He walked toward a cupboard and pulled a glass out for her. “The glasses are here, silverware in the drawer down here, plates and bowls over there. Do you want ice?”
“Yes, please—and thanks.”
He pressed the glass against the dispenser in the refrigerator door, filling it first with crushed ice and then with water. He turned to hand it to her, his brow furrowing again. “Why don’t you sit down?”
Right.
She couldn’t carry the glass and walk with her crutches at the same time. She hobbled awkwardly over to the table. How clumsy she must look. “It’s going to take me a while to get the hang of this.”
“You’re doing well for your first day.” He set the glass on the table and drew out a chair for her, holding it while she sat.
Oh, God.He evensmelledgood, the warm scent of sage making it hard to think.
“Thanks.”
“You’re welcome.” He went back to what he’d been doing, sticking something in the fridge, his back to her. “Winona will be home in a few minutes. I grabbed a roast chicken for us. I hope you’re not a vegetarian.”
“Me?”Yes, you. Who else could he be talking to?“No. I’m not.”
She drank, washing the bitter medicine taste down her throat. She set the glass on the table, her mind searching for something to say. “I never got the chance to thank you for staying with me, for taking care of me, for calling the rescue team. If Shota hadn’t found me...”
He turned away from the fridge, leaned up against the center island. “You did the hardest part yourself—getting away from those men, staying alive. You’re a brave woman.”
She stared at him, taken aback by his praise. “I wasn’t brave. I was terrified.”
He nodded as if he understood. “That’s what courage is—doing something that needs to be done even though you’re afraid.”
She’d never thought about it like that before.
Chaska ate his supper, listening while the women talked, his gaze drawn repeatedly to Naomi’s face. There was a vulnerability about her, something fragile that tugged at him, set off some primitive instinct to protect her. She’d had to be strong to escape those men the way she had, and yet there were shadows in those blue eyes.
He wished they’d found the bastards. It would have given him immense satisfaction to watch McBride take them down and haul them away in chains. Prison was too good for them. In the old days among theOceti Sakowin—the Seven Council Fires—a man who’d done what those men had wanted to do to Naomi would have been given a knife and commanded to walk away from the village and end his own life. If he hadn’t had the courage to do it, the warriors of the village would have finished him.
Rape wasn’t a crime against an individual woman or her family alone. It was a crime against nature because it was through women that life came into this world. That’s what Chaska’s grandfather had taught him.
Chaska found Winona watching him.
“You look angry. Are things not going well at work?”
He didn’t want to ruin Naomi’s supper by bringing up her ordeal, so he searched for an excuse. “We have a new kid at the office—a frat boy type with a suit and Greek letters on his tie. He called me ‘chief.’”
Winona gave a disgustedhmph. “Are you going to tell Casper?”
“Casper was standing right there. He ordered the kid to his office. I guess we’ll see if the guy still has a job tomorrow.”
Winona turned to Naomi, who was looking down at her plate. “Chaska is lucky to work for a company that at least tries to do the right thing.”
Naomi looked over at Chaska. “You’re an engineer, right?”
He nodded. “I work for RMSA—Rocky Mountain Space and Avionics. I design propulsion systems for satellites.”
“That’s what Winona told me. You must be super smart.”
Winona laughed. “He’d be the first to agree with you there.”
“Funny.” Chaska glared at his sister. He wasn’t sure he liked the idea of her running a PR campaign behind his back, telling Naomi about him.
Winona ignored his pointed glance and turned to Naomi. “What do you do?”