Ana Seymour (14 page)

“Well, I think it would be more polite if you called him Captain Hunter, at least if there are other children around.”

Patrick didn’t seem daunted by her scolding. “All right. But I’ll call him Jeb on our rides. We have such swell rides, Kerry. You ought to try it some day.”

“As you have frequently pointed out, little brother, we don’t have a horse.”

“But you could ride with Jeb, like I do. Storm can take two people easy.”

“I’m not sure Captain Hunter would be interested in…”

She stopped speaking as Jeb rode up and Patrick ran over to his horse. “You could take Kerry on a ride sometime, couldn’t you, Jeb?”

“On a ride?” Jeb asked, swinging his long leg over the saddle and jumping lightly to the ground.

“Up behind you on Storm. Like you do with me. I told her how much fun we have.”

Jeb looked amused. “I don’t think your sister would want to ride bouncing along behind me the way you do, partner. It’s kind of a man thing to do, you know.”

Kerry gave a little sniff. “Is that right? What makes it a ‘man thing’?”

Jeb flicked a glance over her serviceable blue cotton dress. “Well, for one thing…the clothes. Though it’s done out here in the West, most women from back East are too embarrassed to ride astride in skirts.”

“Ah, but that’s an easily solved problem. All the woman has to do is put on a pair of pants.”

Jeb’s eyes glinted at the tone of challenge in her voice. “Most women wouldn’t want to do that, either.”

“Well, I’m not most women, then,” Kerry said breezily.

“You’d go for a ride with me?” Jeb asked skeptically.

It was not what she had intended. But now it seemed that the issue had become a matter of pride. “Certainly. If Patrick can do it, so can I.”

Jeb chuckled. “All right, if you say so. There’ll still be plenty of light after supper. We’ll go then.”

Jeb had known the moment he agreed to this evening ride that it was not a wise plan. For days now he’d tried carefully to keep his head clear concerning Kerry. He’d told himself that he regarded both her and Patrick as younger siblings, people he was fond of, nothing more. He’d quickly turn his gaze away whenever he’d discover that his eyes had fixed themselves on the wispy black hair at the back of her neck or the way her slender wrists turned as she prepared the evening meal. He’d been
so
careful.

And now, like a blamed fool, he’d let her put on those clinging male trousers and climb up behind him so close that inevitably her firm, small breasts pressed against him every time Storm’s front hooves hit the ground. As if that wasn’t bad enough, he’d agreed to take her to see a panoramic view of the river valley up on one of the little hills that had lined their route all day. They’d left the wagon train behind, and with it the safety provided by the constant presence of onlookers.

Her arms were around his waist, holding tightly, though more relaxed now than the first few minutes. “Are you doing all right?” he asked her over his shoulder.

“As long as I can hold on to you. It’s not a bother?”

Her hands squeezed into his midsection, just above his belt, just above the area of his groin that had started to ache from the constant contact with her. “No, it’s not a bother,” he lied. And then he distracted
himself by starting to count the clumps of sagebrush.

“Would it be easier if I sat in front of you?” she asked.

“No,” he said simply.

They rode in silence for several minutes, then Kerry said, “Patrick loves to be with you. And it’s good for him. I think it makes him miss Papa a little less.”

“He’s a fine boy. Tough to lose your father so young in life.”

Here, perhaps, was the opening for her to find out a little more about Jeb Hunter’s own life. “What about your parents, Jeb?” she asked.

“I lost mine, too, though I was a bit older than Patrick.”

“I’m sorry.”

Jeb shrugged. “At the time I was already on the verge of going out into the world to make a life for myself. I missed them, but for a long while it seemed as if I’d been the one who’d left them instead of the other way around. By the time it really sank into me that they were dead, I…” he hesitated. “I was ready to start my own family.”

Kerry’s heart sped up a little. Would he tell her about his wife? she wondered. Did she dare ask him?

“Your own family?” she asked casually.

“Mmm.” He spurred the horse up the last piece of hill and pulled back on the reins. “This looks like a good place to stop and see the view, if you’ve a mind.”

“Certainly,” she answered, though she regretted the interruption in their conversation.

