Paper Rose

“Native Americans are stoic and unemotional,” Cecily reminded her. “All the books say so.”

“We never read many books in the old days, so we didn’t know that,” came the dry explanation. She shook her head. “What a sad stereotype so many make of us—a bloodthirsty ignorant people who never smile because they’re too busy torturing people over hot fires.”

“Wrong tribe,” Cecily corrected. She frowned thoughtfully. “That was the northeastern native people.”

“Who’s the Native American here, you or me?”

Cecily shrugged. “I’m German-American.” She brightened. “But I had a grandmother who dated a Cherokee man once. Does that count?”

Leta hugged her warmly. “You’re my adopted daughter. You’re Lakota, even if you haven’t got my blood.”

Cecily let her cheek fall to Leta’s shoulder and hugged her back. It felt so nice to be loved by someone in the world. Since her mother’s death, she’d had no one of her own. It was a lonely life, despite the excitement and adventure her work held for her. She wasn’t openly affectionate at all, except with Leta.

“For God’s sake, next you’ll be rocking her to sleep at night!” came a deep, disgusted voice at Cecily’s back, and Cecily stiffened because she recognized it immediately.

“She’s my baby girl,” Leta told her tall, handsome son with a grin. “Shut up.”

Cecily turned a little awkwardly. She hadn’t expected this. Tate Winthrop towered over both of them. His jet-black hair was loose as he never wore it in the city, falling thick and straight almost to his waist. He was wearing a breastplate with buckskin leggings and high-topped mocassins. There were two feathers straight up in his hair with notches that had meaning among his people, marks of bravery.

Cecily tried not to stare at him. He was the most beautiful man she’d ever known. Since her seventeenth birthday, Tate had been her world. Fortunately he didn’t realize that her mad flirting hid a true emotion. In fact, he treated her exactly as he had when she came to him for comfort after her mother had died suddenly; as he had when she came to him again with bruises all over her thin, young body from her drunken stepfather’s violent attack. Although she dated, she’d never had a serious boyfriend. She had secret terrors of intimacy that had never really gone away, except when she thought of Tate that way. She loved him….

“Why aren’t you dressed properly?” Tate asked, scowling at her skirt and blouse. “I bought you buckskins for your birthday, didn’t I?”

“Three years ago,” she said without meeting his probing eyes. She didn’t like remembering that he’d forgotten her birthday this year. “I gained weight since then.”

“Oh. Well, find something you like here…”

She held up a hand. “I don’t want you to buy me anything else,” she said flatly, and didn’t back down from the sudden menace in his dark eyes. “I’m not dressing up like a Lakota woman. In case you haven’t noticed, I’m blond. I don’t want to be mistaken for some sort of overstimulated Native American groupie buying up artificial artifacts and enthusing over citified Native American flute music, trying to act like a member of the tribe.”

“You belong to it,” he returned. “We adopted you years ago.”

“So you did,” she said. That was how he thought of her—a sister. That wasn’t the way she wanted him to think of her. She smiled faintly. “But I won’t pass for a Lakota, whatever I wear.”

“You could take your hair down,” he continued thoughtfully.

She shook her head. She only let her hair loose at night, when she went to bed. Perhaps she kept it tightly coiled for pure spite, because he loved long hair and she knew it.

“How old are you?” he asked, trying to remember. “Twenty, isn’t it?”

“I was, five years ago,” she said, exasperated. “You used to work for the CIA. I seem to remember that you went to college, too, and got a law degree. Didn’t they teach you how to count?”

He looked surprised. Where had the years gone? She hadn’t aged, not visibly.

“Where’s Audrey?” she asked brightly, trying to sound nonchalant about it when her heart was breaking.

Something changed in his face. He looked briefly disturbed. “She couldn’t get away,” he said in a tone that didn’t invite questions. “One of her friends was having a tea, and she promised to help. I flew out alone.”

