Land of Dreams

by Cheryl St. John

  "I would trust my own life to Red Horse," Mr. Hayes assured her. "Have, in fact."

  She hugged Zoe.

  Tears welled in the child's eyes.

  Thea hurried out the door.

  "Good evening, miss" Red Horse said, handing both horses' reins to Mr. Hayes. "You cooked a fine meal."

  She nodded her thanks, and he stepped silently into the soddy.

  Zoe still on her mind, Thea's brain didn't register how close Mr. Hayes stood or his intention. She raised her foot to the stirrup and pulled herself into her saddle in one fluid motion. She glanced down.

  Mr. Hayes took a step back, almost seeming embarrassed. Averting his face, he handed her the reins.

  She accepted them, a realization dawning. Warmth crept up her neck into her cheeks. He'd been waiting to assist her! He was no doubt accustomed to delicate, feminine ladies who required his aid in mounting. She settled her hat and nudged the mare forward.

  He mounted and rode alongside her. "You're angry I came with you?"

  "I'm not angry. I just think Zoe needs you more than I do."

  "I can't let you ride home alone, Thea. Red Horse will protect her."

  "Protection isn't the issue." The mare stepped across a stone, and she rocked with the motion. "She's lost everyone she loved. Don't you understand she's afraid?"

  "I understand better than you give me credit for. But I've been in the army too long to minimize the importance of safety."

  She looked him square in the eye. "Surely by now, you've noticed I'm no hothouse flower."

  "Are you armed?" He studied her from beneath the brim of his black hat. Beyond his shoulders, a streak of tangerine marred the otherwise perfectly blue sky.

  She shook her head. "No."

  "Even I would be vulnerable without a weapon," he reasoned. "If you want to ride alone, bring that gun you keep in your bureau."

  Sheepishly, she turned her attention to the landscape ahead. Several moments of silence passed. "I need to go into Omaha for supplies within the next day or so," she said, hoping to change the subject. "Do you object to me taking Zoe along?"

  "I'd feel better if I went along."

  "What are you afraid I'll do, run off with her?"

  "No." He leaned forward and grasped the mare's bridle, stopping her alongside his stallion. "Your safety concerns me."

  Her gaze flicked over his dark features. "Hostile Indians are few and far between these days. But I'll take the gun."

  He tilted his chin in thought. "Doesn't have to be hostile Indians, Thea. You're a beautiful woman. Anything could happen."

  She widened her eyes in surprise. "I'll think about it."

  He released her horse and rode beside her to within eyesight of the Coulson house, then touched his hat brim. "See you in the morning."

  A beautiful woman? The entire time she helped MaryRuth with the supper dishes, Thea couldn't stop thinking about those words. Was there something wrong with Booker Hayes’s eyesight? She kissed David, waved her sister and Denzel off, and showed Madeline how to knead bread dough. While the dough rose, she started the ironing. By the time the bread was out of the oven and the last shirt had been pressed, everyone else had long been asleep and the house was dark and silent.

  Thea lit the lantern in her room and sponged herself with warm water she'd carried from the stove. Dressed in a fresh gown, she blew out the lantern and slipped between the sheets. Her body ached, and each limb felt as though it weighed more than her horse. She wondered if Booker'd had trouble getting Zoe to sleep.

  Booker. It was going to take all her strength and willpower to keep her mind on her tasks when he was around. She noticed things about Booker Hayes that she'd never noticed in a man before. She'd responded immediately to that glimpse of ebony hair at his shirt opening. She almost felt feminine when his dark eyes touched her face, her hair.

  She didn't know where to look when confronted with the broad expanse of muscle that flexed just beneath the thin fabric of his shirt. His strong, dark hands elicited images she wasn't prepared to deal with. The fluid manner in which he walked and rode... his voice...

  Tired as she was, Thea's body quickened with poignant sensitivity. She rolled to her stomach and stifled a groan in her pillow. No. She hadn't allowed prurient thoughts to torment her since she'd given up hope for marriage. To indulge herself was to open up to self-pity and frustration, and she wouldn't fall into that destructive pit again.

  She was stronger than that, she told herself. Booker Hayes would not make her unhappy with herself or her life. She wouldn't let him.

