by Deborah Hale
“No, I’m not sure,” Harris barked. He began to mutter the bewildering list of Levi Augustine’s directions. “We passed the big rock, then skirted the shore of that wee lake, climbed the hill and forded the river.”
“Aye, we did all that. What did Levi say about this bush country?”
His brows knit together in a worried frown. “He said to head north, and half-a-day’s walk would bring us back into the trees.”
“But we’ve gone a day and a half. Blast!” Jenny slapped at another fly that had bit her. This one escaped. “We’ve eaten all Suzannah’s smoked fish, and the last of yer oatcakes.”
“Are ye hungry? We can stop and pick some more berries if ye like.”
“No.” Jenny sighed. “I’ve eaten so many the last while, I’ve lost my taste for them.”
“Still we should take some more, if only for the moisture.” Harris stooped and quickly picked a handful of the tiny, deep purple orbs. “We’ve only a mouthful or two of water in the jug.”
Icy fear prickled in the back of Jenny’s throat. She could scarcely swallow her berries. “We’re lost, aren’t we, Harris?”
He begrudged a curt nod. “We aren’t where we’re supposed to be, and we don’t know where we are. I’d say that’s a fair definition of lost.”
How long could they continue to wander, Jenny asked herself, until they died of heat and thirst?
Part of her took grim comfort from the fact that she was not alone. She never would have gotten this far without Harris. Another part deeply regretted that she had dragged him into her foolhardy adventure. What had he done to deserve this? Nothing but caring for her—and making her care for him in ways she could not afford. It wasn’t his fault she’d lacked the mettle to face a month of his courting in Richibucto.
“Harris, I…” She wanted him to know how sorry she was. Owing him so much, she had repaid him so badly. Even if he wanted her, or mistakenly fancied he did, he deserved better. Before she could get the words out, everything around her began to spin. Darkness enveloped her vision and her mind.
The last scrap of sensation that reached her was Harris’s voice. His urgent cry of her name reached Jenny as though from a great distance. She felt herself slip into a deep, black pit.
“Jenny!” Harris lurched toward her as she melted to the ground. He barely managed to break the fall of her limp deadweight.
Anxiously he felt at her throat for a pulse. After a breath-bated moment, he was rewarded with a weak flutter beneath his fingertips.
Wiping the sweat from his own brow with the back of his hand, he gazed at Jenny. Her fair skin was flushed to a furious red and perspiration beaded along her hairline. Harris cursed himself for forcing her to walk so far in the heat of the sun’s ruthless glare.
Gathering her up in his arms, he strode to the blackened trunk of a large dead tree. Gently he laid her down in the shadow of the charred stump, the only sliver of shade available. With trembling fingers he untied her blue bonnet and slid it off her damp, tousled hair. Then he fumbled in his pack for the water jug. It felt terrifyingly light.
He dribbled a few drops of the water between her lips, heartened to see her swallow it. Two of those vexing flies lighted on Jenny’s face. Harris fanned them away before they had time to bite. Stubbornly he thrust back the thought of how flies were attracted to a corpse.
Another miserly splash of their precious water went into Jenny. And another.
“Come now, lass.” Harris patted her cheek. “Ye’ve had a bit of a rest. It’s time to open yer eyes now, before ye get me too anxious about ye.”
He toyed with the thought of kissing her. Such an unpleasant sensation might bring her around quick enough, like the noxious stink of smelling salts. And if it didn’t revive her, at least he’d go to his grave with one final stolen intimacy.
Before he could act upon the impluse, Jenny moaned softly. Her eyelids fluttered.
“Harris? Where am I? What happened?”
Relief engulfed him. “Ye swooned dead away, lass. I wish I could say I hoisted ye up and carried ye off to the shore of a cool river, but I can’t. We’re still in the bush.”
He raised his eyes to the pale blue firmament above them, with only a wisp of cloud draped here and there like gossamer. It was a beautiful sight, but just then Harris would have preferred a bank of fat, dark thunderheads threatening a downpour.
