Chapter 7

Drew couldn't help thinking how good it was to be with Cassie even after all this time. How natural it seemed to help her with her shawl and offer his arm. How right it felt to ask if she wanted to meet his daughter.

"What—happened to your—wife, Drew?" Cassie asked as they made their way out of the headquarters building and onto the path that skirted the parade ground.

"She died of a fever on the way out west."

"How long—" she wanted to know. "How long ago was that?"

Drew had to think back. The last months seemed jumbled, compacted somehow. They had left Fort Leavenworth the first of October—too late, as it turned out, to miss the first of the season's howling blizzards. They'd been caught on the flats west of Scott's Bluff and hadn't known whether to batten themselves down to withstand the storm or forge ahead to Fort Laramie. They'd decided to press on, and with Laura and Meggie lying bundled in layers of blankets and buffalo skins in one of the army ambulances, they'd fought their way through the freezing wind and pelting snow. Meggie had done fine in spite of the hardship, but by the time they reached the fort, Laura was coughing and feverish. The following morning the doctor diagnosed her ailment as pneumonia, and by midnight she was dead. It had happened too fast for either Drew or Meggie to comprehend.

"Laura passed on in November," Drew finally answered.

"I am—sorry—for your loss," Cassie said, fumbling with the English words. "How is your—little girl getting on—without her mother?"

Drew felt a nudge of conscience that he hadn't been more attentive to his daughter's needs. "Well enough, I suppose."

Their walk had taken them across the compound to the bake house, one of the two sandstone buildings in the fort. After Lila Wilcox's tiny cabin, it was Meggie's favorite place.

Though a chill, damp wind that promised snow had pursued them all the way, when they opened the door the bakery breathed summer in their faces. The air inside was heavy, ripe and yeasty with the smell of baking bread.

Meggie was wrapped in an apron from her neck to her toes and up to her elbows in bread dough. As soon as she caught sight of him, she abandoned her work.

"Papa, Papa!" she cried. "Sergeant Goodwin's letting me help him mix the bread!"

The announcement was hardly necessary, and before Drew could stop her, Meggie had thrown herself against him. In one big hug, she had covered his crisp uniform blouse and dark blue trousers with a loaf's worth of flour.

"Oh, Meggie!" Drew admonished her, scowling at the mess she'd made of him. Still, he bent and caught her up in his arms.

"We already baked—" She skewed her face trying to remember. "How many loaves did we bake, Sergeant Goodwin?"

"Eight dozen," the round-faced sergeant answered. "Ninety-six."

"Did you know that there are twelve loaves in a dozen?" Meggie asked him.

"As a matter of fact I did," Drew answered, swiping at a smudge of flour on Meggie's cheek.

"And you know what else?"

"I'm afraid I don't have time for guessing games, Meggie." Drew was already wondering how long it would take to get back to his cabin and brush the flour out of his uniform. With Sergeant O'Hearn laid up with his head wound, and his company one lieutenant shy of full strength, Drew was trying to keep a closer eye than usual on afternoon drill.

"I brought someone by," he continued, "I want you to meet."

Meggie reluctantly opened the scope of her regard to include the woman at his side, and he felt his daughter stiffen. Drew proceeded with the introductions anyway.

"Meggie, this is Cassie Morgan. We have known each other since we were barely bigger than you. Cassie, this is my daughter Meggie."

"Hello, Meggie," Cassie greeted her.

Meggie simply stared.

"What do you say, Meggie?" Drew prodded her, torn between the concern that Meggie was going to ignore Cassie's greeting completely or mention the Indian tattoo, "Hullo," the little girl finally murmured, and buried her face against his shoulder.

"Since Laura died, Meggie hasn't taken much to strangers," he hastened to explain.

"I think she's wonderful, Drew," Cassie answered, shifting around behind him to get a better look at his child. "She has your eyes."

He supposed he'd hoped that Meggie would show some affinity for his old friend. Perhaps she would have if he'd been able to give Meggie and Cassie time to get acquainted, but time was a luxury he didn't have.

"Thank Sergeant Goodwin for letting you help," he instructed his daughter. "And let me get that apron off."

"We still got baking to do," Meggie protested.

"It's time to go find Lila."

The little girl stood with her hands propped on her hips and a mutinous expression on her face.

"Lila will have finished her washing by now," Drew said as reasonably as he could. "Lila will take you home, give you something to eat, and read to you."

"I don't want to take a nap," Meggie answered, not the least bit fooled by the euphemism.

"Go along now, lass," Sergeant Goodwin offered, trying to help. "Somehow I'll manage to get this baking done without you."

Meggie waited a moment longer before relenting. "I won't take a nap," she muttered, and turned her back so Drew could work the strings on her apron. He fumbled with the knots and then had the devil's own time fastening the row of velvet-covered buttons down the front of her coat.

Meggie spent the time looking Cassandra up and down. He'd seen court-martial panels that looked less formidable.

"Thank Sergeant Goodwin for letting you help him bake," Drew prodded his daughter a second time.

"Thank you, Sergeant Goodwin," Meggie offered obediently. "I'll come back and help tomorrow."

Drew cast the sergeant an appreciative glance as he ushered the two females toward the door.