  Her conscious decision an internal battle, Thea drifted into exhausted slumber. But Booker Hayes wasn't easily banned from her dreamworld, either. Phantom images of his body, his mouth, his hands, touched her vulnerable senses. She slept on a threshold of sensation and awoke impatient. It seemed as if the sheets were draped across her raw nerves. Her hair and skin were damp with perspiration.

  Thea stared at herself in her pedestal mirror. The impossible dreams she'd tucked away years ago had returned with a vengeance. The details were still hazy—she had only a maiden's idea of marriage. The resulting hypersensitivity was sadistically familiar. But something was different—far, far different. In the past, the man she'd dreamed of had been a blur of features and feelings, a faceless, harmless nonentity. This time her fantasy lover had a face—dark-eyed and severely handsome. A body—hard-muscled and tall as an oak. And a name—Major Booker Hayes.

  * * *

  Booker stretched his sore muscles and studied the noon sky overhead. "Miss Coulson left us a cold dinner. What do you say we wash up and eat?"

  Beside him, Lucas set down a bucket of nails and nodded.

  "You go on," Booker said. "Red Horse and I will set this last beam and be along shortly."

  "You want I should take the horse?" Lucas asked.

  The boy's question brought an amused slant to Booker's mouth. He didn't know where the kid had been, but he took to everyday things with a refreshing eagerness. Lucas had proven tongue-tied over the horse Booker bought for his use. He'd looked it up and down, walked around it and finally said to Booker, "I can't ride it."

  "Why not?" Booker'd asked.

  "I ain't never rode a horse before."

  Booker accepted that fact like he did every other curiosity concerning the youth. "Then you'll learn."

  He'd taken time from the construction the past few mornings to instruct Lucas on saddling, riding and caring for the animal. "He's yours while you work for me," Booker explained. "Ride him whenever you want. Just as long as you remember everything we went over about caring for him."

  "I will!" Lucas ran toward the horses corralled a short distance from the new house. Minutes later, hoofbeats faded into the distance.

  Booker and Red Horse finished nailing the last board on the two-story framework, then stood back and admired it. The house was ready for a roof.

  He called a parting to Ezra and they headed for the soddy, pausing at the creek for the horses to drink their fill. Red Horse staked the animals in the shade while Booker ducked around the lean-to.

  Splashing water led him to Lucas, stripped to the waist, washing in the dented metal basin. The white skin of his upper body was a stark contrast to his tanned arms and neck. His ribs were still visible, even though Booker knew he'd gained considerable weight since he'd been there.

  Oblivious to Booker's approach, Lucas splashed water on his chest and dunked his head in the basin.

  Booker stopped dead in his tracks. Lucas's scrawny back was a mass of scars, some white with age, many pink and recent. They crisscrossed his spine and extended around his side, a blatant testimony to barbarity.

  Anger loomed red in Booker's vision. "Who the hell did that to you?"

  Lucas jumped and turned toward him, grabbing his shirt with a ripping sound as it caught on the nail on the side of the lean-to. He pulled it on hastily, without bothering to dry off.

  "I asked who did that to you!" Booker nearly sho
uted, his voice louder and harsher than he'd intended.

  Lucas seemed to cringe inwardly. He took the towel and dried his face and hair. "Just forget it."

  He tried to move past Booker, but was stopped by the massive body stepping in front of him. "How did you get those marks on your back, Lucas?"

  "I thought people out West didn't owe no explanations!" Lucas nearly shouted back. "It ain't none o' your business. I earn my keep like you said."

  Fuming with anger, Booker tried to calm himself. If he pushed too hard, Lucas would run. And for some reason he couldn't explain to himself, he wanted the boy to stay. The thought of someone coldheartedly beating him made Booker's blood boil. Many of those scars were so faded— he couldn't have been more than a toddler!

  No wonder Lucas had never taken off his shirt, regardless of the heat. No wonder he'd flinched whenever Booker had touched him. Some of those marks must have been fresh when Booker first discovered Lucas in the soddy. He'd run away from someone bloodthirsty, someone cruel. And Booker couldn't blame him one bit.

