Brides of Prairie Gold (22 page)

But even after joining the multitude of people scrambling among the rocks at the base of the chimney formation, Perrin didn't spot Mem's tall figure. After a time, the names carved in stone absorbed her interest and imagination to the extent that she didn't mind viewing them alone. But she did wish the lemonade stand wasn't so far away. The rocks captured the sun's heat and every breath drew in hot dust kicked up by the crowd on the ground below.

Sitting on a rock that bore the inscription California or bust, Perrin blotted her forehead and fanned her flushed face with the edge of her shawl.

"Shall I carve your initials?" a deep voice said above her.

Shading her eyes, she gazed up at Cody Snow. He lifted his hat to her, letting sunlight shine through waves of dark hair. It was such a bright warm day, and she'd had such a fine time so far, she couldn't stop the smile that curved her lips. "I'd like that very much. If you wouldn't mind."

His gaze dropped to her mouth and something flickered in his eyes, eyes so blue that she thought of summer skies and periwinkles. Perhaps it was his tanned skin that made the blue appear so intense. "You should smile more often," he said. His own smile was wide, engaging, and slightly lopsided.

The compliment caught Perrin by surprise. Feeling the heat of the sun on her cheeks, she looked toward the broad plains. "There's a message on the board inquiring about the Eagglestons."

"I left a reply." Bending down beside her, he removed a knife from the sheath on his belt. "Full name, or just initials?"

He turned his face toward her and she realized how closely he knelt to her skirts. She could feel the exciting heat of him, could glimpse a nest of dark curls peeking from the bottom of his opened collar. The dizzying scent of strong soap and sunlight rose from his skin. Blushing, she shifted her gaze.

"Initials will do." She tried to concentrate, tried not to think about the solid maleness of him. It occurred to her that Cody Snow completely dominated the space he occupied. There was no room for anyone else.

"And thank you. It's nice to think there will be a record that I passed this way," she said, watching his hands on the knife and the rock. An odd certainty popped into her head. Those strong callused hands would be as skilled with a woman as they were with a knife or a gun. "Are you married, Mr. Snow?"

At once she was horrified by her blurted question. As gossip traveled swiftly in small groups, she had heard his story weeks ago. Learning his history had done nothing to quiet the strange restless longings that troubled her in his presence.

"My wife died in childbirth three years ago," he said tersely, leaning to blow dust out of the P appearing beneath his blade. "The infant died also."

"I'm sorry," Perrin commented softly, gazing down at her lap. His words were clipped and brief, but she sensed anger and pain behind them. After a pause, she inquired, "How long were you married?"

"Four years."

"I was married to Garin almost four years."

Here against the rocks, the sun fell on them heavily enough to draw a zigzag of sweat from Cody's temple. Fascinated, Perrin watched the tiny stream trickle toward his jawline. She experienced a sudden shocking urge to brush the perspiration away with her fingertips, then press her fingers to her lips and taste him. The intensity of this thought scandalized her and she quickly turned her head away, fearing her thoughts were writ large across her face.

"Cody?" she asked in a low voice. "Why do you always seem so annoyed and angry? Do I do something that irritates you?"

He rocked back on his heels and his eyes darkened. "Ellen died giving birth to a baby that was not mine. I trusted her completely, and she betrayed me."

Slowly, Perrin nodded. "So now you dislike all women?"

"About as much as you dislike all men."

She wet her lips and tried to look away from him, but found she couldn't. They gazed into each other's eyes, measuring, making assumptions. "If you expect the worst, you're never disappointed."

"That's how I see it," he said.

Their locked eyes created a tension between them that drew her nerves taut, made her hands tremble to the extent that she tightened them around the jar of blackberry jam. The hard speculation in his gaze dried her mouth and she couldn't swallow.

Once she wouldn't have understood what was happening between them. But that was long ago, before Garin, before Joseph.

Now she understood what it meant to think about a man day and night, to hear his voice in dreams, to lose herself in thoughts of his hands or while remembering the glow of sunshine among the small dark hairs shading his jaw. She recognized the tension in her lower stomach, the aching in her breasts.

The odd thing was that she had seldom felt this level of arousal with Garin and never with Joseph. But she could not look at Cody Snow without yearning to touch his hard lean body, without wondering how his mouth would taste or how his hands would feel on her naked skin. She didn't know when this had happened, but it had.

Dropping her head, she watched her gloved fingers nervously smoothing her skirts across her thighs and she caught a deep breath. In Clampet Falls, Oregon, a farmer named Horace Able awaited her arrival. Perhaps he tried to imagine her, thought about her, was planning his life around her.

Shamefully, she had not entertained a single thought about Horace Able. She knew she would marry him regardless. But Cody Snow with his strong tanned hands and jaw, with his dangerous cobalt eyes that probed and challenged, him she thought about all the time.

And he didn't want a woman in his life any more than she wanted a man in hers. Yet there was something electric that vibrated the air when they were together, as charged as the heat lightning that flashed across the vast prairie skies.

