A Promised Bride

Emma Hewitt never thought she’d travel thousands of miles to wed. Yet Oregon is where she’ll meet the groom her brothers have chosen. After years of nursing her ailing father, Emma’s social skills are lacking. An arranged marriage is only sensible. And her growing feelings for Nathan Reed, a worker on her wagon train, are surely better forgotten.

Nathan knows he’s wrong for Emma. He’s too rough, too burdened with guilt over his past. But when Emma nurses him through a fever, she sees something in him no one ever has. Now he wants to be a man worthy of her love. Emma’s loyalty to family has always come first. Will she find the courage now to follow her heart?

Journey West: Romance and adventure await three siblings on the Oregon Trail

“What do you think you’re doing?” Emma demanded.

“I thought I would—” A cough cut off his sentence. “Hitch up the oxen and get ready to pull out.”

Emma’s expression turned into a thunderhead. When Nathan’s gaze slid to her brother, Hewitt was…chuckling?

“I figured I’d get out of your way, now that I’m better.”

Her frown only intensified. “Lie back down.” She blocked him from moving anywhere but deeper into the wagon.

“Get some rest,” Hewitt said. The man walked off and Nathan wanted nothing more than to be able to do the same, to find somewhere private to lick his wounds. But he was still near face-to-face with Emma.

He gave in, lying back and staring up at the white underside of the bonnet.

When she spoke again, her voice sounded cheery. “The good news is you won’t have to bear my company all day.”

It was a relief. He didn’t know how to converse with her.

But he also felt a small twinge of disappointment.

“What am I supposed to do confined to the wagon?” he asked.

“Rachel and I would be cheered if you were to serenade us as we walk.”

He stared dumbly at her until she dissolved into giggles. How long had it been since he’d made anyone smile?

* * *

Journey West: Romance and adventure

await three siblings on the Oregon Trail

Wagon Train Reunion—

Linda Ford, April 2015

Wagon Train Sweetheart—

Lacy Williams, May 2015

Wagon Train Proposal—

Renee Ryan, June 2015

LACY WILLIAMS is a wife and mom from Oklahoma. She has loved romance from childhood and promises readers happy endings in all her stories. Her books have been finalists for the RT Reviewers’ Choice Award (three years running), the Golden Quill and the Booksellers’ Best Award. Lacy loves to hear from readers at lacyjwilliams@gmail.com. She can be found at lacywilliams.net, facebook.com/lacywilliamsbooks or twitter.com/lacy_williams.

Wagon Train Sweetheart

Lacy Williams

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MILLS & BOON

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Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid;

do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God

will be with you wherever you go.

—Joshua 1:9

With gratefulness to my friends from the OKC Christian Fiction Writers chapter of ACFW, who helped brainstorm and always encourage me.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Introduction

About the Author

Title Page

Quote

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Dear Reader

Extract

Copyright

Chapter One

“He’s a stinkin’ thief!” The belligerent voice hurled the accusation like a stone. “We don’t need his kind on this wagon train!”

Nathan Reed stood against the words, hands bound in front of him with rope, the way they had been since last night. Like a common criminal.

Like he deserved.

But not for stolen hair combs. He was innocent—this time.

He kept his eyes squinted where the rising sun was lighting the top two jutting buttes that formed a narrow canyon—he’d overheard someone call it Devil’s Gate. The landmark was outside the circle of their wagons, where they’d stopped the night before.

“You’re sure you saw this man—Mr. Reed—climbing out of our wagon with my sister’s hair combs?” Ben Hewitt asked of the preacher.

The small committee had gathered in the predawn light, wanting privacy from the rest of the travelers in their westbound wagon train. This was Nathan’s judge and jury—the men who would decide his fate.

Hewitt was a broad-shouldered, sandy-haired and seemingly good-natured man, from the few interactions Nathan had had with him. But Ben Hewitt didn’t know Nathan. Didn’t count him as a friend. Nobody did, that’s why Nathan was the only suspect.

Out of the corner of his vision, Nathan saw that Hewitt’s sister Emma stood next to him and the group of men, the breeze blowing her deep green skirt a little. Probably sending wisps of her honey-brown hair dancing against her cheeks.

He didn’t look at her. Didn’t want to see accusation or recrimination in the vivid blue eyes he’d had only glimpses of when driving the Binghams’ wagon.

He saw enough of the emotion when he had a chance to spy his reflection in a stream or pond.

He knew, probably better than anyone, that defending himself would get him nowhere. He was friendless on this Oregon-bound wagon train. No one to stand up for him.

The wind blew his long, unruly black hair across his cheek, but he didn’t raise his bound hands to push it away.

“Erm…well, it was getting dark. It looked like him.” It wasn’t solid proof. It sounded as if the preacher didn’t fully believe it himself. But that didn’t seem to matter to the other men.

“Everyone else was accounted for,” Ernie Jones blustered. Jones wasn’t a committeeman, but had claimed to have witnessed the theft, along with the preacher.

“You got anything to say for yourself, Reed?” James Stillwell asked. The man had been watching Nathan with suspicion since Stillwell had joined up with the wagon train.

Nathan didn’t know why. Maybe he just looked suspicious, or maybe the man could see his past in his face.

Again, Nathan said nothing. What was the use?

The breeze felt good against his overheated cheeks. The rising sun played tricks with his eyes as he kept them locked on the gradual rise of the red rock slope in the distance.

He felt dizzy and a little nauseated. He hadn’t had much of an appetite the past few days, and maybe not eating enough was catching up to him. Being on the trail day in, day out wore on a body. With no wagon of his own, he depended on the kindness of others for his meals.

And Nathan didn’t like depending on anyone. Joining up with the wagon train was his last chance to find a new start for himself. A chance to finally outrun the past that dogged his every step.

“Did anyone find the combs on Mr. Reed’s person?” Emma Hewitt’s soft voice was almost lost among the men’s murmuring.

No one except Nathan seemed to hear her.

Without his consent, his gaze slid to her. Luckily, she was looking at her brother, not at him.

He’d been right. Her skirt fluttered. The brisk wind had set wisps of her honey-gold hair dancing at her temple and against her cheeks, like a vision out here in the wilds of the Wyoming Territory. Something beautiful that didn’t belong.

He forced his eyes back to the craggy rocks in the distance.

Then her brother spoke up. “Did anybody find Emma’s hair combs among Reed’s things?”

“He ain’t got much.” Miles Cavanaugh, a committeeman, tossed Nathan’s satchel on the ground at his feet.

Nathan ground his back teeth against the protest that wanted to escape. Those were his belongings. Meager though they might be.

What right did they have to go through his things? Just because someone thought they’d seen him committing theft? In the dark?

But he doubted anyone would be on his side if he demanded fairness.

“He could’ve hid the combs somewhere. Along with the other stolen goods,” Stillwell argued. What did the other man have against Nathan, anyway? A lot of suspicions, that’s what.

“Can anyone verify your whereabouts last night before the party?” Hewitt asked Nathan, not unkindly.

Nathan kept his eyes on the brightening horizon. He’d been minding the oxen last night, separate from everyone as they’d washed up and chattered and prepared for the party.

Most of the time he didn’t care that he was excluded from the gatherings. But last night it would have been nice to be one of the group. Then he wouldn’t have been in this predicament.

Not that it mattered much in the scheme of things. He hadn’t stolen those hair combs, but he’d done enough thieving and snitching that he deserved whatever punishment they would mete out.

Would they exile him from the caravan? He could live off the land, trapping and hunting the way he’d done for years. But he’d hoped for more. The small amount Mr. Bingham was to pay him for pushing the oxen to their destination was to be socked away so Nathan could purchase land.

Or would they deem that his misdeeds were enough to hang him? He’d heard of it happening in other situations. The thought sent a shudder through him.

Someone else was talking but a peculiar buzzing sound blocked the words and his light-headedness got worse. His stomach pitched from the dizziness.

Everything around him began to darken—but that wasn’t right, was it? It was morning, it should be getting lighter as the daylight brightened.

Then he blacked out.

