by Merry Farmer
As he started up again at a faster tempo, Dean laughed. “So you keep moving forward.”
“That is right, my friend.”
“No matter how many brambles and pitfalls await you on the path.”
“Absolutely.”
“And you think this way you’ll win the girl in the end.”
“I know it.” He played a quick flourish, fingers dancing across the strings with a distinctly Irish flare. “One way or another, Katie Boyle will be mine, to have and to hold, to kiss and to love, forever.”
He launched into a cheerful jig to match the skipping of his heart. Ahead of him, Katie burst into laughter over something she or Emma had said. The sunlight glittered off of her halo of curls. All was right with the world, or at least as right as it was going to get in that moment.
“Well, I wish you luck, my friend,” Dean said, thumping him lightly on the back. “Because I think you’re going to need it.”
Chapter Two
The junction of the north and south branches of the Platte River was the largest body of water that Katie had seen since walking away from the ocean. She had crossed the Mighty Mississippi on her way to Independence, but that had been from the safety and stability of a railroad car with her hands over her closed eyes. Staring out over the wide, muddy, slow-moving river now brought waves of remembered nausea over her.
“Look at that wee thing,” she said in contrast to the pit of unease in her stomach, forcing herself to smile. “And it calls itself a river?”
“It doesn’t look so impassable,” Emma echoed Katie’s sentiment at her side.
For once, to Katie at least, Emma felt like the brave one. Her face was drawn and she may have lost a bit of her color, but Katie had a fair idea that all of that was because of her troubles with Dean and her mother. At least she stood with her shoulders squared and her eyes firmly fixed on the opposite riverbank.
Katie swallowed, crossed her arms, and mimicked Emma’s stalwart pose. “Look at how the wagons are being taken across on rafts,” she said, then hummed. “What an innovative way to take rafts across the water.”
What she wanted to say was, “Are they completely daft for rolling something so big and heavy onto a tiny pile of sticks and shoving it in the water?”
She forced her smile to stay bright, even as her stomach rolled. At least the river wouldn’t toss and pitch as it heaved her from one shore to another. No, only an ocean could do that.
“What a fine adventure,” she said aloud. “One we’ll face bravely, two fair maidens on their way to a glorious quest.”
“Mmm,” Emma hummed. Her gaze was fixed on Dean as he helped old Mrs. O’Grady into a wagon that was lined up to be pulled onto one of the rafts. It didn’t take much to see she hadn’t heard a word Katie had said.
Katie wouldn’t be deterred. “I bet your lovely doctor will be dazzled by the way you boldly make this river crossing. Why, he’ll see you standing firm at the front of one of these rafts, forging your way across the raging waters like a warrior princess.”
“Yes,” Emma replied. She let out a breath, then turned to face Katie, blinking as though she’d just noticed her there. “I’m sorry, what did you say?”
Katie laughed to keep her worry and frustration at bay. “I said you’d better go find yourself something to do that will take your mind off your troubles.”
Emma gave her a grateful smile. “Yes, I should. I’m certain your mother could use some help.”
Still half in a dream, Emma turned and wandered off, leaving Katie alone at the rise of the riverbank. Alone with nothing but her own anxiety as she glanced out over the water.
She sucked in a breath and stood taller. “Come on, Katie Boyle,” she muttered to herself. “Don’t let a little water stop you from having your grand adventure. You made it across the Atlantic.” Barely, a voice added in her head. “So you can make it across a great muddy thing like this.”
The ocean crossing had been an unexpected nightmare at the beginning of their journey. She had never been on a ship before, and after the first few days, she hoped to never have to be on a ship again. One minute she was charging up to the ship’s prow to feel the salt breeze blowing against her skin as she sailed boldly off into the adventure of her dreams, and the next she was bent double on the deck, heaving up every meal she’d ever eaten as the waves rolled and rolled the ship. Her grand adventure had left her quivering and ill before it even started.
Worse still, Aiden had seen her weak. Not only seen her, he had held her and washed her face every time she’d been sick, had brought her water and insisted she eat to settle her stomach. He’d brushed her hair and slept up on deck with her when she couldn’t bear to be confined below. He’d seen firsthand that she wasn’t half as brave as she wanted to believe she was. The problem was, she’d enjoyed the feeling of his arms around her, comforting her. She had almost given in to the warmth she felt there. Only her pride stopped her. How her mam and Aiden’s had gloated and winked and shared their secret smiles every time they caught the two of them together. It was insufferable.
Katie blew out a frustrated breath and crossed her arms tighter. She would not fall into someone else’s plans for her just because it was expected. The ocean may have been more challenging than she could have imagined, but the river before her was just a tiny river in comparison. She would prove to them all—her mother, her neighbors, and Aiden—that she could stand on her own. She would have her adventure.
“You look as though you’re trying to drain the river with the force of your glare, a ghrá.”
Katie’s heart thrummed, her frown deepened, and she twisted to see Aiden striding toward her. He had his fiddle case slung over his back as usual and his hands thrust into his pockets. The gentle breeze blowing across the river ruffled his dark hair. Sunlight and laughter danced in his deep blue eyes. If only he weren’t laughing at her.