He dismounted with a jump and then reached his hands up to her. Storm was a big horse and Kerry was happy to have Jeb’s arms to slide into before she hit the ground. The contact was brief, but she felt a wave of warmth at the pressure of his hands on her waist. He let her go almost instantly.

“Thank you,” she murmured. “That was enjoyable.”

“Are your legs holding up all right?” he asked with a smile.

She took a couple of steps. “I can still walk.”

His smile grew broader. “We have all the way back yet to go, you know.”

“Don’t worry about me, Captain. I’ll ride as far as you want to take me.” She turned around to look behind her at the view of the valley below and gave a little exclamation of pleasure.

Jeb was following the direction of her gaze. “Beautiful, isn’t it?”

The yellowish green grass was crisscrossed with late afternoon shadows where cottonwood trees grew singly or in groups of two or three. At the far end of the valley the wagons formed an uneven circle, looking small and lonely in the vast expanse of land, like a neglected set of children’s toys. Across the meadow, another long ridge of hills, much like the one they were standing on, cut a wavy silhouette across the nearly golden sky. Kerry was enchanted. “It’s almost sunset,” she breathed.

“Yes, we should have headed back by now. It’ll be dark when we return.”

“Oh, please. Let’s just watch a little longer.” Without waiting for his answer, she flopped down on
the grass, her trousered legs sticking straight out in front of her, and took in a deep breath of air. “It’s a little like what I remember of back home in Ireland. Green hills and lots of land.”

“Not enough land to feed everyone from the accounts of the immigrants,” Jeb disagreed mildly. He let Storm’s reins trail on the ground and sat beside her.

Kerry gave a twisted smile. “I know. I imagine my memories of Ireland are all mixed up with my father’s fantasies. Once we got to New York City, it seemed as if that was all he could talk about. ‘Breathing room,’ he called it. Land enough for a body to have breathing room.”

“And that’s what he wanted to find in California.”

Kerry nodded. Tears stung her eyes, but she realized that they were the first she’d felt in days. Perhaps time would finally start to work its healing on her as it already had on Patrick.

They were quiet for several moments, watching the orange orb of the sun sink beyond the far western end of the ridge of hills. The few wispy clouds had turned a pink that was growing darker before their eyes. “This would be a nice moment to freeze,” Kerry said wistfully.

“To freeze?”

She chuckled. “It was a kind of game of my father’s. When he’d tuck us to sleep at night, he’d ask us what had been our favorite moment of the whole day. We’d tell him about it, then he’d make us close our eyes and say, ‘All right, now, freeze it behind those sleepy eyelids.’ And it would mean that we’d dream about that happy moment all night long.”

Jeb smiled. “What moments did you freeze?”

Kerry was now thoroughly in the grip of nostalgia, but the memories were more benevolent than any she’d had since her father’s death. They felt warm and pleasant. She lay back on the grass and closed her eyes. “I suppose they weren’t anything so very important. Eating a sweetmeat or maybe having Mrs. McElroy agree to help me with the stalls so I could leave early. Sometimes I froze a scene from a book when I could get my hands on one.”

Jeb could hardly keep his mind on her words. He was battling his own memories—more recent ones. Memories of the last time he’d sat next to Kerry on a hillside, of how easy it had been to scoop her up into his arms. Of how quickly her lips had softened under his. Of the liquid heat of their kisses.

She opened her eyes. “I wanted to learn more about you, and here we are talking about me again.”

“There’s not much to learn about me, I’m afraid. From listening to you and Patrick talk about him, I’d say your relationship with your father was closer than anything I remember from my childhood.”

From where she lay on the ground, Jeb was silhouetted against the darkening orangish-purple sky. The light gave his brown hair a rusty tinge. It was gently ruffled by the sudden picking up of a late-evening breeze. The strong features of his face were shadowed. A moment to remember, Kerry thought to herself. A moment to freeze. “You must have some special memories,” she said.

His deep breath was ragged. “The only one that
seems to come to mind at the moment doesn’t have anything to do with my childhood.”

She gazed up at him with a questioning look.

“What I’m remembering is the taste of those red lips of yours.”

