After the Thunder Read online

  To her own surprise, though, she didn’t feel as bitter as she had expected. Maybe Cade had been right about that, too—maybe it had been her pride that was broken more than her heart.

  Her stomach settled right back into place and her hands relaxed on the reins. Emily was running to greet her, smiling a smile that she could never forget.

  “Oh, ’Tannah,” she cried, “get down from there and give me a hug. I thought you never would get here!”

  Then Cotannah was on the ground and Emily was hugging her hard with her one free arm while the baby flailed at her with two chubby hands.

  “I’m so glad you’ve come to us,” Emily whispered. “Cade’s message said you’ve had some troubles of the heart and Tay and I want so very much to be able to help.”

  “I’m sure that’s exactly the way Cade put it—troubles of the heart,” Cotannah drawled sarcastically.

  Emily pulled away a little to give her a solemn, measuring look. Then she grinned.

  “We-e-ll, maybe those weren’t his exact words, but I want you to know right now, ’Tannah, that whatever has happened, I’m not judging you one bit, not after what you’ve been through. I’m just glad that you feel comfortable coming to us.”

  Cotannah felt a twinge of the old, deep hurt, then, but when she looked into Emily’s kind brown eyes it simply didn’t grow. It stayed there, but it didn’t get any bigger. How could she ever feel comfortable coming to Tay and Emily talking of other beaux, other courtships? Of course, in a way, if she were absolutely honest, she had to admit that Tay had never truly courted her at all, or been her beau, except in her imagination and his own thoughts and unacted-upon intentions.

  “You and Tay were destined for each other,” she said simply. “I’ve said that lots of times. And I’ve meant it. It’s just been hard for me to accept.”

  “We never set out to hurt you,” Emily said, as the baby leaned forward to reach for the stampede strings dangling from Cotannah’s hat. “We’re hoping you’ve forgiven us and all the hard feelings have faded away forever.”

  Yes. They have. No. They haven’t.

  Cotannah opened her mouth but she couldn’t say either set of words. She didn’t know how she really felt, and she didn’t want to think about it. Emily—being Emily the peacemaker who loved to make everyone happy—was trying to get the big problem out in the open and disposed of as soon as she could so that things could be easy and warm between them the way they used to be before Tay ever came to Texas.

  And why shouldn’t they be? Tay was far in her past and she had captivated plenty of men since then.

  “All of that was ages ago,” she said, with a careless shrug.

  She looked away from her old friend to tickle the baby’s fat neck with the tips of the hat strings.

  “This baby is so beautiful,” she said. “Her looks are a combination of you and Tay both, although I’d have said that wouldn’t be possible.”

  “Well, her behavior is a combination of you and Maggie,” Emily said, laughing. “She’s barely a year old and she’s running everywhere and into everything.”

  Cotannah laughed, too.

  “Is she as wild as Miranda?”

  “Almost. Yes, I’d say it’s a close contest between the little cousins.”

  “I can’t wait to see them together.”

  “Neither can I.”

  Emily squeezed her arm.

  “Come with me, ’Tannah, I need to welcome Aunt Ancie and Uncle Jumper. At supper I’ll introduce you all to a friend of ours whom I think you’ll find interesting.”

  Emily glanced over Sophia’s head toward the woodsman beneath the tall pine tree.

  Cotannah looked at him, too, glad to be reminded of her latest distraction.

  “Do you mean him? Who is he, Emily?”

  He was still bent over the coyote, but as they watched him, he stood up. Just that one, simple, fluid motion made the breath catch in Cotannah’s throat. She waited for him to look her way. He had to be aware she was there, he couldn’t be so wrapped up in that coyote he hadn’t seen or heard their whole noisy cavalcade ride in. Obviously, she thought wryly, seeing her again was not the reason he had come to Tall Pine.

  He never even turned his head; he stared toward the back of the house, instead, and never moved at all until a girl appeared, running toward him with a basket in her hands. He watched her intensely.

  A hard, quick tug of jealousy, like the plucking of a guitar string, pulled at Cotannah.

  “And who is she?”

