High Plains Bride

by Jenna Kernan

  How long until the next upheaval?

  The river flowed away from her path, and she wondered where it would lead. The urge to run tempted her. There was only one man to elude now. But he had a horse and she did not know how to find her people. She glanced at the trees to her right, and considered dashing into the heavy brush.

  What was best to do—run or wait?

  Lucie’s mother had told her to wait and she would come back for her. But the Indians took her first. What would her mother say to do? She tried to listen to her words, picturing her here beside her.

  Should I run before he takes me?

  The silence was broken only by the pony’s tail swishing away the flies.

  Would her mother still want her back if this man forced himself on her or would she want her to follow Julia Cassidy’s dramatic vow to die before allowing dishonor? Lucie pictured plunging a knife into her breast and shuddered. She did not wish to dishonor her family, but neither did she wish to die.

  Lucie was so consumed with her own thoughts, she did not notice that Eagle Dancer had halted his pony until she ran into the creature’s hind quarters, bouncing backwards like a rubber ball. The pinto flicked his tail and glanced back as if to ask how Lucie could be so clumsy.

  Eagle Dancer extended the water skin to her. She accepted the offer, drinking heavily. From experience, she knew not to expect to be fed or watered regularly and took advantage whenever food or drink was given. Horses got better treatment than the slaves here—far better.

  The man waited as she drank first. Twice today she had received sustenance before her captors. She did not understand, and this worried her.

  The warrior tucked away the skin and leaned toward her, seeming to loom. He offered his hand and Lucie backed up.

  “Take it,” he said.

  She did not want to but could think of no way to avoid following his order, so she reached out.

  His fingers clasped her forearm in an iron grip and swung her behind him. The last time she had ridden a horse, she had been trussed up like a turkey. The day of her capture played in her mind as she winced at the gruesome memories.

  Kathryn Jackson had wept inconsolably over her husband’s murder. She refused to walk and so they slit her throat and left her naked body on the prairie, like a slaughtered doe. Lucie gave her captors no trouble after that, doing exactly as she was told.

  Eagle Dancer rode on with Lucie clinging to his back like a possum. Late in the afternoon, he stopped to water his horse and eat. Lucie smiled when she realized she would eat as well.

  Her smile vanished an hour later when he laid out one sleeping skin, and she understood she would lie alone beside this strange, fierce man.

  Chapter Four

  Thomas stripped the sheets from his bed and replaced them with fresh linen. Finally, he draped his Hudson Bay blanket and the quilt he’d bought from Mrs. Clarkson over the sheets. Up until now, everything he needed from a woman he had purchased—clean laundry, meals and company.

  Years ago he’d sought women who resembled Sarah. One had the same color eyes. Another mimicked her walk. Once in bed, he’d close his eyes and imagine Sarah, young and lithe beneath him once more. But when he opened his eyes he was with a stranger in a foul little room above some saloon. Lately that kind of company had brought him only disgust. Better to see to his needs alone than to take a whore.

  For reasons he never thought on for too long, sleeping with such women tarnished the bright memories of Sarah in his bed. But she didn’t seem to feel the same. For her, the night that he had cherished as his fondest memory had been the worst mistake of her life. He hung his head in grief.

  Sarah had said they had changed. If she only knew how much. His brother’s blood stained his hands. His father had accused Thomas of luring Hyatt away. No doubt Thomas’s stories of gold and glory had done just that. His parents were right to blame him for the death of their youngest boy, for he blamed himself. He had lacked the courage to face them and so he had lost Sarah, as well. He was unworthy of her now, in so many ways.

  When his eyes came back into focus, he found himself staring at the log cabin quilt and picturing Sarah writhing, moaning beneath his brother Samuel.

  His fist slammed into the pillow, leaving it bowed.

  Embarrassed by his outburst, he reined in his rage and fluffed the down again.

  Sarah was in this house. She would undress beside his bed, slip between clean sheets and lay her head on his pillow. And he would be downstairs sleeping alone on a bearskin rug.

