by Merry Farmer
Thinking fast, she faked a cough. “Dear me,” she said, raising a hand to her forehead. “I suddenly feel so weak.”
Conrad and Bruce stopped arguing with each other and looked at her with varying degrees of disgust.
“What seems to be the matter?” Greg asked. For a split-second, he was genuinely concerned, but quickly he caught on to what she was attempting. “I mean, oh dear, you poor weak thing.”
He stepped closer to her, and with the slightest of winks, Darcy feigned a swoon, collapsing into his arms.
“Huh?” Conrad sniffed. “I thought you said she was strong, a hard worker.”
“Oh, I am, I am,” Darcy insisted, leaning heavily on Greg. “It’s just… It’s just….” She scrambled for something, for anything that would tip Conrad over the edge. Embarrassment. What would embarrass him the most? “It’s just that the baby has made me so weak.”
“The baby?” Conrad and Bruce said together. They shrank away as if she had said it was the cholera that had made her weak.
“Yes,” Greg said, a little too happily to be completely convincing. “My baby.”
“What?” Again, Conrad and Bruce gasped in unison.
It took everything Darcy had not to break down into giggles. Nothing had been so fun as playacting with Greg for as long as she could remember. Then again, after the other night, it could very well be true. That thought alone filled her with enough joy to continue on with the deception.
“Yes, it’s true,” she said, straightening and putting on a posture of shame. “For I have been keeping scandalous company with Mr. Quinlan here ever since we met.”
“You what?” Conrad barked. “Right under my nose?”
“Yes,” Greg answered. He moved to circle his arm around Darcy, holding her close. “I love her. I love her and have known her in the Biblical sense. And I want to marry her.” He was making a show of things to put an end to Conrad’s designs on her for good, but even through the joking, Darcy knew he was serious.
She turned her face up to him, giving him a smile that came from the very heart of her, and said, “I love you too, Greg. More than anything.”
Playacting or not, Greg returned her smile, then dipped down to kiss her. He may not have needed to do quite such a thorough job of it, but as soon as their lips met, as soon as she circled her arms around him and touched her tongue against his, she couldn’t stop. She kissed him back from the depths of her soul, pouring all of her passion into it without caring who was watching. She loved Greg, and that was all that mattered.
“Well don’t that beat all,” Mr. Evans muttered, and if Darcy wasn’t mistaken, chuckled. “A man would be a complete fool to marry a woman who kissed another man like that.”
“I ain’t having no squalling baby in my camp,” Bruce snorted. “You marry her and bring another man’s bastard down my way, I’ll up and leave.”
“I don’t want her,” Conrad said, his face screwed up in disgust.
Darcy wanted to shout hurrah. She’d never been so overjoyed to see a man looking at her like she was a worm in all her life. It didn’t matter what Conrad thought of her, what anyone thought of her. Greg loved her. That love was in his eyes and in his kiss.
“But I do want my twenty dollars.” Conrad raised his voice.
All at once, Darcy’s heart thudded back to earth. “Oh. Your twenty dollars.” She was right back where she started, and make no mistake.
“I’ll sue you if I have to,” Conrad went on. “I’ll sue you for breach of contract and demand every cent I gave you and more. You’ll be ruined, and it’ll serve you right for making a fool of me.”
“But can’t you be a little patient?” she pleaded with him. “Give me enough time and I can pay it all back, I swear.”
“I want it now.” Conrad held his ground.
As quickly as everything had fallen into place, it was falling apart. The possibility that she would spend her entire life paying back a man who had made her so miserable hung heavily on her heart.
Greg let out a long sigh. He let her go and reached into his pocket. With a regretful wince, he pulled out a fold of bills.
“Here,” he said, handing it across to Conrad with a resigned look. “It’s twenty dollars, minus the dollar I spent buying a bottle of whiskey for Bruce here. The bottle’s probably still back there if you two want to share it.”
“Greg, that’s the money for your land,” Darcy protested. “What are you going to do without it?”
“I’ll think of something,” Greg said. “We’ll think of something.”
“I can’t let you throw your future away for me,” Darcy protested.
“Sweetheart,” he turned to her, drawing her back into his arms, “without you, I have no future. I see that now. I was far too set in my path. I was a fool for not being able to see outside of that. But what use is land and money if you don’t have love? What kind of a future would I have if you weren’t in it?”
“Oh Greg.” She kissed him again, still not caring who saw. Her heart was too full of love and longing for this man to stop herself. He kissed her back with every bit of enthusiasm that she’d had.
“We’ll have a rough start of things,” he warned her. “I’m not sure that we’ll make it all the way to Oregon now. I might have to sell my wagon and oxen just so we can eat.”
“I don’t care,” she said, squeezing him tight. “I’ll help you. We’ll build a future together, even if we have to scrimp and save to do it.”
“Then it strikes me that we might just be all right after all,” he said, holding her close.
“It’s nineteen dollars,” Conrad announced after counting the bills Greg had handed him. “And that whiskey.”
“Is it good enough for you?” Mr. Evans asked.
Conrad sniffed and scratched his backside. He spit, and finally said. “Yeah.”
“Then let’s go get that bottle and get out of here,” Bruce said.
Without another word, the two men turned to go. Darcy was so happy that she laughed aloud.
“I never thought I’d be so happy to have no money and no idea what I’ll do next,” she said.
“Me neither,” Greg admitted.
He lifted her right off her feet and spun her around before setting her down again and kissing her thoroughly. She hummed with the joy of it. Even the sky seemed to be happy for them. The clouds cleared up and the sun broke through. It was perfect. Just what she had been hoping and dreaming for. She’d made it through the rain and the mud and the sorrow, and now, with Greg in her arms, it felt as though she would never feel the rain again.
If you enjoyed Darcy and Greg’s story and would like to read more stories set along the Oregon Trail, then you’ll love my Hot on the Trail series! It begins with Trail of Kisses, the story of Lynne Tremaine, a woman under threat of murder from a vicious gang, and Cade Lawson, the man sent to escort her safely to the Colorado Territory.
And if you are interested in the life that Greg and Darcy built for themselves and where they ended up, and if you want to read about their son, Eric Quinlan, then my Montana Romance series, especially the second book, Fool for Love, is for you!
Click here for a complete list of books by Merry Farmer.
About the Author
I hope you have enjoyed Trail Blaze. If you’d like to be the first to learn about when the next books in the series come out and more, please sign up for my newsletter here: http://eepurl.com/RQ-KX And remember, Read it, Review it, Share it!
Merry Farmer is an award-winning novelist who lives in suburban Philadelphia with her two cats, Butterfly and Torpedo. She has been writing since she was ten years old and realized one day that she didn't have to wait for the teacher to assign a creative writing project to write something. It was the best day of her life. She then went on to earn not one but two degrees in History so that she would always have something to write about. Her books have topped the Amazon and iBooks charts and have been named finalists in the prestigious RONE and Rom Com Re
ader’s Crown awards.
And a special thank you to the Pioneer Hearts group! Do you love Western Historical Romance? Wanna come play with us? Become a member at https://www.facebook.com/groups/pioneerhearts/
Click here for a complete list of works by Merry Farmer.
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