by Jenna Kernan
“Is something wrong?” she asked, taking a seat across from him at the fire.
He wanted to touch it and decided this could be his only chance. He would not spend the rest of his life wondering. In a moment he sat beside her on the log. She studied him with apprehension and his hand snaked out to touch her riotous cascade of hair.
“Thick as a pony’s tail,” he whispered.
She thought of her reaction the last time he touched her and decided she best nip this in the bud.
“Mr. Price, it’s not proper for you to stroke me like your pet hound.”
He stared into the blue canvas of her eyes. If he didn’t do something quick he’d kiss her.
“This is how I pet my hound.” He scratched behind her ear.
She slapped at his hand and laughed, giving him the chance to move away.
They shared their dinner and a few stories. He described the time he first faced a bear. “So I shot at it and then ran. Next thing I know it’s running past me. Just as it draws even it gives me this look as if to say, ‘They’re shooting at you, too?’”
Her laughter shook her shoulders and she rocked back and forth with her mirth.
“I don’t have anything nearly as amusing to tell. The closest I can come is when I caught my mother with one of her lovers. She was wearing only her nightgown and he a pair of unfastened britches. Still she lifted her chin and said, ‘Eleanor, you remember Mr. Woolrich?’”
Troy’s jaw dropped. “What’d you do?”
“I curtsied, of course.” She giggled.
But Troy did not laugh or even smile. His brow wrinkled in confusion as he studied her. What did she mean one of her mother’s lovers?
“She had more than one?”
“More than one what?” asked Lena, her eyes wide with innocence that he began to suspect was not genuine.
“Lovers?”
“It’s rather usual.”
“Not here it ain’t.”
She continued to stare as if there was something wrong with him.
“Did your daddy find out?”
“Of course. But as he has a mistress in Newport and one in New York, he could hardly object.”
Troy threw off his hat. “What?”
She clasped her hands about her knees. “I see I have shocked you. Of course this is not the structure of things in the lower classes, but in my world it is common practice. Couples marry to merge fortunes and families, not hearts. One must often look outside marriage to find love.”
Troy felt sick to his stomach. “That ain’t right.”
She cast him an indulgent smile. “If you were forced to marry a woman you did not love, would you not want the opportunity to find love elsewhere?”
“But she’d be my wife.”
“Whom you married for wealth or connections. You attend functions with her, expect her to bear your children and look after your home. But you do not expect monogamy. And a wife, well, she certainly doesn’t expect it. I know of women who encourage their husband’s pursuits, anxious to be rid of them.”
Troy slid off the log and landed in the dirt. He shook his head like a hound too close to the fire. Did people really do these things?
“No wonder you left.”
He glanced up to see her wise smile. She looked sad and older than her years.
“Some women keep the same liaison their entire lives. It is one of the few areas that they have any measure of control.” She looked at him in a way that made him think her words were meant as more than simply informative. She seemed to be asking him something. “This is a man she chooses for love. Though she may not marry him, she may bear his children and spend as much time with him as she can arrange. Occasionally an entire season.”
“His children?”
“Certainly, her husband accepts them as his own, but men have little to do with raising their offspring in any case.”
The sickness in his stomach traveled to his throat and he swallowed to keep it back as he imagined Lena living such a life.
“Are you scandalized at our wickedness?”
He didn’t deny it. “Hell, yes!”
“I’m sorry. But that is what I can expect in life.”
A sudden sympathy rose above the abhorrence. “Lena, do you want to go back?”
She straightened. “It’s my duty.”
“That’s not what I asked. If you didn’t have a duty, if you were just an ordinary woman, would you stay?”
Lena’s gaze lifted from him and swept up to the tops of the swaying Douglas firs. Her expression changed to a look of longing so intense that it made him ache. Then her eyes turned cold and the corners of her mouth tipped down.
“I am not ordinary. To engage in such fantasies only serves to make things more difficult.”
He had his answer—if she had a choice, she’d stay.
After they settled for the night, Troy lay still listening to Lena toss. Eventually the exhaustion of her body won out over the disquiet of her mind and she slept.
He gazed up into the stars and wondered what to do? He’d always imagined finding a woman that fired his blood. In his vague fantasies she’d love him as well and then she’d leave her world behind to become part of his.
Now he lay not five feet from just such a woman, but life wasn’t going as he planned. She wouldn’t or couldn’t leave her world behind and damned if he could think of a place for him in hers.
As if reflecting his mood, a hard rain arrived, with cracking thunder and deafening explosions of thunder. The overhang of rock kept out the weather, but not the wind. He glanced over to Lena and found her buried beneath the buffalo hide, curled in a ball. He wanted to comfort her, but knew what would come from crawling under that buffalo hide. She was safer in the storm.
He glanced longingly in her direction, hoping she would summon him. If she came to him, he would not send her away.
Gradually the rain moved along, sweeping away the thunder as it went. He closed his eyes to rest, pushing back his disappointment and cursing her courage.
The next morning he skirted along the river until a tributary blocked their path.
