The Proposition
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She came out from behind the tree while he was tightening the lines on another broodmare.
Glancing over the saddle, he froze. Whoa.
Ignore her, he commanded himself. He forced his gaze down to the saddle, but it crept back to her. The brim of his hat shadowed his eyes.
She bent over her pack and began stuffing the discarded items into her original bag, which they’d leave behind with the guard. Travis had already arranged to have them sent back to her home. Contrary to looking less feminine in pants and work shirt, she looked more. Gone was the flowing fabric that concealed her body. Ivory pants clung to well-shaped thighs. Rounded hips swelled to form an hourglass figure. Fabric clung to her smooth behind, and when she walked, the black belt cinched at her waist accentuated her bounce. A simple white blouse, oversize, folded into her waistline. The shadow of her corset hinted at what lay beneath, while the top two buttons of her collar remained open, revealing light and gold shadows illuminating a slender throat.
He’d always remembered her as a spoiled adolescent, but she’d finally grown into a woman. Still spoiled, but an inexperienced, virginal woman.
Frivolous and boring is how he’d describe her, he reminded himself.
Peering at what she gripped in her hand, he gulped. Rolled into a ball, her bloomers were flaming red. Not boring linen.
“What do you want now, Roughrider?” she snarled. “What are you staring at?”
“Red becomes you.”
With a click of her tongue, she threw them over his head.
Jessica noticed things about him that a conservative woman should not. The way he yanked at his gloves when he was mad—which was almost all the time; the way he instinctively reached for his guns at an unexpected sound; how rough his knuckles were as he tugged the reins; and how forlorn and desolate he looked when he thought no one was watching.
Travis was the type of man that all good mothers in Calgary warned their daughters against. Temperamental, moody, and thought the world spun around him.
The man was trouble. Still, Jessica needed him and the thought was daunting.
For now, she considered herself fortunate that he took the lead on the trail, which allowed her and Mr. Merriweather the opportunity to fall behind, single file, and gain their bearings.
“We’ll be following the Glacier River most of the way,” Travis shouted two hours later from fifty feet ahead, speaking above the thundering of the water. Turning his huge body around in the saddle to talk, he ducked beneath pine boughs and aspen leaves. The wind lifted the needles, filling her nostrils with cool forest scents.
“Lead the way, sir,” Mr. Merriweather shouted back. “The foothills are a sight to behold.”
Jessica nodded, trying to unwind her stiffened shoulders and mask her apprehension of riding so high off the ground. It scared her to be responsible for the broodmare she was leading, with a rope tied around its neck and ponied to her mount. Travis had steered away from taking any stallions on the trip, he’d explained, for stallions too close together often fought. Travis rode a gelding but she and Mr. Merriweather each rode mares. They led compact quarter horses—or running horses or whatever name they went by—to be sold when they reached Devil’s Gorge, but Travis led a massive Clydesdale broodmare. Whenever the Clydesdale snorted, the other animals waited for its lead. She was the dominant one.
“The horses are shod only on their front feet,” Travis hollered. “That’s where they take most of the weight and strain. In case any of them kick in such close proximity, their back hooves were left unshod for minimal damage.”
Jessica didn’t like the sound of that. If the information was supposed to comfort her, it only served to glue her gaze to the back of Mr. Merriweather’s broodmare. It was the striking bay she’d noticed in the stables yesterday. Whenever the broodmare adjusted its footing on the rocky path, Jessica jerked back, thinking the horse was about to kick.
“Relax,” Travis told her around noon, leading them into a small clearing.
“Right,” she said, trying not to look too grateful to Travis for finally stopping so she could rest.
He swung off his horse, surveyed the area, declared it was time for lunch, then walked the horses two at a time to the river’s edge to drink before she and Mr. Merriweather had even removed their gloves.
Travis returned to the shady knoll. “You’re a pretty good rider, Merriweather.”
“I spent a lot of time in foxhunts with my father.” The older man clutched at his back, then limped away toward the river, leading two horses. “I’ll water these two.”
Grass swished beneath Travis’s big boots as he approached her. He didn’t look directly at Jessica, but took the reins of her horse. Still, she felt the sting of embarrassment at his soft words. She watched the tiny creases at his eyes move while he spoke. They gave him distinction, a weathered, attractive look of matured experience.
