Ana Seymour (15 page)

Jeb stayed in the Burnett wagon until noon. He told John and Dorothy to come and find him if there was any change for the worse, then climbed down, stretching the muscles of his back. There was no question about moving the train that day, but if Molly was out
of danger, he had other tasks he could see to. He was just starting to enumerate them in his mind, trying to decide if he should try to get a couple of hours of sleep first, when the prospect of a productive afternoon was abruptly shattered. Frank Todd had come back to the Burnett wagon to find him.

“We’ve got two more cases,” he told the wagon leader with a grim face. “And one of them is Hester Hamilton.”

Hester was the oldest settler on the train. She was too much a lady to tell her age, but she and her husband Samuel made no secret about the fact that she was older than he was by several years. And Samuel had several years over Frank Todd. Jeb had been a little skeptical about their ability to undertake such an arduous journey, but he’d been convinced by their evident good health and, more than anything, by the strong bond the two had with each other.

“She snatched me out of the cradle,” Samuel had said with a twinkle in his eyes, “and we’ve been rocking along together ever since.”

It was a special sight to see a couple so in love after all these years. The Todds seemed to have had similar fortune. It shouldn’t be that much to ask of life, Jeb had thought with a twinge of bitterness, yet it seemed to be as rare as a blossom in the snow.

Jeb was cursing himself now as he strode grimly toward the Hamilton wagon. Perhaps he should have flatly refused to let them join the train, he told himself. He’d known the dangers, the strain. He hadn’t figured on dysentery, that grim reaper of the young and the elderly, but then, something unexpected always
arose—every trip. It was his job to be ready for all contingencies and to ensure that his people were up to handling them.

Mrs. Hamilton’s illness had come on as swiftly as Molly’s. By the time Jeb got to their wagon, she could no longer sit up, could not even lift her head. Samuel was seated next to her, holding her hand and talking to her semiconscious form in low, soothing tones. Remarkably, though his face was pale and grave, he conveyed no sense of despair. The anguish that had been almost palpable in the Burnett wagon was missing.

When Jeb climbed into the wagon, Samuel looked up at him and gave a sad smile. “We’ve said goodbye,” he said softly. “Just in case.”

“We need to get liquids into her. We’ll try some of Mrs. Todd’s soup that seemed to work well for Molly.” The desperation in Jeb’s voice sounded out of place in the face of Samuel’s serenity.

“I’ll do it,” Samuel said. “If you would just be so kind as to fetch it for me.” Obviously he was not going to relinquish his place by his wife’s side to anyone.

Jeb spent the afternoon and evening traveling from the Hamilton wagon to the wagon of the other victim, the Crandalls’ sixteen-year-old son, Homer, whose case fortunately turned out to be mild, and finally back again to the Burnetts to check on the progress of Molly. The little girl was now drinking on her own and smiling a little at her sister’s sallies. Kerry was still there with Dorothy and John, so the child had plenty of nurses.

In between visits to the sick, Jeb consulted with Frank, Scott, Henry Kirby and several of the other
men about the water supply. All barrels that had been filled from the river were to be dumped and rinsed with vinegar. To fill the train’s immediate needs, a group of five men was dispatched with a team of mules to head into the hills and bring down water from the cleanest spring they could find.

Hester Hamilton died just before midnight. The goodbye Samuel had mentioned to Jeb had, indeed, been their last. Jeb asked him if he wanted some of the women to come tend to her. But Samuel had said simply, once again, “Thank you, Captain, but I’ll do it.” Jeb had left him still holding her hand.

He hadn’t slept in two days, and as he walked away from the Hamilton wagon he swayed a little on his feet. He should make one more check on Molly and the Crandall boy, but he was afraid that he’d keel over if he didn’t sleep for a spell. That is, if he could
get
himself to sleep. The death of Mrs. Hamilton sat like a stone in the middle of his chest. It didn’t help that she’d been old, that perhaps it had been her time. It didn’t even help that her husband seemed to be accepting the loss without casting blame. Jeb would cast enough blame to satisfy anyone. And the blame would be squarely on his own shoulders.

Most of the wagons were dark. No one had slept much the previous night, and the fires had been put out early. But down across the circle from the Todds’ wagon he could see Kerry sitting up by her campfire. He crossed over to her. “Why aren’t you sleeping?”

“I just left the Burnetts. I need to settle my thoughts a moment before I try to lie down. How’s Mr. Hamilton doing?”

“Far better that I would be in his place. How’s Molly?”

Kerry gave him a tired smile. “She’s become shy about having Patrick see her in her nightgown, which I think means that she’s close to recovery.”

“Is Patrick still there?” He looked around the camp.

“He’s sound asleep inside the wagon. He’s had a rough day, like we all have. I think he’s fonder of Molly than he’d like to admit.”

