Free Wild Splendor by Cassie Edwards

prominent of all was the fact that she was traveling on that stagecoach away from him—which meant that she had not cared enough for him to stay.
    This he could never understand.
    He had felt so much in her kiss.
    He had read so much in her eyes.
    Yet another thought had come to him, one that pleased him. If she had been leaving Fort Defiance, she had also been leaving the man that she had planned to marry.
    â€œMay I?” Leonida pleaded.
    Sage’s heart pounded as he gazed into Leonida’s eyes, seeing within them more than a pleading for the child. He could see that she was battling her feelings for him. Perhaps she was recalling their kiss, and the message that the kiss had sung to her heart.
    If she searched her heart and thoughts carefully, he knew she would discover that she still had the feelings for him that had surfaced when he had held her and kissed her.
    Yes, he thought to himself, if anything good at all came from the stagecoach attack, it was that it had led him to her, as though it had been their destiny.
    â€œYou may go to the child,” Sage said, loosening his arm around her waist. With his other arm he helped her down from the horse, her eyes having not yet left him.
    â€œI learned from you how to say thank you in Navaho,” Leonida murmured. “ Uke-he, Sage. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.”
    Sage nodded stiffly, then watched with a deep love for her as she went to the small boy and lifted him gently into her arms. It was at this moment that he knew that he had been right to choose her to be his future wife. There, standing before him, was how she would be in the future as she would hold their child with such compassion and tenderness.
    Humming a lullaby, Leonida cradled Trevor in her arms and slowly rocked him back and forth. When he managed a smile, then lay his cheek back against her bosom, she knew that he was going to be all right.
    â€œLeonida, thank you for helping,” Carole said, eyeing Trevor with wavering eyes. “I’m so weak. I—I just couldn’t lift him.”
    Carole looked over at Sage bitterly. “That Indian will pay,” she hissed. “Once Kit Carson finds out what he’s done, he’ll come and shoot him. Or better yet, hang him. He deserves no pity, that one.”
    A deep sadness overwhelmed Leonida, torn between how she should feel about Sage and how she actually did feel. Had he, in truth, been responsible for more than this one raid? Did he have placed in a sacred place in his hogan many white men’s scalps, perhaps even those of women and children . . . ?
    She closed her eyes to such a horrendous thought and began following Sage. Trevor lay limply in her arms and fell into a sound sleep. When they reached the shade of cottonwood trees and the splash of a waterfall as it careened down the walls of a high butte, everyone ran to the river and fell to their knees, splashing water into their mouths and onto their faces.
    Leonida moved carefully to the water’s edge with Trevor. Carole took the child from her arms and lay him down beneath a tree. After she ripped a portion of her skirt away, she soaked it, then began bathing her son’s face and squeezing water over his tiny lips.
    Leonida was not aware of Sage behind her until he placed a hand on her shoulder, causing her to turn with a start. “Eat the meat of the cattail,” he said, handing her a cattail spike that had been stripped of its tightly packed outer flowers. “This will quench your thirst.” He held a yucca plant in his other hand, as well as a leather pouch of food. “Once your thirst is quenched, you can feed on other offerings that I give you.”
    â€œNo, thank you,” Leonida said stiffly, pretending that which she did not feel. “I will drink what everyone else drinks, and if they aren’t given food, nor will I eat.”
    At almost the same moment, her eyes widened as she watched Sage’s warriors