The weather had worsened outside, and they were all but blown toward the small hardscrabble encampment where the company laundresses lived. Every fort had a soapsuds row made up of tents or tiny makeshift cabins with cauldrons of wash water steaming out front and lines full of laundry radiating like spiders' webs across the back.

The sound of hoofbeats, war whoops, and gunfire erupted behind them just as they reached the head of the row. Drew gave Cassie and Meggie a shove toward the nearest cabin and grabbed for his pistol.

Three riders swooped past, headed for the clutch of ragtag tepees perpetually clustered to the west of the fort.

Young bucks, Drew managed to reason through the blood drumming in his head. Friendlies liquored-up and looking for trouble.

The concept of friendly Indians was not one Drew had managed to assimilate. Still, he knew that they were part of life here at the fort. This was how the bureaucrats back in Washington wanted their Indians—tamed, living near supply depots, dependent on the whites for clothes and food. It wouldn't further anyone's aims to shoot a friendly Indian by mistake.

Though his heart continued to thump erratically, Drew eased the hammer down and holstered his pistol. He looked around for Meggie and Cassandra. They were scrambling to their feet a few yards away.

"She knocked me down!" Meggie sputtered, outraged. "She made me get mud on my coat!"

"It's all right, Meggie," Drew assured her.

"Lila won't give me a star for inspection if I have mud on me!" she wailed, and burst into tears.

Cassie came to her knees beside the child and began scrubbing at the spots with the tail of her shawl.

Meggie yelled louder.

The racket brought Lila Wilcox from her cabin near the middle of the row. She seemed to take in the situation at a glance. "Now, Miss Meggie, what's all this crying about?"

There was no question that his daughter had a flare for the dramatic. Meggie related her tale of woe, complete with pitiful sniffles and reproachful looks in Cassie's direction.

"Well, seeing as how it's not your fault, child," Lila said, coming to take the girl's hand, "I'll overlook the mud and brush it out myself once the spots are dry."

Meggie drew a shuddery breath, as if she were only partially satisfied.

Once the child had been quieted, Lila looked Cassandra up and down. Drew could see it wasn't a cursory inspection, either. Certainly Lila saw how the mud had soaked into the front of Cassie's skirt and the way the jostling had set her hat askew. Between that and the lock of hair that had worked loose of its pins, the tattoo on her cheek was clearly visible.

"So you're the one," Lila murmured at last and turned her head, dismissing Cassie as if she were invisible.

Drew couldn't allow an army laundress to snub a woman he was escorting, and cleared his throat. "Cassie, may I present Mrs. Lila Wilcox," he began in a voice that rang with command. "Lila has taken care of Meggie since we came to the fort."

Cassie inclined her head.

"And Lila, this is Miss Cassandra Morgan, lately of Kentucky."

"And even more lately of the Cheyenne, the way I hear tell," Lila said under her breath.

Drew glared, angry at Lila's outspokenness and then proud of how calmly Cassie met the older woman's gaze.

"How do you do?"

"'Bout as well as a body can expect," Lila answered, though a faint, dull flush had begun to creep into her cheeks.

Confused by undercurrents he couldn't quite fathom, Drew went on. "I was just bringing Meggie over from the bake house."

"You needn't have done that, Captain Reynolds. Old Goodwin and I had things worked out."

"I thought I might just as well. I know you've been falling behind on your other duties."

"And I do appreciate your help," Lila said almost begrudgingly. "But then, Meggie always enjoys spending time with her pa, even if it's only a few minutes he can spare in the middle of the day."

Drew felt the sharp edge of Lila's tongue, but chose to ignore the sting.

"Well, then," he answered. "If you and Meggie are set for the afternoon, why don't I see Miss Morgan back to the major's quarters?"

"Why don't you do that?" Lila agreed. "Miss Meggie and I have a couple of special things we've been planning, don't we, pumpkin?"

Meggie nodded and tugged Lila toward the tiny cabin on soapsuds row.

"Good-bye, Meggie," Cassandra called after them. "Good-bye, Mrs. Wilcox."

Both of them chose to ignore her.

* * *

"Poor little tyke!" Sally McGarrity sniffed as she and Cassandra made their way up toward the river and the bridge where the sutler kept his store. "I wish you could have seen Meggie when they arrived! Captain Reynolds kept her fed and clean enough, but he'd bundled her up—"

"Bundled?" Cassie's understanding of English was growing quickly, but there were still words and phrases that puzzled her.

"Wrapped her up," Sally explained, gesturing. "He made her wear every speck of clothing she owned. And Meggie wasn't talking—not a word. Not even to him."

Cassie found it hard to believe that Meggie Reynolds had ever been silent.

"She'd lost her mother, after all," Sally went on. "Barely four years old and left alone with only her father to tend her. Not that he didn't try. God knows, Drew Reynolds is a man who tries. But he didn't have any idea what that baby needed."

Cass fumbled through the unfamiliar words in Sally's story and seemed to catch the drift of it.

"Alma, Sylvie, and I took turns keeping Meggie while he got settled. We held her, petted her, and made her dresses. She was growing out of all her things, and Drew had no idea what to do about it. We played with her and fed her gingerbread."

"Gingerbread," Cassie said, remembering.

"We talked and talked to Meggie, and finally Meggie started answering back." Sally's mouth tilted in a smile. "And she hasn't stopped talking since."

Cassie nodded, struggling to take everything in. "Drew said her mother—only died in—November."

