Chapter 6
"When are you going to marry me?"
"When are you going to give up and stop asking?"
"When you say yes."
Alice Greywolf folded the dishtowel she'd been using and carefully laid it on the drainboard. Sighing, she turned and faced Gene Dexter. "You're either steadfast or stubborn. I can't decide which. Why haven't you given up on me?"
He slid his arms around her slender waist and drew her close, laying his cheek against the sleek crown of her head. "Because I love you. Always have. Ever since the first time I saw you in the clinic."
And that was true. The doctor had fallen in love with her that very day. She had been awfully young, incredibly beautiful, and frantic over her rowdy little boy with the broken arm. Within an hour, Gene had set the arm … and set his heart on Alice Greywolf. In the years since then, his love hadn't diminished.
It hadn't always been easy to love her. There had been times when, out of sheer frustration, he would issue ultimatums that either she marry him or he'd never see her again. No amount of ranting and raving ever did any good. She still refused his marriage proposals.
Several times he had stayed away from her and deliberately cultivated other romances. They never lasted for long. He hadn't bothered to use that jealousy tactic in years, partially because it wasn't fair to the other women. Alice was the single love of his life, whether she ever married him or not. He had resigned himself to that fact.
Alice rested her cheek against his chest and smiled sadly at the bittersweet memory of the day they had met. Gene Dexter had been a friend to her in every sense of the word for so long she couldn't imagine a life without his solid presence in it. She treasured the first time she had seen him and heard his gentle voice. But at the same time, she had been anxious over her son.
"Lucas had been in a fight," she said reminiscently. "Some of the older boys at school had been aggravating him. One called him an ugly name." Even now it was painful for her to think of the double stigma her son had had to grow up with.
"Knowing Lucas, I guess he threw himself right into the thick of it."
"Yes," she said with a laugh. "I was worried about his arm, of course, but I remember being angry with him as well for not ignoring their name-calling."
Gene thought Lucas probably would have if they had slurred only him. His guess was that Alice had been maligned, too. Defending his mother had kept Lucas in fights during his childhood and adolescence. Gene refrained from mentioning that.
"I never liked for him to cause trouble at school because that only drew attention to him," Alice continued. "Then, too, I was worried about how I was going to pay the new Anglo doctor for his services."
She tilted her head back to look up into Gene's face. He was no longer as young as when she had first met him, but he was just as handsome in his kind, quiet way. "You knew I didn't have the money to pay you. Why did you extend me credit?"
"Because I wanted your body," he said, nudging his nose beneath her chin and making playfully ferocious growling sounds. "I thought that treating your kid on credit might give me some bargaining room."
Laughing, she pushed him away. "I don't believe that for a minute. You're far too nice. On the other hand, you insured payment. Right after you set Lucas's arm, you offered me a job."
He framed her face between his hands and stared down into it lovingly. "All I knew then and know now is that I couldn't let you walk out that day if there was the slightest chance I'd never see you again. All I ensured myself was that you had to come back." He kissed her, his mouth both tender and passionate as it moved over hers. "Marry me, Alice." There was a desperate edge to his voice and she knew that his yearning was sincere.
"My father—"
"Is dead now." Gene dropped his arms to his sides and agitatedly raked back his hair. "I know it's only been several weeks since he died. I know you're still feeling the pain of losing him. But you used him as an excuse not to marry me for years. I understood. You had to take care of him. But now that he's gone, are you going to use his death in the same way you used his life?"
She walked around him, leaving the kitchen and moving into the living room of her small but tidy house. "Please don't badger me about marriage now, Gene. I have Lucas to consider, too."
"Lucas is a grown man."
"He still needs the support of his family, and I'm all he's got left."
"He has me, too, dammit!"
She looked up at him then, apologetically, and reached for his hand. Angry as he was, he let her pull him down onto the sofa beside her. "I know that. I didn't mean to exclude you."
Gene's tone softened considerably. "Alice, Lucas isn't a child any longer, but he's still getting into fights. He's hell-bent on making life as tough on himself as he possibly can. With only a few months to go, he escaped prison. He took a young woman hostage."
"She's still a mystery to me," Alice interjected at the mention of Aislinn Andrews. "It was unlike Lucas to involve anyone else."
"Exactly my point. He didn't consult you, or ask my counsel on whether he should escape prison and become a fugitive. Why should you feel it's necessary to involve him in your decision to marry me? He knows how I feel about you. Maybe if you had married me when I first asked you, he wouldn't be as wild as he is." She looked hurt. Gene sighed. "That was a low blow. Sorry."
