Trail of Longing (Hot on the Trail Book 3)

by Merry Farmer

  “Never mind your mother. You’re a grown woman capable of making your own decisions.”

  Emma shook her head. “It’s not that. You don’t know my mother when she’s on a tear.”

  Katie laughed, making Emma smile reluctantly. “I think I might like to see that,” she said, tipping her head to one side, probably imagining it. She shook her head. “Go to your man. It pains me to see him looking so serious. I’ll tell your mother you’ve gone to the necessity.”

  Emma couldn’t resist. She gave the potato in her hand one last peel, then set it aside, along with her knife. She met Katie’s eyes in a moment of female solidarity, then casually slipped off around the back of the Boyles’ wagon to the outer rim of the wagon circle.

  Dean was several yards ahead and she had to jog to catch up with him. Before she could call out to him, he heard her footfalls and turned.

  “Emma.” A weary smile spread across his face. In the fading light of sunset, it made him look older than he was. “What are you doing out here? Shouldn’t you be eating supper?”

  “I will.” She reached him out of breath. Every fiber in her body wanted to hug him, but she kept her hands to herself, pressing one to her chest as she caught her breath. “I’m sorry,” she started. She wrestled with all the things she wanted to say to him, but couldn’t think of a single one to voice. “I’m sorry.”

  His weary smile spread, and the tension he’d been carrying softened. He stepped toward her. “Emma, sweetheart, you have nothing to be sorry for.”

  He called me sweetheart, she sang to herself. Aloud she said, “This must be such a trial for you.”

  To her surprise, his mouth twitched into an ironic grin. “Not anymore,” he said. “Seeing you here, like this, brushes away every doubt I could have had.”

  Doubt. She didn’t like the word. It hung in the air too close to her. Nothing in his expression or his stance hinted that his doubt had anything to do with her, but she knew better. It felt too personal.

  “No one who knows you could believe any of the accusations Dr. Sandifer made.” She chose her words carefully, taking a step closer to him, bringing them only inches away from each other.

  Dean shrugged. “People will believe whatever lies give them the most thrill to believe. I’m just frustrated that Russ is so good at making up those kinds of lies.”

  He was frustrated. She could feel it pouring off of him. Her heart beat harder, encouraging her to find some way to soothe his turbulent emotions.

  “What is the truth?” she asked.

  “The truth?” he echoed, eyebrows raised.

  “Yes.” She took a breath, pushing herself to be bold. She laid a hand on his arm. “What really happened in that military hospital? I know you aren’t a coward, or mentally deficient. What was the misunderstanding?”

  The emotions on his face flickered between haunted sorrow and pain, and relief and tenderness for her. “Oh, Emma. I can’t tell you how much your faith in me means. But that time…. Things happened in those field hospitals that no lady should ever have to know about.”

  “Tell me,” she pleaded, tightening her grip on his arm. “Please.” She could see in the pain that creased his brow that he needed to tell someone.

  Dean sighed, taking her hand and lowering his eyes to study her fingers. It was a long moment before he spoke.

  “Warfare is a terrible thing,” he began in a low voice. “Perhaps there is some glory in it somewhere, but all I saw was the carnage left behind. Soldiers in battle pray for a clean death if death must come for them. Fewer are granted that gift than we want to believe.”

  He took a breath, raising his eyes to meet Emma’s. She squeezed his hand harder as her heart constricted in her chest.

  “Day and night,” he went on. “After a battle, we surgeons would work day and night. We did the best we could, but more often than not, we didn’t have the supplies we needed. There wasn’t enough morphine or chloroform for all that we had to do. What we had was saved for special cases. Most of the men were forced to endure surgeries to….” He looked down. “Bullets, even when fired at great distances, can shatter bone,” he continued in a rough voice. “Shatter it beyond repair. The only choice we had was to… remove mangled limbs.”

  Emma swallowed. She had seen her fair share of soldiers returning from war with missing arms or legs, sometimes both. She hadn’t thought much about how those injuries had happened. Judging by the way Dean’s face went pale, she didn’t want to imagine any more.

