Wagon Train Sweetheart (Journey West 2) Read online

  Mr. Bingham had had trouble driving the oxen and Nathan Reed had arrived in the wagon train as a hired driver. With no wagon of his own, she knew he’d slept in the open air most of the time. But that wasn’t an option now.

  If the disease followed the same course it had with the children, he would be incapacitated with fever and weakness for a day or more. And remembering the glimpse Emma had had of the interior of the Binghams’ wagon revealed the difficulty Ben hadn’t thought of; their wagon had been overstuffed with all the things Abby’s now-deceased mother hadn’t wanted to leave behind.

  She trailed the men carrying the still-unconscious Mr. Reed through the bustling camp. Women doused their cookfires, men harnessed oxen, children ran among the lot, all in anticipation of the call to ride out. They all worked with intent.

  Was it only Emma who felt as lacking in direction as a puff of dandelion blowing in the wind? She needed to find her purpose again. For so long, her purpose had been caring for her father. Praying, hoping, believing that one day he would recover.

  After his death, she’d been lost, drifting. Until she’d found the orphanage in the town nearest to their ranch, a small affair that had been run by one very motivated woman. And Emma had believed she’d found a new purpose.

  Until the day her brother had come into the house, waving Grayson’s letter. Ben and Rachel had been so excited about the trip, about leaving behind the difficult memories. About starting a new life.

  But Emma hadn’t been sure.

  And she’d hesitated too long to mention that she didn’t want to go West. Once plans were made, she hadn’t felt she could broach the subject, not without sounding selfish and petty.

  Her own fault. Now where was she to find a purpose? Was it possible that she could find it with a family of her own?

  Her eldest brother, Grayson, had written of the widowed local sheriff, Tristan McCullough, who had become his close friend in the Oregon Territory. Tristan had three young daughters who needed a mother. Both Grayson and Ben seemed in agreement that the man was a match for Emma.

  She wasn’t entirely convinced that this was her purpose, even if her brothers seemed to be certain. She would wait until she met the man before she decided what to do.

  Unanswered questions swirled in Emma’s head as she trailed the men carting Mr. Reed to their wagon, but the biggest remained: Where would Mr. Reed stay? Obviously, he couldn’t walk to guide the Binghams’ oxen.

  And from what she knew of Abby’s wagon, there wasn’t room for a mouse, much less a man as tall as Mr. Reed.

  Ben had made himself Mr. Reed’s caretaker when he’d stood up for the ill man. Would Ben—and Emma by association—be forced to keep Mr. Reed in the Hewitts’ wagon? If he must stay in their wagon, the precious little privacy she fought for on this dusty wilderness trail would be gone.

  When they arrived at the family campsite, Rachel and Abby were there, packing up the breakfast dishes.

  “What happened?” Abby asked, moving toward Ben, almost as if by instinct.

  “We need to clear a space in your family’s wagon,” Ben told his fiancée. “Reed fell sick—measles.”

  “Will there be room…?” Abby’s question trailed off as she moved with the men toward the Binghams’ wagon. Emma remained near the fire with Rachel.

  “Did the committee reach a verdict?”

  Emma shook her head slightly. “He collapsed. Ben demanded they hold the verdict until he is recovered.”

  Rachel watched Emma carefully. “You don’t think he is guilty?”

  Her sister saw too much. They had always been close. But Emma did have one secret—that she hadn’t wanted to come West at all.

  She shrugged, moving to pick up the breakfast skillet to take it to the family wagon. “Even if he is guilty, he deserves to be treated fairly. No man deserves to be left in the wilderness to die.”

  A shiver raced through her, just thinking about it.

  “That’s his punishment? How utterly unfair!” Rachel was a passionate person—and much more outspoken than Emma.

  She went on, spouting her thoughts as if she was defending Mr. Reed in front of the committeemen herself. “I’m just glad Ben was there to stand up for him.”