H
e might as well have been touching her. The mere sound of the words had the same effect She drew in a quick breath and waited, her lips already feeling swollen. And his actions swiftly followed the words. He bent over her, blotting out the sky, and then the world turned to darkness as her eyes closed and his mouth pressed against hers.

She twisted her head slightly toward him, seeking the warmth, and he acknowledged her acquiescence with a low groan. Barely withdrawing his lips from her, he murmured, “Lord, sweetheart, you make me want you.”

This time his words burned, down her middle and straight to the place where an incredible, yearning feeling was building. She opened her eyes to find that his were gazing at her with a hooded intensity that made the burn hotter.

He hadn’t touched her with anything but his lips, but these were thorough and skillful, taking their time in slow, patient, long kisses that focused first on the center of her mouth, then slipped to the corner, then
finally along the line of her jaw and up to her eyelids, which had once again drifted closed as she lay on the grass in delicious lethargy.

It was endless minutes before she felt his weight shift over her, his chest pressed gently on hers. One of his legs moved between hers, hard and warm against the insides of her thighs, which were already sensitive from bouncing along on top of Storm.

She squirmed a little, not in protest, but just reflexively, trying to find an outlet for the waves of sensation. He pulled his head back and smoothed the hollows of her cheeks with his thumbs. “Look at me, Kerry,” he said in a husky voice.

When she once again opened her eyes, his expression had changed. The predatory intensity was gone, replaced by a gentle smile. “These lips were meant to be kissed, sweetheart,” he said, lightly doing so.

Kerry was trying desperately to regain control of her racing senses. They scared her. She didn’t want to think that another person could do this to her, scramble her head this way. She’d already turned down one offer of marriage this trip because she didn’t want to give anyone else power over her life. But somehow it seemed as if Jeb had a power over her that she’d neither given nor anticipated. Her brain told her to roll out from beneath him, but her body would not cooperate. Instead her head rose just enough to make contact once again with his mouth.

This time he was exquisitely slow. He kissed her, starting from gentle pressure, then his tongue made a smooth tour of her lips, seeking entrance, and then entering her with a careful, persistent rhythm that
made her hips rise from the grass to meet the hard barrier of his thigh.

He groaned again, then pulled his mouth away from hers and shifted downward to let his head fall heavily on her chest. “This is totally against my rules,” he said in a voice tight with frustration.

Kerry felt as if he’d splashed cold water on her face. There were
rules
about things like this? “Am I supposed to apologize?” she asked when she could get her breath to speak.

He gave her shoulders a squeeze, then sat up. “No,” he said briskly. “I am. I’ve taken six trains across country and have never once let this happen to me.”

The unfulfilled feelings in her center still raged, making her voice sound angry. “I’m the lucky one.”

He pushed back his tousled hair and gave a harsh laugh. “The unlucky one, you might better say.”

The self-condemnation was so evident in his tone that her anger began to dissipate. She sat up slowly. “It wasn’t
that
bad,” she said softly with a touch of humor.

His laugh was more genuine this time. “Well, thank you for that, anyway. It’s still not something I intended to allow to happen.”

“Perhaps I was the one allowing it.”

He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. I have no business kissing you or any other woman under my protection.”

Kerry’s body was finally returning to normal. She stretched her legs and smoothed out her shirt. “You’re just our wagon master, Jeb, not our father.”

“A wagon master is a father, husband and policeman all in one.”

“What about friend?” It was beginning to get quite dark, but Kerry could still see the hard lines of tension that had taken over his face as he remembered his duty.

“No,” he answered after a minute. “Not friend. And certainly not lover. It doesn’t pay to get your feelings involved with people you have to control.”

Kerry gave an exasperated click of her tongue. “Haven’t you ever considered that developing some of these feelings you’re talking about just might help you get the cooperation you’re looking for on a train?”

He gave a firm shake of his head. “No, ma’am. You can’t be a leader one moment and one of the bunch the next. It doesn’t work.”

“And you can’t be a wagon train leader and also enjoy a few kisses on a hillside.”

“That’s right.” He stood and held his hand out to her. “C’mon. We’re going to have to make our way back in the darkness. I don’t like doing that over this rough prairie. We could hit a prairie dog hole that would break Storm’s leg.”

