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Protective instinct rose within Ella. The hair on her skin bristled, chilling her. Like a she-bear defending her mate. “No, Papa. I’ll not be quiet. This is my life you’re deciding. Shouldn’t I have some say in it? I love Raven. I want to be with him. I know it won’t be easy. Every marriage has hardships. If we love each other, we can get through them.”
“You’re too young.”
“I’m eighteen! Mama told me she was only nineteen when she married you. And she told me other things, Papa. How you kidnapped her while you were running from the law. Raven did not kidnap me. I came of my own accord. This is where I want to be.”
“Your mother should not have told you how we met. It’s… Well, it wasn’t a normal courtship, I’ll grant you that. But that’s in the past. This is the present. Your mother needs you, Ella.”
“No.” Ella stood her ground, though her heart pounded against her breasts. “She’ll let me go. She told me so. You can’t hold onto me forever to ease your loss of David. It’s been fifteen years. You need to let your son go.”
“He wasn’t just my son. He was your brother.”
“I’m sorry, Papa.” Ella sniffed back a tear. Not for David, but for her parents. “I don’t remember him. I was too young. I ache for your loss. Truly I do. But I can’t take his place for the rest of my life. My life is here now, with the man I love.”
Her father sighed and lifted his gaze to Raven. “You are called?”
“Silver Raven.”
“Silver Raven.” His gaze shifted to Standing Elk. “This is the child I remember?”
“Yes.”
“Raven?” Ella tugged at his arm. “I don’t understand what they’re talking about.”
“I don’t either, tehila.” He turned to his father. “Father?”
“You are too young to remember,” Standing Elk said. “You had seen three or four winters. Robert Morgan brought his woman to us. She had been shot. Summer Breeze healed her.”
“Papa?”
“It’s true, Ella. Your mother would have died otherwise. I owe these people more than I can ever repay.” He sighed, and his rifle dropped to the soft dirt floor of the tipi. “I never thought payment would be my only child.”
Ella warmed, and she couldn’t help smiling. These had been the kind Indians. But so many questions haunted her. Her father had his own reasons for hating Indians, her mother had said. Reasons other than her brother’s kidnapping?
“I told you then,” Standing Elk said, “and I tell you now. We do not ac
cept payment for what we have a duty to give.”
“I’m not payment for anything, Papa.” Ella’s hands whipped to her hips as determination burned within her. “I’ll not be treated as such. I’ve said before, I’m here of my own volition. This is where I want to be.”
Her father’s lips twitched. Was that a smile? At least the beginning of one? “You’re the spittin’ image of your mother at your age, darlin’. So beautiful and feisty.”
“Thank you. That’s a wonderful compliment, Papa.”
“What will I tell your mama?”
“You’ll tell her what she already knows. That I’ve found the man I love and I intend to marry him, live here with him, take care of him, and bear his children. This is the life I was meant to lead, Papa. Where is Mama, anyway?”
“She’s outside the village with the wagon and team. I didn’t want her to come here with me. I wasn’t sure it’d be safe.”
“You are safe here, Robert Morgan,” Standing Elk said.
“Yes,” Ella said. “Please go find Mama. I want to see her. I want her to meet my husband.”
“Your husband? You have already married?”
“Not in our way, Papa, but in his. But I would like to marry in our way, also. Would you…marry us?”
Her father’s amber eyes glistened. Tears? She’d never in her life seen her father cry. He didn’t now, though she could see the tears threatened. He let out a sigh. “If it’s what you wish, Ella.”
