“What do you say?” Merrill asked excitedly.
“I don’t think this is a good idea.”
His smile dropped into a frown. “How can you say that?” He flung out his hands. “Rachel, Mr. Foley is on the Assembly of Elders, and he wants to spend the next year with you. You should be jumping for joy at the honor he’s doing our family.”
“Our family? I want to get married because I fall in love, not because of the prestige it’ll bring to the Browning family.”
“Don’t be silly, Rachel! Any other woman in River’s Haven would be happy to have this opportunity.”
“Then let any other woman become his wife.” Before he could explode with the anger turning his face crimson, she said, “I didn’t mean that as it sounded.” She sighed. “Merrill, you’ve married twice now because you fell in love. Now you’ll have Helga Page as your wife, and nobody can doubt that you adore her.”
“I gave him my permission to call on you,” he said as if she had not spoken. “Will you turn him from your door?”
“Of course not, Merrill. Mr. Foley is a very pleasant man, so I’d welcome a visit from him. I just think he should turn his attentions to a woman who would be thrilled to have them.”
He grasped her shoulders. “Give the man a chance. Let him call on you, and see what happens. It’s amazing how one can fall in love when one least expects to. I never thought I’d fall in love with the youngest Miss Tyler after being married to her older sister for a year. But one day, I found I couldn’t think of anyone but Miss Carol Tyler.”
“But you loved Miss Susan Tyler.”
“I did, but she was no longer my wife. It was time for me to love only the youngest Miss Tyler.”
“How did you do that?” She stepped away from him. “How did you let go of the love you had for Miss Susan Tyler and discover the love you had for Miss Carol Tyler and then let that go, too, so you could ask Miss Page to marry you?”
His frown deepened, gouging lines in his forehead. “Rachel, you shouldn’t be asking questions like this. You know what Mr. Carpenter has taught us.”
“That we all are a family and that we should all be willing to open our hearts to each other.”
“And that lesson tells you everything you need to do. That’s what I have done, and that’s what Mr. Foley is doing for you. Now you must realize that and let yourself love him in return.”
She found herself agreeing to allow one call. As Merrill went out the door, a bounce in his step, she wanted to shout after him that he had not told her anything she had not already discovered for herself. Love did come at the most unexpected times and places and for the most unlikely people. She was learning that … as she was falling in love with Wyatt Colton.
Wyatt sang a song he had heard K. C. sharing with Horace when she slipped aboard The Ohio Star about an hour ago. It was a nonsense song, but the words suited Wyatt’s mood. He was on the boat that soon would belong to him and Horace. The parts he needed to repair the boat were being made at River’s Haven … and the Fourth of July social would give him a chance to hold pretty Rachel without the chaperones of River’s Haven peering at them.
“Oh, it’s you singing,” Horace said as he entered the pilothouse, bringing another puff of the heavy, hot air with him. Even by the river at day’s end, the air was still and thick. “I thought someone was strangling a crow.”
Wyatt laughed. “Have you listened to your singing?”
“Yep, and it’s unique.” He struck a pose with one hand in the air. “I’ve heard it described as someone strangling a cat in heat.”
“That’s a fair description.” He gave the brass in the center of the wheel a last buff and stood. It was getting too dark to see much up here without lighting a lamp. Leaving it unlit as long as they could might save them a few pennies to help pay for the parts. Somewhere, Horace had found a few dollars to buy more food. Wyatt was not sure where Horace had dug up the money, but he was grateful to have something to eat while the repairs took longer than he had figured. “What brings you up here? I thought you’d be chatting with K. C. in the boiler room.”
“Too hot, even without the boiler running. She’s sitting on the stern and fishing.”
“Fishing? She can sit still that long?”
His exuberant laugh filled the small pilothouse. “Just don’t plan on having fish for supper. She’s dangling her feet in the water and wiggling her toes, so I doubt many fish will come close enough to be hooked.”
