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And he wondered if it was fate that caused him to rescue her again.
He gazed into Elizabeth’s eyes, ignoring the other woman.
Yet that one, the total stranger, did seem to be the most helpless of the two as she clung to h
is arm with a wild desperation.
Still his attention remained on Elizabeth. “Are you all right?” he asked softly. “Are you able to swim to shore?”
“Yes, I’m sure that I can,” Elizabeth said, nodding anxiously. She trembled, now quite aware of how cold she was. It felt as if she were immersed in a tub of ice water.
She glanced over at the young woman, remembering what she had shouted while flailing her arms in the water. “I can swim to shore,” she quickly said. “But this young lady will need your assistance. She can’t swim. Please take her to shore. I shall be right behind you.”
“Kloshe, well enough,” Strong Heart said, releasing his hold on Elizabeth. He noticed the blue tint of her lips, now realizing the cold temperature of the water. “But hy-ak, hurry. It is me-sah-chie, bad, to stay in the water much longer. Go to shore. I shall lend you and the woman a blanket to warm you.”
“Thank you,” Elizabeth said. “That would be very kind of you.”
She was already swimming alongside him, yet found it hard to keep up with him. Although slowed from transporting the woman, this handsome Indian’s strong body seemed unaffected by its burden. In a matter of moments he would be on dry land.
Elizabeth envied the woman, and how the Indian held so possessively to her as he took her to shore. Elizabeth recalled the strength of his arms, having now been held three times in their steely grip. If not for the emergency of each of these times, she could look upon them as sheer heaven. This was how the Indian affected her—as no other man had, in her entire life.
Glad to have finally reached shore, Elizabeth rose shakily to her feet and stumbled out of the water. The breeze nipped at her wet flesh like clawing, icy fingers and her wet dress clung to her, causing her to shake and tremble.
Strong Heart thought her just as lovely soaking wet, as dry. His loins stirred as his gaze moved from her enchanting eyes and face, to her breasts that were so evident under the wet dress. He could even see the outline of her dark nipples, and he had to look away, for he could not help but want to possess such breasts with his lips and tongue.
He cast such thoughts aside, knowing that this was not the time, or the place, if there ever would be one.
Elizabeth glanced over at the young woman, seeing how purple her lips were, and how she was shivering uncontrollably herself from the chill.
Elizabeth went to the frail young woman, thinking her perhaps only sixteen years old, yet well grown for her age. Her large swell of breasts heaved as she breathed hard and coughed into her hands. “Everything is going to be all right now,” Elizabeth tried to reassure her, glad when the young woman gave her a flicker of a smile.
Elizabeth wanted to ask the young woman why she had tried to kill herself, but the Indian was there suddenly with his offering of blankets. He slipped one around Elizabeth’s trembling shoulders, and then the young woman’s.
Clutching the blanket closely around her, Elizabeth smiled up at him, and again thanked him. It seemed that he was giving her many reasons to repay him for his kindnesses. She wondered how this could ever be possible.
Strong Heart stood over Elizabeth, and their eyes met. “Do you think you can get home all right?” he asked, a hint of amusement in the depths of his intriguing, gray eyes. “You have yet to prove that you are capable of taking care of yourself. You did say that you were able to, did you not, after I saved you from falling from the bluff?”
Elizabeth was embarrassed by his teasing, yet more relieved at him having been there again for her. And though she was captivated by him more than ever, she knew that she must return home quickly for a change to warm clothes. She was already tempting fate by lingering even this long drenched to the skin.
Pneumonia was the last way she wanted to spend her time in this land that now held such a fascination for her.
Not the land, she corrected herself. The man. The Indian.
“I can make it home just fine, thank you,” she said politely, swallowing hard as he continued giving her a quiet, lingering stare.
Then he spoke slowly and eloquently to her. “When a favor is shown a white man, he feels it in his head and his tongue speaks,” he said. “When a kindness is shown to an Indian, he feels it in his heart and the heart has no tongue.”
He gazed at her a moment longer, then turned and walked away from her, leaving as abruptly as he had the other times.
Shaking from both the chill and her latest encounter with the handsome Indian, Elizabeth watched him ride away on a lovely roan horse. Yes, he was mysterious, but not at all dangerous.
He had proven more than once that he was a compassionate, caring man—and ah, so exquisitely handsome!
Then she wondered about his riding a horse. The Indians around Seattle were known as ‘canoe Indians,’ for most of their travel was done by canoe.
And, again she wondered about his name. Why did she always forget to ask him his name?
The young woman’s coughs drew Elizabeth’s thoughts from the Indian. Seeing that the young woman was as cold as herself, she went to her.