  “Damn it.”

  He was all mixed up inside. She needed his help. That much he knew. Their daughter needed his help.

  Thomas sat heavily upon the bed.

  Lucie.

  That’s what Sarah had named his daughter, in honor of his mother, in honor of Samuel’s mother. He placed his hands over his face and wept. He cried for his parents, now dead and gone, and for Samuel, who’d taken Thomas’s place in the life he’d thrown away to chase a dream. He wept for Hyatt, who Thomas had led not to riches, but to his death. Finally, when the sobs grew raw and painful, he cried for the daughter he didn’t know, half-grown and now in peril. When he finished, he had no tears left to mourn his pitiful mistakes. The bits of his life seemed shattered like a dropped mirror, and he could think of no way to fuse the jagged fragments back into one whole piece.

  All his family was gone.

  No—not all. Lucie was family. His family.

  “Damned if I’ll lose her, too.”

  He stood. He swallowed past the lump that had lodged in his throat like a wishbone ever since Sarah had appeared on his doorstep. He glanced at his reflection in the mirror. His eyes looked worse than the morning after Sarah’s birthday. Each October on the sixteenth, he made a tradition of getting so drunk he couldn’t think about her. Now he felt as though it were the morning after, although he hadn’t touched a drop. How to face her again?

  Had he almost kissed her?

  Why, in the name of God, would he think he had the right? But her skin was still so soft and she smelled of chamomile blossoms and fresh ginger. The combination was invigorating and unique, like no other woman.

  He tipped his head back and groaned, studying the plastered ceiling. He had pictured her in this room too many times to count.

  But always she came contrite and willing. She’d beg for his kisses and fall hungrily into his arms. He’d make her wait before surrendering to her pleas.

  The ferocious badger waiting in his parlor little resembled his vision. No, not at all. The reality surpassed the fantasy.

  “Damn it!”

  He splashed water on his face, discarding the waste out the window, and then righted the pitcher and bowl. Finally, he turned a slow circle, seeing the room as she might. Everything in order. He glanced at the top drawer of his bureau, and he saw its contents in his mind. He swept across the room, yanked open the drawer and scooped out the daguerreotype hidden at the back. She’d never know he’d kept her image all these years.

  Sliding the precious keepsake into his pocket, he headed downstairs. A light showed in the kitchen. He turned to the foyer, scooping up her saddlebags and toting them back upstairs, delaying their meeting a few more minutes.

  Back in the hall, he listened but heard nothing. Finally, he drew himself up and stepped into the kitchen.

  Prepared for anything, he faltered to see Sarah sitting at his table asleep upon her forearm beside a cold, untouched mug of coffee.

  In sleep, her innocence returned. Her earlier anguish fell away, leaving the girl he remembered. His Sarah.

  Would she ever be his again?

  He studied her features, peaceful in sleep. Motionless, he drank her in, savoring each gentle breath.

  She didn’t know what had happened back then. Samuel had never told her, and Thomas lacked the strength to watch the horror of the truth break across her features. She had regrets too; he understood that part of her, having lived with his own for years. The shame and sen
se of failure had nearly killed him. If only Hyatt had lived, he could have written her. Even without his sight he might still have reached out, but now he was not worthy of any woman, let alone his Sarah.

  His failure to rescue Hyatt and his weakness with Sarah were the two failures he could not change.

  How long would he have to pay for his sins?

  “Sarah?” He nudged her arm.

  She started and righted, flashing her confused gaze about the unfamiliar kitchen. Her arm stretched out, and the cup of untouched coffee tipped, sending brown liquid streaming across the tabletop.

  “Oh, look what I’ve done.”

  They both reached for the rag, fingers connecting as his hand enveloped hers. A familiar ache sparked in his groin from the mere brushing of their fingers. The power of their connection startled her as well, judging from her round-eyed stare and gaping mouth. He drew back first.

  Her white knuckles choked the cloth. Then she drew a breath and returned to mop up the mess, before wringing out the rag in the stone sink.