“Don’t fight her so much. She doesn’t like when you sit rigid. If you spread your arms to your sides, you can lean in tighter and she’ll adjust to your weight. Pat her neck once in a while. Maintain the contact. She’s going to be your friend for seven days.”
Then his gaze was direct and she felt her head swim.
Squinting up at him in the patch of sunlight, Jessica nodded and slid her cowboy hat to her back. Her temples were drenched with perspiration, and her legs felt like rubber trying to hold her upright.
“Let your body flow with the rhythm of the mare.”
Jessica lowered her lashes. “I’ll try.”
“We’ll rest here for two hours. Soon as the heat of the day subsides, we’ll head out again.”
He took care of the horses first, removing saddles and hitching the animals to a lush grassy spot where they could graze. Then he tended to her and her butler. Jessica felt awkward, more of an observer than assistant, knowing she was making Travis work harder on account of her and Mr. Merriweather’s presence.
Finally, as Travis was preparing the horses to leave, she jumped up from her spot by the boulders where they’d eaten their smoked beef and coffee, and met him on the other side of his beautiful bay. The horse he’d avoided looking at yesterday.
“What’s her name?” she asked.
Jessica’s voice startled him. He’d been deep in concentration, sliding on his work gloves. He stared at the mare for a length of time before tackling its gear. The other horses were ready; he’d left this one for last.
“They’ve got names, don’t they?” Jessica repeated.
“My broodmares do. But the Mountie workhorses, the ones we’re riding, don’t. There’s too many to name.” He yanked on his large left glove, opening and closing his fingers. He seemed so slow with this horse compared to how he’d been with the others. And his face was flushed. “The one you’re leading, the roan,” he said, nodding behind her shoulder, “is called Seagrass. My Clydesdale goes by Coal Dust.”
“Ah, because of her black color. And this one?”
She noticed a drop of sweat rolling down his forehead. “…Independence.”
“Independence.” Jessica stood in awe at the size of her. “May I help you with her?”
His expression changed. His white sleeves rustled in the wind, outlining the muscles beneath. “She’s got a burr in her mane. If you put on your gloves, you could comb through it with your fingers and then I wouldn’t have to…. Much obliged.”
“I…I don’t mean to sit idle.” She tugged on her brown-leather gloves. “It’s just that I’m unsure how to help.”
He nodded and heaved a saddle blanket on top of Independence.
She grabbed the other side. They worked tranquilly together. She was making headway with him, Jessica thought, and wondered if and when she should tell him some of her allegations against Dr. Finch.
“What happened to the perfume you always used to wear?”
Her responding smile came gently.
His mouth tugged upward in kind.
That wasn’t so hard, she thought, was it? He looked much better in a smile than a scowl.
“I didn’t think the horses would appreciate it.”
“That showed good judgment.”
“Go ahead and say it. It’s the only good judgment I’ve used today.”
He inclined his dark head. The brim of his hat concealed his eyes. “Not the only. Your choice of shoes was good. Unlike your friend over there.” He motioned to Mr. Merriweather, who was massaging his sock feet. “Will he be all right?”
“Sure.”
“What about his back?”
“He’s…he’s not used to riding. It uses a lot of muscles you forget you have.”
“I’ve seen him pull out those binoculars a few times. What’s he looking at?”
With his mouth open in amazement, the butler had his collapsible binoculars aimed above the fir trees.
“A rusty-colored hawk,” she answered. “See it circling? It’s got a wingspan of four-and-a-half feet. The largest hawk in North America, they tell me.”
“They?”
She turned back to Travis. “He’s the president of the Birdwatchers Society.”
Travis grumbled. “I suppose that’s harmless enough. But it better not get in the way of anything I’m doing.”
Spoken like the controlling man he was.
Jessica reached out and timidly patted Independence’s shoulder. The mare stirred and took a step backward.
“Easy,” Travis said to her. “She senses your fear.”
“Sorry. I’m trying to maintain contact.” Summoning her courage, she plunged forward and grabbed the horse’s mane where she saw the cluster of burs.