  Emma was, too. Part of her wished that she had been able to stand up against the injustice. Perhaps that should become her new purpose.

  Finding her voice. Or risk losing it forever.

  Chapter Two

  “Your presence here is quite inconvenient.”

  Emma bathed Mr. Reed’s face with a rag dipped in tepid water from the small basin she’d tucked between two crates in the cramped Conestoga wagon. She was down to the dregs of what she’d started with—most of it had splashed onto her as the wagon jostled over the rough terrain.

  She dared speak to him so rudely only because he hadn’t regained consciousness after his collapse early this morning. If he was awake, she never would’ve had the courage.

  And he probably wouldn’t have heard her, anyway.

  His continuous unconscious state worried her. Where her knuckle inadvertently brushed against his cheek, his skin burned her. His fever was high. Dangerously so.

  “Crossing the creek again,” Ben called out from outside the wagon, where he walked beside the oxen.

  Again?

  Emma braced one hand against the sideboard. The wagon lurched and she slid forward, then another unexpected drop sent her sprawling, her arm resting across Mr. Reed’s massive chest and her chin on his shoulder.

  “Sorry,” she muttered, even though he couldn’t hear her. She quickly pushed herself upright and away from the man.

  After endless days of walking—sometimes as much as twenty miles—Emma had never thought she’d want to hike again. Until this very moment. When would they stop for luncheon?

  There was no space. The Hewitts’ wagon hadn’t been overfilled as Abby’s family wagon had, but their provisions were many and there wasn’t room for two grown people back here.

  She was alternately worried for Mr. Reed’s health, and embarrassed about their shared close confines.

  More so because she knew Mr. Reed didn’t like her. She had no idea why, or what she’d done to offend him. But it had been very clear from their few interactions at the evening meal that he had no wish to be friends. The Hewitts shared a campfire with the Binghams and Littletons to conserve fuel. As Mr. Reed drove the Binghams’ wagon, he ate supper with their group. Several times when Emma had offered Mr. Reed a supper plate and attempted polite conversation, he’d avoided her gaze completely and nearly ripped the tin plate from her hands before disappearing into the shadows. As if being in her presence irritated him.

  After the third time, she’d quit trying to be kind and merely served his plate in silence. Unlike the times when papa’s illness had made him difficult, she didn’t have to accept the rudeness from a stranger.

  He moaned, a low sound of pain that tugged something in the vicinity of Emma’s gut. He was alone, with no one to care for him.

  Her innate compassion dictated that she do for him what no one else would. She hoped someone would do the same for her should she need it.

  “I know you don’t like me very much,” she whispered, dabbing the cloth over his forehead again. “But it would be lovely if you would wake up.”

  But Mr. Reed made no response.

  The caravan slowed and stopped for the noon meal and Emma was relieved to escape the wagon for a few moments.

  Ben allowed the oxen out of their traces and led them off to graze for a bit. Rachel and Abby had their heads together, probably planning supper or trading news from elsewhere in the wagon train.

  And Emma was left standing in the shade of the wagon. She arched her back, hands at her hips, attempting to shake the aches that being hunched over and jostled all mo
rning had given her.

  The landscape had changed subtly in the past days to bare, sandy plains. There was little vegetation, only the occasional wild sage. Ben had told her earlier they should come upon the Wind River Mountains by the end of the day.

  “How does your patient fare?”

  Emma looked over her shoulder at the familiar, friendly voice calling out. Clara Pressman. Disguised as a man. “Clarence” Pressman was only a ruse to hide the truth.

  Emma had discovered the masquerade after they’d left Independence, Kansas. Clarence had gotten a nasty cut on his back and Emma had been called to aid him. While cleaning the wound, Emma had discovered his secret. Clarence was Clara.

  And Clara was pregnant. Very much alone, after her husband had died, with no family in the East and no home to return to—her husband had sold everything to make the journey West—she’d decided to go on alone and meet up with her sister who already lived in Oregon. She’d felt it necessary to hide her true identity, fearing the organizers wouldn’t allow her to make the trip if they knew she was a pregnant woman on her own.