"Lucas had enough to live down when he was growing up. Having an Anglo stepfather, who was rich by reservation standards, would have been another."
"I know," he conceded. "But you used Lucas as an excuse for years. Then once he was grown and away at school, you said your father was the reason you couldn't marry me." He pressed her hands between his. "Neither of them was a viable reason. They were flimsy excuses, and they just ran out."
"Can't we just go on as we have been?"
He shook his head. "No, Alice. I'll love you till the moment I draw my last breath, but I'm a man. I want and need a total loving relationship." He leaned forward. His voice was low and earnest. "I know why you're afraid to marry me."
Her head dropped forward and she drew a deep breath as though preparing herself to face a firing squad. Gene brushed the raven-black hair away from her face, his eyes compassionate. "You associate sex with being victimized. I swear to you, I won't hurt you as you were hurt before."
Her eyes were glossy with tears when she raised them to look at him. "What do you mean?"
"We've been needing to have this conversation for years, Alice, but I didn't want to antagonize you by bringing it up." He paused momentarily before plunging ahead. "You're afraid to love a man again, especially an Anglo." She clamped her teeth over her lower lip, and he knew he had hit the target squarely. "You think that as long as you maintain your distance you can't get hurt again."
He carried her hands up to his mouth. His lips moved against her knuckles as he said, "I swear I'd never, never, hurt you. Don't you know me well enough by now to know that you are the center of my life? I love you. Let me and I'll cherish your body. Why would I hurt someone who is a vital part of myself?"
"Gene." She whispered his name through her tears and leaned against him. His arms went around her and held her with the fervent passion reserved for something most dear. He kissed her long and thoroughly.
When at last the kiss ended, he asked, "When are you going to marry me?"
"As soon as Lucas gets out of prison."
He frowned. "God knows when that will be."
"Please, Gene, give me until then. He'd never forgive us if we married without him. And we don't want him to break out again," she added on a soft laugh.
He smiled, allowing her that rationalization. Actually, Gene thought that Lucas would feel better knowing his mother was happily married. Now, however, after getting that much of a commitment from her, was not the time to argue. "All right. But I'm going to hold you to that. As soon as Lucas gets out. And in the meantime…" he murmured as his eyes gazed deeply into hers.
"In the meantime…?"
"In the meantime, I'll keep doing what I've always done. I'll impatiently wait for you, Alice Greywolf."
* * *
"Come in, Mr. Greywolf." Lucas stepped through the door of the office. "Please close the door and sit down." Warden Dixon didn't extend the prisoner the courtesy of rising from his chair behind the wide desk, but he exhibited no condescension toward him either. He studied the man with interest.
Lucas walked across the office and dropped into the chair the warden of the prison camp had indicated. Dixon was surprised that there was no meekness in the man's attitude. Far from being cowed, the prisoner had the bearing of a proud, undaunted man. His cool, gray eyes made no furtive movements, dead giveaways of guilt. They met those of the warden without a trace of repentance or remorse. Humility and deference were noticeably absent.
"Apparently the ordeal of the past several weeks hasn't cost you physically," the warden observed out loud. Since his return to the prison, the prisoner had been kept in a cell away from the others and disallowed any privileges.
"I'm fine," Lucas said laconically.
"A bit thinner, I think. A few days of cafeteria food should remedy that."
Lucas crossed one ankle over the opposite knee. "If you're going to spank my hands, get it over with, please. I'd like to return to my cell."
Warden Dixon curbed his temper. Years of dealing with recalcitrant prisoners had taught him to withstand the strongest provocation. He got out of his chair behind the desk and went to stand at the window, deliberately putting his back to Greywolf. He hoped the man would interpret that as a sign of trust. "The disciplinary action we've decided to take isn't nearly as severe as your escape warranted."
"Thanks," Lucas said sarcastically.
"Up to the time of your breakout, you were a model prisoner."
"I always try to do my best."
Again the warden exercised extreme self-restraint. "The board and I, after carefully reviewing your records, have voted to extend your sentence by six months in addition to the weeks you've already cost yourself. Our decision met with the approval of the penal-system officials."
Dixon turned quickly, in time to see Greywolf's astonishment before he abruptly masked it. Turning back to face the window, the warden hid his smile. Mr. Greywolf might try to remain indifferent, but he was as human as the next. Perhaps even more so. Dixon hadn't run across too many men who would risk spending more time behind bars to attend the death of their grandfather.