Wyatt went to look out the window that gave him a view of the stern. Sure enough, he could see the glow of the moonlight on red curls. K. C.’s bonnet had fallen down her back and hung by its ribbons, but she did not seem to notice. She batted away bugs as she held her fishing pole—a stick with a string tied to one end—steady. Beside her, her rag doll was lying on the deck.
“I hope she knows enough not to fall in,” Wyatt said. “You know you can’t swim more than two strokes although why you’ve never learned is something I never figured out. It’s too hot to be in stuck in wet clothes tonight. They’d never dry.” He dropped the soiled cloths in the pail he had carried with him.
“Don’t worry. Miss Rachel is watching her.”
“Rachel? She’s here?”
When Horace let loose another laugh, Wyatt knew he had walked right into the trap his partner had set for him. Then Wyatt grinned. Why did he think he was hiding his yearning for Rachel from his partner? He and Horace had been working the river as a team for nearly ten years. There were not many secrets left between them.
“Why are you standing around up here with me when you could be down there with her?” Horace frowned in mock dismay. “Didn’t I teach you anything about women, Wyatt? Let her wait alone, and some other man’ll come along and turn her head.”
“Rachel seems to have her head secured on very well. She’s not about to let some smooth talker turn her head.”
“No?” He hooked his thumb toward the stairs leading down to the lower decks. “K. C. told me something real quietly about wanting to leave the cottage before some guy named Foley came to call on Miss Rachel. The kid’s all upset about him coming to live with them in their cottage, but she didn’t want Miss Rachel to know. From what K. C. says, he’s some high-muck-a-muck in the River’s Haven Community.”
Wyatt swore. When Horace chuckled again, Wyatt repeated the curse more vehemently before saying, “This isn’t a jest. You know they’ve got those strange ideas of marriage out there at River’s Haven.”
“You think she’s already married to this Foley?”
“Who knows?” He threw open the door and pushed past Horace. “But I intend to find out. Right now.”
The sound of Horace’s laugh followed Wyatt down the stairs, diminishing only when he reached the bottom deck. He was glad that someone was getting a kick out of this. Maybe K.C. was confused. Or maybe she was right. He swore again.
His steps slowed when he came around the back of the boiler room. He paused in the deeper shadows by the side-wheel.
Ahead of him, Rachel, who wore a trim navy gown, was kneeling beside K. C. The two of them were laughing together as Rachel tried to show the little girl how to cast her line more than an inch away from the stern. The day’s last light could not dim the joy in Rachel’s eyes each time she looked down at K. C. When she stroked K. C.’s hair, her fingers were so gentle the little girl did not seem to notice. K. C. suddenly gave Rachel a hug, and they laughed again at some jest he could not hear.
Something he could not describe uncurled with serrated claws in his gut. He had been glad to escape the house where he had grown up and find a life for himself on the river. Yet as he watched Rachel and K. C. he missed, for the first time, that special intimacy shared only by those who called themselves a family. And, for the first time, he wanted it for himself.
He shook his head to dislodge these thoughts. Was he out of his mind? He had chafed at the restrictions he had hated before he left home. Why would he willingly take on that yoke again
?
Rachel must have sensed him behind her because she looked over her shoulder. The merriment in her eyes deepened into the desire he knew too well, for it refused to leave him be, taunting him day and night to sate it with her. Even when he was cutting boards to repair the paddle and fitting them into place, he thought of her and how he wished he was holding her pliant body instead of the plank.
She might have said something in greeting, or he could have simply imagined it. A thundering throb echoed through his head, matching the pace of his pulse.
The connection between them was broken when K. C. jumped up and ran to him, holding out her fishing pole, which had a flapping fish hooked on the end of the line.
“Look!” she squealed.
Wyatt smiled as he squatted in front of K. C. “I’m impressed. You’re quite the fisherman.”
“Rachel helped me.” She dimpled. “Rachel knows all sorts of fun things.”
