“Thank you for bringing him to me,” she whispered in a tremulous voice. “He’s the nicest gift I’ve ever received.”
Jake straightened his shoulders. For a man who had just thrown away three hundred dollars on a dog he didn’t want, he felt absurdly proud of himself.
Chapter 18
OVER THE NEXT FEW DAYS, JAKE LEARNED the true meaning of frustration. He wanted Indigo as he never had another woman, so much so that he thought of little else. Living in the same house with her, sleeping in the same bed with her, and knowing she was his made it damned hard to keep himself in line. Only concern for her feelings forestalled him from carrying her to the bedroom and making love to her.
Since their conversation by Lobo’s grave, Jake suspected that Indigo harbored more than one misconception about him. If he demanded that she perform her wifely duties, he was afraid he would be living up to some of her worst expectations. She needed time and gentle wooing. He was determined to give her both.
That decision made, Jake had only to convince his body of the wisdom of it. In addition to his long days at the mine and his afternoon walks with Indigo, he felled and chopped eight cords of firewood in the space of four days. When the amount of wood in the Wolfs’ backyard began to reach embarrassing proportions, he tackled the dry rot in their front porch, working long after dark by lantern light. At night when he collapsed on the bed, every part of his body screamed with exhaustion.
Every part but one. . . .
On the sixth night, Jake fashioned some crutches for Hunter, then helped the older man to take his first faltering steps after so many weeks of being bedridden. Loretta fixed a lovely dinner to celebrate the joyous occasion. Afterward, Jake walked Indigo home and then took a freezing swim in the creek, which served to numb every part of his exhausted body.
Every part, that was, but one . . .
By the seventh day, Jake decided new tactics were called for. If he didn’t woo his wife into his arms soon, one of three things was bound to happen; he would work himself to death, die of pneumonia, or lose control and forcefully make love to her. Given his age, Jake didn’t relish the thought of going to an early grave, and because he loved Indigo, the alternative didn’t have much appeal, either. The last thing he wanted was to lose ground with her, which he most certainly would if he resorted to strength of arm.
Since he knew his young wife was as nervous about making love as a long-tailed cat in a roomful of rockers, he decided to use a subtle approach, which would require a smattering of acting ability, a slow, very light hand, and limitless patience. He had high hopes it would work well on Indigo, his aim being to arouse her before she quite realized what he was up to.
Things started off well. During their afternoon walks and long evenings together, he took advantage of every opportunity to touch her, tracing light circles on her neck, feathering his fingertips over her lips, and caressing the centers of her palms and the bends of her arms. Jake measured his success by watching her eyes. When she became aroused, they turned a slumberous, stormy gray. Over the course of the third evening, he was happy to note that her eyes were gray more than not.
By the fourth afternoon, he was mentally rubbing his hands together in anticipation. Tonight would be the night. With that goal in mind, he took her for her walk. As had become his habit, he draped an arm over her shoulders. Only this time, instead of curling his fingers around her arm, he let his hand dangle limply over her right breast. Given the nature of walking, especially on uneven ground, it was natural that her body movements should jostle his arm, and since his dangling hand was attached, it also followed that his loosely curled fingers brushed her nipple.
At the first “accidental touch” Indigo started and threw him a suspicious glance, which Jake deflected with a bland expression of no interest. She finally relaxed. He bided his time, then aimed at his target again. It was all he could do not to smile when he felt how hard and erect her areola had become. On the third pass, her nipple thrust against the soft leather of her blouse, eagerly peaked and straining for attention—attention Jake would be more than happy to provide.
He found a grassy spot beneath an oak. A little thing like damp ground wasn’t going to discourage him. He sat with his back against the tree and drew Indigo down beside him. Looping his arm around her, he set his fingertips to work on her collarbone, tracing its shape and talking nonstop about Sonny’s antics, pretending to be absorbed with the pup so the touch of his hand would seem innocent. Every once in a while, he let his fingers stray from her collarbone to feather across her upper chest.
