Ana Seymour (12 page)

Her sensuous moan now turned itself into a protest. Alarms rang inside Jeb’s head and he relaxed his hold on her with something akin to horror. What in the name of sweet Jesus had possessed him?

Without speaking, Kerry pulled herself out of his arms and back to her seat on the bank. He let her go immediately, his insides churning. The palms of his hands felt as if they’d been scalded. Totally unsettled, he flopped backward to lie on the bank and put an arm across his eyes. He didn’t want to see the accusing
look in her eyes. Never in his life had he made advances to a woman who was unwilling. But then, he asked himself as his breathing began to slow toward normal, had she been so completely unwilling? Was it just inexperience that had made her lips mold to his as if their mouths had been designed to fit together?

“I’m sorry,” he said finally, a little less sorry than he had been when she’d ended the embrace.

“I…you…” She was sputtering, sounding more lost than ever. And young.

He sat up. Even if she hadn’t been totally unwilling, he’d had no business kissing her. “It’s the moonlight,” he said lightly. “And your green dress. I was carried away by your…charms.”

“You had no right…” she began with a scowl.

“Of course not. I took shameless advantage of a helpless female alone in the wilderness.” He suddenly saw how he could use the incident itself to assure that there would be no repetition of it. “Which is precisely the reason that rules get made about single women on the trail. You have no protection against bounders like me.”

Kerry hunched over her knees and hugged them. “So this was all a show, Captain?” she asked, her voice low with anger. “You were trying to prove to me how helpless I am?”

Jeb was torn. Part of him wanted to deny her accusation. If Kerry had had any experience at all with men, she would have known that his body’s response to her was anything but show. But perhaps it was better for them both if she believed him an unfeeling
scoundrel. “Did I succeed?” he asked with a forced grin.

Kerry released her tight hold on her legs and jumped to her feet. “You only succeeded in showing me that I have to choose my company more carefully.”

He stood more slowly. “You’ll encounter worse company than me if you persist in heading West.”

“I doubt that, Captain,” she snapped. Then she spun around on one heel and marched away toward her wagon.

“What would you say if I decided to marry Scott?” Kerry asked Patrick as they rebuilt their fire for breakfast the next morning. The log Patrick was holding slid from his hand and landed on the dead fire with a flurry of ashes.

“Marry? Get
married
to him?”

“Well, I’m not sure if that’s exactly what he had in mind. But if I were married to him, then they’d have to let us stay with the train.”

Kerry had spent a good portion of her nearly sleepless night trying to convince herself of the logic of the move. And trying to assure herself that her consideration of the idea had nothing to do with the kisses she had shared with Jeb Hunter the previous evening. But in the end she was too honest to deny even to herself that she’d been frightened by what had happened by the river. Frightened not of Jeb, but of herself.

“But…” Patrick had unloaded the rest of his logs and stood watching her with a confused look. “I mean, you can’t just
marry
someone you’ve barely
met And, besides,” he finished with a sudden look of relief, “Scott isn’t even going to Sonoma. He’s heading to the gold fields. He can’t marry you.”

“Well, maybe he could marry me for a while, and
then
go off to the gold fields.”

Patrick looked more confused than ever. “Do people do that? Marry for just a while?”

Kerry gave an exasperated shrug. “I don’t know. The whole idea’s probably crazy.”

They worked in silence for several more moments, Patrick lighting the fire and Kerry scooping coffee into the pot. Finally he said, “It wouldn’t be so bad. I like Scott.”

“I like him, too,” Kerry said wistfully. She
did
like him. He’d been kind to her and helpful. He went to great efforts to do nice things for her and for Patrick. He was a good man. And his kiss had felt sweet on her lips.

Sweet She gave herself a little shake as once again the wave rolled through her middle at another flash of the memory. But the memory was not of Scott’s sweet kiss. The kiss that had her insides melting into a liquid pool every time she turned around was that
other
one. Jeb Hunter’s kiss.