He drew up and considered the fast-moving water. The fording would be more difficult than customary as the knee-deep water now ran fast with the runoff from the storms.
He glanced back at her. Today she wore a dress the color of dried pine pitch and a straw bonnet with the biggest feather he’d ever seen.
In an effort to break the long silence between them, he spoke. “What kind of bird was that?”
“Ostrich,” she said. “From Australia.”
“I’d like to see one.”
“It has pink legs and feathers of black and white, but they dye them to any shade.” Her fingers swept over the yellow feather. “The bird stands larger than my horse.”
He snorted. “You’re pulling my leg.”
“Truly. They are enormous.”
“Don’t have to be too damned big to be taller than your horse.”
She gave him a halfhearted scowl, then laughed.
The sound tickled his insides.
“Good eating?” he asked.
“My horse? I shouldn’t think so.”
Now he scowled, though inside he enjoyed her teasing.
“The bird.”
Her eyebrows rose. “I’m afraid I wouldn’t know. I’ve only seen them in the pages of a book.”
He gave the feather a final glance. “Pity.”
Only then she seemed to notice that he pointed toward the stream. Her eyes rounded in worry.
“I’ll go first,” he said. “Just hold tight, the water is fast.”
He gave Dahlonega a nudge and his horse stepped confidently into the coursing water. He held the rope to the mules in his left hand and felt it tighten as the pack animals resisted taking the first step. “Get up there.”
They came with tentative strides. Once at midstream the water brushed the creatures’ bellies and they grew anxious to be clear, trotting the
distance to shore. He turned toward Lena. Her horse danced with mincing steps more anxious than the mules’. He didn’t like the way the little mare tossed her head, rolling her eyes over white.
In that instant he remembered Rachel alone on the river, standing in the bow of the little boat on a clear sunny day. She couldn’t swim—Rachel couldn’t swim. A tidal wave of glacial runoff flooded through him as past mistakes collided with current ones.
He dropped the line holding the pack animals.
“Don’t move,” he ordered. “I’m coming back for you.”
She spoke, but the river garbled her words and then took the reins in a firm hand, using the tasseled stick. His heart dropped as the mare lunged from the bank landing some five feet from shore. White forelegs frothed in the rushing water as the mare scrambled to keep her footing in the fast-moving current.
The horse’s rear legs slid and the animal went down hard, rolling toward the rider. Panic ripped through his chest as they fell as one. Faced with the choice of having her mount roll upon her or leaping clear, she released her grip.
Instantly, the water took her, wrapping her heavy skirts about her legs. She clawed for the reins and they slid through her fingers as she went under.
Troy released his holster and threw off his possibles bag, powder horn and shot as he stood on the saddle and dived headfirst into the frothing river. The icy water cramped his muscles as he struggled to swim with the current.
Rachel, I’m coming.
He surfaced and saw her petticoats some feet before him; her head remained submerged. She wasn’t breathing. This revelation sparked him to kick with all his might, tearing through the water.
Not again, please God, not again.
Chapter 12
Eleanor tumbled over and over in the frigid water until she no longer knew which way was up. Her lungs burned with desperation for the air she could not reach. She held her breath even after her body demanded she exhale. To take in that cold water would be her death and she did not want to die. She had to finish her work. She clawed at the formless enemy that spun her like a leaf in a whirlwind. The weight of her seven petticoats and the heavy velvet of her dress now wrapped her as tightly as any chains. She reached, but grasped only rushing water. Numb, her arms moved clumsily.
No.
Her skirts snagged and jerked her back. Snagged on what? A tree? Oh, God, if it held her down, please no. She struggled, pulling toward the object gripping her. She broke the surface. Sweet air filled her lungs before water covered her face once more. She kicked, hoping for just one more breath. Her feet dragged against the bottom. She anchored them in the mud and stood, breaching like the dolphins that chased her ship in the Gulf of Mexico.
Troy stood beside her, water streaming through his dark hair as he held her like a drowned kitten by the scruff of her neck. Her ruined coiffure made a convenient handhold. She had not even felt his grip. He shifted her into his arms and dragged her onto the tall grass along the shore. She spit water and coughed as he pounded on her back. Finally, she lay prostrate, heaving, yet unable to regain her equilibrium. He tugged at her bodice as she choked and stared at the dark spots dancing over the stream like dragonflies.
“Rachel, Rachel!”
Why did he call her that?
The sound of renting fabric tore into her stupor.
Her ribs expanded with blissful freedom and she fell back upon the bank.
How long she lay so, she did not know. She shivered in her wet things and her eyes blinked open to find herself once more lying cradled in Troy’s strong arms. Relief washed his features. Water dripped from his glorious mass of hair and onto her face. She stared, certain for a moment that tears mingled with the river water.
“You gave me a fright,” he whispered and dragged her up against his body in a rough embrace.
His hand lay familiar across her waist and she clasped it naturally, as if they had rested like this all their lives.