The horse startled at the jab.
“Whoa,” Travis warned her.
Jessica gulped. “Just this one last burr.” When she yanked on the hairs, the horse lifted its hind leg.
“Be careful,” said Travis, looking somewhat overwhelmed. He gripped the bridle and the mare settled.
“But she seems so mild mannered.”
He peered down at her, eyebrows drawn together, facial muscles tensed. “You still need to be careful.”
His mood shifted to one of stormy anger. What on earth had she done to cause it?
“You need to be gentle on her.” His eyes sparked with a stab of emotion. Whatever was bothering him, it seemed to suddenly deepen. “She’s in foal. The mare’s…pregnant?”
“How far along?” she whispered.
The mare didn’t look pregnant. With a shiny coat, she had just enough fat on her so her ribs were slightly visible.
His voice rumbled as he turned away, she swore to hide his face. “About two months.”
“How do you know when it’s not visible on the mare?”
“A good breeder keeps track of dates when his mares are bred. And I also did a thorough manual examination.”
He nodded, lowering his eyes to the saddle.
Her hand fell to rest on the horse’s neck. With a moan of empathy, Jessica recalled her own months of confinement in the Montreal house, stepping out for fresh air to trim the backyard hedges, watching her figure grow while in a torrent of mixed emotions. Then feeling the first tiny kick in excited anticipation with no one to share it with, only to have lost it all.
Chapter Four
“The last time you were in Calgary, you were rumored to be engaged to that Englishman. Victor Sterling, was that his name?”
The personal nature of Travis’s question and the sudden vibrancy to his voice unnerved Jessica.
Standing in an ocean of green prairie grass and dwarfed by her horse, she tried to untangle the leather straps from her saddle. As they made camp, last remnants of fading light silhouetted the mountain peaks and gushing river waters behind Travis. The sky was twilight blue, on the verge of turning black.
In the distance, Mr. Merriweather limped between the trees. He hummed a cowboy tune while collecting firewood.
She dug her boots into parched soil. “That was his name.”
The moon, a glowing yellow ball, skimmed the straight lines of Travis’s shoulders. The quality of lighting was changing on their journey. The general lighting of the vast prairies had washed everything equally but in the rugged foothills, the enclosures cast shadows across his body and face, highlighting his unique stance and the outline of his lips.
He tied a rope between two evergreens, forming a hitching line for the horses.
Irritated by her gloves’ bulkiness, she removed them, turning her back on Travis and hopefully his curiosity.
“What happened to your engagement?”
“It was never really official,” she said with begrudging frankness. “He had to…Victor had to return to England.”
“But I thought—”
“Victor never made it.”
“What do you mean?”
Resentful of the questions and the raw emotions they evoked, she pulled her arms tighter to her chest. Last year when Jessica wrote to his parents to enquire about his whereabouts, thinking that maybe Victor, the natural father of her child, might help her look for their baby, she’d been informed of the horrible news.
She avoided Travis’s cold stare. “Victor’s ship never reached London. It went down in the tail end of a hurricane.” Her despair intensified. “Victor drowned.”
His large hands stopped working on the rope.
Slowly, he turned to face her. His stern attitude dissolved. “I’m sorry.”
Quietness consumed them.
She nodded, looking down at her pack, wishing he’d leave. Then she heard him walk away, leading two mares in the direction of the river. Dry leaves and pine needles crackled beneath the horses’ hooves, while Travis’s spurs echoed between the foliage.
She untied the metal pots from her saddlebags. It bothered her that he apparently assumed it was Victor’s death that’d stopped their marriage. But their relationship had been nothing like Travis and Caroline’s; Travis had cared deeply for his wife.
Victor had been a youthful English professor at Oxford. He’d come to Canada to discuss the possibility of setting up an affiliated university, possibly choosing Toronto, Vancouver or Calgary. As mayor, Jessica’s father was eager for Victor to choose their town, for it would bring financial and social gains to the community. Her father had introduced them. Jessica, an insatiable reader, had shared with Victor her adoration for the romantic poems of William Wordsworth, the travelogues of Mark Twain and the adventures of Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales.
