Candy now saw behind Hawk Woman’s latest scheme. Looking past this woman’s bowlegs and fleshiness around the middle, Candy saw that she was otherwise well endowed where Candy wasn’t. Hawk Woman had done this purposely to show off her buxom body; obviously she thought she had much more to offer her chief than Candy would ever have.
Feeling somewhat inadequate as she realized just how tiny her own breasts were in comparison with Hawk Woman’s, Candy hesitated to take her clothes off. She feared the mocking look she would see in the other woman’s eyes.
But being the stubborn person that she was at times, Candy jerked her clothes off and proudly pranced into the water, her eyes meeting Hawk Woman’s in silent challenge.
She could tell that Hawk Woman was shaken by Candy’s nonconcern over being less endowed than she; her plot was foiled.
Candy smiled wickedly at Hawk Woman, then bathed without another thought of inadequacy.
She kept an eye on Hawk Woman, though. She did not turn her back to the spiteful woman, and was truly glad when they both left the water and were clothed and on their way back to the village.
“I know that I should thank you for the dress and—” Candy began, but Hawk Woman interrupted her.
“I did not do this out of good feelings toward you,” she hissed out.
“I know exactly why you did it,” Candy said, smiling at Hawk Woman. “I’m certain you don’t do many things without an ulterior motive. Hawk Woman, you are only making a fool of yourself by behaving in such a way toward me. Why don’t you stop now before you are shamed further?”
Hawk Woman glared at Candy, then broke into a run until she disappeared into her tepee. As Candy rejoined Two Eagles, Shadow settled down at the back and was soon asleep.
“It is good that you are back safe with me after our long night apart,” Two Eagles said tenderly as he drew Candy into his embrace. “Do not leave like that again. There are too many out there who would harm you.”
“Yes, I know,” Candy said softly, thinking there was someone inside the village who might be more of a threat than anyone outside it. “And, no, I won’t do anything as foolish as that again.”
She could not help th
inking of Spotted Bear again. She badly wished to tell Two Eagles about him. She just couldn’t imagine that Two Eagles, kind man that he was, could turn his back on one of his own people for such a reason.
Surely he would be glad to see that Spotted Bear was alive.
But she did not feel this was the right time to tell him. She had to wait for the right moment to repeat the story Spotted Bear had told her.
“I love you so much,” Two Eagles said huskily, his hands at her waist, drawing her against him. “I would be no one without you.”
She smiled into his eyes. She gently touched his face. “I have something that I have failed to say to you for too long now,” she murmured.
“And that is?” he asked, searching her eyes, his pulse racing. Something deep inside him told him what she was about to say. It was something that he had been waiting for. The few words he hoped to hear would shape both their futures.
“I love you, Two Eagles,” Candy murmured. “I love you so much.”
She saw a look of total, undying love in his eyes, and something else—gratification to have finally heard the words that until now she had resisted saying.
But she had said them now, and would repeat those same words over and over again until the day she died.
She melted inside when he pulled her hard against him and kissed her passionately, then stepped away from her.
Her heart pounded as she watched him secure the ties at the entrance flap, which would keep everyone out of his lodge.
Then he came back to her, his eyes dark with passion, which matched how she felt, herself.
Her pulse raced as she became aware of a sensual craving in the pit of her stomach that she had never felt before. Slowly he began to undress her, and every place his hand touched sent an erotic shock to her heart. . . .
Chapter Nineteen
All love that has not friendship for its base
Is like a mansion built upon the sand.
—Ella Wheeler Wilcox