  “My servant girl, Rosie. I had just sent her for the medicines he asked for when I heard you ride up,” Emily said. “He’s trying to staunch the bleeding.”

  Cotannah didn’t answer. The alikchi was watching that servant girl as if he’d never seen a woman before, yet he hadn’t given her the barest glance since she’d arrived here at Tall Pine. What an unheard-of turn of events: a fascinating, handsome, young man paying more attention to a coyote and a fourteen-year-old girl than to her, Cotannah Chisk-Ko, the most sought-after belle of the Nueces Strip!

  She squared her shoulders. Well, she would just see about that! She would not only make him notice her—she would make him court her. A hum of excitement began in her blood at the thought of such a challenge. That gorgeous woodsman, medicine man or no, might as well get ready to come calling!

  “I’m glad he’s a friend of yours,” she said to Emily as she watched him take the basket from Rosie and sort through its contents, “I was hoping you’d know who he is.”

  “You’ve seen him before?”

  “On the road. Just a few minutes ago.”

  “Oh! Was his coyote wounded then?”

  “Yes, and so scared it ran right underneath Pretty Feather. She spooked at the smell of blood and reared up so high I just knew I’d have to jump off or be crushed when she fell over backward. But then this man came out of nowhere, and he petted and talked to her a little, and she calmed down like magic.”

  Emily smiled and nodded knowingly.

  “He seemed really … different … strangely powerful,” Cotannah blurted, “Aunt Ancie called him an alikchi. What’s his name?”

  At the mention of Ancie, Emily again started toward the coach to welcome the older couple climbing out of it.

  “Walks-With-Spirits,” she said, over her shoulder, “because that coyote and a mountain lion go with him everywhere, like pets. Some people say they must be spirits because real animals wouldn’t act like that.”

  “What do you say?” Cotannah called after her.

  “Oh, they’re real, all right.”

  Emily ran to Aunt Ancie and Uncle Jumper, and they all embraced. Cotannah turned to look at the woodsman again. Walks-With-Spirits. The name fit him.

  And it was one she knew she’d never heard before. So why did he seem familiar to her? There was something about the way he moved …

  He was on his knees now, mixing some medicine. His hands worked with a sure grace that looked swift but not hasty. He knew what he was doing, that showed plainly in every line of his sinewy body, and the coyote knew it, too, for it lay without struggling.

  She hoped it lived.

  The thought hit her suddenly, with a surprising force. Why? Why would she care? It was only a coyote, after all, a predator that in hard times would eat people’s live-stock.

  But she did want it to live.

  Because of the intense way Walks-With-Spirits was trying to heal it, she supposed, because his broad shoulders—and they were broader than she had noticed during that moment in the road, wide and intriguingly muscular beneath his thin shirt—bent over the animal with an air of such pure purpose.

  That was it. She wanted him to win. She wanted him to be rewarded for caring about his pet so much. When she cared about something or someone, she, too, cared with every fiber of her being.

  The thought froze her heart. It made her turn away abruptly from the sight of Walks-With-Spirits and go to Emily and her aunt and uncle. No, that was wrong. She us
ed to care with every fiber of her being. She didn’t do that anymore; Tonio was proof of that. Caring was way too dangerous. Caring would break her heart.

  Chapter 2

  “Ah, and here is this new Choctaw—look at her, Jumper,” Aunt Ancie was saying, stroking Sophia’s cheek and meeting her unswerving gaze. “Holitopa. This child is a darling, that’s all there is to it.”

  Sophia took the endearment solemnly, as her due.

  Then, without warning, she let go of her mother’s neck and held out both her tiny hands to Ancie, who threw the end of her shawl over her shoulder and eagerly took her into her arms.

  “You are a darling, all right, your old Aunt Ancie can tell you that.”

  Ancie snuggled Sophia against her wrinkled face. For an instant, Cotannah wanted to be the one who was holding the plump baby in her arms—she wanted to feel that warmth, that trust, that innocent sweetness so close to her—but then she turned away from that sight, too. She wasn’t going to start caring a whole lot for Sophia, either, no matter how precious a baby she was.