After years of avoiding the entire idea, she’d been kissed by two men in one night. And the two kisses had been more profoundly different than the devil and a holy choir.

It wasn’t until midmorning that Scott came back to find her at her wagon. Kerry’d been expecting his appearance all morning, and had changed her mind at least two dozen times about what she hoped he’d say.

Patrick had been sober over breakfast. They’d discussed the possibility she’d raised a bit more, and he’d posed the same questions that she herself had been pondering. Did she love him? Would she be happy? Was it the right thing to do? What would Papa have said about it?

That last one was a sticky issue. When Kerry’s mother had died, Sean Gallivan had let most of his faith in the Mother Church bleed away from him. He’d never taken his children to Mass. But Kerry knew that he hadn’t entirely abandoned the church’s teachings. And more than once she’d heard him say, “Marriage is for life, children. You be darn sure it’s what you want before you take the vows.”

Was Scott Haskell what she wanted? For life? When he finally showed up, whistling and holding a sheaf of wildflowers, which he presented to her with a gallant bow, she still hadn’t made up her mind.

“I guess you knew what I was talking about last night, Kerry,” he said, detecting her serious mood. “It would make sense, you know—you and me.”

Make sense? Is that what love was all about? She put her nose down into the bunch of flowers to inhale their delicate fragrance and consider her reply. “Scott, you’ve been a godsend to us from the beginning. But now you’re sacrificing your own plans to try to make mine work out.”

He sat next to her on the log that they’d pulled up to their campfire to act as a little bench. “Sacrifice! What a way to talk, lass. I’d wager there’s not a man within five hundred miles who’d not feel the luckiest man on earth to claim you as his wife.”

Kerry had donned her trousers again today. They
made her feel stronger, less vulnerable. “Well, there aren’t so very many men within five hundred miles,” she said with a slight smile. “So that’s not much of a test.”

Scott reached for her hand. “I’d feel privileged to marry you, Kerry Gallivan, if you’ll have me.” He looked around at the dusty campsite. “Shall I kneel?” he asked with a touch of humor.

“Please, don’t.” She shook her head. He made her laugh, and he said pretty things. He hadn’t said that he loved her, but she wasn’t so sure that love was the most important thing when it came to a marriage.

“So what do you say? Shall I go talk to the fort commander? We could be married today and then march right up to Jeb Hunter and tell him that Kerry
Haskell
and her new husband will most definitely be continuing on with the train when it leaves in two days.”

She didn’t know if it was the odd sound of her name coupled with Scott’s or the mention of Jeb, but suddenly Kerry saw the situation with total clarity. She slowly pulled her hand away from Scott’s and let it fall heavily into her lap. “I’m sorry, Scott. I can’t marry you.”

He pulled his head back a little in surprise. “Why not?” he asked abruptly, his smile gone.

“I think it would be hard to put into words, but I have a certain idea about marriage…” She gave herself a little shake. “I don’t think I want to be married.”

Scott gave a little huff. “I thought every girl wanted to get married.”

“Well, not this one. I just want to go to California and build my father’s ranch…”

“And how are you going to do that if they won’t let you get there without a husband?” Scott’s hurt feelings made his voice sound a little angry.

“I’m not just sure yet, but I only know that it wouldn’t be fair to you for me to marry you just so I can get to California.”

“I guess I should be the one to say what’s fair for me,” he protested.

“Fair for either of us, then. I appreciate your offer more than I can say.” She turned and rested her hand on his knee. “But I’m turning it down. If Jeb Hunter won’t take me to California as an unmarried woman, then I’ll just have to find a way to get there on my own.”

S
cott had continued trying to persuade her for some time before he’d finally given up and gone into the fort to find his new mountain men friends. After his initial hurt reaction to her refusal of his proposal, he’d regained his typical, cocky good spirits. “I’ve got two days to wear you down, lass,” he’d told her with a wink before he left.

