by Merry Farmer
Her heart beat harder. She gripped his arms, not ever wanting to let go. Judging by the spark in Greg’s eyes, he didn’t want to let her go either. His head dipped down toward hers, his mouth soft and open, his eyes focused on her lips. He was going to kiss her. She caught her breath and relaxed against him, more than ready to kiss him back.
“What in the devil happened here?”
Conrad’s harsh shout stopped anything from happening.
With another yelp, Darcy jumped back from Greg. It was like jumping back from her own heart. She opened her mouth to explain, but heat rushed to her face, driving away any words.
“A wildcat got into your things,” Greg said, his voice harsh. “Darcy had to fend it off on her own.”
“Well,” Conrad drawled. “She’s good for…. That’s all….” He snorted and spit, swaying as he walked toward her. “Wife,” he said at last, then belched and sagged against the side of his wagon.
“He’s drunk,” Darcy said. She could smell the alcohol fumes wafting off of him when she stepped close.
“Dead drunk,” Greg added. “Looks like he’s about to pass out.”
“I ain’t about to….” Conrad didn’t finish his sentence. He sagged and slumped, then fell to the ground.
Darcy and Greg stood there staring at him for a moment. Darcy swallowed, trying not to cry. This was what she had longed for and worked so hard for all these weeks. This sack of alcohol-soaked bones lying in the mud. It was too bitter to be anything but tragic.
Still, she had to deal with it. “Could you help me get him into the wagon?” she asked Greg.
“Sure,” he said, short and tight. He wasn’t any happier than she was.
Greg scooped Conrad up under his arms as Darcy picked up his feet. Between the two of them, they managed to shove him into the back of his wagon. Darcy took off his shoes and moved one of the blankets from where she’d draped it to dry off over Conrad. There was nothing else she could do.
“Thank you,” she said, turning to Greg when they were done.
Greg shifted anxiously from one foot to the other. “Darcy, I….”
She waited for him to go on, but he didn’t. “I should get that food back into the wagon before the cat comes back,” she said, looking away from him. If she met his eyes again, they would betray everything.
“You know if you ever need help, you can ask me,” he said.
“I know,” she smiled. “And thank you.”
She had to step away from him and get back to work to keep herself from saying or doing something she would regret. Greg waited for a moment, then walked back to his wagon, shoulders sagging. Everything in Darcy wanted to call after him, to convince him to come back and kiss her like she had been sure he was going to. She wanted him to kiss her. She wanted him to kiss her so many times and so thoroughly. She wanted him, and there was nothing she could do about it.
Chapter Six
By the next morning, when Pete Evans called for the wagons to load up and head out, Conrad was still fast asleep, snoring in the back of his wagon. Darcy squared her shoulders, put on clean clothes and did the only thing she could. She hitched up the oxen, packed away the supplies, and put on a smile.
“At least the sun is out today,” she told the one ox, Jane, as she rubbed her neck. “No walking through the rain.”
The other ox, Peg, snorted as if to tell her that wouldn’t last long.
Darcy sent a disapproving look Peg’s way and went to find the goad so she could drive the stubborn pair the way Greg had showed her. She was surprised when she reached the back of the wagon to find Greg drawing his wagon right up behind Conrad’s.
“Where are you going?” Darcy asked.
“Right here,” Greg replied with a cautious smile. He called to his oxen to get them to stop. “Conrad still sleeping it off?” he asked.
Darcy twisted to look at the back of Conrad’s wagon. His feet hung off the end. She’d been too wary of waking him up by moving him to close the wagon’s tailgate. As miserable as it was, something about the sight made her giggle. At least his socks were expertly darned, if she did say so herself.
“He snores like a prize-winning hog,” she said, then slapped a hand over her mouth and continued to laugh.
Greg burst into laughter along with her, but it quickly pinched into something sad and sorry.
“Darcy Howsam, I feel like I’ve done you wrong,” he said, lowering his eyes and shaking his head.