  She’d probably been right. Emma didn’t necessarily agree with the ruse, but Clara had held up remarkably well on the journey so far.

  Nearby, Clara was unhitching a yoke of oxen along with Mr. Morrison. Emma waved at her friend and called out a greeting to both.

  Clara nodded, but the second man turned red and then turned his face away, not acknowledging Emma at all.

  Emma’s stomach pinched. Had her shout been too forward? She didn’t know how to relate to men properly. When other girls her age had been attending socials and picnics and learning to flirt, Emma had been at her father’s bedside.

  Maybe her naivety and inexperience with the opposite sex was also the reason she didn’t understand why Mr. Reed had snubbed her those several times.

  What would Tristan McCullough think of her?

  She hadn’t allowed herself to hope that the sheriff Grayson spoke so highly of in his letters would like her once they’d met.

  What if Mr. McCullough found her natural shyness irritating?

  Perhaps he wouldn’t even be interested in her once they met. Her cautious nature caused her to hesitate more than hope. She would wait and see how things turned out.

  A soft whine drew Emma’s attention to the long grass beneath the wagon, where a small brown dog crouched, panting. Watching her, almost asking a question with its eyes.

  “Hello, you,” she said, squatting. This was Mr. Reed’s dog. She’d seen the brown-and-black mottled mutt from a distance, witnessed the man sharing snatches of his supper with it, but had forgotten about the animal in the rushed moments of finding a place for Mr. Reed before the bugle had urged the travelers to move out.

  “Have you been following us all day?” She reached out and was astonished when the creature let her scratch beneath its chin. “Yes, your master is inside that wagon.”

  Pitiful begging eyes reminded her of the family cat, Buttons, that had been her childhood friend. “Hungry, are you?”

  She knew the animal couldn’t really understand what she was saying, but the dog’s tail whupped against the grasses as if it did.

  “I’ll share some beans with you, but only if you promise not to tell your master.”

  She was so tired of the trail fare. Cold beans and bacon for dinner. Every single day. Unless one counted the times they had fresh buffalo meat to break up the monotony.

  She wanted a real stove, not a camp stove and a fire. Real walls.

  “Unfortunately, we’ve got a ways to go,” she told the dog.

  “What’re you doing?”

  Emma jumped at the sound of the unexpected voice and thumped her head on a bucket hanging from the side of the wagon. She backed out from where she’d been crouching, rubbing the top of her head and grimacing at Clara.

  “If you must know, I was making a new friend,” she groused.

  Clara glanced behind her to where the dog still sat beneath the wagon’s bed.

  “I need one today,” Emma finished.

  Now Clara turned a raised eyebrow on her. “It’s going that well with your patient, then?”

  “Oh, Mr. Reed has been perfectly amiable, entertaining me with his lovely conversation and sweet nature.”

  “Ah.” Clara’s lips twitched. “So he hasn’t woken up?”

  Emma’s friend kept the straight face for several moments before a smile broke through. Emma couldn’t help sharing a chuckle with her. Between her father and two brothers, she well knew that men could be irritable when they were ill.

  “And how are you this morning, friend?”

  Just then, Amos and Grant Sinclair, brothers traveling the trail together, passed by.

  Clara stiffened and waited until the men had passed out of hearing distance. “Fine.”

  Up close, Clarence’s secret was no secret at all—although her womanly figure was covered with men’s clothing, Emma could see straight through the ruse. She didn’t understand how everyone else saw only a man.

  Clara unobtrusively put her hand at her lower back. She nodded at the horizon, and Emma followed with her gaze. “Storm’s coming.”

  Clouds built on the western horizon, directly in their path. Even as Emma watched, the slate-gray mass twisted on itself, forming a thunderhead.

  And Emma had hated storms since she’d been caught out in one as a small child.