Cecily wondered if it was really because of a party that Audrey had stayed behind, or if his society girlfriend didn’t want to be seen on an Native American reservation. Tate had mentioned once or twice that Audrey had asked him repeatedly to get a conservative haircut. As if he’d ever cut his hair willingly. It was a part of his heritage, of which he was fiercely proud. At least she didn’t have to worry about him marrying Audrey. He might be smitten, but he’d said for years that he wasn’t going to dilute his Lakota blood by mingling it with a white woman. He wanted a child who was purely Lakota, like himself. If he ever married, it would be to a Lakota woman. The first time he’d said that, it had broken Cecily’s heart. But she’d come to accept it. When she realized that she was never going to be able to have Tate, she gave up and devoted herself to her studies. At least she was good at archaeology, she mused, even if she was a dismal failure as a woman in Tate’s eyes.

“She’s been broody ever since we got here,” Leta said with pursed lips as she glanced from Tate to Cecily. “You two had a blowup, huh?” she asked, pretending innocence.

Tate drew in a short breath. “She poured crab bisque on me in front of television cameras.”

Cecily drew herself up to her full height. “Pity it wasn’t flaming shish kebab!” she returned fiercely.

Leta moved between them. “The Sioux wars are over,” she announced.

“That’s what you think,” Cecily muttered, glaring around her at the tall man.

Tate’s dark eyes began to twinkle. He’d missed her in his life. Even in a temper, she was refreshing, invigorating.

She averted her eyes to the large grass circle outlined by thick corded string. All around it were makeshift shelters on poles, some with canvas tops, with bales of hay to make seats for spectators. The first competition of the day was over and the winners were being announced. A women-only dance came next, and Leta grimaced as she glanced from one warring face to the other. If she left, there was no telling what might happen.

“That’s me,” she said reluctantly, adjusting the number on her back. “Got to run. Wish me luck.”

“You know I do,” Cecily said, smiling at her.

“Don’t disgrace us,” Tate added with laughter in his eyes.

Leta made a face at him, but smiled. “No fighting,” she said, shaking a finger at them as she went to join the other competitors.

Tate’s granitelike face had softened as he watched his mother. Whatever his faults, he was a good son.

“She’s different since your father died,” Cecily commented, sitting down on one of the bales of hay, grateful for the diversion. “I’ve never seen her so animated.”

“My father was a hard man to live with,” he replied quietly. “If he hadn’t spent most of his life away on construction jobs, I’d probably have killed him.”

She knew he wasn’t kidding. Jack Winthrop had beaten Leta once, and Tate had wiped the floor with him after coming home unexpectedly and finding his mother cut and bruised. By then, he’d been in espionage work for some time. Jack Winthrop, big and tough as he was, was no match for the experienced younger man. It was the last time Leta ever suffered a beating, too. Jack became afraid of his son. Cecily remembered that Jack had never spoken one kind word about his only child. Oddly he seemed to hate Tate.

“You didn’t like your father much, did you?” Cecily remembered.

“He wasn’t a likable man.” He sat down beside her.

She felt the warm strength of him and closed her eyes briefly to savor it. He hardly ever touched people, not even his mother. In all the long years she’d been part of his life, he’d never touched her with intent. Not to hold her hand, kiss her even on the cheek, brush back her hair. That one time, when she’d flown to Oklahoma to help him with his case was the closest they’d come to intimacy, and that was anticlimactic, even if she had lived on it for weeks afterward. She’d ached for any contact at all, but that wasn’t Tate’s way. Yet she’d seen him holding hands with Audrey that day in the coffee shop. Nothing had ever hurt so much. It was an indication of the attraction he felt for the gorgeous socialite.

She smiled as she watched Leta doing the intricate steps of the dance inside the circle. All the women were wearing buckskins, a feat of endurance because it was almost ninety degrees in the South Dakota September sun.

“That was a nasty crack I made about you and Senator Holden at his birthday party,” he said after a minute. “I didn’t mean it.”

It was the closest he came to an apology. She was tired of arguing, so she took the olive branch for what it was. “I know.”

The mention of birthdays reminded him that he’d deliberately ignored Cecily’s this year. It wasn’t a pleasant memory. He shifted on the hay, staring at his mother in the circle. “Do you like the job at the museum?”

“Very much. I’ll be in charge of acquisitions, which is one reason I came out here. I want to exhibit some Oglala pottery and beadwork.”

He didn’t look at her. “How did you get to know Holden?”

“He’s good friends with a member of the faculty at George Washington University,” she said. “I ran into him in the hall one day. He knew me from one of the hearings…” She stopped, because this was part of her life she hadn’t shared with Tate.