Fire on the Plains (Western Fire) (9 page)

Climbing out of the wagon, Lydia
followed him across the farmyard. “Just so you know, I fully intend to wait up for you.”

Hearing that
, Ben turned around to face her. “Careful, Mrs. Strong. You’re courting with danger.”

“Oh? Is that what you call it when a wif
e wishes to tend to her husband?”

Ben slung the towel
over his shoulder. “I don’t need to be tended to, all right?”

“
Whether you want tending or not, you are dire need of it,” she informed him, refusing to back down. “You’ve been rubbing your shoulder all night. I thought that you . . . you might want me to put some ointment on it.”

While Ben wanted his wife to touch him in the worst awful way, he didn’t know if he could end
ure having her play nursemaid.

What
does she think I’m made out of, galvanized steel?

“Listen, Lydia
. Maybe that’s not such a wise—”

“
You can deny it all you want, but I
know
that your shoulder is paining you.”

True, his shoulder ache
d like the devil. But one of his other extremities was in far greater pain.

“I shall administer the ointment when you return,”
Lydia matter-of-factly informed him.

Worn down by her
persistence, Ben wearily headed for the well on the other side of the house.

As her husband made his way across the farmyard, Lydia couldn’t help but smile. Heartened by the fact that she’d been granted a reprieve, she
intended to make the most of it, painfully aware of the fact that their unconsummated marriage was creating a wedge between them – a wedge that she feared would spell disaster if not soon reconciled. While she wasn’t enthused about the prospect of sharing her bed with a man, Ben
was
her husband. It was his legal and God-given right to have sexual congress with her. Regardless of what he might think, it had
never
been her intention to deny him of that right.

From what he’d said earlier in the day while in the heat of anger,
Lydia knew that his manly pride had been thoroughly abused on their wedding night. To such an extent that he now wanted nothing to do with her.

Not
that he didn’t physically desire her. He did. She’d seen the evidence herself. But that was merely a bodily response. In his head and, more importantly, in his heart, Ben rejected her outright.

And
that
was the battle she had to wage this night. Somehow, some way, she had to get past the stronghold of her husband’s heart.

To her mind, t
here was no reason for them not to have a congenial, affectionate relationship with one another. Of course, she could never love another man, James McCabe having been her first and
only
love. But that didn’t mean that she and Ben couldn’t have a successful marriage. They were, after all, about to embark together on an unknown venture. She would prefer that they do so as friends rather than enemies. She certainly didn’t want Ben to regret having married her.

Therefore, n
o matter what it took, she
would
make this marriage work. And if that meant bending herself to her husband’s will, then so be it.

Climbing
back into the wagon, Lydia momentarily debated whether she should undress now or wait until after the lantern was doused for the night.

Nervously telling herself that Ben had every right to see her in
a nightdress, she began to nervously unbutton her day gown. Stepping out of her dress, she hung it on a clothes hook. Hesitant to remove her undergarments with the lantern still lit, she stepped behind a barrel, quickly divesting herself of all her clothing.

Automatically r
eaching for the same nightdress that she’d hung on a wooden peg upon waking that morning, she thought better of it at the last. Instead, she opened her clothing trunk. From it, she removed a clean garment, the smell of lemon verbena filling her nostrils as she pulled the white lawn nightdress over her head.

She then hurriedly
yanked bone hair pins loose, unraveling her hair from the tight coil at the nape of her neck. Grabbing hold of her bristle brush, she pulled it through her unbound hair. Wanting to have her toilette completed before Ben returned, she greatly reduced the number of brush strokes.

No sooner had she
set down the brush than Ben climbed into the back of the wagon, his stooped posture reminding her of just how tall a man he was. Somewhat gingerly, he maneuvered his broad-shouldered physique around the stacked boxes and barrels which lined the four-foot-wide wagon box.

When he saw that she’d already changed into her nightdress,
Ben’s brow furrowed. “Are you sure that you want me to see you dressed like that?”

Lydia took a deep breath to shore her courage. “You are my husband, are you not?”

“In a manner of speaking,” Ben retorted as he pulled his cotton work shirt over his head. Given the heat of the day, he’d not bothered with an undergarment.

