Patrick looked as if she had just told him to go buy himself an ice cream. He jumped on top of the largest toolbox and did a little dance, then jumped off the opposite side and bent over to pry open the lid. “No more fish and no more woodworking,” he said happily. “California is going to be a great place.”
After the excitement of the crossing, a kind of numbness seemed to set in among the caravanners. Jeb had told them that it would be another ten days of constant pushing across the prairie before they could expect to reach the fort, where they would take a couple of days of rest. Spring was pressing into summer, and the unending green landscape was dotted now with bright sprinkles of purple and blue and red—delicate wildflowers to remind them with tantalizing promise that there was life and beauty beyond the rolling sea of grass.
Patrick had resumed his rides with Jeb. With the resiliency typical of a child, it had not taken him long to recover from his frightening fall in the river or to stop feeling guilty about the events that led up to it Kerry was finding it harder to forget The captain no longer visited their campfire in the evening. He’d ride up to collect Patrick in the morning, nod a stiff greeting, then ride away again, and she wouldn’t see much of either of them until the noon stop when he’d drop Patrick back at their wagon.
Kerry had continued to wear her male attire. She told herself it was the practicality of it, and that she didn’t want to open trunks to unpack her own clothes. But in her heart she knew that the reasons were more complicated. They had to do with that night along the riverbank with Jeb Hunter. Dorothy had told her to sway the captain with feminine wiles and she’d tried. The fact that Jeb had not only remained unswayed but had utterly rejected her made her wince with embarrassment every time she thought about it. She wouldn’t make that mistake again.
Dorothy and Eulalie didn’t seem to mind the fact that she was wearing trousers. And Scott was as attentive as ever, apparently indifferent to her mode of dress. It was only the other men on the train who now viewed her warily as she walked with Polly and Molly up and down the wagons. And she had to admit that she probably did look odd. She’d lost her father’s big jacket, so there was nothing to cover up her trousers, which fit snugly along her thighs, cinched in at the waist with a piece of cord.
Five days after the river crossing, Jeb directed an early camp to take advantage of a perfect site between the river and a small wood. Even the adults on the train reacted like children let out of school, many of them wading into the river and letting the cold water wash away the dust of the past several days. As soon as they stopped and unhitched the animals, Patrick and Kerry had gone back to fetch the twins and all four had made their way down to the river.
“Mama says we can wade in the river in our shifts,” Polly said, holding Kerry’s hand and skipping along beside her.
“I don’t want to,” Molly protested, looking at Patrick out of the corner of her eyes.
“Everyone can swim how they want,” Kerry declared. “It’s a warm day and the breeze will soon dry our clothes if we get them wet.”
Patrick spied a couple of his new friends, boys close to, his age, who were already in the water. He gave a whoop and began to tear off his shirt. “I’m going in!” he yelled and took off running.
“Don’t go in too far,” Kerry called after him. She wished that his near drowning had taught him a little more respect for the power of the river. But she supposed she should be grateful that he wasn’t a timid child. She could already tell that timidity did not serve one well in the West. And she and Patrick were going west. In spite of Jeb Hunter’s continued total refusal to even discuss the matter with her.
The target of her thoughts was this moment walking along the bank, watching the antics of those who were playing at the edge of the water. He was smiling, which changed the whole look of his face. Kerry found her eyes drawn to him again and again as he grew nearer. Finally he glanced up and met her gaze. His smile faded.
“C’mon, Kerry,” Polly begged, pulling her toward the water. “Let’s go in.”
She clasped one twin’s hand in each of hers and scrambled down the bank. “Should we take our shoes off?” Molly asked, looking at the water with some doubt.
Kerry looked along the bank. Shoes littered the edge of the grass. “I guess so. You don’t mind the stones on your bare feet?”
The girls had already sat down and were unlacing their shoes. “Socks, too?” Polly asked.