But she knew that she wasn’t going to let herself be worn down. With the decision made she felt as if a great weight had been lifted from her. No matter what happened with the wagon train, she’d not continue on as Scott Haskell’s wife. But her brief satisfaction over the resolution of that-question soon faded. She was still in the same coil she’d been in before the idea of her marrying Scott had occurred to anyone. There was only one person who could be of help to her now, and, in spite of the fact that after last night she didn’t care if she never laid eyes on him again, she would have to seek him out.

It would do no good to put off the meeting. As Scott had pointed out, she had only two days to make
a change in her prospects. She stood, slapped her hands against her trousered thighs and took several long steps toward the fort. Then she stopped. Perhaps she should take Patrick with her for support. Jeb liked Patrick.

No. It would be bad enough facing him with the memory of their hot kisses last night flaming her cheeks without having her little brother along. She turned and started out once again, only to slow her pace more and more until she finally came to a stop. Maybe she should put on her green dress. It had seemed to make him…susceptible to her in some way.

There it was—the warm flush up her face as the memory came of exactly how susceptible Jeb had been to her last night. And she to him. She stuck out her lower jaw and blew air up to cool her cheeks. She’d see him dressed as she was, she decided finally. In trousers. Man to man.

Jeb finished off his last mouthful of stew and looked across the table at Foxy Whitcomb and Daniel Blue. He enjoyed listening to the old-timers’ yarns about the early days of exploration across the Rockies. Foxy had first crossed back in ‘26, in the days of Jim Bridger and Jedediah Smith. Thirty years of wilderness had put lines on his face and left his hair snow-white, but his body was honed and fit, a match for any man at the fort.

“This is gonna be a dry one, Jeb,” Foxy had warned him.

“No rain all spring,” Daniel agreed.

“The tribes’ll be hurting, especially the Sioux. And
they’re not taking kindly to white folk after Blue Water.”

Two years before the U.S. Army had killed an entire encampment of Lakota Sioux at a place called Blue Water. Many had been women and children. Jeb’s stomach gave one of its familiar twists every time he thought about it.

Jeb nodded and listened carefully to their advice. He’d made the crossing himself many times now, but he wasn’t so much a fool as to make the mistake of not paying attention to men who’d done it that many times over.

Wagon guides generally held their breath all through Indian country, even in a good season. Leaving Fort Kearney, they’d cross through Pawnee territory. The prairie tribe’s buffalo herds had been decimated by the encroachment of the white man. They, too, had a right to be resentful, Jeb reckoned. But neither the Pawnee nor the Sioux had the right to retaliate by taking the lives of innocent settlers. Especially not on one of his trains.

He wasn’t surprised coming out of the sutler’s store to see Kerry striding resolutely toward him across the quadrangle. He knew he’d have to see her today, but had been putting it off. He didn’t walk to meet her, waiting for her to come to him, but did her the courtesy of sweeping off his hat as she approached.

“I want to talk with you, Captain.”

Her eyes were hard, bearing little resemblance to the passion-softened ones he’d looked into last night as he held her a breath away. That was last night, and today was obviously another day as far as Kerry Gallivan was concerned. He knew at once that she would
not bring up the subject of their encounter on the riverbank. Which was fine with him.

“Of course, Miss Gallivan.” He kept his voice carefully pleasant. “You want to know the details of how you’re going to get back to Westport.”

“No. I want to persuade you to take me to California. I’m ready to stand here in the sun all day long arguing with you until you’ll agree to it.”

She stood in her trousers, legs slightly apart, hands on her hips. If she’d been wearing a sidearm, she would have looked as if she were preparing for a gunfight. She
definitely
did not resemble the woman he’d held in his arms last night. “I’ve already given you my answer on that score. Standing in the sun is not going to change my mind.”

“I don’t understand how you can be so darn stubborn,” she fumed.

Jeb smiled. “In a battle of stubbornness with you, Miss Gallivan, I’m not sure I’d come out a winner. But you still can’t come.”

“Because I’m unmarried.”

“Because you don’t have anyone to protect you—”

“Any male,” she interrupted.