"It's finished," he said in a thick voice. When she turned to him, his shoulders had swelled against his shirt, as hard as the rocks surrounding them. Serge trousers pulled tight around his thighs and cut a deep V around his crotch.

"What?" she whispered, feeling faint. The sun beat down on her bonnet and perspiration dampened the sides of her waist. When she noticed droplets of moisture glistening in the crisp dark hair curling from his shirt collar, her head reeled and she couldn't think.

"Your initials," he said, staring at her mouth.

Blindly, she dropped her gaze to the raw cuts in the rock. "Yes," she said in a low voice, swaying toward him. "Yes, thank you."

"Perrin." He spoke so low that only she could have heard. But what she heard in his voice caused a shiver of apprehension to trace down her spine. This couldn't be happening. It couldn't.

"Mr. Snow?"

They both jerked at the shout, then turned toward Thea Reeves, who was climbing toward them, with Ona Norris immediately behind. Sunshine and pleasure flushed Thea's pretty face.

"Will you carve our initials in the rock?" Thea called cheerfully, adjusting the strap of the canvas bag that held her sketch pad and pencils. "I'll give you a sketch of the Chimney Rock in exchange for your labor."

It wasn't until Perrin noticed Ona's stern gaze that she remembered how close Cody knelt by her side and realized how his proximity might be interpreted.

Springing to her feet and blushing furiously, she thanked him again for carving her initials, then she murmured something to Thea and Ona before escaping and scrambling down the formation to the crowds below.

With a shock of truth, she recognized the excursion had ended for her. Today had not been about viewing the Chimney Rock or inspecting Heartbreak Alley. It hadn't been about reading the names carved in the rocks or leaving her own mark there.

She had come in hopes of seeing Cody, of spending a few minutes alone with him. And this was not the first time she had tried to maneuver time alone with him.

Admitting that her thoughts and actions had begun to revolve around Cody Snow made her feel heartsick. That she could be so deeply attracted to one man when she had promised to marry another shamed her. Her growing desire for Cody made her as sinful and as debased as the other brides believed she was.

But she couldn't help herself. Her woman's body didn't understand that Cody was forbidden to her.

The pleasure vanished from the bright day, and she felt like weeping. Perhaps Augusta was right to label her a harlot.

My Journal, June, 1852: We've only traveled six hundred miles, but we can no longer pretend to ignore the hardships, the lack of privacy, the dirt, no fresh food, terrible weather, exhaustion, and the tedium of daily sameness. Sometimes I wish I hadn't come. Papa wanted this marriage. I'm no longer certain that I did.

Lucy Hastings

Mem blinked down at Lucy, horror dampening her eyes. In the ghastly shadows cast by a flickering lantern, Lucy's skin seemed to shrink over her bones, creating gaunt hollows and peaks. Tears rolled out of the girl's eyes as she pitched forward, gripped by another series of agonizing cramps. Her body writhed in convulsive spasms.

"So thirsty," she gasped when she could speak. Her eyes were wet and hot. With a shaking hand, Mem raised a cup of water to Lucy's cracked lips, then sponged the sweat off her forehead. Fever racked her tortured body even though she shivered uncontrollably. One minute Lucy clasped extra blankets close to chattering teeth; the next instant, she desperately tried to kick the coverings away from her, but her legs were too weak to move the blankets. Tears swam through her despair, and her whisper broke on a sob. "I'm dying."

"Shhh, don't waste energy trying to talk."

Sarah returned from emptying the vomit bucket and quietly climbed into the wagon. She replaced the pail on the floor near Lucy's head, inspected the bluish cast of Lucy's face and fingernails, then met Mem's eyes. Sadness pinched her expression. Pressing her lips together, she shook her head.

Mem smothered a sound and stared down at Lucy in disbelief. This morning Lucy's complexion had been pink and fresh, her eyes clear and bright. She had milked Sarah's cow and hung the buckets on the back of the wagon to slosh into buttermilk; she had packed the tent. For most of the morning, she drove the oxen while Sarah rolled out pies on the wagon seat beside her.

At the noon rest stop Lucy ate her midday meal despite an upset stomach and the onset of diarrhea. Several times during the early afternoon Mem had noticed Lucy climbing out on the tongue of the wagon, then jumping clear of the wheel, a feat they had all mastered so they could get off the wagon without stopping. Distressed, Lucy had dashed off to answer nature's urgent call.

When Lucy didn't return from her last flight, Sarah had become worried and pulled her wagon out of line, an event unusual enough that Cody Snow appeared at a gallop. When he learned that Lucy had not returned, he rode off with Miles Dawson. They found Lucy a mile behind, lying beside the trail in a pool of vomit, too weak to stand.

Now, eight hours later, Lucy Hastings was dying.

Sarah sat on a low stool beside the bed they had made for Lucy in the wagon. She touched Mem's hand and spoke in a whisper. "There's no sense both of us missing our rest. Get some sleep."