He spoke, the words the most difficult he’d ever said. “Tomorrow we pretend this never happened.”
Chapter Twelve
Over the next eighteen days, the caravan traveled another two hundred miles, and things returned to a semblance of normal for Nathan.
Early on, he asked Ben for the first watch, which meant no more evenings reading by the campfire. When in camp on their rare rest days, he spent time helping Clara—much to the disguised woman’s consternation.
And he barely saw Emma. When he did see her, she rarely spoke to him.
When she did, it was with a cool distance that hurt more than it should. He’d wanted to protect her from his reputation, but protecting her came with a price. He missed their friendly talks, missed hearing her tell about her day.
Part of him even missed the children.
The bruise on his back and shoulder had healed, first turning into an ugly purple-and-green mess, until it finally faded. But his growing feelings for Emma and for the children that gravitated toward her hadn’t.
Maybe that’s why he was here, in the early-morning stillness, carrying three wooden soldiers he’d carved.
Past the ring of wagons, a lone mountain rose out of the plain, far distant. Several miles, at least. Between the mountain and their camp spread only flat ground, brown grasses and sage. All was quiet in the early-dawn sunlight.
Nathan’s hands had been kept busy by the project when he’d sat alone in the shade of the Binghams’ wagon at lunchtime, but not his mind.
He never should have kissed Emma. He couldn’t get the memories of that night out of his head. Holding her. Tasting her.
Just the closeness he’d felt with her in his arms.
Something he didn’t deserve. She was meant for the sheriff her brothers wanted her to marry. He’d heard the conversation between Ben and Rachel before he’d counted Emma as a friend, before his brush with the measles had brought him into their circle. The detail hadn’t mattered to him back then.
But it mattered now.
He knew which wagon belonged to Georgie’s family and crept toward it. The bugler had woken the camp minutes ago, but he might be able to sneak the gift into the boy’s bedroll before anyone noticed him.
He saw Georgie’s blond head on the edge of five other bedrolls, the farthest away from the family wagon. Nathan’s heart lurched. The boy was an orphan—did his family keep him on the fringes, outside their existing family?
It wasn’t fair. Georgie had a lot of love to give. He’d even attempted to befriend Nathan.
But then, life wasn’t fair. Nathan knew it better than anyone, but he wished things could be different for Georgie.
He was suddenly fiercely glad that he’d carved the soldiers for the boy. Maybe they would be the only thing that belonged to Georgie in his own right.
Nathan crept closer and deposited the three wooden men next to Georgie’s hand atop the bedroll.
Before he could sneak away, Georgie twitched in his sleep and bumped the soldiers, rattling them together.
“Huh?” The boy’s eyes popped open and he gave a sleepy yawn. “Mr. Nathan?”
Where another child might’ve been afraid at seeing Nathan’s hulking form first thing upon waking up, Georgie simply looked confused.
Nathan looked over to where Georgie’s cousins were stirring in their bedrolls, but none seemed upset that he’d appeared at their campsite at such an early hour. That might change if their ma saw him.
“What’re you doing here?” The boy sat up, tousled hair catching the breeze and ruffling. His legs were still encased in the bedroll.
His hand knocked the soldiers again and he looked down. “What’re these?”
Nathan finally found his tongue, rocking back on his heels. He cleared his throat. “I made ’em—carved ’em for you.”
The boy’s face lit. “Really?”
Nathan nodded. “I couldn’t fix your other little soldier, but I thought you might like to have these. Sorta my way of saying…I’m sorry for shouting at you before.”
Georgie looked down. “It’s awright. I know I’m always getting in the way—at least that’s what Uncle Ned says.” Georgie idly ran one fingertip over the soldier nearest his knee.
Nathan’s heart thrummed once, hard. The boy’s uncle told him he was in the way, wasn’t wanted?
Something unfamiliar and uncomfortable filled Nathan’s chest—something like camaraderie. He cleared his throat again.
