Page 41 of The Last Warrior

And then the oddest thing happened: the Indian who had ripped open her door winked at her.

Winked at her? Red Shirt?

Eyes wide, she studied her attacker more carefully. Ah, here was the reason. This was not Red Shirt at all. This man was… It was Black Lion, and beneath all the war paint on his face, he was grinning at her.

Stepping into character for a moment, he frowned at her, sized her up and down, from the top of her bonnet to the tips of her boots. Then he said, “I think you will decorate my tepee well. Although my wife may be jealous of one so beautiful.”

Suzette shook her head at him, then shivered, remembering she was supposed to be frightened. “Why, sir, do you mean to tell me you are already married?”

“Alas, I am,” he replied in an accent that sounded more British than Native American. “My wife is a white woman, too, and very beautiful, also. It is strange, for she looks much like you.”

Suzette almost laughed. “Oh, do stop,” she admonished, damping down the smile. “If you keep this up, Black Lion, you are going to cause me to laugh instead of doing what I am supposed to do—which is screaming and begging for mercy.”

“Scream away,” he said as he pulled her from the coach. But his touch was hardly rough. Indeed, he brought her into his arms, and for an instant only, he pressed his face up close against hers.

“Sir.” She added a scream to the word for good artistic measure. “This is sudden, is it not?”

“So it is. But I must work fast, I fear, for even now the cavalry is sounding their horns in the distance, and I suspect that soon I will be lying here dead at your feet. Ah, what a man must do to hold his own wife in his arms.”

She burst out laughing.

He frowned at her and shook his head. “And now you laugh at me when you should be screaming.”

“Oh, of course. I forgot.” She shrieked.

His hand came up to cover her mouth, but instead of jerking her toward his horse, as he was supposed to do, he leaned down, took his hand away for the barest of moments and pressed a kiss against her open lips.

She wasn’t supposed to respond. Dear Lord, she was performing in front of thousands of people. How could this happen?

Yet, she answered him back in the only way she could. She fell in against him, and within seconds his arms encircled her. A cavalry trumpet sounded close at hand, which must have prompted him to remember the script, for he said, “Lean on me,” and then he dragged her as gently as possible toward his pony.

“You should not have done this. You should not have kissed me,” she said, even while she pretended to struggle to get away from him. “Someone is sure to have seen. Do you wish to bring trouble to yourself?”

“A man might dare much,” he responded while fielding her attempts to hit him, “when he discovers his wife has not a single moment to spend with him.”

“But I thought you understood⁠—”

He winked at her, and then, as he had predicted, soldiers and the Wild West riders sped onto the scene, coming to the rescue of the coach. Within a matter of minutes, Cody galloped toward her and Black Lion. After jumping down from his mount, Cody had no sooner pulled Black Lion away from her than the two men commenced upon a completely scripted yet desperate fight.

Suzette found herself silently cheering for the Indian, and she wondered if any of her counterparts of old might have done much the same.

Cody won, of course, and when it was over, Black Lion lay at her feet. Alas, it was done. Her honor had been saved a terrible fate.

“My lady.” Cody bowed. Then he smiled at her and gallantly extended a hand to help her to her feet.

“Sir,” she said loudly so the audience could hear. “You have saved me. You have saved my father. How can I ever repay you?”

“No need to do so, ma’am,” answered Cody in his best theatrical voice. “I am only doing my duty.”

“Ah! You are so brave. You are my hero!” With this said, as she was supposed to do in this little drama, she collapsed into a faint, directly into Cody’s waiting arms.

Chapter

Twelve

“Good show,” said a smiling John Burke, the Wild West Show’s manager and press agent. “Good show.” With a drink teetering precariously in each hand, he mingled in between and amongst the assembled guests in the after-the-show party, passing by Suzette and her grandmother.

He acknowledged Irena, extended a glass of champagne to her and offered the other to Suzette. Suzette declined, but Irena accepted gracefully.