  As suddenly as she’d gone to Ancie, Sophia wanted to be put down. She began wiggling and struggling, fussing and demanding to be free. Ancie set her on her feet and took her hand, walking with her toward the porch steps.

  “Come with me, all of you dear people,” Emily said, and linked her arm through Cotannah’s as she used to do. “Come into our home and rest yourselves. You’ve ridden a long, long way to see us.”

  Restlessness—the stinging yearning for something, anything—for going, doing, for something to change, something she even didn’t know how to name, rushed through Cotannah with a searing force. That sudden, venomous longing to be somewhere else, doing something else, she didn’t know where or what, took her more often now, especially since she no longer had Tonio to distract her.

  “No. I don’t want to go in the house.”

  Emily stopped still and looked at her, her huge brown eyes filling with such dismay that Cotannah reached out to her. Emily, no doubt, was thinking that Cotannah didn’t want to enter Tay and Emily’s home—the home of the Principal Chief that once had been considered Cotannah’s rightful place. But that wasn’t it. It was the demons that drove her.

  “I’ll come in in a minute. I want to take care of Pretty Feather first.”

  Emily glanced at the Texas vaqueros dismounting all around them and at her own two stableboys, who had come running to see the new arrivals.

  “You don’t need to do that! There are Willie and Cornelius, and if she needs some special care, your vaqueros will know what to do …”

  Her distress was touching. Cotannah never could bear for Emily to be upset—maybe because Emily always tried so hard to see to it that no one around her was disquieted in any way.

  “Just give me a minute to get used to being here,” she said. “I know I’ll enjoy being your guest … and Tay’s. All I need is a minute to realize I’m back in the Nation again.”

  She gave Emily a persuasive smile, and Emily smiled back with the old trust in her eyes. She squeezed Cotannah’s hand, then let go to shepherd Ancie and Jumper and the baby Sophia toward the house.

  “We have a surprise waiting for you,” she called back to Cotannah. “I can’t wait to see your face when you find it, so let me be the one to take you to your room.”

  “All right, I will.”

  Emily truly was one of the best, most generous people she had ever known. There wasn’t a mean or selfish bone in her body, and she had never meant to hurt Cotannah by loving Tay. The knot in Cotannah’s stomach eased a little. At least Emily and Tay were at peace and contented—it was nice to know that was true for some people. Come to think of it, so were Cade and Maggie.

  So why could it not be true for her as well? Why was she destined to be in a turmoil all her life?

  She picked up Pretty Feather’s reins and started walking toward the handsome woodsman, who was still kneeling beneath the tall pine. No surprise waiting in her room could ever divert her half as much as a challenging man, she thought, as she bit her lips to make the color come to them—especially after she’d practically been a prisoner of decorum for the whole three-week journey under Ancie and Jumper’s sharp eyes.

  Yes. A lively flirtation with Walks-With-Spirits was exactly what she needed to quell the restlessness and keep thoughts of the past and the future at bay. Fortunately, the servant girl had returned to the house so they would be alone.

  He didn’t look up as she approached, not even when she stood near him looking down at the coyote. Its wound was covered by a poultice now and the bleeding had stopped.

  “Maybe you are an alikchi,” she said. “When it ran underneath my horse out in the road it was bleeding enough to have died right there.”

  He murmured something unintelligible to the coyote and dipped his fingers into a gourd full of water, holding the drops so they’d fall onto the animal’s panting tongue.

  “Who says so?” His golden-brown eyes flashed up to her face.

  “I say so,” she said, bristling a little. “Even at a glimpse, I could see its blood gushing like a fountain.”

  “Anyone could,” he said brusquely. “I’m asking—who calls me alikchi?”

  Ah. So he was vain, and therefore subject to flattery and provocation. He wouldn’t be such a challenge, after all—he wasn’t so different from many other men.

  “My Aunt Ancie, who is old-fashioned and my vaquero, Juan Caldero, who is superstitious.”

  There. That should provoke him into really noticing her.

