To Have and to Hold (Cactus Creek Cowboys) (14 page)

Then it was over.

Mouth open and eyes wide in shock, Naomi stared up at him. “Did you mean to do that?”

He didn’t dare tell her she couldn’t be more surprised than he, not if didn’t want her to shoot him the first time she got her hands on a gun. He couldn’t tell her he’d thought about it as an abstract event because it wasn’t true. He couldn’t be strongly attracted to a woman and not want to kiss her even though he knew his remaining time with her was less than two weeks. There was only one answer he could give.

“Yes.”

“Why?”

He equivocated. “Does a man have to have a reason to kiss a beautiful woman?”

She wiped the water from her face only to have the rain drench it again. “We’re both soaking wet, shivering with cold, and I was thrown from my horse. I can think of a hundred other reasons why you shouldn’t have kissed me, why you shouldn’t have
wanted
to, but not one good reason why you did.”

A man didn’t really need a
good
reason
to kiss an attractive woman, certainly not a good reason as a woman would see it, but that was the kind of reason Naomi expected. He hadn’t met many good women in his life, but he knew they didn’t scatter their kisses without thinking of the consequences. Since the consequences were marriage or ruin, he’d been careful to limit his attentions to women who expected nothing beyond the time that had been paid for.

His feelings for Naomi weren’t like that. Yet they weren’t the kind that would lead to marriage. They occupied a space somewhere between those two extremes, but he wasn’t sure where that space was or how to describe it in a way that would make sense.

“I wanted to kiss you. I’ve been thinking of it for a long time.”

“You haven’t known me a long time.”

“Ten days is a long time out here.”

“Do you have special clocks? Mr. Greene didn’t say anything about that. Where would I purchase one?”

He ignored her sarcasm. “Things change quickly. Life can be very short. If we wait a week or a month, the chance may never come again.”

“So now that you’ve taken your chance, what comes next?”

“I’m not going to ask you to marry me, if that’s what you’re asking. I think you’re beautiful and a remarkable young woman, but I don’t believe in love or marriage. I’ve too much proof that it doesn’t exist.”

“I’ve had quite a lot that it does, but don’t take that to mean I’m expecting you to propose. When you said you intended to find a corner of the world where no one would find you, I gathered that excluded a wife and children.”

He hoped the pain that twisted his heart into a knot didn’t show in his face. Naomi didn’t know he had a child he’d never seen. He’d done everything he could to forget it. It was the only way he could keep from storming into Santa Fe and doing something that would send him to jail or the gallows. It’s why he never let himself get within fifty miles of the place.

“I don’t do well with people,” he said.

“Everybody in the wagon train hangs on every word you say.”

“That’s not what I mean. I don’t do well with feelings.”

“So you had no feelings when you kissed me?”

That was too much. He grabbed Naomi and kissed her again, only this time he was agonizingly aware of every moment, every sensation. She would know he wasn’t without passion or feelings. It’s just that he didn’t let them become his master. He would control everything about the kiss.

Until the tension left her body, and she melted into his arms. When that happened, he was lost.

In a flash of understanding, he realized he’d never known the fiery embrace of real passion, never suspected anything as seemingly innocent as a kiss had the power to render everything he’d ever known as meaningless as dust, a puff of smoke, a tendril as weightless as a spider’s web. He felt as helpless as he must have been the day he was born. The fervor that encompassed him wrapped itself tightly around him until he felt shaken to the core.

Nothing compared to the feel of Naomi in his arms, her arms around his neck, her lips pressed against his in a kiss that drove the memory of every other embrace from his mind. None of them had packed a punch so powerful it could be life-changing. None had made him feel helpless, had wrapped him in the toils of emotion so intense he felt engulfed in flames. He barely had enough control of his mind to wonder how this was possible, to be amazed that he’d never suspected such powerful emotion could exist between a man and a woman. Even a woman as amazing as Naomi.

