Deke rose from the rock he was sitting on and parted the brush to step into the clearing. Laura was perched on the log, exactly as he had left her. Well, not exactly. The stricken look on her face hadn't been there before. His throat went tight as he approached her. When she glanced up at him, he saw tears shimmering in her eyes.

He had known this moment would come, and he had done everything he could to make it easier for her, even making sure she was completely dressed before she woke up. Over the last week he had rehearsed a dozen different things he might say to herthat there were some things a man just didn't think about when a woman was so ill ... that he had been so worried, he had noticed very little else ... that he could scarcely even remember what her naked body looked like. Now, gazing into her huge amber eyes, all those well-practiced lies fled his mind.

The truth was that everything about her had been branded upon his brain, and until the day he died, he would remember every sweet line and curve of her slender body, every imperfection, every texture.

He feared he might botch it if he tried to lie. Or, worse yet, blush to the roots of his hair. As bashful as she was, the less said, the better. The trick would be to pretend nothing had happened. That she had never been ill. That he had never intimately cared for her.

He bent to help her stand, and as his arm curled around her waist, he felt her whole body quivering. She'd never make it back to the lodge on her own steam, and he didn't expect her to try. He caught her behind the knees with his other arm and swept her up against his chest. She gave a startled squeak, then clung to his neck. The embrace warmed him and felt right. He wasn't sure when or even how, but sometime over this last week, he had come to feel she belonged to him in a way that no one else ever had. Looking down into her huge amber eyes, he thought, Neewa, my wife, and realized he was not only reconciled to their marriage now, but pleased that fate had thrown them together.

Deke jostled her to get a firm grip, then tucked in his chin to meet her sparkling gaze. Her color was high with embarrassment and shame. He wanted to tell her those feelings were unnecessary, but somehow he didn't think this was the moment to reveal their new relationship. Soon. He had no choice but to tell her soon, or she'd let the cat out of the bag in front of Black Stone. But now definitely wasn't a good time.

Dinner for Laura consisted of venison broth and two tiny pieces of meat, stingy portions in her opinion, but that was all Deke would allow her to have. She was so ravenous that, despite his warnings, she gulped down the meat with greedy urgency, then followed it with quick swallows of broth, all the while thinking of ways she might convince him to give her more food. To her surprise, by the time she finished the meager portions he had doled out to her, she felt pleasantly replete. And horribly exhausted. Which reminded her of how seriously ill she must have been.

Setting her empty plate and cup on the furs beside her, she leaned her back against the leather wall. Gray plumes meandered lazily up from the fire pit to find their way out of the ventilation hole above them. The smell of smoke filled her nostrils, but was not so strong as to be disagreeable. Deke sat cross-legged at the opposite side of the fire, his thoughts apparently on the flames. Chief, a vague red lump on the shadowy ground nearby, serenaded them with soft snores.

The sound made Laura sleepy, but with Deke in such close proximity and murdering savages crawling as thickly as ants just outside, she couldn't quite bring herself to lie down. Unless it lay beyond reach of the firelight, there wasn't another pallet inside the lodge, and judging by the number of furs used for her own bed, she doubted Deke had set aside any for himself. She feared he might join her for a nap if she fell asleep. Though she had no recollection of it, she suspected that he had been sleeping beside her since arriving here. And where had his mother slept? As far as that went, where was his mother, anyway? Surely this must be her home. Laura considered asking Deke where the woman had gone, but somehow the words stuck in her throat.

From outside came the voices of his people, their language a confusing collection of guttural grunts. Friends? Relatives? Acquaintances? Murdering fiends, one and all. It was nothing short of miraculous that she was actually in their midst and still in possession of her hair. In the back of her mind she knew Deke was all that stood between her and certain death, but that was a predicament she would have to confront laterwhen she felt stronger. For now, it was enough to deal with each moment as it came, the present one being that she was weary, yearned to see her baby, and was beginning to wonder when she would, if ever.

"Didn't you say Starwas that her name?that she was going to bring Jonathan to me in a couple of hours?"

He glanced up. "She will. Time isn't as important here as in your world. No clocks. Pretty soon ... in a couple of hours, that means when someone can get around to it. Besides, it ain't been an hour since I said that."

