Tallchief for Keeps Read Online Free

Elspeth’s grandmother had given it to Pauline Tallchief as an engagement gift. The earring looked fragile in Alek’s scarred palm. “You lost this that night. A village woman, a midwife, gave it to me last fall. She said that by the look of you, you were ‘breeding’ when you left Seonag two weeks after we met at the festival.”
    Elspeth sat upon her pallet and clasped her arms around her bent legs, resting her chin on her knees. She studied the fire and wished Alek Petrovna back into the past.
    He threw his gloves down and ripped open his insulated jacket. “Well? Where is my child? How old is it—he…she—now, four?”
    Elspeth slowlylifted her head to face him. She wouldn’t give in to the temper that flickered at his taunts. She’d dealt with a houseful of wild Tallchiefs, every one of them difficult and arrogant, and nothing could be gained by facing Alek on this primitive plane.
    For a moment he held her eyes, then ripped off his coat and tossed it into a corner. While Elspeth forgot to breathe calmly, he ripped the dangling beads and silver feather from the stud and slowly pushed it through his right earlobe. Blood ran freely from the wound, dripping onto his thick sweater.
    “Alek!” She leapt to her feet, grabbed a towel and lifted it—
    His fingers circled her wrist, staying her. “I’ll wear your mark, you bloodless witch, until I’m damn well ready to remove it.”
    He took the towel and sent her sprawling upon the neat pallet. As he placed the cloth to his wound, his black eyes slowly, insolently studied her body.
    She knew he wastaunting her, driving her to the edge, making her remember that night with the huge silver moon when he’d spread her beneath him, anxious for her first taste of this laughing, passionate lover. “Alek…there is no child!”
    Heartbeats later, as he stared coldly at her, her words echoed in the tepee. She’d never spoken the secret buried in her heart, and now it tore her apart once more.
    Alek slowly removed the towel, ignoring the steady flow of blood. “No? Another lie, like the name you used when we met? Fearghus. Yes, that was it…Fearghus, not Tallchief.”
    She hated giving him anything. “Fearghus was my great-great-grandmother’s name. I used it to make connections, to make my studies easier—
    “Ah, yes. The American weaver woman, they said, come to Scotland to study the Paisley shawl at its Scottish roots and to dig out some legend about the one you inherited. Now tell me about my child.”
    “Alek…” Elspeth swallowed the pain that had never dimmed. From his sister Talia, Elspeth knewhow deeply the Petrovnas cherished their children. Perhaps he needed peace just as she did, and then he would leave. “There was a baby. I miscarried—”
    In that instant, Alek paled, his eyes closing as the knuckles on his fists turned white. A vein pulsed in his muscled throat, standing out in relief, and his nostrils flared, dragging air deep in his lungs. Then the next heartbeat, he crouched before her, his brilliant eyes damp and cutting at her from beneath fierce brows.
    “Damn you! If it’s true, not another lie, you must have taken something…did something. You discarded my baby like dirty laundry without the slightest care about…the father. Then you ran back here where you’d be safe, tucked away in this nest of Tallchiefs. Oh, yes, I’ve researched the entire family and I’m good at what I do. They won’t be able to help you….
    Well, nothing can protect you now, Elspeth. Not from me. You’ve given me no choice—”
    Elspeth leapt to herfeet; she couldn’t—wouldn’t—stop the anger welling up and bursting from her. Alek had stepped into her life, wrenched her pain from the past and spread it before her. If he believed she had deliberately lost their baby…She hit his chest with the palms of her hands with enough strength to send him sprawling backward.
    Elspeth slashed a dark look at him as she stalked back and forth over the small