by Merry Farmer
“And let you take the blanket?” he teased.
She sighed and switched hands, holding out the blanket to him. “There. I’ll sit on the pillow.”
He laughed. “Well if I’d known all it would take to get you to ride in the wagon was for me to be dragged by a horse, I would have fired a gun over Arrow’s head a lot sooner.”
Lynne growled in frustration. “Ridiculous man,” she said as she threw the pillow on the wagon bed and turned to put the blanket away.
A moment later she shrieked at the top of her lungs and backpedaled.
“Spider! Spider! Spider!”
She knocked Cade’s injured ankle and tumbled. Cade stifled a shout as he reached out to catch her. She plopped across his lap, skirts flying every which way, hair slipping loose from the twist at the back of her head. Cade squeezed her tight as her chest rose and fell in panic.
“Brave, huh?”
She was still for half a second, then writhed and struggled to get away. She was at the wrong angle to do it, though, and Cade held her firmly.
“Ow, ow, stop poking me,” he laughed in spite of the sharp pain her knees and elbows caused.
“Let me go, then,” she demanded.
“Not on your life. It’s my job to protect you from outlaws and assassins and vicious spiders.”
She stopped struggling and twisted so that she could glare at him. “I’m not afraid of spiders.”
“Oh no?”
“No. So you can let me go now.” She pressed her hands against his bare chest to push away.
His heart sped up when the tension in her arms softened and her hands splayed wider across his chest. Her eyes lingered where her hands were, her mouth falling open, lips soft. Her touch was enough to make him forget every bit of pain he was in. Her hands belonged on him, belonged right where they were and lower. She must have known it too, because she smoothed her palms across the plain of his chest, teasing his nipples hard with the tips of her fingers.
He circled his arms further around her, tugging her close. Her mouth was too inviting to resist. He covered it with his own, tasting her with passion and possession. She wasn’t the sort to faint or recoil from him. She might slap him—that would be Lynne, all right—but she didn’t. Instead she leaned into him, running her hands up his chest to his shoulders, along his neck to hold the sides of his face as she let him kiss her. More than let him, she met his searching tongue with a moan that had him hard in an instant. He nipped at her bottom lip with his teeth and shivered when she gasped.
He had dipped close for another soul-stealing kiss when she pulled away. “It was just a spider,” she whispered, breathless.
He cradled the back of her head and kissed her again.
“If that’s what I get for a spider, what would you do if we crossed paths with a bear?”
“I—” She breathed the word against his mouth, lips touching his for the briefest moment before she wrenched herself away. “I should make sure they found Arrow,” she said.
She cleared her throat as she stood and rolled away from him. Her cheeks were bright pink and her chest strained against her blouse as she caught her breath. She reached up to pat her hair, but it was beyond a simple fix. She was the most beautiful thing Cade had ever seen, just as she was.
“You stay here and guard the wagon,” she said in a hurry and scooted to the back, ready to hop down. “I’ll… I’ll find Arrow.”
As soon as she slipped off the back of the wagon, Cade let out a breath and sank to lie on his back in the jostling wagon bed. He laughed even though it hurt. She was wrong about one thing, though. He was brave. Only a brave man would be thinking the thoughts he had about Lynne Tremaine.
Chapter Seven
Riding across great swathes of open prairie was no picnic. Riding and walking and trying to keep an eye on Lynne while recovering from scrapes, bruises, and a wrenched ankle was a nightmare. The only tiny ray of hope Cade had was that Lynne’s friends were busy with their own concerns. Callie spent her time riding with her new husband, and Emma was being run ragged by her mother, who seemed to have it in her head that shy Emma and Dr. Meyers should be much better acquainted. It left Lynne with no choice but to ride with Cade, something he was secretly grateful for. As long as he was riding, his ankle could have a chance to heal and his scrapes to calm down.
He didn’t have to worry about putting weight on his ankle for several days, until they stopped for an afternoon to let the oxen rest by a more hospitable section of the Platte River.
“Careful about drinking the water, though,” Cade warned her as they washed their clothes in a spot where the current was smoother.
“It doesn’t look like the kind of water I’d be interested in drinking,” she said.
It was a blessing that she agreed with him for a change. She’d been unusually quiet since their last kiss. Her pretty face went bright pink when she looked at him, and if he wasn’t mistaken, those big, dark eyes of hers glittered with stars—like the heavens above them at night—when she got lost in her thoughts. If they’d been anywhere besides on the trail, Cade would have asked her to walk out with him, taken her to a show at the theater in Denver City.
“The only thing this river is good for is pointing the way west,” Cade said, watching her attempts to avoid his eyes as they dipped and scrubbed their clothes. “It’s too muddy to be of any real use. Sure, it moves nice and slow most places, but you can see all the muddy islands the current makes, and the bottom is swampy.”
“I remember,” Lynne said under her breath.
Cade grinned. He remembered too. He spent every waking moment remembering their kiss in the river at Ft. Kearny and their kiss in the back of the wagon. Every moment, that is, when he wasn’t wondering when their next kiss would be. He didn’t think he was capable of getting tired of kissing Lynne.