  “It had been days,” he continued. “After Chancellorsville. I hardly knew what time it was. My… my saw had been busy, but we had run out of chloroform.” He peeked up at her, and instantly she knew what that implied. “The screaming reaches down to your soul. There was a pile of…. No one had time to remove the… the results of our surgeries between operations.”

  He took a deep breath. “There was one soldier, Henry Proctor was his name. As soon as they laid him on my table, he grabbed my hand. ‘Doctor,’ he said. ‘I know I’m dying. Save your strength for a man you can heal.’ I told him that I could heal him, promised him, but he shook his head. He said he knew it was his time, though he sorely regretted it. I was glad for a moment of rest, so I just stood there with him, holding his hand. He told me about his young wife, a girl he’d just married before going off to war. He told me all the things they had hoped to do with their lives.”

  “Harry,” Emma whispered, tears choking her. It wasn’t Alice’s Harry. His surname had been Tyler. But suddenly in her imagination, Dean’s patient was Alice’s Harry.

  Dean held her hands in his, the memory filling his own eyes with tears. “It made me realize how much more we are losing in this war than the lives of those men. We are losing the children they will never have, the joy they will never bring to their loved ones. In that moment, it hit me that it doesn’t matter which side wins this war. All of us have lost more than can be replaced.”

  “Yes.” Emma exhaled, seeing it too. “Yes, you’re right.”

  He glanced up and met her eyes again. “Henry told me that he had a bundle in his barracks, all of his personal belongings and letters he had written to his wife. He begged me to find it and make sure it was sent to her. He thought all of his comrades were dead and no one would know where to look. I promised him I would send his things home, and… and he died right there, smiling because he knew everything would be all right.”

  Dean shook his head. He let go of Emma’s hands long enough to wipe his eyes.

  “The rest of the story is short. I was tired, my heart was sick. I couldn’t take it for another moment. I told Russ that I needed a break, that I would be back in an hour. Then I left the surgery and went off in search of Henry Proctor’s barracks and his things. When I found them, I checked through them to see if he had an address where I could send everything. I found all of his letters, along with a photograph of his wife. That’s when it struck me. I sat on his cot and cried.” He swallowed, his voice rough. “It wasn’t very manly of me, but I cried for all the men who had been lost and all the wives whose husbands would never come home.”

  “Oh, Dean.” In spite of all of her inhibitions, Emma threw her arms around him and held him for all she was worth. She shook with emotion as he hugged her in return, the heat of his body giving the only clue of how upset he was. “Sweetheart,” she returned the endearment he had used with her.

  His arms tightened around her, and he lowered his head to her shoulder. But only for one moment. He took a breath and straightened.

  “That’s where Russ found me,” he went on, voice rough. “He brought two military police with him when he came. He told them I was deserting and used Henry’s sack as proof that I was gathering my things to bolt.”

  “No!” Rage curled in Emma’s stomach. She took a step back. “How could he stoop so low?”

  “He could. That’s all there is to it,” Dean said with a shrug.

  Emma balled her fists at her sides, wanting to march down the line
of wagons to give Russ a piece of her mind right there. Her breath came in short, shallow gasps. “Why? Why would he do such a thing?”

  Dean sighed. “The only thing I have been able to come up with on that regard is that he has always been jealous of me.”

  “I should say so!”

  “He’s always depended on being able to cheat off of me, in spite of my best efforts. I wasn’t about to stand for it anymore. I’d told him as much and distanced myself from him. With all the activity of the war, and the tasks we were set to do, I thought he’d forgotten about it. I know I had. He was gone by the time the army sorted out what had really happened with me and Henry Proctor’s dying wish. I don’t know how he managed it, when surgeons were needed so desperately. I left the army, left the East, as soon as I could. I don’t think I could ever go back. Those places hold too many memories.”

