Wagon Train Sweetheart (Journey West 2)

by Lacy Williams

  He watched a tiny crease form between her eyebrows, just above the bridge of her nose.

  But she didn’t laugh at him, she didn’t dismiss his statement out of hand.

  “Are you certain you’re not…” She hesitated.

  Her voice trailed off, but he could guess what she’d been going to say.

  “Imagining that he dislikes me?”

  He couldn’t hold her gaze and turned his head to stare at the opposite sideboard. His cheeks burned with embarrassment.

  Was he imagining Stillwell’s watchful, suspicious gazes? No. The man expressed more suspicion toward Nathan than most folks, who tended to simply avoid him.

  When she spoke again, her voice sounded cheery, as if the previous conversation hadn’t occurred. “The good news is you won’t have to bear my company all day.”

  It was a relief. He didn’t know how to act around her.

  But he also felt a small twinge of disappointment.

  It was better this way. Better not to learn to enjoy her company, even for a few hours.

  “What am I supposed to do, confined to the wagon all day?” he asked.

  “You could sing,” she suggested.

  “Sing?” he repeated.

  “Sing. Rachel and I would be cheered if you were to serenade us as we walk.”

  He stared dumbly at her until her lips turned up in a smile and then she dissolved into giggles.

  Her mirth was contagious—how long had it been since he’d made anyone smile?—but he prevailed against the urge to smile.

  She finally controlled herself, hiding her remaining smile behind her hand. “I suppose you’ll have to read to pass the time.”

  “Read?”

  “You can’t read?”

  His education had been spotty at best. But he’d spent several years of his adult life teaching himself to read, not wanting to be cheated by those he traded with.

  And it was a matter of pride for him. A man should know how to read.

  “I can read,” he told her.

  And if there was a flash of admiration in her eyes, he didn’t feel a responding flash of pride.

  She rustled around in the belongings packed against the opposite sideboard. What must it be like to own so many things?

  Even in Nathan’s childhood, his family had scraped by. Never enough money for necessities—like food—and none at all for frivolities like books. The Hewitts were blessed.

  “I’ll need to help break camp, so I’ll leave you to your breakfast.” She placed a dark green hardcover book at his knee, next to the plate of food. Pilgrim’s Progress.

  “Don’t get up,” she told him, face and voice grave. “You’re too weak to bear it.”

  And his fleeting sense of pride dissipated completely.

  * * *

  Emma spent the morning with Rachel, attempting to gather fuel for their campfire. The terrain combined bluffs and rocky hills, sometimes passing over ledges that frightened her if she found herself looking down.

  So she stopped looking and focused on two brothers playing chase through the wagons.

  She and Rachel ranged off from the caravan, though not too far, and worked at gathering buffalo chips among the sparsely growing vegetation. It was not her preferred fuel—she did not appreciate the smell as it burned—but it was something.

  Every time her apron filled and she passed close to the wagon to deposit her load in the fuel box, she felt caught in Nathan’s glittering obsidian gaze. She’d never met anyone with eyes so dark.

  He kept the book in hand, she could see the deep green spine against his worn shirt, but she couldn’t get a sense whether he was really reading it or not. Maybe he didn’t like Christian’s story.

  Once when she passed, he was dozing. When she dumped her load into the crate affixed to the side of the wagon, he started and roused, looking wildly around for a moment.

  “Sorry,” she apologized.

  “Why should you be?” He asked the question almost belligerently, as if he didn’t have a right to a simple apology. He softened the awkward, hard statement by adding, “I’m a passenger—you’re working.”

  He appeared chagrined, his cheeks going pink above his beard.

  Maybe she’d found the one specimen of the opposite sex who was as awkward as she.

  It made her smile. “I am not working that hard.”

  His eyes flicked to her. “Walking so far is hard work.”

  She shrugged. “I’ve stopped noticing. It was difficult at first because I’d grown so used to being sedentary.” Because of all the hours spent at her papa’s bedside.

  His eyes darkened with recognition. He remembered what she’d told him two nights ago.

  “I’ll try not to burden you with my care overlong,” he said gravely.

  “You’ll stay in that wagon until you’re fit to get down, and not a moment less,” she retorted.

  His chin jerked slightly at the familiarity of her statement and she blushed, heat filling her cheeks.

  It didn’t stop her from saying, “I think it must’ve been a long time since someone looked after you, Nathan.”

  “You are the first in a great while.” He didn’t seem happy to admit it to her. His jaw clenched and he turned his head to one side, no longer looking at her.

  Had she irritated him with her bossiness?

  “Well, I’m honored to be your first friend this decade.” She’d meant the words to be teasing, but he didn’t look back at her. Had she offended him?

  She slowed her steps, picked her way over the rocky terrain as her feet carried her back toward Rachel. How she missed their ranch, with its gently rolling hills!

  What was it about the rugged outsider that put her at ease, allowed her to speak as she couldn’t with anyone else of the male persuasion?

  Beneath his gruff exterior—the man she’d avoided because he’d hurt her feelings—there was a living breathing person.