* * *

The men had fallen into low-voiced squabbling and, at first, Emma Hewitt was the only one who witnessed Nathan Reed slump to the ground.

And when the men noticed, they went silent.

No one rushed to help him.

“Really,” she huffed quietly. Emma did not like being the center of attention, but did the men have a shred of decency in them?

They couldn’t seem to come to agreement on anything. After she’d discovered the missing hair combs yesterday, her brother had filled her in on the ongoing investigation. She’d heard talk among the other travelers; whispers of a thief among them, but the bite of violation remained this morning.

Someone had rifled through her things.

But that didn’t matter right at this moment.

She picked up her skirt, intending to go to the fallen man, when her brother Ben touched her arm to stop her.

“Wait. He might be faking. Pretending to swoon so if someone gets close he attacks or takes them hostage.”

The alarming white pallor of Nathan Reed’s face indicated otherwise.

“He’s not playacting,” Emma insisted, tearing her arm away from her brother’s grasp.

She went to the prone man, meeting Mr. Stillwell, her brother’s friend, at his shoulder. Ben followed a few paces behind.

Mr. Stillwell squatted as she knelt at Mr. Reed’s side. Stillwell touched his forehead. “He’s burning up.”

But he didn’t look as if he intended to do anything about it.

She shook Mr. Reed’s shoulder. “Wake up,” she whispered.

She moved to touch his face, then faltered. If the great, burly, bear of a man was one of the children, she wouldn’t have hesitated to examine him as necessary, even if it seemed far too intimate with a grown man.

She would think of him as a little child. She must. Even though he was the furthest thing from it.

Holding her breath, she peeled back one of his shapely lips. His thick beard abraded her knuckles.

He might’ve fainted from the fever or lack of sleep or food, but the marks inside his mouth confirmed what she’d already guessed. The contagious disease that had plagued their caravan had claimed another victim.

“It’s measles,” she murmured.

Her brother crouched at her side, Ben’s presence reassuring. “You sure?”

She was. “Some of the children had the same white spots on their gums. See there?”

Ben’s nose wrinkled and he only glanced cursorily into Mr. Reed’s mouth.

“What do we do now?” Stillwell demanded.

Before she could think to prevent it, he raised his hand and slapped Mr. Reed’s cheek. His dark head knocked to one side.

Emma gasped.

She could not abide injustice. In any form.

“Don’t touch him like that again,” she commanded.

But maybe Stillwell hadn’t heard her. His eyes passed over her almost as if she wasn’t there at all.

Stillwell stood, directing his words to the other men. “He’s a thief—”

It was easier for Emma to direct her words to the unconscious man on the ground. “Whether or not he’s a criminal, he’s still a human being and deserves basic kindness. And care.”

She looked up and met Ben’s gaze. The men stood behind him, none paying attention. She’d spoken so softly that likely many of them hadn’t heard her.

That was normal. Her opinions were rarely heard. And for a long time, it hadn’t mattered to her. It did now.

But when Ben spoke, people listened. And he spoke now. “Emma’s right. We can’t punish a man in this condition. We’ll stay the verdict until he’s on his feet again.”

The group of men grumbled. “What’re we going to do with him?”

“We should just leave him behind,” Mr. Stillwell said.

“You can’t,” she cried. “How would he survive?”

But perhaps her distressed cry had only been loud in her own mind. Because again Mr. Stillwell did not pay her any heed, only turned his back to talk to the other men.

Nathan Reed moaned, a low, pained sound that seemed as if it came from the depths of his soul, instead of from suffering a simple fever. He did not return to consciousness, and that worried Emma the most.

“He needs care,” Emma insisted.

Ben nodded to her. He’d heard, at least. He argued with the men and left her with the prone Mr. Reed.

Emma was not a nurse. She’d had no formal training, only the difficult duty of being constantly at her father’s bedside those final years.

Yet she was an expert at completing tasks that no one else wanted to do. At being available when there was no one else.

And since she’d nursed many of the children in the wagon train when they’d been afflicted with measles, it did not surprise her when the men agreed to leave Mr. Reed under Ben’s care and delay his sentence until the time that he awoke. Ben would be busy driving the family wagon and carrying out his duties as a committeeman, so caring for Mr. Reed would fall to her. Ben did not ask for her agreement. He assumed she would consent.

It was unsurprising, but a bit disappointing. Of course she would have agreed to help Mr. Reed. But the fact that she hadn’t been consulted rankled, just the tiniest bit.

Maybe it was because, as one of the committeemen, Ben needed to make a quick decision so the wagon train could move out for the day, under the guide Sam Weston’s direction.

Or maybe it was because her siblings had come to rely on her without having to ask. That was a family blessing. And also a pain.

Her brother and sister were the only people with whom Emma’s natural timidness didn’t manifest itself. Most of the time. Sometimes, she still felt she couldn’t speak up, even to them.

In the safety of her journal, Emma wished she could find her backbone. Had she gotten in the habit of being so very quiet at her father’s bedside that now no one listened?

Sometimes she feared her voice would fade away completely. That no one would hear her or see her at all.

Ben returned and reached out a hand to draw her up from where she knelt next to Mr. Reed. “They’ve agreed to stay the verdict until he recovers. I’ve sent Cavanaugh to bring a stretcher.”

She stood, her eyes lingering on Nathan, his dark head lolled to the side. “Where will he stay?”

“With Abby’s family.”

She opened her mouth to argue, but Miles Cavanaugh and two other men arrived and Ben was distracted with helping roll Mr. Reed onto the canvas draped over two long poles.

Ben’s fiancée was Abigail Bingham Black. They had been sweethearts years before, until circumstances—and Abby’s mother—had driven them apart. Widowed and back in her parents’ household, Abby had been on the wagon train and she and Ben had reconnected. And fallen in love all over again.

Mr. Bingham had had trouble driving the oxen and Nathan Reed had arrived in the wagon train as a hired driver. With no wagon of his own, she knew he’d slept in the open air most of the time. But that wasn’t an option now.

If the disease followed the same course it had with the children, he would be incapacitated with fever and weakness for a day or more. And remembering the glimpse Emma had had of the interior of the Binghams’ wagon revealed the difficulty Ben hadn’t thought of; their wagon had been overstuffed with all the things Abby’s now-deceased mother hadn’t wanted to leave behind.

She trailed the men carrying the still-unconscious Mr. Reed through the bustling camp. Women doused their cookfires, men harnessed oxen, children ran among the lot, all in anticipation of the call to ride out. They all worked with intent.

Was it only Emma who felt as lacking in direction as a puff of dandelion blowing in the wind? She needed to find her purpose again. For so long, her purpose had been caring for her father. Praying, hoping, believing that one day he would recover.

After his death, she’d been lost, drifting. Until she’d found the orphanage in the town nearest to their ranch, a small affair that had been run by one very motivated woman. And Emma had believed she’d found a new purpose.

Until the day her brother had come into the house, waving Grayson’s letter. Ben and Rachel had been so excited about the trip, about leaving behind the difficult memories. About starting a new life.

But Emma hadn’t been sure.

And she’d hesitated too long to mention that she didn’t want to go West. Once plans were made, she hadn’t felt she could broach the subject, not without sounding selfish and petty.

Her own fault. Now where was she to find a purpose? Was it possible that she could find it with a family of her own?

Her eldest brother, Grayson, had written of the widowed local sheriff, Tristan McCullough, who had become his close friend in the Oregon Territory. Tristan had three young daughters who needed a mother. Both Grayson and Ben seemed in agreement that the man was a match for Emma.

She wasn’t entirely convinced that this was her purpose, even if her brothers seemed to be certain. She would wait until she met the man before she decided what to do.

Unanswered questions swirled in Emma’s head as she trailed the men carting Mr. Reed to their wagon, but the biggest remained: Where would Mr. Reed stay? Obviously, he couldn’t walk to guide the Binghams’ oxen.

And from what she knew of Abby’s wagon, there wasn’t room for a mouse, much less a man as tall as Mr. Reed.

