Black Horse Read online

  BLACK HORSE

  VERONICA BLAKE

  LEISURE BOOKS NEW YORK CITY

  A Woman’s Needs

  “And what about you? Do you want to marry me?”

  “I—yes, I do,” she whispered as she remembered the promise she had just given her father. She would not waste one second. Her gaze rose up until it was locked with his. She tossed her head back and sighed deeply before she gave into the urge that she could not deny any longer. She leaned closer to him and Black Horse’s hand immediately slid around her waist as he pulled her the short distance to him. Then, his lips descended on hers with abandon.

  Although she hadn’t been able to comprehend that their second kiss could even begin to compare with their first one, Meadow was certain Black Horse was trying to outdo himself. They were standing in the middle of the village where everyone could see them, yet she gave no thought to modesty. His strong arms were surrounding her again, and his mouth was doing the most amazing things. Meadow let her own lips imitate his and returned his kiss without reservation. She had her own hunger to satisfy, and it was obviously equal to his appetite.

  For Albert…my hero

  And for my amazing grandsons…Derek, Devin & Kaden Blake

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  A Woman’s Needs

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Acknowledgments

  Copyright

  Chapter One

  “See? That’s him, that’s Black Horse,” Gentle Water whispered. She put her hand over her mouth and stifled a giggle.

  “Quiet! He might hear us,” Meadow warned with a stern glance. She tried to look serious, but the sight of the young war chief on the other side of the thick brush sent her heartbeat racing and caused a strange fluttering sensation in the pit of her stomach. She turned away from Gentle Water and focused on the man down by the riverbank.

  Even from this distance he appeared to be slightly taller than most of the Sioux men in their village. Two thin braids wound with brass wires framed his handsome face and dangled over his bare chest. The rest of his dark hair hung to his waist. A large necklace of grizzly-bear claws encircled his neck—potent medicine for a warrior to posses. Black Horse was a chief warrior, which at his young age meant that he held a powerful position in the tribe.

  Everything about him was impressive, Meadow noticed. His shoulders were outlined with bulging, sinewy muscles, his belly lean and defined. A white breechcloth encircled his hips, and tan leather leggings hugged his muscular thighs.

  “Do you want to meet him now?” Gentle Water asked. Her voice rose slightly above a whisper. She muffled another giggle when her friend shook her fist at her. Gentle Water leaned close to the other girl. “Your face is red, Meadow. I think you want to do more than just meet him.”

  “I’m leaving,” Meadow whispered through gritted teeth. Before she could turn around to crawl back through the thick brush, a deep voice bellowed from the riverbank below.

  “Who’s there?”

  Meadow instinctively fell down flat on her stomach and held her breath. Pressed against the hard ground, she could feel her heartbeat thudding uncontrollably. Beside her, Gentle Water was also lying facedown in the underbrush. But now she was also being quiet as death. Meadow silently cursed herself for letting Gentle Water talk her into coming down to the river today. Nothing could be more humiliating than getting caught in this compromising position.

  When his cry was met with silence, Black Horse grew wary. He pulled his antler-handled knife from the sheath at his hip, bent his knees and began to inch up the sloping riverbank. His dark eyes darted back and forth. The dense brush of alders and willows made it difficult for him to see. Black Horse knew how easy it was to hide in heavy brush such as this. He had done so on many occasions when he had been hunting game, or waiting in ambush for an enemy.

  Sensing there was someone—or something—hiding in the bushes, Black Horse didn’t call out again. He continued to take cautious steps toward the bushes. He had moved only a few feet, though, when his keen ears picked up the slight sound of rustling brush. His footsteps halted. Every muscle in his body tensed. A light sheen of perspiration broke out on his chest and face as he prepared to go to battle again.

  For several moments Black Horse did not move. When another faint sound came from the bushes, he pinpointed his prey’s location. He moved like a crouched mountain lion toward the bushes to his left and then peered into the heavy underbrush. He smiled.

  Through the low-hanging branches of the willows he could see the distinct forms of two females lying facedown on the ground. He studied them for a moment. Black Horse was certain they were just a couple of curious young girls. His smile widened.

  “I must have been imagining things,” he said out loud. The girls did not move a muscle. The urge to chuckle tickled the back of his throat, but he resisted.

  As he sheathed his knife, he turned and walked back to the river with a nonchalant stride. Humming to himself, Black Horse untied the belt that held his elaborately decorated knife sheath. He placed the weapon down on the ground, then presented his observers with a full view of his hind side as he bent over to pull off his tall, beaded moccasins. He kept his movements slow and provocative. I’ll give them something to see, he thought.

  Unable to keep the smirk from his lips, Black Horse kept his back to the bushes until he could control his expression. He wanted to make sure that the girls were still watching. He didn’t want to waste all this effort if he no longer had an audience. With a feigned look of indifference, he turned around. There were still no signs of movement on the hillside.