She sighed and looped her arms around her knees, determined to look at the bright side. Her baby was alive and well. She would see him soon, get to hold him. Just the thought made Laura ache with longing. That Jonathan was in the possession of some Indian woman was a fact she couldn't quite bring herself to contemplate. Smack-dab in the middle of a Cheyenne village? Whenever she thought about it, she broke out in a cold sweat. All she could do was trust in Deke Sheridan and think beyond that horror, to the moment when she would have her baby safely back in Denver, where no harm could befall him.

Before she knew it, she and Jonathan would be away from here, she assured herself, and all of this would be nothing more than an unpleasant memory. Somehowand she didn't care what she had to promise to accomplish itshe would convince her father to send her enough money to stay in Denver at one of the hotels until Jonathan was old enough to travel. Then home to Boston, where she and her son truly belonged. The nightmare that had begun with her marriage to Tristan was almost over.

"Laura," Deke said in a husky, strangely tentative voice. "There's somethin' I got to tell you."

Laura blinked to clear away her daydreamsvisions of the elegant parlor in her father's house, of rustling silk dresses and dainty porcelain teacups, of sophisticated and richly garbed visitors who engaged her in intelligent conversation. As the pictures faded, the primitive lodge and Deke Sheridan, her present companion, came back into focus. She doubted his forefinger would even fit through the handle of a teacup, and if he knew how to make intelligent conversation, she hadn't as yet witnessed the phenomenon.

Sometime during her illness, probably upon their arrival here in the village, he had doffed his Stetson and had begun wearing the hatband of cobalt trade beads as a headband, a change that made him look all the more a savage. She had also noticed that he now wore his shirt unbuttoned, probably so he could shed the garment whenever he joined his half-naked heathen acquaintances outside. Laura supposed she should be grateful that he had bothered to put the shirt back on when he reentered the lodge. Even with it hanging open, it was better than his wearing no clothing at all on his upper body.

She dragged her gaze from the diabolical-looking necklaces that decorated the bronze planes of his muscular chest and forced her mind onto what he had saidthat there was something he had to tell her. "Yes? And what is that you must tell me, Mr. Sheridan?"

He took a deep breath. "You ain't gonna like it too good."

Laura had a horrible feeling he meant to confess how intimately he had cared for her during her illness, a revelation she would happily forgo. "I'd rather pretend this last week..." She hunched her shoulders. "I appreciate your care of me, but I'd be pleased to pretend it never happened."

He gave her an odd look. "That ain't it."

"Oh." She managed a relieved smile. "Then what?" The wary expression on his face made her heart catch. "It isn't Jonathan's okay, isn't he? You did say he was okay."

He held up a staying hand. "He's fine. This ain't about him." Then he frowned. "Well, that ain't exactly so. In a roundabout way, everything comes back to Jonathan, I reckon."

Laura released a pent-up breath. Nothing really mattered to her as long as her baby was safe and she could see him soon. Not even if she had to wade neck-deep through a village of Cheyenne Indians to do it. "Then what, Mr. Sheridan?"

He picked up a sliver of kindling and twirled it in his long, callused fingers. "You remember that first night I saw you? And you sayin' there wasn't nothin' you wouldn't do to get your baby back? Is that still how you feel?"

Laura licked her lips. Were they back to that again? She wasn't at all sure she liked his tone or the expression in his eyes. "I, um, yes, of course I still feel that way. Jonathan's my baby, my own flesh and blood."

He touched the sliver of wood to a hot coal, then watched the tip catch fire and burn out. "Right now, hostility between your people and mine is runnin' real high."

"Yes."

"The Cheyenne got a lot of hate in their hearts for whites. I won't go into the right and wrong of it on neither side, but that's how it is."

Laura wished he would get to the point. "I'm aware of the hostilities, Mr. Sheridan. What is it you're trying to say?"

He sighed. "To throw the lasso quick, what it boils down to is that they wouldn't care if you never got your son back. You bein' white, your tears ain't nothin' to them."

"Are you saying they aren't going to return my son to me?" she asked in a voice suddenly shrill with panic.

"No. They're gonna give him back. It's just..."

"Just what, Mr. Sheridan? You're frightening me."

He threw her an exasperated glance. "Do you think you could call me Deke? After all we been through, and you're still sayin' 'mister,' like you don't even know me. It's irritatin' as hell."

