by Merry Farmer
As soon as her smile spread to something warmer, Gideon caught her staring. They both tensed and blushed and turned away, equally self-conscious to be caught staring at the other. Even that brought a smile to Lucy’s face and giggles that bubbled right under the surface of the calm she tried to present for the sake of the children.
“Thanks for helping me get the ring back the other day, Miss Lucy,” Alvin said, sliding up next to her as she put the last barrel in place.
“You should be thanking Dr. Faraday,” she told him, ruffling his hair.
Alvin smiled for her, then pinched his face at Gideon. “I wanted to give that ring to you,” he whispered.
“Give it to me?” her brow flew up in surprise.
“Yeah.”
Alvin was the picture of the naughty little boy. Lucy peeked at Gideon, wondering what he looked like when he was ten.
“I could steal it again for you if you’d like.”
Alvin’s words pulled Lucy back before she could lose herself on a cloud of happy imagination.
“You could what?” She clasped a hand to her chest.
“Steal it for you again,” he repeated. “It was easy the first time. I shouldn’t have taken it out to look at it over by those rocks. I should have just given it to you.”
“Alvin!” Lucy crouched to bring her face closer to his. “You should never steal things, sweetheart. It’s wrong.”
“But I thought you might like it.” He made his excuse with such genuine feeling that Lucy couldn’t help but smile.
“Stealing is wrong, whether I would like a pretty ring or not. Next time, why not give me a flower?”
He scrunched his face up again. “Like Dr. Faraday did?”
Lucy blushed. She hadn’t realized people had figured out that Gideon had given her the flower she wore in her hair to Olivia and Charlie’s wedding. Gideon was watching her openly now, smiling with those far-away thoughts of his.
“Yes,” she told Alvin at last. “Something more like that.” She stood, poking his nose, then turning him back toward the benches as Olivia called her ramshackle class to order.
“Good morning boys and girls,” she began.
The children started to reply, but faded into mumbles.
“My name is Miss Ol—” Olivia cleared her throat, then tried again. “My name is Mrs. Garrett.”
Charlie—who had taken a seat on a barrel along with the rest of the students—grinned like a cat.
The lessons proceeded like every one of the schools Lucy had attended, be they in Wyoming or Cincinnati. Olivia ran through a few questions about letters, literature, math, and history to see what the children already knew. In spite of the vast differences in age, many of them were at the same, lowly level of education, so Olivia began teaching the very basics of letters and grammar. Lucy helped out where she could, hovering behind the older children to make sure that they understood what was being taught. She felt woefully out of her depth, though. Gideon would make a far better teacher if one of them had to—
“I have an idea,” she declared with a gasp as she and Gideon met in the back, behind the rows of students.
“What?” he asked, a hint of laughter in his voice and eyes.
“You should teach the children a lesson in science, in chemistry. You have all of those chemicals in the back of your wagon, after all. Surely there’s something dazzling that you could do with them to show the children how science works.”
Gideon’s smile dropped through her speech, leaving Lucy feeling foolish and disappointed.
“No, of course you can’t do that,” she rushed to chastise herself. “Chemicals are expensive and dangerous. How silly of me to suggest you waste them. It just goes to show how stupid I am.”
“No! You’re not stupid. It’s not that at all.”
Gideon reached out and touched her arm. Her sleeve was rolled up because of the heat, and when part of his hand touched her skin, it felt as though the morning grew that much hotter. His eyes followed where his hand rested, and he traced his fingers down her forearm to hold her hand for a moment.
“I’m taking those chemicals to the West so that I can purify water supplies for settlers. I’m not sure where or how quickly I’ll be able to get more, so I need to be frugal about what I use on the way.”
Lucy only partially heard his explanation. She was too busy reflecting on how wonderful his hand felt in hers, like they were meant to be joined. They weren’t the only things that were meant to be joined. It’d been more than a week since she’d kissed him, and if she had her way, their lips would be joined and they—
“You should teach a lesson.”
