Rexanne Becnel (12 page)

But though she struggled to do the same for him, she was unable. She was the wrong person for the task.

Depressed, she made her way to the oxen, who nibbled aimlessly at the trodden-down grasses around the campsite. Maybe Sarah was right. If he were to remarry, he might be happier. He’d have a future to think about instead of only a past. Something to look forward to instead of only regrets.

She looped a lariat around Eenie and with only a little encouragement led him to the back of the wagon and tied him there. She paused a moment, stretching her back and flexing her knotted shoulders before heading back for the other draft animals. She was exhausted, drained both physically and emotionally, but it didn’t matter. The call to depart would come any moment and they weren’t ready to go. If she didn’t harness the oxen, she wasn’t sure her father would get to it in time. After that she would take up the dreary task of sorting out what must be discarded.

“Back, Moe. Back,” she ordered, lending her weight to the force of her words. But both were inconsequential, no more than gnats buzzing around Moe’s thick hide. He was the most stubborn of the four. And the stupidest, she decided with a grunt.

“Back up, blast you!”

“Can I give you a hand, miss?”

Abby looked around from her losing battle with Moe to see a man grinning at her. The man from yesterday, the unsavory one whose avid gaze had followed her to the wagon. He was looking at her with that same fascination now, his unshaven cheeks pulled up in a smug smile, showing tobacco-stained teeth, and his burly body strangely tensed, as if in anticipation.

But no matter how unappealing she found him, Abby knew she needed help. “Well, perhaps that is a good idea. He’s just so—”

Before she could finish the statement, the man stepped up beside her and with a sharp movement jerked Moe’s nose ring up, then back to the side.

With a startled bellow the docile animal lurched back, nearly stumbling into the wagon in its haste to avoid the pain in its sensitive snout.

“Gotta show him who’s boss,” the man boasted, turning now to face Abby directly. “He won’t be so slow to move once he knows who’s in charge.”

Maybe so, Abby thought, stepping back from his unpleasant nearness. But she found his excessive cruelty distasteful. “Thank you,” she muttered, hoping she didn’t sound ungrateful but wanting to be rid of him just the same. Unfortunately it was not to be.

“Name’s O’Hara. Cracker O’Hara.” He yanked his battered hat from his head and thrust one beefy hand through his limp hair. “At your service, Miss Morgan.”

Abby busied herself with attaching the chains to Moe. How did he know her name? “Yes. Well, thank you, Mr. O’Hara.”

“Can I get the other oxen for you?”

“No. No, that’s quite unnecessary. They’re both easier to manage than Moe.”

But O’Hara seemed determined to help her. He backed Meenie and Minie into place, though with less display of cruelty, for both animals were content to follow where led.

“Thank you, Mr. O’Hara,” she said again, as sweetly as she could manage. It was, after all, good of him to help her out. She should at least display good manners toward him.

“Anytime, miss. Don’t you have anyone to help around here?”

“My father’s a little under the weather today,” she said, concentrating on Meenie’s tracings. “But he’s on the mend.”

As if on cue her father stuck his head out of the wagon tent. “Abigail. I told you I would deal with the oxen. There was no need for you to undertake the task.”

“It’s all right, Mr. Morgan. I gave her a hand.”

Her father nodded curtly at the man. “Thank you, Mr. O’Hara. But in the future that won’t be necessary.”

Abby sent the man an apologetic look at her father’s curt tone of dismissal. If he minded, though, it didn’t show. He only shrugged and turned to his waiting horse. But he sent her a parting glance. “You just call ol’ Cracker if you need any help, missy. No matter what your Pa says.”

Abby fervently hoped it would not come to that. With a tight smile she turned away. One unpleasant task done. Now to face an even worse one: sorting through and abandoning yet more of their past life.

A
BBY’S HIND END WAS
numb by the time they stopped for the noon rest. She’d handled the reins all morning while her father had rested. No, he hadn’t rested. He’d grieved. They’d left her mother’s dresser behind, sitting crooked alongside the trail, near three fresh graves. It had been another wound to her heart, another blow she’d hardly been able to bear. But she had. Her father, however, had retreated to the wagon tent, coughing until his eyes teared up.

She’d followed him with another dose of medicine. After he’d taken it, however, she’d sat there, hurting, wanting to comfort him and be comforted in return but not knowing how to reach him.