"Deke," she amended. "I'm sorry. It's only that ... well, where I come from, it isn't proper for a lady to"

"This ain't Boston, it's Colorado," he shot back.

Laura nodded and cast a nervous glance around. For the life of her, she couldn't recall what he had been saying.

He muttered something under his breath. "I'm sorry. I don't mean to he sharp. It's just that I got a load of tellin' to do, and I ain't sure how to say it. You callin' me 'Mr. Sheridan' makes it all just that much harder."

Laura could see that he was indeed agitated, which only added to her trepidation. Whatever it was he had to tell her, he clearly didn't find it easy. In her experience, he wasn't a man who usually minced words. "Whatever you have on your mind, say it straight out, Mr. Sher I mean, Deke. That's always best."

Regarding the sliver of kindling again, he pursed his lips and blew on its glowing tip. Silence followed, a long, nerve-racking silence that made Laura want to shake him. Finally he said, "One of them Cheyenne out there, Black Stone, he's my spirit brother."

"Yes, you mentioned that. It's his wife, Star, who has my baby, isn't it?"

"That's right." He coughed nervously. "He, um ... him and me, we kind of adopted each other, years back when we was boys. That probably sounds funny to you, but among the People, adoption carries as much sway as blood, and folks can just up and decide to be related if they got a real special fondness for each other and a good reason. Me, I didn't have no brother. Medicine Woman, she's barren, so there was only just me. And her husband, Passes Much Wind, he didn't want two wives. I wanted a brother bad, and Black Stone and me ... well, we tied a knot atwixt us."

"Passes Much what?"

He rubbed beside his nose. "Some of the names around here might strike you a little odd. Passes Much Windwell, he was sort of a champion at it, and the soldiers in his society, they named him that."

"I see," she murmured, only, of course, she didn't see at all. Indeed, this conversation had her head so muddled, she wanted to scream. Her baby, that was all she cared about. Couldn't he understand that?

"Anyhow, back to Black Stone, my brother. A few months ago, his baby son died."

Laura tightened her arms around her knees. Suddenly she sensed what was coming. "And he was the one who traded with the comancheros for Jonathan. That's why his wife has my child."

Deke nodded. "Just my luck." After saying that, he shook his head. "No matter. Whether it had been him or someone else, we'd still be in the same fix." He met her gaze across the licking flames. "After their baby died, Black Stone's wife grieved real hard. Him givin' her the new baby eased her pain."

Laura closed her eyes, suddenly terrified. "Since he hates white people so much, howhow on earth did you persuade him to return Jonathan to me?"

"Well, that there's the thing."

She lifted her lashes. "You did convince him?"

"Yep."

He looked none too happy about it. "Mr. Sheridan, please get to the point. My heart can't take much more."

His tone dripping sarcasm, he muttered "Mr. Sheridan" under his breath and then flexed his shoulders, one hand clamped over his neck to knead stiff muscles. "I don't reckon you ever been told how Indian folks get hitched?"

Laura frowned, totally bewildered by the shifts in this conversation. "No, Ican't say thatI, um, don't believe so. What does it matter?"

"Oh, it matters," he assured her.

"How?"

"That's what I'm tryin' to..." He sighed again, the sound indescribably weary. "It just does, that's all. When a man takes a fancy to a woman, he goes to her oldest brother or closest male relative and..." With a wave of his hand, he dismissed those particulars. "Anyhow, if he and her relative reach a happy agreement, the man sends horses and all manner of nice presents to her family. All her brothers and male cousinsevery damned body who can afford itthey choose from the gifts and replace 'em with things of like value, so there's a real nice spread of stuff. And then they mount her up on a real fine horse, or wrap her in a blanket, and take her off to her new husband with all the exchanged gifts, the idea bein' that she goes into her marriage with all she needs to set up housekeepin'. The new husband, he hauls her down off the horse when she gets to his lodge and takes her inside towell, that goes without sayin'. And that's it. They're married, right and proper, and it's a done deed."

To Laura, that was a rather startling revelation. "Just like that? No wedding ceremony or vows or anything?"

"Sometimesmost times, in factthere's a big party to celebrate sometime afterward."