Her heart twisted in her chest. “Don’t say that.” She took a step toward him, reaching out and touching his arm. “You’ve been nothing but helpful to me. You’re the only friend I have out here on the trail.”
“I’m no friend,” he said, still gloomy. “I can’t help but think that I’ve pushed you into this, pushed you into being a nursemaid and a servant to that big bully.”
“Conrad isn’t so bad,” she said, willing it to be true, even though she knew it wasn’t. “He’s just a little rough around the edges.”
“He works you too hard,” Greg insisted. “He has no regard for you at all. He hasn’t tried to get to know you or find out anything about your hopes and dreams or….” His words faded and he let out a heavy breath.
“It’s all right,” she reassured him. It felt strange to be comforting Greg when he had nothing to do with the situation. She was the one who had replied to Conrad’s letter. She was the one who would have to live with him for the rest of her life. But at that moment, she couldn’t bear the thought that Greg would feel bad when all he’d ever shown her was goodness.
“Let’s move out,” Mr. Evans called to them as he rode down the line of the wagons, checking to be sure everyone was ready. “As they say, let’s make haste while the sun shines… or something like that.”
Darcy took that as a cue to smile. “See,” she told Greg. “We’re getting somewhere. The sun is shining. Doesn’t that make everything better?”
“No, not really,” Greg answered.
Darcy was halfway through turning away to walk up to the front of Conrad’s wagon, but Greg’s forceful tone stopped her. She spun back to face him.
“You deserve so much better,” he said.
Darcy’s heart felt as though it would expand throughout her entire chest and beyond. “That’s kind of you to say, but I’m all right.”
“No,” he said, taking a step toward her. “And it’s my fault.”
“How is it your fault?”
All around them, the wagon train was coming to life. The clatter of oxen moving in their harnesses and the creak of people climbing into their wagons, and of wagons moving forward filled the air with a sudden din.
“I shouldn’t have helped you convince Conrad to take you back,” Greg went on. He had an edge of urgency to his words, as though he had to speak them before it was too late.
“But this is what I wanted. It’s what I came all this way for,” Darcy answered, wondering if it was true. “What else should you have done?”
Greg took a step closer to her. “I should have done this.”
With noise and movement all around them, he swept her into his arms and held her close. In a flash, they were back in the same position they’d been in the night before, after Greg had chased the wildcat away, but before Conrad had returned. Darcy tilted her face up to Greg. He gazed at her with something close to longing, something close to—
No, she couldn’t let herself even think the word. She’d made her choice, and her choice was—
That thought too was cut short as Greg brought his mouth down over hers. She gasped as he kissed her, holding her so close she could feel the pounding of his heart. His lips enveloped hers, all of the energy he had going into their kiss. Darcy felt herself slipping, melting against him. Her lips parted, and she drank in the heady goodness that was Greg and everything he stood for. He was passion and purpose. He kissed her the way the sun kissed her, with warmth and delight that filled her down to her soul. Sensations she had never imagined before swirled throu
gh her, building up a pulsing need in her that matched the beat of her heart.
“Move on! Move out!”
Mr. Evans’s shout, only a few feet away, broke the spell like glass shattering. Greg sucked in a breath, stepping back as though he would be caught and reprimanded if anyone spotted them. And anyone with eyes could have seen them at that point. Darcy swayed toward Greg, but she knew that what had just happened between them couldn’t possibly be.
And yet, it was the most wonderful thing that had ever happened to her. Her lips still throbbed with promise and the pulsing in the center of her began to spread, reaching out toward Greg, even if she couldn’t reach out with her arms. What had she done? Not in terms of kissing him, what had she done to tie herself to another man when her whole being cried out for Greg?
Greg cleared his throat, head half lowered and his cheeks pink with shock. “We’d, uh, better get moving,” he said, voice rough.
Darcy stood there, blinking. “Yes,” she said slowly. Her befuddled brain couldn’t puzzle out what he meant by that. She wanted nothing more than to fly back into his arms and stay there forever.