She didn’t realize she’d leaned closer to Gideon, head tilted up, until he spoke. The smile in his eyes told her he had at least an inkling of what she’d been thinking. She blinked herself back to good sense.
“Me? Teach something? I’ve never heard such a ridiculous notion in my life.”
“Why is that ridiculous?”
He was still holding her hand. Class was breaking up behind them and the children scattered. Alvin looked as though he wanted to say his goodbyes to Lucy, but frowned and moped off when he saw she was busy.
Lucy shook her head and tried to laugh. “It’s ridiculous because if there’s one thing I’m not, it’s smart. You’re the smart one, Gideon. I was lucky to squeak by in enough classes to graduate from grade school.”
Gideon made face that said he thought she was teasing. “I find that hard to believe.”
“Then you don’t know me very well.” But how much fun would it be to get to know each other very well indeed?
“I don’t believe you when you say you aren’t smart,” he went on.
Out of the corner of her eye, Lucy spotted Olivia coming toward them, but Charlie stepped into her path from where he was cleaning up benches and whispered something that made her turn around and walk the other way.
“I’ve seen you do all sorts of smart things on the trail,” Gideon continued. “Things I certainly couldn’t do.”
Lucy laughed. “I doubt there’s anything I can do that you can’t.”
“Wash clothes,” he said, lowering his head sheepishly. “I’ve always had to send my laundry out. I can’t mend or cook either.”
Lucy planted her free hand on her hip. “I’m not very good at either of those.”
“Let’s see.” He glanced up and to the side, his fingers playing with hers as their hands intertwined. The simple sensation sent shivers straight to her toes. “You can drive an ox cart. You are very good with children, if Alvin’s fondness for you is any indication.
“Yes,” she agreed with a mischievous grin. “Boys like me.”
His eyes grew and he stood a little straighter. “Is that so?”
When she realized how he’d taken her comment, she laughed. “I didn’t mean it like that. I meant because I’m not afraid of frogs or bugs and because I can ride a horse as well as Aunt Virginia.”
“There you go then. You can ride a horse.”
“You can’t ride a horse?” She strung his earlier suggestions together to come to a conclusion that hardly seemed believable.
“Um, I….”
“Now that is ridiculous. I thought all men could ride horses. But I suppose if you were cooped up in a laboratory, doing experiments with chemicals all day, you wouldn’t have much opportunity to ride horses.”
“I wasn’t in a lab,” he said, growing serious, his eyes lowered.
There was that sad, lonely, haunted look again. Lucy was quickly coming to hate that look as much as she loved the rest of him.
“Well, I won’t stand for it,” she said. She gripped his hand tighter and searched around for where the wagon train’s horses had been set to rest. “I’m going to teach you to ride a horse right now.”
“Right now?” he echoed as she tugged him off in the direction of the makeshift corral.
“Yes, and I don’t want to hear a word of argument from you, Dr. Faraday. It�
�s about time you acquired one of the most useful skills that an independent person can have.”
And she would thoroughly enjoy being the one to teach him.
Fifteen minutes later, Barnaby, one of Pete’s larger, more docile horses, sat saddled and ready, Gideon figured he should probably confess to Lucy that he’d been riding since he was a boy of Alvin’s age.
“Now,” she instructed him. “The first thing you need to do is put your foot in the stirrup and then pull yourself up onto the horse’s back.”
She reached for his trousers, and when he lifted his right foot to slip it into the stirrup, she grabbed his ankle. And here Gideon thought ladies were the ones who were self-conscious about their ankles. Feeling Lucy’s grip on such an unusual part of him, as she ostensibly showed him the correct way to secure his foot in a stirrup, sent jolts of desire right up his legs to inconvenient parts of him.
No, he wasn’t about to confess that he’d been riding horses most of his life. Not if it meant a hands-on lesson from Lucy.