  "All right." He raised his palms. "You don't owe me an explanation." He stepped aside. "But someday... if you ever trust that I'm your friend... I'd like to know."

  Unfathomable pain and mistrust were locked behind the gray gaze that bore into his. "I don't have no friends."

  Booker forced himself to stand silent and still as Lucas moved past him. "I'm sure you haven't had a friend," he said after Lucas was gone. "Until now."

  * * *

  "Let's not leave her the dishes," Booker suggested as the three of them finished eating. The creaking wagon pulling near the soddy interrupted their hasty cleanup.

  At the sound, Lucas's head shot up, and he half rose from his seat like a bird ready for flight. Lucas had been silent throughout the meal, but at least he'd eaten with them, which was more than Booker had been able to get him to do for the past couple of days. Booker eyed him curiously on his way out the door.

  He approached the wagon. "No problems?"

  "None." She smiled.

  He moved to assist Thea, then, remembering the ease with which she'd mounted the mare the day before, changed his mind and hung back.

  She climbed down and moved away, purposefully. In the wagon Zoe stood waiting. Thea merely smiled at him.

  He took the hint and held his hands out to Zoe. She started to balk, but Thea stepped to the back of the wagon. The six-year-old gave him a sidelong glance that said she knew she'd been bested, and allowed him to lift her down. "Welcome home," he said in her ear as he placed her on the ground. "I missed you."

  She ran to Thea's side. Booker strode back and dropped the wooden gate. Immediately, Thea climbed into the wagon bed and sorted through parcels and crates. "I got everything on your list except the glass. They'll cut it and have it ready in a day or two."

  Booker nodded. "What's all that?"

  She glanced at the paper-wrapped packages he waved toward. "Fabrics. Sewing supplies. I was wondering..."

  He glanced up into her flushed face. "What?"

  "What have you planned for the house? You know, for curtains, coverlets, rugs, things like that?"

  "I found Julia's—my sister's things and paid storage to get them. Some of them were our mother's. I don't know what all is there, actually."

  "Where are they now?"

  "Locked in a railcar in Omaha."

  She dragged a stack of packages to the back of the wagon. "That must be costing you dearly."

  He lowered the pile to the ground. "Actually, Amos McAlistair owed me a favor, so it's not costing me anything."

  Straightening, she fixed her blue-green gaze on him. As she stood, her hat fell back, offering her bright red-gold hair to the sun. "Amos McAlistair owed you a favor?" she asked, obviously recognizing the name of one of the railroad's major shareholders.

  "Yeah, well, my regiment saved a shipment of his gold from being stolen."

  A movement in the doorway snagged her attention. Lucas peered from the soddy, made a stumbling attempt to bolt from the house, then stopped paralyzed in his tracks, frozen beneath her gaze like a rabbit trying to blend with the scenery.

  Thea's chin dropped. Lucas! What on earth was he doing here? The unholy dread on his young face sent a shaft of alarm to her own heart. Apprehensively, she glanced from Lucas to Booker. "Booker?" she asked.

  At her use of his name, his black eyebrows rose a fraction. He turned toward the youngster. "Oh, you haven't met Lucas yet. Come meet Miss Coulson."

  As though she were a terror-breathing wild animal, Lucas forced one foot in front of the other until he stood behind the wagon.

  "Thea, this is my hired hand, Lucas. Lucas, Miss Coulson's the one to thank for the meals."

  Thea absorbed the situation. For some reason, Booker didn't know she'd met Lucas before. That's why Lucas was scared stiff of her reaction. Thea recalled Mrs. Vaughn's report of Lucas, his history of being a runaway, and made a quick deduction: He'd run away again.

  She bent to one knee in the wagon bed, offering her hand. "Lucas."

  He jerked toward her, took her hand and stared into her eyes, his own a steel gray shade of dread. "M-Miss C-Coulson," he stammered. "Thanks for the food."

  "You're most welcome." She released his hand. "I must admit I was curious as to why you didn't come into meals with the other men. I thought maybe you didn't like my cooking."

  His expression flattened. "Oh, no, miss! I ain't never ate such good food. Well—once maybe."

  She watched his ears turn pink and his cheeks blotch with embarrassment, and she couldn't hide a grin. "What's your favorite food, Lucas?"

