She did so, and he tugged the muslin over her other wrist, then tossed it aside. "What the hell's this?" he demanded, plucking at the strip of petticoat she had wound around herself. She studied the cloth for a moment as if she had never seen it before. "Oh, that." She lifted her gaze to his chest and let loose with another tinkling giggle. "It's a supporter," she whispered. "I don't suppose you've ever needed one."

Deke worked a finger inside the wrapping. "Shit. What're you tryin' to do to yourself, girl? It's too damned tight."

She arched her brows and leaned toward him. "Of course it's tight, you silly man. What good would it be loose?"

He clenched his teeth. There wasn't much point in beating a dead horse. Catching her chin on the edge of his hand, he directed her gaze back to the shadows above them. "It's been a spell since you looked. What d'ya see up there now?"

While she searched the blackness, he unwound the petticoat flounce from around her. As her breasts spilled free, he assured himself there were two different ways a man could look at a woman, real close or hardly at all, and his aim was the latter. Sweat broke out on his face.

"Oh, aren't they beautiful?" she whispered.

Deke didn't know what she was looking at, but he had eyes for only two things. "Yep," he said in heartfelt agreement.

"And the colors. Just look at the gorgeous colors!"

The delicate pink of wild roses, he thought.

"That blue. It's absolutely shimmery. Oh, how I wish I could do that. Don't you?"

"Do what?" he asked absently as he gently prodded her satiny flesh. Her skin was alarmingly hot. This wasn't a slight fever, after all, but a raging one. "Jesus Christ, honey, your breasts are caked."

"Fly," she said on a dreamy breath. "Straight into heaven with the angels. Or are they butterflies?"

Deke's head came up. "Butterflies," he said harshly.

Further exploration told him just how serious her condition was. He didn't believe she had abscesses yet, but it wouldn't be long before she did. Caked breasts and an internal inflammation that could very well be childbed fever. While she carried on a one-person conversation, unable to decide if her dream creatures were angels or butterflies, he sat back and braced an arm on his knee, more frightened than he had ever been in his life.

"I'd say they're butterflies," he finally replied.

"Hmm." She regarded the blackness thoughtfully. "No, I think it's angels. Oh, how I'd love to fly away with them."

"Well, you ain't," he said with a little more force than he intended. "So get it straight out of your mind. And it ain't angels, it's butterflies."

She frowned slightly, still staring upward. "Butterflies? Are you certain? They certainly Oh, Mr. Sheridan, I do so wish we could go with them. Just for a bit."

"No," he said softly, and grasped her shoulders. "Honey, look at me." When she lowered her eyes to his, he tightened his grip on her. "I want you to stay down here with me. You understand? You gotta promise me."

Her lips parted, and her lashes fluttered. "But I"

Deke gave her a little shake. The things seen on a man's vision walk always had meaning. Laura's being a female was no guarantee that she couldn't see things that had meaning as well. Though Deke doubted angels existed, she clearly believed they did, and if she was seeing them flying around above her, it couldn't be a good sign.

"Promise me you won't go with them," he insisted harshly.

"But they're so beautiful. I've never seen anything so beautiful."

That made two of them, for Deke had never seen anything so beautiful as Laura. Grit and beauty. The two didn't usually ride double. Maybe that was why he hadn't guessed how sick she really was, Damn her stubborn little hide. She must have been feeling poorly as early as yesterday, if not before that, yet she hadn't let on. He should never have let her climb on a horse, let alone ride for hours in rough country and sleep on the cold ground.

Now that he thought back, all the signs had been there. Her pallor. The way she constantly held a hand over the base of her spine and winced when she moved. If he had seen a Cheyenne woman behaving like that so soon after childbirth, he would have snapped to attention. But because Laura was a bit of city fluff, he had ignored the signs, believing her when she claimed she had sore muscles.

Sore muscles? Guilt tore at him. Even as recently as five minutes ago, he had been laughing. Laughing and taking his time, like a goddamned idiot. This was bad. Real bad. He had seen women in less serious condition who had died despite everything his Cheyenne mother had done to save them.