“Yes, any male.” He should just tell her, he thought angrily. He should just sit her down and tell her exactly what horrible things could happen to an unprotected woman in the West. A woman like Melly, who’d been sweet and helpless and never meant to be alone. Who had married him trusting that he’d be there to take care of her, instead of off roaming the gold fields following a crazy dream of instant wealth. He wondered how Kerry Gallivan’s beautiful, stubborn
face would change if he told her what had happened to Melly.

“Your only requirement is that I need a male to protect me. Which means that if I married Scott Haskell, you would let me stay.”

There it was. He’d been waiting for it. Perhaps it would be easier to forget the fever she’d created in his blood when he knew she belonged to someone else. He hoped so. Otherwise this could turn out to be the longest summer of his life. “If you were married, I’d have to let you stay.”

He could almost see the steam rising from her as she pondered what she obviously considered to be the gross injustice of this ruling. Well, Jeb had always viewed his overland emigrants as something like his children. And sometimes you had to make decisions for children that did not set entirely well with them. “So are you going to marry Haskell?” he asked.

She let out a long breath and looked off into the distance. Finally she said in a tired voice, “No, I’m not.”

Jeb was surprised at her answer and doubly surprised at the relief that washed through him when he heard it. “Why not?” he blurted.

“Because I’m not in love with him, Captain Hunter, if that’s any of your business.”

“Everything on this train…”

She held up her hand in interruption. “I know, everything on this train is your business. Well, Captain, as you have informed me numerous times, I’m no longer with this train. So that means that nothing about my life need concern you any further.”

“I said I’d help you make plans for returning.”

She turned her back in the middle of his sentence and began to walk away. Over her shoulder she told him, “Don’t bother. My brother and I will just wait here at the fort until a train comes through that will agree to take us.”

“You might have a long wait.”

She was already a third of the way across the quadrangle. “But that’s no longer any of your business, Captain, remember?”

By the time he thought of a reply she was well out of earshot.

“Scott’s by himself…and Rudy Popovich,” Dorothy held up the fingers of her right hand and started to count.

“Mr. Ingebretson,” Patrick contributed.

“There are lots of single
men
on the train,” Kerry agreed. “It’s just single
women
who aren’t allowed.”

“And you’re not even single—you have me,” Patrick put in, his adolescent voice squeaking with indignation.

“And you have lots of friends who would help out,” Eulalie Todd added.

“We all would. Charles will be heartbroken if Patrick has to leave.” Charles Kirby’s mother, Frances, had joined the group of women who had gathered at the Gallivan wagon to discuss their wagon captain’s banishment of Kerry and her brother. Most of them had been secretly admiring of Kerry’s daring in disguising herself as a man to be allowed on the train in the first place. And resentment about her current plight was building.

“You know, we’re all going out West because we
want things to be different—for ourselves and our daughters,” Dorothy told the group.

“I’ve heard there’s even talk that women out West are going to be given the vote,” Frances agreed.

As the oldest, Eulalie had been given a spot in the center of the circle. “It’s like a fresh breeze out here,” she said. “Change in the wind.”

“Well, things might be changing out West, but they’re just the same as they were back home as far as this wagon train is concerned,” Kerry said. “It’s a man’s world.”

For a moment no one spoke. Patrick shifted on the ground, a little uncomfortable to be the sole representative of this obviously negligent gender.

“I’ll be darned if I can see why,” Dorothy said finally. “The wagon train is us—all of us. Men and women alike. And if we want you along with us, I don’t see how one
man
can keep you off. Even if he is the wagon master.”

“The papers say…” Kerry began.

But Dorothy had already stood and was dusting off her hands with a determined expression on her face. “People can shout a sight louder than papers, Kerry. Especially when we shout together.” She looked around the group with a smile. “C’mon, ladies. We have some work to do.”

Jeb Hunter looked around at the group of women in disbelief. He’d retired early to the bunk he was borrowing in one of the fort’s half-empty barracks. He’d thought staying there would give the Todds a break from his company and would give him a chance to talk with some of the soldiers. But tonight he
hadn’t felt much in the mood for socializing with his emigrants or exchanging tall tales with the motley assortment of soldiers, trappers and adventurers who could always be found at the fort no matter what season of the year.

