AllFreeNovel
Share Us
The only father she had ever loved and embraced awaited her return in Saint Louis.
Oh, Lord, she could not let him down by loving another father perhaps even more than he!
"Sis?"
Kirk's voice drew Jolena from her thoughts. She swung around, smiling almost guiltily at Kirk, for if he had been able to read her thoughts, he would have been stunned. He would put her quickly in her place for thinking about another father, when in truth there was only one man whom she should ever call by such a name.
"Sis, I've come to have a talk with you," Kirk said, moving into the room.
He closed the door behind him and walked across the room and took Jolena's hand. He led her down onto a sofa before a blazing fire in the fireplace.
Lamplight from a lone kerosene lamp flickered soft light around the room and onto Jolena's face, making it take on an even more lovely, copper sheen. Kirk gazed at her and thought how beautiful she was in her fully-gathered cotton dress; then he frowned when his eyes shifted to the low-swept bodice of her dress, thinking that it revealed too much of the deep cleavage between her well-rounded breasts.
She already had enough men leering at her.
Yet he did not condemn her for her choice of dresses. No one else would see her tonight but himself, and tomorrow she would be wearing a plain travel skirt and blouse, hiding the inviting traits of her figure from the boisterous wagoners and… and the Blackfoot guide.
''You came to have a talk," Jolena said stiffly. "What about?" She feared that she already knew the answer to her question and even felt foolish asking it. He was going to talk about Spotted Eagle again. He was going to warn her once again about being too friendly to Indians. She could almost speak his exact words as they breathed across his narrow lips.
"Jolena," Kirk said, turning toward her, now holding both of her hands. "We need to set things straight about a few thingsabout how you are to behave in the presence of the Indian that has shown an attraction to you. Jolena, you are Indian. Not only are you Indian, you are beautiful. That is a lethal combination when it comes to being around an Indian warrior who may not yet have chosen a woman as his lifetime companion. Jolena, always keep father clear in your mind. He could not bear to lose youespecially to Indians. He has feared this all of his life. You can't make his fears real!"
Her thoughts scrambled, her loyalties toward her white father already threatened within her heart, Jolena turned her eyes away from Kirk.
She swallowed hard, feeling guilty for not being able to keep her thoughts from straying to the Blackfoot warrior.
She closed her eyes and set her jaw tightly, knowing that the battle within her was just beginning. She was wondering now if she could survive it.
How could she live between two worlds?
Until now, there had only been one, the other having been locked within the deepest recesses of her heart and soul. Coming to the Montana Territory and seeing the man of her midnight dreams had changed things the instant she had stepped on the soil of her ancestors… and she could not help but let things unfurl as they would and live with the decisions that she would finally make.
She was still young, with so much of her life still stretched out before her. She would choose the path that would make her the happiest and hope that she did not cause too much hurt to those she sorely loved in the process. "Jolena, for God's sake, say something," Kirk said, placing a firm hand to her shoulder, causing her to turn her eyes quickly back to him. "Your silence is frightening me."
He searched her dark eyes for answers that she was not saying aloud to him, fear stabbing him when he saw something there that he had never seen before. At this moment, his sister seemed a stranger to him. It was as though he was looking into the eyes of an Indian instead of his precious sister's.
For too long, it seemed, he had played a game within his heart that made him forget that she was Indian instead of white. Now the reality was coming to him in leaps and bounds, and it hurt.
It hurt to think that she might be changing right before his eyes into the exact thing that he had always dreaded.
He had placed his own future aside temporarily just to prevent this from happening. But he now realized that nothing or no one could change what was truethat she was Indian and she would be feeling it, deeply within her soul, now that she was in the land of her ancestors.
He cursed himself for ever allowing her to come to the place.
But he knew deep down inside himself that she would have come alone, had he not come as her escort. She was too willful and determined once her mind was made up about something. He also knew for certain now that finding the rare butterfly came second to her true reasons for having come to the Montana Territory.
"Kirkdear, sweet Kirk," Jolena finally said, placing a hand to his cheek as he dropped his hand from her shoulder. "Please don't worry about me, and please don't preach to me. Although you are my older brother, please remember it is only by a few weeks. I am old enough to take care of myself, and most certainly to make my own choices in life. The Indian? Yes, I must admit I noticed his attraction to me. Please don't be threatened by that. I am sure he was intrigued to see an Indian woman who wears white woman's clothes. It's not surprising that he should wonder about an Indian woman who lives among the white people as though one of them."
"But don't you see, Jolena, you are one of us," Kirk pleaded. "Although you have the skin coloring of an Indian, you are in all other ways white. Please don't forget that and don't allow yourself to fantasize over finding your true people. It could inflict many hurts."
"Kirk, if your skin was copper and you had only Indian blood flowing through your veins, wouldn't you also want to know the truth of your heritage?" Jolena said, trying to reason with Kirk, yet thinking that she was truly wasting her time.
He had his mind setas did she!
She would search for her true heritage, no matter what Kirk said. She was driven to find the answers now that she had the opportunity!
"I would hope that I would be grateful for the life that had been handed me," Kirk said bitterly. He rose from the sofa and began pacing back and forth in front of the fireplace, his hands clasped tightly behind him.
Jolena moved slowly to her feet. She placed a hand to Kirk's arm and stopped him. She gazed into his eyes with a pleading in hers. "Kirk, no one could ever be as grateful as I am for what my white father and mother
