Wagon Train Sweetheart (Journey West 2) Page 9

  And he took a step forward.

  Chapter Eight

  Emma and Rachel had used the rare afternoon in camp to catch up on the chores that seemed to snowball as they traveled. All of the linens and their clothing had been washed down at the river.

  They’d reorganized few crates that comprised the mobile pantry, such as it was. They would reach Fort Bridger in several days. Although they’d heard that the fort would overinflate prices for the goods the travelers would require, if they needed supplies then they must buy them.

  She was mending a pair of Ben’s trousers, with several more items of clothing in a basket at her feet. They’d noticed the tears and worn patches during the wash.

  Smoke from the caravan’s campfires filled the cooler evening air. Rachel and Abby chatted about the supper preparations, leaving Emma to her mending, when a horde of children descended on them.

  She recognized most of them from helping their mothers treat them during the measles epidemic that had hit their caravan.

  “Miss Emma!” Four-year-old Prudence ran up to her, raising grubby hands as if she wanted to be lifted into Emma’s lap.

  With a laugh, Emma carefully poked her needle into the fabric and set aside the trousers to oblige the little girl.

  As she straightened with Prudence on her lap, she became aware of a presence behind the family wagon. Nathan.

  She could see his right shoulder and one boot, and when their gazes connected, she waved him forward. He belonged at the campsite with the group.

  Something crossed his face, an expression she couldn’t decipher, but he stepped toward her, first with one hesitant movement and then another.

  When he crossed from outside the circle of wagons toward her, she got a good look at him and her mouth dried out.

  “You shaved,” she said. She’d meant the words to be quiet, but the children had gone silent, all of them staring at Nathan.

  “Hmm,” Rachel hummed at her elbow, but Emma scarcely heard her.

  She couldn’t tear her eyes away from the handsome angle of Nathan’s jaw, the full lower lip that begged to be seen in a smile.

  Color crept into his cheeks and it crossed her mind that she was staring, but she couldn’t seem to tear her gaze away. He was completely changed by just a shave. His hair still hung long at his collar, but shone in the firelight as if freshly washed. The strong planes of his face had been hidden beneath the bushy, unkempt beard.

  “That’s the mean man,” one of the children whispered, breaking through her focus, breaking her gaze.

  She looked across the group of frozen faces, some painted with uncertainty, some with fear written on the small expressions.

  And a glance back at Nathan revealed him at a standstill just beside their wagon, an expression of helplessness on his face.

  Emma didn’t want him to rush away into the darkness.

  “Did you know,” Emma said conversationally, “that Mr. Nathan was sick with the measles, just like you, Prudence.” Emma looked down on the little girl, who looked back up in avid interest.

  Several of the children’s faces turned toward Emma.

  Rachel seemed to catch on and added, “Miss Emma nursed him just like she nursed you, Josh.”

  The boy in question, all of eight, wrinkled his nose in skepticism. “That true?”

  Nathan nodded gravely. “Miss Emma is a good nurse.”

  She was surprised he’d entered into the conversation, when he’d been so taciturn on many occasions. Hope rose within her, filling her throat with emotion.

  “Miss Emma gave me willow bark tea—”

  “She made me take some awful medicine!” another little voice called out.

  “She put a stinky poultice on my chest,” a third put in.

  While some of the children had been quick to converse, others watched warily.

  Nathan nodded, his expression a little astonished as he attempted to follow the conversation. Was he surprised to find such easy acceptance among children?

  Jeremiah, little Prudence’s older brother, evidently became bored with the attempts to outdo each other because he came to stand at Emma’s elbow. “We came to hear you read some more. We gotta find out what happens with the wicked stepmother.”

  Nathan raised one fine black brow.

  “It was hard keeping the children confined to bed, so I made a habit of reading to them,” she explained to him. “But I’m afraid I’ve got to finish mending these clothes,” she told the children.

  “And it’s almost time to start supper preparations,” Rachel added.

  “Aww!” a chorus of disappointed voices rang out. She loved the noise. And she missed her little band of orphans from home. Missed them desperately.

  Nathan caught her eye. Maybe she imagined the compassionate gleam in his dark eyes.

  “But perhaps we could convince Mr. Nathan to continue our reading,” Emma suggested.

  Several cheers erupted as an expression of pure panic crossed his face, such that Emma couldn’t contain a soft laugh.

  She let Prudence slip out of her lap and stood. He had opened his mouth as if he would protest.

  She took his elbow and turned him toward the wagon. The strength of his arm beneath her fingertips sent a thrill down her spine.

  Around the side of the wagon it was quieter, the children’s noise slightly muted, though she was aware of their presence.

  “They’ll be distraught if you refuse,” she said. Somehow she knew that telling him the children would like him more if he read to them would not move him.

  He looked down on her, his handsome face new with no beard to hide behind. His frown and drawn eyebrows expressed his consternation. “I should be taking care of the livestock or helping your brother.”

  “Ben checked on the oxen earlier. He told Abby he would be by momentarily to take a walk. The chores are finished.”

  He looked as if he would protest again.