“We’re not going to stir another step until the sun gets down a ways,” he remarked, as much to himself as to Jenny. “Until we get back into the shade of the woods, we’re going to travel at dusk and at dawn. When the sun gets high, we’ll find whatever shade we can and rest in it.”
“That sounds like a fine plan, Harris.” Jenny’s tone was light and breathy, suggesting a tenuous grip on consciousness. “Ye’ll find us a way out of here soon. There’s nothing ye can’t do when ye put yer mind to it.”
Harris barely restrained the urge to throw back his head and laugh like a lunatic. Do anything he set his mind to? Why, he could barely get anything right. After all, he’d indulged Jenny in this perilous folly of walking to Chatham, knowing something of the danger that lay ahead. If he’d been half the man she seemed to think he was, he would have slung her over his shoulder and marched her back to Richibucto. Then he’d have mounted armed guards, day and night if necessary, to make certain she stayed.
There might be a scrap of truth in what she said, he admitted reluctantly. He did feel more able, more competent, when Jenny was around. Perhaps it was her unconditional faith in him. Perhaps it was the way he felt about her that inspired him to try harder, dig deeper within himself. Or perhaps, he concluded with an unuttered sigh, it was the desperate scrapes she landed them in, which left him no choice but to rise to the occasion.
Jenny fanned her face weakly with her hand. “Do ye ever mind being so hot, Harris?”
Moist with sweat, the bust of her dress clung provocatively to her bosom. Harris tried to wrest his gaze away, but his eyes refused to cooperate. Suddenly his mouth felt dry as dust. He could scarcely choke out his reply.
“No. Never.”
It was the truth, though not the whole truth. What he didn’t admit was that the remorseless sun wasn’t entirely to blame.
“Harris, what’s that, over there?”
He squinted in the direction Jenny pointed. “It looks to be a big rock, lass. Well spotted! Let’s go see.”
Sure enough, it was a tall boulder, with tufts of moss clinging to its pitted surface.
“At last!” Sliding the pack from his back, Harris began to climb. “A bit of height so I can get a decent look around.”
Jenny held her breath as he clambered to the top of the rock. In the past three hours, since Harris had declared the sun low enough for them to resume their journey, she had battled her dizziness. She hated to think what would happen if Harris should take a faint spell so far off the ground.
Fortunately, he gained the top of the rock without mishap. Then Harris shaded his eyes from the glare of the setting sun and scanned the horizon.
“Can ye see anything?” Jenny called up to him.
“Just more bush that way,” came his dispirited answer. “Miles and miles of the cursed stuff.”
Surrendering to the weakness in her knees, Jenny let herself drop to the ground. Tears prickled her eyelids, but she fought against giving way to them. She and Harris had shared the last few mouthfuls of water in his jug. Before much longer they would have to stop for the night. Up at dawn and a few hours’ walk before they’d be forced to stop again. If they didn’t find woodland or water by then…
Jenny thrust back the thought.
From his precarious perch atop the boulder, Harris surged up. Had he lost his balance?
“Trees!”
It took Jenny a moment to grasp the import of the word. A moment in which Harris scrambled down from his lookout.
“Trees, Jenny!” Clutching her arm just above the elbow, he hoisted her to her feet. With his other hand, Harri
s scooped up his pack. “This way. Not too far, either.”
Before she could gather her thoughts or breath for a question, Jenny found herself stumbling through the bush, towed by the insistent momentum of Harris. It was all she could do to keep her feet moving so she wouldn’t pitch face first onto the ground. For an instant, she feared they had abandoned her bundle of wedding clothes. A wave of relief buoyed her as she realized it was clutched tightly in her hand.
Then she saw them.
Dead ahead. A dark, uneven line of tall trees silhouetted against the dusky red sky. Until the past two days, Jenny had thought she’d be content never to lay eyes on a tree again. Now her legs found fresh vigor as they carried her closer and closer to the eaves of the forest. Once Harris let her go, Jenny fully intended to clasp the first tree trunk she encountered, and kiss its dear bark.
As one, she and Harris gasped for breath, allowing their forward rush to carry them deeper into the woods.
Then Harris stumbled.