She had to be the reason for this mind-numbing experience. Up until now, his kisses had been shared with two kinds of women: youthfully shy Elizabeth, and women he paid for. There was nothing shy or businesslike about Naomi’s kiss. She was kissing him because she enjoyed it. She had her arms around his neck because she didn’t want to end quickly. She had pressed her body against his because that’s where she wanted to be.

It was probably the survival instinct that had saved his life on more than one occasion that warned him someone was coming though he couldn’t hear them and could barely see them through the sheets of rain.

Breaking off the kiss and pulling away from Naomi was like being denied oxygen. He felt paralyzed before his body relaxed and he gulped in a lung full of air. Naomi felt equally disoriented. She gaped at him, her expression a combination of shock, hurt, and curiosity.

“Someone’s coming.”

She regained her senses and looked around. “I don’t see anyone.”

“There,” he pointed through the curtain of rain in the direction from which they’d come. “It’s a rider leading a horse.”

The rider remained a shadowy figure until he seemed to materialize right in front of them. It was Cato Johnson and he was leading Naomi’s horse.

“I was on my way back when I saw your horse,” he said to Naomi. “I was afraid you were hurt.”

“I was unseated when a buffalo burst out of those trees and frightened my horse. Thanks for bringing him back.”

“I told you to send someone else,” Colby said to Cato.

“What kind of man would I be if I stayed behind in a wagon knowing only Naomi was out here with you?”

“A sensible one,” Naomi said. “And you’d be dry.”

“I was already wet. No sense in giving anybody else pneumonia.”

“Let me help you into the saddle,” Colby offered. The horse had calmed down enough for Naomi to mount safely.

The saddle was slick with water, but Naomi settled herself quickly, took the reins, and proceeded to give the horse a piece of her mind.

Colby and Cato exchanged smiles.

“I’m ready now,” she said. “I think he understands that if he does anything like that again, I’ll feed him to the wolves.”

“Let’s head back with this bunch,” Colby said of the mules that were still sheltering among the trees.

“That’s not all of them,” Naomi said.

“We won’t find the rest today. Before long it’ll be too dark to see.”

It took several minutes to convince the mules to leave the shelter of the trees and face into the storm, but with the three of them working, they finally got them moving. Colby was anxious to get back to camp. He wasn’t nearly so worried about getting warm and dry as he was about putting some distance between him and Naomi. Despite the rain and the mules, all he could think about was kissing her again.

***

Naomi hadn’t listened to most of her father’s stern lecture, but she heard enough to know it centered around three points: shock that she would do anything so unsuitable for a daughter of his beloved wife; disappointment that she had such a high opinion of herself that she’d ignored Colby’s directions and what she knew her father would have said if he’d been given a chance; her complete disregard for her own safety and health. She didn’t offer a defense because she knew he wouldn’t have listened. Instead, she thanked him for borrowing an additional lantern from Sibyl in hopes it would provide some needed warmth.

By the time her father finished berating her, the rain had stopped so he and Ben left so she could change into dry clothes. She wondered what Colby would do. He didn’t have any extra clothes or a wagon with two lanterns to provide heat. The more she thought about it, the more it bothered her. Finally, she opened the canvas flat and called her father. “Where is Colby?”

“He’s checking to determine which animals are missing.”

“He doesn’t have any dry clothes. Ask Norman to give him some. He brought enough for everybody.”

“I’ll ask one of the Sumners. Colby is bigger than everybody else.”

“Tell him he can change in our wagon. It’s warm inside.”

Her father peered at her through the night, attempting to read her expression. “Why are you so concerned about Colby? He strikes me as a man who can take care of himself.”

“I’m sure he can, but he doesn’t have a change of clothes. If it’s not good for me to stay chilled, it’s even worse for him to sleep in wet clothes.”

“I’ll ask,” her father said, “but I wouldn’t be surprised if he turns me down. He’s the only person I know who’s more independent minded than you.”

“What about me?” Ben had been hanging around the wagon, hoping Naomi would let him back in.