With a frightened gaze, he studied her fragile features. Why do you call me Boston? Because you hold me in high esteem? The truth hit him now, with the impact of a mule kick right between the eyes. The girl loved that baby so much, she would have died in the saddle trying to reach him. A bit of city fluff? All his life with the Cheyenne, he had been taught to admire courage and bravery. How could he have been so blind that he hadn't realized how deeply those two qualities were ingrained in this woman? Had he not looked? Or had he simply refused to see?

Deke couldn't bring himself to answer that.

Very gently he lowered her to the blanket and finished divesting her of her clothing with shaking hands. She chattered like a squirrel, jumping from one topic to another. Her father's repeated betrayals. Tristan, leaving her, again and again. He could scarcely concentrate on anything she said. Scared, he was so damned scared. He couldn't remember ever feeling quite so unsure of himself. He wished his mother were here. What if he forgot to do something? What if he had chosen the wrong plants? What if Deke cut the thoughts short. There was no room within him for doubts. His mother wasn't here, and he couldn't leave Laura long enough to go fetch her. This was up to him. He had to do it, and he had to do it right, no room for error.

Chapter 12.

*The clouds were the pale pink of wild roses and the milky white of moonbeams, or so Deke Sheridan said. Laura thought the pink a deeper shade and the white more a silver, but since he sounded so certain, who was she to argue? It was all rather strange, actually. Though she was definitely walking on clouds, she couldn't feel them beneath her. It was like flying in a way, only, of course, she knew she wasn't. Deke Sheridan wasn't an angel or a butterfly, and he was in the clouds with her. She tried to picture him with wingsof any sortand the image made her burst into hysterical laughter.

She quickly sobered. It was very unkind to have such cruel thoughts. He was being so gentle with her. Such nice hands. Somehow they made the hurting stop, wrapping her in radiant warmth, soothing even those throbbing places deep inside her.

Magic. Yes, that was it. He had magic in his fingertips, and everywhere he touched her, he made her glow. Sometimes she felt as though she lost all substance, that she had become a part of the rainbow-colored clouds, that if a wind came up, she might disappear like canting smoke.

But Deke Sheridan held on to her, with his hands, with his voice, cautioning her not to leave him. He sounded so frightened that Laura decided she should stay. At least for now.

Deke bent to rinse Laura's blouse, then held it up against the sun to be sure he had gotten it clean. Satisfied, he wrung out the water and draped the garment over a bush to dry next to her chemise, pantalets, and petticoat. The only thing left to wash was the length of petticoat flounce she had used to bind her breasts. Every time Deke looked at it, his guts knotted. A supporter? He sighed as he set himself to the task of scrubbing it clean, his mind taking inventory of his saddlebags.

He had only four shirts left since giving one to Laura yesterday morning, and that included the one he was wearing. Still, he reckoned he could get by with only three. When she grew well enough to ridehe refused to contemplate the possibility that she could dieshe might need extra support of some kind during the daylong journey to Cougar Flats. Since he could use something to keep his hands busy, anyway, to prevent him from drifting off to sleep while he watched over her, he figured he might as well ply a needle and thread. Not that he was much of a hand at it. The most sewing he usually did was to restitch a seam or a button. But he figured he could fashion a halter from one of his shirts easily enough. Something better than this, anyway. He held up the petticoat flounce and shook his head. All that sewing his Cheyenne mother had forced him to do in his boyhood might finally come in handy.

If Laura had only asked, he would have helped her design some kind of supporter yesterday morning. But oh, no. Better to painfully bind her breasts than admit to a man she had any. As if he hadn't noticed? The girl was so bashful, she was a danger to herself.

As he pushed to his feet, Deke glanced toward the mine. Since the onset of Laura's fever, his biggest worry had been how much she might remember about all of this. That was so loco, he couldn't quite credit it. He had twenty comancheros to be concerned about, and that was a passel of concern. Plenty enough to keep his mind busy, anyway. If she woke up with recollections of how intimately he was caring for her, he'd have to deal with it then.

For now, he had to think of a way to keep Laura alive until she recovered. With twenty comancheros hot to find her, and him with only one rifle to fend them off, his only hope of saving her pretty little neck was to get some reinforcements. To do that, he needed to signal for help.

