Читать книгу Wagon Train Sweetheart - Lacy Williams - Страница 13

Chapter Five

Evening had fallen and Nathan stood in the shadows behind the wagon, knowing that right on the other side was the circle of light. The Hewitts were over there. He could hear them laughing, talking, the clink of pots, the crackle of the cookfire.

Behind him was the quiet chirping of night insects, the darkness outside the camp.

He couldn’t make himself cross into that circle of light.

As the afternoon had passed, he’d quickly grown weary of being confined in the wagon.

Or maybe he was weary of the pinpricks of awareness he felt whenever Emma came near.

She’d said she was his friend. She’d called him Nathan. More than once.

She’d loaned him her book. It was a small act of friendship, but more than anyone had given him in so very long.

He couldn’t let himself get used to it. Everything good in his life had been ripped away.

Even now he told himself to sneak away and find his bedroll. Bed down beneath the Binghams’ wagon where he should be sleeping.

It was better to keep himself isolated. Protected from when she decided he wasn’t friend material.

His boots might be on the ground but he clung to the sideboard, trying to judge whether his wobbly legs would hold him.

He’d grudgingly admitted to himself that she’d been right about his weakened state. Every time he coughed, his weakness intensified.

He was still ashamed that she’d found him asleep. He was used to physical labor, to ignoring the pangs of hunger or illness and pushing through.

But there was no ignoring that he was like a newborn babe, dependent on the kindness of this family.

He hated it.

And then it was too late to sneak away. A head of golden hair ducked around the side of the wagon; her face was turned down to the ground. She didn’t see him until she was about to run into him and then she drew up short.

“What are you doing up?” she asked.

As if he was a kid instead of a grown man. To his chagrin, heat slipped up into his cheeks. Maybe the shadows and his beard would hide it.

“Needed to stretch my legs,” he said. “You gonna keep me from visitin’ the trees over yonder to do my private business?”

Her nose wrinkled, but she didn’t speak.

“She might try.”

Ben Hewitt’s voice came from behind her and then he joined them beside the wagon. Watching over his sister? Or watching Nathan?

“I’ll walk with you,” Hewitt said. “Make sure you don’t need any help.”

“I won’t.”

But the other man followed Nathan, anyway.

Past the circle of wagons, outside the noise and bustle and people, it was quiet. A whip-poor-will called. Another answered. The breeze clicked the tree branches together. Stars peeped in from above through the canopy of leaves and branches.

Nathan didn’t reply to Hewitt. What was there to say? Thanks for carting me like a bag of flour all day?

The short hike out to find a moment of privacy had him trembling, wondering how he was gonna get back to the wagon.

Hewitt stayed near the edge of the woods, giving Nathan a moment of privacy. He should probably be thankful for that, but the fact that he was still under watch put a taste of bitterness in his throat.

Nathan had turned back toward the wagons but paused, still under the cover of trees and brush, supporting himself with one hand on a nearby tree trunk.

A cough overtook him, and kept hold of him until he almost thought he would suffocate. When he could finally catch his breath, he was as limp as a wet washcloth.

“Reed, you all right?”

Nathan jerked and the unexpected movement sent him into another fit of coughing.

“You surprised—” cough “—me,” he told Hewitt.

Anger fired. He was so weak and distracted by his condition that the other man had snuck up on him. If Hewitt had had nefarious intentions, Nathan could have been dead.

He didn’t like being caught unawares.

“You need to lean on me to get back to the wagon?”

“No,” Nathan said shortly.

He pushed away from the tree, and tottered. Hewitt took one step toward him, but Nathan waved the other man off.

“Don’t like accepting help, do ya?” Hewitt trailed him as Nathan stumbled toward the distant light of campfires past the ring of wagons.

The other man must be a couple years younger than Nathan and didn’t have Nathan’s bulk. If he’d been at full strength, he might’ve gotten in Ben’s face and told him to leave off.

But he was so tired, he couldn’t even manage that.

So he didn’t answer.

The glow of light around the canvas wagon bonnet got brighter. Almost there.

“Reed.”

Nathan stopped at the commanding tone in Hewitt’s voice. He didn’t want to turn around, but he did. They stood in the darkness just outside the ring of wagons. He didn’t look at Hewitt, though he sensed the other man glancing around them.

But there was nothing out here except darkness and the backside of the wagons. Nathan looked up into the night sky, the thousands of stars, pinpricks of diamond light against the midnight blue sky.