  He swallowed and his Adam's apple bobbed on his skinny throat. He shrugged.

  She pinned him beneath her relentless gaze.

  "Apple pie!" he blurted as though she held him at gunpoint.

  She'd teased him enough. Thea laughed out loud. "I know where there are some fine apple trees, Lucas. Can you peel apples?"

  "Yes, miss."

  Thea turned her smile from Lucas to Booker. "How about you? Are you partial to apple pie?"

  Booker glanced down at Zoe. She regarded him with a solemn blue gaze, obviously no help to his confusion. He turned to Thea with a raised brow. "Have I missed something important in this conversation?"

  She laughed again. "Since you're here, you may as well unload this wagon for me. Zoe and I need a bite to eat."

  Booker moved directly beneath her. This time she had no choice but to consent to his assistance. Hesitantly, she placed her hands on his wide shoulders. Beneath the shirt, he was warm and solid. His hands spanned her waist, and she couldn't help the peek she shot at his long thumbs pointing at the middle of her belly. The image evoked a memory, the vision flashing in her mind like a streak of lightning.

  She forced herself to look back at his face. The previous night's dreams came back to her in all their seductive glory. Her dream lover's face blended with the flesh-and-blood man, resurrecting a shameful warmth that slithered through her veins. Warm, dark skin... silky hair... the heat of his lips on her fevered flesh...

  Oh, my, she had to gain control of these lustful thoughts. If he had any inkling of what she was thinking, she'd die of mortification. She had to behave normally.

  She hopped, and he caught her weight, the muscles in his shoulders bunching beneath her fingertips. Gently, he stood her on the ground as easily as he had Mrs. Vaughn. If Thea didn't know better, she'd think her weight hadn't been an effort to maintain. His expression hadn't wavered. He hadn't grunted or popped a blood vessel anywhere she could see.

  Her hands remained on his shoulders a little too long; his touch lingered at her waist even longer. She stepped back, and the warm impression of his fingers remained, her pulse throbbing at an exquisite level of susceptibility.

  The man was dangerous to her well-being. She hoped she covered her supersensitivity to him as well as he hid the burden of her size and weight.

  "I'll bet you're a good poker player," she said so
ftly, then took Zoe's hand and walked toward the sod house. He'd have a good laugh if he knew what she'd been imagining. She had to be more careful. Her sanity depended on it.

  bookmark:Chapter 6

  Chapter 6

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  Booker and Red Horse took the wagon to the new house, leaving Lucas with instructions to help Thea with the soddy's share of supplies. From the yard, Lucas watched the wagon rumble away, his stance like that of a deer listening for a fox. Thea pounced on the opportunity to catch him alone.

  "Nice to see you again, Lucas," she said, and strolled across the yard.

  He pivoted at the sound of her voice, but said nothing, just stared at her with eyes as big and gray as storm clouds.

  "I'm mighty curious as to what you're doing here," she admitted.

  He looked away and kicked the dirt with the toe of his boot. "You didn't tell him."

  "Tell him what?"

  His gaze shot back to her face. "You know."

  "No, I don't know, but I sure would like to."

  He looked away again.

  "Did you run away?"

  He shrugged.

  "You know the agency will find out sooner or later."

  "You gonna tell Hayes?"

  Her voice softened. "You should do that."

  "He don't have t' know."

  "Lucas, he's probably breaking some law or another by keeping you here."

  "Yeah, well, if you tell 'im, I'll just run off somewheres else."

  "I'm not going to tell him."

  His stance relaxed. "Thanks," he mumbled.

  "You tell him when you think it's right."

  He watched her walk back toward the house, her angel's hair shot with rays of the afternoon sun. She'd let him off the hook.

  He'd never had it so good. He ate three meals a day, slept in a clean bed, and so far nobody'd lifted a finger to him or the girl.

  He'd hidden his pay under the cot's thin mattress. His first money. Just knowing it was there gave him a sense of freedom he'd never known. He could buy something. Something that belonged only to him. Something nobody else had outgrown or cast off or gotten tired of. A few more weeks and he could buy ship's passage to someplace where nobody cared about orphanages or foster homes or indenture papers. Somewhere free.