Kerry nodded and sat down herself to pull off Patrick’s big boots. They set the three pairs of shoes in a neat row, then stood and took a first, tentative step into the water. It ran cold and smooth along the tops of their sweaty feet.
Patrick appeared and held a hand out to Polly. “C’mon,” he said cheerily. “You can walk from rock to rock and play bullfrog.”
Polly looked out at the middle of the river. From the edge the current looked a lot faster than it did from up on the bank. “Not too far out,” she said.
“I’ll go,” Molly answered quickly, and reached to take the hand Patrick was holding out before her sister could do so.
“Careful, now,” Kerry cautioned again as the two children started off downriver, stepping from one big rock to another amid giggles.
Charles Kirby, one of Patrick’s new friends, offered his hand to Polly, who was looking after her sister and Patrick with some resentment.
Kerry smiled. It was good to see the wagon train’s children enjoying themselves. They all worked hard on the journey. At almost every age they had their duties—gathering fuel, preparing food, watching over younger siblings. They deserved some time to play.
Patrick had certainly had little enough of it in the past few difficult years in New York. He’d worked loading fish every day for the past four years. And Kerry had taken care of the small apartment they’d rented above the market. She’d cooked and mended their few clothes and then had gone downstairs to earn extra money cleaning up after the market closed each day. Sean Gallivan had spent the days in the tiny one-room shop just down the street from the fish market, trying to eke out a living with the carpentry skills his father had taught him, all the while dreaming of green acres of land. Rich land of his own.
Patrick deserved all the play he could get, Kerry mused, watching him now far down the river, still holding Molly’s hand.
“I guess we all needed this break.” Jeb Hunter stood on the bank just above her.
Kerry turned around in surprise. “Oh, Captain Hunter.” Her greeting held no warmth.
Jeb regarded her a moment, his eyes drifting down to where white patches of leg showed between the end of her short pants and the water. Kerry backed up a step deeper into the river.
“Are you going to join them?” he asked with a nod toward the children. She wasn’t sure, but it seemed as if there was a slight hint of amusement in his eyes.
“I might,” she said a little defensively. “There’s nothing wrong with a bit of play now and then. I suppose as our captain, you don’t do that kind of thing.” Standing on the bank, he appeared to tower over her. She took another step backward, away from him, now knee-deep in the water. Her still weak ankle slipped on a mossy rock and she wobbled. In a second, he had stepped down into the river and grabbed her arm to steady her.
“You’ll be swimming whether you want to or not if you aren’t careful,” he cautioned.
He stood so close she could feel the heat of his body all along the length of hers. “I’m…sorry,” she stammered. “Now you’ve gotten your boots wet.”
He glanced down carelessly at his feet. “It won’t hurt ‘em.”
His hand still held her arm. “I’m all right. You can…ah…let go of me.”
He was looking down at her again, studying her. “I don’t know,” he said at last. “I don’t want to have to fish you out of the river again.”
The coldness of the water sent shivers up her legs. Or it might have been something more than the water. She pulled her arm away, but their bodies were still all but to
uching. “You won’t, Captain Hunter,” she said through suddenly stiff lips.
There was an odd expression in his light hazel eyes. “The children seem to have the right idea. Hold someone’s hand and it keeps you from falling.”
If it had been Scott saying such a thing, Kerry would have known what to make of it. The prospector’s flirtatious comments were becoming more direct every day. But this was obviously not flirtation by Captain Hunter. He had made it plain the other night that he was not the least bit interested in such things—at least not with her.
“I won’t fall, Captain.” Carefully, so that she wouldn’t make herself into a liar, she stepped along the stones and back up onto the grassy bank. “In fact, I’m done wading.” The water had soaked her denim trousers past midthigh. “I’ve gotten myself all wet.”
Jeb’s eyes flicked downward again. “Yes, I can see that.” He could actually see a sight more than he was comfortable with seeing, he thought ruefully, hoping that his body’s signals were not as obvious as they felt. Kerry’s long legs, completely outlined by the tight wet trousers were utterly arousing to a man who had not lain with a woman in longer than he cared to remember.