  It didn’t. He kept right on with his ministrations to the coyote, then sat back on his haunches and reached into the leather bag he wore attached to his belt.

  “And what do you say?”

  “I call you a fearless and brave man,” she said, intending to flatter him into noticing her if provocation wouldn’t do it.

  As soon as she spoke, though, she knew that she truly meant it. He couldn’t have known that Pretty Feather wouldn’t fall on him or strike at him, no more than he could’ve known that the coyote wouldn’t be crazy enough from pain to bite him, yet he had rushed in and saved it from bleeding to death, taking time out to calm the horse and keep her from falling.

  He looked at her then, gave her a quick, slanting glance, and the light deep in his eyes flared brighter for an instant. Ah! She was making progress!

  She smiled at him, but he was already looking away, turning back to his pet coyote. He resumed dripping the water onto its tongue, adding tiny bits of the dried herb he had taken from the bag.

  “I know you braved my horse’s hooves for your pet’s sake and not for mine,” she said. “But you saved my life anyway—or at the very least you saved me from being hurt. I was fast sliding out of the saddle.”

  “Taloa is my friend,” he said, in that same abrupt, faintly arrogant tone.

  A great irritation took hold of her, made her want to reach out and take hold of him and shake him until his teeth rattled. He wouldn’t even look at her, much less amuse her with a flirtation! He wouldn’t even accept her compliments and her thanks!

  “And just who is Taloa?”

  He said nothing; he simply sat on his heels, smoothing the fur on the coyote’s head.

  It took a long moment for her to put it all together and realize that he was objecting to her calling the animal his pet. The coyote he’d named Taloa, which made sense, for it meant “songster” or “singer” in Choctaw.

  “Well, excuse me!” Thoroughly piqued, she went on, “I could have called him your predator or your varmint instead of your pet.”

  That brought a vexed look from him—she was at least getting under his skin as he was hers. Good.

  “Anyone can be called a varmint when they’re annoying,” he said dryly.

  That fueled her anger like tinder thrown on a fire.

  “If you’re referring to me, I wish I hadn’t bothered trying to give you compliments and thanks for calming my mount. After all, you owed me some he
lp since it was your friend, Taloa, who scared Pretty Feather into rearing up and walking around on her hind feet like a person.”

  “Be glad Pretty Feather doesn’t talk like a person,” he said, glancing up at her again with a wry lift of one eyebrow.

  Her anger blossomed.

  “Not talking at all when you’re spoken to—that’s worse! It’s downright rude.”

  “Worse than what?”

  His topaz eyes found hers and held them.

  “Than … than annoying a person by offering a sincere thank-you to a … an oaf who doesn’t have the grace to accept it!”

  “No talk is worth disturbing the healing spirits.”

  Fury boiled up in her. He was looking her straight in the eye and telling her in so many words what his actions had already said: that she wasn’t as important as a coyote to him.

  Good Lord, what was the matter with him? She set her jaw against the pure frustration that came boiling up inside her, turned on her heel without another word, and ran toward the stables, leading Pretty Feather at a pace that made the stirrups bounce and slap at her sides.

  “He wants silence, then he gets silence!” she told the mare. “He’ll be begging me to talk to him before I ever speak to him again.”

  She ran into the stable yard with Pretty Feather and waved away all offers of help from the stableboys and from Juan and the other vaqueros. A long, thorough grooming of the little mare would settle both their nerves and give her something to do with her hands while she blanked out her mind. Enough was enough for one day, and she wasn’t going to give Walks-With-Spirits so much as another thought.

  When she finally finished and put the brushes away, she tucked her arm around Pretty Feather’s throatlatch and led her into the turnout pen. There she saw Emily waiting for her on the veranda. She let the mare go with a last pat on the rump and ran toward the house, her hat bouncing on its strings against her back.

  “I was beginning to think you’d never come in,” Emily said, smiling her warm smile as she opened the back door of the rambling two-story house for Cotannah. “Aunt Ancie and Uncle Jumper have deserted me completely to play with Sophia in the nursery, and I’m dying to give you your surprise!”