Free Love Forevermore by Madeline Baker

desire as his mouth slanted over hers a second time.
    They kissed for a long moment. Then, still not speaking, they parted. Zuniga’s eyes held hers as he reached out and gently stroked her cheek. And then he was swinging astride the stallion, his movements effortless, beautiful.
    She stood where he had left her for a long time, listening to the sound of the stallion’s hoofbeats grow fainter, fainter, until only silence surrounded her.
     
    Zuniga rode hard for home, relishing the sting of the wind in his face, the cold air that cooled his fevered flesh. She was a white woman, forbidden fruit, and yet he wanted her as he had never wanted any of the women of his own tribe. He had not meant to go to her house again, had not meant to let her see him, but he had been driven by a deep hunger to hold her in his arms just once, to taste and to touch and to smell that which could never be his.
    He rode as if pursued by devils, heading straight for home. Back where he belonged. No more would he attend the white man’s school. No more would he see the woman who tempted him beyond his ability to resist.
    At home, he turned the stud loose in the corral, shut the gate with a bang, and walked to his lodge. The sound of Nachi’s soft snoring greeted him as he stepped inside.
    The wickiup was dark. There were no windows; the doorway was nothing more than an opening covered with a deer hide. Two backrests made of willow were the only furniture the lodge contained. Two beds, made of old hides and blankets, were spread in the rear of the lodge.
    Shad glanced fondly at the old man sleeping peacefully beneath a pile of robes. Shad had grown up on the old man’s tales of white treachery. The white man was not to be trusted, Nachi said. The white man spoke with a double tongue and his promises were a lie. He would offer you peace with one hand while plotting how to steal your land with the other. Reservation living had not changed Nachi’s opinion of the whites. Once, he had been a fearless warrior, as brave as a mountain lion, as fleet as a deer, as cunning as a fox. Now he was barely able to move, his body shrunken and withered like a dead leaf. But his eyes were still bright, and his spirit was still strong. The old man had outlived three wives, and sometimes, when the nights were long and cold, he threatened to find a young wife to warm his blankets.
    Undressing quietly, Shad slipped naked under his blankets and closed his eyes. But sleep would not come. Instead, Loralee Warfield’s face loomed in his mind, her warm red mouth curved in a shy smile, her deep brown eyes beckoning him. She was a beautiful woman, and he desired her as he had desired no other woman, red or white. But she was unattainable,, as far from his grasp as the stars wheeling across the sky.
    Still, he wanted her. And she wanted him. He knew it. Her desire had been plain in her eyes, in the way her lips opened to his, in the way her slim young body had swayed against his own.
    She wanted him. The thought kept him awake the whole night long.

 
    Chapter Four
     
    The following day, Loralee could think of little but Shad Zuniga’s kiss, and her reaction to it. Impossible as it seemed, she could still feel the touch of his lips on hers, the strength of his arms around her waist, drawing her close, the heat of his body pressed next to her own.
    Looking at her students, she tried to imagine what Zuniga had been like as a young boy. Had he been openly rebellious like Short Bear, or boldly curious like Star Gazer? She was preoccupied with thoughts of Zuniga all that day, so much so that the children sometimes had to ask a question twice before she heard them.
    Questions. She had several of her own. What had Zuniga been doing, prowling around her house after midnight? Had he been waiting for her? Or had their meeting been mere coincidence?
    After school, she spent two hours at her desk, grading papers and preparing the lesson for the following day.
    At home, she prepared