His tone was all back to business, effectively shutting off all further conversation about anything more personal. But she wasn’t about to let Jeb Hunter turn back into his comfortable role of authoritarian wagon master. Not after what they’d just shared.

She took his hand and let him pull her up. Then she dusted off the seat of her pants. “Well, Captain, I bet this is the first time you’ve kissed someone wearing trousers. At least
that
kind of kiss.”

He was already throwing the reins over Storm’s head and getting ready to boost himself up on his back, but her words made him turn back to her. He hesitated a minute, then his face relaxed into a smile. “Not
that
kind of kiss,” he agreed.

“It was…a nice kind of kiss,” she said, remembering with a flush of heat exactly how nice it had been.

Jeb looked as if he was struggling not to let her words soften his resolve. He gave a quick puff of air, then swung himself into the saddle. “Yes,” he said curtly. “It was nice. But it’ll be better for us both if it doesn’t happen again.”

His voice was so distant that Kerry gave up trying to make it go soft again as it had been just moments before when he had called her sweetheart. The trip back was mostly silent.

The breeze had picked up, causing Jeb to comment, “Maybe this wind will bring some rain. We could sure use it.”

And since the weather was not the topic that was occupying Kerry’s mind, she made no reply.

They rode more slowly than they had on the way there, letting Storm pick a careful trail through the dark grass. The gentle rocking motion of the horse was soothing, and by the time Jeb pulled Storm up next to her wagon, she was almost drifting off to sleep.

“What took you so long?” Patrick came running up to them from the direction of the Burnetts’ wagon.

“Nothing in particular, sprout,” Jeb answered breezily, then took a closer look at the boy’s face. “Is something the matter?”

Patrick’s eyes were worried. “Dorothy’s been looking for you. Little Molly’s awful sick.”

“Sick?” Kerry asked in alarm, jumping from Storm’s back without bothering to take the hand Jeb held out to her.

“Polly says she was holding her stomach and moaning all afternoon, but now she’s just lying there. She looks so tiny.”

There was a bit of a crack to Patrick’s voice at the end of his statement. Kerry put an arm around his shoulder. “Children get sick fast, Patrick,” she said reassuringly. “They usually get well fast, too.”

But when she and Jeb climbed up into the Burnetts’ wagon and saw Molly lying on the bed they’d cleared for her, Kerry felt her throat constrict. Molly did look suddenly tiny. Her skin was stark white and her breathing heavy. “Good Lord,” Kerry said under her breath, then mentally berated herself for her words as she saw Dorothy’s stricken face.

“She’s had…you know…the ‘relax’ for a couple days now, Captain,” Dorothy explained. “She was too embarrassed to tell anyone, but now it’s as if all the life has just drained out of her.”

Jeb’s face was set in a hard mask that Kerry could hardly recognize. Though everyone’s fears were always of the Indians, dysentery was by far the deadliest of killers on the vast plains. “She needs to drink something.” He sat down beside Molly’s slight form and lifted her limp wrist, feeling the weak pulse.

“I can’t get her to take anything anymore,” Dorothy said.

“She has to. Even if we have to dribble it down her throat little by little.” Jeb turned to John, who sat
in one corner of the wagon looking hollow-eyed and frightened. “How much cider do you have—not the hard stuff?” When the girl’s father shook his head, Jeb continued, “Find some. Go up and down the wagons.”

“I’ve been trying to give her water—” Dorothy began.

“Not water,” Jeb interrupted. “This is what I was afraid of with the water so low. The river’s gotten brackish, infested. We’ll have to ride up into the hills and find some smaller streams where the water will still be fresh.”

He leaned toward the opening of the wagon to speak with Patrick. “I want you to go to every wagon and tell them not to drink the water they’ve taken from the river. They’ll have to drink cider or milk or whatever else they can find tonight. We’ll find a fresh supply tomorrow.”

Patrick looked relieved to have something to occupy him, to have an excuse to move away from the tense faces of the adults at the Burnett wagon. “I’ll go talk to all of them, Jeb.”

He turned to leave, but then stopped as Jeb called one further instruction. “Ask at every wagon if anyone else has taken sick.”

