Chapter 10
The next few weeks brought about miraculous changes in their lives. Lucas's friends, under Johnny Deerinwater's friendly supervision, finished the inside of the house. It wasn't fancy by any stretch of the imagination, but it was comfortable. Aislinn used her good taste and decorating skills, elbow grease and paint, until the stucco house looked like a magazine model home.
As soon as the telephone was installed, she called Scottsdale and made arrangements for her furniture to be moved to her new house. She itemized the pieces she wanted, including her washing machine and dryer, and double-checked the list with the moving company.
The van arrived several days later. As the furniture was being unloaded, Lucas rode up on horseback and deftly slid from the saddle. The first time Aislinn had seen him sitting astride a horse, he had taken her breath away he was so handsome. She liked him in his faded denim jeans, Western shirts, boots, hat and leather work-gloves. Often she paused from a household chore to watch him from a window as he went about his work outside.
Now, however, when he rode his horse right up to the porch before dismounting, she was made breathless by the angry expression on his face.
His spurs jingled as he crossed the porch, patently furious. "I told you not to send for this stuff," he said in a threateningly low voice.
"No you didn't." Despite his glower, she faced him squarely.
"We're not going to argue about this, Aislinn. Tell them to load it back up and return it to Scottsdale where it belongs, I don't need your charity."
"I'm not doing this for you. Or even for me."
"Well, Tony can't sit on a sofa yet," he said snidely, thinking she was going to use their baby as a lever to get her way.
"I'm doing it for Alice."
His face went comically blank. "My mother?"
"Yes, she's consented to hold her wedding reception here. Would you embarrass her by having her guests sit on the floor after all the sacrifices she's made for you?" A vein ticked in his temple. She had him cornered. Worse, he knew she knew she had him cornered. And while he wanted to admire her cunning and congratulate her for being a worthy adversary, she was still his wife and he was so angry he could throttle her.
He glared at her for a count of ten, then turned on his spurred boot-heels, stamped off the porch and remounted his horse. He kicked up quite a cloud of dust as he rode out of the yard.
Aislinn worked all afternoon arranging the furniture, moving the pieces herself, no matter how heavy. Amazingly, the furniture looked custom-made for the house. She had always liked a Southwestern motif. When she had decorated her condo, that's what she had selected. But the furniture looked even better in this house, its desert tones accented by the native accessories that Lucas's friends had sent as housewarming gifts.
By late afternoon she was exhausted, but as consolation for their argument that morning, she cooked an especially good meal. Her kitchen lacked some of the amenities she was accustomed to, but made up for its deficiencies with space.
Tony was no help on this day when she particularly wanted to please her husband. The baby was cranky and cried fitfully, though she couldn't find any reason for it. While she was keeping dinner warm in the oven, she took a quick bath and made herself attractive as possible for Lucas's return.
She didn't chastise him for being hours late when he finally came in well after dark. "Would you like a beer, Lucas?"
"Sounds good," he said sullenly, taking off his boots at the back door. "I'm going to take a shower." Without a word of thanks, he took the opened can of beer from her hand and carried it with him to the back of the house. Had he turned around, even he might have laughed at the ogre's face she made at his back.
When he returned to the kitchen, she had dinner set on the table, which was covered now with one of her tablecloths and set with her dishes and cutlery.
He didn't say a word either about that or any of the other furnishings as he sat down and began to eat, virtually shoveling the food into his mouth. "What's that noise?" he asked after a moment.
"The washing machine."
"Washing machine?"
"Uh-huh. And the dryer," she said breezily. "Tony goes through so many clothes. It will be such a relief not to have to drive into town every few days to the Laundromat. I was dreading those trips this winter, carrying Tony out in the cold."
Just as she had expected, Lucas glanced at Tony. She had set the baby's carrier on the table where he could hear their voices and be a part of the mealtime activity. Lucas seemed to weigh the advantages of having a washing machine and dryer under his roof and said nothing more.
One of the knots in Aislinn's chest eased considerably. "Having the nursery set up again is going to be wonderful," she ventured as she spooned another helping of potatoes onto Lucas's plate. "I won't have to worry about him rolling off the edge of something. Have you noticed how active he's getting?" She blotted her mouth with her napkin and coyly lowered her lashes over her eyes. "And he won't have to sleep between us anymore."