“There,” she said, huffing a satisfied breath. “Now push up with your free foot and throw your leg over the horse’s rump.”
He was tickled by the way she said ‘rump’ too. This might turn into far more interesting an afternoon than it was intended to be.
“Like this?” He pretended it was all new to him and thrust up off the ground, muscling himself into position on the horse’s back.
“Perfect.” Lucy clapped her hands together in front of her. “See, I knew you would be a natural at this.”
“I guess so.”
He tried his best not to chuckle. After her confessions the other day about how people tended to treat her, he would have moved heaven and earth to keep her from feeling as though he was making fun of her. But the light in her eyes and the pure enthusiasm that shone in her face made him light-headed every time she treated him to the sight. A man could get used to seeing a sight like that. Even a man like him.
“How are you going to teach me to ride from down there?” he asked, hoping she wouldn’t see through him quite yet.
“Oh. I don’t know.” She glanced this way and that, looking for an answer, or perhaps another horse.
“Here.” Gideon leaned low to the side, stretching out an arm to her.
Lucy planted her fists on her hips. “You’ve just figured out how to mount a horse and you’re trying to drag me up there with you?”
So much for pretending he was a novice.
“I figure I’ll learn faster if you’re up here in the saddle with me,” he bluffed.
She narrowed her eyes and tilted her head to the side as if trying to figure out whether he was being straight with her.
“All right,” she said at last. “But at least let me fetch a barrel or something to help me climb up there.”
After a few minutes of searching without finding something tall enough, Lucy ended up climbing up an obliging wagon wheel on one of the crew wagons, then hopping over. Gideon was already far more overstimulated than he needed to be, and when she landed in his lap, he was caught between laughing and wincing in pain as she mashed into him. The discomfort faded, though, and the intimate sensation of having her in his arms, sitting sideways on the saddle in front of him, was enough to make up for it.
“I can’t say this is the most comfortable way to ride,” she told him as he nudged Barnaby to walk forward, away from the wagons and out onto the waving grass of the prairie. “Usually I ride sidesaddle in Cincinnati and astride, like Aunt Virginia, when I’m in Wyoming. All of the women who ride out on the plains of Wyoming ride astride, at least the ones I know of. Not that there are many women out there, of course, not yet. Papa says that in a decade or two, everyone and their brother will want to move out West. And since you can get a lot more work done sitting astride than you can on a sidesaddle, I just bet that the women who settle out there will be bold and intrepid.”
Trail women. Just like Pete had said. Although Gideon was certain he had the boldest and most intrepid one in his arms right there and then. He steered the horse to head out of earshot of the rest of the wagon train. They weren’t the only ones—and certainly not the only couple—who were wandering away from the group to catch a few moments of privacy. In fact, a couple of times he was certain they passed within a few yards of grass that was waving for reasons that had nothing to do with the afternoon breeze.
“Aunt Virginia has a horse named Midnight that is the finest thing you have ever seen,” Lucy chattered on. Gideon settled into the sound of her voice, imagining that her words were like strands of silk that she wove around him to catch and hold him closer to her, even though he should resist. “She lets me ride Midnight now and then, but you should see the two of them together. It’s like they have the same mind sometimes. I’ve seen them race across the fields, jump fences, splash across—”
She gasped, her mouth snapping shut, and whipped her head to face him.
“What’s wrong?” Gideon asked.
“You tricked me,” she yelped, a flash in her eyes. “If you didn’t know how to ride, then how did you manage to get the horse to walk all the way out here so easily?”
Gideon laughed, lowering his head in mock sheepishness. Right there, in the heat of a Kansas afternoon, Lucy bristling in his arms, he was quite certain that he was having the happiest moment of his life.
“You didn’t actually ask if I could ride a horse or not, you just assumed I couldn’t.” He shrugged. “Of course, I probably could have been a little clearer about what I was saying back at the trail school.”
“So you do know how to ride a horse?”
