Trail of Passion (Hot on the Trail Book 7)

by Merry Farmer

  Leopold’s answer was to step forward and embrace Gideon the way he had Alvin. “It’s all right, son. It’s all right.” He rubbed a hand across Gideon’s back as Gideon dropped his forehead to Leopold’s shoulder and wept.

  Lucy wept right along with him, her hands pressed to her mouth, hot tears running down her face. It made no sense to cry so hard when she felt so joyful inside, but the tears just seemed to flow. All of the sadness and strain she’d seen in the man she loved—sadness she could do nothing about—had been shaken off. Gideon was set free.

  “I’m sorry, Miss Lucy.” Alvin rushed to her, throwing his arms around her and crying against her chest, released of his own pain.

  “It’s okay, sweetheart,” she sniffled and sighed, hugging him as tight as she could. “I know you didn’t mean it. What’s important now is that we forgive and forget and… and go home.”

  It took another few weeks to reach Ft. Bridger and the point where Lucy and Gideon would say goodbye to the friends they’d made on the trail to head out to Howard Haskell’s ranch.

  “I know it’s been coming for a while,” Gideon said as he watched Graham walk on his new leg. “But I still don’t know if I’m ready to say goodbye.”

  He stood with Leopold, watching Graham test out what the new leg could do for him. They’d all witnessed Graham and Estelle’s marriage by a minister in residence at the fort, and good will and happiness filled the afternoon.

  “It’s always hard to say goodbye to good friends,” Leopold said. “Especially when there’s so much more to say.”

  Gideon smiled. His heart felt lighter than it had in a while. Everything felt lighter.

  So much changed for him the day they set their trap to catch Leopold in the act. He hadn’t known how desperately he’d been waiting for forgiveness for everything he’d done until he got it. Those few, simple words, and Leopold’s fatherly embrace, had meant everything to him. It was the last thing he’d needed to really and truly put the past and the war behind him. Everything in front of him was filled with promise.

  “I don’t think Howard Haskell’s ranch is moving any time soon,” he joked with Leopold. “And though I have no idea what my place there will be, I’m sure Lucy would love to have visitors.”

  “I might just have to take you up on the offer,” Leopold said.

  Gideon turned to face him fully. “Are you going to keep heading west to Oregon?”

  Leopold shrugged. “That all depends.”

  There was a sparkle in the man’s eyes that begged Gideon to ask, “On what?”

  Leopold smiled—a good, genuine smile, and something they’d seen a lot more of since that fateful afternoon. Forgiveness worked both ways, after all. Leopold had confided in Gideon that it was just as freeing for him to offer forgiveness as it had been for Gideon to get it.

  “It all depends on what Alvin has to say,” Leopold went on.

  “Alvin?” Gideon’s brow flew up.

  “Yes. Alvin,” Leopold called across to where Lucy and Alvin were playing kickball with a group of the other kids.

  Gideon’s chest constricted with love at the sight of Lucy, running free and laughing with the other kids. She might grow older, but she would never lose her sense of adventure.

  Alvin stopped and looked up when Leopold called his name.

  “Come here, son.” Leopold gestured for Alvin to join him and Gideon.

  Alvin scampered over, Lucy joining him.

  “Yeah?” Alvin asked, out of breath, when he got there. He had changed in the last few weeks too. Gone was the sullen, naughty boy. In his place was a smiling, helpful young man.

  “Alvin, would you care to tell Miss Lucy and Dr. Faraday what we talked about last night?” Leopold prompted him.

  Alvin twisted to face Lucy and Gideon, placing himself at Leopold’s side. Eyes as bright as the sun, he said, “Leo says he wants to adopt me. He says that his heart still needs to be a father, and since I need a pa, we’d be perfect for each other.”

  Lucy gasped, bringing her hands to her face, eyes shining with happy tears. “Oh, sweetheart, that’s wonderful.”

  “It truly is,” Gideon agreed. He held out his hand, shaking Leopold’s, then Alvin’s. “You are both very lucky.”

  “Yeah, I know,” Alvin said. He turned to Leopold. “Can I go back to the game? My side is winning.”

