Until Wil learned his totem, Peopeo’s family had refused to allow him to marry her. They feared his guardian spirit might be incompatible with hers. Not knowing what to expect, he had ignored the pain from his Mexican War wound and tromped miles to a clearing in a pine forest. For a day, he sat and waited. Nothing happened. Feeling distinctly silly, he returned to the Nez Perce village.
Peopeo insisted that he try again—and not return until he discovered his guide or admitted defeat. With some reluctance, he went back to the clearing.
Wil watched billowing clouds and heard the cry of a hawk. Was the bird of prey his animal spirit? Peopeo wouldn’t be satisfied unless he knew what type. While he grasped the difference between hawks and falcons, the subtleties of the varieties were another matter.
Clouds gathered and pelted him with rain. Wet and shivering, he waited through another day.
The clouds cleared, and on the morning of the third day, a doe entered the clearing to graze. The deer was Peopeo’s totem.
Delirious from the elements, he shook his head and laughed. Instead of taking flight, the doe continued to graze. Oblivious to his presence, she wandered so near that if he reached out, he could touch her. For some reason, she must have sensed that he wasn’t a threat.
Nimble-footed, she moved with the grace of a dancer. With a flick of her tail, she beckoned him to follow. Her ears remained alert, and her nose sniffed the air as she led him to the edge of the clearing.
Like a house cat playing with a ball of yarn, a mountain lion cuffed and pounced on a twisted root. Aware the great cat wasn’t stalking, the doe didn’t flee.
Their lives were intertwined. The deer and mountain lion couldn’t survive without each other. Peopeo would be pleased. His totem was the mountain lion.
When Wil woke, he expected to find himself in the clearing. Morphine euphoria had unlocked buried memories. More recently, he recalled being wounded, and the agonizing bumpy ambulance ride before being brought to a farmhouse.
The stench of blood permeated the air, and someone moaned from another room. A woman in a blood-stained dress sat in a rocking chair beside the bed.
His throat scratched. He licked his lips and swallowed, but he remained parched. “Alice?” he said in a raspy voice.
Her hair was auburn, and her green eyes filled with worry and fear.
A tin cup went to his lips. Bitter water trickled down his throat and quenched his thirst.
Through clouds of morphine, Wil drifted. A heavy weight was on his chest, and hands pinned him down, keeping him from reaching her. Peopeo...
Voices shrieked, then thrashing. Violent thrashing.
Her neck was broken.
Sweat poured into his eyes. Wil bolted upright and screamed.
“Wil, you’re all right.”
Gentle hands pushed him back to the pillow.
Shaking all over, he couldn’t make it stop. The pain in his chest grew dull, and he blinked. She was Alice, not Peopeo. “Alice, I’m... fond of you.”
He had nearly slipped and said love. But he didn’t love her, nor did he care to. Peopeo and Amanda had taught him that lesson. Age had crept up on him. Too old for such frivolities, he would be thirty-eight come June. His animal spirit guided the way. Except to mate, the mountain lion lived a solitary existence.
Day and night, Alice fetched water, washed his feverish skin, and changed bandages and linens. The morphine was gone, and Wil had a restless day. She daubed a cool cloth to his forehead, then his shoulders. A smattering of dark hair poked above his heavily swathed chest.
She wrung the cloth in a water-filled basin and pressed it to his belly. Purposely avoiding his privates, she had discovered quite by accident in the performance of her duties that even men nearly in the grave could be roused by the merest of touches. The first time, she had felt shame in the belief that her gentle cleaning strokes had been too much like amorous touching. Only after it had happened a second and third time did she realize that it was the nature of men’s bodies.
But she was fond of Wil, and he would tease her unmercifully if he found out. “Wil...”
Not an eyelash flickered in response.
Cautiously, Alice lowered his drawers. He was far more appealing than a boyish Timmy Mullen. A jagged white scar stretched along his right hip from the wound that had nearly killed him during the Mexican War.
She washed him in long, soothing strokes. He stirred to life, but the man continued to sleep. She thought of Peopeo and wondered if she had comforted him in the same manner. Chastising herself that she was getting carried away, she quickly covered him.
Exhausted, Alice eased into the rocking chair and closed her eyes. Hopefully, he would sleep through the night. Her head lolled.
A groan from the bed woke her with a start. She groped through the dark until she found the lamp. She jerked the chimney away and lit it.
Wil lay on his side and gasped for breath. His eyes were clamped shut, and his muscles trembled. He pressed a hand to his bandaged chest.
Alice squeezed the cloth in the basin and placed it to his forehead.
Though his hand shook, he gripped her wrist. “Alice?”
She sponged his sweaty face.“I’m here.”
He let go of her arm. “Thought... you were gone.”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
Not really seeing her, his dark eyes stared transfixed.
If only she had something to ease the pain. Even brandy would make her feel a little less helpless. Willow bark tea? Not strong enough. Something. Anything. She checked his pulse—flighty.
“Alice...” She hushed him to save his strength, but he continued, “I never told Peopeo... how I felt.” He muttered.
Unable to make out his words, Alice leaned closer. Another language? An Indian language—he was speaking to his wife.