“I want to talk to you about Emma,” Hewitt said, voice low. “She told me she’s worried for you. Our pa—” he cleared his throat, before continuing “—died of pneumonia, at the last.”

Nathan stood there in the dark with a man who wasn’t a friend but hadn’t been unkind to him, not really. Some long-lost sense of propriety pushed Nathan to say, “I’m sorry.”

Hewitt nodded. “Just don’t be deliberately cruel with my sister. She’s more sensitive than she lets on.”

Heat prickled up Nathan’s neck. He didn’t acknowledge Hewitt’s words.

He wanted to make some retort about Hewitt not even noticing his sister’s fear of thunderstorms, but he didn’t. Emma had trusted Nathan with the fear in confidence and he wouldn’t break it.

And some tiny part, deep inside him, liked that they shared something that no one else knew about.

He turned back toward the wagons and saw a figure move to stand in the open—backlit by firelight, Emma’s long-limbed form her golden hair haloed.

“There you are,” she said.

For a moment, he let himself pretend she was looking after him. Waiting for him. Imagining that someone cared about his welfare was like a fist tightening his gut.

Dangerous, pretending was.

“Worried about me?” Hewitt asked, bussing her cheek with a kiss as he neared.

“Abby was.” Something passed between the two siblings, some wordless communication that Nathan couldn’t decipher.

Was Hewitt’s fiancée worried about him being with Nathan, alone outside the protection of the wagons? Or was there something else?

Then Hewitt passed her with a squeeze of her elbow.

Nathan hesitated.

Exhaustion weighed him down. He should get back in the wagon. Stay isolated.

Then he registered that she held a plate of food in her hands and his stomach rumbled loudly in the quiet.

“Figured you must be hungry.”

And what he’d been pretending suddenly became very real.

* * *

In the flickering firelight, Emma saw Nathan’s hesitation.

He took the plate from her with a nod and turned his back to her, using the nearby wagon to shield him from the others, she supposed. What had happened in his past that made him wary of even a small act of kindness?

He held the plate up close to his face and began shoveling food into his mouth with his fingers.

She’d watched him do the same on another occasion, when he’d refused to eat at their fire. Eating quickly, like an animal might, devouring the food in moments.

Or as if there had been a time in his life that he’d been starved. And now he was afraid he’d lose his chance to eat if he didn’t gobble it down.

She swallowed back the emotion that rose at the thought of such a history and cleared her throat.

He looked over his shoulder at her, clearly in mid-chew.

“Nathan, we’re friends now. I won’t have you going back to hiding in the shadows. Come sit at the fire.”

His eyes widened and she thought he would refuse, so she stepped forward and took him by the elbow as if he were a child and pulled him with her.

Perhaps she’d surprised him into compliance, but he didn’t resist her.

At the fire, she sat down, and since she already had hold of his arm, she tugged him down to sit at her side, and then let go.

He kept his head down, and his inky hair was long enough that it hid most of his face from view. But she still saw him snatch glances up at the group congregated around the fire.

Ben and Abby sat off to one side, a little apart from everyone else, whispering to each other. Which left Emma and Nathan with Rachel and Mr. Bingham for company.

“The Littletons already retired,” she told Nathan. “My sister, Rachel.”

Rachel watched him with unabashed curiosity. “I’m glad you’re feeling somewhat better.”

Nathan looked up and nodded briefly, then back down to his plate.

A wiggling ball of fur approached from behind and stuck his nose right up under Nathan’s elbow.

The moment slowed as Nathan looked down on the dog. The man was at times irascible and the way he’d almost hoarded his food moments ago made her wonder if he would be unkind to the dog. She and Rachel had taken turns feeding it scraps over the past two days that Nathan had been confined in the wagon.

The dog whined and Nathan sighed, then picked up a morsel from his plate and fed it to the dog. The animal licked his fingers.

Emma let go the breath she hadn’t known she’d been holding and the dog ducked out of Nathan’s space and turned to her.

“Hello, Scamp,” she said, laughing as the dog propped its small paws on her knee. She scratched it beneath its chin and its lips parted in a great doggie grin, tongue lolling.

“I see he’s moved on and found a new friend,” Nathan said quietly.

The dog stretched up and swiped his tongue across Emma’s chin. “No, never!” she said, still laughing, as she pushed the dog away.