Ben had made himself Mr. Reed’s caretaker when he’d stood up for the ill man. Would Ben—and Emma by association—be forced to keep Mr. Reed in the Hewitts’ wagon? If he must stay in their wagon, the precious little privacy she fought for on this dusty wilderness trail would be gone.

When they arrived at the family campsite, Rachel and Abby were there, packing up the breakfast dishes.

“What happened?” Abby asked, moving toward Ben, almost as if by instinct.

“We need to clear a space in your family’s wagon,” Ben told his fiancée. “Reed fell sick—measles.”

“Will there be room…?” Abby’s question trailed off as she moved with the men toward the Binghams’ wagon. Emma remained near the fire with Rachel.

“Did the committee reach a verdict?”

Emma shook her head slightly. “He collapsed. Ben demanded they hold the verdict until he is recovered.”

Rachel watched Emma carefully. “You don’t think he is guilty?”

Her sister saw too much. They had always been close. But Emma did have one secret—that she hadn’t wanted to come West at all.

She shrugged, moving to pick up the breakfast skillet to take it to the family wagon. “Even if he is guilty, he deserves to be treated fairly. No man deserves to be left in the wilderness to die.”

A shiver raced through her, just thinking about it.

“That’s his punishment? How utterly unfair!” Rachel was a passionate person—and much more outspoken than Emma.

She went on, spouting her thoughts as if she was defending Mr. Reed in front of the committeemen herself. “I’m just glad Ben was there to stand up for him.”

Emma was, too. Part of her wished that she had been able to stand up against the injustice. Perhaps that should become her new purpose.

Finding her voice. Or risk losing it forever.

Chapter Two

“Your presence here is quite inconvenient.”

Emma bathed Mr. Reed’s face with a rag dipped in tepid water from the small basin she’d tucked between two crates in the cramped Conestoga wagon. She was down to the dregs of what she’d started with—most of it had splashed onto her as the wagon jostled over the rough terrain.

She dared speak to him so rudely only because he hadn’t regained consciousness after his collapse early this morning. If he was awake, she never would’ve had the courage.

And he probably wouldn’t have heard her, anyway.

His continuous unconscious state worried her. Where her knuckle inadvertently brushed against his cheek, his skin burned her. His fever was high. Dangerously so.

“Crossing the creek again,” Ben called out from outside the wagon, where he walked beside the oxen.

Again?

Emma braced one hand against the sideboard. The wagon lurched and she slid forward, then another unexpected drop sent her sprawling, her arm resting across Mr. Reed’s massive chest and her chin on his shoulder.

“Sorry,” she muttered, even though he couldn’t hear her. She quickly pushed herself upright and away from the man.

After endless days of walking—sometimes as much as twenty miles—Emma had never thought she’d want to hike again. Until this very moment. When would they stop for luncheon?

There was no space. The Hewitts’ wagon hadn’t been overfilled as Abby’s family wagon had, but their provisions were many and there wasn’t room for two grown people back here.

She was alternately worried for Mr. Reed’s health, and embarrassed about their shared close confines.

More so because she knew Mr. Reed didn’t like her. She had no idea why, or what she’d done to offend him. But it had been very clear from their few interactions at the evening meal that he had no wish to be friends. The Hewitts shared a campfire with the Binghams and Littletons to conserve fuel. As Mr. Reed drove the Binghams’ wagon, he ate supper with their group. Several times when Emma had offered Mr. Reed a supper plate and attempted polite conversation, he’d avoided her gaze completely and nearly ripped the tin plate from her hands before disappearing into the shadows. As if being in her presence irritated him.

After the third time, she’d quit trying to be kind and merely served his plate in silence. Unlike the times when papa’s illness had made him difficult, she didn’t have to accept the rudeness from a stranger.

He moaned, a low sound of pain that tugged something in the vicinity of Emma’s gut. He was alone, with no one to care for him.

Her innate compassion dictated that she do for him what no one else would. She hoped someone would do the same for her should she need it.

“I know you don’t like me very much,” she whispered, dabbing the cloth over his forehead again. “But it would be lovely if you would wake up.”

But Mr. Reed made no response.

The caravan slowed and stopped for the noon meal and Emma was relieved to escape the wagon for a few moments.

Ben allowed the oxen out of their traces and led them off to graze for a bit. Rachel and Abby had their heads together, probably planning supper or trading news from elsewhere in the wagon train.

And Emma was left standing in the shade of the wagon. She arched her back, hands at her hips, attempting to shake the aches that being hunched over and jostled all morning had given her.

The landscape had changed subtly in the past days to bare, sandy plains. There was little vegetation, only the occasional wild sage. Ben had told her earlier they should come upon the Wind River Mountains by the end of the day.

“How does your patient fare?”

Emma looked over her shoulder at the familiar, friendly voice calling out. Clara Pressman. Disguised as a man. “Clarence” Pressman was only a ruse to hide the truth.

Emma had discovered the masquerade after they’d left Independence, Kansas. Clarence had gotten a nasty cut on his back and Emma had been called to aid him. While cleaning the wound, Emma had discovered his secret. Clarence was Clara.

And Clara was pregnant. Very much alone, after her husband had died, with no family in the East and no home to return to—her husband had sold everything to make the journey West—she’d decided to go on alone and meet up with her sister who already lived in Oregon. She’d felt it necessary to hide her true identity, fearing the organizers wouldn’t allow her to make the trip if they knew she was a pregnant woman on her own.

She’d probably been right. Emma didn’t necessarily agree with the ruse, but Clara had held up remarkably well on the journey so far.

Nearby, Clara was unhitching a yoke of oxen along with Mr. Morrison. Emma waved at her friend and called out a greeting to both.

Clara nodded, but the second man turned red and then turned his face away, not acknowledging Emma at all.

Emma’s stomach pinched. Had her shout been too forward? She didn’t know how to relate to men properly. When other girls her age had been attending socials and picnics and learning to flirt, Emma had been at her father’s bedside.

Maybe her naivety and inexperience with the opposite sex was also the reason she didn’t understand why Mr. Reed had snubbed her those several times.

What would Tristan McCullough think of her?

She hadn’t allowed herself to hope that the sheriff Grayson spoke so highly of in his letters would like her once they’d met.

What if Mr. McCullough found her natural shyness irritating?

Perhaps he wouldn’t even be interested in her once they met. Her cautious nature caused her to hesitate more than hope. She would wait and see how things turned out.

A soft whine drew Emma’s attention to the long grass beneath the wagon, where a small brown dog crouched, panting. Watching her, almost asking a question with its eyes.

“Hello, you,” she said, squatting. This was Mr. Reed’s dog. She’d seen the brown-and-black mottled mutt from a distance, witnessed the man sharing snatches of his supper with it, but had forgotten about the animal in the rushed moments of finding a place for Mr. Reed before the bugle had urged the travelers to move out.

“Have you been following us all day?” She reached out and was astonished when the creature let her scratch beneath its chin. “Yes, your master is inside that wagon.”

Pitiful begging eyes reminded her of the family cat, Buttons, that had been her childhood friend. “Hungry, are you?”

She knew the animal couldn’t really understand what she was saying, but the dog’s tail whupped against the grasses as if it did.

“I’ll share some beans with you, but only if you promise not to tell your master.”

She was so tired of the trail fare. Cold beans and bacon for dinner. Every single day. Unless one counted the times they had fresh buffalo meat to break up the monotony.

She wanted a real stove, not a camp stove and a fire. Real walls.

“Unfortunately, we’ve got a ways to go,” she told the dog.

“What’re you doing?”

Emma jumped at the sound of the unexpected voice and thumped her head on a bucket hanging from the side of the wagon. She backed out from where she’d been crouching, rubbing the top of her head and grimacing at Clara.

“If you must know, I was making a new friend,” she groused.

Clara glanced behind her to where the dog still sat beneath the wagon’s bed.

“I need one today,” Emma finished.

Now Clara turned a raised eyebrow on her. “It’s going that well with your patient, then?”

