Rexanne Becnel (23 page)

Trying to salvage the tattered remnants of her pride, she sent him a quelling stare. “I’m afraid you’ve wasted your time if you think I’d return to Chicago with you just on the basis of this man’s request. I’m going on to Oregon; nothing has changed on that score. I’m going there to claim my half portion of land. The only difference now is that I’ll claim it with my husband, not my father.”

If only she felt as pleased with that arrangement as she tried to pretend she was.

Tanner’s brows lowered at her firm statement, but she did not flinch under his cool scrutiny.

“The trail gets a hell of a lot harder than this, you know. And even when you reach Oregon, you’ll only be a poor preacher’s wife. In Chicago you could be the toast of the town, at the top of society. You could get your book published too,” he added calculatingly.

At that her anger boiled over. “Don’t think to use that as enticement, for it will not work. I have no intentions of going to Chicago, so whatever fee he offered to you, well, you shall just have to do without it. I am marrying Dexter Harrison, and he and I shall build a fine church and a fine school in Oregon.”

As if to punctuate her words, a huge bolt of lightning streaked to earth, followed almost immediately by an ear-splitting crack of thunder. Abby jumped. So did Tanner.

He whistled sharply, and in an instant his raw-boned horse skittered to a halt before them, its eyes rolling in fear. The first few drops of rain splattered around them, and Abby drew her shawl tight over her shoulders. All her fortifying anger seemed to flee under the storm’s onslaught, and, shivering, she turned dispiritedly toward the wagons. She would get soaked if she didn’t seek shelter soon, and while she really was too numb to care whether she was wet or dry, cold or warm, she didn’t want to become ill and chance weakening her resistance to something worse—such as cholera.

But before she’d progressed even three paces, the heavens opened up on them.

“Son of a bitch.” She heard Tanner’s muttered oath as Mac half reared in alarm. “Easy, Mac. Easy.” Then he called out to her. “Abby, come here.”

That was the last thing she would do.

She’d gone hatless to her father’s funeral, and now the rain swiftly drenched her hair. Her shawl was no real protection either, and before she’d gone any distance at all, her best calico skirt was drenched and weighing her down. The rain stung her face and blinded her eyes, while beneath her feet the already soaked ground turned to a quagmire of mud and clinging vines. She stumbled once, then slipped, just catching herself with one knee and hand before she fell flat on her face.

She wanted to go home. That one thought repeated itself over and over in her mind. She wanted to go home. But she couldn’t find her footing, nor could she see her way. And anyway she had no home anymore. Neither home nor family.

A sob broke free of her throat, hot and burning, then another, harsh, wrenching sobs that tore at the very fabric of her soul.
It’s not fair,
she cried inside, as the rain poured over her, cold and uncaring.
Not fair.

She pushed to her feet, hiking her ruined skirt up so that it would not hinder her. But just as she was about to struggle forward again, a hand wrapped around her upper arm, staying her progress.

“Ride with me,” Tanner ordered, though the roar of the storm muffled his words.

“No!” Abby jerked her arm free, then nearly slipped again in the slick, matted grasses. But Tanner caught her before she could fall and, despite Mac’s unsettled prancing, pulled her up and plopped her unceremoniously on the saddle before him.

“Ouch! Let me down!” she shouted when the saddlehorn dug painfully into the back of one of her thighs.

“Shut up, woman, before you bring this horse down too!” Tanner barked as Mac turned in a tight circle, scrambling for surer footing.

Afraid to fall—and afraid to cause another of his horses to be injured—Abby grabbed onto Tanner, holding tightly around his waist. It only took him a minute to calm the flustered animal. Once Mac was steady, however, Tanner pulled Abby up against his chest, settling her in a more comfortable position. Then he pulled his loose rain slicker around her for protection from the rain as he urged the animal forward.

Despite the warmth of Tanner’s body against hers, a violent shiver coursed up Abby’s spine. In just a matter of seconds the rain had completely drenched her. The weight of her wet hair had pulled her coiled braid loose, and now it lay like a cold, fat rope between her back and Tanner’s chest.

