Rexanne Becnel (6 page)

Despite his words Abby pressed the back of one hand to his brow. “I don’t know,” she began. “You could be a trifle warm—”

He shoved her hand away and stood up. “If I am warm, it’s from worry over you, miss.” But the righteous tone he strove for did not quite ring true, and even he knew it. With a sigh he shook his head, and his entire body seemed to droop.

“I only want to ensure the best future for you, Abby girl,” he said, using his childhood name for her. “You need a husband. Every woman does. I just thought the reverend …”

He trailed off and they stared at each other across the width of their little campsite. Then he moved back to his chair and sat down, and she returned to her biscuit dough.

“I’ll tell Reverend Harrison not to call on you again,” he said curtly. “But you shall not take that to mean you are free to cavort with just any fellow who smiles your way. You’re a beautiful woman, Abigail, the very image of your mother. The men you meet on the wagon trail will not be like the fellows you were accustomed to in Lebanon. We knew all of them, and their families as well. But these men heading west—some of them may be good enough sorts, but others … others of them will say anything to gain the confidence of a woman like you. You must promise me you’ll not speak to any of them without my permission first. I would not have you hurt as that other young girl was hurt.”

Abby rolled the dough out and with a glass began to cut it into biscuit rounds. Her father thought her as beautiful as her mother. His warning was forgotten as that surprising admission sank in. He thought she was as beautiful as her mother, and that knowledge warmed her as nothing else could.

She gave him a shy, self-conscious smile. “I’ll be careful, Papa,” she promised earnestly. “But I will not be rude to people either. You must begin to trust me a little more. I am
your
daughter, after all. I hope my father has not raised a fool,” she finished, trying for a lighter tone.

Her father, however, did not smile. He only reached for his pipe and began to tap it, muttering, “I hope not as well.”

T
HE CANTEEN INSIDE THE
fort was probably cleaner, Tanner speculated. But the impromptu saloon that had been built outside the walls of Fort Kearney since his last trek west would provide him with a hell of a lot more information.

He leaned his back against the bar—probably the sturdiest part of the makeshift saloon, since it protected the liquor—and stared out at the noisy gathering. Farmers, most of them. Snatches of conversation—good rainfalls, deep topsoil,
bumper crops—attested to their one overriding interest: the land.

There were others, too, though fewer in number. One burly fellow with arms as thick as tree trunks must be a smithy; another wearing spectacles and with well-manicured hands had the look of a solicitor. A graying older man and his son were both doctors.

One and all they were headed west, lured by the government’s offering of land: a half portion—320 acres—to any man who built a home and put the land into cultivation. The other half portion to his woman.

Tanner downed the crude whiskey and shuddered as it burned its way down his throat to his stomach. Women. There were a lot more of them heading to Oregon since the Donation Act had passed. Proper women. Wives and mothers. The type of women that a man could stand by, and who would stand by their men. Women who made cooking an art. He grimaced as he set the squat glass down on the sticky bar. He was damned tired of eating his same old beans and hardtack everyday.

He was damned tired of this fruitless search too. He’d checked out three wagon companies already. This was the last. If he didn’t find Hogan’s granddaughter here, that meant he had outwitted himself: Bliss had taken the Santa Fe Trail to California after all.

He signaled for another whiskey, only this time he sipped it more slowly. He needed to be sharp if he was going to get any information about the motherless girls in this wagon company.

His eyes scanned the room, passing, then returning to a familiar face. A tall, lanky fellow, the one on horseback who’d spoken to that woman by the river.

Abigail Morgan was her name.

Tanner straightened, then sidestepping a pair of old men arguing about Stonewall Jackson’s role in the Battle of New Orleans, he made his way toward the gangly young man.

Abigail Morgan was hardly the young grandchild Hogan envisioned. Still, it was possible that Hogan’s grandchild was no child at all, but a fully grown woman. Abigail Morgan was a fully grown woman, he recalled with a slight twist of his lips. Very well grown indeed, and in all the right places.

He shouldered past a swarthy man punctuating his words with broad gestures, then gave his quarry a quick once-over. The man was a farmer—a married farmer, judging by the shiny new ring on his hand. Tanner’s posture relaxed a little, and when he stuck his hand out in friendly greeting, it was not an altogether false gesture.