“Well, then,” Greg said. She still didn’t move, so he did. He turned and marched back to his oxen, checking to make sure they were ready to go.
But of course. Reality fell back over Darcy with a cold rush. Greg had his own wagon and he had his own plans. He was going to Oregon to buy land, and she was going to California to be the wife of a miner. One kiss, one wonderful kiss, wasn’t powerful enough to change the course of two people’s fates.
She spun on her heel, marching to the front of Conrad’s wagon, eyes still round with disbelief. Somehow she managed to coax Jane and Peg into motion, and to line Conrad’s wagon up with the others as they headed out. Her mind was in a thousand different places. She could still feel Greg’s arms tight around her. She could feel the warmth of him, the warmth of feeling, if only for one moment, that someone wanted her, someone loved her.
Darcy closed her eyes and drew in a small breath, tilting her face up to the rare sun. Yes, that’s what it felt like. Kissing Greg felt like one tiny ray of sunlight warming her in the middle of weeks and weeks of rain. It felt like the life that would make the flowers grow, the richness that could turn parched ground fertile. It was everything.
No, it was nothing, she reminded herself, thudding back to earth. Even if she didn’t belong to another man with no hope of getting out of the bargain, Greg had explicitly told her that he didn’t want a wife, that he wouldn’t be ready for one until he had his land and his farm—or ranch—and his life settled. She had to face reality. The one thing she wanted was impossible, while the only thing she had to hold onto was inevitable.
Even though the land they walked across was even and stable, if slightly rocky and steep as they climbed closer to the mountains, Greg felt as though he was standing on the edge of a precipice. He’d kissed Darcy. He hadn’t intended to, but she was right there, right in his arms. He couldn’t stop himself. He hadn’t wanted to once he started kissing her. Darcy had been delicious and responsive. Her arms around him had felt right, and her lips against his were a revelation.
It was a revelation that came too late.
“Make some of them biscuits of yours,” Conrad ordered her once they had stopped and made camp for the night.
Greg had walked behind Conrad’s wagon all day, watching. He had been privy to the sight of Conrad waking up and stumbling out of the wagon, of him scolding Darcy as if it was her fault he had had too much to drink and had a headache. He’d watched as Conrad climbed back into the wagon and spent most of the day hiding from the sunlight, sleeping off whatever ills he’d brought on himself, and as Darcy was forced to handle everything from driving the oxen to fixing Conrad’s lunch, then packing everything away and heading out again in the afternoon. She’d done it all without complaint and without a break. Now that they’d stopped as the sun dipped toward the horizon, she still wasn’t getting a break.
“And fetch some more water while you’re at it,” Conrad ordered on. “The oxen look thirsty.”
“I need to find a drink myself,” Darcy said, breathless and weary. “I hardly had a drop when we stopped at midday.”
“Make sure the oxen are taken care of first,” Conrad snapped. “And while you’re at it, you might check to be sure they have enough to eat. They’re more valuable than you are.”
“Yes, sir,” Darcy said, crossing past the campfire she’d just built to check on the oxen.
“When you’re finished with that and with my biscuits, I got a hole in my shirt and I want you to sew it up.”
“Yes, sir,” Darcy called back from the oxen’s side.
“Then you can do the washing.”
“Wouldn’t it be best to wait until we stop for Sunday?” she asked.
“You’ll do the washing when I say you’ll do the washing,” Conrad barked at her.
“Yes, sir.”
Greg’s fists were clenched so hard by the end of the exchange that he could barely feel his fingertips when forced his hands open. This was his fault. It was all his fault. He’d been a blind fool and let Darcy walk into a terrible situation. Now he was hopeless to stop it. He had to do something.
“Let me fetch some water for you,” he said, standing from his own campfire and ignoring Conrad to speak directly to Darcy.
Darcy turned a grateful smile on him, her face pale with exhaustion, but Conrad snapped, “Mind your own business.”
Greg ground his teeth. “Can’t you see she’s tired?”
