The Captive Heart Read Online Free PDF Page B

would have in the past. Next time he saw Inoli, his friend would have ringing ears by the time he finished with him. The man meddled more than Grandmother.
    Leaning against the porch timber, he waited. The hare sizzled over coals in the clearing that ran along the front of the house. Beyond the yard, a maze of hickory and pine painted a background of greens. His gaze slid to the east, where the creek lumbered downhill.
    The beginnings of a magnificent headache rapped at his temples as he sighted a graceful figure cresting the embankment. Rays of sunlight reached through the canopy, highlighting the woman’s every step. She wore her black hair long and loose, like a queen’s mantle, the determination of her stride regal as she drew closer, adding to her imperial aura.
    He folded his arms. “What are you doing here, Running Doe?”
    “It is said Ya’nu needs a woman.” She ascended the few steps and stopped a breath in front of him, lifting her face to his.
    Out of habit, he shook his head, letting a swath of hair cover the scarred side of his cheek. “I told Inoli that’s been taken care of.”
    She shrugged one shapely shoulder, then shimmied past him and stepped into his house uninvited.
    He pushed off from the timber and followed, his gut clenching. This would not end well.
    Inside, Running Doe’s dark eyes darted from his bed to Grace’s crib, then on to the stacks of pelts against one wall and crates against the other. Finally she turned in a circle, arms spread wide. “I see no woman.”
    Her tone challenged, as did the flash in her eyes. He knew that look, the one a woman gave just before her heels dug in. Once again he folded his arms, remaining in the safety of the open door. Sometimes flight was the better option.
    So was silence. He said nothing.
    “What I see”—her eyes narrowed—“is a
sa’gwali digu ‘lanahi’ta
, too stubborn to accept what the elders have spoken.”
    He sucked in a breath. He’d maimed men for lesser insults. Inwardly, he counted to ten in English, then again in Cherokee before he spoke. “Go home, Running Doe. I am not the man for you.”
    Like one of the mountain lions that roamed the Blue Ridge, she put one foot in front of the other, her gaze fastened on his as she neared. She pulled his hands loose and set them squarely on her wide hips, locking them in place with her hands atop. “But I am the woman for you. Why do you fight it?”
    Her body flamed beneath her buckskin sheath, he could feel it, as relentless as an August afternoon. Ahh, but she was a beauty, all soft and warm. It’d been a year since he’d lain with his wife. A year of cold need and loneliness.
    Running Doe rose to her toes, her breath brushing against his lips. She leaned closer, and—
    He pulled away, horrified at how easy it was to teeter on the thin line between saint and sinner. She followed his move, but he held out a hand, staving her off. “You are a fine woman, Running Doe, but I will not have you.”
    A tempest brewed in the black of her eyes. “Yet you will take a white wife.” She aimed the words like a musket ball, straight at his heart.
    He grabbed her arms, subduing the urge to squeeze lest he leave behind angry bruises. “Do not think to question me, woman. You know what I’ve done for the
Ani’yunwiya.
What the English have taken from me. This isn’t about skin.”
    “Then what is it?”
    Her question cut—deep. Too deep.
    He growled and released her, stalking over to where Grace yet slept, her chest rising in an even rhythm. His fingers itched to brush back her hair, touch the silky tresses, and root himself to the reason for his decision. He’d faced bears, Shawnee bent on a killing spree, famine, and disease. Not one of them had cornered him so thoroughly as this innocent one. To give her the best life—one he’d never known—it was either let her go for another to raise, or marry a woman acceptable in the world’s eyes.
    Both of which tasted like blood in his