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.I'll sleep with Andy.""Andy sleeps in the chief's tipi with Sitting Bear.""How convenient for you."Sam sighed."Lacey, I'm in no mood to exchange barbs."Lacey seemed to collapse inward."Neither am I.I'll share Yellow Bird's tent.for now."Running Buffalo chose that moment to join them.Sam introduced him to Lacey."This is your woman?" Running Buffalo asked.Sam nodded before thinking.Lacey wasn't his woman.He wasn't sure she had ever been his."On behalf of my people, I thank you, Lac-ey, for warning us about the unprovoked attack.I have spoken with Yellow Bird," the chief continued."She will share my tipi so that you can be with your mate.""Yellow Bird agreed to that?" Lacey asked, apparently stunned by Yellow Bird's offer."I am chief.Yellow Bird must do as I say." Without another word, he turned abruptly and strode away."Where is Andy?" Lacey asked."Probably sleeping.I saw Running Buffalo's wife herding him and Sitting Bear inside her tipi while we were talking.It's very late." He grasped her arm."Come along.Running Buffalo will set out guards to make sure Cramer doesn't return, but for now there is nothing more for us to do."Lacey dug in her heels."I want Andy with me."Firming his jaw, Sam swept Lacey into his arms and carried her into the tipi, ducking beneath the entrance before setting her on her feet."I won't have you disrupting the entire camp after what they've been put through.""I'm not going to sleep with you, Sam Gentry.I don't want anything to do with you."Ignoring Lacey, Sam stared into the dying embers of the fire burning in the center of the tipi, watching pensively as a finger of smoke curled upward through the smoke hole.Her words bit deeply into his heart when he knew they shouldn't.Yet he couldn't deny the fact that he wanted her.Making love to Lacey had been one of the greatest pleasures he'd ever experienced.He remembered how she looked, her lovely face suffused with ecstasy, her lush body arched against him as she exploded around him.The image made him grow hard, and it was with great difficulty that he jerked his thoughts back to the present."The sleeping mats are rolled up at the back of the tent," he growled."Get undressed and go to bed." He turned to leave."Where are you going?"Sam whirled around."I thought you didn't care?"Her chin rose."I don't.It's a warm night.I suppose you and Yellow Bird will find someplace to.to.""Damn you!" Sam hissed.Teeth clenched, hands fisted, he ducked through the opening and disappeared into the shadows.Chapter TwelveLacey undressed down to her shift and drawers and crawled into the sleeping mat she had unrolled and placed near the back of the tipi.It was surprisingly comfortable and she was exhausted.With a sigh on her lips, she closed her eyes and prayed for sleep.Disturbing thoughts spinning around in her mind chased away the respite she so desperately sought.She wondered if Sam and Yellow Bird had gotten together, and if they were enjoying themselves.She wished fiercely for rain, then silently chided herself for acting the jealous wife.Weariness ended her mental musings as sleep finally claimed her.But it wasn't a deep sleep, for she awoke abruptly to the sure knowledge that she was being watched.Her heart pounded in erratic rhythm and her spine tingled with awareness as she slowly opened her eyes opened.She saw him standing in a patch of moonlight filtering down through the smoke hole.Her gaze started at his booted feet, then glided slowly upward over muscular legs, powerful thighs, to his.She gasped.He was fully aroused.The hardened ridge in his trousers provided ample proof that he hadn't bedded Yellow Bird.Elation speared through her, but she quickly subdued it.Why should she care who Sam did or did not bed?Raising her eyes above the blatant proof of his desire, Lacey was startled to see that his chest was bare.Moonlight turned his torso to molten gold, gilding each rippling muscle and corded tendon.His face was shadowed, but she knew if it were visible, his eyes would be mesmerizing pools of pure seduction.She averted her gaze.She couldn't succumb to Sam's sexual allure, not now, not after what he'd done to her.He had stolen her son and would have taken him far away forever."Lacey."She squeezed her eyes tightly shut."I know you're awake."A resigned sigh slipped past her lips."What do you want? Didn't Yellow Bird satisfy you?"He dropped to his knees beside her."Yellow Bird is not now nor has she ever been my lover."Another sigh."Why should that matter to me?"He found her hand in the dark and placed it on his arousal."After everything that's happened between us, I still want you."She tried to jerk her hand away but he held it in place."Go away, Sam.I can't forgive you.You took my son away.""You gave me up to the Yankees.""You abandoned me for six long years.""You sent a posse after me."Anger suffused her words."I didn't! I swear it."Sam's soft whisper pierced the charged darkness."I wouldn't have taken Andy to California without giving you a chance to join us," he confessed."I thought I could take him away but at the last minute I had a change of heart.I planned to return to the B&G and ask you to join us.It would have been your choice.You had but to choose me and your son over Cramer and the ranch.""You're lying.""No, it's true.I hadn't even told Andy yet.It was something I just recently decided.""You.you wanted me with you? I thought you didn't trust me.""I don't, but we could make the best of it for Andy's sake.I never thought much about children until I met Andy.Fatherhood was not an option for me.I already had a wife, albeit one I had no interest in seeing again, and there was no other woman I was close to.""How long would you have let me go on thinking you were dead?""I honestly don't know [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]