“Young love. It’s so simple, isn’t it?” Jeb moved closer to her. She’d washed up and changed clothes sometime during the day and was wearing the green dress he liked.

Kerry shook her head. “No, I don’t think love’s particularly simple at any age.”

“Since you’re such an expert,” Jeb couldn’t resist saying.

Kerry didn’t try to refute his sarcasm. “It’s not simple, but I don’t think you have to be an expert, either. You do what feels natural.”

They were both silent, remembering what had felt natural to them up on the hillside. Had it only been one night ago?

She looked up at him. His face in the firelight looked drawn and tired, and she had a sudden desire to hold him. What had he said? It would be better for them both if it didn’t happen again. She looked away and stared into the flames.

Jeb felt the exhaustion drain out of him, replaced by a more stimulating sensation. Kerry was utterly appealing in the dancing light of the fire. Her big eyes stared up at him from underneath her cropped hair.
He’d best spin right around on his heels and march away, he warned himself. Because right now it was just too damned tempting to kneel beside her and draw solace from those magic lips of hers.

There was no light from any of the nearby wagons. They might as well have been alone together in the middle of the prairie, caressed by the warm night air and serenaded by the rhythmic drone of insects from out in the fields.

“Patrick’s asleep, you say,” he said, moving not away, but closer.

She turned her head away from the fire and held his gaze with her wide eyes. “Yes,” she whispered.

And then he knelt beside her and drew her into his arms, finding her mouth in a blinding instant.

Kerry sensed from the moment he took hold of her that this time a kiss would not be enough. Instead of gentle and exploring, his mouth felt needy, almost desperate, as if he was seeking comfort from her, seeking to forget the tension and guilt of the past few hours. Well, she’d wanted to comfort him. But as soon as his lips touched her she knew that comforting was only part of what she wanted.

She didn’t know how it had happened. She’d fought the notion from the first time she’d looked up and seen him on his big horse. She’d fought it across miles of prairie. But she couldn’t fight it anymore. She was in love with Jeb Hunter.

She’d told herself it was lunacy. He obviously was not interested in love. He’d flat out told her that kissing her had been a mistake. Yet here he was again, seeking her out at her campfire in the middle of the
night. He’d vowed that their kisses would not happen again. Yet here he was.

She put her head back and let him explore her neck with his mouth and tongue. If it was a mistake, Kerry thought hazily as she slipped into that deliciously aroused state that she was just beginning to learn, she and Jeb were about to make it together.

J
eb knew exactly what he was doing. Afterward he wouldn’t be able to tell himself that it had happened because he’d gone two days with no sleep. Or from drinking hard cider on an empty stomach. He wouldn’t even be able to put the blame on the need for some sort of reaffirmation of life and love after his most recent losing struggle with death.

None of it mattered. The only thing that was important was Kerry, her bright eyes and lush body, the valiant spirit that had made her deceive him, badger him, refuse to give in when he wanted to send her home. Kerry, who had not yet finished shedding her own tears of grief for her father, but who seemed to be willing to open her heart and her body to offer him comfort.

She gave and he took, filling his hands with her curves, finally reaching the firm globes of her breasts, which had hardened against the tight bodice of the green dress. Without conscious thought, he loosened tiny buttons that ran from her neck to her waist, seeking flesh and warmth.

She leaned back against his arm and let him peel back her clothes until her breasts were bare to his gaze and his touch. His lips fastened gently on a peaking nipple. In age-old rhythm he tugged at it as his own body grew swollen and urgent.

Kerry’s eyes were closed. She lay docile in his embrace. But when he stopped sucking she murmured a protest and said, “It feels so…”

She stopped and he lifted his head a moment to encourage her words. “What, sweetheart? Do you like that?”

Her eyes flickered open, and her smile was sensual. “Mmm, yes,” she said. “Please, do it some more.”

Jeb would have been amused at her characteristic plain speaking if he hadn’t been too busy being aroused by it Ignoring a surge of lust from the lower portion of his body, he took the other breast in his mouth and lavished on it the same attention as he had the first.

She rolled her head against his arm, thoroughly caught up in her first experience with erotic pleasure. Jeb continued his slow lovemaking. When her nipples were swollen and wet, he moved back to her lips, then turned her a little in his arms to kiss the sensitive back of her upper arm and then make his way up the side of her neck.

He didn’t know when he decided that he was going to take their lovemaking to its preordained conclusion. It was too late now for anything else. Her face had the telltale flush, her moans had become urgent and entreating. Her fingers dug into his shoulders, then loosened, in rhythm with his tongue’s invasion of her mouth.

Her acceptance was so complete that it banished any doubts about propriety. In spite of her seeming innocence, surely she must be experienced in these matters. She was, after all, a city girl, not any city, but New York. Perhaps she’d even lain with Haskell. The very idea made him renew his onslaught. With his last vestige of good sense he lifted his head and looked around, checking for signs that anyone had awakened in nearby wagons. It was not an ideal setting—he could not leisurely be the way he preferred to ensure that the lady’s pleasure equaled his own. But from the urgency of her hands on him, he figured that quickness would do them just as well.