  Black Horse untied the belt that held up his leggings. He rolled the fringed leg coverings down past his knees, lifted one foot up, then the other, until he was free of the leggings. Clothed only in his breechcloth, he turned toward the river again. He remained in this position for a moment to give the two visitors a chance to leave before they saw more than they were expecting. Or maybe that’s what they want, he told himself. Why else would they be hiding in the bushes while he was preparing to take a bath? He turned sideways to the bushes where his audience hid, and slowly untied the strings at his hip.

  In the scanty cover of the bushes, Meadow watched every one of Black Horse’s movements in breathless awe. He was the most magnificent man she had ever seen, and the way he was undressing was like nothing she had ever witnessed. In the pit of her stomach, and even lower, she felt an unfamiliar ache. Her insides were on fire, and every time Black Horse discarded another article of clothing, the heat within her grew more consuming.

  He was facing the bushes now, and Meadow knew there was no way they could leave without being seen. They would have to wait until he was in the water. Then, they could flee. Once they were away from the river, she planned to tell Gentle Water what a trouble-maker she was to have suggested this scheme. But now that they were here she could not tear her gaze from the warrior’s seductive
movements.

  His stark white breechcloth made the young chief’s smooth skin shine like glistening copper. His legs were long, with well-defined muscles along his thighs and on the backs of his calves. As he moved, every muscle of his body strained and contracted with exact precision. At that moment, Meadow could not have taken her eyes off him even if the bushes around her had caught on fire and burned to the ground.

  When the ties that held his breechcloth together were dangling long and loose in his hands, Black Horse was still facing the bushes. He parted his powerful thighs as he slowly pulled the breechcloth out from between his legs and then casually let it drop on the ground at his feet.

  Meadow felt perspiration running down her body as she continued to stare. She had seen very young boys running around naked in the village, and she’d helped her adoptive mother prepare dead men for burial. She knew what a male looked like without his breechcloth. But little boys and dead men did not even begin to compare to the virile male who stood at the river’s edge now.

  Yearnings that Meadow had never experienced before ballooned inside her until she thought she would burst apart. It seemed as if Black Horse knew he had an audience. But that was ridiculous; he had no idea they were hiding here in the bushes. As soon as he dove into the water, they would get away from here, and this embarrassing situation could be forgotten. Even as that thought passed through her mind, Meadow knew there was no way that she would ever be able to forget the sight of this handsome man, who now stood before her naked as a newborn babe.

  The gasps coming from the thick brush almost made Black Horse laugh out loud. More than anything, he wished he could see the faces of his inquisitive observers. He knew, however, it would not be long before he would encounter at least one of them again. When he saw them hiding in the underbrush, he had noticed one of them had hair that was the shade of the prairie sun—a half-breed, most likely. She would be easy to find in the Sioux village, where most of the women had hair as black as midnight.

  Smug and filled with satisfaction that he’d given the curious virgins an eyeful, Black Horse lingered for a second longer. As though he had grown bored with the charade, he turned and sauntered to the river’s edge. Without pausing, he walked into the cool water until it was up to his hips and then dove under the surface. Staying completely submerged, he swam out to the middle before coming up for air. He turned back toward the bushes.

  A deep laughter escaped Black Horse when he glimpsed the two spies hurrying up the hillside on the other side of the thick clump of bushes. They were both dressed in the long fringed dresses and knee-high moccasins worn by all the females of the tribe, but the thing that caught his attention the most was the alluring way the buckskin dress caressed the curvy hips of the taller one—the one with the long yellow hair.

  Black Horse began to splash around in the deep water of the river. He let the cool water wash away the dirt from the last of the long, hard trails he had ridden for the past few months. For a while, he let his mind clear. At dawn this morning he had crossed the Canadian border. He hoped Canada would offer a peaceful haven where he could rest.

  Barely more than three months ago he had ridden with his comrades in the battle at Greasy Grass River—the battleground the white men called Little Bighorn. But victory over the long-haired General Custer and his men had been short-lived. Within weeks of that successful attack, Black Horse’s people had been defeated again and again.

  But for the first time in a long time he had something besides fighting and killing on his mind. He was thinking of the two girls in the bushes, and of the fun he would have when he had a chance to meet the light haired one face-to-face. His mind recalled the way the wavy locks of her flaxen hair had swung back and forth above her shapely hips as she scurried up the hillside. He hoped she looked as enticing from the front as she did from behind. Another carefree laugh escaped from his mouth. He was looking forward to his stay here in Canada.

  Chapter Two

  “I will never forgive you!” Meadow yelled as she stomped back toward the camp. “If he had found us hiding in the bushes—oh!—I can’t even imagine what would have happened.”

  Gentle Water giggled. “You are so funny, Meadow. I saw how you were looking at his—”

  “I don’t want to talk about it,” Meadow interrupted. She covered her ears with her hands. Her mind, however, could not help but recall Black Horse’s well-endowed physique. Just the thought of him caused the strange ache to inch through her body once more. She was drenched in sweat again. Her steps faltered, and her legs started to feel shaky. She hoped she would never see him again, because she knew there would be no way she could look at him without remembering every single detail of his muscular body.