“What are you looking at?” she asked, shaking him out of his thoughts.
“You,” he answered with a shrug.
“I….” She started to argue with him but let it drop. “Oh.”
Cade laughed and turned his attention back to his clothes. The mud in the water wasn’t making his shirts any whiter, but at least the soap took some of the smell out. Lynne huffed out a breath and threw the chemise she was trying to rub clean into the water.
“There’s almost no point in doing laundry this way when the water is so dirty.”
“Do you want to pack it up and head back to the wagons?” Cade asked.
Lynne took a long look at the chemise now floating on the murky water, the pile of things they’d already washed, and finally Cade. Her shoulders dropped and she sighed.
Cade waded out of the shallow water behind her. As she loosened the hem of her skirt from her waist and let it drop around her, he unrolled the bottom of his pants. It was awkward bending over with his old revolver hanging from its holster and the Cooper tucked into his vest. Lynne watched him as he straightened his pant legs and walked with the slightest limp to fetch the basket of their damp, barely clean clothes.
“This is not the journey it was supposed to be,” she said as they started back to the wagons a short distance away.
Several sets of their fellow travelers had gone down to the river or were on their way back, close enough to hear her comment. One or two of them nodded or gave her smiles of solidarity.
“What kind of journey was it supposed to be?” Cade asked, hefting the basket up onto his shoulder to balance the weight and shield his face from the sun.
“I wasn’t supposed to do my own laundry in a muddy stream, for one,” Lynne said.
Cade couldn’t help but laugh. “Who did you expect to do it for you?”
“I don’t know.” She shrugged. “Ben?” She couldn’t keep a straight face. “No, I wouldn’t expect him to know how to clean his nails, let alone my undergarments.”
Cade laughed louder. You could say a lot of things about Lynne, but she was bold as brass.
“I’m sure he’d love it if you or
dered him to wash your knickers.”
“Cade!” she exclaimed. By the look in her eyes, she would have smacked him if he wasn’t carrying the basket. “He’s a fifteen-year-old boy!”
“I was mighty interested in ladies’ undergarments when I was fifteen,” Cade defended himself. “In fact, we had this catalog with pictures—”
A gunshot cut his story short. He dropped the basket and drew the gun from his belt. Ahead, the wagon train was stirring. Several people, including Reverend Joseph, were rushing to the back of a wagon where Callie and John Rye stood over Kyle, who was writhing on the ground and shouting. John stood over him, smoking pistol in his hand.
“Oh, no!” Lynne clasped a hand to her chest and ran forward.
Cade picked up the basket as best he could with a revolver in one hand and charged after her.
“Keep your distance,” he warned her as they came near to the wagons. Pete Evans was already on the scene, along with his assistants. Dr. Meyers had arrived and crouched over the man on the ground.
“This man tried to steal from my wife,” John told the people who had come to help.
Pete leaned over and scooped up a sack from the ground beside the injured miner. A silver teapot poked out of the sack. Cade put the pieces of the story in front of him together. John was acting in self-defense.
“Does this belong to you, Mrs. Rye?” Pete asked Callie.
“Yes, it does,” Callie answered.
Pete glared at the man on the ground and said, “I thought I explained that thieving was a punishable offense in my wagon train.”
“Thieving,” Lynne repeated, half in disbelief, half in anger.
“Come on.” Cade steered her away from the scene. “Pete’ll sort it out.”
They walked along the line of wagons to where Lynne’s wagon had been parked.
“I was given to understand that there was at least a little law on the prairie,” Lynne said, shaking her head. She rubbed her arms and ended by hugging herself.
Cade knew the tell-tale signs of her anxiety now. “There’s law, all right,” he said, tough instead of gentle. He’d learned his lesson last time he’d tried to talk sweetly to her. “This isn’t a usual wagon train.”
“I should say not,” she agreed.
Cade set the basket of damp laundry down and began draping the pieces over the front and sides of the wagon to dry. Lynne was quick to help him. The stiff purpose in her movements as she snatched each piece of clothing and found a place for it in the sun was enough for him to keep one eye on her as he worked.
“Nothing seems right in the world now,” she went on as though they’d been having a discussion for hours.
“How so?” He inched closer to her, ready to take her in his arms and comfort her if he had to.
Lynne continued to work, holding up one of her petticoats and searching for something large enough to drape it over. The oxen were off with Ben getting a drink at the river, so she hung it over the empty front of the wagon.
“My brothers are off fighting for the Union,” she said as she arranged the folds of the dingy garment. “Robert is twenty-three and Graham is only twenty. He’s so young, but at least they aren’t fighting each other. One of my friends back home in St. Louis has one brother fighting for the Union and another for the Confederacy.”
“I’ve heard stories like that.” Cade nodded solemnly over the shirts he was hanging off the sides of the wagon where the covering was half rolled up.
“It shouldn’t have to happen at all,” Lynne went on. Her mouth and shoulders were tight. “Brother against brother, the country torn apart. People are fleeing the conflict to come out West, but what do you have out here? Desolation and Indian attacks.”
“I’d hardly call the prairie desolation,” he said. He wanted to make it into a joke to try to soothe her, but the worry on her face kept his lips sealed.