  * * *

  The ominous clouds had delivered on their promise. The caravan had been forced to end its day early because of driving rain.

  Now in the twilight dimness, Emma was secluded with the still-unconscious Mr. Reed, with no end in sight of the intense storm.

  Ben and Rachel were hunkered down in the family’s tent, probably soaking wet instead of the mere damp that Emma suffered.

  Rain pelted the wagon bonnet, rattling the canvas until Emma felt as if her teeth rattled with it.

  “I don’t suppose you’d like to wake up now,” she said to the comatose man. She worked in the dark, still attempting to cool his fever. She’d lit a candle twice but wind had gusted in through the flaps and blown out the light—and once knocked over the candle. She was too afraid of catching their wagon afire and losing all their goods to try again.

  Late in the afternoon, when they’d still had light, she’d watched the measles rash climb Mr. Reed’s chest and neck. She imagined it had crept into his cheeks by now, but his heavy, dark beard obscured her view.

  His continued unconsciousness worried her. None of the children had experienced a prolonged period like this. She guessed that measles could affect adults differently than children and that his body was likely attempting to fight off the burning fever.

  “Not that I object to nursing you in particular,” she went on. “It’s just…I had hoped to leave behind the need to use my nursing skills.”

  She’d been so beaten down by her time at her father’s bedside. The hours spent caring for him, praying for his recovery—only to be bitterly disappointed when he had died.

  She’d hoped to, planned to, help the children at the orphanage with her other skills. Sewing clothing. Cooking. Loving on the children. But it was not to be, not when her family had decided to pull up their roots and travel West. And now she was here with Mr. Reed.

  Static electricity crawled along her skin, making the fine hairs on her arms stand upright and raising gooseflesh in its wake.

  Bright lightning flashed, momentarily filling the interior of the wagon with brilliant white illumination. Thunder crashed so loudly that Emma instinctively raised her hands to press against her ears. The earth trembled, the entire wagon shaking with it.

  When the thunder receded, Emma’s eyesight retained large glowing spots, an aftereffect of the bright light that rendered her momentarily blind.
/>   She reached out and clutched the first thing she found, attempting to ground herself in her state of disorientation.

  The nearest thing turned out to be Mr. Reed’s shoulder.

  A muscle twitched beneath her palm, but he remained still and silence reigned inside the wagon, only the cadence of rain drumming all around them.

  Emma squeezed her eyes tightly closed, bent over and breathed through the fear, inhaling the scent of stale sweat and man. Not for the first time was she made aware that she was nursing a man and not one of the children. The firm muscle beneath her fingers also made it impossible to ignore that this was not her father in his frail condition those last months.

  Mr. Reed was a fine specimen of a man. Fit, tall, broad-shouldered. A bit unkempt for her tastes but everything else that usually made her tongue-tied.

  Except he was unconscious.

  “That was a close one,” she breathed.

  An echo of thunder rumbled from far away. Just how large was this storm? How long could it last?

  Her nervousness and fear made her ramble on, though she attempted to keep her thoughts on the past and not the storm. “My father lost everything in the Panic. His spirit was broken and he was never the same after that. He got sick.”

  Emma allowed her hand to move until her fingertips brushed Mr. Reed’s temple. Still hot.

  In the dark, she fumbled for the rag and bowl of cool water. She dabbed at his forehead, feeling that her efforts were in vain. What if Mr. Reed died? The man wasn’t even her acquaintance, yet she felt responsible for him.

  “It wasn’t that I resented being the one to care for Papa,” she murmured. “But it was…difficult. Being closest to him when his spirits suffered. He battled despondency and often there was no comfort I could bring him…”

  She was surprised when a sniffle overtook her. She’d thought she had mourned her father completely, but perhaps this trip was calling for more from her.

  “Dealing with his bodily functions…”

  She paused. “Perhaps I did resent my siblings a bit,” she admitted. “For not asking if I needed their assistance.”