Rain Shadow(13)

Thankfully the music wound to an end. Guiding Sissy toward the  refreshments, he caught sight of Rain Shadow and Nathan in conversation.  Though the evening held a chill, the interior of the barn combined the  warmth of dozens of dancers with a continuously stoked stove.

"Danke, fraulein," the young man at Rain Shadow's side said, breathlessly.

Rain Shadow smiled absently, her attention arrested by the bright blue  dress on a woman nearby. She studied the fitted bodice, the gathers at  the waist, and allowed her gaze to find another, even prettier dress in  the crowd, an intricately tucked and pleated bodice with rows of tiny  seed pearls set into the deep rose-colored fabric. The matching belt was  simple and complemented the garment perfectly.                       
       
           



       

Her gaze met her father's, and Two Feathers nodded a greeting from across the room.

"A jar of lemonade may I get you?"

Realizing the young man spoke to her, she smiled and nodded, intrigued  by Nathan's odd speech. He handed her a brimming cold mason jar, and she  thanked him. "Where are you from?"

"Accord, miss."

"Is it far?"

"Nein. Several miles."

"But your accent is..."

"German. Less diluted than the Neubauers'." He grinned. "A  self-sufficient community of believers Accord is. We hold to the  language and teachings of our ancestors. Only during the last few years  have we been allowed freedom to travel and go to school with outsiders.  Attending the University of Philadelphia I am. I am Lydia's brother."

She raised her brows in surprise. Jakob had taken a spell from his  fiddle. He and Lydia sat near the wood stove, his arm draped over her  shoulder. Lydia's fingers rested on her swollen stomach, and she spoke  to him. Jakob smiled and whispered something in her ear.

Sad-sweet regret drew a reflective finger across Rain Shadow's heart.  What a blessed child Lydia carried. How fortunate her children and  Annette's children were to have two loving parents. There had been no  husband to share her own pregnancy, no lover to lean into for a shared  moment over the miracle of life they'd created together. She would never  regret becoming pregnant, in fact, the sun rose and set in her  beautiful child, but circumstances were another matter, with regrets  aplenty.

Slade uppermost in her thoughts, Rain Shadow excused herself to check on  him. The crisp air tasted wonderful after the dry warmth of the crowded  barn, and she sprinted across the lawn in the darkness.

Her son slept comfortably. The rabbit skin blanket she thought he'd  discarded was tucked against his chest. Under her fingers, the fur was  soft and worn, warm from the heat of his body. She recalled him as an  infant, tucked into its enveloping folds. Two Feathers had trapped the  rabbits, and she had sewn them together, grandfather and mother planning  for the birth of her child. Soundlessly, she kissed Slade's forehead  and pulled the down coverlet under his chin.

The Neubauers' wide porch extended across the back of the house, down  one entire side and across the front. Restlessly, she walked its length,  returning and gazing across the lawn. Yellow light and gay music  spilled from the open double barn doors. Wagons and buggies crowded the  drive and one corner of the yard. Horses and a few mules stood staked  here and there.

One horse in particular whinnied and fought against a tether. As she  watched, he reared violently and pulled the stake from the ground.  Pivoting on his hind legs, he spun and broke into a run. As he passed  the other animals, they shied away.

Lightning quick, she descended the stairs and ran in the direction he'd  disappeared. Nearing the corral, the moonlight offered a clear view.  Having jumped the fence, the excited stallion pranced and shook his  magnificent head before one of the Neubauers' mares. Because of the  other horses' behavior earlier in the day, she'd noticed that the animal  was in heat. The stallion nipped the mare on the neck, and after an  obligatory show of indignation, she turned to accommodate him.

Rain Shadow turned to leave and slammed into a hard chest. Her breath escaped with an unladylike "oof."

Anton grasped her shoulders and steadied her. "Sorry. I seem to be knocking into women left and right tonight."

The scent of his heated skin assailed her senses. He slid his hands to  her upper arms. Through her soft dress, his touch was warm, the effect  on her pulse swift.