A downward glance told Jake that success was nearly within his grasp. Her nipples were as erect as little cadets at muster. He turned toward her and bent to kiss her cheek. Placing a hand on her rib cage, he began a subtle ascent until his fingers curled around her right breast. She gasped and went rigid when he captured the peak of her nipple between thumb and forefinger.
“It’s all right,” he assured her in a husky whisper. He trailed his lips toward her mouth. “Trust me. Just relax.”
Naturally, Jake hoped she would do just that and let him continue. But he didn’t expect total limpness. He claimed her lips in a passionate kiss, running his tongue past her parted teeth to taste the sweet moistness. When he did, she went as starchless as drenched silk. For a horrible moment, he thought she had fainted. His hand froze on her breast, and he slowly drew back. Her eyes had a blank, distant look.
“Indigo?”
She blinked and focused, looking slightly irritated. “Yes?”
Jake searched her gaze. Panic, he could deal with. He wouldn’t have been surprised by stiffness. Or even a little resistance. She was quick-witted and had to know what was on his mind. But limpness? It was a far cry from quivering surrender, and it left such a nasty taste in his mouth he lost enthusiasm.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
She gave him a dreamy little smile and blinked again, for all the world as if she was drowsy. “I’m fine.”
Jake didn’t want “fine.” He wanted mindless abandon. He drew his arms from around her and settled against the tree, uncertain which stung more, his ego or his aching groin. His lovemaking had elicited a gamut of responses, even a slap or two, but never in his recollection had a female dozed off.
“Are you all right?” she countered.
Jake regarded her with dry amusement. “I’m just dandy.”
After a lot of forethought, Jake cornered Loretta the next afternoon and asked if she had explained the facts of life to her daughter. Loretta turned crimson and exited the house, saying she had eggs to gather. Jake felt badly about embarrassing her, but his marriage was on the line. He needed answers.
With that goal in mind, he approached Hunter, who was still confined to bed. As before when Jake sought advice from him, Hunter circled the questions and gave Jake vague replies. From their conversation, Jake gleaned that Hunter had no idea what Loretta had told Indigo about sex. That was woman talk and unimportant. In the space of a few minutes, a husband could teach his wife far more with his actions than words could ever impart.
Jake left the Wolf home with the unmistakable impression that Hunter considered Indigo’s education to be Jake’s problem. To Jake, it had begun to seem an insurmountable one.
While Jake wrestled with his confusion, Indigo dealt with her own. Jake was nothing like she had expected. Though she had seen him display his fair share of male arrogance and knew he was capable of ruling her with an iron fist, he was, for the most part, endlessly patient and solicitous, completely at odds with her expectations of a husband. When he touched her, he was always gentle. He seemed to go out of his way to please her. God help her, she was even starting to like him. Not just a little, but a lot. She tried not to, but she couldn’t seem to stop herself. He made her laugh more than anyone she had ever met. And he made her feel—special. Even in his sleep, he held her as if she were made of fragile glass. Sometimes, just recently, she had snuggled against him, feeling more protec
ted than she did threatened by the muscular circle of his arms.
Since the incident under the oak tree, she had even begun to wonder, in weak-minded moments, what making love with Jake would be like. When he touched her, it was like being brushed with gossamer, and he made her feel—Indigo couldn’t put a name to it. Frightened, yes, because she knew what he intended to do to her might be very unpleasant. But he made her feel good as well, as if she was butter on a hot biscuit. Her fear was that if she allowed herself to melt, he’d take a hearty bite.
And if he did? How could anyone appear to be so gentle and unfailingly kind if he was planning to do something horrible?
That question led Indigo to face an undeniable fact. Against her better judgment, despite all her past experiences with white men, she was slowly beginning to trust him.
The realization terrified her.
One week after the incident under the oak tree, the long-awaited letter from Jeremy arrived. Rather than risk Indigo’s curiosity, Jake took the letter into the woods to read it before he went home. The news wasn’t good. After further investigation of Ore-Cal’s files, Jeremy felt certain their father was behind the accidents at Wolf’s Landing. He told Jake that he planned to visit there soon so he and Jake could do some sleuthing.