  “There is no shame in using this time to rest. Ben told us you would drive the Binghams’ wagon tomorrow. You should save your strength.”

  That statement did not ease him. His frown deepened.

  “It would be a help to me if I could finish the mending,” she said. Perhaps it wasn’t kind of her to manipulate him into it, but understanding glinted in his eyes.

  And then an amazing thing happened. His lips stretched into the tiniest of smiles.

  Responding joy thrilled through her. She used the crate to see into the back of the wagon and reached for the book that she’d been reading to the children. It had been jammed into a cranny as she and Rachel had reorganized earlier, and she couldn’t quite get it—

  It came loose at all once, and she lost her balance, wobbling precariously.

  Nathan steadied her with a warm hand at her waist. Her free hand came to rest naturally on his shoulder, slightly lower with the additional height the crate gave her.

  He was so close that her skirts brushed against his trousers. That if she swayed forward slightly, they would be in an embrace.

  “All right?” he asked in the silence, breaking the moment of connection.

  She pushed the book into his hands, trembling slightly from the intensity of the previous moment.

  But she smiled tremulously up at him just before they rejoined the others. “I’m glad you’ve decided to join us,” she whispered.

  * * *

  By midmorning the next day, Nathan was having difficulty breathing.

  Maybe more than that.

  Each breath seared him like a hot knife.

  Emma had warned him he might not be ready to drive the Binghams’ oxen. She was probably right.

  He took another breath that sawed through him. His legs felt like molasses as he trudged beside the oxen.

&n
bsp; She was definitely right.

  He suppressed the cough, not wanting to spook the animals and endanger the other wagons, knowing that if he started coughing, he likely wouldn’t stop.

  He couldn’t afford another day riding in a wagon, couldn’t afford to show weakness, not when Stillwell was still sniffing around, searching for any evidence that Nathan wasn’t acting appropriately. Ernie Jones’s accusation that Nathan was being lazy still rankled.

  And there was a small part of him that desperately wanted to prove Emma wrong. She had seen him at his weakest. Watched him fight for his life.

  Fought for him, in the form of cooling his fever, putting water to his lips…

  He wanted her to see him strong.

  But he didn’t feel strong.

  The breeze coming off the distant, craggy peaks was enough to relieve the worst of the heat spreading through his chest.

  They’d only just gotten started and the day looked to be a long, difficult one.

  His booted feet dragged through the long, moist grasses and a cough hovered just beneath his breastbone, waiting for him to take the next deep breath…

  “Hello, Mr. Nathan!”

  The high voice filled with childish delight startled him out of his concentration. Nathan began to cough.

  The placid oxen didn’t bolt, which was a pleasant surprise, but he’d been right about being unable to stop coughing once he’d started.

  He staggered, still on his feet, but the oxen quickly outpaced him and wandered to the right as his cough racked his body.

  “Gee!” The young voice gave the command to move forward and the oxen obliged at the same moment a slender arm snaked through the crook of his elbow, steadying him.

  Emma, and her young blond friend, a boy named Georgie. She must be checking on him.

  The small burst of pleasure was swallowed up by bitterness that she was seeing his weakness once again.

  He wanted to tell her he was fine, but he couldn’t draw breath. Stars swam before his eyes as he hunched over, his body attempting to expel whatever liquid threatened his lungs.

  And Emma’s steady presence remained.

  He finally straightened with a last shudder, his face hot from his body’s efforts and not a little embarrassment.

  He’d fallen several paces behind the oxen, but the eight-year-old boy had kept them in line. Nathan lengthened his strides to catch up to where he should have been, boots rustling in the tall grasses.

  Would Emma point out his weakness, attempt to cajole him into getting back in the wagon? He couldn’t bear it if she did.

  But she stayed silent as he hurried back to the oxen.

  “Didja see me helping with the oxen, Miss Emma?” the boy asked, his face bright and innocent.

  Nathan had noticed the boy last night, reading by the fire. He’d remained at Emma’s elbow throughout most of the evening and been one of the last to return to his family’s wagon. The boy’s reluctance to leave had been noticeable, but Nathan didn’t know if it was the story that drew him, or Emma’s attention.

  Emma hadn’t answered Georgie yet when another child, a little girl, scampered up, calling out, “Miss Emma!”

  He reacted instinctively, moving away from Emma’s hold and putting himself between the small girl and the oxen’s dangerous hooves.

  “Don’t startle the oxen,” he warned.

  The child looked up at him with wide eyes and then her lower lip began to tremble.

  Nathan glanced away, ostensibly to watch the oxen but not before he saw Emma’s gentle hand come to rest on the girl’s shoulder.

  He hadn’t meant to bark at the girl, but what if she’d run beneath the oxen’s feet?

  “Stay away from the oxen,” he said gruffly, but what he really meant was stay away from me. Even as he should’ve been kind in the face of Emma’s attempt to help him.

  But Emma didn’t seem to be bothered by the lack of a thank-you or his gruff manner. She only spoke softly to the girl about the dangers of being trampled.

  The two females lagged behind slightly as Emma and the little girl made a game of looking for buffalo chips among the grass. Not far enough for Nathan’s awareness of Emma to dissipate.

