Tender Taming Read Online Free PDF Page B

intense and vehement. He had actually advanced upon her with barely controlled anger, his hands tight fists around his cup. If his blue eyes and cultured voice had lulled her into believing him to be harmless, his proud, towering fury now dictated otherwise. She could well imagine his eyes flashing within the noble countenance of his carved features if he was challenged or angered.
    He stepped back abruptly, aware that his menace had caused her eyes to open with fearful alarm. “Sorry,” he murmured, his voice returning to its cool, controlled baritone.
    Whitney drew a deep breath. “I think I understand—”
    “Do you?” The interjection was contemptuously cold.
    “Well, yes, damnit!” Whitney countered. “And I don’t want to steal anyone’s land! I want to see that the Indians lead better lives—”
    “Better than what?”
    “Than what they lead now! I want to improve their living conditions—”
    “Oh? And what are those conditions?”
    “Well … ”
    “You don’t know a thing about it!” White Eagle muttered disgustedly, pacing across the room and dropping to the sofa, one barefooted, jeaned leg crossed in an L over the other. “Here we have her, folks, Miss Southern Homecoming Queen, ready to change the lot of the Indian without mussing her hair or dirtying a single polished nail!”
    “How dare you judge me!” Whitney gasped, her temper frayed to a reckless breaking point. Stalking him in return, she followed him to the couch and glared down at him furiously, her eyes snapping with bright emerald lights. “You don’t know a thing about me. I’m from the city, yes, and I have a great deal to learn. But who the hell are you to decide that I don’t plan to investigate what I’m doing? You’re sitting here in a log cabin, content and comfortable! You’re not living in one of those thatched-roof things—”
    “Chickee,” Eagle interrupted, and Whitney saw that his anger had dissipated and that he was hiding the twitch of a smile again. “The thatched homes are called chickees.”
    “Whatever!” Whitney sighed with exasperation. “I don’t see you living in one.”
    “Ah, but I have, and that’s the difference,” he told her gravely. “Would you mind not ranting right above me?” He pointed to her hand, which held the cup and had been gesturing with emotion. “I’d just as soon not have the contents of that thing spilled all over me.”
    Deflated, Whitney glanced at her cup and spun away from him, still ready to do battle despite his sudden change from anger to amusement. “I repeat—you are no one to judge me. You are obviously half white, well educated and not too immediately concerned with the hardships—”
    “Stop!” he ordered, a grim smile curved into the thin line of his lips. “Let’s start over. Make a peace treaty.” Setting his cup on the coffee table, he indicated that she should sit beside him, and when she warily complied, he twisted so that his long legs were folded beneath him and one arm stretched along the rear of the couch. Crooking it, he rested his head lightly upon the knuckles of his hand in order to give her his complete, undivided and interested attention. “Okay, now,” he teased mockingly, “tell me what you would do.”
    Whitney returned his crystal stare unwaveringly. “I would give these people homes. I would build schools. I would—”
    “You would civilize them,” Eagle interjected softly.
    It wasn’t an angry or a mocking comment. Whitney puckered her brows with confusion. “I don’t know what you mean.”
    Eagle raised one dark brow and shook his head slightly. “Never mind. I believe that your intentions are good, but you are lacking one basic understanding.”
    “And what is that?” Whitney demanded.
    “It is not something that can be told,” Eagle told her. “It must be learned and absorbed. It has to be lived.”
    “Great!” Whitney sneered. “You’re telling me that I need to learn something, then you’re telling