Diana Palmer - The Savage Heart

New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author DIANA PALMER presents a classic romance about a woman with big dreams and a man who has nothing left to believe in...except her

Tess Meredith and Raven Following grew up on the beautiful, wild Montana plains. But their friendship and love were doomed by Raven’s Sioux heritage…and his departure from the land of his people. In Chicago, he built a new life, haunted by thoughts of the lovely, spirited young girl he’d left behind. Until she arrived back in his world--bringing with her the past he’d tried to bury. But Tess had changed, too. She’d matured into a woman, and was determined to fight for her rights in society-and for the love of a man who felt he was savage at heart….

Praise for the novels of New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author Diana Palmer

“Palmer demonstrates, yet again, why she’s the queen of desperado quests for justice and true love.”

—Publishers Weekly on Dangerous

“The popular Palmer has penned another winning novel, a perfect blend of romance and suspense.”

—Booklist on Lawman

“Palmer knows how to make the sparks fly…heartwarming.”

—Publishers Weekly on Renegade

“Sensual and suspenseful.”

—Booklist on Lawless

“Diana Palmer is a mesmerizing storyteller who captures the essence of what a romance should be.”

—Affaire de Coeur

“Nobody tops Diana Palmer when it comes to delivering pure, undiluted romance. I love her stories.”

—New York Times bestselling author Jayne Ann Krentz

The Savage Heart

Diana Palmer

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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To Dr. Nestor R. Carabjal, Dr. Winston H. Gandy, Dr. F. Stuart Sanders, Dr. David A. Bray and Dr. Michael J. Maloney. Thank you all, most sincerely.

—Mrs. James E. Kyle (AKA Diana Palmer)

Contents

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Epilogue

Prologue

Montana Spring 1891

There was lightning in the distance where dark clouds settled low over the buttes. Spring storms, all lightning display at first, were common here, and Tess Meredith loved to watch them—especially now that she had a companion who seemed to have a legend about every one of these natural occurrences…and every unnatural one, too.

But even more than watching summer storms with her new and treasured friend, Tess liked to ride fast, hunt and fish, live in the outdoors enjoying nature and what she called “adventure.” Her father despaired of her ever marrying. Who would appreciate a young woman who had such accomplishments, not one of which had anything to do with traditional domestic occupations?

Today Tess looked quite different from the way she usually did and quite grown-up for a fourteen-year-old. Her blond hair was piled neatly on top of her head, rather than flying free; she was wearing a long cotton dress with a high neck, rather than rolled-up dungarees and one of her father’s shirts. Polished lace-up shoes replaced the scuffed boots she always wore. Her father had beamed when he’d seen her earlier. Of course, he wouldn’t say a chastising word to her on the subject of her dress or her unladylike pursuits. He was far too kind to do such a thing. It was the kindness in him, so deep and so sincere, that made him such a wonderful doctor, Tess believed, for many who practiced medicine had skill, but few had his way with patients.

She sighed and glanced over at Raven Following, the only man she’d ever known who treated her as an equal, not a silly child—or worse, a silly girl. He was a Sioux who had lived at Pine Ridge until about eight months ago. His shoulders, wide and powerful, did not move under the buckskins he wore. His long, thick black hair was braided and wrapped with narrow bands of ermine skins, and his strongly boned, handsome face was free of expression.

Looking at him, Tess was filled with melancholy and curiosity. What did Raven see? For he seemed to see all manner of things around and in the far distance that she couldn’t. Sometimes it was difficult for her to believe he was only six or seven years older than she.

“Are you scared?” she suddenly asked.

“A warrior never admits fear.”

She smiled. “Oh, pardon me. Are you nervous, then?”

“Uneasy.” His lean, graceful fingers held a stick that he alternately toyed with and used to draw symbols on the ground. Now he was idly moving it from hand to hand. “Chicago is far away from here. I’ve never been to a white man’s city.”

“Papa says you’ll be educated there and afterward you can get a job. He knows a man who will give you work.”

“So he has told me.”

She touched his shoulder lightly. He didn’t like to be touched, not since he’d been so badly wounded in the massacre at Wounded Knee Creek, South Dakota, where the fury of the Hotchkiss guns of the soldiers had taken the lives of more than two hundred of his people, including his mother and two sisters. But Tess’s touch was different, and, she thought, tolerable to him, since she’d help nurse him through the agonizing recovery from having his body riddled with U.S. Army issue bullets.

“It will be all right,” Tess said, her voice gentle and, she hoped, reassuring. “You’ll like Chicago when you get there.”

“You are so very sure of that?” His black eyes were glittering with humor.

“Of course! After Mama died and Papa told me he was going to take a job doctoring on the reservations, I was scared to death. I didn’t know anybody out here, and I had to leave all my friends and relatives behind. But once I got to the West, it wasn’t bad at all.” She rearranged her skirt. “Well, it wasn’t too bad,” she amended. “I didn’t like the way the soldiers treated your people.”

“Neither did we,” he said dryly. He paused, studying her, finally looking intently into her clear green eyes. “Your father will be relieved when I am gone. He permits me to teach you things, but he grimaces when he sees you doing them.”

“He’s old-fashioned.” Tess laughed. “And the world is changing.” She looked at the distant buttes. “I want to help it change. I want to do things that women have never done.”

“You already do things that few white women do—skin a deer, track a doe, ride without a saddle, shoot a bow—”

“And sign and speak Lakota. All thanks to you, Raven. You’re a good friend and a good teacher. How I wish I could go to Chicago with you. Wouldn’t we have fun?”

He shrugged and began to draw symbols in the dust at his feet.

How graceful his hands were, Tess mused. His fingers were strong, yet lean, and his wrists were so finely boned, they appeared delicate beneath the long corded muscle of his forearm. He leaned forward, and her gaze traveled over his back. Tess winced. Beneath the buckskin shirt his flesh was puckered and pocked with scars, scars that would be there always to remind him of Wounded Knee.