Sally scowled and huffed. "I daresay the captain barely knows that poor woman is gone except that she's left him with that child. Lila Wilcox has been a godsend. She's a rough-and-ready sort, but she's been good for Meggie.

"Still," Sally went on, "that child needs more than Lila can give her. She needs love, and I just don't know if Captain Reynolds is the kind of man who can show affection."

Cassie thought of how Drew had been when they were growing up in Kentucky. He'd loved to tease and joke. There had always been warmth in his eyes, and he treated people with an easy kindness that made them like him. She had seen the change in him this morning. He had pressed her to tell him about Julia, spoken sharply to the bakery sergeant and Lila Wilcox. He had been impatient to hand Meggie over to Mrs. Wilcox and to leave Cassie herself at the McGarritys' door. It was as if Drew were always somewhere else, focused on something far more important.

She and Sally were just passing the cavalry stables when Alain Jalbert came by on his horse. Both women turned to watch him. Today Cass saw the warrior in him, the pride in the way he carried himself, the war club tied to the back of his saddle, the medicine bag on a thong around his neck. The man seemed to have taken it upon himself to protect her in this strange new place, and she was glad of it.

"Another singular fellow, our Mr. Jalbert," Sally observed, and opened the door to the sutler's store before Cassie could ask what she meant.

Cassie had been in trading posts before, though Gray Falcon had been careful about which ones. White captives were at a premium when it came to bartering with the army, and her Cheyenne husband had been too practical to let some enterprising trader make a profit selling Gray Falcon's wife back to the whites. Still, the smell of curing furs, gun oil, sizing, and spices was familiar. So was the dimness, relieved only by two lanterns hanging from the cabin's crossbeam and the glow from the alcove around back where three men sat gambling.

Sally had invited Drew to come for supper, and she had insisted on going to the store to get some "delicacies." As Mrs. McGarrity went about her shopping, Cassie wandered around the room. Though she could see that the stock was low, probably because of the difficulty of winter travel, there were still all manner of goods Cassie had rarely seen in the posts that catered to the Indians. There were gleaming steel needles, spools of thread in rainbow colors, bolts of strong, high-quality cloth.

A box of small, bright scissors caught her eye. Cunningly designed to resemble the cranes she'd seen fishing in the lakes up north, the scissors lay in a box at the edge of the counter beside trays of thimbles and tiny copper bells. She took a pair of scissors out of the box and slid her thumb and forefinger into the holes to test their weight. She worked the blades and saw that the bird's bill opened and closed as if he were singing. Cassie wanted the scissors almost more than she wanted to draw another breath.

The traders who came to the villages and most of the trading posts she'd visited put out small goods for the Indians to steal. It was a sign of goodwill on the traders' part, a sign that they were willing to indulge the Indians' enjoyment of a little harmless pilfering in preparation for the hours of earnest trading that would follow. Usually the objects weren't as fine as this, or as expensive. But the scissors were out where anyone could finger them, not back on the shelves.

Glancing up to see if the sutler was occupied, Cassie slipped her fingers from the holes in the handles of the tiny scissors and made as if to put them back. She palmed the scissors instead, and just as she was pocketing her prize, a big man in a sweat-stained shirt and battered hat loomed out of the shadows and grabbed her wrist. He dragged Cassie across the room to where the sutler and Sally McGarrity stood bargaining.

"Hey, Jessup," he jeered, "you need to keep a closer eye on your inventory when there's In'juns about." The man's grip tightened, forcing Cass to open her fingers. "These scissors belong to you?"

Sally McGarrity stared, taking in the scissors still tucked in Cassie's palm and the guilt she knew shone in her face.

Sally's eyes widened. "Cassandra!" she murmured in horror.

Cassie's flush sizzled all the way to her hairline.

The sutler, Jessup, let his hard, black gaze slide over her, coming to rest on the tattoo that peeked from beneath her bonnet brim. His eyes lit at the sight of it.

"Don't you make no mistake, girl," he told her. "This here's a respectable sutler's store, not some redskin trading post. We don't put things out for squaws to steal."

New humiliation burned in Cassie's cheeks. She couldn't think how to defend herself.

Instead Sally McGarrity spoke up for her. "It's a natural mistake for her to make if that's how things are done at the Indians' trading posts. Put the scissors—and all the rest of this—on my husband's account."

Cassie stood nailed to the spot while Jessup packed up the scissors and Sally McGarrity's purchases. She knew she should apologize, though the thought of speaking one word to the man behind the counter made her skin crawl. She would address herself to Sally once they got outside. But even when they reached the street, Cassandra's tongue seemed glued to the roof of her mouth.

They had walked a fair distance in the direction of the major's quarters before Sally spoke. "There are bound to be things that are different here from what you've grown used to," she began, "but we whites do not lie and we do not steal."

Cass hadn't seen that that was true when it came to the white men's treaties and Indian land, but she held her peace.

"If you're going to live among us," Sally went on, "you're going to have to learn to abide by certain rules."

Were they rules she had learned as a child and now forgotten? Cassie wondered. Or rules that had only come to apply because she'd been living as an Indian?

"I'm sorry, Mrs. McGarrity," Cassie said, finally finding her voice. "Nothing like—this—will ever—happen again."

