Free Tallchief: The Homecoming by Cait London Page B

but he felt it call to him, driving him upward. A chipmunk chattered, running up the red bark of a pine, the scents of earth and woods circling Liam, coming inside him. Whatever rode him now was instinctive, and he shivered, tearing a wild rose from the briar, ignoring the slight burnof the thorns. He sucked the clean air into him, felt it surge through his body, then tore away the shirt he’d worn for the lady called Elspeth.
    The plaid unfurled in the breeze and he swung it under one arm and over the other shoulder. He pressed the woven length over his pounding heart, woven by a woman whose senses and heart told her more than her eyes—Elspeth Tallchief Petrovna had claimed him as one of her own, a brother to tend and love. She terrified him—a man of shadows. “Aye,” he whispered softly, testing the Tallchief word upon his lips. He knew that at last his son was safe, and should something happen to him, Elspeth would love J.T. as her own.
    That terror lifted, he opened himself to feeling.
    Who was he? Why did the Rocky Mountain sky seem bluer, more free than before? Why did his blood pound, his senses come alive?
    He tore his shirt, pushing away the echoes of Reuben’s harsh, stingy training. Liam made a sash for the sweat upon his forehead, then scanned the highland meadows that must have called to Una, the Scots bondwoman captured by Tallchief. Free, Liam thought. I’m free. This is what I am. He listened to his heart, his senses alive, in tune with the mountain. A slight noise took his stare to the deer grazing in the meadow decked with daisies and sunflowers. A scent took him crouching beside a fragrant plant. In the tumbling stream, the rocks were round and dull in reds and blues, and fish waited to be caught. The sun stroked his body, the slight breeze curling around him, enveloping him. Lavender scents clung to the plaid draped around his body, and he smiled at the thought of his legs in a kilt. “Not a chance.”
    But he was a father, too, and Liam’s head jerked toward Amen Flats and to the rented house where J.T.would be napping under Emily’s care. His son needed this—the scents and colors and the wonderful sense of freedom.
    He walked slowly around the meadow, startling the deer, brushing his palm against the thick grass and taking into him what he had lost. Then, settling upon a rock, he opened Elizabeth Tallchief’s small journal, and let himself step into the past. “That fine beast of a man came after me and his son. He crossed the ocean, and he dressed like a gentlemen at court, but I knew what he was—a savage, set upon me and claiming his son. I could have killed him, and I dearly tried. Hard as flint he was, and angry, too, for me taking his seed as he lay staked upon the ground, and making our beautiful boy…. But one look at those fierce, stormy eyes and I caught fire, testing myself against him—”
    Liam smoothed his big hand over the woman’s beautiful cursive writing, uncertain of the emotions riding him. Uncomfortable with reading Elizabeth’s story, for he had found too much in another woman’s letters, Liam forced himself to read on—to understand for his son’s sake. “When a man and a woman, equally matched, strike against each other, fire will fly—just as two flints strike sparks off each other. ’Tis a game, finding the strength of a man and challenging that truth. I am a woman used to having my way, and being captured by a man who had fathered my child was no easy matter. How I battled with him—that great hard man, Liam Tallchief, scarred by life. He did not yield to me, nor would I have him be less than he was. But in the end, he filled my heart, and a softness grew between us. I knew no other would make me feel so alive. No other could take my heart as Liam Tallchief. When he held our son and that gentleness came upon him, I knew—I claimed him witha ring and marked him for my own. For his part, he gave me two flints, the tinderbox marked with the Tallchief