It sat in the small space between Emma and Nathan, looking between them with an expression of joy that only a dog could make, its tail sweeping the ground behind it.

“What is his name?” Emma asked, hoping to draw Nathan into conversation. “I’ve been calling him Scamp, as I didn’t know what you’d called him.”

Rachel looked on curiously. Ben and Abby had their heads bent together, whispering furiously, and Mr. Bingham was nodding off above his plate.

“Didn’t give him one.” Nathan returned to his supper. His plate was almost empty now.

“A dog has to have a name,” she protested.

Nathan shrugged. “It’s just a mutt.”

“Emma has an affinity for abandoned animals,” Rachel put in.

Nathan’s eyes came to rest on her and heat flooded Emma’s cheeks. But he didn’t ask, so she said, “It’s true, I’m afraid. We had a dog when I was very young—”

“And the kittens,” Rachel interrupted. “Not to mention the squirrel, two baby birds and once a rabbit…”

“And now a man,” Nathan murmured.

She didn’t know if he meant her to hear the words. He’d gone after the last few bites of his plate, again with his head down and face hidden behind the curtains of his long, dark hair.

Did he think she pitied him? That wasn’t it at all. She believed he deserved to be treated fairly, that was all. Just like everyone did. No one should have to eat their supper alone in the dark, like an outcast. No one should be accused without evidence, as Nathan had.

And everyone deserved a friend, right?

A moving shadow between the two wagons caught Emma’s eye. She recognized Clara as the disguised woman did her best to blend into the darkness. Clara usually ate with the Morrisons, but if she was here, she might need something.

How could Emma extricate herself from the campfire to check on her friend?

Unfortunately, Nathan’s head came up and his focus went to Clara with the precision of the tracker that he was.

“That’s my friend Clar-ence.” Emma stumbled slightly over the name. She pushed up from her seat, dusting off her skirt and hoping her companions would blame the fire for the brightness in her cheeks. She was uncomfortable covering up the ruse Clara had concocted. “I’ll just see what he wants.”

She felt the intensity of both Nathan’s and Ben’s gazes as she hurried over to her friend. She was careful to stand just so, blocking Clara from their sight.

“Is something the matter?”

“I’ve torn my last shirt,” Clara whispered.

Emma squinted in the shadowed darkness. Sure enough, beneath the slicker Clara wore, she appeared to be wearing a nightshirt with her trousers.

“I can stitch it up, but it’s a pretty bad rip. And I need to borrow something to wear tomorrow…”

Emma’s eyebrows went up as she comprehended her friend’s predicament, but before she could offer a solution, Clara’s hand tightened on her wrist. Emma looked over her shoulder to see Nathan approaching, his empty plate dangling from his fingers.

Was he ready to retire for the night?

She was stuck there between Nathan’s sharp eyes and Clara, who seemed to want to shrink into the shadows, when a voice rang out.

“Hewitt, I need to talk to you.”

Both Nathan and Clara went still.

James Stillwell joined their circle, nodding to Rachel and Bingham, who had roused at his loud greeting. Mr. Stillwell’s glittering gaze swept over Nathan, Emma and Clara and held for a moment too long. Clara panted softly in Emma’s ear, while Nathan stood stiff, shoulders rigid.

Was Nathan right? Did Stillwell have a grudge against him in particular? She’d intended to argue on Stillwell’s behalf until she’d remembered when he’d slapped Nathan across the face when Nathan had collapsed. It had seemed unkind to her.

“You got a minute, Ben?” Stillwell asked, finally turning away from where the three of them stood. “There’s a problem…”

Ben stood, leaving Abby to her father’s care.

“I suppose its time to clean up, anyway,” Rachel said, the words more a complaint than an acknowledgment as she stood.

Emma was afraid Nathan would disappear into the darkness. She knew his cough lingered and didn’t want him sleeping out in the cool night air, not yet.

“I’ll bring you something of Ben’s in the morning,” Emma told Clara quickly, then moved to intercept Nathan.

As Emma turned away, Clara was left in the glow of the firelight, and her coat flapped open on one side, revealing the girth of her stomach. She quickly strode away into the darkness, but as Emma took a step toward Nathan, his pensive gaze remained on the spot where the other woman had disappeared.

Surely he couldn’t have seen through Clara’s disguise in that one moment, could he? Nathan was intelligent and watchful. She could well imagine that he might notice Clara’s condition when the Morrisons and Emma’s own family hadn’t.