He’d been happy to find the barracks empty. Perhaps he’d be able to get to sleep before the beginning of the typical night’s symphony of snoring and heavy breathing. But he’d no sooner stretched out on his bunk than he’d been jolted upright again by the sudden grand entry of what looked to be about half the women on the train. Led by Frank’s wife, Eulalie. And, of course, Kerry Gallivan.

He suppressed a groan. He had a feeling that he could predict what the women had on their minds. And he could predict that he wasn’t going to like it.

“Captain Hunter,” Eulalie began. This was a bad sign to start because the motherly, white-haired woman had been calling him Jeb since the second day of the trip. “We’ve come to discuss a certain matter with you.”

Slowly Jeb brought his stockinged feet to the floor. He wished he had his boots on. A man singlehandedly facing down a pack of determined women ought to at least be allowed boots. He stood, ran his hand back through his tousled hair and plastered a smile on his face. “Evening, Miz Todd…ladies,” he said.

“It’s about the Gallivans. Kerry, here.”

“Yes,” Jeb acknowledged dryly. “I imagine it is.”

Dorothy Burnett took a step forward and put an arm around Kerry’s waist. Kerry gave a half smile and put her arm around Dorothy’s in return. In spite
of the fact that Kerry was still wearing men’s trousers, the gesture seemed to imply some sort of special female communication that totally excluded Jeb or any other man. “We understand you’ve told her that she can’t continue with the train,” Dorothy said in a pleasant but firm voice.

Jeb felt uncharacteristically on the defensive. “It says so right there in the association papers,” he began, then chided himself for feeling the need to use legalities to back up his actions.

“We know that,” Dorothy continued. “But we—” she paused and looked around at the women by her side “—we women have decided that that particular provision is unfair.”

“And since the association is us,” Eulalie continued, “
all
of us, we don’t see why we just can’t change the rules.”

Jeb resisted the urge to rub the back of his neck. Kerry, he noted, had wisely not said a word so far. She didn’t have to with half the women on the train speaking for her. Half the women usually meant half the men as well. Nights could be long and cold on the trail when a man was out of favor with the woman of the household. “I’ve never allowed any of my trains to change the rules in the middle of the trip,” he said, but his argument held no energy, even to his own ears. Somehow he’d known from the minute he’d seen the women streaming in the door that this was a battle he wouldn’t win.

“Well, that’s another rule that could be changed, I would think,” Eulalie said pleasantly.

Jeb looked down at the floor. How hard was he willing to push this thing? he asked himself. Not just
the nights, but the days as well would be pretty long and cold for him if the women of the train turned against him. It would make for a miserable crossing. And perhaps even a dangerous one. Dissension among the group was one of the surest ways to get into trouble. It was a sticky decision. He had to balance the benefits of capitulation at this point with the possible undermining of his authority from appearing to cave in on a major issue. He couldn’t allow that either.

He took his eyes off the worn spot in the toe of one of his socks and looked up again, meeting Kerry’s level gaze. “I’d be willing to have it put to a vote,” he said finally. “To let the members of the train decide.”

“A vote that would, of course, include all the
women
members of the train as well,” Dorothy specified.

Jeb’s gaze went to the pretty blonde, then to the wrinkled face of Eulalie, who was watching him with an expression as stern as was possible for her naturally soft features. Finally he looked back at Kerry. “A vote that would include women,” he agreed.

There was a sudden leap of light in Kerry’s eyes. Jeb felt as if it had reached out and scorched him. This was a mistake, he thought with frustration. She wasn’t going to marry Haskell, and she was going to stay with the train where he’d see her daily, hourly for the next several weeks. Her constant presence would not allow him to forget how her lips had melted under his, how it had been to feel her breasts pressed against his chest He was remembering it
now, in spite of the risk of the telltale signs of his body embarrassing him in front of all these women.