"See that it doesn't, Cassandra," the older woman answered, and forged ahead.

* * *

"In the end that sly old horse threw the general," Drew said, grinning as he came to the end of his story. "And if horses could laugh, that one would have."

Cassie chuckled and stole another glance at the man who occupied the opposite end of the settee. This was the Drew Reynolds she remembered. He was charming and wry and affable. Tonight he had been an ideal dinner companion, arriving at the stroke of six o'clock with a tin of toffee for Sally McGarrity and a coil of ribbons for her.

The meal had gone well. With the help of the major's striker, Sally had put together a dinner of quail with peach and brandy sauce, roasted potatoes, some sort of desiccated green vegetable, and muffins served with the raspberry jam Sally had bought at the sutler's store.

If Drew had heard about the incident this afternoon, he gave no sign of it. Cassie's cheeks burned just thinking what he would say about her thievery. From this day on, she vowed, she wouldn't take so much as berries from a bramble bush.

When she turned her attention back to Drew and Major McGarrity, they were still telling soldier stories. Cassandra had heard Cheyenne warriors do the same, sitting around the campfire until the moon had set. In those tales the Cheyenne seemed to venerate daring, to honor bravery in battle. These white soldiers spoke with humor and derision about their leaders and their own experiences. Or perhaps these white soldiers didn't tell tales of their bold and bloody deeds to impress the women, as the Cheyenne did.

As they sat in the quiet parlor finishing up the dishes of dried-apple cobbler with condensed milk, Cassandra unabashedly studied Drew. She recognized the confidence of the boy she'd known in the surety of the man Drew had become. She saw how the softness and vulnerability in his features had hardened with time and experience. Yet as the two men talked of what Cassandra was beginning to understand had been a long and brutal war, there were no shadows in Drew's eyes.

This morning when they spoke about the attack on their families' wagons, Cassie had watched those pewter gray eyes go dark with anguish and bitterness and grief. She knew without him telling her that surviving the massacre had affected Drew far more profoundly than anything that had happened since. He might be able to spin out tales of the Civil War, but she knew he would never voluntarily speak of what had befallen their families.

"I heard the old man was a tyrant," the major was saying about one of the officers when Cassandra picked up the thread of their conversation, "I'm just glad I never served under him."

In the brief silence that followed the major's words, McGarrity spooned up the last of his cobbler and milk and set his dish aside. "Well," he said, "as much as I hate to bring such a pleasant evening to a close, I need to head over to the telegraph office and see if the message I'm expecting has come through."

"If you don't mind, Ben," Sally McGarrity spoke up, setting her dish aside, "I think I'll go with you."

The major looked around at his wife as if she'd lost her mind. "For God's sake, Sally, it's twenty degrees!"

"Then I suppose I should wear my heavy cloak."

Sally McGarrity rose and took a soft brown garment from one of the hooks beside the door.

"But—but what about Cassandra and Captain Reynolds?" Ben McGarrity sputtered.

"Oh, they're old friends," she answered, handing him his overcoat. "I'm sure they can keep each other company."

Drew and Cassie laughed at how Sally bustled the major outside.

"I think Mrs. McGarrity meant to give us some time alone," Drew observed.

"Oh?" Cassie murmured. "Do we—need that?"

"I don't know," Drew answered. "Do we?"

Cassie wasn't sure what he expected her to say. They had already talked about the past, about the circumstances that had brought each of them here. They had spoken about Julia. Did he suspect—did Sally suspect—that there was more she could tell him about his sister's death? Was there more she wanted Drew to know?

"Sally has been—very kind," Cassie said instead. "Everyone here at the—fort has been—very kind." It wasn't exactly the truth, but she didn't want to mention either the incident with the sutler or the way everyone stared at her.

Drew seemed to know about the staring. "The longer you're here, the less of an oddity you'll seem."

She nodded, though she wasn't sure he was right. "What do you intend to do with yourself, now that you are back with your own kind?"

Back with her own kind? Just what kind was that?

Cassie stared at Drew. He had been "her own kind" once, but he wasn't the man he'd been nine years ago. His experiences and his fears and his hatreds had changed him, just as the things she had done and seen had changed her. But if Drew wasn't "her own kind" anymore, who was?

Only Alain Jalbert seemed as caught between two worlds as she was. Only Hunter seemed able to understand how it felt to be both the same and different from everyone else.

Still, Drew was right. She needed to think about what lay ahead. To do that, she had to put the past to rest.

Cassandra knew the answer before she spoke, and yet she needed to hear the words of confirmation. "No one but you—survived—the attack on the—wagons, did they?"

"No one survived but me."

Drew's response boxed her in the way she knew it would.

"I'm sorry if I didn't make that clear this morning," he went on, "but I thought you knew."

"I expect I did," she admitted.

Drew turned toward her and laid his arm along the back of the settee. "Major McGarrity has sent inquiries to Kentucky," he said. "If he can't find relatives to send you to, we'll make sure you have what you need to make a life for yourself."

She tried to think what kind of a life that might be. It would not be the life she had envisioned when she was fifteen, a life with Drew and his children. No white man would take an Indian's leavings. She had long ago accepted that she would never nurse a baby or mother a child. Nor were the skills that had distinguished her in the Cheyenne camp of use to her here.