“Are you ready to retire?” Emma asked, her words tumbling one over another in her haste to distract his attention from thoughts of Clara. “You’ll bed down in the wagon again.”

He didn’t grumble, as Ben might’ve, but accepted her demand without argument. Which perhaps told her more about his condition than he would ever say aloud.

Sleep was a long time coming after she had joined Rachel and Ben in the family tent near the wagon. That moment in the shadowed darkness repeated in her mind.

Had Nathan seen through Clara’s disguise?

* * *

Nathan startled awake to an unfamiliar sound, his breathing harsh in the early-morning stillness.

What was it?

His chest burned, and the fiery poker stabbing him with each inhale brought him to full awareness. He was in the Hewitts’ wagon, its white canvas cover gray above him in the darkness. A corner of a crate poked into his lower back. Smells of coffee and flour roused him. His illness lingered; he could feel it in the heaviness in his limbs, the fire in his chest.

It was light enough he could see his breath puff out above him in a white cloud. Cold in the not-quite-dawn, he was grateful to be tucked in warm with the quilted blanket Emma had forced on him last night.

Emma.

The sound came again, and he sat up, careful not to rustle the blanket too much and scare off whoever was outside the wagon.

It sounded like bells tinkling, or a long-forgotten hymn he’d heard sung from inside a church when he’d been a very young boy, hiding outside the structure on a bright Sunday morning.

It sounded like joy.

Someone was humming.

The back flap had been closed for the night, and he hooked one finger around the quarter-size opening and tugged, ever so slightly. The canvas gave, the opening widened. Not all the way. Just enough for him to see Emma’s profile in the predawn light.

Her head was bent toward the ground, her golden hair spilling down over her shoulders, down her back.

He swallowed. Hard.

She ran a brush through her silky locks, still humming a tune he could almost recognize, unaware that he watched her.

Against the darker silhouettes of scrub brush and prairie in the distance, she was so beautiful that it made him ache from the inside out. Her features, her form…her heart.

Anybody could see it. Why else would she have offered someone like him—an outcast—kindness, as she had done? Why would she have befriended Clarence—whom Nathan had some suspicions about—if not for her kind heart? Why help all the overburdened young mothers with sick children?

Why tell him he could be forgiven?

He’d never met anyone like her. Or rather…women like her stayed far, far away from the likes of him.

She made him remember things, want things that he hadn’t thought about in years. Watching her with her brother and sister, the easy camaraderie they shared, how well they knew each other, and loved each other…

He missed Beth with the same intensity as when she’d just passed.

He should make some kind of noise. Let Emma know he was awake.

Who was he kidding? He should get down out of the wagon and walk away, never look back.

But something held him immobile as he watched her separate the waterfall of her hair into three parts and slowly tuck the parts into a long plait.

With the fall of her hair out of his way, his sharp tracker’s eyes picked up the straight line of her jaw, the slope of her cheek and little upturn at the end of her nose. Her eyes were downcast, the curl of her dark lashes shadowing her cheek, hiding the clear blue depths.

Depths that didn’t throw accusation or revulsion or derision when she looked at him. Only a gentle friendship that he didn’t know what to do with.

He wasn’t the man she thought he was. Yesterday, he’d overheard her defend him to her brother, but what she thought about him wasn’t true. He had plenty of dark things in his past. Things he wasn’t proud of.

Things that Beth would be ashamed to know he’d done.

A sudden fit of coughing took him and he ducked away from the canvas, deeper into the wagon.

He heard movement from outside the wagon, the rustling of clothes. Probably Emma’s dress.

He went hot. Would she figure out he’d been watching her?

He couldn’t stop coughing, even when it felt as if an entire lung lodged in his throat. Then Emma was there, undoing the canvas cover from the outside and thrusting a dipper of cool water into his hand.

He took a breath and a sip. The icy water soothed his throat enough that he stopped coughing, at least for the moment.

The concern on her expression made the poker of fire in his chest burn hotter. The sky behind her turned blue and it made her eyes—and whatever was in their depths—shine brighter.

“Woke up to ice on the water bucket this morning,” was all she said. Then, “Are you still fevering? Your cheeks are flushed…”

She stepped up onto a crate on the ground at the foot of the wagon bed and reached up to touch his forehead with the back of her wrist.