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Having thought everything that she felt needed to be expressed, Lavinia turned to Wolf Dancer and smiled. “Thank you for bringing me here,” she murmured. “I felt the presence of my parents and my husband as I stood thinking about them.”
“They were there,” Wolf Dancer said, drawing her into his embrace and holding her gently against him. “They always will be, now that you have placed your stone there to represent them. Come here when you need them. They will be here for you.”
“It’s wonderful that you understand about my husband,” Lavinia said, gazing up into his eyes. “Most men would be jealous, even of a dead husband.”
“Jealousy is a wasted emotion,” Wolf Dancer said, placing a gentle hand beneath her chin.
He brought her lips to his and kissed her, then whispered, “Let us go home, woman. I believe you have learned enough today about my people and their magic.”
“I shall never tire of learning about your people,” she said.
Holding hands, they walked back toward the village, Lavinia truly feeling blessed that she had found this wonderful man who cared for her so much.
Then she thought of Hiram. Although a spell had been cast to ensure that he would finally get his comeuppance, she knew how shrewd a man he was. She prayed to herself that he would not find a way to escape what was planned for him.
While he was out there somewhere, possibly plotting how to get her, she knew she could not rest easy!
Chapter Twenty-nine
If you remember’st not the slightest
Folly that ever love did make thee run into,
Thou hast not lov’d.
—William Shakespeare
It was so wonderful to awaken in your arms,” Lavinia said as she sat with Wolf Dancer beside the fire, eating their morning meal. “And soon I shall do that every morning. It is so hard to believe that we are actually going to be married. The first time I saw you, I thought you were a figment of my imagination as you sat there looking so handsome in the tree. It is strange how seeing you didn’t frighten me. I think deep down inside I knew even then that you were my destiny.”
“And that you are mine,” Wolf Dancer said.
His gaze roamed slowly over Lavinia, finding her beautiful in another new dress that Moon Beam had brought for her.
There were no beaded designs on it. It was just the brightest white doeskin he had ever seen.
It seemed to have been meant for a woman of such beautiful pale skin. The color of the dress blended with her skin tone, creating a vision of loveliness.
Lavinia gazed at the food spread before her on awooden platter. Everything looked delicious. Moon Beam had brought not only the lovely dress that Lavinia wore today so proudly but also a tray of assorted meats and orange slices.
Since she had moved to Florida, Lavinia had grown to love the fact that she could just reach up and pluck an orange from a tree. It was so special to enjoy the sweet fruit that way.
“There is enough food here for an army,” Lavinia said, laughing softly when she saw how that comment made Wolf Dancer’s eyebrows lift. “That’s what my father often said about what my mother put on our breakfast table. Although we had servants and cooks, my mother always insisted on making our breakfast. And what a breakfast it was! I shall never forget her pancakes.”
“My father called them flapjacks,” she went on, giggling.
“I am not familiar with those words…pancakes and flapjacks,” Wolf Dancer said, taking a bite of turtle meat and chewing it.
“I shall make you some one day soon,” Lavinia replied, glad that she had learned how to make pancakes from her mother.
“How do you eat this…pancake?” Wolf Dancer asked, shoving his empty plate aside.
He leaned back on an elbow, stretching his bare, muscled legs out before him. Today he was again wearing only a breechclout.
“With maple syrup or also with honey,” Lavinia murmured, reminded how Dorey had always enjoyed that particular breakfast.
Her daughter had come early this morning just as Lavinia was getting dressed, and asked to spend another day with Twila and the “boys,” as she now referred to the two brothers. Dorey had also asked permission to go on a search for a honey tree with her three friends.
Lavinia had hesitated, uneasy at the idea of Dorey leaving the village. She would never forget her own close call with the snake, and also knew how quickly an alligator could appear out of nowhere.