He’d realized the other night on the riverbank that he wanted her. It had surprised him. He’d become so good over the years at suppressing those urges. And he’d made it a strict rule never to allow himself to feel desire for any of the women on his trains. Of course, Kerry wouldn’t be on his train much longer. In a few more days she’d be on her way home, out of his reach and his mind. It couldn’t happen too soon.
“Why are you still wearing men’s pants?” he asked, his voice sharper than he had intended.
She looked surprised and a little hurt at his abrupt change in tone. “They’re comfortable.”
“For you, maybe,” he said grumpily.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
She looked honestly confused, though he didn’t think she could be so naive as to not know what effect a body like hers could have on a man. “I mean, it’s not exactly modest attire for a young woman.”
Kerry looked around her in disbelief, watching as other members of the train romped in the water in various states of undress or in soaked, bedraggled clothes. “We’re not exactly in a drawing room, Captain.”
Jeb paused. It was unfair to take out the effects of his self-prescribed celibacy on her. “No, we’re not,” he agreed with a smile. “And it’s not really any of my business anyway.”
“No, it’s not.”
“Well, then, consider the comment withdrawn.”
She watched him for a moment and her expression appeared to soften. “All right,” she said. Then she smiled at him. A bright, sunny smile that made Jeb’s heart stand stock-still in the middle of his chest “I’d best see what the children are up to,” she said, turning to head downriver with a little wave.
He watched her pick her way lightly along the bank in her short trousers with her short black hair, a nimble, lovely creature as spirited as the fabled leprechauns of her homeland.
Yes, he thought to himself grimly, Fort Kearney could not come soon enough.
Chapter Seven
The Overland Trail had transformed Fort Kearney from an isolated wilderness outpost into a bustling metropolis. Enterprising entrepreneurs had set up businesses to cater to literally thousands of wagons passing through the fort each season. The companies charged exorbitant prices on goods that the travelers could have purchased for next to nothing back East, if they had only known how badly they would be needed.
Axle grease was selling for two dollars a bucket and salted dried beef for five dollars a box. The travelers from the Hunter train were enthusiastic about this temporary return to at least a semblance of the civilized world of commerce. From wagon to wagon they exchanged information about exactly what each outfit was going to buy and what was the best strategy for getting the lowest price.
Kerry and Patrick listened to their new friends’ plans in silence. If Jeb Hunter had his way, Fort Kearney would be the end of the trail for them. In fact, he had suggested that they might want to sell their rig and head back to St. Louis by horseback, carrying the belongings they wanted to keep on packmules. It would get them home much more quickly, he’d explained to a stony-faced Kerry the night before they arrived at the fort.
She hadn’t bothered to point out once again that the East would never be “home” to her. She and Patrick didn’t have a home—they were on their way to make one for themselves. Since the day when she’d been wading in the river, she’d avoided the captain. The look in his eyes had set off odd flutters inside her stomach, making her distinctly uncomfortable. It hadn’t been hard to stay out of his way. In fact, it almost seemed as if he were avoiding her company, too.
But she knew that once they reached the fort she’d have to face him again. She had to somehow convince him to let her stay with the train, and she’d spent hours lying awake at night trying to decide how she would go about it Dorothy’s suggestion of trying to be friendly had definitely not worked. She had the feeling that Jeb Hunter was not a very friendly kind of person.
So she’d taken out the papers her father had signed when he’d joined the train and pored over them, looking for something that would legally force the captain to allow her to continue. But, as the lawyers had told her back in St. Louis, it was quite clear that the wagon train captain had almost total authority to decide who went on his train and what they could and could not do while they were on it.
Captain Hunter had announced that they would take a four-day break at the fort, plenty of time for wagon repairs, restocking, rest from the endless rolling motion of the wagons and the miles of walking through the tall grass.
