Echoes (17 page)

"Sit down," Adam offered, gesturing to the step beside him.

The last thing she wanted was to plop down in her underclothes beside Adam Weston. However, the alternative was to be rude and after her horrific outburst on her first night, she'd been extremely careful to mind her manners.

"What are you making?" she asked, perching awkwardly on the step beside him.

He held up the small chunk of wood for her to see. Although a work in progress, he'd managed to capture the fey essence of a spirited horse in the knots and grain of wood.

"Arlie will be delighted."

"Thought I'd make him a herd."

"Tonight?"

He grinned at that, and she found herself smiling back. Overhead the budding branches of an oak rustled as a fierce gust of wind whipped through them. The cold blustered up the porch and under her shift with a vicious bite that made her shiver violently.

"You're cold," he said, shrugging out of his jacket. He slung it over her shoulders before she could protest, not that she wanted to once the warmth settled on her. Gratefully, she slipped her arms in the long sleeves and pulled her knees up to wrap inside with the lingering heat of his body. She turned her face into the collar and breathed in the warmth and spice, piney winter winds and fresh spring breezes that mingled with a scent that was Adam's own.

"Better?" he asked.

"Yes, thank you, but won't you be cold?" The corner of his mouth twitched up and he shook his head. She raised her brows. "You are impervious to cold?"

"Just wound so tight I feel like my blood's on fire."

"Excitement for the journey to begin."

The sound he made was not quite mirth, not quite misery. "Begin, end. I'm sitting out here wondering what kind of fool I am for even thinking about hauling my family across the country."

His confession surprised her. Adam struck her as the epitome of self-assurance. Through all the planning and preparations, he'd never expressed a word of doubt.

"Why are you then?" she asked

"Gold," he said.

"I don't believe you."

"Why not? Half the men in this country are counting themselves rich before they even get there."

Adam Weston was not half of the men in the country. That much she did not need to be told. "You'd go alone if gold was your only goal."

He grinned. "You're pretty smart, for a city girl."

Flushing
, she ducked her chin and tried to pretend that his teasing praise hadn't pleased her.

"See this land?" he asked, gesturing with a wide sweep of his arm. "All of it, as far as you can see, that used to be Weston land. My grandfather bought it, worked it and when he died, he left it to my father."

"Why do you not work it now?"

"Doesn't belong to us anymore. My father sold it or lost it, piece by piece. All that's left is where the house sits." He stared past her, seeing something more than the endless vista. "Sometimes things don't work out the way you plan."

"Is that what is keeping you awake, Adam?"

She felt the intensity of his gaze on her even before she looked up to meet it. His eyes gleamed like pewter, light as air trapped between the long sooty lashes.

"Everything I hold dear is going with me in that wagon," he said simply. "I'd be a bigger fool than my father was if I didn't lose some sleep over it."

She huddled deeper into his coat, trying to picture Adam's imprudent father. It was difficult matching such a character to the Westons she knew.

"Why did he choose to sell the property? Was farming not prosperous for him?"

Adam gave a humorless laugh. "It's hard to plow a field when you're living in a whiskey bottle. Between the drink and the gambling, he lost everything that wasn't nailed down. The house would have gone too, if he hadn't died first."

He grew silent and Molly searched for something appropriate to say. An expression of sympathy for the loss of his father seemed no more fitting than an exclamation of good riddance.

"Land, that's why I'm going. I want so much land that you won't be able to see the end of it. I want my son to know how that feels, to own something that you can work and build."

"It's important," she said, or asked, she wasn't sure which.

"Yeah. It's important. You know when we get to
California, we'll be settling land that's never known a plow? Never had a shoe print? Maybe never even been
seen
by anyone but the Indians."

"What about all the other eager emigrants? Where will they be in this untended land?"

"In the hills, blasting for gold. Far away, I hope."

"You don't like other people?"

"Some. Some I like a good deal."

Her face grew hot again under his steady scrutiny. Refusing the urge to squirm, she stared into eyes so silvered that they became twin mirrors, reflecting her pale, uncertain shape. The burnt glow of moonlight turned his face white and ghostly and gilded the dark browns and deep golds in his hair.

"Land," he said softly. "But I wouldn't turn down a nugget or two of gold either."

"No, indeed."

"How about you, Molly? What are you hoping to find?"

"Gold," she said.

He chuckled, pulling his carving closer to work a detail with the tip of his blade. His knife made a soft, raspy sound as it stroked away fine curls. A silky cloud of sawdust drifted to the porch step between his feet and settled.

Molly watched as he worked the knife over the emerging horse. His hands were big and wide, yet his long fingers moved with the grace of an artist as he carved out the minute details of mane and tail, the wildness in its eyes and the prance of its hooves. She relaxed a bit, listening to the sounds of the night and enjoying the tentative, yet peaceful companionship.

"When you first came," Adam said, glancing at her and then quickly away. His voice rang deep and serious and the night beyond seemed to add resonance to its timbre. "I wasn't too happy about it."

The mammoth understatement made her want to guffaw, but for once common sense subdued the urge. Instead she said, "I understood your reluctance to welcome me."

"I'm sorry if I was rude."

"No, it was I who was rude. Unforgivably so."

"Yeah, well. Things were rough."

He looked up then, surprising her in the act of burying her nose in his coat and inhaling his scent like a perfume. She felt as if he'd caught her stripping down for a bath or fumbling with drawstrings in the privy. A warm flush spread from the top of her head down.