“Oh, Mr. Reed has been perfectly amiable, entertaining me with his lovely conversation and sweet nature.”

“Ah.” Clara’s lips twitched. “So he hasn’t woken up?”

Emma’s friend kept the straight face for several moments before a smile broke through. Emma couldn’t help sharing a chuckle with her. Between her father and two brothers, she well knew that men could be irritable when they were ill.

“And how are you this morning, friend?”

Just then, Amos and Grant Sinclair, brothers traveling the trail together, passed by.

Clara stiffened and waited until the men had passed out of hearing distance. “Fine.”

Up close, Clarence’s secret was no secret at all—although her womanly figure was covered with men’s clothing, Emma could see straight through the ruse. She didn’t understand how everyone else saw only a man.

Clara unobtrusively put her hand at her lower back. She nodded at the horizon, and Emma followed with her gaze. “Storm’s coming.”

Clouds built on the western horizon, directly in their path. Even as Emma watched, the slate-gray mass twisted on itself, forming a thunderhead.

And Emma had hated storms since she’d been caught out in one as a small child.

* * *

The ominous clouds had delivered on their promise. The caravan had been forced to end its day early because of driving rain.

Now in the twilight dimness, Emma was secluded with the still-unconscious Mr. Reed, with no end in sight of the intense storm.

Ben and Rachel were hunkered down in the family’s tent, probably soaking wet instead of the mere damp that Emma suffered.

Rain pelted the wagon bonnet, rattling the canvas until Emma felt as if her teeth rattled with it.

“I don’t suppose you’d like to wake up now,” she said to the comatose man. She worked in the dark, still attempting to cool his fever. She’d lit a candle twice but wind had gusted in through the flaps and blown out the light—and once knocked over the candle. She was too afraid of catching their wagon afire and losing all their goods to try again.

Late in the afternoon, when they’d still had light, she’d watched the measles rash climb Mr. Reed’s chest and neck. She imagined it had crept into his cheeks by now, but his heavy, dark beard obscured her view.

His continued unconsciousness worried her. None of the children had experienced a prolonged period like this. She guessed that measles could affect adults differently than children and that his body was likely attempting to fight off the burning fever.

“Not that I object to nursing you in particular,” she went on. “It’s just…I had hoped to leave behind the need to use my nursing skills.”

She’d been so beaten down by her time at her father’s bedside. The hours spent caring for him, praying for his recovery—only to be bitterly disappointed when he had died.

She’d hoped to, planned to, help the children at the orphanage with her other skills. Sewing clothing. Cooking. Loving on the children. But it was not to be, not when her family had decided to pull up their roots and travel West. And now she was here with Mr. Reed.

Static electricity crawled along her skin, making the fine hairs on her arms stand upright and raising gooseflesh in its wake.

Bright lightning flashed, momentarily filling the interior of the wagon with brilliant white illumination. Thunder crashed so loudly that Emma instinctively raised her hands to press against her ears. The earth trembled, the entire wagon shaking with it.

When the thunder receded, Emma’s eyesight retained large glowing spots, an aftereffect of the bright light that rendered her momentarily blind.

She reached out and clutched the first thing she found, attempting to ground herself in her state of disorientation.

The nearest thing turned out to be Mr. Reed’s shoulder.

A muscle twitched beneath her palm, but he remained still and silence reigned inside the wagon, only the cadence of rain drumming all around them.

Emma squeezed her eyes tightly closed, bent over and breathed through the fear, inhaling the scent of stale sweat and man. Not for the first time was she made aware that she was nursing a man and not one of the children. The firm muscle beneath her fingers also made it impossible to ignore that this was not her father in his frail condition those last months.

Mr. Reed was a fine specimen of a man. Fit, tall, broad-shouldered. A bit unkempt for her tastes but everything else that usually made her tongue-tied.

Except he was unconscious.

“That was a close one,” she breathed.

An echo of thunder rumbled from far away. Just how large was this storm? How long could it last?

Her nervousness and fear made her ramble on, though she attempted to keep her thoughts on the past and not the storm. “My father lost everything in the Panic. His spirit was broken and he was never the same after that. He got sick.”

Emma allowed her hand to move until her fingertips brushed Mr. Reed’s temple. Still hot.

In the dark, she fumbled for the rag and bowl of cool water. She dabbed at his forehead, feeling that her efforts were in vain. What if Mr. Reed died? The man wasn’t even her acquaintance, yet she felt responsible for him.

“It wasn’t that I resented being the one to care for Papa,” she murmured. “But it was…difficult. Being closest to him when his spirits suffered. He battled despondency and often there was no comfort I could bring him…”

She was surprised when a sniffle overtook her. She’d thought she had mourned her father completely, but perhaps this trip was calling for more from her.

“Dealing with his bodily functions…”

She paused. “Perhaps I did resent my siblings a bit,” she admitted. “For not asking if I needed their assistance.”

It felt good to say the words, admit to her unkind feelings, knowing that no one would ever hear her.

“Of course,” she went on to excuse them, “it wasn’t as if Ben and Rachel ignored their responsibilities. Ben was constantly busy running the ranch. And Rachel took over the entire household. The situation was difficult on all of us.”

And that was why her siblings had wanted a new start.

But the truth was, she’d hoped to find her new start right at home.

* * *

Nathan lay in the dark, knowing he should tell Emma Hewitt he was awake.

The booming thunder had shaken him out of the place of darkness that had claimed him…all day apparently.

Or maybe it had been the clutch of her small hand against his shoulder that woke him.

He should tell her.

But some small part of him that hadn’t died with Beth had savored the soft brush of her fingers against his blazing forehead, the thought that someone wanted to converse with him.

Oh, he wasn’t kidding himself. He knew she was caring for him out of basic human kindness—even that was as foreign to him as a store-bought candy. As out of it as he’d been, he had still heard her soft-spoken words and had felt her each time she’d smoothed back his hair, had bathed his face and neck with water, had helped him sip water from a tin cup.

No one treated him this kindly. Not since Beth.

Most people acted as if he didn’t exist, or if they had no other choice but to talk to him, treated him like dirt.

It was what he deserved.

But that one small part of him held his limbs captive and numbed his tongue so that he just lay silent and still.

He didn’t particularly like the dark, confining space. He was used to sleeping outdoors, even in the rain.

He couldn’t see her, but he could make out a darker shadow that must be her form sitting close at his side. Beneath the damp smell of rain floated the scent of their foodstuffs. Flour, sugar, coffee. And a hint of wax, perhaps a candle that had guttered out.

And something he couldn’t identify. Flowers or freshness…it must be her scent.

She was still speaking in a low voice.

“Once Ben received Grayson’s letter, there was no talking him out of his plans. And Rachel on board, as well…how could I hold them back from their dreams?”

What about her dreams? It didn’t sound as if Emma had wanted to take the trip West. Why not? Curiosity stung him. He might not ever get answers, not if she stopped talking. Because he would never ask.

Light flashed again, not so brightly this time, perhaps farther away. Thunder rolled. Water from the cloth she was using trickled down his jaw and behind his ear.

It tickled, and he used all the willpower he possessed not to move.

“I hope your little dog found a safe place to curl up for the night.”

Mutt. The animal didn’t really belong to Nathan. It had attached itself to him the second night he’d been in camp. He’d waited for someone to claim the dog—it was friendly enough to belong to a family. But no one ever had. And maybe the little dog’s protruding ribs meant no one would.

Just like no one claimed Nathan.

He hadn’t been able to avoid the slight feeling of camaraderie with the animal, so he’d taken to feeding it scraps from his meals. It had started following him around, but Nathan didn’t regard it as a pet. It would wander off at some point.

“Storms like this are just one of the dangers on the trail,” Emma whispered. “Illness, poor nutrition, early winter, stampeding buffalo, snakes…”

She recited the list as if she’d read it in a book somewhere. Nathan had spent so much time trapping and living off the land that he didn’t even notice the critters she’d mentioned. If you were listening, you could hear stampeding buffalo from a mile off and get out of their way. Snakes didn’t bother you unless you got in their space.