“You’re with Captain Peters’s company, aren’t you?”

The man hesitated only a moment before taking Tanner’s firm grasp. “I am.”

“I’ve just joined up with your company today. Tanner McKnight. From Indiana,” he added, sticking to the story he’d given Captain Peters.

“Victor Lewis. From Iowa.” He motioned to a man next to him. “This is Bud Foley. He’s on our train also.”

Tanner shook hands with Foley, and the man murmured a greeting that was lost in the noisy atmosphere. When Tanner peered at him more closely, however, the man looked away. “I gotta get goin’, Lewis.” He nodded once at Tanner, giving him a hard, considering look, then sidled away and left.

Tanner watched him leave with a prickle of unease. There had been something odd in that stare, some edge of smugness. And animosity. Had they met before?

“So, you’ve joined up with us,” Victor Lewis broke in on Tanner’s musings.

“Yeah. Yeah, I’ll be riding scout and hunting fresh game.” He gave the younger man an assessing look. “Not everyone can provide for themselves on the trail. You hunt much?”

“Some,” Victor admitted. Then with boyish pride he boasted, “I was the best squirrel shot in Muscatine County.”

Tanner grinned. “That will surely come in handy. You have a lot of people to provide for?”

“Just me and the wife. Sarah,” he added.

“Newlyweds, right? Was that your wife herding oxen by the river yesterday?” Tanner asked, looking for a reason to discuss Miss Abigail Morgan.

“I take care of my own stock,” the young man countered. “That was my wife’s friend, Abigail Morgan.”

“Ah.” Tanner nodded consideringly. “Fine-looking woman, that Abigail Morgan. Is she spoken for?”

Victor Lewis laughed and finished off his own whiskey. “Nah, though her father’s trying hard to pair her up with Reverend Harrison.”

Tanner had thought that might be the case, but he wisely did not say as much. “What does her mother think of a reverend for a son-in-law?”

“Her mother’s dead, so I’m told. It’s just Abby and her father.” Then Victor’s eyes narrowed. “Are you, you know, interested in her?”

So her mother
was
dead. Tanner looked away, timing his reaction carefully. “That depends on how serious she and this reverend are.” He grinned. “What’s her father’s name—just in case I need to speak with him?”

The younger man laughed again. “Robert Morgan, and he’s a gruff old coot. As for the reverend, from what Sarah tells me, he’s serious but Abby’s not. ’Course with women you can never tell.”

They talked a while longer, about the trail ahead and what they’d find in Oregon. By the time Tanner left, he’d had too much to drink on an empty stomach. But his stride was steady as he headed through the dark toward his solitary campsite.

His stomach growled in angry protest. He needed food. But despite his fuzzy head and burning gut, his thoughts kept veering back to Lewis’s words. Robert Morgan
could
be Robert Bliss. But of even more interest to Tanner was the fact that Abigail Morgan wasn’t interested in the devoted young reverend.

He should be more concerned that she could very well be the girl he was searching for—woman, that is. And he
was
concerned. Yet he couldn’t help remembering how she’d felt sitting on his lap, her warm weight pressing against his loins, her slender waist easily encircled by his arm. She was hardly the type of woman he was used to—it was a safe bet that she was a virgin. But she’d smelled so good in a dusty, sweaty sort of way. Like dried rose petals. He’d wager half of what Hogan was paying him that she was a hell of a good cook.

He paused, sniffing the chill night air. Most everyone had turned in. Fires had been banked, and only the murmur of an occasional voice drifted across the flat camping area. But Tanner could swear he smelled ham frying. Ham and parsley potatoes with lots of butter. And snapbeans. His stomach groaned in longing, and for a moment he just stood there, swaying ever so slightly as he drew several deep breaths. But the mouthwatering scent was gone, and all he had for his troubles was an even dizzier head.

He shook his head, trying to sharpen his senses, when he heard a step behind him. Just the soft roll of a pebble beneath a boot, but it was enough to make him jerk to one side.

It was the only thing that saved him. The butt of a gun, aimed at his head, instead glanced off his shoulder. But the blow was hard enough to stun and deaden his entire right arm.