For one brief moment, Lydia wished
that he had, the sight of his muscled torso having an unsettling effect on her, emphasizing that he was too big, too masculine, for the cramped space. And though she knew that it was an illusion, the bed seemed to shrink with each passing second.

Sitting
on the edge of the mattress, Ben glanced over at her. “I thought you were going to put some ointment on my shoulder.”

“Yes . . . yes, I was. Thank you for reminding me,”
Lydia babbled, feeling like a flustered young girl who’d just gotten her first surreptitious glimpse at a bare-chested male.

Taking a deep breath
to steady her faltering nerves, Lydia stepped over to the wooden box where her herbs and medicinal tonics were stored.

A moment later, ointment in
hand, she returned to the bed.

In
a quandary, she suddenly realized that because of all the barrels that were jam-packed next to the bed, there was no room for her to stand beside her husband. Muttering under his breath, Ben opened his knees, affording Lydia enough room to stand between his booted legs.

“Thank you,” she murmured as she poured a li
beral amount of tonic into the palm of her hand.

Unnerved to see that her hand was shaking,
Lydia began her ministrations. After smoothing the tonic onto Ben’s skin, she began to dig her fingers into the taut muscles of his shoulder. When, a few moments later, her husband grunted, she was unsure whether it was pain or pleasure that incited the guttural response.

To Lydia’s
vexation, the next several minutes passed in complete silence.

“What are you thinking about?” she impulsively
inquired, unnerved by Ben’s grim-faced reticence.

“You don’t want to know.”

“Perhaps you should let me be the judge of that.” Too late, Lydia realized that her tone had a sharp edge to it.

Ben tilted his head, spearing her with a gray-eyed stare. “I was thinking that it’s a hell of
a thing for a married man not to know what his wife’s breasts look like.” As he spoke, Ben’s gaze brazenly slid from her face to her chest, his eyes boring into her with a heated intensity.

Not giving herself time to change her mind, Lydia took several backward steps. When she was at a safe enough distance, she began to unbutton her nightdress, her head submissively angled downward.

I must be a good wife.
I must be a good wife. I must be. . . .

Over and over, she silently repeated those
six simple words, desperately trying to draw strength from them.

Having opened enough buttons, she pulled the embroidered white fabric off her shoulders
and shoved it to her waist, exposing her upper body for her husband’s perusal. Fearful of what she might see if she peered at Ben’s face, she closed her eyes.

I’ve all but thrown myself at him.
Surely,
now
he will see fit to perform his marital duty.

L
aboring to catch his breath, Ben stared at his wife. Yes, he’d taunted her. But he never expected that it would result in this
trembling vision of womanly perfection.

Sweet Jesus.
She was a thing of beauty. Utterly, profoundly beautiful.

Her breasts were much as he’d
fantasized, smooth and full. But her nipples . . . truth be told, he’d been all wrong in conjuring them in his mind’s eye. Rather than the small pert nubs that he’d imagined, Lydia instead had large dollar-sized nipples. Rosy-hued and distended, they fairly begged a man to suck on them.

And it was taking every fiber of self-control
that Ben possessed not to do just that.

Just what the hell
is she trying to do me, anyway?

Clenching his teeth, Ben shuddered, his body seized with a yearning so potent, he damned near choked on it. What he wanted
– unrestrained, enthusiastic lovemaking – Lydia was unwilling to give him. Not that she would kick, or scream, or even resist him, for that matter.
Hell, just look at her, standing there like a sacrificial virgin.

Yes, she was his for the taking. But
Ben didn’t want Lydia if she was going lie beneath him, cold and brittle, her eyes squeezed shut as she silently counted away the minutes while he plowed her body. He figured it’d be a lot like making love to a corpse.

“Please tell me what . . . what you want?” Lydia whispered, her eyes still clamped shut, her hands
tightly balled at the side of her hips.

Maybe I
just want you to dream about me – my face, my kisses, my body – instead of some dead man. Is that so much to ask?

Ben
knew full-well that most men would be satisfied – hell, they’d be downright elated – to have a woman beneath them at night. And they wouldn’t much care what she was thinking or who she was dreaming about.

But he wasn’t most men. He was Lydia’s husband, for Christ’s sake.

It wasn’t as though he was asking her to love him. He might as well try to wrest the stars from the night sky than do that. All he was asking was that she cry
his
name in her sleep.