  He began to sag again. Emma stepped close and put her arms around him. He let out a breath and relaxed into her. The warmth of his body against hers felt like home. No matter how far she traveled from the place she had grown up, as long as she could stay in Dean’s arms, she would be home.

  Dean loosened his embrace enough to look up into her eyes. “I’m fine. Really. Having you here with me helps.”

  “I just wish I could stay with you always,” she said. As soon as she realized what her words meant, she lowered her eyes, lashes brushing her cheeks.

  Dean slid his hand under her chin and lifted it until she faced him again. “I want that too,” he said.

  No more words were needed. He spread his palm across her cheek and drew her close for a kiss. It was a soft, tender kiss. She could feel exhaustion spreading through him. But as their mouths met, as her lips parted to invite him in, to drink from his sorrow until he found solace, his passion flared. He held her close and slanted his mouth over hers, carrying her away with his love.

  “Good gracious, Emma.”

  Her mother’s voice cut through the haze of passion that had settled around Emma. She jumped as if icy rain had dumped down on her. Dean let her go, if only out of shock.

  “Mrs. Sutton.” He addressed her mother with bright red cheeks and wide eyes. “I’m sorry.”

  “I should think you would be,” Emma’s mother glowered. “Ruining my daughter, here in broad daylight?”

  “It’s twilight,” Emma said. She immediately felt foolish for arguing when she and Dean had been caught red-handed—or rather, red-lipped.

  “It could be the dark of midnight and that still wouldn’t make it right.” Her mother marched forward and grabbed her wrist. “Come, Emma. You and I need to have a talk. Goodnight, Dr. Meyers.” She dismissed Dean with a curt nod and tugged Emma along with her.

  Emma craned her head over her shoulder to apologize to Dean with a look. He watched her being dragged off, mouth half-opened in shock. All Emma could do was trust that he understood and would forgive her for not putting up a fight.

  She expected her mother to take her back to the Boyles’ camp. Instead, she dragged her halfway around the circle of wagons to a point near the river.

  “I don’t know what I’m going to do with you,” she fretted once they had stopped.

  “It’s not for you to do anything with me,” Emma replied. It was the strongest response she could bring herself to make. She would need to work her way up to any other declaration.

  Still, her mother bristled with impatience. “I have been working tirelessly on your behalf, my dear. Tirelessly. It is essential that you make a good match.”

  “I understand, but Dean is a good match,” she did her best to explain.

  Her mother shook her head. “He may be a doctor and he may be charming, but how can you account for his trouble with the army? The reputation he earned at school?”

  “I can account for them because Russ has done nothing but lie about Dean since the moment he saw him,” Emma defended him. “Dean just told me the story of what happened that led to his leaving the army. Mother, he was trying to help a soldier who died in his arms. Dean is a good man. Russ is a coward and a fake.”

  To Emma’s surprise, her mother heaved a heavy sigh. “Oh, my dear. How I wish you knew more of the world.” She pressed her fingertips to her forehead. Then she met Emma’s eyes with startling frankness. “Do you think I am blind to the faults in Russ’s character?”

  Emma figured it was best not to answer.

  Her mother shook her head. “I understand that he is a braggart and a bore. I can see that his medical skills are not all they should be. But Russell Sandifer is a man of force. He is a man that will see that things get done, no matter what. He is not some hero who will run off to war with dreams of glory, only to be cut down. He is a man who comes home. His medicine may be bunk, but he will make money off of it. And if you never love him, he can never leave you bereft or destitute. Don’t you understand how important that is?”

  Something clicked in Emma’s mind. Her heart gave an odd lurch. “Alice,” she said. “You’re thinking about Alice, what happened between her and Harry, Harry’s death.”

  “Yes, of course I’m thinking about Alice.” Her mother leaned toward her and took her hands. “What do you think it was like, watching your dear sister fall to pieces when the man she loved with all her heart left for war? What do you imagine I felt when we received news that he had fallen, that Alice was a widow before she ever had a chance to truly be a wife? And to sit there by her side, helpless as she slipped into blackness. Why do you think we left everything behind to go west and start over?”