Tanner spun away from his silent attacker, grabbing at the same time for the knife in his left boot. But his heel caught on a rut in the dirt, and he stumbled back. He fully expected the man to be on him, but to his surprise—and disgust—the coward had already turned and run off. Tanner saw no more than a flash of white shirtsleeve. By the time he regained his balance and started after the man, he had disappeared.

“Dammit to hell!” he swore. Breathing hard, he stared around him. Tents. Wagons. Horses. Oxen. A chaotic village, temporary and changing shape daily, encircled the entire fort. It would be impossible to find the man in such surroundings.

He bent down to return the double-edged knife to its sheath, then winced at the movement. Damn, but the fool had practically ripped his arm off.

Had the blow landed as intended, though, Tanner knew he’d be lying in the dark, his blood and brains soaking into the prairie dirt. He rubbed his shoulder, feeling the hot swelling already. Gingerly he flexed his shoulder, then wriggled his arm. There would be no permanent damage, it seemed, only a painful reminder for a few days that someone wanted him dead—for he was sure that had been the bastard’s intention. But why?

Tanner warily made his way back to his tent. No trace of his previous fuzzy-headedness remained. The unexpected attack in the very middle of the well-populated campsite had completely sobered him. He checked Mac and Tulip and made a cursory inspection of his belongings. No one had touched anything here. That left either an impulsive robbery attempt or a quite deliberate personal attack as the only choices.

He shrugged painfully out of his vest, then removed his gun belt, all the while turning the situation around and around in his mind. If it had not been some random act of violence, but a deliberate attack on him, did it have anything to do with his current assignment? Or was it maybe retaliation for some past job, vengeance from someone he’d hunted down before?

Bud Foley’s face came disturbingly to mind, and Tanner tried to connect him to some incident in the past—to no avail. But no matter who or why, he knew now that he had to guard his back. Someone was watching him. It might take awhile, but eventually the man would make a mistake and reveal himself. And when he did, Tanner would mete out the only kind of justice that kind of man understood.

Someone was watching her.

Abby wiped a drooping lock of hair from her brow and glanced about. Everyone in sight was involved in packing up for the early-morning departure, yet she couldn’t shake off the feeling that someone among them was observing her.

“Jerusalem!” she exclaimed under her breath. It was bad enough that no one had a bit of privacy on the trail. But did someone have to watch her wash her soiled undergarments? She’d brought plenty of rags for her time of the month. But with the constant traveling, the only place to dry the clothes was to hang them at the back of the wagon. She might as well run up a flag announcing her private business to the world.

“All right, Matthew. Get into the traces,” her father mumbled to Eenie from the other side of the wagon. It was almost time to leave. Abby redoubled her efforts, scrubbing the soiled strips against the washboard with brutal efficiency. Washing clothes was the least favorite of her household chores. She’d chop wood before washing clothes, had she the choice. But she didn’t have the choice, she reminded herself in rising irritation. She rarely had a choice in anything.

Lifting the cloths from the soapy water, she wrung them out with a sharp motion. Then she tossed them into the bucket of clean water, swished them around, and wrung them out once more. She dumped the water out, hung the two buckets next to the tar bucket and grease bucket, and put the scrub board in its place just inside the back gate. Just as she started the embarrassing task of stringing the wet cloths in the back opening of the wagon tent, where they could flutter and dry all day, the snorting of a horse alerted her.

“Good morning, Abigail.”

Abby knew before she turned. Tanner McKnight. She’d recognize those low, stirring tones anywhere; that deep, vibrating rumble. And he’d called her by her given name.

Her heart was tripping double-time when she finally faced him. But when she realized she still held half the cloths in her hands, her face went scarlet. Of all times! Why did he have to come now?

She slapped the offending strips down behind her, not even caring if they soaked anything. Then she surreptitiously wiped her hands in her skirts.

“Why, hello.” She gulped the words. “Good morning, Mr. McKnight.”

“I’d prefer it if you called me Tanner.” He gave her a slow, heart-stopping smile, a simple stretching of his lips across his teeth that logically should not have affected her in the least. But his lips curved in the most intriguing way, and those teeth were so white and strong.