Читать книгу Wagon Train Proposal - Renee Ryan - Страница 14

Chapter Six

Over the next three days Rachel and her fellow travelers endured an unending cycle of miserable sameness. Each morning, just before the sun peaked out from the horizon, they pushed their rafts into the river. They traveled until noon, paused only long enough to eat a quick meal, before casting off again.

The unpredictable current, coupled with the brutally fierce winds, battered Rachel’s attempts to maintain her usual optimism.

Endless bobbing and weaving. Endless hours stretching into endless days. Endless. Endless. Endless.

From atop the Hewitt raft, Rachel pressed her lips firmly together and faced out over the water. Acres upon acres of trees lined the shores. Under normal circumstances, she might have enjoyed the colors in the autumn leaves.

Under normal circumstances, she might have found the wild, untamed underbrush somewhat pretty.

These were not normal circumstances.

At least the Columbia River was behind them and they were now floating down the Willamette. One more day to go, according to Tristan.

Tristan.

Rachel felt a familiar flutter in her stomach. There’d been a moment the other night when their eyes had met over the campfire and held. She’d felt the impact of his stare all the way to her spine. Even now, days later, her heart began to thump with a curious mix of hope and despair.

Was he starting to see her as a woman in her own right, not merely as his friend’s youngest sister? Did she want him to see her that way?

Lifting onto her toes, she defied her own good sense and searched for his tall, muscular form. She caught sight of him several rafts up ahead. He traveled with James Stillwell and another emigrant. The stolen money was enclosed in the large trunk placed between the three of them.

Just then, Tristan looked over his shoulder and caught her staring at him. He smiled at her just a little, more a crooked slant of his lips, yet everything inside her trembled.

She tried to break the connection, but she could hardly move, could barely breathe. Mr. Stillwell seemed to be talking and, thankfully, Tristan looked back in the other man’s direction.

Good timing.

Another series of rapids approached.

Before Rachel could fully prepare, the raft beneath her dipped and swayed. She lost her footing, reached out and gripped a nearby box to steady herself. Once she had her balance restored, she let go. Water splashed across her face.

Sighing, she raised her hand to swipe at her cheeks but dropped it when a throaty boom of thunder rolled across the sky.

“No point,” she whispered. No point. Not with water everywhere and yet another rainstorm poised for attack.

She gave the darkening sky a cold, hard glare. No lightning yet. By now, Rachel should be used to the random downpours.

She was not.

Water beneath her, water falling from the sky above, would she ever feel warm and dry again?

At least she wasn’t seasick. Her sister wasn’t so fortunate. Poor Emma. She looked so pale, and nearly as miserable as her friend Clarence, who clung to the edge of the raft with a white-knuckle grip.

The two had been inseparable over the past three days. Oddly enough, Nathan didn’t seem concerned by the unusually close relationship Emma had with another man.

Was it because Clarence was so timid, so reluctant to connect with others? Rachel couldn’t think of a time when she’d actually seen Clarence’s face. She’d never once made direct eye contact with the man. Even now, head hung low, Clarence stared at his lap. In that slumped posture, he looked wilted and downtrodden and Rachel suspected he was as seasick as Emma.

On cue, the pitiful man leaned over the edge of the raft.

Emma, likely battling her own wave of nausea, rubbed Clarence’s back and cooed soothing words. Words that seemed out of place for a man. Maybe a young boy, or even a...

Rachel narrowed her eyes. She moved closer, dropped low enough to get a better glimpse of the man’s face but couldn’t find the proper angle.

“Just think,” Emma murmured to her friend. “When this is over, you’ll have your very own tiny blessing.”

What an odd thing to say, Rachel thought, scooting closer. Was he married?

Clarence croaked out a mumbled response in a high-pitched voice, a voice that was nearly female in nature. Female?

“Now, now, none of that,” Emma scolded. “You aren’t alone. You have Nathan and me, and you will soon have your...”

The rest of her words were swallowed up by another crash of thunder.

One more step closer and Rachel could finally see Clarence’s face. The skin was smooth, nearly poreless, like a young boy’s, or...

Rachel gasped. “You’re a woman.”

“Shh, not so loud.” Emma’s panicked gaze swung up to meet hers. “No one must know she’s not a man.”

“But why?” Rachel searched her mind for a reason, could think of none, at least none that would matter at this late date. “We’re nearly to Oregon City. Surely whatever made it necessary to disguise her gender can’t be an issue anymore.”

“Please.” The plea came from Clarence as he, or rather, she collapsed against Emma. “You can’t reveal my secret. An unattached woman isn’t allowed on the wagon train.”

“That’s not precisely true,” Rachel countered, thinking of two other unattached women who’d each hired themselves out to a family on the wagon train. “Mary Connor is unattached, as is Lucy O’Brian.”

Emma came immediately to her friend’s defense. “It’s not that simple.”

Frowning at her sister, Rachel lowered to her knees and considered Clarence more closely. No, not Clarence. “What’s your real name?”

“Clara.”

Rachel took in the rounded cheeks, bow-shaped lips and pretty brown—albeit poorly cut—hair. “You look like a Clara.” She touched the other woman’s hand in the same manner she might a frightened child. “I still don’t understand the need for all the secrecy.”

Clara glanced at Emma. Emma patted her friend’s hand.

Seeming to draw courage from the obvious support, Clara pulled in a shaky breath of air. “My husband and I sold everything we owned to join the wagon train. But Adam fell ill not long after we left Pennsylvania. He died before we reached Missouri. He...”

She stopped speaking, choked back a sob. The sound was so full of grief Rachel felt the woman’s pain as if were her own. Though she’d never been married, she knew what it was like to lose a loved one. “I’m sorry for your loss.”