With a shoulder braced against a pine, Jake stared at his brother’s handwriting for a long while and remembered that distant afternoon when Jeremy had revealed his suspicions. So much had happened since. The breeze picked up and rustled the expensive stationery, which bore the Ore-Cal letterhead. He ran his thumb across the fine grain of the paper. These last three weeks, the world he had left behind in Portland had begun to seem like a distant dream. Now it all came rushing back to him with such clarity he could almost see Jeremy standing before him.
He no longer felt certain where he belonged. He had a wife here. The Lopez house was beginning to feel like home. He had calluses on his palms. Yet how could he turn his back on his employees, his family, and the affluence he had worked so hard to acquire? He cared little for his father, but he loved Jeremy and his sisters. Those ties couldn’t be severed easily.
He folded the letter and slipped it into his shirt pocket. This evening when Indigo wasn’t watching, he would toss it in the fire. It wouldn’t do for her to see the Ore-Cal letterhead and discover the truth about him before he could explain it to her.
Jake sighed. Explain? God, he dreaded that discussion. Indigo wasn’t going to be overjoyed to learn she had married the son of the man who had nearly killed her father. Though he had been careful never to lie to her, he had spun a web of half-truths. What would she think when he told her about himself? How would she feel when she learned he had a fiancée? Damn, he hadn’t even found a private moment to write Emily yet.
Jake grimaced. A private moment? The truth was, he hadn’t found an opportunity to get a letter written behind Indigo’s back. That made him feel guilty as hell. Indigo was honest to a fault, even when she feared it might earn her a beating. How could he make her understand his motivations for living a lie?
Jake was no longer certain he even understood his motivations himself. In Portland that long-ago afternoon, coming here incognito had seemed a perfect solution. But that had been before he met the Wolfs, people who told the truth as if every word they uttered was under oath. He had to deal with the possibility that his harmless little deceptions might break Indigo’s heart and destroy his still-shaky marriage.
Indigo sensed that something was wrong the moment Jake stepped in the house. His dark eyes had a hooded, troubled look, and his burnished features were settled into grim lines. She stepped to the kitchen doorway.
Her first thought was the mine. “Has something happened?”
As if he heard her voice through a fog, he tipped his head and settled unfocused eyes on her. After a moment, he smiled. “Nothing momentous. I just received a letter from my brother.”
Indigo didn’t think he seemed very happy about that. She recalled the afternoon in the hayloft when he had spoken of his family and the feeling that he was one of six yeast rolls in one muffin tin. “Did he send bad news?”
He brushed his cuff across his forehead. “Not unless you consider company bad news. He’s coming to visit.”
Indigo felt as if her stomach dropped to the region of her knees. “He’s coming here?”
Jake lifted his hands. “I don’t know when. Soon, he said.” He gave the sitting room a cursory glance. “He can sleep on the settee. His feet’ll hang over the end, but that won’t kill him.”
Indigo tried to martial her thoughts. “He’s tall like you?”
“That’s where the similarities end, believe me. Jeremy’s too handsome for his own good. If he starts sweet-talking you, run the other direction.”
The least of her fears was that Jake’s brother would try to sweet-talk her. He’d probably take one look at her and ask Jake if he had lost his mind. “Does he know about me?”
Jake walked toward her, shaking his head. “No. I haven’t taken time to write.”
She had to force her next words. “Will he disapprove?”
Jake’s dark eyes met hers, and his face softened with a smile. “I approve. That’s all that matters, Indigo.”
It wasn’t what she needed to hear. Accustomed to Jake’s undivided attention, she was alarmed by the distant, preoccupied look in his eyes. Returning to the kitchen, she banked the cooking fire so the bean soup wouldn’t scorch while they went for their walk. One thought swam endlessly in her mind. Jeremy didn’t know yet that his brother was married to an Indian.