His anguished eyes met hers. “I made the same mistake a second time.”
“Mistake?” He had to be hurting something fierce. Wil wouldn’t normally talk about his feelings, but did he mean Amanda—or her?
She didn’t care. Rules of propriety had already been broken. She clambered under the blanket beside him. She drew him to her, and his body molded against her. Like a lost child, he clung to her.
She fought the tears. “You haven’t made the same mistake. I thought you knew. I love you.”
He shuddered, and she remained with him until he was still. Outside the window, an owl screeched, and a fox yipped. For now, the guns rested.
Wil’s breathing grew easier. To the steady thump of his heart, Alice closed her eyes.
“Good morning.”
Wil’s voice woke her to sunlight streaming through the window. She stifled a yawn and gazed into his eyes. No longer pain-filled, they were clear. Tending him countless hours must have taken their toll. With her arms around his neck, she had fallen asleep—next to him. Warmth filled her cheeks.
“Waking to your lovely face is most pleasant.” His hand rested on her breast.
“I will thank you kindly to remove your hand from my bosom.”
Amusement danced in his eyes. “Of course, Miss McGuire.”
As his hand slid down the length of her body and under her skirt, Alice chastised herself for not getting up and breaking contact. Nothing of consequence could happen. After all, he had been wounded. Besides, he had his drawers on, and she was fully clothed.
His fingertips ventured inside the opening of her drawers.
No man had ever touched her there. It wasn’t supposed to be this way. She shouldn’t yearn for a man if not betrothed or properly wed. “Wil, please don’t. You’re in no condition—”
“Fending me off?” he asked with a wicked grin.
Alice hopped to her feet and straightened her dress. Unable to face him, she swallowed hard. An unwed lady wasn’t supposed to tend filthy, lice-infested men, clean their bodily wastes, or view private parts best kept covered. Papa was probably whirling in his grave. But she couldn’t forget all that she had experienced—not since glimpsing the bodies on the heights.
“Forgive my weakness.”
An apology? She forced a smile. “Why Wil Jackson, there is some hope for you.”
“My apology isn’t for what just happened. As a matter of fact, when a man wakes to a beautiful woman beside him, it’s a perfectly natural reaction. Alice, you’re blushing.”
Indignant, she waved a fist. “Wipe that smug grin from your face. I have toiled day and night, not knowing whether you’d live or die, and you repay me with insults.”
“My intent wasn’t to offend.”
He did care. “Then why the apology?”
Wil lowered his head. The whiskered face effectively hid his expression, but when vulnerable, she had glimpsed behind the mask. His apology was for showing weakness.
“There’s nothing to forgive,” she assured him.
“Why haven’t I been sent to Richmond?”
Embarrassed for letting his guard down, he obviously didn’t wish to discuss it either. “The doctors said you would likely bleed to death before reaching Richmond. They thought it best not to move you, so I agreed to stay behind.”
“The army has moved?”
“Most of it. I feared the Yankees would overrun the area, but they seem content staying to their side of the river.”
As Wil sat up, his breath grew short. Alice fluffed the pillow behind his back, and he examined his splinted right hand.
“If you wish, I can write a letter for you,” Alice said.
“There’s no one to write to.”
“You have kin in Charleston.”
“A brother and sister who would rather not hear from me.”
What kind of family didn’t long for a letter from relation far away? “But you were wounded. Certainly they will be delighted to know you’re alive.”
With a devilish spark, he arched a brow. “If I had died a hero’s death, then they would care to hear the news.”
Crossing her arms, Alice sat on the edge of the bed. “No family can be that cruel.”
“Sometimes Alice, you can be very naive. At seventeen, I was shipped off to the Point for transgressions.”
Like she had been sent to finishing school to learn proper behavior. “Transgressions? I’d be willing to wager, it wasn’t for spitting or swearing.”
A slight grin formed on his mouth. “You’d win that wager. If John Graham hadn’t taken demerits on my behalf, I would have been dismissed the first year.”
She had known that Amanda’s first husband and Wil had been friends at West Point. Now she understood how the unusual friendship had formed.
“After that,” he continued, “I performed my duty to everyone’s satisfaction. The indiscretion my family refuses to overlook is a half-breed son, even though they are one-quarter Cherokee themselves.”
Cherokee? Wil was part Indian? His prominent cheekbones and black eyes suddenly made sense.
“Obviously, Amanda hasn’t relayed that fact.”
“She hadn’t. Why are you telling me? You don’t usually offer information.”
“So you know whom you’ve been tending.”
As they grew closer, he continued to lend ways of retreat. “You can’t get rid of me that easily.”
He leaned forward to kiss her but gasped in pain. His hand went to his chest, and he slumped to the pillow.
“Serves you right, you fool. If you’re not careful, you’ll start bleeding again.”
“You can’t keep an old warhorse like me down for long.”
He was trying to placate her. “Wil, I remained with you during surgery. I know how bad it was. You’re not out of the woods yet. You needn’t pretend—not with me.”
Grasping her hand, he opened it—palm up. The calluses had grown unsightly, but she was no longer shamed. He kissed the toughened skin. “Old habits die hard.”
And some things would never change. He would protect her—fiercely.