It was the humans in the caravan that were the real danger. And didn’t he know it? His past had taught him that men couldn’t be trusted. He might have acquaintances back at Fort Laramie that he did business with, but there was always a part of him that held back. And look what had happened after he’d joined the wagon train. He’d been falsely accused.

There was a sudden muting of the rain outside. Prickles crawled along his skin and light flared. He caught a glance of Emma’s chestnut hair and bright eyes before he had to close his eyes against the painful brightness.

There was a loud crack, then a boom, shaking everything until he was sure his teeth rattled.

And this time was different from the last. Voices cried out. Screamed.

Emma’s hand gripped his wrist painfully.

A loud thump against the side of the wagon startled her and she jerked, releasing him.

“The Ericksons’ wagon got struck by lightning and caught fire!” That was Ben Hewitt’s voice. “Stay put for now, I’ll come for you if I need you.”

What a disaster. The torrential rain should help, but the lightning could’ve hurt the family inside the wagon or caused significant damage. He should get up to help, but he still couldn’t figure out how to get his legs to work. Maybe he was sicker than he’d thought. Or had they tied him up so this suspected thief couldn’t get away?

Emma shifted beside him. Another lightning flash and he saw that she’d curled up into herself, drawn her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them. Her head was tucked down and she was rocking very slightly back and forth. She was muttering something, but he couldn’t make out the words over the continuing rain.

She could be praying.

Or upset.

How many times had his sister curled up just like that during one of their father’s angry spells?

Unexpected emotion ran hot through his chest and he did something he hadn’t done in years. He reached out for her.

Fever still coursing through him, his arm shook, but he cupped her elbow in his hand.

Somewhere in the haze of the day, he remembered her saying something about him not liking her. The statement was something of an untruth. He didn’t like anyone. No one liked him.

But when she stilled beneath his touch, he scrambled for something to say and what came out was, “I don’t dislike you.” His voice was raspy from disuse.

There was a beat of silence. As full and tense as that moment before the lightning had struck.

“You’re awake,” she said, surprise in her tone.

“I’m feeling a mite better.” It wasn’t entirely true but he figured she was probably tired of nursing him. Likely she’d want him out of her wagon any minute. “You all right?” he asked.

He sensed more than saw that she went still again.

“How long have you been awake?” she asked quietly.

Caught.

He hesitated. “Long enough.” He cleared his throat. His whole body felt as though it were on fire, and he figured half of it must be from the fever and half from the hot embarrassment that spiraled through him.

But instead of giving him a well-deserved shove out of the wagon, she shifted beside him. “You need to drink some water. Do you think you could keep down any food?”

She wanted to feed him?

“I don’t know,” he said slowly. His head felt stuffed with cotton.

She pressed a cool tin cup into his right hand. He tried to rise up on his elbows. Tried and struggled.

And she put a hand beneath his shoulder and helped him. She must be the kindest person on the face of the earth.

He frowned as he sipped from the cup, the tin metallic against his tongue.

She was too nice. He didn’t know why she was being kind to him. Experience had taught him that everyone wanted something. But with his head hot with fever, he couldn’t figure what her motive might be. Had her brother forced her in here to make sure he didn’t abscond with the goods he hadn’t actually stolen?

The water was a relief to the parched desert of his throat. He drank until the cup was empty, then wiped his chin with the back of his wrist.

Lightning flashed again, illuminating the interior of the wagon and giving him the visibility to see her flinch.

Thunder boomed again, rattling two pots hung above and behind his head.

And he had some strange impulse to comfort her. Maybe if he started a conversation with her, she would be distracted from the storm’s fury. Not that he knew how. He’d been on his own for too long to know how to talk to a proper woman. Which was why the most impertinent question popped out of his mouth.

“Have you always been scared of storms?”

He heard the small catch in her breath, felt the stillness between them. Even though rain pattered on the wagon’s bonnet, he thought she must be holding her breath.

“I was four years old when I got caught out in one.” Her words came slowly at first, and then he was surprised when she went on. “My family was at a town picnic and I was playing with a friend. The storm came on quickly and as everyone rushed to get out of the open, I was separated from my friend and couldn’t find my family. It might’ve only been minutes, but I was alone in the wind and rain and thunder. And I’ve never liked storms since.”

He couldn’t say that he blamed her. Lightning flashed, burning into his brain an image of her as a small girl lost in the storm. His gut tightened. His cheeks got hot.

He didn’t want to feel the stirring of compassion or the small surge of protectiveness for a lost little girl.

His discomfort made his next words sharp.

“If you didn’t want to come West, why did you?”

Her grip tightened on his elbow. She didn’t answer outright. “Will you tell my brother I was complaining about the journey?”

“Why should I?” He’d spoken to Ben Hewitt when necessary in the weeks since he’d joined the wagon train, but it wasn’t as if they were friends. They didn’t share confidences. As far as he was concerned, if she hadn’t told her brother she didn’t want to be here, it was her business.

“There are many difficulties on the trail,” she said. “As you know. I was…finding my way back to being happy where we were, after Papa died.”

So she’d given up her own desires to go West with her family. It reminded him of Beth, his sister, who had often given in to his whims.

Thunder rolled again and he sensed her shiver.

The bitter taste of fear remained from his past. And he didn’t want that for her.

He tried a different tack.

“So you’re going to Oregon to get married?”

She inhaled sharply. “Have you been eavesdropping on me? What a childish thing to do—”

In the dark, he couldn’t tell if she was angry or teasing. “I just hear stuff is all.”

It was true. Always on the fringes, half-hidden in the shadows, he heard a lot. Whispered complaints against the committeemen. Young couples sneaking kisses and making plans.

He just wished he’d had some clue as to who had stolen her hair combs. Then he would’ve been able to prove his own innocence.

“I might marry Tristan McCullough. If I decide to.” Did he detect a note of petulance in her voice?

It was too dark to see her expression, so he was left guessing. Not that it was his business, anyway.

His head was pounding now and he shifted his elbows. She seemed to realize he needed to lie down again and pressed one hand against his shoulder as she guided him back down.

“My brother Grayson is already settled there,” she said briskly. “He knows Tristan. His friend is looking for a mother for his three daughters.”

“A ready-made family.” There was something poking his back, beneath the blanket they’d spread. He tried to reach beneath himself to adjust it, but it wouldn’t budge.

“I suppose. It isn’t as if I’m unused to taking care of…”

“Your pa. Yes, you said.”

He still couldn’t get comfortable. He shifted, moving his weight. And she was there, helping him, reaching under his back to move the box or crate that had poked him.

He still couldn’t see her face; he imagined her frowning. But at least if she was miffed at him she wasn’t thinking about the storm.

“Do you want to marry a man you’ve never met before?”

“I don’t know.”

* * *

“I don’t know.”

Emma helped Mr. Reed settle again in the crowded wagon. He was warm, even through the barrier of his shirt. Though he had awakened, his fever had not abated.

Perhaps she should feel guilty about her indecision over Tristan McCullough. Her brother Grayson thought they would make a fine match, but how could she be ready to marry a man she’d never met before?

She’d spent the past several years caring for her father. Given up so many things—social events, time spent with friends, even time to herself.

Joining a new family with the demands of three young girls…she’d be jumping right back into the same type of situation. Housework, caring for the girls and the demands of a husband. She’d just begun finding her feet again, had found a worthy cause in the orphanage back home before their move had uprooted her. Did she really want to take on an entire family?

Or was this the purpose she’d been petitioning God for? Had He provided this family, these girls who needed a mother, just when Emma needed direction in her life?

She didn’t know.

She should be uncomfortable speaking so candidly with Mr. Reed, but somehow the darkness and the intimacy of their situation had erased her usual awkwardness with the opposite sex.

And then he said, “It sounds like it’s moving off.”

It took her a moment to realize he meant the storm. And he was right. Thunder rolled in the distance, but the patter of rain had slowed on the wagon bonnet.

Had he engineered the whole conversation to distract her from the danger the storm represented?

