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“We will continue searching until we find him,” High Hawk said tightly. “But I am certain he will come home soon on his own.”
Her stomach comfortably full, and her eyes feeling tired again, Joylynn shoved her empty plate aside. “I truly must retire to my bed,” she murmured. “May I?”
“You do not have to ask permission for such as that,” High Hawk said. He nodded toward her bed of blankets, then followed her there.
For a moment she thought that he might be planning to go to bed with her, but he had only followed her in order to drop the blanket down, to give her privacy while she slept.
She climbed onto the blankets, once again grateful that he treated her with respect. She no longer felt threatened by him. She knew that if he had been going to take her, he would have done it already.
She snuggled onto her side on the blankets and fell into another deep sleep, but this time she dreamed sweet things . . . like riding Swiftie through a meadow of flowers with High Hawk at her side.
They were carefree and happy.
They were laughing.
And then a hawk suddenly swept down from the sky, searching for snakes and rodents, and spooked her horse.
She cried out in her sleep as she fell from Swiftie in her dream, then awakened in a sweat.
No matter that the blanket was there between them, when High Hawk heard her cry out in her sleep again, he could not help going to her to see if she needed comfort.
He hurried to the blanket and held it aside, his heart going out to Joylynn when he saw her leaning on an elbow, tears streaming from her eyes.
“You dreamed bad things again,” he said gently.
“Yes, partly . . .” Joylynn said. The beginning of the dream had been so wonderful. She only wished that it could be true, that she could be with High Hawk, happy and carefree.
But it was never to be.
They had met only because he needed a captive.
She had been in the right place at the right time for him to capture.
High Hawk wondered what she meant by “partly,” but he did not ask her. She was already lying down again, her eyes closed so she could go back to sleep.
He knelt beside her for a moment and watched her. Then he looked up through the smoke hole and saw the full moon gazing back at him. Again he was filled with concern for his father.
Where . . . could . . . he be?
Tomorrow the search for him would widen, but High Hawk could not go himself. He had duties to his people that kept him home, for while his ahte was gone for so long, he had to take over his father’s duties as chief.
Ho, tomorrow he would send out his most skilled scouts, who best knew the art of tracking and searching.
If they did not find his father, then High Hawk would truly be worried that his ahte might never be home again among his people.
He dropped the blanket down, hiding Joylynn from his sight, but he would not leave her during the night hours.
He would guard her, not because he feared she might flee, but because he did not want someone to come in the night and take her away!
If white eyes knew, somehow, that she was missing, they might already be searching for her.
His jaw tightened. He would not lose this woman to anyone!
She . . . was . . . his!
CHAPTER TEN
Alone, having eaten the morning meal by herself, Joylynn found herself restless, but she was reluctant to go outside and discover what would be required of her today.
