Of course, since they were talking about the animal, Marty concluded that he was referring to it. And, because he had said earlier that she was more resilient than her twin, Marty thought that he believed that she had more Hirsch blood in her than her sister Greta. Oblivious to his jest, she looked up at him and smiled, then kissed the cool cheek of her little cousin and buried her nose in his clean-baby smell. Then, a fleeting thought that he might have meant the other version of the word made her suddenly embarrassed at her naivety and she blushed into the warm blanket.
Caid removed his arm from her waist and took the reins into his hands and puckered his lips and kissed the air toward the oxen. Marty raised her head quickly, thinking that he was making a lewd gesture toward her and fully intended to admonish him for it, but she saw that he was trying to get the lead bull to pick up his pace, for their wagon had lagged behind quite a bit during their conversation.
She stared at the head of that horned creature while she said, “You really do like animals, don’t you?”
Caid tilted his head toward her while still watching the oxen trudge ahead of him and answered, “Yep.”
“Did you have animals when you were a child?” she asked, trying to glean information from him about his past.
“Mother did not want pets but Grammy let me have them,” he said with a smirk that indicated that he must have owned a menagerie at Grammy’s house. “We had horses, goats, ducks, cats, dogs and an occasional broken-winged bird.”
“You have a kind heart,” she said without thinking.
“I learned it from my Grammy,” he said as he stared ahead of him. “I wish you two could have known each other. She would have liked you. You have a kind heart, too.”
Marty smiled. It was a sweet compliment and she enjoyed hearing it. But she knew that sometimes she did not have such a kind heart. Life had seen to that. Life and all the tragedies and having to grow up too soon had made her heart hard, but when it came to the man sitting next to her and the baby nestled in her arms, she found it softening quite a bit. She pulled the child up to her face and kissed him one last time while Caid pulled the wagon to a stop so that Marty could hand the bundle down to Elsa, who had come to take her baby back.
“Feeling better?” Caid asked with genuine concern.
“Yes, thank you!” Elsa said as she wrapped the baby into the quilt that she had draped around her shoulders.
The weather was turning colder and everyone had to wrap themselves in blankets and quilts to keep warm. Marty eased closer to Caid’s warmth and pulled the quilt around her shoulders in an unconscious yet feeble attempt to maintain space between them. The memory of his arms around her, his kiss upon the skin on her forehead, the tender expression on his face and the concern in his deep blue eyes made her want to press her body into him, to drink in his manly warmth. But her pride and her conviction to remain a respectable widow made her find ways in which to avoid touching him. And the fear of falling in love with him, as her heart was desperate to accomplish, and then losing him like she had Elias along with her children, those blessed creations of love’s impassioned alliance, made her scoot just a few inches away from him and to keep her mind on the children who danced around her wagon in the cold morning air.
Their breath puffed out in wisps of freezing clouds whenever they breathed out or talked and the children marveled at the concept as they danced around the front of Marty’s wagon and barked out words just to see the “smoke” that came out of them.
“I’m a dragon!” Arnie yelled as he growled at his sister Ingrid and then at his mother Elsa. “I can breathe fire!”
“I’m not a-scared of you,” Ingrid said but she turned away from him just the same, huddling into her quilt for protection.
Elsa nudged Arnie away from Ingrid with her elbow while cuddling her newborn son before she scolded, “Leave your sister alone.”
The boy skipped away from them and climbed up onto the wagon where Marty and Caid sat in silence. His bright red hair glistened in the sunlight as he suddenly appeared on the side of the wagon. One of his feet dangled dangerously close to the spokes of the wheel, but fear never entered the restless boy’s impetuous mind as he leaned into the wagon.
“Are you scared of dragons?” Arnie asked Marty, who smiled and tousled his crimson curls.
“No, I’m not,” she said with a hearty harrumph while crossing her arms in front of her in pretend defiance and dropping her quilt to the seat of the wagon.
“Argh!” Arnie growled with his fingers curled in frightening fashion as he lunged for her.
Marty pulled away, leaning into Caid as she feigned fear of the boy-dragon, much to the delight of Arnie, who smiled a snaggle-toothed grin at her and then he climbed into the wagon and repeated the gesture to Caid.
Caid leaned away from the boy so far in imaginary fear that he very nearly fell off the wagon, taking Marty with him. In quick recovery, his arms closed around her and he held her next to his body with no padded barrier between them while he steadied himself in the seat. Then reluctantly, he removed his arms and cleared his throat, saying to the boy, “You’re a very scary dragon, son. You might-near scared us right off the wagon!”
Arnie’s smile widened at his success at frightening the adults when his own sister was not afraid of him. He jumped from the wagon and turned to step in front of Ingrid to stick his tongue out at her and then he ran away before she swiped her hand at his head in retaliation.