Shoving himself to his feet, Ben stepped toward his wife.

“All right, Mrs. Strong. I’ve seen enough,” he muttered, yanking her nightdress over her breasts.

Lydia’s eyes flew open, her hands awkwardly grabbing at the gaping fabric of her go
wn. “Aren’t you going to. . . ?” She shyly glanced at the bed, too ladylike to say the words aloud.

“
Give you a good night poke?”

Ben
derived no satisfaction from Lydia’s startled gasp. He knew that he shouldn’t have phrased it like that. But he was feeling mean and ornery. And having a painful hard-on shoving against the front of his britches didn’t improve his disposition any.

“No, I’m not going to
give you a poke.” He reached for the lantern and, with a twist of his wrist, plunged the wagon into darkness. “Now, get into that bed, woman. I’ve had about all I can take for one night.”

“Need I remind you, Mister Strong, that I
do
have a name,” Lydia snipped as she sidled past him.

Bending at the waist, Ben tugged a boot off
of his foot, carelessly dropping it onto the floor. “Yeah? Well, so do I. And it sure as hell ain’t Mister.”

After tossing
aside his other boot, Ben unbuttoned his trousers and shoved them off his hips, not bothering to hang them up.

Garbed in his long underwear, he pulled back the quilt and slid into the bed next to his wife, punching his fist into the pillow before settling his head upon it.

Closing his eyes, he tried not to think about the female body beside him, just as he tried to ignore his painfully swollen groin.

Finally, by force of sheer will alone, he somehow managed to fall asleep . . . only to enc
ounter demons of another sort.

Dark. Deadly. Unrelenting demons.

Ben is gone
!

Scrambling off the bed, Lydia
frantically perused the cramped wagon. Not only was her husband gone, but so were all of his belongings. As best she could recall, he’d stowed his saddlebags in the far corner of the wagon; yet, like his clothes, boots, and Henry rifle, they were missing.

Vanished into thin air.

Trembling, Lydia reached for her day gown and undergarments, her hands automatically going through the morning ritual of tying and buttoning. As she dressed herself, one dismal thought after another clamored for her attention
.

These days it was all too easy for a man,
particularly a disenchanted one, to head west and disappear into an anonymous, rough-n-tumble existence.

From all accounts, such a life appealed to many men
. Ben certainly wouldn’t be the first dissatisfied husband to forsake his wife in so abrupt a manner. And if he didn’t head west, there was always the possibility that he had decided to return to his native Massachusetts. Or perhaps he went to—

It’s all my
fault
. All of it.

From the very beginning, she’d misjudged her husband, having put him into a pigeonhole that ill-fit him. Mistakenly, she’d cast him as a hale New England farmer, the unflappable sort whose sole care in life revolved around the workings of a plow.

Truly, she could not have been further from the mark.

There was a passion to Ben Strong
; a passion that he constantly stove to keep under control. Yet try as he might, it was there all the same. It was there in his warrior’s temperament, his steely-eyed determination. And in the way that he looked at her as though he meant to devour her.

A man like Ben needed a big, untamed country to claim as his own. Whether he knew it or not, he needed Texas. And she’d wanted to be the one to give it to him. But now she couldn’t because . . . because she
chased him away.

Surprised to find tears
rolling down her cheeks, Lydia swiped at them with her dress sleeve, too distraught to rummage through her trunk for a handkerchief. On quivering legs, she made her way to the back of the wagon. Shoving the canvas flaps aside, she furtively scanned the area, her worst fear confirmed – her husband was indeed gone.

Tossing her unbound hair over her shoulder,
Lydia awkwardly descended the wagon, her heart beating an erratic tattoo, her breath leaving her body in serrated gasps. Completely undone, she made no attempt to curb the tears that coursed her face in a wet, unsightly profusion.

From the other side of the farmyard, Ilsa Schumacher hurried toward her with a steaming coffee pot. Seeing Lydia’s obvious distress, she raised her skirts and quickened the pace.

“Frau Strong, vat is dis matter?”

Lydia, her hand splayed over her heart, struggled to regain her composure. It was a losing battle.
“My husband, he’s . . . he’s. . . .”

“Ja, ja, he’s gone to town to buy supplies for der trip.”