She finished with her petticoat, rubbed her arms when she saw there was nothing left of the laundry to hang, and walked slowly toward him.
“Gangs of marauding thugs are terrorizing innocent people in places that would otherwise be civilized,” she continued. “And when a good judge does something about it, they threaten him.” She shook her head. “And now men are stealing from their neighbors, even on their way to start a new life, and….” She hugged herself tighter.
“And?” he prompted her. He leaned against the side of the wagon as close to her as he dared.
She glanced askance at him. “And assassins creep through the night, scar—” She paused and cleared her throat. “Leaving vile threats and spooking innocent horses.”
He wanted to take her in his arms and kiss her worries away so badly that the breath caught in his chest. The only way he could ever truly be certain she was safe was if he kept her in his arms. But she was like a wild animal, skittish in her fright.
He reached out to brush a stray lock of hair away from her cheek.
“Everyone looks around at their situation and says they’re living in the worst of times now and then. Give it a couple of months, once you’re safe and sound in Denver City, going to parties and building a whole new life, and you’ll be smiling and saying you live in the best times this world has ever seen. Truly, the world is filled with new opportunities, new chances, and new ideas.”
“Really?” She sounded doubtful, but her eyes met his with hope.
Cade shrugged, breaking into a smile. “Where else can a brave and independent woman travel halfway across a continent in a company of strangers, by herself, and not have a single soul raise a question about it? Well, at least not much of a question.”
He knew his words had the effect he wanted when the tightness in her jaw relaxed and her back unclenched.
“I hadn’t thought about it like that before. Thanks, Cade.” She smiled and touched his arm before crossing around him to the back of the wagon to busy herself with some new task.
Cade watched her go, chest filling with pride that turned to something much warmer and more liquid the lower it sunk. He’d actually made her feel safe when her fears crept up on her. There was no better feeling in the world. Her fear would be back, sooner rather than later, but he had the feeling he was finally getting the hang of how to ease it. And he had an idea.
The unrest over John Rye shooting the miner, a man by the name of Kyle, built as the day wore on instead of settling down. Lynne watched half the other miners get into fights over whether John was in the right or whether Kyle should have fought back. Even the neighbors gossiped about it. A few tried to get her or Cade involved in the speculation, but she wanted nothing to do with it. It was all noise—rumbling, buzzing noise that reminded her of how precarious her own position was.
“Could we maybe keep a few lamps burning through the night?” she asked Cade after dark when most of the wagon train—with the exception of the noisy miners, who were now drinking and playing poker at the other end of the circle of wagons—had gone to bed.
“Keep the lamps burning?” Cade balked. He crouched at the side of the wagon, fiddling with a long bolt of cloth that he’d tacked around the wagon like a skirt. “That’d be a waste of oil.”
“We can buy more,” she said, trying to sound reasonable when, in her heart, she knew she was anything but. She cleared her throat and sat straighter on her barrel in front of a dying fire. “Next time we reach a supply depot, we can use some of the money Papa sent with me to buy extra oil. That way we can keep the lamps burning all the time and no one….” She wouldn’t let herself finish. She was brave, her Papa’s brave girl. She wasn’t going to let a little thing like a man defending himself from theft rattle her.
“The next major supply depot isn’t until the river crossing where the Platte forks,” Cade said. He finished what he was doing at the back side of the wagon, then got up to stride over to her. “Oil is expensive, no matter how much money you have, and frankly, it makes me nervous to carry so much of something flammable in a rickety prairie schooner like this.”
Cade laughed. Lynne scowled.
“You find that funny?” She planted her fists on her hips.
“I do.” He nodded. “I’m not giving you a gun if you don’t know how to use one. Besides, I’ve come up with something better.” He gestured to the wagon.
“What’s this?”
“It’s your sanctuary for the evening, Miss Tremaine.” He smiled, smug as a sheep in the sun. “I got the idea from your friends, John and Callie. They’ve been sleeping under their wagon with a screen set up to keep out prying eyes. I thought you might like to do the same.”
“What, sleep under the wagon?” She shook her head, trying to figure it out. “I’m already sheltered sleeping inside of the wagon.”
“True, but there’s only room for one in there with all of the supplies stacked up and down the sides.”
Lynne’s heart dropped to her stomach then floated up to her throat on the wings of the butterflies that filled her gut. “You can’t possibly be suggesting,” she began and had to clear her throat when her voice came out as no more than a wisp, “that we sleep under the wagon together.”
Cade leaned closer to her. “I am suggesting that. That way you’ll be safe where I can keep my eye on you.”
She narrowed her eyes and studied him. “Even out in this wilderness, people will notice and deem it extremely inappropriate.”
“I don’t see why.” He shrugged. “It’s dark, most people have already gone to bed, and those that are awake are busy doing something else. Who’s even going to know?”
Still, she hesitated.
“Aren’t you brave enough to give it a try?”
She held her breath, a wicked little voice inside her asking the same question. Oh, she knew Cade had only said that as a dare, to get her to do what he wanted her to, but the challenge was too powerful to resist. She just hoped she could resist the other sensations pooling in her core.