After the dinner dishes were done that night, Indigo asked Jake’s permission to go visit her mother. He gave it without hesitation and offered to escort her since it was already dark. Since she didn’t really want his company, she explained that she wouldn’t be long and left before he could quiz her.
His brother was coming. . . . Indigo hurried along the boardwalk toward her parents’ home, remembering her mother’s warning. Your leathers won’t do in another town where the ladies are decked out in flounces and ruffles. Indigo pressed her palms to her cheeks. Why hadn’t she listened? If she had started using the lemon water on her face that day, it might already have started to bleach her skin. Now it was too late.
Indigo’s feet dragged to a stop. She stood there in the darkness and stared blindly down the street. Learning that Jeremy might visit had forced her to face feelings she had been trying to deny. Somehow, Jake had wormed his way past her defenses. She didn’t want to put a name to the ache that was building inside her, not yet. All she knew was that she wanted him to feel proud of her.
What if Jeremy was shocked? What if Jake looked at her through his brother’s eyes? He might regret marrying her—if he didn’t already. He hadn’t looked elated when he told her Jeremy was coming. Why should he? Unless he came from an extraordinary family, his Comanche wife was going to raise eyebrows.
She could lose him. . . . Oh, God, she could lose him. He’d go away to the world beyond the mountains and never come back. She’d never hear him call her name again when he came in the door after work. She’d never again hear his deep voice whispering next to her ear. She’d never again fall asleep at night held close to his heart.
Indigo felt as though something inside her was breaking apart. She dragged in air and hugged her waist. According to white law, until Jake made love to her, he could have their marriage annulled. Was that why he hadn’t touched her yet? Maybe he had been planning all along to leave her.
Tears sprang to her eyes. If that was the case, she should be deliriously happy. She hadn’t wanted to marry a white man in the first place. So why did the thought of his leaving make her feel like this? The question was unanswerable.
Jake became suspicious when Indigo came home from her parents’ house with a bundle in her arms. He became even more suspicious when she headed straight for the bedroom. He stayed at the kitchen table and finished sharpening the kitchen knives, expecting her to emerge and explai
n. When she didn’t, he started to grow concerned. She had been acting strangely all evening.
Pushing to his feet, he moved silently through the house. When he reached the bedroom door, he stood there a moment and listened. He heard movement, so he knew she wasn’t in bed. A faint glow of light spilled out from under the door. He frowned and turned the knob.
“Indigo, what are you—”
Jake forgot what he was going to say. His wife stood by the bed, wearing one of her mother’s blue gingham dresses. Evidently, she had been jerking garments on and off, for her hair had slipped loose from some of its pins, and her braided coronet hung askew, with long, flyaway tendrils framing her small face. Jake’s gaze dropped to the toes of her moccasins, which peeked out from under her skirt.
“Jake,” she said weakly.
“What are you doing?” He stepped in and glanced at the pile of dresses on the bed. “Those are your mother’s, aren’t they?”
Her cheeks flushed to a painful red. “She lent them to me. I was hoping I could wear them until I got some sewing done.”
Jake couldn’t credit his ears. “I don’t know why, but I had the idea you didn’t like white women’s clothing.”
She averted her face. “I’ve changed my mind. Not that it does me much good. Ma’s dresses don’t fit me right.”
Jake could see the problem. Her ample breasts were straining the seams of the bodice. “Well, that’s no major catastrophe. You can wear leathers for a couple of more weeks while you do some sewing.” Personally, Jake was going to miss her fringed skirts. “Blue looks nice on you.”
“Thank you.” She didn’t turn to look at him. “I just wish it fit. I look like a link sausage in it.”
Stifling a smile, Jake moved slowly toward her. The tight bodice shoved her creamy breasts high above the neckline. In his opinion, link sausage didn’t exactly describe the effect. Not that he intended to argue. As lovely as she was, he wouldn’t allow her out of the bedroom with that much bosom showing.