldier. Save your energy.”
“I know we’re going to find something.”
But an hour later they were still crisscrossing the ridge without success. The plan didn’t seem nearly so easy to Kat now. Her ankle had started to throb.
“Want to call it a day?” Nathan asked.
“Just a few minutes more. Let’s go back toward the front.”