Free Heart of the Hunter by Madeline Baker Page B

asked.
    “Does it matter, skuya?”
    “No.”
    He smiled at her, his teeth gleaming whitely in the
darkness.
    “In the old days, we would have been enemies.” He lifted his
hand and let it slide through the thick fall of her hair. “Your scalp would
have made a fine trophy.”
    Kelly shivered. “Did you…did you…do that?”
    “Han!” he said, his voice ringing with pride. “I am a
warrior.” His hand slid down to her neck, resting lightly on her nape. “But I
never took the scalp of a woman, tekihila.”
    “I’m glad.”
    “I would not have wanted your hair, skuya,” he
murmured, his voice washing over her like liquid sunshine.
    “No?”
    “No. I would have stolen you had I seen you then,” he said
fervently. “Had you been married, I would have killed your man and made you
mine.”
    Kelly stared into his deep black eyes, not knowing if she
should be flattered or afraid.
    “I would take you now, tekihila, if I could.”
    “Would you?” It was an effort to speak past the thickness in
her throat.
    “Han. I would carry you high into the Paha Sapa, where
all life was born. And there, in the shadow of the sacred mountains, I would
give you laughter in the light of the day, and at night, in our lodge, I would
give you sons.”
    No man had ever promised her anything as beautiful. Unable
to speak, she took his hand in hers and cupped it to her cheek. His palm was
hard and callused and warm.
    For a time they stood there in the darkness, not speaking.
Slowly his hand slid from her neck and he wrapped his arm around her shoulder,
drawing her against him.
    Wordlessly she moved into his embrace, placing her head
against his chest. She could hear his heart beating, strong and sure, and she
wondered how that could be. He was a ghost, a spirit, yet he was the most solid
thing in her life.
    As though drawn by an invisible hand, she looked up, her
eyelids fluttering down as his head lowered toward hers. His kiss was gentle,
yet she felt as though she had been branded as his for all time.
    Her lips felt bereft when he drew away. Gently he cradled
her head to his chest again, his arms holding her close, making her feel as if
nothing could ever hurt her again.
    “Where is Roan Horse?” Blue Crow asked after a while.
    “I don’t know. He said he was going into town.”
    “Do you believe him?”
    “Why shouldn’t I?”
    “He is a troubled young man, haunted by his past, afraid of
his future.”
    “Afraid? Of what?”
    “Who can say what another man fears? His life has not been
easy. He does not trust others, or himself.”
    “Do you think he means to hurt me?”
    “There are many kinds of hurt, skuya.” His hand
caressed her cheek. “Holding you brings me more pain than you will ever know.”
    “Does it? Why?”
    “Because I have waited for you my whole life and now that I
have found you, I know you can never be mine.”
    Kelly gazed into his fathomless black eyes. There were no
words to describe the emotion that his soft-spoken words aroused within her
heart, no words to describe the tenderness that swelled in her soul.
    She could only look at him, hoping he could read her
feelings in her eyes, in the touch of her hand as she pressed it over his
heart.
    “You never married, did you?” she asked.
    “No. I was waiting, searching, for you.”
    “And I was waiting for you,” Kelly murmured, realizing only
as she spoke the words that it was true.
    She would never have been happy with the men she’d dated.
She knew that now, knew it as surely as she knew the sun would rise in the
morning, or that winter would follow the fall.
    She loved Blue Crow.
    “No, skuya,” he said, his voice as deep and dark as
the night that surrounded them. “You must not love me.”
    “It’s too late,” she said, her voice breaking. “Too late.”
    She buried her face against his chest, her eyes burning with
unshed tears.
    “Do not weep, tekihila,” he murmured as he stroked
her hair. “Your tears are like a knife in my