Her lips twitched up into a half-grinning, half-scolding pout. He had never wanted to kiss someone so desperately in his life.
“I can,” he confessed. Inspiration struck him. “Actually, I brought you out here in the hopes that you might help me with an experiment.”
Whatever offense she felt at being tricked, real or pretend, melted away. She blossomed into the picture of curiosity, green eyes flashing. “I would love to help you with an experiment. What kind of experiment?”
He feigned nonchalance, shrugging and inching his arms further around her. “An experiment that has to do with those laws of attraction I mentioned to you before.”
“Oh?” The single syllable was breathless, and her eyelids formed heavy veils that sent his blood pumping.
“Yes.” He didn’t mind that his voice was rough and low. It seemed right. “You see, it has to do with electric charge, magnetism. When there’s a spark between two things, they’re drawn together.”
“I see.” Her gaze was fixed firmly on his mouth.
It was all Gideon could do to sit still. “So let’s try an experiment to see if there’s an electric charge.”
He was talking utter nonsense now, but when she murmured, “All right,” none of it seemed to matter.
He pulled her closer, cradling the side of her face and tilting her head up to meet him in a kiss. Sure enough, from the moment their lips touched, as soon as she softened into him and let him tease his tongue along the seam of her mouth, there was enough electricity to light a whole new city in the West. It was so sweet that he hummed with the perfection of it. Maybe the biologists and bald eagles had it right and mating for life was the right way to go.
She shifted to draw herself closer to him, looping her arms around his shoulders. If it wasn’t for his hat, he was certain she would thread her fingers through his hair. All the while, their lips met and tangled in an exchange that went far beyond simple chemistry. He didn’t deserve such a wonderful, passionate young woman, but there she was, in his arms.
“Gideon?” she asked, breaking their kiss long enough to stare longingly into his eyes.
“Hmm?” he answered, beyond words.
“I like kissing you.”
Her expression flickered to a look of such wanton teasing that he had half a mind to slip down into the grass with her and do things they would both regret later.
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Or would they regret it?
“I like kissing you too,” he confessed, bringing his mouth down over hers once more.
She felt so perfect against him, so right. Right enough to make up for all of the wrongs that comprised his life. A voice in the back of his head warned him that he was a villain if he let her fall in love with him without knowing the truth, but when she shuddered with desire as he raked his hands down her sides, blatantly brushing her breasts as he did, that voice was drown out by one far more primal. He wanted her, beyond what frivolous experiments they might come up with out on the trail. He wanted her forever, as his lover and his wife.
All that was left now was to find a way that he could deserve her after everything he’d done.
Chapter Seven
Experimentation had always been Gideon’s way of life. How else did you advance in life but to form theories, test them, and evaluate the results? After an afternoon of kissing Lucy in the prairie grass, then stealing a few more kisses that night in the flickering light of the campfire after the rest of the wagon train had gone to sleep, he had a theory that nothing in the world would make him happier than kissing her—and much more—for the rest of his life.
But the weight of his past misdeeds hung so heavily on his shoulders that even Lucy’s passionate sighs as their lips joined couldn’t lighten it. Nothing could lighten that burden, but somehow Lucy helped him forget he was carrying it. At least for moments at a time. The rest of the time, Gideon’s stomach churned, knowing he couldn’t let things go on without revealing the whole truth. Lucy had to know what caring for him truly meant, what kind of monster she risked giving her heart to.
“Lucy,” he began with a mumble as they plodded on along the trail, nervous as he’d been in ages. “There’s something I need to talk to you about.”
“Oh?” she answered over her shoulder, a wagon’s-length ahead of him, guiding her oxen along the rutted trail.
The sky above was dark and getting darker, like some portent of how she would react to his confession. If they’d had the time or a chance to stop, he would take her aside where no one else could overhear them, set up the history of how he’d gotten involved in the project for her, then tell her everything. When a rumble of thunder sounded from the horizon in front of them, he knew he wouldn’t have that time.