Her future stretched before her, barren and bleak. What was she going to do now that her life was beginning again? She'd started over twice before, once as a slave and once as Gray Falcon's woman. Who was she going to be this time?

As if he had recognized the depth of her confusion, Drew tightened his arm around her shoulders. "We'll do everything we can to help you find your place."

Her place. That was all she'd ever wanted, somewhere to belong. The thing that had always eluded her.

She looked up into his face, seeking confirmation. "Can you promise me a place, Drew?"

"I promise I'll do everything I can to help you find where you belong," he told her solemnly.

Cassie smiled up into his eyes, and though she had only meant to acknowledge his kindness, the moment their gazes met, awareness flared in both of them. Her skin tingled where his fingers brushed her shoulder. His eyes seemed to brighten. Her body suffused with heat. His breathing came ragged in the silence. The air went thick and sultry between them.

It could have been the rugged cast to his features, the wild-flower scent of her hair, or the hollow ache of loneliness in each of them. It might have been his strength or hers, her need or his that made them suddenly so aware of the bond that linked them still. In the end it didn't matter what it was. The essence of what they'd shared years before drifted around them like lingering smoke.

"Oh Drew," Cassie whispered, "should it still be like this between us?"

"No," he answered her.

But it was.

The attraction was all scent and heat and promise. She recognized years-old desire in his eyes, saw a fresh tide of yearning erode the hard line of his mouth. Perilous expectation rose in her.

They came together as if the kiss were preordained, his mouth seeking hers, her lips opening in welcome. His arms tightened around her, drawing her against him.

Cassandra closed her eyes and savored him, responding and remembering all the intimacies they'd shared. The texture of his lips, the languorous perusal of her mouth, the taste of Drew were all wondrously familiar. The strength in that long, hard-muscled body and the tickle of his mustache were surprising and new.

She curled deeper into his embrace. He took full advantage of her willingness, circling her lips with his tongue, seeking the warm, sweet cavern that beckoned him.

Sharing so much of herself with Drew awakened a slow, deep need in Cassandra, a sharp, delicious quickening. She craved his touch and his taste and his tenderness in ways she never had when she was young. Cassie craved them as a woman did—a woman who had known pain, brutality, and loneliness. A woman who needed comfort, security, and peace. She ached for everything to be as it had been years ago when life was filled with joy and Drew Reynolds loved her, body and soul.

How clearly she remembered the spring they'd discovered each other. They had been sitting barefoot and ankle-deep in the icy stream that carved a meandering channel between his father's land and hers when Drew had leaned across and kissed her. He'd done it shyly, hesitantly that first time. Yet even then he'd kissed with a natural affinity for the act that was partly honest affection and partly burgeoning curiosity.

Cassie had loved him for as long as she could remember, and now that she had a chance to let him know, she kissed him back.

Her headlong willingness had turned the simple, experimental brush of lips to something else, something delicious and intoxicating, something forbidden. They had sprawled back on the new spring grass, touching and stroking and holding. In those first few moments they had learned how a spark could ignite between a man and a woman, learned the power of a single kiss to delight and tantalize and excite. They had withdrawn shaken by what they'd discovered. In some deep, essential way, they were children no more.

Tonight, as their lips parted and their tongues merged, there was an echo of that first discovery—the surprise and the elation, the awakening and the promise. What passed between them now was intense, adult. Their feelings had names—passion, yearning, and desire.

That those emotions should leap to life between them after all this time was poignant and bittersweet. But both of them knew this was the wrong time and place for them to feel such fierce attraction. They were the wrong people to touch and ache and need.

Slowly, shaken by what had passed between them, they withdrew from the embrace. Cassie sucked in a shuddery breath and shoved back her hair. Drew scrubbed his face with his hands and refused to look at her.

Still, the need was thrumming in them both, a subtle symphony played out in the beat of their pulses, in the hum of their sighs, and the chatter of Sally McGarrity's lantern clock. It was as if those few simple kisses had awakened something that had lain dormant in each of them—a ghost of who they'd been, a dream of what their lives might have been like if they hadn't lost each other.

But they had.

Drew shoved to his feet and stood over her. "This can't be happening. We can't let it happen."

Though she was quaking inside, Cassie looked up at him. "I don't know—that we can—help it."

He stared as if he were seeing her for the very first time—her tattoo, her sun-browned face, the years she'd spent with the savages. She read the revulsion in his eyes.

"Damnit, Cassie! Can't you see how much we've changed? Don't you know we can't go back?"

"Oh, Drew," Cassie murmured. There was such wistfulness in her, a deep, fruitless longing for all that might have been. "Perhaps if we tried—"

Drew recoiled, breathing hard. "I don't want to try. There isn't room in my life anymore for trying."

He was possessed by that single-minded fury, a need for revenge that had swallowed him whole. She could not help feeling sorry that he had forfeited the softer parts of himself to something so cold and useless.

He crossed the room and snatched his hat and overcoat from the hooks beside the door. "Thank Mrs. McGarrity for inviting me to dinner. Tell her everything was delicious."

Cassie came to her feet. "Drew, please—"

He jammed one arm into the sleeve of his overcoat. "Tell the major I'm sorry I couldn't wait, that I'll see him in the morning."

"We can't—pretend that—nothing happened between us," she insisted. "We can't see each other—every day and—"

He stopped as he reached for the door latch and looked at her. His jaw was hard as granite, but there was turmoil in his eyes. "Nothing happened, Cassie. It might have, but we didn't let it. And we won't."