Conrad glanced to Darcy, sniffed, then looked back to Greg. “So? You’re the one who told me she would be good for doing all the work.”
“That’s not what I said,” Greg protested.
“It’s all right,” Darcy said, exhaustion in every syllable. “You sit down. It’s just a little bit.”
Greg kept his feet firmly planted. He had no intention of sitting and letting Darcy continue to work herself silly, especially when she was beginning to look decidedly unwell. But she met his eyes and held them, and nodded for him to sit. With a sigh, he did.
He sat there and watched while she fetched a bucket of water from the nearby stream, still swollen with rainwater. He watched while she watered the oxen, taking none for herself, then set to work over the cook fire, making Conrad his biscuits. He watched each drop of sweat that rolled down her brow as she worked in the summer heat over the open fire, and when she finally handed Conrad his supper with a smile. Still a smile, even through her exhaustion. Darcy always smiled.
Conrad snatched the plate from her as she said, “If I could just take some of that before you eat it. I’m… I’m hungry.”
Conrad snorted at her. “This here is my supper. If you wanted to eat, you should have made some for yourself, stupid woman.”
Greg was halfway to his feet again, fists formed, ready to pound Conrad into the ground, but once again, Darcy motioned for him to sit.
“It’s all right,” she whispered. “I’ll make myself some supper.”
She set to work again, right from the beginning of the process of making supper.
“Mind you don’t use too much,” Conrad scolded her. “Those are my supplies you’re being so liberal with.”
“Yes, sir,” Darcy replied.
Every syllable grated on Greg’s nerves. His own supper turned to ash in his mouth. How a man could be as cruel as Conrad escaped him. How he could just sit by and let it happen was even more of a mystery. He wasn’t even sure if Darcy’s insistence was what kept him in his seat or if he was glued there out of shame. Yes, shame. Shame on him.
His bout of self-loathing stopped abruptly when Darcy dropped the spoon as she was stirring a can of beans she’d poured into a pot to heat for herself. Not only the spoon dropped, her arm did, and a moment later, she swayed to the side. Nothing could keep Greg in his seat then.
He leapt up, crossing the small distance and the invisible barrier into Conrad’s camp just in time
to catch Darcy as she swooned.
“Darcy,” he said, pulling her onto his lap as he knelt beside Conrad’s fire. “Darcy, are you okay? Give me some water,” he said to Conrad.
Conrad merely looked at the two of them and sniffed, then chewed on another biscuit. “Maybe she’s too weak after all.”
“No,” Darcy said, groggy, and pushed herself to sit. “No, I’m fine. It’s just the heat.”
“You need to drink something,” Greg insisted. “Water. Give me water.”
Conrad turned up his nose, no help at all, so Greg rushed back to his own camp and fetched the canteen he’d filled when they first stopped for the evening. He handed it to Darcy, and would have tipped it up and poured water into her mouth himself if she hadn’t batted him away. She drank with a desperation that startled him.
“I’ll be fine,” she repeated. “I just have to eat something and rest for a moment.”
“Rest?” Conrad balked. “You still need to do the washing.”
“Can’t you see she’s beyond that now?” Greg shouted.
Conrad pulled himself to his full height, as though Greg was a disobedient child who had offended him. “Who do you think you are to talk to me like that?”
“And who do you think you are to treat a woman so badly?” Greg snapped back.
“I’m her husband, damn you, or just about.”
“Please.” Darcy stopped them from arguing by standing and holding her arms out to both of them. “Please don’t argue. I can’t bear it right now.”
“But he has no right to treat you like this,” Greg told her.
“I have every right, unless she wants to give me my money back,” Conrad snorted.
“All I want to do right now is eat some supper, drink a little more water, do my work, and go to bed,” Darcy said. She sent Greg a pleading look. “Is that so much to ask?”
It wasn’t, although Greg wished it was. He couldn’t stand to see this go on for another second. But when he moved toward her—like he would help with her cooking or even pull her into his embrace for another kiss—she gave him a warning look so fierce that he backed off.