Trail of Kisses (13 page)

Chapter Seven

Riding across great swathes of open prairie
was no picnic. Riding and walking and trying to keep an eye on
Lynne while recovering from scrapes, bruises, and a wrenched ankle
was a nightmare. The only tiny ray of hope Cade had was that
Lynne’s friends were busy with their own concerns. Callie spent her
time riding with her new husband, and Emma was being run ragged by
her mother, who seemed to have it in her head that shy Emma and Dr.
Meyers should be much better acquainted. It left Lynne with no
choice but to ride with Cade, something he was secretly grateful
for. As long as he was riding, his ankle could have a chance to
heal and his scrapes to calm down.

He didn’t have to worry about putting weight
on his ankle for several days, until they stopped for an afternoon
to let the oxen rest by a more hospitable section of the Platte
River.

“
Careful about drinking the water,
though,” Cade warned her as they washed their clothes in a spot
where the current was smoother.

“
It doesn’t look like the kind of
water I’d be interested in drinking,” she said.

It was a blessing that she agreed with him for
a change. She’d been unusually quiet since their last kiss. Her
pretty face went bright pink when she looked at him, and if he
wasn’t mistaken, those big, dark eyes of hers glittered with
stars—like the heavens above them at night—when she got lost in her
thoughts. If they’d been anywhere besides on the trail, Cade would
have asked her to walk out with him, taken her to a show at the
theater in Denver City.

“
The only thing this river is good
for is pointing the way west,” Cade said, watching her attempts to
avoid his eyes as they dipped and scrubbed their clothes. “It’s too
muddy to be of any real use. Sure, it moves nice and slow most
places, but you can see all the muddy islands the current makes,
and the bottom is swampy.”

“
I remember,” Lynne said under her
breath.

Cade grinned. He remembered too. He spent
every waking moment remembering their kiss in the river at Ft.
Kearny and their kiss in the back of the wagon. Every moment, that
is, when he wasn’t wondering when their next kiss would be. He
didn’t think he was capable of getting tired of kissing
Lynne.

“
What are you looking at?” she
asked, shaking him out of his thoughts.

“
You,” he answered with a
shrug.

“
I….” She started to argue with
him but let it drop. “Oh.”

Cade laughed and turned his attention back to
his clothes. The mud in the water wasn’t making his shirts any
whiter, but at least the soap took some of the smell out. Lynne
huffed out a breath and threw the chemise she was trying to rub
clean into the water.

“
There’s almost no point in doing
laundry this way when the water is so dirty.”

“
Do you want to pack it up and
head back to the wagons?” Cade asked.

Lynne took a long look at the chemise now
floating on the murky water, the pile of things they’d already
washed, and finally Cade. Her shoulders dropped and she
sighed.

Cade waded out of the shallow water behind
her. As she loosened the hem of her skirt from her waist and let it
drop around her, he unrolled the bottom of his pants. It was
awkward bending over with his old revolver hanging from its holster
and the Cooper tucked into his vest. Lynne watched him as he
straightened his pant legs and walked with the slightest limp to
fetch the basket of their damp, barely clean clothes.

“
This is not the journey it was
supposed to be,” she said as they started back to the wagons a
short distance away.

Several sets of their fellow travelers had
gone down to the river or were on their way back, close enough to
hear her comment. One or two of them nodded or gave her smiles of
solidarity.

“
What kind of journey was it
supposed to be?” Cade asked, hefting the basket up onto his
shoulder to balance the weight and shield his face from the
sun.

“
I wasn’t supposed to do my own
laundry in a muddy stream, for one,” Lynne said.

Cade couldn’t help but laugh. “Who did you
expect to do it for you?”

“
I don’t know.” She shrugged.
“Ben?” She couldn’t keep a straight face. “No, I wouldn’t expect
him to know how to clean his nails, let alone my
undergarments.”

Cade laughed louder. You could say a lot of
things about Lynne, but she was bold as brass.

“
I’m sure he’d love it if you
ordered him to wash your knickers.”

“
Cade!” she exclaimed. By the look
in her eyes, she would have smacked him if he wasn’t carrying the
basket. “He’s a fifteen-year-old boy!”

“
I was mighty interested in
ladies’ undergarments when I was fifteen,” Cade defended himself.
“In fact, we had this catalog with pictures—”

A gunshot cut his story short. He dropped the
basket and drew the gun from his belt. Ahead, the wagon train was
stirring. Several people, including Reverend Joseph, were rushing
to the back of a wagon where Callie and John Rye stood over Kyle,
who was writhing on the ground and shouting. John stood over him,
smoking pistol in his hand.

“
Oh, no!” Lynne clasped a hand to
her chest and ran forward.

Cade picked up the basket as best he could
with a revolver in one hand and charged after her.

“
Keep your distance,” he warned
her as they came near to the wagons. Pete Evans was already on the
scene, along with his assistants. Dr. Meyers had arrived and
crouched over the man on the ground.

“
This man tried to steal from my
wife,” John told the people who had come to help.

Pete leaned over and scooped up a sack from
the ground beside the injured miner. A silver teapot poked out of
the sack. Cade put the pieces of the story in front of him
together. John was acting in self-defense.

“
Does this belong to you, Mrs.
Rye?” Pete asked Callie.

“
Yes, it does,” Callie
answered.

Pete glared at the man on the ground and said,
“I thought I explained that thieving was a punishable offense in my
wagon train.”

“
Thieving,” Lynne repeated, half
in disbelief, half in anger.

“
Come on.” Cade steered her away
from the scene. “Pete’ll sort it out.”

They walked along the line of wagons to where
Lynne’s wagon had been parked.

“
I was given to understand that
there was at least a little law on the prairie,” Lynne said,
shaking her head. She rubbed her arms and ended by hugging
herself.

