Untamed by Sharon Ihle Page B

to expect no matter what was asked of her. After that moment's hesitation, however, she surprised him.
    "I suppose I could try. How do I make them?"
    Directing her to the shelf above the stove and the bin of flour beside it, Daniel gave her step-by-step instructions that culminated in a reasonably edible meal. The flapjacks weren't particularly light, but not too bad for someone untrained in the culinary arts. He'd warned her to keep a close watch on the cakes as they cooked, but somehow Josie managed to burn them anyway, frying them to a deep charcoal color that matched the layer of soot covering her face and clothes. He'd been meaning to fix that stove pipe for a while now, but with the busted-up leg and all, hadn't quite gotten to it.
    "Who put this stove together?" she asked irritably, eyes glowing through soot like a cat's in the dark. "Whoever did it ought to be shot."
    "You've already taken care of that," Daniel said, drawing the first burst of laughter from her. It was a pleasant sound and made him feel comfortable enough to add, "Why don't you drag up one of the chairs and eat with me?"
    She hesitated, looking at him cockeyed for a moment before grabbing a chair and settling in next to the edge of the bed with her plate. "I do have a couple of questions about you and Long Belly, if you don't mind."
    Daniel couldn't think of anything to do with their relationship that would make him uncomfortable, so he gave her free rein. "I don't mind a bit. What do you want, to know?"
    "For one thing, you two call each other brother. You don't look that much like brothers—are you?"
    "We're not related by blood at all. My wife was his sister, so he's my brother-in-law. We've been calling each other brother since the wedding."
    "You have a wife?" She said it as if finding a woman to marry him had been a miracle.
    "Had," he snapped. "She died a couple of years ago."
    "Oh." Head bowed, Josie generously added, "I'm sorry."
    "No need to be."
    Obviously eager to move onto a new topic, she asked, "Is that why he doesn't listen to you, even though you are the agent in charge of his tribe—because you're not Cheyenne?"
    "Oh, but I am." Daniel supposed he ought to be insulted by her insinuations, and in some ways he was, but most of what she assumed was true. Crunching his way through the remains of a flapjack, he said, "He probably only half listens to what I tell him because I'm only half Cheyenne."
    "Then you two were raised together?"
    Daniel shook his head. "I never even met Long Belly or the other members of the tribe until they were rounded up and sent to this reservation a few years ago—you know, after that Custer mess at the Little Big Horn. That's when I decided the Cheyenne needed my help more than the soldiers did."
    He paused there, waiting to either see or feel her revulsion over the fact that he was aiding the very band of cutthroats who'd helped annihilate the white man's fair-haired general. It took less than a minute for her to come through with a properly offended expression.
    "I'm not sure I understand what you're saying." Josie's mouth was pinched and her cute little nose tilted upward. "You mean that you and Long Belly actually took part in Custer's defeat?"
    Daniel was sorely tempted to answer in the affirmative, to claim that yes, he and Long Belly had fired the fatal bullets that ended the general's life, but instead, he hit her with the truth.
    "Long Belly's family was there, camped on the Little Big Horn, but he wasn't much more than a boy back then and didn't participate in the battle. I was still scouting for the army at the time, though not for the Seventh, and helped Mackenzie's troops locate and nearly annihilate the Cheyenne camp a few months after Custer's defeat."
    Josie's expression softened dramatically and her eyes lit up. "Then you must be some kind of war hero."
    Daniel smiled, but an ache filled his throat that started from his heart. "That depends on how you look at it—through white or Cheyenne