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Lexie was perched on the edge of the sofa in youthful anticipation, waiting for Nick. Elaina sat next to her, watching Lexie through the corner of her eye. She hadn’t realized how important Grant’s deceased relatives would be to her daughter.
Grant hadn’t liked talking about his childhood, and Elaina had never pressed the issue. She preferred not to dwell on her childhood, either. And most of her relatives were still alive.
“Here it is.” Nick entered the room carrying a card board box. He placed it on the coffee table, and Lexie got up and knelt on the floor. Elaina leaned in, too. She couldn’t help being curious about her husband’s past, about all the things he didn’t like to talk about. But then his family had been struggling-to-survive poor, and Grant had valued the finer things in life.
“I meant to put all of this stuff in photo albums,” Nick said, removing three vinyl-covered albums. “But I never got around to it.” Shoving them aside, he grabbed a stack of loose photos. “Everything’s kind of mixed up. We’ll just have to sort through it.”
“I don’t mind.” Lexie lifted the picture on top. “Oh. Wow. It’s you and Daddy, isn’t it?”
He rested his chin on the child’s narrow shoulder. “Yep. That’s us. Holey jeans and all.”
“Who’s who?”
He chuckled. “Hell if I know.“
“Come on, Uncle Nick.” Lexie brought the picture closer. “You have to know.“
“Maybe, but I’m not telling.”
Lexie rolled her eyes. “Then we’ll figure it out. Won’t we, Mom?” She handed the photo to Elaina. The teasing banter between uncle and niece surprised her, and so did the snapshot.
Two adolescent boys mugged for the camera, straight black hair falling to their shoulders. Their plaid shirts were frayed, their jeans torn in the same spot, as if they’d skinned the same knee. Elaina examined each face, each identical feature, and when she compared their smiles, she knew. The difference was subtle, barely there, but she still knew. Nick was on the left, his grin just a little more crooked.
“I can’t tell,” she said, unable to admit the truth. She didn’t want Nick to know she had studied him so closely. Besides, it should have been Grant’s boyish smile that struck familiarity, not Nick’s.
Lexie peered at the photograph again, and Nick flashed the giveaway grin. “Your dad’s the cute one,” he told his niece.
They were both heartbreakers, Elaina thought. Lean, lanky boys standing in front of a tree they had probably climbed a thousand times.
“Look at this, Mom.”
The next snapshot made Elaina’s heart thump. It was
Grant posing during his early college days. She could see the California campus behind him. The university where they’d met just a few years later.
Nick glanced up, and the moment turned strangely quiet. Firelight played upon his features, making his cheekbones more prominent, his skin a liquid shade of bronze. She actually wanted to touch him, to see if his face would feel as compelling as Grant’s.
“My brother thought you were the most beautiful woman on earth.”
She blinked, trying to keep herself from crying in front of her daughter. “He told you that?”
“Yeah. He called me after your first date. ’I just kissed the most gorgeous girl in the world,’ he said. ’And someday I’m going to marry her.’”
“And what did you say?” This came from Lexie, her youthful voice surprisingly romantic.
Nick continued to stare at Elaina. “That she must be something special.”
Her husband. Her brother-in-law. Their faces were blurring, and it scared her. She needed to remember Grant’s features, his smile, his slow, sexy drawl. And she couldn’t bear to have Nick watching her with those stirring dark eyes, reminiscing about things that made her ache.
Elaina wanted to run, but there was nowhere to go. She placed the picture back on the table and picked up a different one.
Immediately the image of a young Indian woman caught her attention. Her trendy clothes and retro hair-style depicted the mod era of the sixties. She sat on a worn-out sofa, a colorful miniskirt revealing shapely legs and chunky-heeled boots. Her eyes were heavily lined and her lipstick a bit too frosted, but she was still stunning.
“Who’s this?” Elaina asked, passing the photograph to Nick.
He gazed at it for a moment. “My mom.”
Lexie leaned over, bumping Elaina’s shoulder. “Wow. She looks like a model or something. How did she make her hair have that little bubble on top?”
Nick shrugged. “I don’t know. Lots of hair spray, I guess.”
“She’s pretty. Isn’t she, Mom?“
“Yes, she is.” The young woman in the picture was fashionably slim, with a rebellious tilt to her frosted lips. Between the tastefully teased hair, the vinyl go-go boots and the fishnet stockings, Lexie couldn’t take her eyes from the photograph.
And neither could Elaina. “She must have gotten a lot of attention.” Especially, she thought, in a quiet Oklahoma town.
“Yeah,” Nick said. “She always fixed herself up.”