“You’re twelve,” his father said. “At your age it’s more ignorance than independent thinking.”

“I’m not ignorant,” Ben protested.

“We’re all ignorant.” His father glared at Naomi. “Some of us are just ignorant about more things than others.”

Naomi pulled back inside the wagon and closed the flap to keep the heat in. She was worried about Colby but not the way she’d led her father to believe. The first kiss had shocked her. The second had bowled her over because she’d returned it. What did he mean by those kisses? What did she
want
him to mean?

She still hadn’t figured out if she meant what she said to Opal’s mother the day the rattlesnake bit the child. She had said what she thought Pearl and Haskel needed to hear, but why had she been so confident Colby was the best one to treat the bite? Why hadn’t she insisted that her father, the only doctor in the group, was the only one qualified to deal with a snakebite? She could tell herself she’d done it because Colby was familiar with the West and probably knew many folk cures her father didn’t, but that wasn’t the entire answer. Maybe not even most of it.

The wagon was too small and too crowded to allow her space to pace off some of her agitation, and seating herself on the trunk containing her clothes didn’t help. She felt confined, inhibited, under lock and key, but she couldn’t leave the wagon.

She had been sure Colby was right about his treatment for snakebites. She had wanted him to stand out, to inspire confidence. What she didn’t understand was why she was so eager for him to show his superiority. Colby wasn’t interested in proving he could do everything better than everybody, so why was she trying to do it for him?

He irritated her at times, made her mad nearly as often, but that didn’t alter her conviction that he was the most remarkable man she’d ever met. It annoyed her that he seemed to think so little of himself. Not of what he could do, but of what he was worth as a human being. She could only suppose his parents had criticized and punished him so much that he had come to believe what they said of him.

Then there was some mystery about this woman he used to love. It wasn’t merely that he didn’t talk about her. He withdrew within himself. If he’d been smiling, it disappeared. If he’d been enjoying a conversation, it stopped. If they’d been walking together, he went off on his own. It was obvious the relationship had ended unhappily, but she would have expected a person as strong-minded as Colby to deal with his hurt, chalk it up to making a bad choice, and look for someone who was worthy of his love. Instead he’d decided to isolate himself for the rest of his life.

What about his reaction to her comment about a wife and children? The rain had made it nearly impossible to read his expression, but she was certain she saw a flash of what looked like pain. Not anger and not hurt. Pain. Had there been a child that died? That didn’t seem right because he was able to talk about visiting his parents’ graves without looking like someone was cutting his heart out.

What was keeping Colby? If he had been here, she wouldn’t be torturing herself with these questions. Had her father delivered the message? Had Colby refused the offer of clothes, or was he trying to avoid her? The kisses couldn’t have been that shocking to him. He’d initiated them. Unable to sit still, she got up. Finding nowhere to go, she sat again.

She was avoiding the real issue. What were her feelings for Colby, and what did she hope his for her would be?

She had thought she knew the answer to both questions, but the kisses had washed away all her assumptions and left her sinking in a quagmire of indecision. She liked him, but would he have been interested in her if another woman her age—no, a dozen other unattached women—had been part of the wagon train?

She was certain it was more than an idle attraction, but she didn’t know if it could develop into something permanent. Did she want it to? He was a remarkable man, but he lived by a set of values quite different from what she’d been taught. Could they find any common ground, or would he always be saying
we
do
things
different
out
here
?

A scratching at the rear flap interrupted her thoughts.

“Who is it?”

“Colby. Your father said I could change in your wagon. Can I come in?”

Colby had been reluctant to accept clothes from Haskel Sumner, but the man was so grateful for what he’d done for Opal, it would have been unkind to refuse. In any case, Morley Sumner threatened to strip him himself if he didn’t take the clothes. Colby wasn’t a small man, but he had no desire to test his strength against a man who’d been a blacksmith for more than twenty years.