  Leopold laughed. “Absolutely. I’ll come watch.”

  They walked off, leaving Gideon with Lucy. He let out a breath of contentment, scooping her into his arms and planting a thorough kiss on her lips, not caring who was watching them.

  “I’m just so happy,” she said as soon as he let her up for air.

  “Me too.” He kissed her again, then leaned back, heart skipping with delight. “I bet I can make you happier, though.”

  Lucy laughed. “I have no doubt. You make me happier than anyone ever has. I thought Aunt Virginia made me smile the most, but you’ve got her beat. And I would have thought that I love Papa more than anyone on earth, but no, I love you so much more. It’s a different kind of love, of course. This love comes straight from the deepest parts of me and—”

  She froze when Gideon stepped back and dropped to one knee in the middle of her sentence. Her mouth hung open as he reached into his pocket and pulled out the ring he’d won from Charlie so many weeks ago.

  “Lucy Haskell, would you do me the honor of finally, finally making me an honest man and saying you’ll spend the rest of your wild, adventurous, dangerous life with me?”

  Lucy gaped at him, gaped at the ring, stared at him for a few more seconds, then burst out with, “Of course I’ll marry you, silly!” She laughed, practically hopping up and down as Gideon reached for her hand and slid the ring onto her finger. “I feel like we’re already engaged, like we’ve been engaged—or married even—forever and ever. I can’t even remember what life was like without you, and I don’t ever want to remember it either. You’re all I’ve ever—”

  Again, he silenced her by rising, pulling her into a heated embrace, and bringing his mouth down over hers. Her sentence ended on a long hum as he teased her tongue with his, spreading his hand across her back and digging his fingertips in to let her know that she was his and he was hers, and that he would never let her go for as long as he lived.

  Epilogue

  Howard Haskell of Wyoming stood on the front porch of his ranch house, running a hand through his hair and wondering where in tarnation he was going to put everybody. Alice and Jarvis were like family now, but the way Alice was increasing, they weren’t going to be content to stay in a single room in Howard’s house. Dean and Aiden were gone as much as they were home as they traveled across the breadth of Wyoming, making contact with the Cheyenne and offering them medical assistance and help dealing with the army, but their lovely wives, Emma and Katie, were both expecting as well. Mostly they would be expecting their husbands to stay put while their babes were little. They’d need houses of their own beyond the ramshackle bunkhouse that Emma and Katie shared. Why, even Franklin was making sounds about wanting to live in his own house somewhere on the ranch instead of in the house, in spite of his strong limp.

  Yep, he was definitely going to have to think about more than just a ranch. If things kept going the way he thought they might, Howard was going to need to build an entire town. He glanced out over his property to the south. In the last few years, he’d bought enough land to start a few towns, but the plan was to sell it all off when the railroad came through. He supposed it wouldn’t be too much of a stretch to save some of it for an honest to goodness town. Why, if one more person wandered by and decided that his ranch was the place to be—

  His thoughts stopped short at the sight of a Conestoga wagon rolling over the far hill. He raised a hand to his head and squinted, studying it.

  “What the devil?” he muttered.

  “What is it?” Virginia called from inside the porch where she and Alice, Emma, Katie, and his very own Elizabeth were patching qu
ilts to stay out of the sun.

  “There’s a wagon rolling in from the south,” Howard exclaimed.

  A shuffle and scrapes sounded from the house, and moments later, five women scurried out onto the porch to join him. Well, Virginia and Elizabeth scurried, the other three waddled, hands on their round bellies.

  “Whatever is a wagon doing this far north of the trail?” Katie asked, her Irish lilt as pronounced as ever.

  “Do you think they’re lost?” Emma wondered.

  “Not the way they’re moving,” Alice finished. “They look like they know just where they’re going. Here.”

  “They are coming here,” Elizabeth said. “They’re—”

  She stopped and pressed a hand to her chest when one of the people walking beside the oxen at the front of the wagon, a woman, waved both of her arms. Even though the woman was far away, in the sunlight, Howard could see plain as day that she had flaming, auburn hair.

