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Chapter 11
So sweet the blush of bashfulness,
Even pity scarce can wish it less.
—Byron
Feeling almost bashful now in Echohawk’s presence, her lips still tasting his kiss, Mariah munched away at an apple, while Echohawk sat beside her eating cranberries sweetened with maple sugar.
Since their arrival at his wigwam, there had been a strained silence between them. Mariah’s nervousness stemmed from having never experienced feelings of desire before.
Echohawk sucked the tart juices from the cranberries as he swirled them around inside his mouth, his thoughts troubled. He had never wanted to have feelings for a white woman, had even thought it might be impossible, until now.
No-din! He could not get her off his mind. She had proved her loyalty to him in more ways than one.
And she had responded to his kiss as one does who is in love.
Yet he kept reminding himself that ay-uh, yes, she was white. He did not see how it could be wise to reveal to her his true feelings for her.
“Tell me something about your family,” Mariah blurted out, surprised herself by the suddeness of her decision to break the silence between them.
And to ask about his family, when she already knew the fate of his father!
How could she?
But she did not know about a wife.
A mother.
Perhaps even children?
Echohawk turned to face Mariah, again regretting not being able to see her face—a face that he knew must be beautiful and alluring. He so badly wanted to run his fingers along her delicate features again, but thought better of it, remembering how touching her had affected him.
Until he could resolve within his heart and consciousness this fear of allowing himself to love a white woman, he must keep his feelings to himself.
“My family?” he said, scooting his birchbark dish aside. He stared into the fire, frustrated anew when he was able to make out only the color and shadows of the dancing flames. “I am the last. There was only one son born to my gee-bah-bah and gee-mah-mah. And there were no daughters.”
“I, too, was an only child,” Mariah said, dropping her apple core into the fire. “Throughout my childhood I was very lonely. There were no neighboring children for me to play with. My mother spent time with me until . . . until she died. But after that I was so very much alone.”
“You had your father,” Echohawk said, turning his eyes to her. “You seem to have spent much time with him. You shot the firearm today with the skills of a man.”
“Yes, my father made sure I knew how to shoot weapons so that I could always defend myself in the Minnesota wilderness,” Mariah said, realizing
that she was sounding bitter, and unable not to. Whenever she thought of her father and how little love he had given her through the years, she could not help but be filled with a strange, painful longing. “He also taught me how to ride a horse. But that was the only sort of companionship I ever had with him. Other than that, I had to fend for myself.”
“And that is why you fled from him?” Echohawk asked, forking an eyebrow. “Because you were nah-szhee-kay-wee-zee, lonely? Because you needed more than what he had given you?”
Mariah’s eyes wavered as she looked slowly over at him. She swallowed hard, afraid that this conversation was leading to too much that was dangerous to reveal. “Yes,” she murmured. “I had hoped to begin a new life. I had hoped that Colonel Snelling and his wife, Abigail, might help me in deciding how this could be done.”
Echohawk wanted to tell Mariah that she did not need to ask Colonel Snelling and his wife for guidance. What she needed was a man—a man who would treat her like a princess.
And he was that man!
But still he could not find within himself the courage to tell her anything of the kind, especially since he still had so much to sort out within his own mind and life.
“And when will you travel on to Fort Snelling?” he said instead.
Mariah tensed at this question she did not have an answer to. In truth, she never wanted to go to Fort Snelling at all. She wanted to find a way to resolve all her differences with Echohawk and stay with him. Forever! She had found in him everything that she could ever desire in a man.