Abruptly he released Jenny’s arm, and she found herself teetering on the lip of a steep, unstable slope. She lunged to grip some part of Harris and check his fall, but her hand closed around empty air. Loose earth and pebbles scuttled beneath her feet. Jenny threw herself back.
Harris’s falling cry rent the warm stillness of twilight. It ended in a loud, emphatic splash.
Scrambling down the embankment, Jenny stopped short at the water’s edge. “Oh, Harris, are ye killed?”
With a choked whoop of laughter, he rose from the river and shook himself like a rangy red setter. “If I am, then for sure I’ve gone to heaven, lass!”
He let himself collapse backward into the water again, with another infectious yelp of glee.
Suddenly limp with relief and the residue of worry, Jenny settled onto a fallen log and whispered a brief but profound prayer of thanks for their deliverance.
“What are ye waiting for, lass?” Harris waded toward her. “Can’t ye see this is water?”
“Aye, I see. I just sat down to take my shoes off. Yer boots are going to be soaked.”
Harris shrugged. “I didn’t have time to think about taking them off. I don’t know if I’d have bothered anyhow. After the past two days, I ken a fellow can do worse than walk in wet boots. Though now that ye mention it, I’d like to feel the sand between my toes instead of the wet wool of my stockings.”
Daylight was fading fast.
Jenny could make out the shape of Harris jumping around, trying to pry off his boot. With a grunt of satisfaction from him and a deep sucking noise from the boot, it parted company with his foot at last. He pitched it onto the shore, followed by the drenched wad of his stocking. Then came their mates.
“What’s keeping ye, Jenny?”
“It’s these hooks. I can’t get them unfastened.” Or were her fumbling fingers to blame?
Harris splashed toward her. “Allow me, mademoiselle.”
Though she tried to stop herself, Jenny glanced up. She could only make out his shape in the dying light. Tall. Lean. Shirt plastered to his wide shoulders in a way that made her heart flutter queerly in her bosom and her bosom strain against the bodice of her dress.
Kneeling before her, Harris deftly dispatched her footwear. One hand held her foot in a firm caress as the other slid her shoe off. A strange, hot current surged through Jenny’s flesh, like the painless pricking of a thousand tiny bees. Radiating from her foot, it flamed at the base of her throat, the tips of her breasts and the deepest, most intimate pit of her belly.
Jenny scarcely knew what to make of it. All that fuss over a foot? Her foot, touched by a man she’d spurned. A man who’d given up any notion of winning her. Surely it was only the heat and the weariness of the journey catching up with her.
Pulling her foot out of Harris’s hold, she gasped, “I can get the other one myself.”
“Good.” His voice had an odd, strangled tone, as though he couldn’t catch his breath.
Jenny grasped for something to say that would break the awkwardness and dangerous intensity between them.
“Do ye ken the water’s fit to drink?”
Sitting back on his haunches, Harris chuckled. “I swallowed a good bit of it when I landed in the river. It hasn’t done me any harm so far.”
Pulling off her remaining shoe, Jenny groped under her skirt to roll down her stockings. She knew Harris couldn’t see much of anything with the sun down, but the thought of hiking up her dress and exposing her bare calves and thighs set that swarm of bees to work on her again.
“I could do with a drink, I’m that parched.”
A warm, fickle breeze from off the river whispered up Jenny’s naked legs, like the nuzzle of a man’s whiskers. Her mouth went drier than ever. It would take more than water to quench this deep, ravenous thirst.
“Ye shouldn’t drink right at this spot,” advised Harris. “I’ve churned up the riverbed too much. Go upstream a bit.”
Her legs wobbled beneath her as Jenny picked her way up the shore. When a sudden chill swept through her, she tried to ignore that, as well, only to realize she had stepped in an icy spring that flowed into the river.
She drank and drank from it until her stomach felt queasy. Then Jenny splashed cold water on her face and wrists and anywhere else where it might extinguish the unwelcome excitement that blazed within her.
From downstream, she heard Harris whistling to himself as he splashed about in the river. Kilting her dress up around her knees, she waded out. Harris was right. The fine, soft silt of the riverbed oozed between her toes in the most delicious sensation imaginable.