“That wasn’t why I shouted,” he said gruffly. “I was afraid of you getting hurt. You’re a…good kid.” He hesitated over the words. He didn’t know how to do this. But the memory of Georgie’s downturned face made him keep going.
“I… If I would have been one second later, that cart could’ve crushed you. And it scared me. And that’s why I shouted. But I shouldn’t have lost my temper and I’m sorry.”
The words expelled out of his mouth all in a rush.
Georgie looked up at him, hope and something else lit in his eyes and he smiled so beatifically that Nathan actually got a lump in his throat.
And then Georgie looked behind Nathan and raised his hand in a wild wave. “Miss Emma! Miss Emma!”
Nathan glanced over his shoulder to see Emma passing by, her skirt held slightly above the frost-wet grasses. She must’ve been returning from the small rivulet off the creek, adjacent to their campsite, having washed up.
She saw him. He saw the momentary hesitation that passed over her face and his gut twisted painfully.
“Look what Mr. Nathan made me!” Georgie called out.
And then she changed course and came toward them.
* * *
Emma knew she shouldn’t join Nathan and Georgie. Over the past two and a half weeks, Nathan had kept his distance from her, taking his turn at the watch in the evenings instead of spending time with her and the children.
Once, she’d even seen him change direction and walk away when their paths would have intersected.
Obviously, she’d been too forward the night they had kissed. He’d told her when he’d come out of the darkness that he hadn’t wanted to see her. But her emotions had overtaken her and…
She’d thought his passionate kisses meant something, but maybe he’d only been expunging his emotion.
Because someone that cared about her enough to kiss her like that wouldn’t have pushed her away, would he?
She couldn’t help thinking that she’d done something wrong. Her naïveté and uncertainty about the opposite sex had rushed in the moment he’d spoken the words tomorrow we pretend this never happened.
She’d revealed her true feelings—that she felt more than friendship for him—and his immediate response was to push her away.
Obviously, she’d been the only one who felt as she did.
But she couldn’t ignore Georgie’s plea.
And some part of her sparked with curiosity. What had Nathan done for the boy?
She drew close and, to her surprise, Nathan didn’t immediately get up and leave. She saw the shadows beneath his eyes and the shade of unshaven beard at his jaw, before she forced her eyes away. Who was taking care of Nathan now?
“What do we have here?” She knelt next to the man and boy.
“Mr. Nathan carved ’em for me.”
Georgie deposited three wooden soldiers into her cupped palms and the proceeded to struggle free of his bedroll.
“Ain’t they something?”
The craftsmanship was intricate. Obviously Nathan had spent hours on each one. To their tiny faces and shoes, they were carved in detail.
“They are wonderful,” she said softly and the man at her side inhaled slightly. “How did you learn to do such work? What tools do you use?”
“Pocketknife,” responde
d his familiar voice.
She couldn’t help the slight shiver that traveled through her as he spoke, but she didn’t dare look up at him.
“I taught myself,” he went on, voice low. “Lots of evenings alone during trapping season.”
And now he spent his evenings alone here. He didn’t have to. Emotion clogged her throat.
Georgie finished rolling up his bedroll and toted it toward his uncle’s wagon.
Nathan stood, towering above her where she knelt, and she was afraid he would just stride off.
She stood, wobbling, and he placed a hand beneath her elbow, but quickly jerked back as if touching her burned him.
“It was kind of you to make these for Georgie.”
He rubbed the back of his neck and shrugged. “I felt bad about yelling at him.”
He looked off in the distance and squinted and she wondered if he was trying to figure out how to extricate himself from the situation.
But then he said, quietly, “I think Georgie’s uncle might not be very kind to him.”
She looked at the boy delivering his bedroll to his aunt, who looking down on him with a frown.
“What makes you say that?” she asked, just as softly as Nathan had spoken.
“Something he said. You told me he was an orphan. What if they’re treating him like he doesn’t really belong?”
Georgie started back toward them, his young face shining despite what Nathan had just told her.