  “Lucy.” His heart just about jumped out of his chest as he recognized his daughter. And he did recognize her. He’d know that head and those leaping, capering jumps anywhere. Lucy, his little girl, had come home.

  Howard ran off the porch like a man half his age, racing to meet her, Elizabeth not far behind.

  “Howard, you old coot,” Ginny called after him, charging down the stairs herself. “You’ll give yourself a heart attack if you’re not careful.”

  “It’s Lucy,” he called back to her, his excuse and his encouragement for the two women to race to catch up to him.

  Virginia was right, in the end. They made it as far as the edge of the inner yard before the three of them had to stop, huffing and puffing. It was hard work, but they waited impatiently, watching as the wagon drew closer.

  Lucy broke away from the wagon—and the man who was walking with her. She ran the last hundred yards or so, squealing like a young girl as she approached. Howard’s heart leapt for joy as she sprinted the last few yards, then launched herself into his arms.

  “Papa, Papa, I’m home,” she laughed and cried at once, hugging his neck for all she was worth. She kissed his cheek, still laughing, then broke away to throw herself at Virginia. “Aunt Virginia, I’m home. And you won’t believe the adventure I’ve had.” She broke away from Ginny long enough to give her mother a much more modest hug. “You would have hated it, Mother, but I loved it. There was a terrible storm, and we ran around planting lightning rods in the ground. Then dysentery hit, but Estelle cured everyone, and Gideon purified the water and cleaned out the wagons with his chlorine. And Olivia lost a card game and had to marry Charlie. And there were orphans who we all had to take care of that kept getting into trouble, and Alvin and then Leopold came along and we thought he was trying to kill Gideon, but he wasn’t. He’s the nicest man, Mother. I can’t wait for you to meet him. And Gideon, I absolutely cannot wait for you to meet Gideon. He’s the most wonderful man in the entire world, Papa, and I’m going to marry him.”

  Howard was content to let his dear heart rattle on and on, like she usually did, like he’d missed so much, but when she blurted that she was going to marry a man, his whiskers shook in indignation.

  “You are not going to marry any man, unless I say so,” he boomed.

  “Howard,” Elizabeth cautioned him.

  “Oh Papa,” Lucy dismissed him with a wave of her hand. “Of course I am. And you will absolutely adore him. Besides,” she added, growing suddenly shy. “I think I might already be in the family way by him.”

  Howard’s and Ginny’s eyes both flew wide at the news, and Elizabeth clapped her hand to her chest with a strangled moan, but Lucy rushed on with, “Here he is. Papa, Mother, Aunt Virginia, this is Dr. Gideon Faraday.”

  The man who stepped away from the beat-up Conestoga wagon and its tired oxen didn’t look like anything to write home about. Except that when he smiled at Lucy, it was as if the whole world meant nothing unless she was in it. Howard didn’t need to know anything else about a man that looked at his daughter with that much affection, that much pride, that much passion. He’d say yes to marriage, children, anything for a man who clearly loved his daughter as much as that.

  But he wasn’t about to make it easy on the man.

  “What’s this I hear about you interfering with my daughter and getting her in the family way?” Howard boomed.

  To his surprise, the man, Dr. Gideon Faraday, flushed bright red, his face going slack in surprise. He ignored Howard completely. “Lucy?”

  “Shh,” Lucy glared at Howard. “I was waiting to tell him until we were home. It was going to be a surprise.” She let out a breath, then added, “Well, I’m sure it’s not much of a surprise, all things considered.”

  The spark in her eyes sent Virginia into peals of laughter. “Looks like she takes after me,” she said, elbowing Elizabeth, who seemed caught between frowning in censure and beaming with the idea that she was about to be a grandmother.

  “This is wonderful!” Gideon beamed, sweeping Lucy into his arms and kissing her for all he was worth. “We’re going to be a family.”

  “I’ll be the judge of that,” Howard interrupted with overdone gravity. Let the man shake in his boots for a while.

  Of course, Lucy ignored him. “Oh Papa.” She smacked his arm the same way Virginia had.

  It seemed as though Howard Haskell was forever to be dominated by women. At least, by the looks of his soon-to-be son-in-law, he wouldn’t be alone.