She had no idea why he was telling her this, or what he expected her to say. She searched her mind for a polite rejoinder. "How ... quaint."

He rubbed the day's growth of whiskers on his chin.

"And what of the woman?" she couldn't resist asking. "Isn't she consulted before her brother takes all the presents?"

"A brave who wants a girl for his wife usually wraps her in his blanket a few times to test her feelin's toward him. Before he starts sendin' presents." At Laura's shocked expression, he grinned weakly. "The blanket partthat ain't like it sounds. It's a courtin' thing, nothin' more. They stand together by the central fire or wherever, with other folks all around, and they talk love talk."

Love talk? "Oh. And if she doesn't wish to talk ... love talk?"

"Well, it depends on how set the brave is on havin' her and how much account her male relative gives to her feelin's on the matter."

"You're saying she has no choice if her relative decides she must marry?"

"Cheyenne women usually trust the men in their families to look after them and to decide what's best. It ain't often a brother's mean about choosin' a husband for a girl, and most times she accepts what he decides without no fuss."

"How barbaric." Laura shuddered. Then it occurred to her that, for all practical purposes, it wasn't much different from a woman's lot in the white world. She knew that better than anyone. "What if she has no male relative?"

"That don't happen much because there's usually parents or cousins to act as her brother, but when it does, she gets to have her own say about who she marries up with."

"That's something, at least."

"Most times, anyhow."

"Most times? You mean sometimes she doesn't have a say even if she has no relatives?"

"I'm gettin' to that. Sometimes weddin's don't go the regular way. Say a girl gets a hankerin' for some brave her brother don't show favor to. Well, girls has been known to elope. Other times" He broke off and swallowed. "Well, let's say a brave takes a shine to a girl, and she don't to him. He might just sort of"his voice dipped to a gruff whisper"take her."

"Pardon me?"

"Take her," he said more loudly. "He might just sort ofyou knowmake off with her. Either way, elopin' or bride stealin', he waits a few days 'til her family gets over bein' mad and then..." He threw up his hands. "What the hell difference does it make? Once he makes off with her, proper or otherwise, she's his wife if he can make it right with her family. If a girl don't got a family, there ain't even that to worry about. A done deed. They're married."

Laura tipped her head to regard him. "What has this to do with Jonathan?"

He puffed air into his cheeks, then slowly exhaled it. "The thing is..." He raked his hand through his hair. "Jesus. Why I'm so nervous, I don't know. You ain't much bigger than a minute."

Laura frowned. What did her size have to do with anything?

"Just don't scream when I tell you," he cautioned. "I know you're gonna want to pitch one hell of a fit, but don't. Black Stone might hear you."

Laura's heart had begun to pound. "Mr. Sheridan?"

He groaned. "While you was asleep, Boston, things got real complicated." As though he couldn't quite bring himself to look her directly in the eye, he cast his gaze slightly downward and regarded her through a sweep of dark lashes. "Anyhow, I didn't see no way around it, and I told Black Stone you was my wife and that Jonathan was my son. So's he'd give the baby back to you."

Laura had been expecting him to say something horrible. Her body went limp with relief. "Oh, Mr. Sheridan." Emotion turned her voice shaky, and tears filled her eyes. "I don't know what to say. How shall I ever thank you?"

He looked uneasy. "I don't think you're sniffin' down the right trail here. I told Black Stone you was my wife."

"I know." She blinked to clear away the tears. "How absolutely chivalrous."

"Chivalrous. Is that good?"

"The finest of compliments."

An uncertain smile touched his mouth. "Then you ain't mad?"

"Mad? No! If it wouldn't be so highly inappropriate, I'd hug the breath right out of you." She brushed at the tears rolling down her face. "Thank you so much from the very bottom of my heart."

His attention sharpened. "Surely you ain't so proper you can't hug your husband? I'm all for them fancy manners of yours, honey. Believe it or not, they're kind of grown' on me. But we gotta draw a line somewhere."

Laura froze with her fingertips glued to her cheek. "I beg your pardon?" She swallowed a pocket of air that felt the size of a hen egg. "Did you say husband? That you're my..." She dropped her hand to her lap. "I must have misheard you."

"You heard me right. Didn't you listen to nothin' I said? About Cheyenne customs and all? While you was asleep, I married you."

Chapter 15.