"But Drew—"

"It's too late for either of us to feel like this, Cassie. We aren't young and innocent any more. We've both lost too much." There was a hint of anguish in his voice that tore at Cassie's heart. "We're who the Kiowa made us, and we can't go back."

"No, Drew, wait," she cried out, but he had already flung open the cabin door and fled out into the cold.

* * *

What in the name of God had he been thinking? What fiend from the bloody depths of hell had induced him to take Cassie Morgan in his arms? How could he have made such a monumental blunder?

Drew stomped along the path toward his quarters at the opposite end of Officers' Row. Beyond learning his sister's fate, he hadn't meant to renew his connection to Cassie Morgan. Officers didn't associate with women like her, women who'd been captives, women who had chosen to submit to the Indians rather than muster the courage to kill themselves. The lines of military society were carefully drawn, especially here, and women like Cassie had no place in it. But because they'd known each other long ago, Drew wanted to see Cassie settled either with relations back in the States or someplace out here where she could earn her keep.

Though the web of old ties and old guilts made him feel accountable, he'd done his best to make Cassandra understand that he couldn't be a part of her new life. He'd nearly had her convinced when she'd looked up at him, all lost and forlorn, and he'd instinctively reached out to comfort her.

Once he felt her heat and vitality beneath his hands, something old and compelling had taken hold of him. He'd been utterly beguiled, caught in a force so elemental that he was helpless against it. One moment he'd been patting her shoulder, and the next he'd been kissing her.

The sweetness of her mouth had drawn him in, sent the blood singing in his veins. A bolt of longing had melted his bones. He'd tingled and burned as if he had connected with some wild blaze of energy.

He'd gone years without experiencing anything so intense, so reckless and headlong and out of control. Never once with Laura had it been like that—not even when they made love. And in a secret, dark place in his heart he'd been glad of it.

Life and the Indians and the war with the South had taught him a lifetime of hard lessons. In these last nine years he'd stopped believing in everything but hatred and revenge. The emotions Cassie had stirred up in him tonight were as terrifying as they were miraculous. But they demanded more faith in the world than Drew had left.

When he reached his own small cabin, the light in the kitchen was burning bright. Lila Wilcox was in there, probably sitting with Meggie asleep in her arms, humming some sad, sweet melody and keeping time by the creak of the rocking chair.

He shuddered at the thought of facing Lila after what had passed between Cassie and him. Lila had a way of reading people, of sensing what went on behind their eyes that was downright unnerving. If he went in there now, she'd take one look at him and surmise a good deal more than he wanted anyone knowing.

Extracting one of the fine cigars he'd tucked into his pocket before leaving the house, Drew settled himself on the bench in front of the cabin. He went through a gentleman's ritual of clipping and lighting his smoke, blew several agitated puffs, and scowled out toward where a few tattered snowflakes were drifting in the wind.

He didn't like Sally McGarrity's treating Cassie's return from the Cheyenne as if it were some grand reunion between him and her. In spite of what had fired up between them tonight, that wasn't what it was. He had come west to kill Indians, and he couldn't afford to get distracted.

The government might well be paying annuities so the tribes would keep their treaties, but as long as the whites kept moving west, the Indians would keep resisting. No peace would come to these western lands until the Indians were annihilated, and if Drew had reasons of his own for wanting to see that, so be it.

The skirmish after Cassie's exchange had whetted Drew's appetite. Once the snow was gone and the grass was green, the Indians would ride out. War was coming. All he had to do was wait until spring to exorcise his demons.

"Reynolds? Is that you?"

The sound of Major McGarrity's voice shook Drew from his musing. When he made as if to rise, the major waved the gesture away.

"I was surprised when Sally and I got back and found you gone," the major began.

Drew shrugged, taking care not to meet McGarrity's eyes. "Cassie seemed—tired."

McGarrity appeared to accept his explanation and extended a crumpled paper for Drew to read. "It's the telegram I was expecting from Kentucky. I wanted you to see it before I showed it to Cassandra."

"Have you found some Morgan relatives?" Drew asked hopefully and tilted the foolscap toward the light.

Ben McGarrity shook his head. "Not a soul. It's as if they all either lit out or died shortly after your families left."

"The men probably fought in the war," Drew offered, "and that part of Kentucky was pretty much overrun. I doubt there's much left standing. Cassie's family and mine saw the trouble coming. That's why our parents sold out and headed west."

Not that the trail to Santa Fe had proved any safer.

"You can't think of anyone else back in the States who would take her, can you?"

Drew thought Cassie's mother had had family somewhere along the Eastern Seaboard, in Philadelphia maybe. But he couldn't for the life of him remember. "Doesn't Cassie have any ideas?"

"I haven't asked her, but I don't think she wants to be shunted off to relations she barely knows. After what she's been through, I hardly blame her. I doubt she'll find a very warm reception back in the States, anyway."

McGarrity didn't mention the tattoo. He didn't need to. A mark like that would be even more damning back East than it was here.

Forcing that unsettling thought from his mind, Drew shoved over on the bench and took out a second cigar. The major accepted it gratefully and sat down beside him.