  “Papa, Gideon is a scientist,” Lucy explained, eyes alight. “He’s a very important man too. He knows oh so many things. He wants to try his hand at improving processes on the ranch and purifying the water supplies on the property, and maybe even offering his services to the railroad when it comes through.”

  “With your permission, sir.” Gideon nodded to him.

  Yes, Howard liked the look of this smart, handsome young man. “We’ll see.” He pretended not to be convinced. He reached for his own dear wife, home at last, and drew her closer to him. “What do you think, my dear?”

  Elizabeth sighed as she leaned against him, resting her arm around his waist. “I think that our Lucy has always had a mind of her own, as I’m sure Dr. Faraday has come to see.”

  “I have, ma’am.” Gideon nodded. Howard had the feeling that the respectful young scientist would become fast friends with his wife in no time. And that was just fine with him.

  He frowned for the pure joy of being disagreeable and said, “Not so fast. I’m not sure I like a daughter of mine doing whatever she pleases.”

  “Don’t listen to him,” Lucy laughed. “I know my Papa, and I can see that he likes you, Gideon. Soon he’ll love you as much as I do.”

  She skipped to Gideon’s side and held his hand, beaming at him, and Howard’s heart melted.

  “I’m sure I will, son,” Howard laughed. “I’m just teasing you. It wouldn’t be family if there wasn’t teasing. Lucy.” He turned to his daughter. “Come up to the house. Your mother and I have a few people we’d like you to meet.”

  “Oh?”

  Still holding Gideon’s hand, Lucy reached for Howard’s as well. Elizabeth looped her arm through Howard’s free one, Ginny crossed to Gideon’s other side, and together the five of them headed toward the ranch house.

  “I’ll get one of the hands to come down and bring that wagon of yours up to the barn. Right now, you need to meet Alice, her sister Emma, and their friend Katie. Between the three of them, they’re turning this little ranch of ours into a thriving metropolis.”

  “What a wonderful thing,” Lucy exclaimed. She shifted and hugged Howard’s arm. “I wanted to come home so badly for so long, Papa. This is where we really belong, don’t you think, Mother?”

  “Yes, I must say that I do.” Elizabeth beamed up at him, warming Howard’s heart.

  “And now that Gideon is here too, I don’t know if I’ll ever want to leave again,” Lucy went on. Howard certainly hoped not. “And if other people want to come along and live here too, why, then our f
amily will just keep getting bigger and bigger and happier and happier.”

  Howard laughed, content down to the soles of his feet. “I’m sure it will, my darling. I’m sure it will.”

  * * *

  Author’s Note: While I’m sure you’ve heard of the horrors of chlorine gas during the First World War, it is actually historically true that its use as a weapon was first proposed in America during the Civil War. John Doughty, a New York school teacher, proposed the use of projectiles filled with liquid chlorine that would burst on the battle field, filling it with chlorine gas. His idea was rejected by Brigadier General James Wolfe Ripley, Chief of Ordinance, as inhumane. I’ve taken the slight historical liberty of imagining that there was actual development of Doughty’s theory and an experiment in the field—the experiment Gideon was a part of—but, in fact, this never happened. And thank heaven for that! It’s a terrible shame that the idea of chlorine gas as a weapon was resurrected during WWI, and that so many men and women have lost their lives to this terrible means of warfare since then.

  I should also add that the scene where Lucy, Gideon, and Alvin catch a prairie dog with a fishing pole is actually a scene out of one of my earliest childhood memories. When I was five, my family lived on Minot Air Force Base in Minot, North Dakota. I have an incredibly vivid memory of my dad taking me and my two older brothers out into the backyard, setting up a loop of fishing line around a prairie dog hold just as I described Gideon doing, and the four of us waiting until the hapless prairie dog took the bait. We successfully caught that prairie dog, but unlike the one in this story, ours didn’t meet a happy end. Of course, five-year-old Merry had no idea what happened to the fat old prairie dog, but she and her brothers were rushed back into the house and kept busy by Mom for a while after that while the prairie dog met its fate.