Clutching at her dress bodice, relief washed over Lydia like a cleansing rain. “You’re certain that’s where he’s at?”

Ilsa nodded. “Ja. Und vere did you think he might be?”

Believe it or not, on his way to California.

Raising a hand to her lips, Lydia stifled a burst of hysterical laughter.

Oh, thank you, God. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Tactfully ignoring Lydia’s bedraggled appearance, Ilsa nodded toward the coffee pot. “You slept so late dis morning, I thought you might have need of der coffee.”

“Yes, how thoughtful of you,” Lydia gushed, still feeling the giddy effects of what could only be described as a profound sense of relief.

Turning toward the wagon, she reached for the tin mug that Ben kept hooked on the outside of the wagon bed. Although she preferred to drink from the china cups
that she’d carefully packed, she was disinclined to climb into the wagon to retrieve one of them. Besides, this was Ben’s cup, and for some inexplicable reason, she wished to drink from it.

“Where is Dixie?” Lydia politely inquired once
she was fortified with several sips of the strong brew.

“Papa take der kinder with him to the fields.” Ilsa’s round cheeks blushed with color. “Ve thought you might have need of der sleep.”

This time it was Lydia who blushed.

“Oh, yes, of course. That was, um,
very thoughtful.” But entirely unnecessary. As far as she knew, Ben didn’t so much as breathe in her direction during the whole of the night. Suddenly ill-at-ease, Lydia nodded toward the Conestoga. “If you will excuse me, Mrs. Schumacher, I need to ready the wagon for my husband’s return.”

The other woman beamed an approving smile. “Ja, ja. I can see that you are a good vife,” she enthused before turning to leave.

A good wife . . . a counterfeit claim, if ever there was
, Lydia thought dejectedly as she tossed her coffee to the ground, having suddenly lost the taste for it. Climbing into the wagon, she bit back a noisy sob. Since marrying Ben, her emotions had become utterly tumultuous. Yesterday she’d even gone so far as to slap her husband in the face. Then, only a few hours later, she’d brazenly bared her breasts. This morning, she’d succumbed to a bout of tears. What was next? Kicking? Screaming? Hurling china plates in the air?

She was a lady. And ladies did not behave in so . . . so uncouth a manner.

What must Ben think of me?

Evidently not much given the fact that he’d rejected her advances outright.
Even after she’d practically thrown herself at the man, he still refused to consummate their marriage.

Did he find
me that undesirable?

Grappling with her wayward thoughts, Lydia took her frustrations out on the bed linens, straightening and folding with an anguished zeal. Finished with that task, she threw open the lid on her trunk, snatching her bristle brush and ivory
-handled mirror. Staring at her reflection, she pinched a bit of color onto each cheek before brushing out her tangled head of hair.

Though it had been years since she’d given the matter any thought, in her youth she’d been considered something of a belle. And she knew that James had always found her attractive. Of course, being thirty
-years-old, it was entirely possible that what she’d always taken for granted had faded with age.

Absently she fingered her unbound tresses, weaving t
he strands between her fingers.

Was it the color of her hair that Ben found so objectionable? Or the size of her breasts? Perhaps it was her height? At five feet seven inches, she was unusually tall for a woman. Although given the fact that Ben towered several inches above six feet, she’d have thought her height an inconsequential matter.

And besides, there wasn’t much that she could do to alter her physical attributes.

So, what in heaven’s name was it that Ben found so repugnant? If only she knew, she could set about making a change. She wanted the marria
ge to succeed; and if it meant making a few changes, she was ready and willing to do just that.
Something
was preventing Ben from consummating their marriage. And though it was an indelicate thought, she knew that he was not physically hindered from performing his husbandly duties.

No, i
t was something else entirely.

And that
something
was an impediment that had to be rooted out and cleaved from their marriage, once and for all. It was as simple as that.

Hearing the jangle of horse harnesses, Lydia quickly braided and coiled her hair, securing the braided length to the base of her neck with a handful of bone hairpins.

Resolved to make a change for the better, she left the wagon. Espying a buckboard wagon on the dusty lane, Ben at the helm, she raised a hand and waved a greeting as she headed towards it, pleased when her husband did likewise.

“Captain Ben! Captain Ben!”