“I’d watch yourself if I were you, Aiden Murphy,” she cautioned him, uncrossing her arms and planting her fists on her hips. “If you think I can drain a river with a glare, then I might be able to set you on fire with my eyes as well.”
His smile twitched into something hot and mischievous. “You already set me on fire,” he said as he reached her. His voice was rich and low, like the throbbing bottom notes on his fiddle when he played a particularly stirring song.
Katie clenched her jaw to keep the music of his voice from vibrating through her. Friends. They were friends, and should act as such. “Well, then I expect you to vanish in a puff of smoke at your earliest possible convenience. Go on with you now,” she shooed him.
For good measure, she pivoted away and faced the river once more. Instead of leaving, Aiden strolled to stand by her side, glancing out over the water. For several minutes, they stood there in silence, watching the ferrymen as they loaded Mrs. O’Grady’s wagon onto one of the rafts. Katie’s bluster melted, her anxiety returning. The raft tipped and bobbed as the oxen pulling the wagon found their place. The sight of it and the imagined picture of what would happen if the raft broke apart and fell out from under the wagon made Katie dizzy.
“It’s a fairly simple operation,” Aiden spoke up just at the moment when she didn’t think her knees would hold up. He pointed to the raft. “What you see is the top layer of logs, but I talked to some of the men who live here and offer their services all summer, and there’s at least two layers of logs laid out in cross sections underneath that. They trap air and buoy the raft, making it as stable as a table.” He stopped and grinned over his rhyme.
“Only you would waste your time talking to strangers about logs and air,” she growled. All the same, the muscles in her back unclenched a bit at learning that the rafts were more than just twigs tied together. She shifted closer to Aiden.
“See that one out in the middle of the river?” He pointed to a raft that was more than halfway across. “One ferryman pulls the rafts across with that rope, while the other uses that pole to make sure they stay on course.”
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“I have eyes, you great lummox. I can see for myself what they’re doing.” She huffed and crossed her arms. More of her tension drained as she studied the practiced way the ferrymen shuttled the wagons across.
Aiden seemed immune to her barbs. He stood by her side with a smile on his face. He stood too close to her side. His presence was making it difficult for Katie to breathe. When he tore his eyes away from the action on the river and glanced down at her, it sent a spike of heat through Katie’s blood.
“Don’t worry,” he said, his voice as gentle as the breeze. “People get seasick, not riversick. You’ll be right as rain, and it’ll only take a handful of minutes to get to the other side.”
His words were exactly what she needed to hear, but still she scowled.
“I’ll make the journey across with you, if you’d like,” he went on. “We don’t even have to take a raft. Look, there’s a few brave souls who are fording through the water on horseback. We could do that.”
Katie looked where he was pointing. Several men and one intrepid woman were cutting right through the water atop horses. The river had to be shallow enough for the horses to walk the whole way. It was exactly the kind of alternative crossing she longed for, but she wouldn’t give Aiden the satisfaction of seeing her back down from a challenge.
“Oh no.” She feigned boldness, putting on a look of determination. “You’re not getting out of it that easily. You’re welcome to take the easy way, but I signed up for an adventure, and that’s exactly what I intend to have.”
Aiden laughed. “I would expect nothing less, a ghrá.”
His use of the affectionate name heated her even more, for better and worse. “Besides,” she added with a saucy flicker of her eyebrow. “Some of those ferrymen are quite easy on the eyes. Perhaps they’d like a little company once we reach the other side.”
Instead of being set down, Aiden’s smile widened. “I’m sure they would.” He drew his hands out of his pockets and grabbed one of hers. “Come on now. Let’s go cross a river.”
Katie yanked her hand back, trying to pull out of his tight grip. At the same time, part of her hoped he wouldn’t let her go. He seemed to know she didn’t really want him to release her and held her hand firmly. “Don’t you go leading me around like I’m your baby sister, Aiden Murphy,” she said, following him.
“I wouldn’t dream of it,” he answered her, the impish fire back in his eyes. “You’re certainly not my sister.”
Aiden hadn’t seen Katie so beside herself with fear since the ocean crossing. For all her show of delight as her family’s wagon was rolled forward onto one of the rafts, and for all the way she made eyes at the middle-aged, stoop-shouldered ferryman who maneuvered the wagon into place, Aiden could see how wary she was. What she really needed was an excuse to vent her fear in the form of scorn, and he knew just how to open the door for her.
“Now Katie, are you sure a woman should be sitting in the driver’s seat of a wagon when it’s making such a dangerous crossing?” he called to her from the raft ahead of hers. His family’s wagon had been launched into the river moments before, and he stood at the back of the raft, ready to lend the ferrymen a hand if they needed it.
“What kind of ridiculous blather is that?” she took the bait and fired back at him, all frowns and ruffled feathers. “A woman is just as capable of driving a wagon as a man.”
His lips twitched into a grin. “I wouldn’t be so sure of that. What if you come across the Great American Dragon?”