His voice sounded a little too casual, a little too un affected, like the tone of someone feigning nonchalance.
“Now let me see if I can find a picture of Grandma.” He scoured the pile, and even though he didn’t bury the image of his miniskirted mother, he managed to steer the conversation away from it. “Here she is. Her name was Delores, but most people called her Dee.”
Contrary to her striking daughter, whose name Nick had yet to mention, Dee Bluestone exhibited homespun qualities. Her black hair was streaked with gray, her dress an old-fashioned housecoat. And although she smiled for the camera, she seemed tired, aging and overworked.
Now Elaina wanted to know everything Grant hadn’t told her. Every detail that had shaped his life, but she wasn’t comfortable asking Nick about it.
Nick continued to dig through the pile, handing Lexie his favorite pictures as they surfaced.
“Uncle Nick?“
“Hmm?“
“Can I work on the photo albums?“
“Sure. If you don’t mind going through this mess.” He retrieved a manila envelope. “There’s lots of junk here.” He opened the clasp, removed some crumpled papers. “I even saved report cards. Of course, your dad always got better grades than me.”
Lexie took the envelope. “Did you go to Indian schools?”
“No. They were public.”
The girl turned to Elaina. “Daddy asked Uncle Nick to teach me about being Comanche.“
“He did?” Stunned, she glanced at Nick. Grant had never mentioned educating Lexie about her heritage. He was Comanche, and Elaina was French and English, with a splash of Gypsy blood. The world was a melting pot of race, religion and color, he used to say. So why make an issue out of your child’s ethnicity?
“When did he ask you to do that?” she asked.
“On the night he died,” Nick answered, meeting her gaze with a haunted yet tender look.
The following morning Elaina and Lexie gathered in Nick’s workshop for a leather-craft lesson. Nick taught classes at the youth center, something that surprised Elaina. She hadn’t known he had experience as a teacher.
Elaina glanced around, assessing the man and his workspace. His bench was a little messy, but his tools lined a backboard, each one easily accessible. Knives were protected in sheaths, and awls and punches rested in leather loops.
The air smelled of beeswax and mink oil. A cutting table and two sewing machines dominated a large portion of the room, shelves and benches occupying the rest. Leather ranged from vegetable-tanned hides to soft, furry skins. Trays of beads, hair-bone pipe and feathers reflected Nick’s roots—a Comanche skilled in the art of cowboy crafts.
Elaina and Lexie sat at separate benches. While Lexie worked, Elaina marveled at her daughter’s Christmas project. She was decorating holiday stockings Nick had designed. The pieces weren’t sewn, but the patterns were cut, awaiting Lexie’s imagination.
Elaina’s and Nick’s stockings were made from tooling leather, each in the shape of a cowboy boot, one smaller and slightly feminine, and the other bolder, with strong, masculine lines. Lexie’s stocking was constructed similar to a knee-high moccasin, fringed at the edges and tall enough for an abundance of elf-inspired goodies.
The girl lifted the front piece of the larger cowboy boot. “Should I stamp your name on it, Uncle Nick?”
Gathering supplies for Elaina’s project, he looked up. “Sure.”
“Uncle? Nick? Or both?“
“How about ahpi? It means uncle in Comanche.”
“Ahpi.” Lexie tested the word the way he had pronounced it. “That’s cool. How do you spell it?“
“A. P.” He smiled at her. “That’s easy. Not too many letters.“
“Yes.” She was still holding the boot, watching him with awe. “Can I call you that?“
“Of course you can.” He stood near his workstation, his expression mirroring hers.
Elaina sat quietly. This was only their third day in Oklahoma, yet Lexie’s relationship with Nick was blossoming already.
“Ap means father, too,” he said.
“Really?” Intrigued, Lexie scooted to the end of her chair. “So a Comanche kid called their dad and their uncles ap?”
Nick nodded. “Let me see if I can explain why.” He glanced at Elaina, then back at his niece. “It had to do with a marriage exchange. In the old days, brothers were potential mates to each other’s wives.”
“I don’t understand.” Lexie turned to Elaina. “Do you, Mom?”
“I’m not sure.” She had an idea what potential mate meant, but she didn’t want to say it out loud, not with her husband’s twin just a few feet away.
Nick settled onto a chair, and Elaina’s skin warmed. His legs were spread, his hands resting on his thighs. Typical male posture, she thought nervously, as a silver buckle glinted at his waist. He was going to detail the marriage exchange, something Elaina wasn’t sure she wanted to hear.