"I was wondering where Tom's horse took off to. I saw him from the  doorway." His breath fanned the tiny hairs that had escaped at her  temple.

He should release her, but his fingers refused to obey. Instead they  wanted to glide down her arms, caress the supple skin, linger at her  narrow waist and explore the gentle curve of her hips. He was lighting a  match to a keg of gunpowder, but he couldn't release her just yet. His  hands remained gently holding her arms. He raised his eyes and sighted  the animal.

"He caught your mare's scent," she said.                       
       
           



       

An irresistible lure he was fighting himself. "Yeah?"

"Go back to the dancing. I'll return him...shortly." A strand of  midnight-black hair whipped from her braid and streamed in the breeze.

She wasn't embarrassed. She accepted the animals' mating instincts as  natural. He had to wonder what Lydia's or Sissy's reaction would have  been had one of them followed him.

"I needed some air, anyway," he replied.

She nodded and gave him one of those maddening little smiles. So  composed. So self-sufficient. Her dark eyes seemed to focus on his, only  to drop immediately to his mouth as if she'd read his burning need.

She smelled wonderful. Not like soap or perfume or talcum, but like rain  and trees and sunshine. The scent was his undoing. He lowered his face  to her temple-a hair breadth away without touching her-and drew a  savoring breath.

Desire uncoiled and slithered throughout his body, a keen sensation he  hadn't experienced for a long time, if ever. He'd admitted to himself  his appetite for her, but he loathed letting her know how she set his  blood on fire.

And then she tipped her head that whisper of distance between them and lifted her face to his. Her mouth was there waiting

Her breath fanned his lips. He wasn't sure who kissed whom. At first her  lips offered the merest touch, like a silk ribbon against skin, so  softly did they graze his. Their noses rubbed next, a cautious inquiry  while he breathed in as much of her as his senses could take. She parted  her lips ever so slightly, and he met them with his own. She came to  life in his grasp, an instantaneous fire fed by his ravaging blaze of  desire. He stoked her with hot burning lips and hands, pulling her  against his body and splaying his fingers across her spine. She knew  now. His desire was obvious.

She pressed her flattened palms on his chest, celebrating the  soul-scorching kiss with him. Anton pulled his mouth from hers and  stared into eyes turned a molten blue-violet in the moonlight. He kissed  the corner of her mouth, touched her full lower lip with the tip of his  tongue. She inhaled sharply and met his lips with her own, drawing  another insatiable kiss from him.

Her reaction was honest, and his blood hummed through his veins. She wanted him, too.

"Hell." Anton straightened, held her at arm's length and wrestled with his shattered determination.

A confused expression replaced the desire in her eyes, and she withdrew from his touch.

"This isn't right. I-I shouldn't have..." He inhaled the night air and  shook his head as if throwing off the experience. "I shouldn't have let  that happen. I'm sorry."

His face held the clean, strong, angular lines of a man- not a boy, and  his body testified to the fact, as well. He had a natural virility that  appealed to her as it would to any woman. He was not as classically  handsome as his brother Jakob, but he had an aura, an elemental  attraction that every woman within eyesight was aware of.

She'd noticed in the barn how he appealed to a woman. He oozed a  magnetic, undiluted tone of sexual awareness that beguiled females,  young and old, to take a second look.

And she'd succumbed.

Rain Shadow forcibly removed her gaze from his silver-streaked moonlit  hair and stepped back as if he were a stick of dynamite. "No need to  apologize. Let's just forget it."

Forget it? Anton almost laughed at her ridiculous solution. She turned  and walked toward the barn, his scowl following. The hand he raked  through his hair trembled. Forget that kiss? Why not jump off the barn  roof and fly while he was at it? He'd just as likely sprout wings as  forget that kiss.

What in blue blazes had he done?





Chapter Five




In a secluded corner of the barn, Two Feathers and Johann perched on  nail kegs facing one another. A third keg held a checkerboard. Both  men's creased faces grew intent on the game before them. A small  gathering of white-haired men observed. Slender columns of aromatic  smoke from pipes held in clenched teeth curled past squinting eyes.