Bound by Honor Bound by Love Read Online Free PDF Page B

certainly had
no trouble expressing his feelings. She almost told her friend
this, but Amata was three years younger than her. If Amata was her
age, it would be easier to tell her things of a more intimate
nature. Perhaps when Amata was ready to marry, she might tell her
there was more to Citlali than met the eye.
    “ I’m glad he loves you,”
Amata said. “Thankfully, he’s not holding his feelings back from
you.”
    “ I’ve loved him ever since
I can remember,” Onawa confessed. “He’d been promised to Woape,
though.”
    “ Yes, but he could have
married you, too.”
    “ I know.” The notion hadn’t
pleased Onawa at the time, and she was relieved when Woape ended up
marrying someone else so she wouldn’t have to share Citlali with
her. She returned to cutting the squash in front of her and then
added some brown sugar to sweeten it. Sure, he might love her, but
that didn’t mean he might not take a second wife in order to have
more children. Traditionally, it was the sisters the man married,
but that didn’t mean they couldn’t take another wife. Clearing her
throat, she asked, “You don’t think he’ll seek a second wife since
I have no other sisters, do you?”
    Her friend’s eyes widened. “You’re the
one who told me he loves you. You know the answer to that better
than I do.”
    “ But he might have said
something to your mother.”
    “ He hasn’t said anything
about it. At least he hasn’t requested more than one place to
sleep.”
    Onawa relaxed.
    A few seconds later, Amata nudged her
in the arm. “He’s here.”
    She turned her gaze to the entrance of
the lodge and saw Citlali. Her face flushed, and despite the fact
that they’d been intimate the night before, she couldn’t bring
herself to make eye contact with him.
    He stopped in front of her. “I need to
speak with you.”
    Surprised by the formal tone in his
voice, she looked up at him. The serious expression on his face and
the way he crossed his arms weren’t unusual. She’d come to expect
those things from him, but his tone had been more on the pleasant
side in the past. Last night, his tone had been incredibly tender.
Did she do something to upset him? Hiding her uncertainty the best
she could, she nodded and washed her hands. Standing up, she waited
for him to tell her where he wanted them to talk.
    He glanced around the lodge at his
sister, mother and two aunts who’d just woken up, their eyebrows
raised in interest. Returning his gaze to Onawa, he said, “We’ll go
outside.”
    Nodding, she went to grab her buffalo
robe and wrapped herself in it before slipping on her moccasins.
Ignoring the way the others stared at them, she followed him out of
the lodge. She shivered in the bitter cold and pulled the robe more
tightly around her.
    “ We can go this way,” he
said, indicating to a path that had been cleared of snow and
afforded them some privacy.
    Not knowing what to say, she nodded
again and walked with him. She wished she felt comfortable enough
to talk to him. She didn’t know why she assumed that she would feel
at ease with him as soon as they were married. Perhaps if they’d
spent the whole night together, she would have, but she was too
aware that she still had a long way to go in understanding her
husband.
    Citlali cleared his throat, so she
looked in his direction. “I spent all night with the chief. He
wished to speak to me on matters pertaining to the
tribe.”
    “ Can I ask what kind of
matters?” She knew it wasn’t her place to get too intrusive into
his role as the second chief, but she wasn’t sure what her
boundaries were, especially since he was coming to her with this
information.
    He let out a heavy sigh. “It has to do
with making sure our ways survive in future
generations.”
    Noting the sorrow in his tone, she
nodded. “I worry about that, too.”
    “ You do?”
    “ Yes.”
    “ It is good that we are of
one mind.”
    Relaxing at the compliment, she
smiled. “I think so,