She’d fallen in love for the first time. He’d never actually proposed, but he’d fed her imagination, telling her how much she’d adore Oxford when she saw it and the joy he’d find in showing her London. She thought it meant he loved her, that he was assuring her of their future. In hopes of showing the depth of her feelings, she’d succumbed to his advances. They’d made love three times, but Victor had turned ashen when Jessica had informed him she was late in her cycle.
He was a man who’d simply been in love with poetry and words. A far cry from Travis’s practical nature.
Later, she’d discovered from Victor’s valet that he’d been engaged all along to another woman in England, a richer one with three London homes who was paying his traveling bills. At the news of Victor’s death, Jessica felt a deep sorrow for her child for the loss of his father, but not for herself.
Are you a close friend? Victor’s father had written in his letter. Jessica had never answered.
And her father had never received his university.
She flinched as she untied a small shovel. Her anger returned—at the way she’d been treated by Victor, and then her father. She understood the scandalous way she’d behaved and how the town would look down on her if the truth was known, but to blazes with her shame, and her father’s.
Jessica was furious at her own vulnerabilities and shortcomings, but it was pointless to look back. She’d look ahead to the promise of a future with her child. She was saving every penny she earned, for if and when she found her son, she’d make her own way. A seventeen-month-old child needed her.
If she let herself dwell for a moment on the harm that may have come to him, or the uncertainty of her claim against Dr. Finch, she wouldn’t have the strength to carry forward. So she pushed the pain out of her mind.
“Here, let me help you with those.” Mr. Merriweather removed her saddlebags.
One was filled with her clothing, the other with food supplies Travis had packed. As the elderly man lifted the weight to his side, his face strained beneath his sombrero.
“My dear old friend, you’re in discomfort. Is there something you’re not telling me?”
“It’s nothing to worry about. As soon as we’ve unpacked and I’ve started dinner, I’m going to slip out that bottle of medicinal tonic, sit back and relax.”
“You need medicine?”
“A simple brew bought from Dr. Finch three years ago. I bought three bottles and there’s still an ounce or so left.”
She brushed the hair from her eyes, upset that even her dear old butler had a cure from the charlatan. “What’s the tonic for?”
Mr. Merriweather removed his sombrero and combated flies. “General pains. Gentlemen’s problems,” he said with an embarrassed laugh.
Uncomfortable with the topic, she collected the small utensils and carried them to the flat part of the site. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to pry.”
Walking back and forth between the horses and the campsite, she unloaded what she could. Ill at ease, she crossed her arms against her white blouse and looked around, waiting for Travis to return with the second set of horses. She wondered what she was supposed to do to help.
Mr. Merriweather struggled on his feet to put dinner together while Travis tied the horses to the hitching rope. Jessica settled onto a log by the burning fire. It warmed her face while they ate sausages and biscuits.
“It’s not what I normally prepare for dinner,” Mr. Merriweather apologized. “This is Sunday, and on Sunday evenings we usually have roast fish and baked potatoes, my special recipe from Plymouth. The ones the pilgrims brought to America, you know.”
“This is delicious anyway,” remarked Jessica. “And seeing how you cooked and Travis took care of setting up camp, I’ll wash the dishes.”
Mr. Merriweather floundered for something in the pack beside him, a shadowy figure in blue denim. “My word,” he gasped in the semidarkness, face glued to the side of an ancient maple tree.
Travis looked up from his plate and stopped chewing.
Jessica craned her neck in alarm. “What is it?”
“A family of hummingbirds. They’re nesting inside the trunk of that tree.”
She found his wide-eyed expression humorous. “We’ve gone from seeing the largest hawk to the tiniest bird.”
The old gent peered through his binoculars. “I’ve never in my born days seen anything so magnificent. Look how they spin their wings together.”
“Marvelous,” said Travis, jumping to his feet. Jessica detected sarcasm. “The blue plumes sparkle in the moonlight and the beaks, various shades of yellow and orange, capture the shimmering glow of the stars.”
“Oh, you understand,” whispered Mr. Merriweather in glee.
“Don’t move,” murmured Travis, coming closer with the butt end of his log. He hammered it into the bare ground three feet away from Mr. Merriweather. “Prairie rattler. The only poisonous snake in Alberta. Average length, three and a half feet.”