Marty giggled at her little cousin’s antics, hoping that her nervousness did not seep into her laughter. She had been close to Caid before, had felt his arms around her too many times to save a proper widow’s reputation, and had warmed her body every morning while she’d sat beside him on that seat until the afternoon sun gave her cause to scoot away from him. But, to have him pull her into his hard unyielding chest, almost into his lap with nothing but their woolen clothes separating them, was as unnerving as if he had kissed her in front of her family. And to be kissed by this man, whom she barely knew, she was certain would send her into a flurry of faint-hearted faltering.
She was quite appalled at herself for even thinking about being kissed, by him or any other man. She had promised herself again last night after thinking long and hard about Caid’s embrace and how it had affected her that she would never fall in love again. She’d told herself last night and again this morning, adamantly demanded of her own heart, that she would never let a man touch her in that intimate way in which children are conceived, for fear that she would once again experience the heartbreaking loss of the product of that union, the child that she so desperately wanted and the child that she knew would either die in her womb or soon thereafter.
Just the thought of that loss was too much for her to bear. And the thought of Caid’s arms around her again, comforting her, healing her and killing her at the same time, made her realize that the feelings that he had evoked in her would most certainly lead down that road to ecstasy and ultimately, to its heartbreaking opposite, misery.
She rose to her feet and jumped from the wagon so quickly that Caid was left with a questioning look on his face. She heard him ask where she was going in such a rush, but she did not wait to answer him. Instead, she hurried ahead to Elsa’s wagon to walk with Greta and the rest of her family while she blocked out his voice and the voice inside her heart that told her to run back to him and to throw herself back into his awaiting arms.
Chapter Ten
When they stopped again for the night, Caid unhitched the team before making sure that all of the families were settled in. As was his routine, he walked around to each camp and inquired as to each family’s situation before tending to his own needs. Then, he fished in his saddlebag for his pack of toiletries and found his way to the stream that flanked their campsite. A quick wash-up and a change of clothes made him feel like a new man. Rubbing his palm over his chin, he decided that it needed smoothing out. He pulled out his mirror, which he leaned on a boulder, and then checked the razor fo
r sharpness. Satisfied, he covered his face in shaving lather. Turning his head this way and then that way, he mentally contemplated where to begin, as was the ritual of ridding his face of stubble.
“What are you doing?” A young voice stopped his first stroke as it raked across his jaw.
“Well, if it isn’t the lovely Seraphina,” Caid said with a sing-song voice. “Shouldn’t you be playing with your cousins?”
The little girl shook her head, her blond curls bouncing around her face like silver springs before she replied, “They are bathing.”
“Shouldn’t you be bathing then?”
“I already did,” she said, her voice rising to a high pitch while her red lips puckered into a defiant pout. She folded her arms in front of her chest and tilted her head, repeating her previous question, “What are you doing?”
“I’m shaving,” Caid answered while he raised the razor to his face again.
“What’s shaving?” the inquisitive little girl insisted.
“It’s removing the hairs from my chin,” Caid explained before he placed the blade next to his cheek and said, “Watch closely.”
He smiled as Seraphina moved her face closer so as to see every detail while he eased the blade down his jaw line. A scraping sound emanated from his chin while the razor sliced the stubble, leaving baby-soft skin in its wake. He turned his face into the mirror, inspected the results then he popped the razor to remove the residue that clung to it.
Then, with Caid’s encouragement, the curious girl lifted her pudgy hand to feel the soft skin and she smiled at the smoothness. She jumped up to see her own face in the mirror, her bouncy curls springing around her head. Caid grinned and he handed the mirror to her.
Seraphina appraised her reflection while she asked, “Don’t you like hairs on your chin?”
“Not really,” Caid said as he pulled another stroke across his jaw without the aid of the mirror. “Women don’t like it either.”
Sucking in a breath of surprise while rubbing her chubby cheek and looking hard at her reflection for the sign of hairs, Seraphina asked, “Will I have hairs on my chin?”
Caid had to laugh, leaning back and holding his belly. When he finally composed himself, he explained, “A woman doesn’t like to feel a man’s beard on her face when he kisses her.”
“Oh!” Seraphina exclaimed, drawing out the word as if the comprehension was amazing to her. “Does Aunt Marty like it when you kiss her?”
“I haven’t yet,” he admitted while he reached for the mirror again.
“Why not?” The little girl asked while she watched the mirror’s movements on its way back to its perch on the boulder.
“I’m waiting until the right moment,” Caid answered as he decided where to stroke next.
“When will that be?” Seraphina asked with a tilt of her head and her hands on her hips.
“I’ll know it when it happens,” he replied with a shrug and then another swipe with the blade. He watched in the mirror as she moved away from him and he turned his head to make sure that she was not going to fall into the stream.
“How will you know?” she asked while moving closer to the water’s edge to peer at a darting fish.
“Careful there, Angel Face,” he said while he paused to watch her touch a finger to the rushing water. He didn’t want a repeat of the evening at the river when he’d saved her from absolute death.
“I will,” she assured him as if fear was not a factor. Then, she turned back to him and asked, “Why did you call me that?”
