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She knew now just how wrong she was ever to think something so vile about him . . . or his people. He . . . they . . . had been nothing but giving and caring to her. And she had been nothing but cold and unresponsive in return.
That was not the sort of person she was, and she felt suddenly ashamed of herself.
If this man truly wanted to help her find her daughter, oh, how wonderful it was . . . how wonderful he was!
She was so taken by him and his kindness, she stepped away from him, leaned her face into her hands and sobbed hard.
“Come,” Blue Thunder said softly. He gently took her by the elbow and walked with her back inside the tepee. He led her down on the pelts beside the fire, then picked up the tiny dress.
“Do you want to tell me now what this small dress means to you?” he asked, kneeling beside her.
Her eyes slowly lifted. “Yes, it means a lot to me,” she murmured, a sob catching in the depths of her throat. “I did make this dress. It was sewn specifically for my daughter.” She lowered her eyes and wiped tears from them. “I am so afraid that she . . . is . . . dead.”
“Did the Comanche renegades take her?” Blue Thunder asked as he gently placed the dress on Shirleen’s lap. He felt keenly relieved that he had finally reached her heart, and that she was talking with him. “Was she taken by a renegade with a huge nose . . . the renegade leader who goes by the name Big Nose?”
“After I was abducted, I saw the man for a short while, and then . . . and then . . . he disappeared from the others,” Shirleen said. “But no. As far as I know, he did not take my daughter.”
She brushed fresh tears from her face and gazed into the midnight-dark eyes of the man who was quickly taking over her heart and making it his!
“When I looked outside, just before the attack, I saw that the gate to my yard was open,” she said. “I also noticed that my daughter was no longer in the yard. She . . . she . . . might have wandered off on her own before the Indians came.”
“My warriors and I will leave again tomorrow to search for your daughter,” Blue Thunder said. He searched her eyes as she openly gazed into his. “Would you like to join the search? Can you ride a horse? Are you well enough, and strong enough, to accompany us?”
He believed that a woman, even wounded, would go to the ends of the earth to save her child.
He knew this to be true about Shirleen, for she had done nothing but mourn her loss since her arrival at his village!
He knew deep love when he saw it, and he saw it in this woman for her child.
Shirleen could hardly believe that Blue Thunder was actually offering her the opportunity to ride with him, to help search for Megan.
She was not at all sure what to say. Although everything within her cried out to do as he suggested, she was afraid to say yes.
His world was vastly different from hers.
And there was the question of trust again.
Although everything inside her heart told her that this man was trustworthy to the very core of his being, he was still an Indian, and she had seen the atrocities other Indians had committed.
Filled with conflicting emotions, she lowered her head and did not respond to his question. She actually was too breathless to speak.
Trying to understand her stubbornness, her continued obvious distrust of him, Blue Thunder stared at her for a moment longer, then left quickly.
Shirleen realized now just what she had done by not speaking up right away. She should have agreed to his kind offer, even if it had seemed out of place for such a strong chief as he to include a woman, a tiny white woman at that, in his plans.
Thinking that she had surely insulted him, and thinking she had lost her chance to do as he had suggested, Shirleen threw herself down on the blankets beside the fire and cried.
Chapter Fourteen
There are loyal hearts,
There are spirits brave,
There are souls that are
Pure and true.
—Bridges