She mopped at her face, though it was a useless effort. The rain was a blinding sheet of water, a gray curtain that masked every other sound and reduced their world to a small circle of visibility.

Abby had completely lost her sense of direction. Were the wagons straight ahead or to the left? But Tanner seemed to know where he was going. She felt the slight tensing of his thighs beneath her bottom and the subtle shifting of his arm muscles along her back as he guided the horse. How he located her wagon was beyond her. All she knew was that a moment more in such intimate proximity with him would surely have driven her to do something totally impulsive—something absolutely unforgivable.

Come with me to Oregon,
she wanted to plead with him.
Forget about this man who says he’s my grandfather. Forget about Dexter. What about us?

Dexter stood in the back of the wagon as they rode up, squinting anxiously into the torrential downpour. The wagons had all stopped on the trail, just standing where they were, waiting for the worst of the storm to pass. The concern on Dexter’s face, however, quickly turned to disapproval.

“Get inside. Quickly,” he ordered, grasping her arm in a firm hold and pulling her into the meager shelter of the wagon tent.

A part of Abby was truly relieved to be away from Tanner. In another instant she would most certainly have behaved like an utter fool. But Dexter’s proprietorial air irritated her. They weren’t married yet.

With an angry jerk she moved out of his grasp. Just beyond the arched opening of the canvas tent, Tanner sat his horse, his hat pulled low as rain shunted off it, his slicker closed against the punishing storm. Abby stared at him, regret and anger and hopelessness merging to leave her too confused to speak.

But there was no mistaking the animosity that bristled between the two men. Dexter stood, a little stooped over, to peer out at Tanner. Tanner just sat there, unbowed and undeterred, it appeared to her.

Given a choice, which would she take? Abby shoved her clinging hair back from her face. One was an upstanding man, honest and hardworking. He would make a good husband and a fine father. The other was a rough-and-tumble hired thug with no future but the one he could carve out with his guns and his wits. He had nothing to commend him but the beguiling smile of a fallen angel and an unexpected sense of honor.

So why was she so drawn to him?

He saw her as a source of financial gain, a job to be completed for pay, nothing more. Why did she persist in this shameful longing for him?

Dexter jerked the canvas curtain across the opening, cutting off Abby’s view of Tanner and shutting out the slanting rain. For a moment he stood stiff and angry, not speaking. Then he took a slow breath, blew it out, and turned to face her.

“You’re soaked. You’d best change out of those wet clothes.” His eyes moved down her body, over her wet, clinging blouse and the soaked and muddied skirt that hugged her hips and thighs. His bearded cheeks colored, but when he met her gaze again, he did not look away.

“Can we be wed tomorrow?” He took one step, bringing them face-to-face in the crowded quarters. “Say that you will wed me tomorrow, Abigail.”

The answer lodged in Abby’s throat. She wanted to say no, that she’d been too hasty to agree to her father’s request. But her father’d had her best interests at heart, and in truth, marrying Dexter would solve so many of her problems. That was the only way Tanner would ever leave her alone about this man who claimed to be her grandfather. If Tanner was only interested in her because he’d been hired to find her, she didn’t want ever to lay eyes on him again. It made everything much too hard.

But marriage to Dexter …

She braced herself and nodded her head before she could change her mind.

Dexter smiled then, and the tension seemed to ease from his lean body. “There’s another minister in the train ahead of ours. We can send someone to fetch him.” He placed a hand on each of her shoulders and urged her nearer. Only her palms pressed against his chest stopped him from taking her fully into an embrace.

“I’ll make you happy, Abigail. I promise I’ll make you as happy as you’ve just made me.” Then he lowered his face and kissed her.

Abby forced herself not to pull away. Tomorrow he would be her husband and he would be entitled to many more liberties than just a simple kiss. His mouth met hers, tentatively at first, then bolder. His lips were soft and dry, and in truth, the kiss was not unpleasant. But it was not particularly thrilling, either, and Abby knew a keen disappointment.

Tanner’s every touch sent the most untoward sensations skittering along her nerve endings. His look, even, threw her into the most wonderful and unsettling sort of panic. But Dexter’s kiss was merely pleasant, the way a pat of approval on the shoulder might also be pleasant.