“Does she?” He slowly stood as he gazed over the little girl’s head, catching Rachel’s eyes again. “Maybe she’ll teach me a few.”
“Can we eat this fish?” K. C. asked.
“Take it up and have Horace gut it for you.”
“Gut?”
He laughed and dragged his gaze from Rachel’s again. “Maybe you’d like it better if I asked you to ask him to clean the fish.”
“Clean? It was in the water.”
Rachel laughed and said, “Take it up to Horace, Kitty Cat. He’ll get it fixed for you to eat.”
“You’ll eat some, too, won’t you?” She slipped her hand through Rachel’s.
“Save Wyatt and me a bite or two.” As K. C. gathered up her doll and skipped along the deck, Rachel added, “I’m sorry she’s bothering you again. I came after her as soon as I discovered she wasn’t where she was supposed to be.”
Wyatt rested his shoulder against the cover of the side-wheel. He did not want her to guess how startled he was at her perception of the strain beneath his laugh. “She isn’t what’s bothering me. What she told Horace is.”
“Told Horace? About what?” Her lips tightened. “Did she mention something that happened to her at River’s Haven before she took off this time? I know she’s had a couple of arguments with a boy who’s several years older than she is, but—”
He put his fingers on her lips, wondering if this would be the last time he touched them. “It’s no kid that’s got her upset. She told Horace that she’s worried about someone named Foley moving in with you and her.”
Rachel’s face blanched. She whirled away, her dark skirts flowing around her ankles. Gripping the railing, she gazed across the river that was dappled by star glow.
“Say something, Rachel,” he said as he went to stand behind her. He did not touch her. If he did, he was unsure if he could halt himself from making love with her. If she was already another man’s wife … His hands fisted, and he swallowed the oath he did not want to speak in her hearing.
“I don’t have anything much to say,” she whispered, not looking at him.
“So K. C. has the story wrong?”
She shook her head. “Not entirely.”
“Rachel, you said you’d always be honest with me. Be honest with me tonight.”
Rachel’s nails dug into the wooden railing as she heard Wyatt’s exasperation. She had tried not to think how she would tell him about the plans Merrill and Mr. Foley had devised. Maybe, in some part of her heart, she had known Kitty Cat would reveal the truth as soon as she reached The Ohio Star, saving Rachel from having to speak of it first.
Turning to face him, she said, “My brother, Merrill, has given Mr. Foley his permission to call on me.”
“Which means?”
“You don’t know what it means when a man calls on a woman?”
His lips quirked, but his eyes remained piercing with fury. “I wasn’t sure if it had the same meaning at River’s Haven. You’ve got a lot of strange customs.”
“This is one custom that’s the same within the Community as outside it.” She closed her eyes as she whispered, “I told Merrill that Mr. Foley could call, but I promised nothing else.”
“But your brother expects more to come of this than one call.”
She smiled wryly and saw Wyatt’s amazement. His face eased from his scowl when she said, “It’s a compromise that keeps me from having to agree to a double wedding with Merrill and his third wife.”
“It sounds as if he has it all planned out.”
“Making plans are different from—”
“Making love?” His fingers coursed along the ribbons beneath her chin.
“That wasn’t what I was going to say.” She closed her eyes and let the delight of his touch flow over her.
His laugh was hushed and as heated as the evening air. “I didn’t think you were, honey.”
“Can we talk of something else?” She eased away from him while she could. Her feet protested, but she forced them to move her along the rail.
“Such as?”
“I don’t know. The weather or politics or the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia.”
He slipped his hand in hers as Kitty Cat had. “How about a stroll along the shore before you leave?”
“Now?” she asked. “It must be past nine o’clock.”
“Are you afraid of the dark?”
She laughed and forced her shoulders to relax. “Do you always need to make your invitations a challenge I can’t resist?”
“You’ve resisted most of my invitations, honey. But let’s go and get some fresh air before you and K. C. leave.”