“Papa,” she’d finally begun, still clutching the spoon in her hand. “We can go back, you know. We don’t have to go to Ore—”

“No!”

He’d cut her off with only that one harsh word, that and the stony silence that had followed. But it had been enough. He was beyond reasoning with, she knew. Whatever his initial incentive for this precipitous flight west, it was compounded now by his increasing depression.

She wondered if perhaps she should ask Reverend Harrison’s aid.

Abby offered her father a simple lunch of bread and butter and left him drinking cold coffee. After watering the oxen she hurried down the line of wagons, searching for the reverend. She found Tanner instead.

He sat in the shade of a cottonwood tree, finishing his own meal while his horse—Tulip this time—swiped up long clumps of bunchgrass. Leaning back against the tree trunk, one arm resting on a bent knee, he looked as tired as she felt, and her heart went out to him. When he spied her, however, that weariness seemed to disappear. He took a last pull from his tin cup, then rose to his feet.

“Abby.” He gave her a curious smile. “Is everything all right?”

Abby hesitated, for the urge to confide in him was strong. But he couldn’t help her father with the hurt that dwelled in his soul. Only Reverend Harrison had any hope of doing that. “Have you seen the reverend today?”

His smile faded. “He’s with the Godwin wagon.”

Abby nodded. “Thank you.” She started to go. Time was short and she needed to find the man before the wagons pulled out again. But then she paused. “It’s not … that is, it’s my father. He needs to talk with someone. And the preacher, well, he’ll be a comfort to him, I think.”

Was it her imagination or did the tension in Tanner’s shoulders ease at her explanation? He tossed the dregs in his cup aside. “You go on back to your father. I’ll find Harrison and send him to you.”

As Abby watched him mount the leggy mare and ride up the line, she was beset by the oddest mixture of emotions. A part of her wanted to cry while another part of her exulted. He was the man for her. A part of her knew it as surely as if it had been proclaimed out loud by the good Lord Himself. She could so easily fall in love with him; all the signs were there. But her father … Her father would never approve.

Disheartened, she turned back toward her own wagon. Bringing the reverend in would only strengthen her father’s objections to Tanner, she feared. But if her father renewed his efforts to pair her with the other man, Abby would just set him straight. Meanwhile she could only hope that Tanner could bring Reverend Harrison.

But she should not have feared, for she had no sooner returned to her father than Tanner rode up, the reverend mounted awkwardly behind him.

“Miss Morgan,” the reverend began once he slid down from the mare, though his tone was more formal than it had previously been. “McKnight tells me you specifically requested my presence here.”

“Oh, thank you for coming, Dexter. And thank you too.” She sent Tanner a grateful smile, then turned back to the reverend. “Do you think you could ride with my father this afternoon? He’s … he’s been ill, both physically and emotionally,” she added in a quieter tone. “He’s so withdrawn. Perhaps he’d talk to you, though.” She pressed her lips together, hoping he’d agree, but also that he would not read more into her request than there was.

He stared at her a long moment, then swallowed once. His neck bobbed convulsively before he glanced over at Tanner. Finally he sighed, and she knew a surge of pure gratitude.

“Mr. Morgan?” he called in his most preacherly tone. “Mr. Morgan, I’ve got a point of theology I’d like to discuss with you. May I ride the afternoon in your wagon?”

Abby watched him climb up over the front wheel and onto the seat. Her father’s reply came, muffled and weary from inside. But she knew he’d feel better by nightfall. Dexter Harrison was exactly what her father needed right now.

Sighing her relief that for now at least another pair of shoulders would bear the burden she carried, she turned back toward Tanner. He sat his horse with a natural grace despite his apparent weariness. He could probably sleep in that saddle without tumbling off, she speculated, so at one with the horse was he. Though that was not a talent she’d ever thought to value, out on these vast prairies where a horse was such a precious commodity, it suddenly seemed critical. A man must be able to hunt and ride—to survive—if he were to protect his possessions and his family.

Did Tanner have a family?

That sudden and disquieting thought drew her brows together in a small frown.

“What exactly is wrong with your father?” Tanner asked, obviously misreading the look on her face.