“In the old days, brothers lent each other their wives,” Nick said. “The gesture was considered a gift from one to the other. But there wasn’t supposed to be any jealousy between them. And the wife couldn’t go to the other man on her own. Her loyalty remained with her husband.”
Lexie made a face. “That’s weird. I’d be mad at my husband if he did that. Especially if he had like ten brothers or something.”
Nick chuckled, and Elaina sat like a pillar of salt, her heart banging against her breast. If she had been Grant’s wife in an earlier century, would he have lent her to his twin? Would she have become Nick’s gift? His occasional lover?
“I doubt they were that free with this exchange,” he said to Lexie, addressing her comment. “And sure, it sounds strange, but it wasn’t meant to dishonor the woman. One of the brothers might become her husband someday.”
“How?” the young girl asked.
“If her husband died, a brother would take his place. He would protect her and the children.”
Children who might have been his, Elaina noted. The wife could have borne the brother’s babies as easily as those of her husband.
Nick left his chair and brought a box of supplies to Elaina, placing it on her bench. He was standing too close, she thought. She could smell his cologne—a deep, rich spice. Now the image wouldn’t go away, the forbidden curiosity about making love with her husband’s brother, of being given to him as a gift.
Nick bumped her arm as he leaned over, and she kept her eyes on her lap, on the wedding ring that shone on her finger. Shame coiled its way into her belly. How could she even think such immoral thoughts?
“In a sense, the Comanche used to form a marriage group,” he said, still talking to Lexie about their ancestors. “Sisters were often married to the same man. It wasn’t uncommon for a warrior to have more than one wife. So a child’s mother and her sisters were all called pia. There’s no separate word for aunt in the Comanche dialect. At least, not within a marriage group.”
“Just like there’s no separate word for uncle.” Lexie searched through the alphabet stamps, setting aside an A and a P. She dampened the leather with a sponge, then picked up her mallet. “And that’s why Daddy asked you to teach me about my heritage. Because you’re my other ap.”
Ap, Elaina thought. Her daughter was accepting Nick as a second father, but Lexie craved a paternal bond. She still cried for her daddy, still fell asleep with tears in her eyes.
Emotion swirled around the room, the only sound the gentle tap of Lexie’s hammer. Elaina glanced at Nick and saw that he watched her.
“We should get some work done, too,” he said. Unable to draw herself from his gaze, she studied him. Brothers lent each other their wives; they became fathers to each other’s children. But that was in another century, she told herself as he brushed a lock of hair from his forehead.
His eyes had gone from brown to black, the pupils catching a glimmer of light. Elaina took an unsteady breath. He looked dark and erotic, a man who would kiss a woman in soft, secret places.
Why are you doing this to me? she wanted to ask. Why are you slipping into my subconscious? You’re my brother-in-law, and I shouldn’t be attracted to you.
“Elaina?“
“Yes?“
“Are you up for this?”
No, she thought, staring at the scatter of leather stars on her bench.
“Yes, of course,” she responded. Her involvement in this project was important to Lexie. It was Christmastime, and the stars were for the tree Nick had promised Lexie they would buy tomorrow. “Just tell me what to do.”
As he moved closer, his shoulder brushed hers. “There are a lot of different ways to decorate them.”
He reached into the box and withdrew samples of completed ornaments. Some were stamped with traditional Western patterns, and others displayed vibrant Native American designs, the points trimmed in suede lace. No two were alike. Instead, each creation reflected the level and skill of the artist. She didn’t have to ask if his students had made them.
Reaching for one that caught her eye, she held it up to the light. An intricate beaded design covered the entire star, shimmering as if it had just fallen from the sky.
“This is beautiful,” she said, looking from the ornament to Nick.
He looked back at her, and an unwelcome, unnamed heat filled her veins. He was beautiful, too. But unlike the glittering star, her brother-in-law was dark and dangerously forbidden.
Later that night, Nick couldn’t sleep. He got out of bed, slipped on a pair of jeans and boots, then shoved his arms into a jacket. Nothing calmed a restless night like the outdoors. Humidity, rain, snow, brisk winds. Nick didn’t care. No matter what mood Mother Earth was in, she managed to soothe him.
He made it as far as the living room before he saw Elaina. She sat on a sturdy recliner, her feet tucked beneath her. The television flickered with black-andwhite images, the volume barely audible.
Her hair cascaded in loose waves, and she wore silky white pajamas. In profile, her features were classically feminine, with a sweep of dark lashes and a slim nose. Her lips were neither strained nor relaxed. She stared at the TV in an almost trancelike state.
“Elaina?” He said her name, knowing he couldn’t slip out the front door unnoticed.