  “I’m so clumsy.” She laid out the cloth to dry.

  Graceful as an antelope, he thought, but said, “Come on, I’ll get you settled.”

  He carried the lantern up the stairs, marching slowly, as if to the gallows. He paused in the hall, opening the door for her. She hesitated.

  “I don’t feel right about taking your room.”

  “I insist.”

  Sarah lingered in the doorway, turning to face him once more.

  “Thomas?” She paused to bite her lip, causing a pulsing pressure in his groin. “What happened to Hyatt?”

  Ice water flooded his veins. He stepped back, retreating from those searching eyes. She didn’t hate him now, but she would once she knew.

  Thomas shook his head, refusing to speak, refusing to break this fragile and uncertain start with the awful truths that marked his soul.

  He handed her the lantern. “Privy’s out back. Call if you need anything.”

  By some miracle he managed to descend the stairs to the bottom step before his knees gave way. How he had got this far, he had no notion.

  Memories of Hyatt rose in his mind. Thomas had told his brother to hide in that wagon, robbing him of a chance to fight and, in so doing, robbing him of his life. He pressed his palms to his forehead in despair.

  Above him, Sarah moved about. She paused, and then her light step came again. Another pause, longer this time. When next she crossed the room, no tap of her boot heels accompanied her stride as she padded on his flooring on bare feet. Did she wear her nightgown? He pictured her drawing back the covers to lie down on his clean sheets.

  He crept halfway up the stairs, a thief in his own home, and paused at eye level with the light spilling across the wide planking. Desperate for a glimpse of her, he sagged upon the staircase again. He had never noticed the two-inch gap beneath the bedroom door until this moment. Now he focused on the small portal to her world like a hungry child with his nose pressed to a bakeshop window.

  A rustling sound reached him as she drew back the blankets and sheets and then pulled them back over herself. Then came a sigh, clear as the call of a lark. The next sound confused him for a moment. It reminded him of a hound rooting for a scent. Then a high whine joined the mix and he recognized it.

  Sarah was crying.

  Thomas slipped down the stairs, retreating from Sarah’s anguish. Her grief tore at his heart. He had not the right to comfort her nor the courage to listen. In the living room, he shook out a blanket and spread it over the rug before the fire.

  He drew off his boots and belt, then lay in the quiet room, listening to the coals crackle as flames consumed the last log, leaving only the orange glow of a dying fire. He rolled to his side, landing upon the hard edge of the picture case. Thomas drew out the likeness of Sarah’s younger self and studied it by the waning light of the fire.

  The faint image on tin still showed her lovely smile as she sat full of promise and expectation in the year before that night, before he took her and left her, before she bore him a child. Regret rose so deep it threatened to drown him. He hated his part in killing the hope in her eyes. He couldn’t go back and make things right, not for Hyatt, not for any of them. All he could do was what she bid and find their girl.

  He closed the case, not strong enough to gaze on her image an instant longer. As the fire died away, he rolled from one side to the next, tugging at the blanket as if engaged in a death match.

  Thomas had certainly slept in worse places—damp, uneven places. But for some reason this dry, warm room and this soft fur mattress now seemed the most uncomfortable bed of his life.

  “Well, hell.”

  He threw off the blanket and stormed outside into the evening breeze. Leaning on the porch rail, he gazed up at the stars scattered like fireflies across the night sky.

  “Are you looking up, Lucie?” he whispered. “I’ll be coming for you directly and I won’t quit until they kill me or I bring you home safe.”

  Chapter Five

  Somehow Thomas readied the wagon, tied the saddle horses to the back and headed out.

  As he crossed the yard, he felt Sarah staring at him from within his house. He flicked his gaze to the windows. A shadowy outline disappeared the moment he turned his head.

  She watched. He always knew when her eyes were upon him. He felt it on his neck like her warm breath.