She loosened the ties and opened the back flap in time to see several flashes of light at the horizon. The storm would be completely gone before much longer.

“Fire’s out,” someone called out. There was much more activity than the camp usually saw after dark.

“Do you think you can hold down some food?” she asked again, turning back to her patient.

There was no response.

When she knelt at his side, his breathing had gone shallow and he didn’t respond when her fingertips brushed his forehead.

He’d fallen unconscious again.

Chapter Three

Nathan—Emma found she thought of him by his Christian name after their late night conversation—did not rouse at all the next day as they came within sight of the Wind River Mountains, majestic snowcapped peaks miles to the north. She knew they would grow bigger as the caravan approached.

By the time they’d made camp that evening, she was exhausted from her efforts attempting to cool his fever and forcing water down his throat.

And he’d begun coughing, a deep racking cough that worried her.

Rachel came for Emma after supper. The rest of the camp was settling for the night, the sounds of conversations and music and laughter quieting as dusk deepened.

“Get out of that wagon,” Rachel ordered. “It’s time you had a break. That man isn’t going to die if you leave his side for a half hour.”

But Emma was half-afraid he might.

“He’s still burning up. His fever should have broken by now.” She was worried, her fear taking on an urgency that made her movements jerky.

After sharing a few moments of conversation with the man last night, she felt…responsible for him.

He moaned, a low, pained sound, then coughed again. She tried to support his shoulders as the hacking shook his entire body. She bit her lip, not knowing what to do…

“If bathing his face in water was going to cool him off, he’d be frozen by now. You’ve soaked his shirt through at least twice,” Rachel said.

It was true. Wetness stained the collar of his worn shirt.

When Emma still refused to disembark from the wagon, Rachel disappeared. Emma couldn’t hope it would last very long.

“Wake up, Nathan,” she whispered. If she’d hoped using his name would rouse him, it was in vain. He remained still in the wagon bed, his cheeks flushed with fever.

She brushed the damp waves of his hair away from his temple. If he’d been awake, she never would have dared so familiar a touch. But he wasn’t awake, and that was the problem, wasn’t it?

“Emma.”

Ben’s stern voice from behind startled her and she hid her hand in her skirts as if she’d been doing something improper. Which she really hadn’t been.

Her brother stood with hands on his hips. Emma could see Abby and Rachel standing shoulder to shoulder several yards behind him, both wearing matching expressions of concern.

“Come down for a while,” Ben said. Except it sounded more like an order than a request. And she was tired of others dictating her actions.

“I’ll stay for a bit—”

But her voice faded as he spoke over her. “You’ve been cooped up in the wagon for two days. It’s time to come down. Abby can sit with Mr. Reed for a few minutes.”

He hadn’t even heard her protest.

“But—” Emma swallowed back the entirety of her argument as her brother reached up and clasped her wrist.

She allowed herself to be assisted—hauled—from the wagon, but when Rachel offered to accompany her to the nearby creek, Emma insisted she stay in camp.

Perhaps Rachel sensed Emma’s upset because she didn’t follow.

The muscles in Emma’s back and legs burned as she walked briskly through the small space of prairie and then down through the brush to the meandering creek.

The tension in her shoulders remained.

There were other women nearby, some bathing protesting children in the cool, clean water, some scrubbing clothes. Emma would never have been brave enough to come alone, not with the threat of Indians. Not to mention the troublemakers among them—whoever was committing the thefts in the wagon train.

But she knelt on the bank somewhat apart from the other women. She knew many of them, had helped some of them when their children had been sick.

But she couldn’t stomach making casual conversation with anyone tonight.

She splashed water on her face, shivering at the coldness against her overwarm skin.

Ben and Rachel didn’t understand. Nathan Reed couldn’t die.

Ben hadn’t sat at their father’s side as the man who’d once been so full of life had faded away. Oh, her brother had been there at the end—those painful moments had been burned into Emma’s brain so that they were unforgettable—but he hadn’t been constantly on call at Papa’s bedside.

Rachel couldn’t know how many hours Emma had spent praying for Papa to recover. To come back to them. And he hadn’t.

Watching Nathan Reed struggle was bringing all of those memories back. It was like living through Papa’s decline all over again. But this time, it was happening much faster.

Just yesterday, Nathan had been a virile, powerful man. And now he was laid weak with fever, the disease killing his body.

And she couldn’t do anything to stop it.

“God, please…” she whispered, her face nearly pressed into her knees on the creek bank. She didn’t even know what she was praying for. That Nathan would be healed, or that she would be relieved of the guilty burden she still bore from Papa’s passing?

When she couldn’t stand the heaviness in her chest any longer, she stood up on shaky legs. How long had she stayed by the water, prostrate and crying out silently? She didn’t know.

Most of the women had left, only a few remained far down the creek, speaking quietly. The dusk had deepened around her and urgency gripped Emma as her feet turned back toward the wagon. Whether it was the fear of the unknown wilderness, or fear for the man, she didn’t know.

Ben had pitched the family tent near the wagon and stood nearby, for once away from Abby.

“You should send someone for a doctor.”

Ben frowned and she rushed on, “Some of the other travelers we’ve passed said there are doctors traveling with other trains. If someone took a horse and rode ahead, we could find one and bring him back—”

“Emma, it’s almost full dark.”

“In the morning, then,” she insisted. “Nathan—” She only realized she’d used his name when Ben’s frown deepened. “Mr. Reed’s symptoms are not the same as the children’s.”

Now Ben crossed his arms over his chest. How could she convince her brother of the danger Nathan was in?

“He has measles. He’s broken out in the rash. But his unnatural fever and now his cough—those aren’t from the measles.”

“If he’s developed some other disease, you shouldn’t be around him,” Ben said, worry now creasing his brow. He started toward the wagon, taking a step and then pausing. Likely he’d just remembered his fiancée was the one in the wagon with Nathan.

“I doubt he’s contagious,” she said, and hoped with all her might that it was true. “But he needs doctoring—more than I know how to do.”

After all, she was just a woman. Not even trained to be a nurse.

She could feel Ben’s perusal and she didn’t know if he could see her expression as it was falling dark around them. As it was, it took all her might to maintain a calm facade when she wanted to demand him to understand and listen to her.

“If he isn’t better in the morning, I’ll consider it.”

It wasn’t enough. But it was something. “Thank you. I’ll relieve Abby. I’m sure you want to say good-night.”

Nathan’s condition hadn’t changed when she changed places with Abby in the wagon bed.

She prayed over him as she settled into the wagon. Her heart was fluttering, pulse thrumming.

He moaned again, his head turning toward her. Was he rousing?

His eyes didn’t open. But his lips formed a word.

“Beth…”

* * *

Nathan burned. Had he died and now was being punished for his sins?

His entire body was weighted down as though he’d been buried in a rock slide.

He rolled his head to the side, seeking some relief. The movement seemed to seep all of his energy away. And it didn’t help. The oppressive heat and darkness remained.

From far away—a memory, or reality?—he heard a laugh. It sounded like Beth.

“Beth!” he called out for her, but in his weakness he couldn’t be sure if anything emerged from his mouth at all.

A memory flickered through his consciousness, a remembrance of her as a teen, looking over her shoulder and laughing. Probably at him. He’d always been able to make his sister laugh. Until the end.

Another memory flitted through him, but this one stuck. The awful moment when he’d found her crumpled in a pool of her own blood. One hand protectively clutching her stomach—he hadn’t found out until later that she’d been trying to protect the babe in her womb from the violent blows its father had delivered.

She’d asked Nathan for help earlier, asked him for money to buy a train ticket. She’d been desperate for escape, willing to go anywhere.

“Beth,” he cried out again, the name ripped from his lips, from his very soul.

She had been the only good thing in his life.

And he’d failed her.

If this was the end of him, he deserved this torture, the all-consuming darkness. Why hadn’t he taken Beth away himself? He’d been younger, but he still could’ve protected her from that brute who was her husband. But she’d been afraid, too afraid to stay close. She’d wanted distance.

And with no education and no connections to recommend him, jobs were scarce. He hadn’t been able to round up funds in time to save her.