Once he had it lit, McGarrity went on. "This pretty much leaves Cassandra's future up to me. She's too old to send off to school somewhere. From what I hear, there are missionaries coming to minister to the Sioux in Minnesota. I suppose I could send her to them once they get settled. Certainly her knowledge of Indian languages and customs would make her useful."

They smoked for a time in silence.

"She'll end up a whore if I turn her out," McGarrity offered.

Drew nodded. "Perhaps that's what she's been, living all this time with the Indians."

Ben McGarrity's face twisted with disapproval. "Even with the Cheyenne, being some brave's wife is worth a little respect."

Drew scowled but acknowledged the point.

"And there's nothing between the two of you?"

Though the taste of Cassie's kisses lingered on his mouth, Drew shook his head.

"Sally thought there might have been something years ago."

Drew exhaled a plume of smoke. "Mrs. McGarrity's right, there was something between us once," he admitted. "But Cassie's not fifteen anymore, and a lot has happened to both of us."

"Since you once had feelings for the girl, we thought you might—"

Drew was suddenly afraid of what the major was going to suggest. "Of course I'd like to help Cassie," he broke in, "but there doesn't seem to be much I can do."

"We thought you might take her on to cook and clean and look after Meggie, since Lila Wilcox has duties elsewhere."

Drew let out his breath. "I don't know that Cassie would be a suitable choice."

McGarrity shrugged. "You wouldn't be the first officer to hire an Indian woman to look after his children. But perhaps you're right. Perhaps she isn't suitable," he said. "There may be an enlisted man who's looking for a wife and wouldn't be so discerning. Or maybe we can find a place for Cassandra as a laundress. At any rate, she's welcome to stay with us for a while longer. Sally seems to enjoy having a protégé."

Drew looked long and hard at his superior officer and wondered if he was being manipulated. Were he and Mrs. McGarrity keeping Cassie around in the hopes that something would develop between them?

Before Drew could say more, the major snubbed out his cigar and shoved to his feet. "Don't stay out here all night, Reynolds. I can't have one of my captains getting frostbite."

Drew gave McGarrity a quick half smile. "No danger of that, sir. I'll finish this cigar and go inside."

"Good night, then," the major said and headed toward home.

Drew finished the cigar but didn't move. McGarrity had given him something to chew on, and Drew would just as soon do that out here.

He did need someone to look after Meggie. Lila Wilcox had been a temporary solution at best, and he had to have someone to depend on when he was out campaigning. Meggie needed stability after all these months of turmoil. He'd only need to hire Cassie for a year or two, just until Meggie was old enough to go to school back East.

The biggest problem with hiring her was the expense. A cavalry captain made seventy dollars a month, and that money came to frontier outposts at wildly irregular intervals. Lila's services had been a bargain because as company laundress she received regular army benefits and could charge men for cleaning their clothes.

He would have to give Cassie money enough for housing and food and whatever else she'd need to keep body and soul together. Still, McGarrity's idea had merit.

Before he committed himself, Drew meant to think this through. Nine years ago he'd dedicated himself to avenging his family's death, and he couldn't let anything—or anyone—prevent him from fulfilling his destiny.

* * *

Sally McGarrity seemed stunned to find Hunter standing on her porch just after six o'clock the following morning. She peered at him around the edge of the door, blinking like an owl caught in a beam of lantern light.

"Good morning, ma'am," he prompted her, hoping she'd invite him in out of the cold. "I hope you won't mind that I've stopped by so early. I want to say good-bye to Cassandra, if I can."

"Good-bye?" Sally asked, glancing past him to where his horse stood saddled up for travel. "Are you going somewhere, Mr. Jalbert?"

"I've had orders to Fort Laramie. Colonel Palmer needs a translator and sent for me."

He'd specifically asked for "that half-breed Jalbert," and though Hunter didn't usually respond to the names white men called him, something in the tone of the colonel's telegram rankled him. It was almost as if Palmer were reminding Hunter how separate he was from the rest of the world, and how singular his existence had become. It reminded Hunter of how much all that had begun to chafe him, and Sally McGarrity's reluctance was making him itch again.

"Well, then step inside," Sally invited, clutching at the neck of her dressing gown as she opened the door.

That's why she hasn't let me in, Hunter thought, more than a little relieved. It had to do with modesty, not with who he was.

"I didn't mean to disturb your breakfast," he apologized, removing his hat, "but I need to be on my way if I want to reach the old stage station at Box Elder Creek by nightfall."

"Well, we can't very well have you going off without telling Cassandra good-bye, now can we? Do sit down here in the parlor while I go see if she's finished dressing."

Hunter did as he'd been bidden and heard the murmur of feminine voices from the back of the cabin.

He wished he had been able to leave without saying good-bye. But he was concerned for Cass, worried she wouldn't be able to get on here at the fort without his help. Or at least that's what he'd told himself.

He refused to admit he wanted to see her before he left. No woman should have gotten under his skin as quickly as this. Certainly none of the women he'd smiled at and courted and slept with over the years had touched him the way Cass Morgan had.

But then, none of them understood who he was or his place in the world—at least not the way Cass was coming to understand it. She was as caught between the whites and the Indians as he was. That bound them in a way that went deeper than friendship, deeper than physical attraction. Cass touched something at the core of him, and he responded with both fascination and fear.