Patrick looked around once more at his sister and the two older Burnetts. Then his gaze went to Polly, huddled on top of a flour bag, her eyes swollen from tears. “I reckon I’ll need help,” he said to her. “Will you come with me?”

The usually lively child gave a solemn nod and slid from her perch. Kerry sent Patrick a grateful smile. Then the two children headed off into the darkness.

* * *

Kerry had always thought that the night she had spent with her anguished father as her mother lay dying would be forever after remembered as the longest night of her life. But the hours she watched Molly Burnett fight for her life eclipsed that childhood memory. The seconds echoed as Dorothy’s pretty face stretched tight with anxiety and John’s bright eyes dulled. They seemed to be aging overnight.

It was Jeb’s presence that held them all together. He never left his post by the child’s side. Without wasting time on commiserations, he ministered to the fragile body, forcing swallows of liquid between the inert lips and wiping down the fever that flared in the early hours of the morning.

He told the Burnetts in calm, strong tones that it was not uncommon for children to be hit this suddenly and this hard by dysentery. His guess was that it was from the brackish water they’d been drinking, and not something that would be transmitted from Molly to the rest of the family or the rest of the train. There was no particular reason to think that Polly would be similarly afflicted.

He did not say, though Kerry heard an implication behind his words, that at least they would still have one daughter left if the worst should happen.

And for long hours of the night, it appeared as if that was exactly what might happen. It was hard to believe that a human could change so quickly. In just a few hours Molly’s skin had become lifeless, grayish almost. She’d been passing blood, they’d told Jeb. And it looked as if she’d passed so much that there was no longer any left inside her to provide the warmth to keep her alive.

The Todds came by and the Wilkses, and many of the other wagon train members, sober and frightened. It appeared no one was sleeping that night. Patrick and Polly were assiduously visiting every single wagon, making frequent trips back to the Burnett wagon to see if there had been any change in Molly’s condition. So far they had brought no reports of other people being stricken.

Kerry could hardly believe that an evening that had started out with a golden sunset and the exhilarating discovery of a passion she hadn’t even known she possessed could end in such agony. Once she caught Jeb’s eye and had the fleeting impression that he, too, was remembering their kiss up on the hill. He gave her a smile that was half reassurance and half something with a deeper sort of warmth.

By dawn they all had the feeling that the illness had reached a crisis stage. The soul that was fighting inside that tiny, ravaged body was either going to give up the battle or start to win it.

Jeb was dribbling liquid down her throat again, this time some clear soup that Eulalie had brought Kerry sat next to Dorothy on the food sacks, an arm around her back. John was crammed up against the other side of the wagon, leaning back against the cover, his eyes closed. But everyone knew that he was not asleep.

“She moved her lips,” Jeb said, a low excitement in his voice.

Dorothy and John both sat up straight.

Jeb turned to Dorothy with a cautious smile. “She just swallowed that mouthful of soup. On her own.”

There was a soft moan from the bed. Jeb turned back and spooned in more soup. This time all of them
could see that, though her eyes were still closed, she was definitely responding to the food in her mouth.

“Thank the Lord,” Dorothy whispered, tears streaming down her face.

Kerry swallowed the lump in her own throat and nodded agreement with her friend’s prayer.

When Frank and Eulalie appeared for the third time shortly after dawn, they informed Eulalie that her soup seemed to be performing miracles.

With a broad smile of relief, the older woman said briskly, “I could have told you that. Everyone’s always said that my turnip soup could raise the dead.”

By midmorning, Molly was intermittently opening her eyes and seemed to be enough aware to be shy about the fact that the wagon master was sitting by her bed. She even responded with a little smile when Patrick climbed up into the wagon and said to her, “You gave us all a scare, Molly. You’d better get all better quick.”

The hours without sleep and the tension had Kerry feeling numb, which at least left her with no more energy to think about Jeb’s kisses. She wouldn’t think about them until after she’d had some sleep, she decided, but found the resolution wavering when Scott came around to check on Molly’s progress. The mere sight of the kind young man who had offered to save her dream by marrying her, made her feel a little sick to her stomach.