  “He’ll be the guest of honor at the ceremony tonight,” Gentle Water said. “Would you like me to braid your hair with leather and feathers?”

  “I don’t need my hair braided, because I won’t be there.”

  Gentle Water gave her friend a smug glance. There was no chance her friend would intentionally miss the festivities tonight. Their band of Hunkpapa Sioux—led by the fierce war chief, Sitting Bull—had been camped here in the North-West Territories since early summer. Now, it was the beginning of the fall season, and this was the first celebration since they had fled across the Canadian border from their homelands in the Dakota Territory.

  When Black Horse and his small band of Oglala warriors had arrived earlier that day, they had brought with them an abundance of freshly killed buffalo. Meat of any kind was becoming more and more scarce. The buffalo meat, along with the flasks of whiskey the warriors had also brought to the camp, was more than enough reason for a celebration. Since the battle a few months ago at the Greasy Grass River, it seemed the reasons for celebration among the Sioux were growing fewer and fewer.

  “Your hair is prettier when you wear it loose, anyway,” Gentle Water said, even though Meadow did not seem interested in pursuing this conversation. “I will brush it with a dry-grass brush until it shines like dancing moonbeams,” she added as she found herself wishing that her dear friend had beautiful straight black hair like the rest of the Sioux women.

  It was rare that Gentle Water thought of Meadow’s white heritage, but there were times when she was reminded of how different they really were in appearance. Gentle Water knew that walking side by side, as they were now, only their clothes were similar. The summer sun had lightened Meadow’s hair to a pale golden hue, and the thick tresses fell down her back in heavy waves that were impossible to brush smooth. Her complexion, even suntanned, was also several shades lighter than the skin of anyone else in the tribe.

  Meadow’s jade-colored eyes made her even more distinct within the Sioux tribe that she had lived with for the past fifteen years. The vibrant color of her eyes had been the inspiration for her name. Her adoptive ate ate, or father, White Buffalo, had thought that looking into her eyes was like looking at the beautiful blades of tall grass in a summer meadow.

  “I will come for you when I’ve finished helping my grandmother with preparations for to night,” Gentle Water said as they walked cautiously through the tall pine trees. She noticed that Meadow kept looking back over her shoulder, even as they reached the edge of the encampment. Gentle Water had already pushed their spying escapade to the back of her mind and assumed Meadow’s nervous behavior was due to the unusual location of their new campsite.

  The large gathering of Sioux that had recently settled here had created a vast sea of tepees. There were seven tribes that made up the Great Sioux Nation: the Oglala, Brulé, Hunkpapa, Miniconjou, Oohenonpa, Itazipco and Sihasapa. Members of nearly every one of those tribes were camped in this vicinity. It was the usual custom of the Sioux people to camp out on the open plains, where there was less chance of ambush, and this camp in the dense forests of Canada made them wary.

  By the time they had arrived back at the village, Meadow was more determined than ever to stay away from tonight’s festivities. Just the thought of seeing
Black Horse again made her insides quiver. Surely these abnormal feelings were the beginnings of an illness that she could use as her excuse to avoid the celebration tonight.

  Without looking at Gentle Water, Meadow waved good-bye and hurried toward her own tepee. The hide-covered lodge Gentle Water shared with her kunci unci—grandmother—was on the opposite side of the encampment. Because they had no husbands to care for them, the husbands of other women looked after Gentle Water and her elderly grandmother, Sings Like Sparrow.

  Meadow’s adoptive father was an honored Hunkpapa Sioux medicine man. Their tepee was close to the main circle of lodges. Sitting Bull, the most powerful of all medicine men and the great war chief of the Hunkpapa tribe, was their closest neighbor.

  But even the presence of so many Sioux did not make Meadow’s uneasiness fade. She prayed constantly that here in Canada the fighting would cease. They were all so tired of living like hunted animals. Even after their victory over the yellow-haired Custer, they were still constantly on the run from the angry white soldiers. It was rumored that now the Canadians were desperately trying to convince the American government to negotiate with the Sioux to get them to return to the other side of the border, because they did not want them to remain here in Canada.

  “Is that you, mi-cun-ksi?”

  Meadow smiled when she heard her adopted father calling her daughter. Since soldiers had killed his wife, her adoptive mother, Little Squirrel, a little over two years ago, he had become even more devoted to Meadow. The Indian attack that had killed her real family when she was barely two years old was not even a hazy memory. “I have been with Gentle Water,” she said as she entered through the hide flap in the doorway of their tepee. The cozy interior of the lodge welcomed her, and White Buffalo’s smiling face filled her with a sense of comfort.

  “Have you and Gentle Water been off teasing the young men?” White Buffalo asked without looking up from the bowl where he was mixing up some medicinal concoction. “The village is full of them since all the tribes have been gathering here.”