Lucas Greywolf sparked an admiration in the warden that was rare and unsettling. Given the same set of circumstances, would he have done what Greywolf had? It was a question that bothered him.
"Was it worth six more months in prison to see your grandfather before he died?"
"Yes."
The warden returned to his desk. "Why?"
Lucas lowered his leg back to the floor and assumed a more respectful posture. "Joseph Greywolf was a proud man. He clung stubbornly to tradition, often to his detriment. My being in prison bothered him more than it did me. He couldn't stand the thought that the grandson of a chief had to live behind bars."
"He was a chief?"
Greywolf nodded. "Little good that it did him. He died poor, disillusioned, defeated, as many men of my race do."
The warden studied the dossier in front of him. "It says here he was a landowner."
"But he had been swindled out of three-fourths of his land. He gave up. Stopped fighting. Before he got too sick, he was reduced to performing Indian ceremonial dances for tourists. Religious ceremonies that had at one time been solemn rites to him had become spectator sports to others."
Suddenly he lunged out of his chair. The warden jumped and reached beneath his desk for the panic button that would set off an alarm. But when he saw that the prisoner posed no physical threat to him, he placed his hand back on the desktop. He gave his full attention to Greywolf, who was pacing angrily, his body taut.
"Grandfather's only hope lay in me. He forgave me my white blood and loved me in spite of it. He raised me more as his son than grandson. The idea of my being in prison was intolerable to him. He had to see me out of it, he had to know that I had conquered it, before he could die peacefully. That's why I had to do it."
He faced the warden and Dixon thought that if this man couldn't sway jurors, no one could. His physical presence was dynamic. He was eloquent. He was a man of conviction and passion. What a waste that he wouldn't be allowed to practice law.
"I didn't want to escape, Warden Dixon. I'm not a fool. I asked for permission to leave for two days to see my grandfather. Two goddamn days. Permission was denied."
"It was against the rules," the warden countered calmly.
"To hell with the rules," he spat. "That is a stupid rule. Don't you people running this place realize how rehabilitative it would be to grant a prisoner some favors, give him back some dignity?" He was leaning over the desk now, full of threat.
"Sit down, Mr. Greywolf." Dixon spoke with just enough firmness to let the prisoner know he was getting out of line. After a considerable time had passed while they stared each other down, Lucas threw himself back into the chair. His handsome face was sullen.
"You're a lawyer," the warden said. "I think you realize how light you're getting off this time." Putting on a pair of silver-rimmed reading glasses, he scanned the report lying on his desk. "There was a young woman, a Miss Aislinn Andrews." He peered at Lucas over the rims of his glasses. The inflection at the end of the statement indicated that it was actually an inquiry.
Lucas said nothing, merely stared back at the warden with implacable eyes that revealed nothing of what he was thinking. The warden returned to the report. "Curious that she didn't press any charges against you." Still Lucas held his silence, though a muscle in his cheek jumped. Finally the warden closed the folder and took off his glasses. "You may return to your regular cell, Mr. Greywolf. That's all for now."
Lucas stood and headed for the door. He had already turned the knob before the warden halted him. "Mr. Greywolf, were you personally responsible for the assault on those policemen during that riot? Did you order the destruction of those government offices?"
"I organized the protest. The judge and jury found me guilty," he said succinctly before opening the door and making his exit.
Warden Dixon stared at the door for a long time after Lucas had closed it. He knew when a guilty man was lying. He also sensed when a man was innocent. Consulting the file on Lucas Greywolf again, he made a decision and reached for the telephone.
As Lucas was being escorted back to his cell, his heart was thudding, though on the outside he gave no indication of his inner turmoil.
He had expected to be told that he was being charged with breaking and entering, assault, kidnapping, and God knows how many other state and federal crimes. He had dreaded the ordeal of another trial, a trial that would further embarrass his mother and add to her heartache.
To learn that his escape had cost him only six more months in prison was a tremendous surprise. He would be busy during that time. By now the small table in his cell would be stacked with letters from people seeking legal advice. He couldn't charge them for it. He could never officially practice law again. But he could offer free legal advice. Among the Indians the name Lucas Greywolf represented a ray of hope. He wouldn't turn down anyone asking his help.
But why hadn't Aislinn Andrews pressed charges? Surely the state and federal authorities had tried to build a case against him. But without her testimony they couldn't prove he'd done anything but break out of prison. Why hadn't she cooperated with them?
Lucas Greywolf hated being indebted to anyone, but he owed Aislinn Andrews his gratitude.