Risky business, that. Smoke signals, by nature, could be seen by everyone, not just the people they were meant to reach. Still, it was a chance Deke had to take. It was either that, or wait for death to come calling. For himself, he could accept that. But not for Laura. He guessed her to be no more than twenty, if that old, and she had a son to raise. Her life had scarcely begun. He wouldn't let it be cut short, not if he could help it.

The wind canted the smoke into Deke's face, and he angled an arm over his eyes, his lungs convulsing. God, how he hated wet fires. With a deep cough, he caught his breath and stepped out of the upsurge. Gazing across the foothills, he congratulated himself on picking a perfect high spot, far enough from the mine not to invite visitors, yet visible for miles.

"Be watchin'," he whispered, holding the blanket over the plume of smoke for a prolonged period of time, then following with two quick obstructions to complete the signal. "Come on, Black Stone. Send a message back to me."

For several minutes, Deke continued flapping the blanket. Then he quickly put out the fire. If Black Stone could see the smoke in Cougar Flats, so could every comanchero in these parts. A yearning for moments gone by and forever lost filled Deke's mind as he knelt by a good-sized rock. Using a smaller stone, he propped the larger rock's edge upon it, then moved back to survey his handiwork. To the casual observer, it would look as though nature had arranged the shale. To a not-so-casual observer, the message would have no meaning. Only Black Stone, his cousin and boyhood companion, would know what to look for. At least, Deke hoped he would.

So many memories. Black Stone, his spirit brother, the one and only friend Deke had ever trusted completely, even to this day. As boys, they had cleaved together like a woman's plump breasts. Filled with themselves and pubescent masculine arrogance, they had scorned the standard way of leaving messages set forth by their Cheyenne forefathers and had devised their own secret code, exchanging vows that one would always find the other in time of need. A small rock placed beneath a stone meant the endangered one waited to the south, a small rock placed atop a larger one meant north, and so on.

Childhood nonsense. Would Black Stone even remember? So many years had passed. When Deke thought back to those times, he felt separated from it all, as if those memories were pages from a storybook and had never actually happened. Two children, racing on the wind, their laughter ringing across sun-kissed grassland. Carefree boys, the years ahead of them a promise they took for granted, brothers forever because they had chosen to be. Life had been so simple then, their world one of absolute truths that were never questioned.

Only upon reaching adulthood had they learned the most difficult truth of all, that nothing in life remained constant. Even the sun was sometimes hidden behind clouds. The boys they had once been stepped over into manhood, and from that moment on, their paths stretched before them in different directions. Brothers in spirit, yes, but never of the flesh.

Before going to his horse, Deke closed his eyes. In that moment, he shed his white identity and looked into himself for Flint Eyes, the one who had gone to warm himself at Cheyenne fires so long ago. He felt the wind kiss his skin, carrying whispers that had no meaning, yet said so much. He was small, so infinitely small, standing as tall as he could beneath the sky. He prayed that the Great Ones would see him and hear the song in his heart, that they would not turn their faces from him because he had walked a path away from them for so many years.

"Set my feet the way I should go," he whispered in Cheyenne. "See me safely back to the place where I must wait, to the woman who leans upon my strength. Lead my brother Black Stone to us, so we may have safe escort to the People and be embraced by them."

The prayer finished, Deke ran for his horse, leaped into the saddle, and dug in with his heels. He had to get the hell out of here before the comancheros came down on him like horseflies on shit. He wheeled his horse north. Away from the mine. Away from Laura. Later he would veer south and begin covering his tracks as he returned to her.

Heavy of heart because Black Stone had sent no answering smoke signals, Deke ran a dripping cloth over Laura's feverish skin. She batted helplessly at his hands when he bathed her swollen breasts.

"No, please ... Tristan, we can't afford oysters." She drew her brows together and averted her face. "You'll lose again. Don't play poker tonight. Please? We haven't enough money." A dry sob racked her slender body. "My knife. Where is my knife? Oh, God, he's nearly in the wagon. Tristan sent him. I just know it! Without the knife, what shall I do?"

Deke set aside the wet rag and slipped a hand under her head. "Here, honey. Drink."

