Homecoming - Jill Marie Landis Mills & Boon Steeple Hill

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“I’m going inside with you.” He wasn’t ready to walk away and leave his mother alone with her charge yet.

      The girl had her back to him and was staring at the house. He tried to see it through her eyes—the two low structures connected by a single roof that covered the dogtrot between the kitchen building and the main house. Constructed of hand-hewn logs, the cracks chinked with sticks and clay, the buildings hugged the earth and blended into the landscape.

      Stick-and-clay chimneys extended from the roofline in both the kitchen and main buildings. The clapboard roof still showed signs of smoke damage in one or two places where it had started to catch fire during the Comanche raid. Spots that were low enough for Joe to have been able to extinguish the fire before it took hold.

      Hattie held on to the girl’s elbow, leaning closer until their heads were nearly together.

      “Come on, honey,” she said. “I’m going to have you cleaned up in no time.”

      “She’s not a child, Ma.”

      “I know that, but I want her to understand that I don’t intend to hurt her.”

      He followed them inside, but Hattie paused just inside the door and sighed.

      “You can’t set aside your work to watch her every minute, son. You’ve already lost a good half a day. I can hold my own against one skinny little gal.”

      He ignored her comment and lingered until Hattie handed the girl a glass of water and encouraged her to drink. His mother bustled out onto the back porch where she kept the tin bathtub and dragged it to the back door. When he saw what she was doing, Joe carried it the rest of the way into the kitchen while the girl ignored them both and stared out the open door as if she were there alone.

      Hattie left for a moment and came back with an armload of folded towels.

      “It’s gonna be impossible to get this child bathed without that hot water,” she told him. “Look at her, Joe. She’s dead tired. She’s too exhausted to try anything. Go on now. Fetch me some hot water.”

      He shot a glance in the girl’s direction. She was, indeed, practically weaving on her feet.

      “’Sides,” Hattie started in again, “we’re miles from anywhere. You’ll track her down in no time if she takes off. She knows that as sure as you do.”

      He got himself some water, drank it and hesitated by the door. What if the girl was feigning exhaustion? Waiting for just the right minute to overpower his mother and run?

      But Hattie was right. There was nowhere to run and nowhere to hide.

      Hattie planted her hands on her hips. “Either you go get the water or I’ll do it…and leave you to get her undressed.”

      Without another word, he turned on his heel and stalked out.

       They argue over me.

      Eyes-of-the-Sky knew it not only by the hardness in the man’s voice, but the coldness in his eyes that gave his anger away.

      Whatever the woman just said had shamed him in some way. Shamed him so that he walked away without looking at either of them again.

      After he left, the older woman laughed softly and shook her head. The words that followed her laughter were as unintelligible as all white man’s words were to Eyes-of-the-Sky.

      She was led into a smaller room lined with wooden boards filled with stored food. Through gestures and gibberish, the woman soon convinced her to take off her garments.

      Eyes-of-the-Sky fought to keep her hands from trembling as she touched the front of the once soft doeskin now stiff with the blood of little Strong Teeth.

      The woman knelt before her, touched her knee and then her ankle, urging her to lift her foot, then she gently slipped each of her beaded moccasins off for her.

      The simple gesture was so gentle and unexpected that it inspired tears—tears that Eyes-of-the-Sky refused to let fall.

      Though the woman seemed kind enough, Eyes-of-the-Sky dared not show weakness. The white woman’s tenderness was surely some kind of trick meant to lull her into complacency.

      Though Eyes-of-the-Sky refused to remove her garments, the woman soon made it clear she was to undress or they would stand there facing each other in the close confines of the little room forever. Wary and wondering where the man had gone to, Eyes-of-the-Sky looked around.

      With words and more gestures, the woman let her know the man was gone. Then the woman covered her eyes with her hands and said something that sounded like “Hewonlook.”

      Finally, as Eyes-of-the-Sky slipped off her clothing, the woman quickly drew a huge striped blanket around her, covering her from shoulders to knees.

      Eyes-of-the-Sky heard the sound of the man’s heavy footsteps coming and going outside the door. Suddenly, the woman stopped talking, gathered the soiled doeskin dress and moccasins, and stepped out, quickly shutting her inside the small room full of supplies.

      With her ear pressed to the door, she heard the man and woman whispering together and wondered what they were planning. Her heart raced with fear for she had no idea what to expect. She knew nothing of their ways.

      When they brought her here, trapped between them on the high seat of the rolling wagon, they’d bounced along in a way that made her already warring stomach even more upset.

      She was shamed because she wasn’t strong enough to fight them. She no longer had the will or the stamina. But her strength would recover. She was determined to escape, to go back to her people. To return.

       To what?

      The question came to her from the darkness in her heart. Go back to what? When the Blue Coats had led her away from the encampment, she’d seen only death and destruction. She’d heard the cries of the wounded and the ensuing gunshots that stilled their cries. The silence was more deafening than the screams.

      Suddenly he was walking around in the room beyond the door again. She heard heavy footfalls, heard the splash of water. Then the sound of his heavy boots against the wooden floor ebbed away.

      When the door opened again, Eyes-of-the-Sky jumped back, clutching the blanket to her. Only the woman remained on the other side of the door.

      “Comeoutnow,” she said, gesturing for Eyes-of-the-Sky to follow her into the larger room.

      Clutching the cloth around herself, she crept forward, let her gaze sweep the room. The man was nowhere.

      The large metal container was full of water that was so hot steam rose from its surface.

       I am to be boiled alive.

      Clutching the blanket, she backed away, bumped into something wooden and she winced.

      The woman took her forearm and, gently patting her, spoke in the kind of lilting tone Eyes-of-the-Sky had once used to cajole her little brother into doing things he was afraid of doing.

      The woman left her side long enough to walk over to the huge container of water, to scoop warm water to her face and neck and wash herself.

      “Comeon.” The woman encouraged. She gestured to the water again. “ Come. Here.

      “Come.” She wants me to walk to her.

      The clear, steaming water was so tempting. Eyes-of-the-Sky moved closer, watched the woman with every step that brought them together. She clung to the blanket with one hand, slowly touched the surface of the water with the other.

      She looked into the woman’s scarred face, saw her nod her head. Then the woman turned her back.

      Eyes-of-the-Sky quickly glanced around the room. There was no way out, no weapon within reach. She knew the man was waiting somewhere outside, waiting for her to try to escape.

      She looked down into the warm, inviting water, saw her reflection there. Her hair was matted with

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