She saw Lucas hesitate as he raised his fork to his mouth. He chewed and swallowed that bite, then pushed his plate away. "I've got work to do." He left the table abruptly.
"But I made a pie for dessert."
"Maybe later."
Crestfallen, she watched his broad shoulders disappear through the doorway. She supposed she should be glad that they hadn't engaged in a battle royal over the furniture, but she was disappointed that he was so anxious to leave the table and her company, especially when she had just broached the subject of their sleeping arrangements.
Since they had moved into the house, Tony had, out of necessity, been sleeping in the bed with them. But Aislinn doubted that his tiny presence was the reason Lucas hadn't touched her since that morning at Alice's house. If they weren't in open dispute over something, he treated her with indifference. Rarely, if ever, did he look at her. When he did, it certainly wasn't with smoldering desire.
Not that she wanted him, she averred, as she readied Tony for bed. Still, the house was miles from their nearest neighbor. The nights were lonely. Lucas usually left right after a hurried breakfast. Often she wouldn't see him again until he came in for dinner. With only Tony for company all day, she looked forward to conversation with another adult. But Lucas remained taciturn.
She had grown up in a house where she had been discouraged from voicing an opinion or expressing herself. She didn't intend to live the rest of her life shrouded in silence. Stubbornly she decided to take the bull by the horns and not let Mr. Greywolf get away with his sulking.
She left Tony to sleep in his crib for the first time in weeks. A half-hour later, she carried a tray into the living room. Lucas was sitting on the sofa with papers spread out around him and spilling over onto the coffee table. He was making notes in a black notebook.
Aislinn went unnoticed until she switched on a lamp at his elbow. He raised his head and looked up at her. "Thanks."
"That should help you see better. How can you read without a light?"
"I didn't notice."
She thought he probably didn't want to use "her" lamp even though he was sitting on "her" sofa, but she refrained from commenting. "I brought your pie and fresh coffee," she said. She had set the tray on the end table.
"What kind?"
"Kind?"
"Of pie."
"Apple. Do you like apple?"
"I learned not to be too choosy in prison."
"Then why did you ask?" she snapped.
Ignoring her, he scarfed down the slice of pie in record time. She chided herself for not being more conscientious about his sweet tooth. Apparently it hadn't been satisfied in a long time. From now on she would see to it that every meal included dessert.
When he finished with his pie, he set the plate aside and bent back over his paperwork. "Is that ranching business?" she asked.
"No, a court record. My client…" he paused on the term, because he actually couldn't have clients any longer, "he, uh, wants to know if he should appeal the outcome of a lawsuit."
"Should he?"
"I think so."
She watched him make another brief notation in his tablet, then said, "Lucas, I want to talk to you."
He laid his tablet and pen aside and reached for his cooling coffee. "What about?"
She sat in the corner of the sofa and tucked her feet underneath her hips. "I had my camera equipment sent up with the furniture. I'm anxious to start using it again." Fiddling with the fringe on a throw pillow, she drew a deep breath. "And I was wondering what you would think of my converting the old trailer into a darkroom."
His eyes swiveled toward her and she rushed on before he could say anything. "It wouldn't take much redoing. The sink is already there, in the kitchen area. I could do most of the work myself. Think how convenient it would be to take pictures of Tony and have them developed right away, as many prints as we wanted. And I could make enlargements and—"
"I'm not a fool, Aislinn." That was the first time he had addressed her by name in days and both were aware of it. Before they had time to reflect on it, however, he went on. "Making that trailer into a darkroom is hardly worth the effort just to have pictures of Tony readily available. What else did you have in mind?"
"I want to work, Lucas. Running the house doesn't keep me busy enough."
"You have a child."
"A very good one, whom I love and adore and enjoy taking care of and playing with. But he doesn't require my every waking moment. I need something to do."
"So you want to take pictures."
"Yes."
"Of what?"
This was the tricky part. The tallest hurdle. The one she had most dreaded. "Of the reservation and the people who live on it."