A flicker of understanding passed through her expression. She flashed from indignation to disdain. “Only an idjeet like yourself would worry about finding dragons in the prairie.”
“And idjeet, am I?” He clapped a hand to his chest in mock offense, then turned to the ferryman with a pole who stood next to him. “Did you hear that? The woman is as cruel as cruel can be.”
“You brought it on yourself, Aiden Murphy,” she called across to him.
“I’m just looking out for your welfare, a ghrá,” he followed.
“Don’t call me that.”
Aiden ignored her. He nodded to the ferryman. “Tell the fine lady here that she needs to be careful of dragons in the prairie grass.”
The ferryman laughed as he poled the raft along. “Can’t rightly say I ever saw me a dragon out here.”
“There you have it,” Katie said, crossing her arms where she sat. “Idjeet.”
The ferryman working the rope on the Boyles’ raft tripped and staggered, tipping the raft slightly to the side. Katie gripped the edges of her wagon seat and lost the color in her face. Even yards away, Aiden could see the fear back in her eyes.
“Just because this gentleman has never seen a prairie dragon doesn’t mean they don’t exist or that you shouldn’t be careful of them,” he argued on, his tone as mocking as he could make it. “Why, there could be one just around the river bend, waiting to snatch you.”
With a quick, wary gesture, Katie snapped her head up to meet his eyes. “Are you out of your mind? Has all that fiddle playing filled your head with fuzz?”
She was fighting it. The color came back to her face in splotches, but at least it was coming. His chest swelled with pride in her.
“You scoff now, but I’ve seen photographs of prairie dragons,” he said, resting his weight on one hip and crossing his arms in challenge.
“You have?” She sat straighter, curiosity replacing the mask of false scorn she’d put on. “Where?”
“Back in Ireland,” he said, both to her and to the ferryman with the pole, who had stopped his work and stared at Aiden with an open mouth.
“You never,” Katie called him out. Her color was almost back to normal and she’d let go of the wagon seat.
“You saw the same photograph that I did, remember?”
“How could I remember something that never happened?” She tipped her chin up, almost as if they were on dry ground.
Two of Aiden’s younger brothers had poked their heads out of the back of their family’s wagon and were giggling, bright-eyed, at his story. He winked at them, then peeked past the wagon to the river’s opposite shore. It would take a few more minutes to reach it, but they were more than halfway across now.
“They’re small for dragons,” he went on, facing Katie once more. “But fat and brown. And they have fur instead of scales. They have horns, though, and great, large humps.”
The ferryman snorted with laughter beside him.
Across the stretch of river separating their rafts, Katie huffed in frustration. “Idjeet I said and idjeet I meant. Those are buffalo, not dragons.”
“Aye,” he called back to her. “The Great American Buffalo Dragon. Vicious beasties, they are. They’ll breathe fire at you and charge all at once.”
The ferryman working the rope on his wagon was laughing at the exchange now, along with both of the men on the Boyles’ raft. Behind Katie, a little sister and a brother had popped their heads up and were chuckling along as well.
“Saints be praised, Aiden Murphy. How you intend to find your way in this country is a mystery to me,” Katie said. She shifted position on the driver’s seat, relaxing even more.
Aiden beamed. His antics were serving their use. Katie shook her head and rolled her eyes, but she didn’t look at the water or cling to her wagon.
“Buffalo’re mostly harmless out here,” the ferryman with the pole standing beside Aiden said. “It’s the Injuns you have to watch out for.”
“Indians?” Katie sat even straighter, her eyes now aglow with excitement. “You’ve seen real, live Indians?”
“They’re all over these parts and farther up into the mountains, ma’am,” the ferryman with the pole said. “These days, they don’t attack much, but I wouldn’t be so eager to run and meet them, if I were you.”
“I’m not you, sir,” she called back, scolding the man with a look. “And I most certainly want to see some Indians before we settle down.”
Aiden sent the f
erryman with the pole a quick smile of thanks. He might not have known it, but the man had done exactly what he would have done.
“I tell you what, a ghrá. As soon as we stop for a rest at one of these forts in the mountains, I’ll take you off to meet some Indians,” he said.
Katie snorted. “And why can’t I go off and meet them myself? They’d take one look at you and shoot you full of arrows on the spot.”
“They might at that,” the ferryman agreed grimly. “But chances are they’d do something much worse to you, ma’am.”
They were saved the trouble of getting into further discussion about what that could be when Aiden’s raft bumped against the far bank of the river. For a split second, Aiden lost his balance. He grabbed hold of the side of the wagon and stayed upright. When he peeked up at Katie, her face had gone pale again and her lips were pinched in a tight line.
“Hold right where you are,” he told her, stepping away from the wagon as the ferrymen led it off the raft and onto the riverbank. “I’m going to swim out there and bring you to shore.”
To underscore his bluff, he reached to tug his shirt out of his trousers as if he would remove it all together.
“Don’t you dare, Aiden Murphy,” Katie squeaked, half standing from her seat.
Aiden let his shirt drop and opened his arms in a questioning gesture. “What? I’m just trying to help you.”
“You can help yourself to a new brain is what you can do,” she admonished him.