Accepting Dr. Kessling’s offer to change in his wagon had been more difficult, but Morley said Colby had to be in the saddle most of the next day looking for the missing animals. He also said he had no intention of letting Colby get sick and die, leaving them to wander about the desert like the Israelites in the Bible. When he started talking about manna from heaven and being led by pillars of fire, Colby owned defeat and followed the doctor to his wagon. He had known the doctor wasn’t happy with him. It didn’t take long for him to find out why.

“I don’t blame you for Naomi’s wanting to help round up the missing livestock, but I do blame you for not making her come back.”

Colby blamed himself as well. “I would have had to drag her off the horse and bring her back by force.”

“I know she can be difficult, but she’s—”

“She’s more than difficult. She’s very intelligent and extremely capable, but she’s gotten her way for so long she expects it. I can’t make her understand this isn’t like Kentucky.”

“Then you shouldn’t have insisted she learn to ride. That gave her one more way to show her independence. How is knowing she can do everything better than half the men in the wagon train going to help her get a husband?”

“She’ll have no trouble getting plenty of offers. The question is whether she’ll accept any of them.”

The doctor favored Colby with a less than friendly look. “I want her to live long enough to get the chance.”

“So do I.” They had reached the Kessling wagon.

“Scratch on the flap,” the doctor said without warmth. “She’s expecting you.”

Colby wasn’t sure what he was expecting to see when Naomi opened the flap, but he’d been certain he’d see a change in her. He felt transformed, but she looked as she always did. Maybe a little uncomfortable in her father’s presence. He wasn’t comfortable himself. He usually didn’t allow the opinions of others to affect him, but he liked and respected the doctor. He didn’t enjoy knowing the doctor thought he’d acted irresponsibly.

“Did you get some dry clothes?” Naomi asked.

“He got some from Morley,” her father said. “Now climb down and let Colby inside. I won’t be surprised if he gets an inflammation of the lung from traipsing around in this weather.”

Colby didn’t see how the doctor could equate looking for stampeded animals with traipsing around, but the prospect of warm clothes and a bit of heat to warm him up destroyed any desire to argue. He put the clothes on the wagon seat. “Let me help you down,” he said to Naomi. She looked for a moment like she might refuse, but a glance in her father’s direction changed her mind.

“I’ve left both lanterns burning.” She held out her hand but didn’t meet his glance. “If you’re not warm enough, I’ll borrow another one.”

“Dry clothes are more than I expected. Heat is a luxury.”

When she placed her hand in his, he could feel the electricity. Whatever had overtaken them out there on the prairie was still there.

“Take as long as you need,” she said. “I’m going to check on Cassie.”

“It won’t take but a minute to change.”

“Get some warmth in your bones,” the doctor advised. “I’m going to see if Wilma Hill is still having labor pains. Don’t worry about using too much oil. Norman brought enough for a year.”

Colby wondered how Norman would feel about that, especially after he learned the two dead oxen were his.

“What are you waiting for?” Ben wanted to know. “The sooner you get done, the sooner I can get back inside where it’s warm.”

“I thought you were tough enough to stand anything.”

“I am,” Ben insisted, “but I don’t see any point in doing it until I have to.”

Colby couldn’t argue with that logic. “Why don’t you go see what Reece Hill’s boys are up to?”

“They’re too little. Bert is only nine. The others are younger.”

Not having had any brothers, Colby didn’t realize that three years would make so much difference. It hadn’t to the rowdies he’d hung around. As long as the kid could keep up, wasn’t squeamish, and didn’t back down from a dare, he was okay. “How about Cato Johnson? He’s older than you.”

“Now that he’s driving Noah’s wagon, he thinks he’s too grown-up for me.” Ben looked dejected. “Now that he’s helped you with the stampede, I bet he won’t even talk to a little kid like me.”

“You’re not a little kid.”

“I know that, but nobody else does. Now are you going to get in that wagon, or am I going to climb in and close you out?”

“I’m going in and locking you out.”

Colby could remember being twelve, but it was hard being too big to be a child yet too young to be considered an adult. He should spend some time with Ben, he decided as he climbed inside the wagon.