Abby glanced distractedly at the wagon, then, following the thrust of the ever-present prairie winds, moved a little distance away. He dismounted, dropped Tulip’s reins, and followed her as she’d hoped he would. Yet that only increased her confusion. What was it about this man that beguiled her and yet also unnerved her so?

She rubbed at an old stain on her apron. “It’s not cholera,” she stated firmly. “He’s coughing, that’s all. His fever was very mild, and the medicine I gave him took care of it. It’s just a nasty cough that he’s having a hard time shaking off. That’s all,” she finished insistently.

Though she stared out at the rolling countryside beyond them, she was acutely aware that he’d come up beside her. Then he took her arm and turned her so that they were face-to-face, and her heart began to race in an odd sort of panic.

“It’s more than a cough, Abby. You wouldn’t bring Harrison into this otherwise.”

Staring up into the midnight blue of his eyes—eyes that urged her to confide in him, that promised her comfort—it was impossible for her to resist. “He’s … sad. That’s the only way I can describe it. He’s just so sad.”

“Why? What happened to make him sad?”

“Mother died,” she replied, gulping past the quick rush of emotions that clogged her throat. “And he hasn’t gotten over it. I don’t know if he ever will.”

Their eyes clung a long moment. Then he murmured, “And what about you? It must have been hard on you too.”

Abby nodded, and to her enormous embarrassment her eyes misted with tears. Just as suddenly Tanner pulled her into his arms, and at the unexpected gesture she burst into tears.

The sensible part of her knew she was behaving foolishly. She was clinging to him like a frightened child and soaking his shirt with her weeping. But he held her there with arms that were so strong and comforting, and low, soothing words of understanding.

“I know, Abby. I know. My mother died when I was a boy, and it’s not something easily put aside. But life goes on.”

“But my father—” She caught her breath on a sob. “He can’t get past it. He … he’s so different now.”

“The trail’s a hard place to try to heal,” he murmured against her hair.

She took a shaky breath and rubbed her cheek against the damp cotton on his chest. “It’s been good for me,” she admitted, relaxing into the strength of his embrace. “I didn’t want to leave home, but now I’m glad we did. But Papa … This was his idea, only he’s getting worse instead of better.”

“Harrison will talk him out of his mood, sweetheart.” He leaned a little back, then with one finger tilted her chin up so that their eyes could meet once more. “Harrison will see to your father’s bleak moods.” His voice grew husky. “And I’ll see to yours.”

Abby knew they were in plain view of anyone who cared to look their way. She knew she had already behaved scandalously by moving so easily into his arms. But as he lowered his head, she didn’t care about any of that. He meant to kiss her. He was giving her enough time to back out of it if she wanted to, only she didn’t want to. He meant to kiss her, and she meant to kiss him back.

Then their lips met and she realized how very little she knew of kissing. Dexter had kissed her just this gently the one time he’d attempted to kiss her. Caleb Dawson had done as much back in Lebanon at the county fair last year. But when Tanner did it …

His lips were firm, pressing lightly yet not at all tentatively against hers. He knew what he was doing as he slid his mouth sideways against hers, she realized, for he fit them better together. He knew also how the touch of his tongue along the seam of her mouth would affect her, for he was ready when she gasped in delight. His tongue surged into her mouth, and Abby nearly swooned. She clung to his wide shoulders as a torrent of new emotions poured over her like a violent summer storm. His tongue stroked her inner lips and it was like lightning striking her, spreading through her veins to every least portion of her body, so fast that she was utterly consumed.

Without conscious thought Abby arched nearer, pressing the entire length of her eager body against his hard masculine form. She heard him groan in response, heard it on her lips and caught it in her throat.

But as abruptly as the kiss had erupted, so did it end—almost brutally.

“Whoa, there. Slow down, Abby.” He thrust her an arm’s length away, holding her yet, with his hands on her shoulders. His chest heaved with his labored breathing. “Just slow down,” he muttered once more.

The same wildfire that had surged through her body, now rushed in a burning wave of color to her cheeks. Dear God, what had she been thinking? Where had such unseemly—such wanton—behavior sprung from? Appalled at her lack of decorum, Abby tried to pull farther away from Tanner. But he held her firmly, not letting her go nor pulling her nearer. He just stared at her as if he might discover with his dark gaze every thought in her head. Every secret in her soul.