Embrace the Wild Land Read Online Free PDF

she spoke up, moving her horse up beside his but staring out ahead rather than looking at him. “You’re wounded, you know. You’ll have to use that right arm.”
    He caught the fear in her voice. “I’m aware of that. If I thought I couldn’t handle it I wouldn’t have made the challenge, Abbie-girl.”
    She turned to meet his eyes, and he saw the misty tears in her own. “I need you,” she said quietly.
    They rode for a few feet saying nothing. “We’re setting up two
tipis
while we’re here,” he finally spoke up. “One for this brood of ours—and one for you and me. Wolf’s Blood can watch over the others. I want you to myself, Mrs. Monroe. We haven’t had any privacy since we left the ranch to come down here.”
    She smiled a little then and actually blushed. “Howcan you speak of such things when tomorrow you’ll be risking your life?” she chided.
    His eyes moved over her curved body, longing to strip off the white tunic she wore and feel her bare skin close to his own, hear her whisper his name in the ecstasy they both shared when they were one. “Woman, when you look like you do right now, I can always speak of such things.” He gave her a wink and kicked at his horse, riding out in a circle to signal the rest of the Cheyenne to come in and bring the Appaloosas.
    The one called Cole stood at the gate of the fort, watching the white woman ride toward the Navaho village with her children in tow. He scratched at the pink scar again and felt an urgency in his groin. Somehow he had to get her alone. Surely she would rather be with a white man. Surely she was a captive at one time who had been beaten and humiliated into staying with the Indians. Surely she would never tell her husband if a white man invaded her. Her husband was a savage. The man would beat her and cast her out, and Cole would be ready to make her his own woman.

Three
    Danny Monroe stepped up onto the familiar wooden porch and stomped mud from his feet. Thunder boomed around the old farmhouse, and he noticed when lightning brightened night into day that the house seemed more dilapidated than ever. The porch boards creeked under his weight as he walked to the door and pounded on it. He waited a moment, sure he detected slow footsteps inside and wishing his father would hurry and open the door, for the autumn rain chilled his bones with a cool dampness that came down off the Tennessee mountains.
    The door finally opened, and his heart ached at the look in his father’s mournful eyes.
    “I’m here, Pa.”
    The old man nodded, blinking back tears. Danny quickly stepped inside and closed the door. He embraced his father, noticing how some of the meat on the tall, once-powerful man had seemed to melt away. Hugh Monroe was still tall and broad, but somehow more frail, and he had developed a slight stoop.
    “Thanks for coming, Danny-boy,” the elder Monroe said brokenly. “I’m so lonely.”
    “Soon as I got your letter about Lenny being killedat Wilson’s Creek, I quit the Union, Pa.” He pulled away and blinked back his own tears. “I’ve left Fort Laramie. I’m joining up with the Confederates.”
    Their eyes held, and Hugh Monroe’s saddened more. He patted Danny’s arm. “It’s good your Tennessee blood hasn’t left you, son. But you had a good career out there with the Indians. You’ve been out there a long time, Danny, a long time. That’s your life. And you’ve got Emily, and my little grandaughter—”
    “Emily and Jennifer are safe in St. Louis. They’re living in Emily’s father’s house. It’s a grand house. She’s sharing it with other women whose husbands have gone off to war. They’ll be all right.” He pulled out a wooden chair from the kitchen table and motioned for his father to sit down. “You look tired, Pa.”
    The old man sighed. “I am tired. With Lenny gone, there’s nobody to help with the farm anymore. We were a partnership, you know.” He shook his head and rubbed at his eyes,