  Was it simply because she’d prayed so deeply, from the pit of her soul, on his behalf? Because they’d been in close confines for that day and a half? Because the man carried such an air of loneliness?

  Or perhaps it was because she saw in him an echo of the loneliness she felt.

  How many nights of whispered conversations beneath the covers with Rachel had she missed because she’d been at Papa’s side? While it had been hard for her to watch her father decline, it had been difficult for her siblings even to visit the sickroom.

  By the time Papa had passed, she’d felt isolated, as if she didn’t even know her own brother and sister. Grayson she only knew from his letters.

  She hadn’t been comfortable enough to tell them she didn’t want to be uprooted and travel to Oregon.

  “What’s the matter?” Rachel asked, wandering closer to Emma. Her apron was half-full of the chips.

  “Nothing,” Emma answered. She put on a smile.

  “Were you thinking of Tristan McCullough?”

  The sound of the man’s name startled her, and Rachel must have seen it. “I suppose not, then.” She laughed.

  What did that mean? Stung, Emma said, “Perhaps you’re the one thinking of Tristan McCullough too much.”

  Rachel’s lips parted in a gasp, but her cheeks also pinked. As if Emma’s guess had been on the mark.

  She hadn’t meant to snap at her sister. It wasn’t Rachel’s fault that she felt ill at ease, uncomfortable in her own skin. As if she was drifting with no real destination.

  “I’m sorry,” Emma said. “Nights of little sleep must be making me grumpy.”

  Rachel considered her with her cheeks still flushed. “Hmm. I forgive you. I think we’re all weary of the journey.”

  It was so much more than that. And they had a long way to go.
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  Chapter Five

  Evening had fallen and Nathan stood in the shadows behind the wagon, knowing that right on the other side was the circle of light. The Hewitts were over there. He could hear them laughing, talking, the clink of pots, the crackle of the cookfire.

  Behind him was the quiet chirping of night insects, the darkness outside the camp.

  He couldn’t make himself cross into that circle of light.

  As the afternoon had passed, he’d quickly grown weary of being confined in the wagon.

  Or maybe he was weary of the pinpricks of awareness he felt whenever Emma came near.

  She’d said she was his friend. She’d called him Nathan. More than once.

  She’d loaned him her book. It was a small act of friendship, but more than anyone had given him in so very long.

  He couldn’t let himself get used to it. Everything good in his life had been ripped away.

  Even now he told himself to sneak away and find his bedroll. Bed down beneath the Binghams’ wagon where he should be sleeping.

  It was better to keep himself isolated. Protected from when she decided he wasn’t friend material.

  His boots might be on the ground but he clung to the sideboard, trying to judge whether his wobbly legs would hold him.

  He’d grudgingly admitted to himself that she’d been right about his weakened state. Every time he coughed, his weakness intensified.

  He was still ashamed that she’d found him asleep. He was used to physical labor, to ignoring the pangs of hunger or illness and pushing through.

  But there was no ignoring that he was like a newborn babe, dependent on the kindness of this family.

  He hated it.

  And then it was too late to sneak away. A head of golden hair ducked around the side of the wagon; her face was turned down to the ground. She didn’t see him until she was about to run into him and then she drew up short.

  “What are you doing up?” she asked.

  As if he was a kid instead of a grown man. To his chagrin, heat slipped up into his cheeks. Maybe the shadows and his beard would hide it.

  “Needed to stretch my legs,” he said. “You gonna keep me from visitin’ the trees over yonder to do my private business?”

  Her nose wrinkled, but she didn’t speak.

  “She might try.”

  Ben Hewitt’s voice came from behind her and then he joined them beside the wagon. Watching over his sister? Or watching Nathan?

  “I’ll walk with you,” Hewitt said. “Make sure you don’t need any help.”

  “I won’t.”

  But the other man followed Nathan, anyway.

  Past the circle of wagons, outside the noise and bustle and people, it was quiet. A whip-poor-will called. Another answered. The breeze clicked the tree branches together. Stars peeped in from above through the canopy of leaves and branches.

  Nathan didn’t reply to Hewitt. What was there to say? Thanks for carting me like a bag of flour all day?

  The short hike out to find a moment of privacy had him trembling, wondering how he was gonna get back to the wagon.

  Hewitt stayed near the edge of the woods, giving Nathan a moment of privacy. He should probably be thankful for that, but the fact that he was still under watch put a taste of bitterness in his throat.

  Nathan had turned back toward the wagons but paused, still under the cover of trees and brush, supporting himself with one hand on a nearby tree trunk.

  A cough overtook him, and kept hold of him until he almost thought he would suffocate. When he could finally catch his breath, he was as limp as a wet washcloth.

  “Reed, you all right?”

  Nathan jerked and the unexpected movement sent him into another fit of coughing.

  “You surprised—” cough “—me,” he told Hewitt.

  Anger fired. He was so weak and distracted by his condition that the other man had snuck up on him. If Hewitt had had nefarious intentions, Nathan could have been dead.

  He didn’t like being caught unawares.

  “You need to lean on me to get back to the wagon?”

  “No,” Nathan said shortly.

  He pushed away from the tree, and tottered. Hewitt took one step toward him, but Nathan waved the other man off.