Mr. Merriweather jumped up and shrieked as the mottled serpent slid to safety in the grass. With a yelp of her own, Jessica flew to her feet.
“He’s gone,” said Travis, peering into the brush.
“But we didn’t hear him rattle,” said Jessica.
“They don’t unless they feel threatened. He wasn’t about to bite.”
The butler clutched at his chest. “My poor beating heart.”
Jessica smiled through her trembling. “Are you all right?”
The old man nodded. “Is this what we’re to expect for the rest of the trip?”
“No.” Travis’s face was illuminated by the golden fire. He stood a head above the both of them. “They’re prairie rattlers, most likely after your hummingbirds. There aren’t any in the mountains. It’s too cold. But there are just enough here to keep life interesting. Same like the bugs, remember?”
Mr. Merriweather slapped a mosquito on his neck. “Quite right, quite right.” He shook his head and sat back on his log. “Jolly good, I’ve witnessed a live rattler.”
“And you didn’t need binoculars to see it.” Travis cleared the tin plates.
Jessica eyed her log but no longer felt like sitting down. She shooed away the flying insects.
“Are you still going down to the river to wash these plates?” Travis asked her.
She wished she hadn’t volunteered.
He grabbed a tin bucket. He was a commanding force of bulky shadows and straining muscles. Permeating the pine-scented air, his laughter was the first she’d heard in two days. “If your chaperon approves, I’ll go with you.”
Damn, the woman was distracting.
Wondering why he allowed her to bother him, Travis led them to a clear spot by the river. He scoured the area for more rattlers, found none, then slid their tin cups onto a granite boulder.
She’d been distracting him all day—her ineptness at handling the horses, her eagerness to help with chores as if the offer would erase that she’d gone above his head to order him here and even how she spent her time mostly with her butler, taking little regard of him.
Travis, on the other hand, couldn’t turn a corner without being alerted to her presence. When she stood beside him grooming Independence, he found the air stifling. When she asked a question, his normally quiet composure chafed in self-defense, and if, God forbid, their eyes met accidentally, his pulse began a rhythmic tap. His reactions annoyed him.
And made him miss his wife more.
Grumbling, he lifted his Stetson and allowed the cool breeze to curl beneath his pressed hair. It felt good. Jessica kneeled on the boulder.
In the stables this morning, the other men had been eager to replace him when they’d heard he was leaving for seven days with the mayor’s daughter.
“I’ll deliver your broodmares,” the farrier had said, winking while making a final check of the horseshoes. “A man could always use pretty female company.”
She was pretty and she was female, but Travis could pass on her company. Standing back in the brightness of the moon, he watched her.
Although he fought it, a glimpse of the smooth side of her cheek played with his thoughts. Jessica lowered herself to the rushing river. Her braids dipped below her shoulders. Beneath her fresh, white blouse and trousers, her youthful body contrasted against the century-old, twisted trees behind her. Glowing skin in its prime versus rough, mossy bark. Yet both images brought a strange comfort to him. Did all women use lotions on their face as Caroline had, mint powders on their teeth and vinegar to rinse their hair?
It was a silly thought, he acknowledged, so he turned away to concentrate on his task. He dipped the bucket into the moving mass of water.
Victor’s death had surprised him. He had no idea she’d had such turmoil in her life. Maybe it was one of the reasons she’d left for finishing school—to get her mind off Victor.
He cleared his throat. “Is Dr. Finch expecting you?”
The question seemed to rattle her. Fumbling, she laid one clean tin plate upon a boulder, the clanging echoing over the river. Dipping a dirty plate into the water, she scrubbed a sliver of soap against it.
“No,” she said softly.
“Then how do you know he’ll have the time to be interviewed?”
Her lips drew together. “He’ll listen to my request.”
“You may not find him. He’s needed in several towns and travels quite a bit, from what I hear. Doctors are hard to come by in this part of the country.”
“I suppose that’s why people are so ready to trust him. Because they need to. They want to.”
“Why don’t you like him?”
She started at the observation. The fabric of her blouse billowed, accentuating jutting breasts, narrow waist and full hips.