She’d died because of him.

“Forgive me…”

But she’d gone, or her memory had, and only the darkness remained.

What would her son have been like? Or daughter? Beth had been full of life and laughter. She’d always known how to tease him out of a bad mood. She’d been the only one to tell him he didn’t have to turn out like their father—a tyrant with an affinity for moonshine and a horrible temper—or the man she had married young to escape. She’d believed in Nathan.

And look what he’d done to her. He’d failed.

He burned hotter. Hotter. Until he felt as if he would incinerate from the inside out.

He just wanted the torment to end. Wanted to forget. Wanted blessed darkness.

Wanted to end this.

“I forgive you…”

He turned his head, searching for the source of the almost ethereal whisper.

“Beth?”

Had she come to ease his passing?

But then he felt something through the haze of darkness and heat. Soft fingers gripping his hand so hard he believed she could pull him back from the brink of death.

“I forgive you,” the female voice said again. Not Beth. The cadence was wrong.

But something inside him responded, opening like a flower to the sun. Some of the weight—not all—on his chest eased. No one had ever forgiven him before.

* * *

The first rays of sunlight burst over the horizon as Nathan’s fever broke and he became drenched in sweat.

Emma would never know what woke her in that darkest part of night. She hadn’t meant to fall asleep at all, but exhaustion and worry had overcome her. She’d woken with a cramp in her neck from being bent at a wrong angle. Her left foot had been completely asleep.

But those small pains had disappeared instantly when she realized that his fever must have spiked. His breath had gone shallow, with a rasp that frightened her.

He’d murmured a woman’s name—Beth—several times, finally begging for forgiveness in a tortured whisper.

She’d been afraid he was on the verge of death. Not knowing what else to do, she had grabbed his hand and told him she forgave him.

And his fever had broken.

Now she found a dry cloth and mopped the moisture on his brow.

When her hand passed over his face, in the growing light she watched as his eyes opened.

“Hello,” she whispered, almost afraid that she was dreaming this moment.

“Seems like you’d have given up on me by now, Miss Hewitt.” His voice was raspy and she fumbled for a cup of water even as that awful racking cough took him.

She held his shoulders until it had passed, helped him to take a few sips of water, mopped his brow because the effort had made sweat bead there again.

When he’d settled again, she looked him straight in the face.

“I never give up.” She let the gravity of the moment hold in a pregnant pause and then said, “And after all that’s passed between us in the last days, I think we’re beyond using each other’s surnames, Nathan.”

One corner of his lips twitched, the closest she’d seen him come to smiling. “Yes, ma’am,” he said meekly.

Or maybe she imagined the meekness as his illness forced him to whisper.

“Good.”

And it was good. She hadn’t lost this man, who’d become more than an acquaintance. Did she dare to call him a friend?

Chapter Four

Later that morning, Emma was able to leave the wagon and assist Rachel with the breakfast preparations. Her fears had been unfounded. Nathan had revived.

“You’re humming,” Rachel observed.

Emma looked up from where she flipped bacon in the fry pan. “Was I?”

“Yes. You were.” Rachel’s pointed gaze seemed to demand Emma admit to something, but she couldn’t imagine what.

She let her eyes linger on the landscape of tall, brown summer grasses before she returned her eyes to the pot. Did even the sunlight seem brighter this morning? “I suppose I am relieved that Mr. Reed is faring better.”

“He is?” Ben’s voice rang out as he joined them.

“His fever broke just before dawn,” Emma told her brother.

“Good.” Ben reached for the plate Rachel extended to him. “I won’t have to send someone riding after a doctor.”

“His cough still worries me.”

“Sally Littleton said she’s seen pneumonia develop from measles,” Rachel said. The thirtysomething mother was one of their neighbors in the wagon train and had been friendly since they’d left Independence.

Pneumonia. The word silenced the three of them. At the end, Papa had contracted pneumonia and never recovered.

“We’ll pray it isn’t that.” Ben’s voice remained grave. “I can’t spare any men to ride out. We need everyone on guard against the thief.” The last was said quietly, as if to keep the words from prying ears.

Emma set aside her spoon. “It isn’t Mr. Reed.” She had no evidence, but somehow she didn’t believe the man who’d been compassionate enough to comfort her through her fears of the storm could do such a thing. “I think Mr. Reed must have had a difficult life. But I don’t believe he is a thief.”

* * *

Nathan sat upright in the Hewitts’ wagon bed, bracing his hands against the sideboard, panting from just that little exertion.

And completely floored by Emma’s quiet, resolute statement, by her faith in him.

He’d done nothing to deserve it. In the face of her unexpected…friendship, he was ashamed of how he’d acted before this illness, brushing off and ignoring her attempts at kindness.

How long had it been since he’d known someone he counted as a friend? His childhood, twenty years ago. Or more.

And she was wrong. He’d done his share of thieving. When his pa had drunk away any money they would have used for food. As an adult, when his belly had been so empty he’d had actual pangs of hunger.

Having Emma’s faith in him, even if it lasted only for this moment and no longer, made him feel as though he could face whatever punishment the wagon train committee deemed necessary. It made him feel as if maybe there was a chance that he could really be forgiven. Be redeemed.

And that was dangerous thinking. He, more than any other, knew how black his soul was. And that good things didn’t come his way.

But then he heard Ben Hewitt’s next words through his swirling thoughts. “Someone stole a wad of cash out of the Ericksons’ wagon the night of the storm, during the fire.”

“It couldn’t have been Mr. Reed,” Emma’s sister chimed in. “You were with him in the wagon.”

“Yes,” Emma agreed.

“Whoever did it is sly,” Hewitt said. “Every able-bodied man was working the bucket brigade—or so we thought. Mr. Erickson didn’t notice the cash was missing until this morning. He thought his wife had it—she thought her husband had hidden it in their belongings. But it’s definitely missing.”

“How awful for them.”

The three siblings kept talking, but their voices faded out of Nathan’s head as he tried to scoot toward the tailgate.

If he was cleared, then he might still have a paying gig driving the Binghams’ wagon to Oregon. He’d taken the chance of joining up with the wagon train, knowing that if he could earn enough for a stake, he might get the fresh start he needed when the caravan arrived at its destination.

He could drive…if he could get his bearings. His head was swimming. He felt off-kilter, a little afraid he was going to fall out of the wagon if he got too close to the edge.

And then his hopes for a silent getaway went up in smoke as he started coughing. And couldn’t stop.

When he finally got his breath back, he was gripping one of the bows that supported the canvas, and Emma and her brother stood watching him from just outside the back flap.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Emma asked, her words more like a demand. Or those of a concerned sister.

“I thought I would—” A cough surprised him and cut off his sentence, though thankfully this one didn’t last long. “Head back to the Binghams’ wagon. Hitch up the oxen and get ready to pull out.”

Emma’s expression had turned into a thunderhead to rival what they’d seen the other day. Hewitt coughed, but when Nathan’s gaze slid to the other man, Hewitt had his hat off and was hiding behind it. Was he…chuckling?

“I figured I’d get out of your way, now that I’m better.”

Her frown only intensified.

“Better?” she echoed. The word sounded more disbelieving than questioning.

Maybe if he wasn’t so dizzy, he could follow the conversation a little better. Although that wasn’t a guarantee because he was awful rusty at talking to folks.

She stepped up onto a crate that must’ve been put in place to help her reach or get up into the wagon. She was muttering to herself, something that sounded suspiciously like, “If this is what your thinking gets you, I recommend you stop.”

But that couldn’t be right. He’d only ever heard Emma speak kind words, not sarcastic ones.

“Lie back down.”

He balked at the order and this time he heard Hewitt laugh.

She blocked him from moving anywhere but backward, deeper into the wagon. She’d pulled her hair up in a severe style since he’d seen her at dawn, the sun breaking behind her and casting a halo of light around her mussed hair.

He sent a glare over her shoulder at Hewitt. The man only shrugged, leaving Nathan to wonder if she made a habit of bossing him, too.

