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“The bats are returning from their nightly feeding,” Dancing Cloud whispered back, slowly and comfortingly stroking her back through the blanket. “The storm must have interrupted their return to their home. They seized the opportunity now since the rain has stopped.”
He paused and squinted his eyes as he looked farther into the cave. “The cave is deep,” he then said. “Soon we will not even be aware of their presence. They will reach their resting places.”
“We must get out of here as soon as possible,” Lauralee whispered shakily, gazing wild-eyed up at Dancing Cloud. “I don’t want to chance them discovering us here. There are so many. They could surely kill us.”
“If you wish we can leave the cave,” Dancing Cloud said, gently framing her face between his hands. “But I can assure you that we are safe here. You will be much more comfortable in here out of the dampness that the rain has left in the grass, trees, and air. The embers of the fire in the cave will be enough to give us lasting warmth until morning.”
Lauralee looked up at him a moment longer, then lowered her eyes when she recalled only awhile ago when she had fled from him as though he were a monster.
“How can you be so kind to me after . . . after . . . I . . .” she started to say, but was stopped when Dancing Cloud placed a finger to her lips, gently sealing them.
“Do not fret so about something that you were driven to do because of something that is troubling you,” he said thickly. “No matter what you have done, we still remain friends.”
Dancing Cloud having put it to her in such an impersonal way, that he now only classified himself as her friend, made Lauralee’s insides quiver with a warning. Had she lost his love after having only gained it?
“Dancing Cloud, I’m sorry for my behavior,” she said, her voice breaking. “I never wanted to hurt you. Dancing Cloud, I love you so much. I . . . I . . . need you. But I’m afraid of this need. How can I learn not to be afraid to show my love for you? Or is it too late? Has your love for me turned into something else?”
Dancing Cloud wove his fingers through her silken coppery-red hair and drew her lips close to his. “I shall love you forever,” he said huskily. “Even if you are not there to return the love. A love as powerful as mine is for you can never be cast aside into the wind.”
He wanted to kiss her, but he was afraid that doing so might set off something within her mind that would send her away from him again.
He uncoiled his fingers from her hair and started to lean away from her.
But her arms were there too quickly locked around his neck for him to move.
“The bats are gone,” she murmured. “I feel much more relaxed now. Will you please kiss me? Will you please teach me how it feels to be loved? I want you. I need you. Please teach me how not to fear these feelings I have for you.”
“You have always fled my arms when I have tried to become close to you,” Dancing Cloud said, smoothing her hair back from her face. “How can you be sure you will not leave me again, as frightened? I want to make love to you. Yet I fear this want, as you do. I fear you denying again that which I want to share with you.”
“I want you too badly now ever to run from you again,” Lauralee said, her hands already slipping his fringed shirt over his shoulders. “If I start recalling the past, I shall not allow it to devastate me again.”
“Your past? What happened in your past that is so ugly to you? I know of your mother’s death. Was there something else? Do you carry invisible war scars in your memory that you do not even wish to share with me?” Dancing Cloud asked, his insides quavering as her fingers moved along his chest, and across his flat stomach, stopping at the waist of his buckskin breeches.
“You truly don’t want to know,” she murmured. Her fingers trembled as she dared to lower his breeches. Yet she knew this was the only way to prove to herself that her feelings for him could overcome her remembrances of her ugly past.
“Did a man force himself on you?” Dancing Cloud asked, lifting her chin with a finger so that her eyes would lock with his.
“Not I,” she said, swallowing hard. “My mother. I witnessed my mother being raped. A Yankee. During the war, a Yankee raped and killed my mother.”
She could hardly believe that she had actually told someone besides her father and the priest with whom she had confided everything all of those years ago the terrible secret of her past.
And now that she had purged herself of the ugliness, she truly felt as though she might be able to leave it behind her.
“You have carried this with you since you were five?” Dancing Cloud said, then drew her gently into his arms and held her close. “No wonder you have been too frightened to allow yourself to feel anything for a man. O-ge-ye, my woman, I will show you how it should be between a man and a woman who mutually love each other.”
“You will be gentle?” Lauralee asked, her pulse racing at the thought of actually giving herself to a man sexually. But she felt that if she didn’t do this now, she might not only lose Dancing Cloud. she might never find the courage ever to make love to a man.
She hoped and prayed that she would not be stifled again by the thoughts of the rape.
Especially not while searching for bliss within the arms of the man she loved.
She wanted it behind her.
Once and for all!
For as long as Dancing Cloud would love her.
For forever!
