Wagon Train Sweetheart

“Have you always been scared of storms?”

He heard the small catch in her breath, felt the stillness between them. Even though rain pattered on the wagon’s bonnet, he thought she must be holding her breath.

“I was four years old when I got caught out in one.” Her words came slowly at first, and then he was surprised when she went on. “My family was at a town picnic and I was playing with a friend. The storm came on quickly and as everyone rushed to get out of the open, I was separated from my friend and couldn’t find my family. It might’ve only been minutes, but I was alone in the wind and rain and thunder. And I’ve never liked storms since.”

He couldn’t say that he blamed her. Lightning flashed, burning into his brain an image of her as a small girl lost in the storm. His gut tightened. His cheeks got hot.

He didn’t want to feel the stirring of compassion or the small surge of protectiveness for a lost little girl.

His discomfort made his next words sharp.

“If you didn’t want to come West, why did you?”

Her grip tightened on his elbow. She didn’t answer outright. “Will you tell my brother I was complaining about the journey?”

“Why should I?” He’d spoken to Ben Hewitt when necessary in the weeks since he’d joined the wagon train, but it wasn’t as if they were friends. They didn’t share confidences. As far as he was concerned, if she hadn’t told her brother she didn’t want to be here, it was her business.

“There are many difficulties on the trail,” she said. “As you know. I was…finding my way back to being happy where we were, after Papa died.”

So she’d given up her own desires to go West with her family. It reminded him of Beth, his sister, who had often given in to his whims.

Thunder rolled again and he sensed her shiver.

The bitter taste of fear remained from his past. And he didn’t want that for her.

He tried a different tack.

“So you’re going to Oregon to get married?”

She inhaled sharply. “Have you been eavesdropping on me? What a childish thing to do—”

In the dark, he couldn’t tell if she was angry or teasing. “I just hear stuff is all.”

It was true. Always on the fringes, half-hidden in the shadows, he heard a lot. Whispered complaints against the committeemen. Young couples sneaking kisses and making plans.

He just wished he’d had some clue as to who had stolen her hair combs. Then he would’ve been able to prove his own innocence.

“I might marry Tristan McCullough. If I decide to.” Did he detect a note of petulance in her voice?

It was too dark to see her expression, so he was left guessing. Not that it was his business, anyway.

His head was pounding now and he shifted his elbows. She seemed to realize he needed to lie down again and pressed one hand against his shoulder as she guided him back down.

“My brother Grayson is already settled there,” she said briskly. “He knows Tristan. His friend is looking for a mother for his three daughters.”

“A ready-made family.” There was something poking his back, beneath the blanket they’d spread. He tried to reach beneath himself to adjust it, but it wouldn’t budge.

“I suppose. It isn’t as if I’m unused to taking care of…”

“Your pa. Yes, you said.”

He still couldn’t get comfortable. He shifted, moving his weight. And she was there, helping him, reaching under his back to move the box or crate that had poked him.

He still couldn’t see her face; he imagined her frowning. But at least if she was miffed at him she wasn’t thinking about the storm.

“Do you want to marry a man you’ve never met before?”

“I don’t know.”

* * *

“I don’t know.”

Emma helped Mr. Reed settle again in the crowded wagon. He was warm, even through the barrier of his shirt. Though he had awakened, his fever had not abated.

Perhaps she should feel guilty about her indecision over Tristan McCullough. Her brother Grayson thought they would make a fine match, but how could she be ready to marry a man she’d never met before?

She’d spent the past several years caring for her father. Given up so many things—social events, time spent with friends, even time to herself.

Joining a new family with the demands of three young girls…she’d be jumping right back into the same type of situation. Housework, caring for the girls and the demands of a husband. She’d just begun finding her feet again, had found a worthy cause in the orphanage back home before their move had uprooted her. Did she really want to take on an entire family?

Or was this the purpose she’d been petitioning God for? Had He provided this family, these girls who needed a mother, just when Emma needed direction in her life?

She didn’t know.

She should be uncomfortable speaking so candidly with Mr. Reed, but somehow the darkness and the intimacy of their situation had erased her usual awkwardness with the opposite sex.

And then he said, “It sounds like it’s moving off.”

It took her a moment to realize he meant the storm. And he was right. Thunder rolled in the distance, but the patter of rain had slowed on the wagon bonnet.

Had he engineered the whole conversation to distract her from the danger the storm represented?

She loosened the ties and opened the back flap in time to see several flashes of light at the horizon. The storm would be completely gone before much longer.

“Fire’s out,” someone called out. There was much more activity than the camp usually saw after dark.

“Do you think you can hold down some food?” she asked again, turning back to her patient.

There was no response.

When she knelt at his side, his breathing had gone shallow and he didn’t respond when her fingertips brushed his forehead.

He’d fallen unconscious again.

Chapter Three (#ulink_c07fea26-073a-5371-9b85-08e69fd9c846)

Nathan—Emma found she thought of him by his Christian name after their late night conversation—did not rouse at all the next day as they came within sight of the Wind River Mountains, majestic snowcapped peaks miles to the north. She knew they would grow bigger as the caravan approached.