He knew four people occupied that wagon, but Naomi’s presence was stronger than the rest combined. He felt closer to her now than at any time except for the kisses in the rain. Was it because she’d just been there? Was it because the things that belonged to her were in the various boxes and trunks, or was it because being in the wagon was like being in her home, the most intimate space a woman could inhabit outside her bedroom?

He was letting the kisses get to him. He had to get dressed and get out of the wagon as quickly as possible.

He sat down to remove his boots and sodden socks. His feet were nearly frozen. He held them close to the lanterns, thankful for the heat. Meanwhile he unbuttoned his shirt, took it off, and removed the cotton shirt underneath. His skin was white from being exposed to cold and wet, but his body heat and the heat from the lanterns combined to evaporate the water. His head brushed against the ribs when he stood to remove his pants. It took an act of will to talk himself into removing his soaked long underwear.

Yet once he was naked, he was reluctant to put on the dry clothes immediately. Now that he had shed his wet clothes and his skin was dry, warmth suffused his body. His muscles relaxed so much he was tempted to luxuriate in being warm and dry, but he reached for the clothes Morley had lent him.

The long underwear fit okay, but the clothes were loose on him. Still, they were better than the sodden army uniform he’d been wearing for weeks. Once they reached the Rabbit Ear Mounds, he’d have to use some of the money Norman was paying him to buy clothes from the
ciboleros
if they had anything to sell besides strips of dried beef and coarse bread.

Ben’s voice interrupted Colby’s wandering thoughts. “Have you gone to sleep in there?”

“I think I might,” Colby replied. “It’s warm and dry.”

“Open that flap. I’m coming in.”

“Hold your horses. I’m coming out as soon as I get my boots on.” He hated to put his feet back into cold, wet boots, but it was the only pair he had. Once he was fully dressed, he opened the flap and tossed out his wet clothes.

“Hey, you almost hit me.”

“You shouldn’t stand so close. I told you I was coming out.”

“I wasn’t sure. You’ve been in there forever.”

Colby climbed down from the wagon and picked up his wet clothes. “Put out those lanterns. No reason to waste oil.” The end of the storm had brought in dry, unusually cold, air. “Put on an extra layer of clothes. It’ll be cold tonight.”

Ben scanned Colby from head to foot. “Those clothes don’t fit.”

“It doesn’t matter. They’re dry. I’m going to look for wood. Want to go with me?”

“Anything out there will be soaking wet.”

“It’ll dry, and we’re down to almost nothing.”

“Do I get to ride Papa’s horse?”

“Sure. You don’t think I want to walk, do you?”

“Hotdog. I was beginning to think Naomi was glued to that horse.”

Considering some of the things she’d done, it might have been better if she had. At least she wouldn’t have pitchforked them into an argument resulting in two kisses that posed a serious challenge to nearly every decision he’d made since he ran away from home.

***

“You don’t have to sit with me,” Cassie said to Naomi. “You must have other things to do.”

“Not at the moment. My father is angry with me so keeping some distance between us for a while seemed like a good idea.”

“Why is he upset with you? You never do anything wrong.”

Naomi laughed. “I don’t know who you’ve been talking to. It certainly wasn’t my family.”

“Ethan says they never would have survived after your mother’s death without you.”

If this had been anyone else, Naomi would have been certain she was teasing, but Cassie didn’t know how to tease. “He never said anything like that to me.”

“You’re his sister. He wouldn’t. He’s very proud of you for learning to ride. He’s jealous you could go with Colby while he had to stay here.”

“Well he can go tomorrow. I doubt I’ll be riding for a while yet.”

“I don’t think I want to learn to ride. It looks very uncomfortable. I’d rather stay with Little Abe.” Cassie looked down at the child asleep in her arms. “I stare at him all the time. I think it’s because he looks so much like his father I can imagine Abe is still here.”

When she looked up, Naomi saw tears swimming in her eyes. “You loved him very much, didn’t you?”