“As far as I’m concerned, you’re cleared of the thefts,” Hewitt said. “I’ll speak to the committee when I’m able.”

Nathan nodded his thanks, unsmiling. If Hewitt would’ve investigated better, maybe Nathan wouldn’t have been blamed in the first place.

But he knew better than to expect an apology for the unfounded accusation or the manhandling of his meager belongings as if they had had the right to do so.

They might’ve found him innocent, but Nathan knew he did not have the respect of most of the men.

But a sudden weakness took his limbs. He wavered, and for a moment wanted nothing more than to lie down like Emma had told him to.

“Get some rest,” Hewitt said. “You can drive when you’re up to it.”

The man walked off and Nathan wanted nothing more than to be able to do the same, to find somewhere private to lick his wounds, as it were.

But he was still near face-to-face with Emma, who remained half in and half out of the wagon, waiting for him to lie back.

He acquiesced, only because he didn’t think his legs would hold him if he tried to climb out of the wagon. He stared up at the white underside of the bonnet, unsure whether, if he looked at Emma, he would see her disappointed that he hadn’t been more grateful to her brother.

He wasn’t good at this, at being friendly with people.

“It’s good you’ve been cleared,” she said. He heard the clink of a fork against a plate and smelled something that had his gut twisting in a reminder that he hadn’t eaten in two days.

But he still couldn’t look at her.

“I imagine Stillwell was disappointed.” Nathan was surprised that the words emerged so easily when he hadn’t intended to say anything at all.

“Why?”

He wasn’t going to answer, but she touched his forehead, a gentle brush of her fingertips, and his eyes flicked to her of their own accord.

Her gaze reflected only sincere curiosity and he found himself saying, “He seems to have it in for me.”

He watched a tiny crease form between her eyebrows, just above the bridge of her nose.

But she didn’t laugh at him, she didn’t dismiss his statement out of hand.

“Are you certain you’re not…” She hesitated.

Her voice trailed off, but he could guess what she’d been going to say.

“Imagining that he dislikes me?”

He couldn’t hold her gaze and turned his head to stare at the opposite sideboard. His cheeks burned with embarrassment.

Was he imagining Stillwell’s watchful, suspicious gazes? No. The man expressed more suspicion toward Nathan than most folks, who tended to simply avoid him.

When she spoke again, her voice sounded cheery, as if the previous conversation hadn’t occurred. “The good news is you won’t have to bear my company all day.”

It was a relief. He didn’t know how to act around her.

But he also felt a small twinge of disappointment.

It was better this way. Better not to learn to enjoy her company, even for a few hours.

“What am I supposed to do, confined to the wagon all day?” he asked.

“You could sing,” she suggested.

“Sing?” he repeated.

“Sing. Rachel and I would be cheered if you were to serenade us as we walk.”

He stared dumbly at her until her lips turned up in a smile and then she dissolved into giggles.

Her mirth was contagious—how long had it been since he’d made anyone smile?—but he prevailed against the urge to smile.

She finally controlled herself, hiding her remaining smile behind her hand. “I suppose you’ll have to read to pass the time.”

“Read?”

“You can’t read?”

His education had been spotty at best. But he’d spent several years of his adult life teaching himself to read, not wanting to be cheated by those he traded with.

And it was a matter of pride for him. A man should know how to read.

“I can read,” he told her.

And if there was a flash of admiration in her eyes, he didn’t feel a responding flash of pride.

She rustled around in the belongings packed against the opposite sideboard. What must it be like to own so many things?

Even in Nathan’s childhood, his family had scraped by. Never enough money for necessities—like food—and none at all for frivolities like books. The Hewitts were blessed.

“I’ll need to help break camp, so I’ll leave you to your breakfast.” She placed a dark green hardcover book at his knee, next to the plate of food. Pilgrim’s Progress.

“Don’t get up,” she told him, face and voice grave. “You’re too weak to bear it.”

And his fleeting sense of pride dissipated completely.

* * *

Emma spent the morning with Rachel, attempting to gather fuel for their campfire. The terrain combined bluffs and rocky hills, sometimes passing over ledges that frightened her if she found herself looking down.

So she stopped looking and focused on two brothers playing chase through the wagons.

She and Rachel ranged off from the caravan, though not too far, and worked at gathering buffalo chips among the sparsely growing vegetation. It was not her preferred fuel—she did not appreciate the smell as it burned—but it was something.

Every time her apron filled and she passed close to the wagon to deposit her load in the fuel box, she felt caught in Nathan’s glittering obsidian gaze. She’d never met anyone with eyes so dark.

He kept the book in hand, she could see the deep green spine against his worn shirt, but she couldn’t get a sense whether he was really reading it or not. Maybe he didn’t like Christian’s story.

Once when she passed, he was dozing. When she dumped her load into the crate affixed to the side of the wagon, he started and roused, looking wildly around for a moment.

“Sorry,” she apologized.

“Why should you be?” He asked the question almost belligerently, as if he didn’t have a right to a simple apology. He softened the awkward, hard statement by adding, “I’m a passenger—you’re working.”

He appeared chagrined, his cheeks going pink above his beard.

Maybe she’d found the one specimen of the opposite sex who was as awkward as she.

It made her smile. “I am not working that hard.”

His eyes flicked to her. “Walking so far is hard work.”

She shrugged. “I’ve stopped noticing. It was difficult at first because I’d grown so used to being sedentary.” Because of all the hours spent at her papa’s bedside.

His eyes darkened with recognition. He remembered what she’d told him two nights ago.

“I’ll try not to burden you with my care overlong,” he said gravely.

“You’ll stay in that wagon until you’re fit to get down, and not a moment less,” she retorted.

His chin jerked slightly at the familiarity of her statement and she blushed, heat filling her cheeks.

It didn’t stop her from saying, “I think it must’ve been a long time since someone looked after you, Nathan.”

“You are the first in a great while.” He didn’t seem happy to admit it to her. His jaw clenched and he turned his head to one side, no longer looking at her.

Had she irritated him with her bossiness?

“Well, I’m honored to be your first friend this decade.” She’d meant the words to be teasing, but he didn’t look back at her. Had she offended him?

She slowed her steps, picked her way over the rocky terrain as her feet carried her back toward Rachel. How she missed their ranch, with its gently rolling hills!

What was it about the rugged outsider that put her at ease, allowed her to speak as she couldn’t with anyone else of the male persuasion?

Beneath his gruff exterior—the man she’d avoided because he’d hurt her feelings—there was a living breathing person.

Was it simply because she’d prayed so deeply, from the pit of her soul, on his behalf? Because they’d been in close confines for that day and a half? Because the man carried such an air of loneliness?

Or perhaps it was because she saw in him an echo of the loneliness she felt.

How many nights of whispered conversations beneath the covers with Rachel had she missed because she’d been at Papa’s side? While it had been hard for her to watch her father decline, it had been difficult for her siblings even to visit the sickroom.

By the time Papa had passed, she’d felt isolated, as if she didn’t even know her own brother and sister. Grayson she only knew from his letters.

She hadn’t been comfortable enough to tell them she didn’t want to be uprooted and travel to Oregon.

“What’s the matter?” Rachel asked, wandering closer to Emma. Her apron was half-full of the chips.

“Nothing,” Emma answered. She put on a smile.

“Were you thinking of Tristan McCullough?”

The sound of the man’s name startled her, and Rachel must have seen it. “I suppose not, then.” She laughed.

What did that mean? Stung, Emma said, “Perhaps you’re the one thinking of Tristan McCullough too much.”

Rachel’s lips parted in a gasp, but her cheeks also pinked. As if Emma’s guess had been on the mark.

She hadn’t meant to snap at her sister. It wasn’t Rachel’s fault that she felt ill at ease, uncomfortable in her own skin. As if she was drifting with no real destination.

“I’m sorry,” Emma said. “Nights of little sleep must be making me grumpy.”

Rachel considered her with her cheeks still flushed. “Hmm. I forgive you. I think we’re all weary of the journey.”

It was so much more than that. And they had a long way to go.

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