Just then, Dixie and the eight Schumacher children raced across a grassy field at full speed, their excited shrieks and yelps echoing across the farmyard. Pulling the wagon to a halt, Ben plucked his stepdaughter off of the ground, hoisting her onto the wagon seat and setting her beside him. To the child’s delight, he handed her a piece of stick candy.

“He is very good with der kinder, ja?”

Lydia turned to Ilsa who, having heard the commotion, joined her in the yard.

“Yes. Yes, he is,” Lydia replied, not about to cheat her husband of his due. As she watched Ben laughingly place eight pieces of candy into eight outstretched hands, a smile graced her lips. He
was
good with children, a revelation that pleased her immensely.

As
Lydia approached the wagon, Dixie waved her piece of candy to-and-fro.

“Mama!
Mama! Look what Captain Ben brought me.”

“Yes, I see.” Smiling indulgently, she lifted Dixie off
of the wagon seat so that she could rejoin the other children.

“Well, just don’t stand there with your mouth hanging open, Mrs. Strong. Hop on board.”

Ben held out his hand to assist Lydia as she scrambled onto the rickety buckboard. He then slapped the reins across the horses’ backsides. Without being told, she knew that he’d borrowed the conveyance from Jacob Schumacher. In the back of the wagon bed she saw that there were sacks of flour, coffee, sugar, salt, and beans nestled among stacked boxes of supplies – all the provisions they would need to make a long, arduous trip. There was even a milk cow tied to the back of the wagon.

At a loss for words,
she pleated then unpleated the fabric on her skirt. Although they’d recently shared a bed, Lydia was unaccountably nervous.

“What’s the matter? Cat got your tongue?”

“Most certainly not,” she huffed, realizing, albeit, too late, that her husband’s query had been made in good humor.

Reaching into his jacket pocket, Ben removed a peppermint stick. “Here, this might sweeten your disposition a l
ittle.”

Lydia snatched the colorful piece of candy from his hand. Pasting a smile onto her lips, she made a show of tucking it back into his pocket. “In that cas
e, perhaps you should eat it.”

To her surprise,
Ben chuckled. “No doubt about it, Lydia; you sure can roll with the punches.”

“Thank you.” Then, as an afterthought,
she said, “That was a compliment, was it not?”

“Yeah, it was a compliment.”

Several moments passed in companionably silence. As they neared the Conestoga, Lydia decided to strike while the fire was still hot. “You should have told me where you were going. I . . . I was worried.”

“
I didn’t see the sense in waking you.”

“That’s all well and good,” she said, lifting
her chin several notches as she spoke. “However, in the future, I wish to be notified of your whereabouts so that I do not needlessly worry about you. How would you feel if you suddenly awoke and I was nowhere to be found?”

Although Ben failed to answer the question, given the foolish smirk on his face, it was all too easy to guess his
thoughts on the matter.

“All right, Mrs. Strong. I get your drift. I was just in a hurry to get these supplies bought and loaded so
that we can embark for Texas.”

“I understand your impatience. I, too, am excited about
our upcoming journey.”

Ben
craned his head in her direction, his eyes narrowing as he took her measure. “Do you really mean that?”

“Yes, I do,” she replied, hoping that the Texas trek would prove a much
-needed tonic to their soured marriage.

“I’m glad to hear that. Hey, how about whipping up a batch of flapjacks before we leave? Those you made the other morning were some of the best I’ve ever
tasted.”

Lydia blushed at the compliment, wondering why Ben
had failed to mention it at the time. Probably for the same reason that many things went unsaid between them. However, with the upcoming journey, they would now have hundreds of miles to get to know one another; and it was her sincere desire that they amicably converse on a regular basis.

Pulling the buckboard to a halt, Ben
leapt to the ground and stepped around to the other side of the wagon, silently offering her a helping hand. Together, they then transferred the newly bought provisions from the back of Jacob Schumacher’s wagon to the back of their own conveyance, Lydia making a mental note of each item, the two of them consulting with one another over the best means of storage.

Finished with the chore, Ly
dia opened the wooden box that contained her cooking utensils, carefully removing a heavy skillet so that she could cook Ben his flapjacks. When she reached for her large earthenware bowl, Ben grabbed her by the wrist.

“Not yet. I, um, bought you something.”