Unfastening his trousers, he pushed up her dress and sought the warm moist core of her through her underclothes. She lifted her hips and moved sinuously against him, firing his blood, and without further preliminaries he entered her.

She gave a great gasp and her fingers at his neck gouged so hard that he could feel her nails through his shirt. He pulled back in horror, realizing that he’d just plunged heedlessly through a thin barrier of skin. Kerry Gallivan was a virgin.
Had been
a virgin, he corrected himself with a sick feeling rising in his throat.

He stopped all movement, holding himself above her, his eyes closed. He didn’t want to look at her face.

“You haven’t done this before,” he stated dully, finally opening his eyes.

“No,” she said in a voice he could hardly hear.

“Do you want me to stop?”

He was still inside her, and little by little Kerry
was becoming accustomed to the odd sensation. In fact, it was turning pleasant, and even stimulating. She’d been on the verge of such ecstasy before the unexpected, sudden pain. Now the ecstasy was creeping back, little by little. “No,” she said again.

He kissed her and mumbled, “I’m sorry,” then he was gone from inside her, leaving her feeling empty. But before she could even protest, he whispered, “Shhh,” and the hardness of him was replaced by his fingers, gently playing, caressing and finding a place on her that soon had her shifting her hips once again in search of some relief.

She’d grown moist, she could tell, and this time when he slipped into her there was no pain, only a pleasurable sensation of fulfillment that escalated as he slowly moved in and out. The pleasure became hunger and finally almost pain again as their movements became more frantic. Then she cried out as the waves hit her, endless, incredible waves of feeling radiating up from her loins. She was dimly aware that he’d pulled quickly out of her again, shifting positions to turn himself a little away from her. And she heard his own deep breath of release.

Then they both were still, exhausted. Kerry closed her eyes and felt as if she was floating on a blissful sea. She wasn’t even entirely sure what had happened to her. She’d never had a mother to explain these male-female things to her, and she certainly would never have dreamt of asking her father. She’d had to gleam little bits and pieces of information from eavesdropping on the conversations of the women who came into the market. But she had the notion that Jeb’s sudden withdrawal had had to do with having
babies. Or rather not having babies. Which was a sobering thought that had not even entered her head when he’d taken her in his arms tonight.

She wasn’t too concerned about the virginity issue. Since she’d never been all that interested in finding a husband, she hadn’t worried about needing to save her body to give as a gift to one particular man, the whole notion of which had always struck her as rather silly.

But babies were another matter entirely. It would be mighty hard to build a ranch if she were with child. Now that the glow of the experience was literally fading from her body, she began to chide herself for her impulsiveness.

Jeb sensed the change in her immediately. She was already regretting the encounter, which was only natural. She’d been a
virgin,
for God’s sake, and he’d taken her on the ground next to her wagon, a few feet away from her sleeping brother. She, who was one of his pilgrims, totally under his care. He’d never in his life done anything so despicable. Well, that was not true, he amended bitterly. Deflowering a virgin under his charge was really just one more sin to add to his toll. He’d already paved his road to hell when he’d left Melanie alone in the wilderness.

“Are you all right?” he asked stiffly.

She sat up a little and smoothed down the skirt of her dress. Was this the way it was supposed to end? she wondered. His voice had become distant. He’d just done the most intimate things that she’d ever had done to her body, and now he was sounding like a stranger. She wanted him to lie back down and draw her into his arms again. She wanted him to whisper
warm and low into her ear. Instead he pulled entirely away from her, discreetly closing up his trousers and repeated his question.

“Are you all right? You’re not hurt?”

She shook her head, dazed. She had never discussed the matter with another woman, but some inner sense told her that this was
not
the way people ended their lovemaking. Perhaps he hadn’t liked it very much, though that was a cruel thought when she considered the incredible feeling it had produced in her own body.

She pulled herself upright and began to fasten up her dress. Mustering all her dignity, she said, “You didn’t hurt me, Captain.”

Her voice was as cold as a January dawn. Jeb resisted the urge to shiver. He deserved it. He deserved her contempt and more. If her father had still been alive, he’d be within his rights to take a shotgun to Jeb right now. And Jeb thought he would almost have welcomed it. In the months after they’d butchered Melanie, he’d had that thought often.

“I’ll leave you alone,” he said. “I…It won’t even do any good to apologize. It happened and there’s nothing we can do about that.”

It happened?
Was this the sum total of discussion that she was going to have with her first-ever lover? Kerry felt her Irish temper begin to rise. It wasn’t a quick temper as they painted it in the stories, but once it was aroused, it could be fierce and unforgiving.