Sally bustled back into the room. "Cassandra is nearly ready," she informed him. "Won't you have a cup of coffee while you're waiting?"

"I'd like that very much," he said.

She brought him some from the kitchen. The flowery, gold-rimmed cup and matching saucer seemed out of place between his big rough fingers, though her offer of it made Hunter feel unaccountably welcome in her home.

Sally turned from him with a nod. "Then if you'll excuse me, I'll see to my own toilette."

For all the daintiness of the cup she'd served it in, Sally McGarrity made army coffee, strong and hot. Hunter had drunk most of it when Cass appeared in the doorway from the kitchen.

She was wearing the clothes she'd had on the day before, a dark blue dress that highlighted the gold in her upswept hair and clung like a lover's caress to her every curve.

The cup and saucer rattled a little in Hunter's hands as he came to his feet.

"Sally says you're going away," she said in Cheyenne.

Hunter ducked his head in acknowledgment, needing a moment to set the cup aside and pull his suddenly disordered thoughts together.

"I got orders to Fort Laramie this morning," he told her, and wished like hell he was staying. "I'm sorry I have to go. I know it would be easier for you to get settled if I were here to help. But when the army buys your services, you don't have much more choice about following orders than anyone else."

Cass lowered herself to the settee, and Hunter resumed his seat on the opposite end.

"I know about following orders. It would be better for me if you were here," she said, "but I will manage. I always have."

He heard a soft, almost-reluctant confidence in her voice. It was the kind of confidence that came with having faced the worst and fought her way through. It made him want to help her this time, to do what he could to make her adjustment to this strange, new place easier.

"I'm not sure how long I'll be gone," he went on. "A week, maybe more. By the time I get back you'll probably be all settled and speaking English like you never forgot a word."

Cass nodded.

"Is there anything you need before I go? Did your talk with Captain Reynolds go as you had hoped?" He'd seen enough of her conversation with the captain through the half-open door to know how it went.

An expression passed across her features like a cloud across the moon. "My talk with Drew went well enough. What I would like to know," she said, her mouth bowing a little with confusion, "is why everyone behaved so strangely when I told them I had been at Sand Creek?"

Hunter wondered how he could explain that having been at Sand Creek was like admitting you'd been to hell and back. Right-thinking officers everywhere considered the Indian loss of life a blot on the army's honor.

"The attack on the encampment at Sand Creek represents a very dark day for the army," Hunter began. "Chivington's volunteers should never have ridden into that camp. Lives were needlessly lost in Black Kettle's village, and many hold the army responsible. Ben and Sally McGarrity believe that there is no excuse for that kind of carnage, and so do I."

He didn't say a word about Drew Reynolds. For all Hunter knew, Reynold's sympathies might well lie with Chivington.

"So many women and children were lost," Cass agreed, as if she were conjuring up images of that day two years before. "The soldiers at Fort Lyon had told the chiefs that we would be safe if we camped at Sand Creek, so most of our men were away at hunting camps. There was no one to fight when the soldiers rode in, though Black Kettle did his best to protect us.

"He raised the United States flag the president had given him when he went to Washington. He raised a white flag of surrender, but the soldiers kept killing and killing. His wife was terribly wounded, and my friend's little girl was shot down before our eyes."

"How did you get away?" Hunter asked, not able to help himself.

"Some of us ran into the narrows at the head of the creek. A few of the men who had been left to guard the camp held the soldiers off until nightfall. We stole away in the dark—but had to leave so many behind."

Hunter stared at the woman before him, seeing both the pain in her eyes and the resolution that hardened her mouth. This woman had survived more hardship than most people saw in a lifetime. She would adapt to life at the fort with or without his help.

Assured of that, Hunter had no reason to stay—except that he wanted to stare into that remarkable face and savor the unexpected connection he felt with her.

That realization was enough to bring him to his feet. "I—I'm sorry for what you went through at Sand Creek," he stammered, not knowing what else to say. "There are plenty of whites who hate what happened there and want to make certain it won't happen again."

"But it will," she said, an odd resignation in her tone. "In the fight between the whites and the Indians, it is bound to happen."

"Perhaps we will all find a way to live in peace," he suggested, wanting it to be true.

"Have the white and Indian parts inside you found a way to make their peace?"

The question startled him. Cass's perceptiveness was the very thing that attracted him, but it also brought her in too close. She seemed able to see through him in a way that no one ever had, giving her the power to touch him or hurt him or turn him inside out.

Hunter jammed his hat on his head and bundled his buffalo coat around him. "Well, then," he told her gruffly, "I need to be on my way. I just wanted you to understand it wasn't my choice to leave you to fend for yourself."

She rose gracefully from the settee and walked him to the door. "Thank you for all you have done to make my way easier here," she said.

He adjusted his hat and nodded. "I've been glad to help."

She smiled at him, a bright, intimate smile that turned him warm inside. It was the first real smile he'd seen her give to anyone. He felt privileged, and absurdly pleased with himself.

Hunter grinned back.

"Have care in your travels to Fort Laramie," she said, opening the door. "Find a warm place to spend the night. There's the scent of snow in the wind."

He sniffed once and realized she was right. "Tell Mrs. McGarrity good-bye for me."

Cass stepped out onto the porch and watched him mount up. She smiled and waved him out of sight. Hunter rode a full ten miles before he was even aware of the cold.