“I didn’t know how much until he was gone.” Tears ran down her cheeks, which she brushed away with the back of her hand. “Mama always said you could never know how much you valued something until you lost it. I wish I had valued Abe more. I don’t think I was a good wife to him. I’m terribly spoiled.”

Rather than let Cassie get mired in that dismal train of thought, Naomi asked, “Tell me about him.”

“What do you want to know?”

“I don’t know. Little things. How you met. What you liked about him. The little things he did to make you happy. How you felt when you first realized you were in love.”

Cassie smiled. “We met at a party. I was wearing a yellow dress I’d been after Mama to make for ages. I had bluebells in my hair and a brand new pair of slippers. He was visiting some cousins and only came to the dance because everybody else was going to be there.” She sighed. “I didn’t want to be left out so I arrived early before all the boys had picked their partners for the dances. I saw Abe when he came in.” She smiled in memory. “He was so handsome. He told me later he had to borrow clothes from his cousin because he hadn’t brought any party clothes.” She sighed again. “He didn’t dance with anyone else all night. It was so romantic, just like Mama told me it was going to be.”

Naomi’s first meeting with Colby could hardly have been more different. Still, Colby probably made an even stronger impression on her than Abe made on Cassie. Abe only danced with Cassie. Colby saved Naomi’s life.

“Abe was supposed to go home the day after the dance,” Cassie continued, “but he stayed for another week. That’s when he proposed to me.”

“He asked you to marry him after knowing you only a week?”

“He said he knew he was in love the moment he set eyes on me.”

“Did you feel the same?”

Cassie giggled. “I thought he was the most handsome man I’d ever met, but I’d already gotten three proposals. I was trying to make up my mind about them.”

Naomi hadn’t received even one offer of marriage and she was four years older than Cassie. She could tell herself that was because there were no men of an appropriate age in Spencer’s Clearing and all the men from surrounding villages were away at the war, but Cassie had managed to find four men who wanted to marry her despite the ravages of war. Why couldn’t she have found just one?

“What caused you to decide to marry Abe?”

“I fell in love with him.”

“How did you know you were in love?” Naomi asked.

Cassie shrugged. “I don’t know. I just
knew
. I thought about him all the time. When I thought about the others, I only thought of the things I didn’t like about them. They were nice men, Frank was charming and Orly’s father owned a general store, but there was always something that wouldn’t let me make up my mind.”

That didn’t help at all. She thought about Colby most of the time, too, but he wasn’t rich, he wasn’t charming, and she had a long list of reasons why she was crazy to be asking these questions.

“But you didn’t know Abe. He might have been a drunkard or a wife beater.”

Cassie hugged her baby to her bosom. “Abe looked at me like I was the only person in the room or the house or the whole village. The other girls didn’t even try to get his attention because they knew he couldn’t see anybody but me.”

That didn’t help, either. Naomi was the only woman of suitable age in the wagon train. Would Colby have paid her any attention if Sibyl and Laurie had been unmarried and Polly and Amber were older?

“He came back the next week and brought his father to see me. Later he told me he’d have married me even if his father hadn’t approved.”

Naomi knew her father had great respect for Colby, but she had no idea what he might think of Colby as a potential son-in-law. Would she marry despite her father’s disapproval? She didn’t know. How could she consider cutting herself off from her family?

“When did you know you wanted to marry Abe?”

“The day before he asked me.” Little Abe stirred. Cassie rocked him and crooned to him until he went back to sleep. “We were walking along a path that ran beside a stream through the woods. We weren’t talking about anything important, just looking for fish in the water and picking wild strawberries. All of a sudden this feeling came over me that this was what I wanted for the rest of my life. I knew he’d never say a cruel word to me. Everything was so peaceful, I was so happy, felt so safe.”

Cassie hadn’t gotten any of that, yet she still loved her husband.

“What are you going to do when you get to Santa Fe?” Naomi asked.

“I have to find a new husband.”

“I’m sure Colby would help you find a way to go back home.”