She averted her face again, trying to avoid the cup he pressed to her lips. "I don't" She strangled, then obediently began to swallow as she caught her breath. "I don't want it," she protested after she drained the cup.

Deke lowered her to the blanket. "Go back to the place of dreams, little one," he whispered softly. "Go to the rainbow. I will keep you safe."

"Quagheunnega?" she repeated with a bewildered frown, her beautiful eyes unfocused.

Deke realized he had spoken to her in Cheyenne. "Quagheunnega, the rainbow. Do you see it? Go into it and drift with the colors. Ne-pa h-loh', sleep."

The distress melted from her expression, and a smile touched her pale lips. Deke sighed and began to bathe her skin again. When he finished, he sat back and waited for the tea to establish its hold on her before he reached for the reeds. Lightly resting a hand on her feverish thigh before he began, he searched her face for any sign of awareness. The fire that raged within her was enough for her to bear without his heaping shame upon her as well.

"Laura, are you away from me?"

Her long lashes fluttered drowsily. "Away? No." She touched his arm with quivering fingertips. "You are with me. Inside the rainbow. Don't you see it?"

What Deke saw was an angelhe knew exactly how one looked because Laura had described them to him in vivid detail. Only his angel was earthbound, not because she chose to be, but because he kept a firm grasp on her and constantly called her back. "Yes, I see it," he whispered. And it wasn't a lie. Her smile was as radiant as a rainbow and warmed cold places deep within him that he hadn't known were there. "It's beautiful."

She ran the tip of her tongue over her lips. "You won't leave me, will you, Mr. Sheridan?"

"No, I ain't leavin'."

"Promise? You won't go away like Tristan?"

Sadness filled him. "No, honey. I'm here, and I won't go away."

The second day, Deke once again went to a high spot and sent up signals, then arranged stones to direct Black Stone to the mine, this time indicating he should go west.

Laura was showing signs of improvement. After all the sleepless hours, after working so feverishly to save her, was it all to go for nothing? He was only one man. He couldn't protect her from twenty killers, not for long.

Sooner or later, the comancheros would stumble upon the mine. Each afternoon when Deke ventured to a hilltop, he spied signs of their presence in the area. They obviously had a fairly good tracker with them and knew he hadn't headed back for Denver yet. They were searching feverishly for him and Laura, and as with all searches well executed, this one had only one possible conclusion.

Laura would die if he tried to move her right now on horseback. Transporting her as far as Cougar Flats on a travois probably wouldn't hurt her, but such a trip would be slow going and would make them vulnerable to attack without plenty of armed men riding guard. He had no choice but to wait at the mine for someone to come. The comancheros or Black Stone, that was the question, and only the Great Ones knew which it would be.

The next afternoon while tending Laura, Deke sensed a presence. He froze and looked toward Chief, who snoozed next to the fire. Usually the dog detected the approach of others almost as soon as Deke did. A friend, then? Chief had a lazy streak and quite often chose to ignore the approach of those he trusted. No-account mongrel.

After covering Laura and pushing silently to his feet, Deke picked up his rifle and slipped past the blind of brush he had piled in front of the mine entrance. As he emerged into sunlight, his senses sharpened, and he quickly ducked into some underbrush to scan the slope below. A man on horseback moved from the shelter of the aspens into the open, his long hair drifting in an ebony curtain around his muscular brown shoulders. Nearly hidden among the trees behind him, Deke saw other Cheyenne warriors on horseback. At a quick count, Deke guessed there were over twenty of them, all heavily armed. No comanchero in his right mind would launch an attack against a force of Cheyenne that size. With a relieved smile, Deke stepped from his hiding place, a hand raised in greeting.

Black Stone leaned toward the fire to pour himself another cup of coffee. In the flickering light, his chiseled features gleamed like rubbed mahogany, and his eyes glittered like polished onyx, unreadable yet penetrating. Deke met his gaze steadily.

"So you return to the People only to fetch this woman's child? A child sent to us by the Great Ones to heal my wife's broken heart?"

Behind him, Deke could hear Laura's soft, even breathing. But more than that, he felt her nearness in the very pores of his skin. Whiskey and cream, more intoxicant than woman, and he had fallen under her influence as surely as a thirsting man succumbs to strong drink. She didn't know it, had no way of knowing it, but she stood at a fork. What Deke chose to say next could set her feet upon a path of joy, or one of heartache.