  “Don’t like accepting help, do ya?” Hewitt trailed him as Nathan stumbled toward the distant light of campfires past the ring of wagons.

  The other man must be a couple years younger than Nathan and didn’t have Nathan’s bulk. If he’d been at full strength, he might’ve gotten in Ben’s face and told him to leave off.

  But he was so tired, he couldn’t even manage that.

  So he didn’t answer.

  The glow of light around the canvas wagon bonnet got brighter. Almost there.

  “Reed.”

  Nathan stopped at the commanding tone in Hewitt’s voice. He didn’t want to turn around, but he did. They stood in the darkness just outside the ring of wagons. He didn’t look at Hewitt, though he sensed the other man glancing around them.

  But there was nothing out here except darkness and the backside of the wagons. Nathan looked up into the night sky, the thousands of stars, pinpricks of diamond light against the midnight blue sky.

  “I want to talk to you about Emma,” Hewitt said, voice low. “She told me she’s worried for you. Our pa—” he cleared his throat, before continuing “—died of pneumonia, at the last.”

  Nathan stood there in the dark with a man who wasn’t a friend but hadn’t been unkind to him, not really. Some long-lost sense of propriety pushed Nathan to say, “I’m sorry.”

  Hewitt nodded. “Just don’t be deliberately cruel with my sister. She’s more sensitive than she lets on.”

  Heat prickled up Nathan’s neck. He didn’t acknowledge Hewitt’s words.

  He wanted to make some retort about Hewitt not even noticing his sister’s fear of thunderstorms, but he didn’t. Emma had trusted Nathan with the fear in confidence and he wouldn’t break it.

  And some tiny part, deep inside him, liked that they shared something that no one else knew about.

  He turned back toward the wagons and saw a figure move to stand in the open—backlit by firelight, Emma’s long-limbed form her golden hair haloed.

  “There you are,” she said.

  For a moment, he let himself pretend she was looking after him. Waiting for him. Imagining that someone cared about his welfare was like a fist tightening his gut.

  Dangerous, pretending was.

  “Worried about me?” Hewitt asked, bussing her cheek with a kiss as he neared.

  “Abby was.” Something passed between the two siblings, some wordless communication that Nathan couldn’t decipher.

  Was Hewitt’s fiancée worried about him being with Nathan, alone outside the protection of the wagons? Or was there something else?

  Then Hewitt passed her with a squeeze of her elbow.

  Nathan hesitated.

  Exhaustion weighed him down. He should get back in the wagon. Stay isolated.

  Then he registered that she held a plate of food in her hands and his stomach rumbled loudly in the quiet.

  “Figured you must be hungry.”

  And what he’d been pretending suddenly became very real.

  * * *

  In the flickering firelight, Emma saw Nathan’s hesitation.

  He took the plate from her with a nod and turned his back to her, using the nearby wagon to shield him from the others, she supposed. What had happened in his past that made him wary of even a small act of kindness?

  He held the plate up close to his face and began shoveling food into his mouth with his fingers.

  She’d watched him do the same on another occasion, when he’d refused to
eat at their fire. Eating quickly, like an animal might, devouring the food in moments.

  Or as if there had been a time in his life that he’d been starved. And now he was afraid he’d lose his chance to eat if he didn’t gobble it down.

  She swallowed back the emotion that rose at the thought of such a history and cleared her throat.

  He looked over his shoulder at her, clearly in mid-chew.

  “Nathan, we’re friends now. I won’t have you going back to hiding in the shadows. Come sit at the fire.”

  His eyes widened and she thought he would refuse, so she stepped forward and took him by the elbow as if he were a child and pulled him with her.

  Perhaps she’d surprised him into compliance, but he didn’t resist her.

  At the fire, she sat down, and since she already had hold of his arm, she tugged him down to sit at her side, and then let go.

  He kept his head down, and his inky hair was long enough that it hid most of his face from view. But she still saw him snatch glances up at the group congregated around the fire.

  Ben and Abby sat off to one side, a little apart from everyone else, whispering to each other. Which left Emma and Nathan with Rachel and Mr. Bingham for company.

  “The Littletons already retired,” she told Nathan. “My sister, Rachel.”

  Rachel watched him with unabashed curiosity. “I’m glad you’re feeling somewhat better.”

  Nathan looked up and nodded briefly, then back down to his plate.

  A wiggling ball of fur approached from behind and stuck his nose right up under Nathan’s elbow.

  The moment slowed as Nathan looked down on the dog. The man was at times irascible and the way he’d almost hoarded his food moments ago made her wonder if he would be unkind to the dog. She and Rachel had taken turns feeding it scraps over the past two days that Nathan had been confined in the wagon.

  The dog whined and Nathan sighed, then picked up a morsel from his plate and fed it to the dog. The animal licked his fingers.

  Emma let go the breath she hadn’t known she’d been holding and the dog ducked out of Nathan’s space and turned to her.

  “Hello, Scamp,” she said, laughing as the dog propped its small paws on her knee. She scratched it beneath its chin and its lips parted in a great doggie grin, tongue lolling.