She stared up at her savior, still disbelieving her own eyes. By some miracle, he had reached her and pulled her from the jaws of death.
“You saved my life.”
“Thank God.”
She drew back to stare up at him. Of course he was relieved at her survival, but he looked pale and visibly shaken. His hand trembled as he pushed back his sodden hair. Up until this moment, he seemed invincible. The realization that he was not, coupled with the thought of how narrowly she avoided death, hit her like the icy river water, sending her skin to gooseflesh.
“Troy, are you quite all right?” she asked.
His chest heaved from his exertions and his gaze locked to hers. She should release him now, but found her fingers entwined behind his neck.
He leaned over her like a lover, his mouth an inch away. She held her breath as he pressed his lips to her temple. The tender kisses fell down her cheek until he found her lips. She savored the contact as his mouth slanted over hers. In his embrace, she forgot the wet velvet pressing cold upon her legs and the terror of only moments ago. In his embrace she woke from her nightmare into heaven on earth.
His hand slid over her ribs to cup her breast. A shard of pleasure sliced through her abdomen at the contact. The urge to draw near overpowered and she pressed herself tightly into his splayed hand. He drew back, forcing her away, and stared down as if he did not know her.
“Troy, what is wrong?”
“Lena?”
“Yes.” Had he kissed her thinking she was this other woman? Her lips pressed into a thin line and her eyes narrowed as she considered this possibility and how deeply it disturbed her.
“Who is she?”
Troy stared down at this woman he protected. For a moment, when she had gone under the water, he’d thought she was his Rachel. Only this time he had saved her.
The panic receded, replaced by the grinding loss that tore into him whenever he thought of Rachel.
Lena lay in his arms, dress gaping and the corset strings all undone; his hand lay familiar upon her breast. He could feel her heart beat.
He set her at arm’s length, shaking his head to clear it. The action sprayed droplets of water across her face. She wiped them away.
He stared out at the water.
“Rachel,” he whispered.
She sat up, hands upon her hips and a scowl darkening her features. When she spoke her tone radiated her irk.
“You kiss me and then call me by another woman’s name?”
He frowned. “It was when I kissed you that I recognized you. No one else ever kissed me like that.”
She gasped, cast speechless by his words.
“Like what?” she asked.
“Like fire on the prairie.”
She lowered her gaze, tugging the edges of her corset back in place and hiding her beautiful breasts from his gaze. When satisfied, she pinned him with a furious glare.
“Who is Rachel?”
Lena had such life in her, such fire. Experience had taught him the damage of this kind of fire. Troy looked away, watching a dead branch spin in the current, thinking back to that awful day. Then he swallowed, but the lump remained.
“She was a woman I loved. She drowned. I couldn’t reach her in time.”
Lena’s temper dissolved and her voice now sounded regretful. “I’m sorry then.”
He drew his knees up and rested his chin upon them. His body now drained of power by his grief. He could not muster the energy to rise.
“My accident has stirred bad memories,” Lena said. “Did she also fall from her horse?”
“She did not fall. She jumped.”
His words seemed to hit Lena like ice water. She gaped.
“Why?” she asked.
He drew a great breath before speaking, searching for the courage to tell this woman of his shame.
“She was yenego, white, like you.”
Her eyes widened.
“Yes, a white woman, who promised to be my wife. She begged me not to speak to her father until she had.”
Lena shivered and inched away. It was easier to stare at the water. There he did not see the shock in her eyes.
“One night she told me she carried my child.”
Eleanor could not contain her gasp. Troy glared as her eyes widened in understanding. Rachel was white. Lena understood now.
There was no worse fate for a white woman than to marry outside her race. But to carry his child—no wonder she could not tell her parents.
Even if this woman loved Troy, she would lose everything. Her family would disown her, her friends turn their backs.
Rachel had drowned herself, literally dying of shame. Lena pressed her hand over her mouth at the horror as she met his gaze.
Troy watched her recoil, reading the abhorrence clearly in her eyes. She understood it all now. He drew his hands through his hair, fingers raking hard along his scalp. “Do you know what she said? She told me that our love would shame her family. Do you know why?”
Eleanor clutched her own throat. She knew. He could see it in her eyes. When she did not answer, he continued.
“Because for a white woman there was no greater shame than to love an Indian.”
Eleanor lowered her gaze, but said nothing. Her revulsion burned him like iron from the forge. Given the same situation, would Lena choose death rather than face the world as his wife?
“What did you do?” she asked.
“I went to my mother. She said if Rachel did not want this child, then we would raise it without her.”
“What did her family do? Did they disown her?”
Is that how it was done in her world? A family abandoned their daughter when she needed them most? He felt sick to his stomach at the thought.
“No. I followed Rachel to her home, but she had stolen her father’s boat and rowed far out onto the lake.”
Eleanor’s hands crept up her neck to rest over her ears as if she did not wish to hear his words.
“She could not swim, either. One large step and the deep water took her.”
“How terrible.”
“Terrible, yes, that she would rather die than bear my child.”