Deke couldn't quite believe this was happening. Of all the men to have adopted Laura's son, why Black Stone, his spirit brother? And why to replace a child Black Stone had lost? Deke could no more harden his heart to his brother's grief than to Laura's, yet he had to choose between them.

Forcing himself to think carefully before he answered, Deke turned his gaze inward by breaking eye contact with Black Stone and looking into the flames. Three months ago, Black Stone's four-month-old son had passed into the Great Beyond. Three days ago, his young wife had put Laura Cheney's starving infant to her breast, giving him the sustenance that her three-year-old first-born could do without and her dead child no longer needed. A miracle in the eyes of the People, a white child sent by the Great Spirits to replace the much-loved Cheyenne baby whom illness had so cruelly taken.

Deke thought it more nightmare than miracle because he had come to claim that child, and in the claiming, he would cause Black Stone's grieving wife to wail and weep, no longer over the loss of only one baby, but two. To make matters worse, the resentment Deke saw in his brother's eyes when he looked upon Laura was unmistakable. Right now the Cheyenne were filled with hatred for all whites. Laura's sense of loss if she couldn't reclaim her son would mean nothing to them. The only way Black Stone would ever agree to part with the child who now brought his wife such solace was if he believed that child to be Deke's.

Deke considered the magnitude of what he was about to do and Laura's probable reaction when he explained it to her. To claim Jonathan as his son, and thus ensure the baby's return to Laura's arms, Deke would also have to claim Laura as his wife. If he took such a step, he would consider himself truly married to her, not just for the duration of their visit to the Cheyenne camp, but forever.

Laura would be beside herself if he did such a thing without at least consulting her first. But what else could he do? There was no time to play with; he had to act now or let her lose her baby. Would she understand his reasons for doing it? Did he even understand them himself?

Deke knew the answer to that was no. But some feelings ran too deep for understanding, and his for Laura fell into that category. He couldn't explain them, couldn't even bring them out and study them so he could try. He only knew that she had been abandoned to fate by men one too many times already in her young life and that he had promised her he wouldn't do the same. It would kill her if she lost that baby, and it would kill him to stand aside, watching while it happened.

Black Stone seemed to grow impatient with the silence, and after taking a mouthful of coffee, he spat it into the flames, his disgust for Laura engraved on his noble features. "Take the whiskey-haired woman back to her wooden walls. I care nothing for her tears. The child of her womb now belongs with me and my woman, forever into the horizon."

Deke swallowed and met his brother's gaze. The Cheyenne language came to his tongue far more easily than English, and he fell into the cadence as though he'd left the People only yesterday. "You, the brother of my heart, would keep my son from me?"

For a moment Black Stone's expression remained harsh. Then he seemed to realize what Deke had said and looked stricken. "Your son?"

The decision had been made, and there was no turning back for Deke now. "Of course, my son. Ni-ne-e-meh', see. Not only with your eyes, Black Stone, but with your heart! My woman lies naked beneath my aquewa, and you doubt? You say you care nothing for her tears. I can understand that. Just as you must understand that I do."

Black Stone bent his dark head. "I see."

"I am filled with such sorrow, brother. I weep inside over the child you have lost. But I cannot cut my own child from my heart to end your grief."

"No." Black Stone straightened his shoulders. "I thought the woman was..." He glanced toward Laura, and his mouth thinned with disgust. "You always were one to rescue birds with broken wings. I thought perhaps this woman was such a one, and that you were trying to mend her sorrows. I did not know she was one with you."

Deke felt like vomiting, was afraid he might. Laura, one with him? Wouldn't she be delighted when he told her the news. He had never lied to Black Stone. It was little comfort to know, in this instance, that the lie had become a truth the moment it passed his lips. "My wife, and your sister-in-law. Now do you have a care for her tears?"

Black Stone's expression remained like granite. "You know the song within me, just as I know yours. I will return your son to you, just as you would mine to me. But recognize this whiskey-haired woman as my sister-in-law? No, that I will not do."