  The boy remained in Nathan’s periphery, casting curious glances in his direction, but Nathan returned his focus to suppressing the next cough that he felt building in his throat.

  And then a group of five other children descended on them, siblings from their white-blond hair and the matching pattern of the three girls’ dresses. They were stair steps, each several inches shorter than the other, close in age.

  The girls flocked to Emma and her first little friend, while two boys of eleven or twelve approached Georgie. And they didn’t look particularly friendly, as one of them shoved the smaller boy’s shoulder.

  Georgie didn’t say anything, only kept walking, but color rose in his cheeks.

  Nathan pretended not to notice. His job was driving the oxen. Nothing else.

  But even as he kept his focus on the animals, he could hear one of the boys mutter, “What’re you doing, cousin?”

  They had the look of bullies, both of them larger than the younger boy, with a hard, angry light in their eyes.

  He easily recognized it, as he’d lived with a bully for a pa his entire childhood.

  He tensed, even as he told himself to ignore whatever altercation was coming.

  “Nothing,” Georgie mumbled. “Just walking. Always walking.”

  Nathan heard the slightly mocking tone in the boy’s voice and no doubt his older cousins did, as well.

  “With him?” the second cousin asked. “Ain’t you heard he’s a bad egg? Everybody’s talking ’bout him ’n’ how he’s tricked the Hewitts ’n’ Binghams into liking him.”

  The words eviscerated Nathan, but he kept his expression neutral and blank, staring at the wagon out in front of him, eyes focused over the lead oxen’s ears.

  “Miss Emma is smart,” Georgie argued. “She ain’t gonna get the wool pulled over her by some confidence man.”

  Nathan remembered telling her about thieving and poaching—and she still trusted him, or so she said.

  “If she’s so smart, why’s she letting you hang around?”

  The words were delivered with another shove, this one that sent the boy sprawling in the dust.

  He jackknifed up spitting and red-faced, spoiling for a fight, but somehow Nathan had gotten between the bigger boys and Georgie. How had he come to walk away from the oxen?

  “Leave off,” he said, the words just popping out of his mouth.

  What was happening to him? Somehow Emma and her ideals were spouting from his mouth.

  Georgie pushed to his feet, slightly behind Nathan, and Nathan instinctively knew the boy was going to go after them and possibly get himself in a fight he couldn’t win, not being smaller and against two boys. Nathan held out a hand to stop him.

  But the two older boys were already running off, hooting and hollering.

  Nathan looked down on Georgie, with his mussed hair, dirt-smudged face and tears standing in his eyes, and something pulsed painfully beneath his breastbone.

  He reached out, not knowing if he meant to pat the boy’s shoulder or what, but the boy shied away just as Emma overtook them, panting and with her skirts above her ankles as she ran.

  “Georgie, what happened?”

  “Nothin’.” The boy shot an almost-belligerent look at Nathan before stomping off to the giggles of the girls, who Nathan had to assume were also his cousins.

  Nathan stared after his retreating back for a long moment before he returned to the oxen, thankful they hadn’t wandered as he’d walked off for several tense moments.

  He was unprepared for Emma to join him.

  He�
��d thought she would stay with the children but when he looked back, they had all disappeared.

  “It looked like Georgie was pushed. Did you see what happened?” she asked.

  He should’ve known better than to think she would leave it be.

  If she’d put up a fuss about him being mistreated, how much more would she fight for a child? Something settled in him with the knowledge that Emma could probably do much more for the kid than he ever could.

  He shrugged.

  She waited.

  He expected she might walk off, but she just sighed softly and kept pace beside him. “It was good you stepped in.”

  He snorted. He couldn’t help it. “Maybe. Or maybe they’ll just pound him later since they lost their chance now.”

  Her brow wrinkled and his stomach curdled.

  He didn’t meant to be harsh, didn’t mean to put that little wrinkle above her nose, but it was the reality the kid lived with, probably every day.

  “Perhaps I should speak to Georgie’s aunt and uncle,” she said, voice soft and eyes far-off.

  “He doesn’t have parents?” He shook his head even as the unintended words slipped out. It wasn’t his business.

  But Emma’s expression softened as she considered him. “They are deceased. His aunt and uncle have charge of him.”

  “And five children of their own?”

  “And five children of their own,” she confirmed.

  He swallowed back suspicions that Georgie was being bullied by his older cousins. It was likely that this wasn’t the first time the two had ganged up on their younger cousin.

  He had no right to get involved. Their words, aimed at both Nathan and Georgie, had held a note of authority. Likely they’d heard their parents speaking ill of Nathan. How could he help the boy?

  And the glittering, angry gaze he’d received from the boy before Georgie had run off had told him plain enough that his help wasn’t welcome.

  * * *

  “You’re coddling Reed.”

  Emma’s head came up at her brother’s soft-spoken reprimand.

  The caravan was preparing for the bugler to sound his call for moving out after the noon meal, most families packed and oxen hitched. They’d circled the wagons loosely on the flat, sandy banks of the river. Even now the gurgle and rush of its water lulled them in the bright noontime sunshine.