"Yes," she mumbled. "Things were very rough."

"I thought you were going to be trouble. I figured you came to stir things up and cause as much havoc as you could. But I figured you wouldn't last long enough to do too much damage. I gave you a week, two at the most before you'd be ready to go home."

"Why?"

Now
he
appeared taken aback. He brushed the sawdust off his leg, looking everywhere but at her. She shifted so she could see him better. What he didn't say was there in the tightness around his mouth and the narrowness of his eyes. He was looking backwards, into the past, and he didn't like what he saw.

They had not spoken of her sister since the night Molly arrived, but Vanessa had been there at every meal, every dawn and every dusk. She hovered like a ghostly entity that had not found its way to the world beyond.

Staring at the tips of her fingers poking from the sleeves of Adam's coat, Molly said softly, "When she was alive, I was so very jealous of her. It was awful of me and I knew it was sinful, but I felt it all the same. She was like a bright light. Beside her, everything else was drab and colorless."

He nodded, not needing to ask of whom she spoke. Molly was swamped by a fresh and unexpected wave of envy followed immediately by a wash of loss. Even from the grave, Vanessa would shine.

"Sometimes a bright light will blind a man," he said softly. "Make him forget what's right."

"Vanessa was everything I longed to be. Her daring, her
courage
… She was the only person I have ever seen defy the Reverend." Pausing, she searched carefully for her next words. "When I…when I accused you, Adam, of compromising her…. I...I…" She took a deep breath and exhaled. Silently he waited, not a flicker of emotion showing on the shadowed planes of his face. "I know that it was not so. Vanessa was not a woman
to
be compromised. She made the rules that would govern her and then she broke them. It was her way."

His jaw tightened and his face became a mask of bitterness.

"I've offended you," she whispered. "I am sorry, I meant it as an apol—"

"No." He shook his head. "No, I'm not offended. Apology accepted. I guess we both made some errors in judgment. It's over and done with."

She swallowed, drawing herself deeper still into the shelter of his coat. "There's more…"

His hands tightened on the carving and knife and the cynical lines deepened. She exhaled, forcing herself to continue. "I did get your second letter, Adam."

Whatever he had expected her to say, apparently it had been far removed from the words she actually spoke. In an almost comical sequence, his mouth dropped open and his brows drew together in confusion.

"The one that told me not to come. I intercepted it before the Reverend could see it and then I destroyed it. I knew you did not want me here, and I came anyway."

He let out a harsh breath and laughed. "Well, I'll be damned," he said.

"You have every right to be angry. What I did was wrong and I have no excuse for it. If you want me to stay behind tomorrow, I will not cause a scene." She looked at him, raising her chin. "But I will not go back to
New York."

Adam leaned forward, placing his elbows on his knees and rubbed his face with his hands. "You took a big risk," he said at last.

"I take one now."

"I guess you had your reasons for doing what you did," he said. "One way or another, we all have our reasons."

She waited for his next words, sickened by the mixed up feelings inside her. Shame, for lying but not for coming. Fear, that he would now cast her out. Sadness, for the tentative connection both begun and ended on the porch step this night.

"We should turn in," he said at last. "Dawn's not too far away and tomorrow's going to be a long day."

"Is it?" she asked.

He stood and turned to look down where she sat dwarfed by his big coat, like a child playing dress up in her father's clothes. His smile was slow and she watched with a sort of fascination as it moved across his face, curving his full lips before spreading to a dimple that appeared like an unexpected ray of sun on a cloudy day. He reached down and engulfed her icy fingers in his large, warm hand. "Yes, city girl. It's going to be a long day. Nobody takes a short cut to see the elephant."

* * *

Dawn came in the middle of the night. At least that's how it felt when moments after closing her eyes, Adam gently shook her awake.

"Come on," his voice held a smile. "Rise and shine."

"Tell that to the sun," she grumbled, pushing herself to a sit despite the heavy blanket that seemed determined to keep her pinned. "It's still dark."

Adam hunkered down beside her and grinned. "You better get used to it, city girl. There's a hundred and twenty dark dawns waiting for you down the road."

Too tired to protest, she hauled herself up and sat glowering at him with bleary eyes. Still grinning and looking far too rested for a man who'd been up in the middle of the night, Adam handed Molly the clothes she'd laid out at the end of her blankets.

She felt self-conscious pulling on her dress in a room with so many other people, but they all were engrossed in their own preparations. As she reached for her shoes, however, she caught Brodie staring at her with an intensity that was unnerving. He turned the color of red wine when he found her returning his fixed look with her brows raised and her hands on her hips and proceeded to stumble over his discarded boots and tumble to the floor, taking Adam with him.

She was careful not to look his way again for fear she would burst into laughter and make the situation that much more embarrassing for all. Brodie had the sweet baby face of a boy, but in other areas he was obviously approaching manhood.

By the time they'd packed away their bedrolls and had a cold breakfast with blissfully hot coffee, she felt more like herself. Dawn crested the skyline and frosted the low mist of clouds with dusky violet and vivid ruby hues. Today was April first. The day of fools. What better day to begin a two thousand mile expedition?

She helped Rosie clean their small mess from breakfast and then carried the last of their things out to the men. Arlie wobbled around the wagon, babbling happily. He was now a year old and he'd begun walking just the week before. Already he was trying to run. Brodie claimed they'd have him riding a horse before they reached
California. Molly shuddered at the thought.