Sundancer (Cheyenne Series) by Shirl Henke

repeatedly through the night. Cain was burning up.
           Roxanna squeezed the excess moisture from a fistful of the herb. She began to rub his hot dry skin with it, unconsciously comparing the lean hard muscles of his long body to the Confederate officers she had encountered during the war. The men who ranked high enough to merit her attention were older, with thickening midsections and flabby muscles. Using her feminine charms to wheedle information from lascivious men with hot sour breath and rough grasping hands had been an unpleasant task. Tending this beautiful man was not.
           Roxanna finished rubbing his arms and chest, then moved on to his legs. When she reached the nexus of his body, she hesitated.
           “What are you waiting for?” Cain's raspy voice whispered. He almost laughed at the horrified widening of her eyes when she jerked her hand away and looked in his face.
           “You were unconscious, feverish. I was told—”
           “I overheard what you were told. Do it,” he commanded, wondering if she possessed the nerve...wondering if he did.
           “If you're awake and clear-headed enough to issue orders, you don't need me to bathe down your fever,” she said in a breathless, angry voice, throwing the clump of herbs back into the bucket with a loud plop.
           “You're right, I don't. But I bet you're better at raising temperatures than lowering them. Aren't you?”
           Roxanna paled. Those dark glowing eyes seemed to be peering into her very soul—as if he knew! She rose and dashed out of the lodge.
           Cain stared into the flickering light of the fire, listening to the lonesome wail of a coyote, or perhaps a Pawnee scout. He wanted to be quit of this dangerous place and all its painful memories, quit of the troublesome silver-haired woman who was destined for Powell's heir. Was nothing ever to belong to him? Or he to any place or anyone?
           With a snarled oath of pain, he turned his face from the fire and drifted into a troubled sleep.
     
    * * * *
     
           Over the following days as Cain mended, Sees Much insisted that Her Back Is Straight tend to him in spite of her protests. Gently but firmly, he brushed aside every excuse she made or reason why Willow Tree would be better suited. Finally, in exasperation, she worked up her courage and approached old Leather Shirt. The forbidding chief always made her feel uncomfortable, as if he had judged her and found her lacking.
           “I do not want to care for the Lone Bull. Cannot one of the women of your people do it?” she asked, meeting his unnerving dark gaze head-on.
           He studied her silently, as if measuring his reply. “He is no longer the Lone Bull. His name is Not Cheyenne. He is white. You are white,” he said as if it were an accusation. “And he has paid many rifles to have you.”
           “He does not have me,” she blurted out, then reddened in mortification. “I don't belong to anyone.”
           “Your thoughts betray you,” the old man said. “Return to Not Cheyenne's fire.” He raised his arm and pointed, a gesture that allowed no argument. As Leather Shirt watched the young woman trudge back to the lodge, he pondered her declaration. I don't belong to anyone . “Sees Much, my brother, you are right.” The old chief's smile was almost sympathetic.
           Your thoughts betray you . That evening as she made her way back to the lodge where Cain was waiting for supper, Leather Shirt's words rang in her ears.
           Willow Tree and Lark Song had roasted a large piece of buffalo hump, along with chunks of dried lung. The latter delicacy she abstained from trying. Dishing up the meat, along with a honey-sweetened bowl of chokecherries, she carried the food inside.
           Cain was sitting up, leaning against a pair of the heavy parfleches, using them as a backrest. He looked up at