She jumped to her feet. “Captain Hunter, you and I are going to continue to travel together for a long time, months yet. I think you’d better leave now before
I say something to you that will make those months highly uncomfortable for us both.”

Jeb got more slowly to his feet. “I want you to know that…”

She waited while he hesitated, then looked down at the ground and shook his head. He looked immensely tired.

“Never mind,” he finished. “It’s late. I’ll come by in the morning and we’ll see if we can make some sense out of this thing.”

She watched in disbelief as he picked up his hat from where it had fallen to the ground and walked away.

He didn’t come by in the morning. There was an early morning meeting with the men who had gone into the hills for water. The fresh water supply was already almost gone. No one else had been taken ill, and some of the settlers had begun using the convenient water from the river, in spite of Jeb’s warnings. He wanted to get on the trail as soon as possible to move farther upstream.

But first there was Hester Hamilton’s funeral to arrange. Samuel had made no fuss about burying her in a shallow grave between two cottonwood trees.

“It’s not my Hester there,” he’d said with misty eyes that belied his calm voice. “She’s in here,” he ended, pointing to his heart.

Everyone had stood around the small hole as they’d lowered Hester’s body into it, wrapped in a sheet. Frank Todd had read the verses and at the end, while Scott, Jeb and several of the other men filled in the grave, someone started up a hymn. Their discordant
voices sounded weak and lost in the middle of the prairie, almost drowned out by the whistling of the wind through the grass.

So they’d started up again, wagons rolling and people walking, mostly in silence, thinking now and then of the still mound of dirt between the cottonwoods. And Jeb had not come to the Gallivan wagon.

They kept moving until almost twilight, trying to make up for the day and a half they had lost. Everyone up and down the train was subdued and tired. Even the children refrained from their usual antics. Patrick had ridden beside Kerry all day, not caring to seek out the company of his friends. He’d looked for Jeb to come by and offer a ride, but when the wagon master did not make an appearance, he made no comment.

By the time they stopped, everyone was too tired to form their circle. They camped right where they were in line, most of the wagons not even bothering to build a fire. Mothers up and down the line offered cold dinners of meat cakes and the last of the apples, which were now shriveling with the heat.

Kerry was exhausted. She’d slept little the previous night after her encounter with Jeb and none at all the night before. When Scott appeared at their wagon shortly after they’d stopped to camp with a plate full of biscuits and cold meat, she greeted him as if he’d been sent from heaven.

“Some of us went hunting for sage hens while we were laying over yesterday,” he explained. “Cooked them last night.”

Kerry didn’t know which made her happier, the thought of fresh food or the fact that Scott seemed to
be back to his normal happy-go-lucky self. Both were welcome developments, she decided as she, Patrick and Scott sat down on the ground and began to eat.

Scott’s gentle teasing was exactly what she needed tonight as an antidote to her bitter experience with Jeb. She couldn’t believe that he’d not come around all day. It was as if he was angry with her for an event that had certainly been at least half his fault, that had seemed at the time like something that both of them wanted equally.

“Are you going to be friends with us again, Scott?” Patrick asked between mouthfuls of sage hen.

“Patrick!” Kerry remonstrated, but Scott waved her reproach aside with a good-natured grin.

“Of course I’ll be your friend, Pat, my boy. If you and your sister want me around.”

“Why, sure we want you around. Don’t we, sis?”

Kerry nodded and met Scott’s eyes with a look of apology that communicated far more than could be said in words.

Scott gave her a reassuring wink. “Then I reckon you’ve got me. At least until we hit the gold fields.”

Patrick threw the completely clean leg bone down on the plate. “And then you’ll be off to make your fortune, right?” he asked with enthusiasm.

“That I will, lad.”

“I wish I could do that,” Patrick said wistfully.

“We’ll be building our own kind of fortune, Patrick, as you well know,” Kerry said. “We’ll be building the future that our papa planned for his family.”

Patrick fell silent, but his expression said that somehow farming didn’t seem anywhere near as romantic
to a boy of thirteen as finding a fortune in gold.

“Never mind,” Scott said, reaching to put one of his own pieces of meat on Patrick’s plate. “I’m sure you’ll have plenty of adventures in California. And you have many years to have them in.”

Patrick nodded and picked up Scott’s offering of meat. “I can’t wait,” he said with a full mouth.

Kerry smiled at them both, happy for the first time all day. She would just put Jeb Hunter out of her mind, she decided. She intended to have her own rich, full life with Patrick in California, and she didn’t need the company of an erratic wagon master to do it.

There was a sudden sound in the shadows and all three looked up to see Jeb Hunter standing next to their wagon. He cleared his throat, then asked, “I’m sorry. Am I interrupting?”

“As a matter of fact, we’re about to turn in for the evening,” Kerry said quickly. Both Scott and Patrick turned their heads to look at her. Her chin went up.