  By the time he reached the road, the sensation had passed. In town, he dropped off the horses at the livery and then he spoke to his clerk about taking over for a while. The man’s shock quickly passed when Thomas offered him ten percent of all sales in his absence in addition to his salary if he would oversee the entire operation. His clerk’s wife would check on his place, and their married daughter would go on cleaning it for him. That took care of his home and business.

  “Oh, and bring my stock to the livery,” said Thomas.

  “No need to pay,” said Bill Hauer. “I’ll just keep them with mine.”

  “Appreciate it.”

  “How long you figure to be gone, Tom?”

  Thomas shook his head. “No telling.”

  He selected what he needed at his hardware store, visited the bank and then headed to the grocer.

  After negotiating a trade for most of his supplies, he turned his attention to an area of the store that he rarely even spared a glance. The women’s clothing and other assorted female niceties had had no place in his austere life until today. He lifted a bar of lavender soap and sniffed. Then he tried the rose.

  With one bar in each hand, he raised his gaze to find Mr. Jenson regarding him with a lopsided grin.

  “So you have a visitor,” he said.

  His tone did not judge.

  “Says who?” asked Thomas, struggling to keep the resentment from his voice.

  “That little lady stopped here yesterday for directions. I pointed her your way, so I hope you don’t owe her money.”

  Thomas lowered his guard.

  “She’s…” Thomas hesitated. It was hard to say his sister-in-law, when once he’d planned to call her wife. “She’s my brother’s wife.”

  “Oh, that puts a different spin on it.”

  “My brother passed.”

  “Oh, Tom, I’m surely sorry. She come with the news, did she?”

  “Yes.” He wondered if telling Jenson and thereby the whole town was a mistake. He couldn’t see that it would be, so he went on. “Samuel had the cholera on the trail.”

  “Terrible shame.”

  “That isn’t the half. The Sioux attacked their wagon and they took…their daughter.” Thomas paused, realizing how near he came to saying his daughter. That would be difficult to explain. He didn’t give a hang what folks thought, but Sarah had always set great store by the opinion of strangers. So he chose his words with care. “We’re heading to Sacramento, then east to the plains. Appreciate it if you’ll keep an eye on my place.”

  “You got Billy running her?”

>   “Yeah, he’ll do fine. Just check in. He might need help on occasion.”

  “Glad to.”

  “And we’ll be traveling. I need to pick up some gear for Sarah.”

  Thomas looked at the unfamiliar female goods then back to Jenson in desperation. “Can you help me?”

  “What’s she need?”

  “That’s the thing. The woman is stubborn as all get-out. But she’s my responsibility now.” Thomas admitted to himself that having some say over her life pleased him.

  “Well, her boots showed some wear and her coat isn’t suitable for winter. Noticed she don’t have a sunbonnet.”

  “We’ll be trail riding. Her hat will do.”

  “All right then.” Jenson started collecting items. “Stockings wear out fast and yarn to darn them.”

  “What’s this for?” Thomas lifted a pretty scrap of lace.

  Jenson grinned, poking the rosebud made of pink ribbon in the center of the oddity dangling from Thomas’s finger. “That’s a New York garter to hold up a woman’s stockings. But Thomas, I got them for Henry’s gals over at the Blue Buck.”

  Thomas let the ribbon and lace slip from his hand.

  “Most proper women don’t wear those, but I’ve seen them show an interest. I think Miss Calhoun would have bought a pair if she could have done it without nobody seeing.”

  Thomas chose a pair with blue ribbons. He studied the tiny glittering beads sewn to the lace and admired the artificial rosebuds. “They wear them with woolens?”

  “Now, Thomas, you seen the stockings them gals wear, ain’t ya? They’re silk.”

  “You got any?”

  His eyebrows lifted. “Sure do, but they’re not sturdy enough for traveling and they’re dear.”

  Thomas shrugged.

  In the end he bought boots, a small leather coat lined with fleece, two heavy blouses, a wool skirt, one wool dress, lavender scented soap, woolens, a scarf, calfskin gloves and a pair of silk stockings with fancy New York garters.