Time enough for a party, Frank and Eulalie Todd had declared. And it was decided that the members of the train would gather for supper and dancing their second night off the trail. They set up two long tables in front of the sutler’s store for the victuals and recruited Charles Kirby’s father, Henry, and one of the soldiers at the fort to provide fiddling music for the dancing.
Patrick, who had been off with Charles and two other boys exploring the fort all day, was already dancing with excitement about the occasion. “A real dance, sis!” he exclaimed, jumping down from the back of the wagon where he’d disappeared to change his shirt. “I’ve never been to a dance before.”
Kerry was sitting by the small campfire. She was still wearing her trousers and the same heavy linen shirt she’d worn on the trail. Patrick’s grin faded as he looked over at her. “Have you?” he asked.
“Have I what?”
“Been to a dance.”
Kerry frowned. Her mind was on the upcoming confrontation with Jeb Hunter. She’d paid little attention to talk of a dance. “No, I guess not.”
“Well, come on, then. It’s almost time to start.”
Polly and Molly came racing up to the wagon, equally excited and even more exuberant than Patrick. Their usually flyaway hair was slicked back and tied with big bows—blue for Polly and red for Molly. Kerry no longer had any trouble telling the two apart. Polly’s eyes held more of a devilish glint, and Molly’s face was a bit thinner than her sister’s.
“Yeah, c’mon, Kerry. The dancing’s about to start,” Polly urged.
“You girls look pretty tonight,” Patrick said gallantly, causing Molly’s face to turn as red as her bow.
“Aren’t you going to dress up, Kerry?” Molly asked.
Patrick looked at his sister in sudden surprise. “She’s right, sis. You should be dressed up, too. You can’t very well dance in my pants.”
“I can’t dance anyway,” Kerry answered dryly.
“We’ll teach you, Kerry,” Polly offered.
“Or Mama will,” Molly chimed in. “She teaches us.”
Kerry smiled at the two enthusiastic youngsters. They didn’t know how lucky they were to have a loving mother like Dorothy to teach them to dance and tie up their hair in pretty ribbons. Kerry had never
had such things, but, then, she hadn’t really known what she was missing. And by now it didn’t matter anymore. She could do just fine without dancing and hair bows. “You kids go on ahead to the supper. Perhaps I’ll be along later.”
“Perhaps? You’ve got to come, Kerry,” Patrick said with a worried look on his face.
She gave him a reassuring smile. “I will. You escort these lovely ladies here and go have fun.”
The twins giggled and Patrick played his role by making an exaggerated bow and offering an arm to each one. Then they broke the pose and scampered off toward the fort quadrangle. Kerry smiled as she watched them go, then gave a sigh.
“They’re right, you know.” Dorothy came walking toward her. “You should dress up for the dance.”
“I don’t know if I’m going.”
The petite blonde gave a snort. “Nonsense. Of course you’re going. Scott should take you. Where’s he gotten himself off to?” She looked over at the prospector’s wagon.
Kerry shrugged. “I haven’t seen him all afternoon. He said he’d found some men at the fort who’d been out to the gold fields. He wanted to get some advice.”
“Well, you’ll go to the dance with John and me, then, because you are going.”
Kerry stood up. “Honestly, Dorothy, I don’t know how to dance, and I’m not much in the mood…”
But her friend had turned away to climb up into Kerry’s wagon and had begun to open boxes. “You must have some clothes in here somewhere. Come help me find them, Kerry.”
Kerry threw her hands up in the air. “I have no idea…”
Before she could finish the sentence, Dorothy turned around in triumph, holding up a green dimity dress, the one item Kerry had taken special care to pack. Her father had once told her that her eyes sparkled as bright as the Emerald Isle itself when she was wearing that dress. She could still see the twinkle in his own identical blue eyes when he’d said it.
“I was saving that dress to wear in California,” she said wistfully.
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