One of the most delicious sensations, she amended privately, recalling the way Harris had touched her foot.
As if alert to her thoughts, he called out, “Come on in deeper, Jenny. What are ye doing, picking yer way along the shore like that?”
“Ye didn’t have any choice about yer clothes getting wet, Harris, but I do. I’ve no intention of sleeping in a sodden dress tonight.”
“Take it off, then.”
“Get away with ye!”
“I mean it, Jenny. Who’s to know? There’s probably not a living soul around for ten or twenty miles, and it’s too dark for me to see anything improper.”
True enough on both counts. Still Jenny hesitated.
“Bathing now and again is good for a body,” persisted Harris.
It was not his arguments that persuaded her, Jenny fiercely insisted to herself. It was the stifling way her sweat-soaked dress clung to her arms and back. It was the seductive sound of rippling and splashing as Harris cavorted in the water. And perhaps it was the Eden-like setting that restored in her womankind’s lost innocence.
Before she had time to think better of the idea, she slipped out of her dress, leaving it draped over a fallen tree trunk. Out into the river she waded, deeper and deeper, now and then gasping as the bracing caress of the water rose to claim another part of her body. Thighs. Hips. Waist.
Heaven.
After two solid days walking in the simmering heat of August, it was heaven to drench herself this way.
“What did I tell ye?” Harris chuckled from nearby.
Jenny could just make out the vague shape of him.
“Feels good, doesn’t it?” He scooped a splash of water in her direction.
“Aye. Very…refreshing.” Jenny splashed him back.
Suddenly he disappeared beneath the surface of the water.
“Harris?” She waded toward the last place she’d seen his shadow. “What’s the matter? Ah!”
She let out a shriek as something coiled around her ankle.
Harris bobbed to the surface, within arm’s reach. “It was only me, lass,” he sputtered with laughter. “The way ye jumped, ye must have mistaken me for a sea monster.”
“Think it’s a lark to scare a lass out of her wits, do ye?” Before he could move out of range, Jenny bobbed up and grasped a handful of his hair. “Mistake this, Harris Chisholm!”
With all her might she pushed him under the water.
Struggling to free himself, he brushed her thigh. Abruptly she let go of his hair. As Harris’s head emerged from the water again, Jenny’s hand slid down his neck to his shoulder.
His bare shoulder.
“What happened to yer clothes?” The question almost blurted itself. With all her will, Jenny wrenched her hand off Harris. It came away reluctantly.
“My clothes?” He sounded surprised. “The same as yers. I didn’t care for the feel of them, so I stripped off while ye were taking a drink. I wrung them out and hung them on branches. With the warm breeze, they may be dry by the time I need them.”
He ducked down low again. Fearing another assault from the depths, Jenny stepped back. Harris only filled his mouth with water and spit a stream of it at her.
“Bounder!” she squealed. “Take that!” She slapped the water with open palms, producing a satisfying splash.
“Ye missed me.” Harris materialized behind her.
“Oh, did I?”
Their water frolic continued, to the accompaniment of good-natured taunting, shrieks of surprise and much gleeful laughter. Like two children.
But they were not children and their games were not entirely innocent. A touch might stray into forbidden territory, igniting a wild heat no river could quench.
Once, Jenny rose from the water only to discover she’d ventured closer to shore. In the silver light of the rising moon, her naked breasts were clearly visible. More shocking still, she did not care.
She dove underwater, meaning to grab Harris by the ankle and make him lose his balance. Instead, he reached in and grasped her by the arm, pulling her toward him.
Though she knew she should struggle and protest, the only word she could utter was his name. “Harris…”
He gathered her close—the cool, slippery contact of their wet bodies an exquisitely addictive sensation.
“I know, lass.”
Know? What did he know?
“Ye’re going to wed Roderick Douglas and all the howling hounds of Hades aren’t going to stop ye.”
Roderick Who? Jenny wanted to ask. The hard length of Harris pressed against her belly, eloquent testimony that he wanted her. After weeks spent fighting it, she was almost ready to admit how much she wanted him.