Cade knew the tell-tale signs of her anxiety
now. “There’s law, all right,” he said, tough instead of gentle.
He’d learned his lesson last time he’d tried to talk sweetly to
her. “This isn’t a usual wagon train.”

“
I should say not,” she
agreed.

Cade set the basket of damp laundry down and
began draping the pieces over the front and sides of the wagon to
dry. Lynne was quick to help him. The stiff purpose in her
movements as she snatched each piece of clothing and found a place
for it in the sun was enough for him to keep one eye on her as he
worked.

“
Nothing seems right in the world
now,” she went on as though they’d been having a discussion for
hours.

“
How so?” He inched closer to her,
ready to take her in his arms and comfort her if he had
to.

Lynne continued to work, holding up one of her
petticoats and searching for something large enough to drape it
over. The oxen were off with Ben getting a drink at the river, so
she hung it over the empty front of the wagon.

“
My brothers are off fighting for
the Union,” she said as she arranged the folds of the dingy
garment. “Robert is twenty-three and Graham is only twenty. He’s so
young, but at least they aren’t fighting each other. One of my
friends back home in St. Louis has one brother fighting for the
Union and another for the Confederacy.”

“
I’ve heard stories like that.”
Cade nodded solemnly over the shirts he was hanging off the sides
of the wagon where the covering was half rolled up.

“
It shouldn’t have to happen at
all,” Lynne went on. Her mouth and shoulders were tight. “Brother
against brother, the country torn apart. People are fleeing the
conflict to come out West, but what do you have out here?
Desolation and Indian attacks.”

“
I’d hardly call the prairie
desolation,” he said. He wanted to make it into a joke to try to
soothe her, but the worry on her face kept his lips
sealed.

She finished with her petticoat, rubbed her
arms when she saw there was nothing left of the laundry to hang,
and walked slowly toward him.

“
Gangs of marauding thugs are
terrorizing innocent people in places that would otherwise be
civilized,” she continued. “And when a good judge does something
about it, they threaten him.” She shook her head. “And now men are
stealing from their neighbors, even on their way to start a new
life, and….” She hugged herself tighter.

“
And?” he prompted her. He leaned
against the side of the wagon as close to her as he
dared.

She glanced askance at him. “And assassins
creep through the night, scar—” She paused and cleared her throat.
“Leaving vile threats and spooking innocent horses.”

He wanted to take her in his arms and kiss her
worries away so badly that the breath caught in his chest. The only
way he could ever truly be certain she was safe was if he kept her
in his arms. But she was like a wild animal, skittish in her
fright.

He reached out to brush a stray lock of hair
away from her cheek.

“
Everyone looks around at their
situation and says they’re living in the worst of times now and
then. Give it a couple of months, once you’re safe and sound in
Denver City, going to parties and building a whole new life, and
you’ll be smiling and saying you live in the best times this world
has ever seen. Truly, the world is filled with new opportunities,
new chances, and new ideas.”

“
Really?” She sounded doubtful,
but her eyes met his with hope.

Cade shrugged, breaking into a smile. “Where
else can a brave and independent woman travel halfway across a
continent in a company of strangers, by herself, and not have a
single soul raise a question about it? Well, at least not much of a
question.”

He knew his words had the effect he wanted
when the tightness in her jaw relaxed and her back
unclenched.

“
I hadn’t thought about it like
that before. Thanks, Cade.” She smiled and touched his arm before
crossing around him to the back of the wagon to busy herself with
some new task.

Cade watched her go, chest filling with pride
that turned to something much warmer and more liquid the lower it
sunk. He’d actually made her feel safe when her fears crept up on
her. There was no better feeling in the world. Her fear would be
back, sooner rather than later, but he had the feeling he was
finally getting the hang of how to ease it. And he had an
idea.

The unrest over John Rye shooting the miner, a
man by the name of Kyle, built as the day wore on instead of
settling down. Lynne watched half the other miners get into fights
over whether John was in the right or whether Kyle should have
fought back. Even the neighbors gossiped about it. A few tried to
get her or Cade involved in the speculation, but she wanted nothing
to do with it. It was all noise—rumbling, buzzing noise that
reminded her of how precarious her own position was.

“
Could we maybe keep a few lamps
burning through the night?” she asked Cade after dark when most of
the wagon train—with the exception of the noisy miners, who were
now drinking and playing poker at the other end of the circle of
wagons—had gone to bed.

“
Keep the lamps burning?” Cade
balked. He crouched at the side of the wagon, fiddling with a long
bolt of cloth that he’d tacked around the wagon like a skirt.
“That’d be a waste of oil.”

“
We can buy more,” she said,
trying to sound reasonable when, in her heart, she knew she was
anything but. She cleared her throat and sat straighter on her
barrel in front of a dying fire. “Next time we reach a supply
depot, we can use some of the money Papa sent with me to buy extra
oil. That way we can keep the lamps burning all the time and no
one….” She wouldn’t let herself finish. She was brave, her Papa’s
brave girl. She wasn’t going to let a little thing like a man
defending himself from theft rattle her.

“
The next major supply depot isn’t
until the river crossing where the Platte forks,” Cade said. He
finished what he was doing at the back side of the wagon, then got
up to stride over to her. “Oil is expensive, no matter how much
money you have, and frankly, it makes me nervous to carry so much
of something flammable in a rickety prairie schooner like
this.”

“
Oh.” Lynne lowered her head,
staring at her hands as she picked at the dull fabric of her skirt.
She needed to find her spirit again or Cade would think he could
order her around. “Well then,” she stood and drew in a breath.
“We’ll just have to make the best of things. I think you should
loan me that Cooper of yours so I can sleep with it by my pillow,
just in case.”