AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She turned toward Speckled Fawn again and slowly sat down. “It didn’t take much for my husband to decide to remove his belt and use it on me,” she said miserably. “He truly didn’t need a reason for doing it. He seemed to take joy from seeing me react to the beatings. My main regret, even more than the pain I went through, was that my daughter saw her papa do this to me. The sight is surely engraved on her tiny heart and brain forever and ever.”
“Lordie, lordie,” was all that Speckled Fawn could say.
“I was so afraid that one of those beatings might kill me, and so afraid of what this was doing to my daughter, I decided to leave with Megan,” Shirleen said, tears filling her eyes. “But my plan was foiled by the Comanche renegades.”
Shirleen realized that for the first time since she had met this kind woman, Speckled Fawn was rendered speechless.
Chapter Seventeen
She is most fair, and thereunto,
Her life doth rightly harmonize.
—Lowell
Always missing his daughter when he was separated from her, Blue Thunder was with Little Bee at his Aunt Bright Sun’s lodge. Bright Sun was down at the river, getting fresh water.
Ever so lovingly, Blue Thunder was holding Little Bee on his lap beside the slow-burning lodge fire while she was proudly showing him a new doll made by a friend’s mother.
Blue Thunder smiled at all the questions that came from his daughter’s mouth today; he enjoyed her inquisitive side. When she was a grown woman, her curiosity would cause her to question many things before allowing a man into her life as her husband.
“Who is the white lady who is new to our village?” Little Bee asked, gazing intently into her father’s midnight-dark eyes. “Why is she still here in our village? Is she going to marry our shaman like the other white woman married Dancing Shadow?”
“No, the woman is not going to marry Morning Thunder,” Blue Thunder said, his eyes gleaming with pride and love for this wonderful child of his. “And who is she? I am only finding out myself who she truly is and what her life was before I saved her from the renegades.”
He paused, then said, “And where did she come from? She had her own family before she was stolen away by the renegades.”
That last statement, that last truth, was hard for Blue Thunder to say. If this woman had no husband, he would have already
kissed her and held her to his heart as he asked her to be his wife.
But as it was, he had much to sort through before they could act on their feelings for one another.
He would never forget that she had told him she was ready to leave her husband before the renegades had arrived and changed her life forever. He wondered what the man had done to make her want to turn her back on him.
He understood how much courage it must have taken to actually plan to set out from home, alone with her child.
He hoped to get all the answers soon, for he wanted to make Shirleen part of his life.
Ho, he was going to marry her.
He would find a way to help her straighten
out her life, for she deserved far more than what life had brought her until now.
“Ahte, I know that you have searched for the woman’s little girl more than once. Have you finally found her?” Little Bee asked, her eyes wide as she thought about the doll she had given to the mother for that other little girl.
“No, she has not been found,” Blue Thunder said thickly, feeling a pang of regret that he could not give his daughter a more positive answer.
He drew Little Bee gently into his arms. “Little Bee, my micinski, I am so proud of you,” he said as she dropped her doll so that she could fling her arms around his neck, returning his loving embrace. “I know I have told you more than once that I am in awe of you. You are only four winters of age, yet you have the intelligence of someone much, much older.”
“That is because my ahte is gauche, chief,” Little Bee said proudly. She leaned a little away from him so that she could give him a wide smile as she gazed into his eyes.
Blue Thunder laughed softly as he returned her loving gaze.
A voice speaking his name from beyond the entrance flap drew Blue Thunder’s attention from this special moment with his daughter. He regretted that it had been brought to an end all too soon.
He recognized the voice.