“It is a nickname,” he said with a shrug while he ripped the razor one last time across his face. “It’s just something that came to my mind.”
“I like a nickname. But I don’t want to be an angel face,” Seraphina said with determination, her head rolling side to side.
“Why not?” Caid asked while he replaced the blade into its sheath.
“I’m not an angel. An angel lives in Heaven with God. Mama calls me her angel and it makes me sad but I don’t tell her that because I don’t want to make her sad.” She took a deep breath and finished, “Mama says that Papa is in Heaven with God. That’s why I don’t want to be an angel. I want to stay with Mama.”
He remembered that she didn’t have a father to explain things to her. He knelt beside her and put her on his knee while he told her, “You won’t go to Heaven for a long, long time.”
“Aunt Marty says that my name means angel and that’s why Mama calls me her angel,” she said with a dejected pout.
“Well then, Angel Face is a good nickname for you,” Caid remarked with a nod, but she shook her head in the negative, still jutting her bottom lip out.
“No? Well, then we’ll have to think of another nickname. What is your middle name?” he asked with hope in his voice.
“I hate my middle name. It is Hirsch, just like my Grandpa’s last name.”
“Don’t you know that Hirsch means ‘deer’ in English?”
She perked up with excitement and replied, “Dear? Grandma Addie calls Papa Sven ‘Dear’. I like it!”
“We’ll call you Sera Dear,” Caid said with finality.
“Sera Dear,” she mused aloud with her forefinger on her chin. “I like it. I like it a lot!”
Sera Dear skipped away happy, passing Marty, who watched the little girl find her way back to camp singing a joyful song.
“How long have you been standing there?” Caid asked as he tucked his toiletries back into the pack.
“Only a few minutes,” Marty admitted with a smile. “She likes you very much.”
“I like her. She’s a ‘dear’. She’s Sera Dear,” he told her with an air of jovial decorum in his voice when he repeated the nickname that the girl had approved of. He hid the pack beneath his armpit and took her elbow into his palm as he guided her back to camp.
Suddenly, Marty realized that, earlier when he’d called her a dear he really had not meant that she was a deer. Embarrassed again, she ducked her head. But then she raised it again in pride because it really did not matter that he had given her a nickname. He had given one to her beautiful niece. There really was no difference, was there?
They joined Greta at the fire and sniffed the air that smelled of delicious rabbit stew. Caid took the plate that Greta had handed him and thanked her for her kindness before he sat on the stump and began to eat. In silence, he watched the two sisters and realized how very different they were despite the fact that they looked alike. Marty, with her vibrant outward beauty, which was pronounced by thick, luxurious auburn hair that she rarely kept in check with the tight bun at the nape of the neck like Greta always seemed to wear, exuded confidence and underlying defiance while her sister seeped with kindness and a demure mannerism. Their faces were the same except Marty’s was fuller and bursting with animation while Greta’s was sallow and taught, her high cheekbones jutting out above hollow cheeks and a severely angled chin. And their bodies, as much as he would allow himself to sneak a peek at her sister, were completely opposite, for Greta looked thin and frail, almost skeletal while Marty’s body was voluptuous and inviting, breathtaking, he remembered was the word that he had used before to describe her body.
But, the most peculiar difference about them was their personalities. Greta was a pleaser, someone who went out of her way to make someone else happy, like just then, when she handed him a cup of coffee and refilled his plate without waiting for him to ask for it, which was a wonderful aspect for a woman to have…if that is all you want. And Marty—Marty was a pleasure just to watch except he couldn’t be satisfied just to watch her, for holding her meant a trip to Heaven was not far away. But she never felt obliged to give him a ticket on that ascending train much less to stop and allow him to ride.
No, Marty Ingram was a very different woman than any woman that he had ever encountered. She was independent and he could feel her itching to take over the reins of her wagon even though she sat in silence and allowed him to drive it while she recuperated. She was outspok
en, said what was on her mind no matter whom she was speaking to, and she didn’t care if their feelings were hurt in the process. But, she was warm and friendly, almost too friendly to him at times, making him wonder if she was toying with his emotions or if she really did not understand that she was tearing him apart. This afternoon was a prime example of her oblivious nature, for she had let him hold her longer than necessary after he’d almost fallen off of the wagon but then she had run away from him without an explanation.
After taking several bites, and after Greta had gone to find Seraphina, Caid looked over the campfire toward Marty and asked her the question that had been burning in his mind all day, “Why did you run away this afternoon? Did the kid really scare you?”
Marty dipped her nose into her tin cup and shrugged her shoulders before tossing her head and saying, “No, not really.”
“Then what scared you?”
“Nothing,” she lied.
Caid paused for just an instant to hear her answer and suddenly he realized what had sent her scampering away like a frightened mouse. “Oh, I see.”
“You see what?” she asked as if she didn’t know.
“You didn’t want me to hold you so close,” he said with a nod. He crossed his arms at his chest and nodded knowingly as if he had figured her out.
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