How could that ever be enough for her now?

She drew away, trembling in misery as well as from the cold. Dexter stepped back at once, his cheeks even redder than before.

“I … I’ll go see to the beasts,” he stammered. “You change into something dry.”

When he left, conscientiously refastening the curtain to protect her from the storm and prying eyes, Abby slumped onto the bed, unmindful of her soaked skirts and dripping hair. She’d never felt so defeated in her entire life, so empty and without hope.

She’d never had to worry about her future before, although many times she had wondered whom she might marry and whether she’d have sons or daughters or both. She’d wondered also if she would ever see any of her stories in print. But she’d been young and strong and capable, and it seemed that the future would take care of itself.

Now, though, the future was here and it
was
taking care of itself. She seemed to have no choice in the matter—or rather, two equally bleak choices. Marry a man she liked only in the most platonic fashion, or be dragged back to a grandfather she’d never known, by a man who saw her only as the means to secure a monetary reward.

Her father had done this to her, she bitterly admitted. He’d hidden the truth and then tried to push Dexter on her.

For one terrible, black moment she hated her father. Truly hated him and his righteous, unyielding ways. But hating him only made her feel worse.

“Why, Papa? Why?” she whispered to the dreary confines of the wagon tent. But there was no answer, no explanation, and she knew there never would be. Her parents were both lost to her now; it was too late for them to explain.

And now she feared she was about to lose what little she had left of herself: her heart to one man, her body to another.

R
OBERT BLISS WAS DEAD
. Cracker O’Hara kicked the crude cross marker once, then again, and in the rain-soaked earth it came free and tilted to one side, only catching on one of its outstretched arms.

Who would have guessed that it would be Morgan and his daughter? But though Cracker would have preferred the girl be younger—like that sweet Godwin girl—he would make do with this one. He needed some proof for his employer, though, before he killed her. An old photograph. A letter. The family-records page from their Bible. That Bible-toting Morgan—that is, Bliss—probably wrote everything down in his Bible. It shouldn’t be any problem at all to find what he needed.

The big question was when to let Bud Foley in on it. Or perhaps, whether to let him in at all. He took off his wide-brimmed hat and slapped it against his left leg, sending an arc of droplets flying.

Damned rain. McKnight would be able to track him if he snatched the girl now. But chances were McKnight himself would be stealing the girl away, he thought craftily. He could just follow them and pick McKnight off. Then he’d celebrate with the girl—at least
he’d
celebrate. She’d learn a quick lesson about men. Then she’d have to die.

He’d have to ride back to the wagon train Bud was traveling with. Then he laughed out loud. He’d get Bud to help him kill Tanner, but a bullet was the only share of the reward Bud would ever get.

He cleared his throat noisily, then spat a glob at the rock-strewn grave and mounted his half-wild pony. The horse reared, but he spurred the animal into a harsh run that quickly consumed all the beast’s concentration.

Yep, there was no need for Bud to see even two bits of the reward, he decided as he leaned low over the laboring horse’s neck. He hadn’t done any of the work anyway.

Abby walked alone, struggling through mud that was ankle-deep. It sucked at her boots and clung to the hem of her skirt, but today she hardly noticed. Her legs moved mechanically. Left, right; one after the other; propelling her forward at a steady pace. The other women made their way over to her, offering condolences on the loss of her father. But death was a constant companion on the trail, and life must go on. Eventually they all drifted back to their own wagons and their own responsibilities, leaving Abby to walk beside her oxen, alone with her frozen thoughts.

Dexter was ministering to a man who’d broken his hip. The man’s family was staying behind today. It was just too painful for the man to be
bumped around in the wagon, and besides he was not expected to live long. By tomorrow a fifth grave would join the others, she feared. But despite her sorrow for the hurt man and his family, Abby was relieved not to suffer Dexter’s constant presence this day. She simply did not think she could bear his hovering nearness. As for Tanner—she didn’t know what to think.

She hadn’t seen him since he’d confronted her this morning with his shattering story, though the truth was, she’d been very careful not to look for him. Still, several times she’d felt as if someone was watching her.