Rachel knew she should say no, but as she looked from his hand to his smile she could not. Tomorrow night, Mr. Foley would be calling. She was unsure when she would be able to see Wyatt again, other than when he came to pick up the parts from the metal shop.
They crossed the gangplank, and her long skirt and petticoats became damp with the evening dew on the high grass, even though she held them up. Her other hand was on Wyatt’s arm. His fingers over hers held it snugly in place. Did he think she wanted to pull it away? She needed to treasure every moment she could tonight.
As they strolled, she listened to his tales of life on the river. She laughed when he spoke of his and Horace’s mishaps. She had never given thought to how the steamboats went up and down the falls near Louisville. After hearing his tales of impatient captains who would bypass the locks and take their boats down over the falls, sometimes with disastrous results for their poorly secured cargo, she found herself telling him about some of the problems she had had with people who hired River’s Haven’s services. She had never guessed she could feel so comfortable with Wyatt.
The shore became rocky, and Rachel paused, drawing her hand off his arm. “I don’t think it would be wise to continue in this direction. I don’t fancy another twisted ankle.”
“Nor do I.” He held out his hand. “I guess we should return to The Ohio Star.”
Rachel put her hand in his. When they turned, she stared at the distant lights on the steamboat. “I had no idea we’d walked so far.”
“I hope you aren’t so tired that I have to offer to carry you back.”
“No, I’m not tired at all.” That was the truth. She was so exhilarated that she believed she could dance back to the boat.
When his warm fingers stroked her palm, his touch seared through her like a shock from a telegraph. His hand moved in a tender exploration along her neck to rest on her shoulder.
“I’m glad to hear that, honey.” He smiled.
“You really shouldn’t get in the habit of calling me that,” she whispered as he bent to press his lips to her neck.
“I can’t give up all my bad habits,” he murmured, then ran his tongue along the crescent of her ear. When she put her arms around his shoulders to keep him close, he added, “I’d like to help you discover some very good habits.”
“Good?” She moaned as his breath swirled into her ear while he kissed the soft skin behind it.
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br /> “Very good.”
Her own breath caught on the jagged edge of her craving when his finger toyed with the button that closed her collar. Gently he traced a path from the top button to the next lower one, and the next … and the next.
“Very good?” she whispered as she drew his mouth to hers.
“Very, very, very good.”
His lips claimed hers as his finger slowly climbed her breast. She clutched his shoulders, unable to do more as a powerful, mind-emptying frenzy whirled around her. In languid circles, as if he wanted to explore every bit, he let his finger rise to its tip.
When her knees sagged against him, he knelt, drawing her down with him as he continued to kiss her. Her arms around his shoulders brought him with her when he leaned her back in the thick grass.
She opened her eyes to see him regarding her with a hunger she understood so well. In the weak starlight, his strong face was shadowed, but she had re-created it so often in her dreams. His hard body pressed against her as his fingers roamed across her face. A single fingertip stroked her cheek before slipping along her neck.
“Rachel!” The cry in Kitty Cat’s voice had a desperate edge.
Rachel sat as Wyatt came to his knees. She abruptly noticed the dew that had soaked her dress. Coming to her feet, she called, “I’ll be right there, Kitty Cat!”
Wyatt stood and put his hands on her shoulders, drawing her back against him. “I assume you want to go and comfort her.”
“She sounds very upset.”
“If I called to you in that tone, would you come running to me?”
She closed her eyes as she put her arms atop the ones he wrapped around her. “Don’t ask me questions I can’t answer.”
“Can’t or don’t want to?”
“Both.” She pushed his arms aside as she heard Kitty Cat calling her name again. If someone from River’s Haven happened to be nearby and heard as well … “Wyatt, I must go. I’m sure Kitty Cat is anxious to get back to River’s Haven, so she can ask me to bring her to visit The Ohio Star again.”
Moonlight on Water Page 11