  “I understand, Mother, but—”

  “Do you?” Her mother squeezed and shook her hands. “Do you truly understand? Can you?” She shook her head. “You’ve never been a mother, my wonderful, innocent child. Yes, I know you think that you love Dean Meyers. Perhaps you truly do. But love will only bring you heartache. Dean is a hero, and in this day and age, heroes are not long for this world. Do you understand that I would do anything, anything within my power to save you the agony of losing the man you love?”

  Emma’s heart twisted with pain and confusion. How could her mother be so wonderfully caring and loving and so horribly wrong at the same time? Perhaps she didn’t understand the lengths a mother’s love would go to.

  “Dean isn’t going to die and leave me,” was all she could come up with to say.

  “No, he’s not,” her mother agreed. “Because you’re not going to let him get close enough to hurt you. Russ is certainly not ideal, but he can provide you with a good living, a respectable home, and healthy children, God willing.”

  “But I don’t love—”

  “You don’t need to love him,” her mother snapped in frustration. “That is what I am trying to tell you. Half the marriages you see these days are little more than conveniences. Love is a beautiful fantasy, but we must be practical. It’s simply the way things are.”

  Every part of Emma rebelled at the thought. She pulled her hands away from her mother’s. “Don’t you love Father?”

  Her mother sighed. “Of course, I love your father. I always have. We were extremely lucky. We beat the odds. I can’t assume that my daughters will be so lucky, not when one of them has already had her heart ripped to shreds by love.”

  “But Alice—”

  “Promise me,” her mother rode over her. “Promise me that you will at least think on what I have said. Promise me that you will be discreet, that you won’t go flinging your heart away to cruel love when you could save yourself so much pain.”

  Emma wanted to reply, but words wouldn’t come. She closed her mouth and lowered her head.

  “I’m not asking you to make a decision right now, while we’re on this journey,” her mother went on. “In fact, I’m asking you to do exactly the opposite. I’m asking you not to make a decision until we’ve reached our destination. I’m asking you to consider my side of things, to entertain the idea of stability over passion, of Russ over Dean. Can you do that for me? Until we reach Portland?”

&
nbsp; In that moment, Oregon had never seemed so far away. Emma’s stomach roiled at the thought of holding back when she knew exactly where she wanted to fly. She belonged in Dean’s arms, not logically weighing the safest possible course she could travel. She hated her mother’s idea… but she loved her mother. Loved her enough to wait.

  “All right,” she murmured at length, more miserable than her mother could possibly guess. “I’ll refrain from making any declarations to Dean until we’ve reached Portland.”

  “You won’t tell him you love him or give him false reason to hope?”

  Emma clenched her jaw tight. She swallowed the lump of regret that was already pushing up through her throat and nodded. “I promise.”

  “And you promise to spend at least some time with Russ, to consider him as a possibility?”

  No, never, she thought to herself. I can’t argue against what my heart already wants, and what it wants is Dean. Aloud, she said, “Yes.”

  Her mother sighed loudly in relief and drew Emma into a hug. Unlike Dean’s embrace, her mother’s arms were taut and stifling. “That’s my good girl,” her mother said. “I can always count on you to do what’s right in the end.”

  Emma held her tongue. Her mother wouldn’t like anything she had to say. She would do her best to follow her mother’s wishes, but secretly she wondered how long she could hold out.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Every ounce of certainty Dean had felt after pouring his heart out to Emma vanished over the next week. She had been so tender, going so far as to hold him and kiss him as he relived those terrible days, but when he sought her out to walk with her the next day, she had politely declined, hiding her face from him.

  “Is she two women?” he asked Aiden as they walked nearly a week later. “Is the woman I kissed Emma and the one who has brushed me aside these last few days a twin sister I didn’t know about?”

  Aiden chuckled and thumped him on the back. “You might be on to something there, my friend. All women have twin sisters sometimes. I think they do it to hide their vulnerability.”