Sweet Prairie Passion (Savage Destiny) Read Free

closer to Zeke and handed it to him.
    “Abbie!” her father suddenly barked. She jumped, and some of the coffee spilled. “Why are you still out here?”
    She reddened deeply, ignoring the pain of the hot coffee that had splashed onto her hand. She glared at her father, angry with him for the first time in her life. He had interrupted a beautiful, secret moment between herself and this fascinating stranger called Cheyenne Zeke.
    “I never knew us Tennessee folks to shun offering a man a cup of coffee!” she replied defiantly. Her father looked angry enough to hit her. But she knew he’d never lay a hand on her, and she felt as though she’d just won a little victory of her own. She looked up at Zeke. “Here’s your coffee,” she told him, as the others returned to their discussion.
    “Perhaps I’d best not take it,” the man replied, his eyes making her knees feel weak.
    “I have a feeling you are not the type to back down from something you know is right,” she replied boldly. “There’s no reason why you shouldn’t drink this, if you choose.”
    Now he grinned a little, stirred by this child struggling to act like a woman in front of him. He took the cup from her, his hand touching hers briefly and sending lightning through her bones. “Thank you, ma’am,” he told her with a nod.

    “Abbie, get to the wagon!” her father ordered, this time with less harshness. She glanced over at him, then back at Zeke.
    “You’d best do what your pa says, ma’am,” Zeke told her. It seemed to make all the difference in the world that it was Zeke telling her and not her father. She nodded and slipped quietly away to the wagon, but rather than climb inside, she stood at the corner to watch and listen.
    Jason Trent, Kelsoe and the others walked back in a group to where Zeke stood drinking his coffee.
    “We … uh … we’ll seriously consider hiring you, Cheyenne Zeke,” Trent spoke up, rubbing his chin again. “But we have a right to know a little more about you—like how you can have a father from Tennessee and a Cheyenne mother. Quite a distance between Tennessee and Cheyenne territory.”
    “Long story,” Zeke replied. “My pa come out to the plains years back, married a Cheyenne woman, then left again. Went back to Tennessee. Took me with him. Guess that’s when I learned to talk like a Tennessee man. At any rate, my pa was a wandering man; that’s what led him out West to the mountains. When he went back to Tennessee, he married a local girl. I have three half brothers in Tennessee. Lived there myself a lot of years. Had some bad experiences and came back out here to find my real ma. Been out here ever since.”
    “No family other than that? No wife?” Kelsoe asked.
    Zeke just stared at him a moment, looking as though someone had stuck a knife in his chest. Abbie’s own heart tightened, for the pain in his eyes was evident.She felt sorry for him in that instant, and then secretly chastised herself, warning her heart that the man she was staring at would probably violate and scalp her in the dark if he got the chance. Why should she feel sorry for a half-breed Indian she’d known five minutes? But no—Cheyenne Zeke would never hurt a woman. Her own intuition told her that. And there was that awful pain in his eyes!
    “Had one,” he replied quietly. “Wife and son. They’re dead. I’m not answering any more questions about it.”
    “White?” Connely spoke up, suspecting by the previous answer and by the fact that Zeke had lived in Tennessee that he could have married a white girl. The man seemed to detest Indians, and more than that, he seemed to enjoy rubbing them the wrong way. The word “white” was sneered haughtily.
    “It’s not your business,” Zeke replied. “She’s dead, so what’s the difference? I came here looking for work. Like I said, I’m good. Now do you want a scout or not? I don’t have all night!”
    Abbie felt like hitting Connely for making Zeke angry. The