"No."
"Listen. Please. Before I saw it for myself, I had no idea of the—"
"Poverty," he said harshly.
"Yes and the—"
"Squalor."
"That, too, but the—"
"Prevalence of alcoholism. And despair. And the sense of utter hopelessness." He had surged to his feet and was now angrily pacing the area in front of the sofa.
"I guess that's it," she said softly. "The hopelessness. But maybe if I captured some of that on film, and my work got published—"
"It wouldn't help," he said curtly.
"It wouldn't hurt either." She sprang up, angry that he had squelched her idea without even hearing her out. "I want to do this Lucas."
"And dirty your Anglo hands?"
"You're an Anglo, too!"
"I didn't ask to be," he shouted.
"All the rest of us are monsters, is that it? Why is it you never ridicule Gene's work on the reservation?"
"Because he's not some grandstanding, bleeding-heart liberal doing us all a big favor."
"And you think I am?"
"Don't you think your charity would be a trifle hypocritical?"
"How?"
"Living like this," he said, waving his arms to include their house, made so much prettier and more comfortable by her contributions to it. "I have always despised Indians who profited off other Indians. Their skin is brown, but they forget that and live like Anglos. And now you've made me one of them."
"That's not true, Lucas. No one would ever mistake you for anything but what you are." He had turned his back on her. Now she caught his arm and spun him around. "You work damn hard at being Indian. Short of painting your face and going on the warpath, you do everything you can to let everyone know you're a big, bad Indian brave right through to the marrow of your bones, despite your Anglo blood. Or maybe because of it."
She paused for breath, but continued, warmed now to the subject. "You've taught me how mistaken I was. Until now, I thought Indian braves had hearts and souls and compassion as well as courage and daring." She poked him in the chest with her index finger. "Those you will never have, Lucas Greywolf. You have no compassion because to you that's a sign of weakness. Well I think bullheadedness is more of a weakness than tenderness. I doubt you even know what it is."
"I can feel tenderness," he said defensively.
"Oh really? Well I'm your wife and I've never seen any evidence of it."
She landed against him before she even realized that he had moved and drawn her forward. His arm curved around her waist while his other hand cupped the side of her face. He tilted it until her other cheek almost touched his shoulder.
Then he bent his head low and impressed a soft kiss on her lips. His mouth moved. Her lips parted. The intrusion of his tongue into her mouth was so gentle and sweet, so deliciously sexy, that she shivered. Where before his kisses had been characterized by violence, this one was exquisitely tender. The kiss lengthened and became an outright act of love. He used his tongue to stroke the roof of her mouth. He explored and enticed until she was weakly clutching handfuls of his shirt in her hands.
When he finally lifted his mouth from hers, he buried his face in the fragrant hollow between her shoulder and neck. "I don't want you," he groaned. "I don't."
She rubbed against him. The lower part of his body unequivocally denied his words. "Yes, you do, Lucas. Yes, you do!"
She imbedded her fingers in his hair and lifted his head. She ran one finger over his sleek eyebrow, along the ridge of his cheekbone, and down his nose. She outlined his mouth. "You could never be a traitor to your people, Lucas."
The touch of her fingertip on his lips made him weak. The scent of her body filled his head and made him forget the stench of despair that permeated certain areas of the reservation. The sight of ill-dressed children was replaced by the desire he saw in her slumberous blue eyes. He could no longer taste the bitterness that kept him strong and resolute. All he could taste was Aislinn, the honey of her mouth.
She was the most dangerous of enemies because her ammunition was her allure. Her softness seduced him. What he felt deep in his gut at that moment terrified him. He used the weapon most readily at his disposal. It was also the most hurtful. His scorn.
"I'm already a traitor. I have an Anglo wife."
Aislinn recoiled as though he had struck her. She stepped away from him, her eyes glazed now with pain. To prevent him from seeing her tears, she turned and ran into the bedroom, slamming the door behind her.
When Lucas came in almost an hour later, she pretended to be asleep. They no longer had Tony serving as a buffer between them. But hostility was there, as sturdy as a brick wall, to keep them separated.