She didn’t think Nathan would say something without cause. He wasn’t the kind of person to stick his nose in others’ business. But…it also wasn’t their place to interfere.
“Never mind,” he muttered.
“Thanks for holding my soldiers!” Georgie bounced when she dropped the little men back into his hands. He hugged her around the waist and then hesitated next to Nathan, but then embraced the man.
And Nathan placed one hand gently on top of the boy’s head. Only for a moment because Georgie was off and running, calling out to one of his cousins, leaving them behind.
And Nathan stood with an unreadable expression on his face. She would guess that he was almost…perplexed.
“That was kind of you,” she said again.
He looked down on her, as though he’d almost forgotten she was standing next to him.
The vulnerable expression half-hidden deep in his eyes made her want to reach out to him. Her hand lifted at her side before his face shuttered and blanked of all emotion. Blocking her out.
Her stomach dipped as her hand fell back to her side.
She didn’t understand him at all. But she wanted to.
He rubbed the back of his neck again. “I’ve got to go tend to the oxen.”
“Nathan,” she said, before he could escape.
He hesitated, but remained in profile to her, not looking at her.
“I—I’ve missed you.”
His dark eyes flicked to her and then away, back at the ground. Maybe she shouldn’t have said anything, but something inside responded to his vulnerability—unless she’d imagined it—and wouldn’t let her stay silent.
“I know what happened—the kiss—”
His head came up and he glared at her and then glanced around, as if he was afraid someone would overhear her words.
“I know it changed things between us—” revealed her feelings, feelings he didn’t return “—but I had hoped we could remain friends.”
His forehead creased, his dark eyebrows lowering over stormy eyes.
Nathan had so much emotion bottled up inside. Why wouldn’t he share some of it with her?
He shook his head slowly. “I can’t be your friend, Emma.”
And he turned and walked off. That was all.
No chance for her to argue or make her case. No sign of the vulnerability that had lit his face when he’d spoken of Georgie.
She saw just his back, as he walked away.
Blinded by tears, she began picking her way through the camp to their wagon. She must pull herself together before she returned to Rachel, or her sister would know something was wrong. Rachel had already been asking why Nathan avoided their camp, and Emma hadn’t had a satisfactory answer to give her.
But if Rachel saw Emma in tears…she would discover how very much Emma felt for Nathan.
And Emma would have to reveal that Nathan felt nothing for her.
Chapter Thirteen
One week later, Nathan was at Clara’s campsite, wrestling the Morrisons’ ornery ox into the traces. He’d already hitched the Binghams’ oxen and knew the bugler was going to call for pulling out anytime now. They were a day out from Fort Bois, roughly two-thirds of the way to their destination.
But he wasn’t in a rush to get back to the Binghams’ wagon, near as it was to the Hewitts’ wagon. Helping Clara with her chores kept him away from Emma and the wants that plagued him.
Emma.
He’d seen hurt fill her face when he’d told her they couldn’t be friends. The memory chilled him still, chipped at the ice around his heart. Being around her was too difficult. It made him feel things he shouldn’t. Their kiss was evidence of that.
He had a sordid past. She was on her way to her future.
Georgie had been coming around more since Nathan had given him the wooden soldiers. Once he’d appeared with a red mark in the shape of a man’s palm on his jaw. Nathan had asked about it, but Georgie had made excuses.
But Nathan remembered making his own excuses for his father. What should he do about the boy? He didn’t know.
The only thing he knew to do was to help Clara, even though there was no friendship between them. She didn’t want his help. And told him so repeatedly.
But she needed it, and so he gave it, like now when the Morrisons’ oxen needed to be hitched up.
He was intensely aware of Emma trailing Clara back from her morning ablutions. He smelled her sweet scent on the breeze when she passed within a few feet of him.
“Morning,” she murmured.
His face went hot and he was glad for the gray morning light since he no longer had his beard to hide a flushed face. He nodded his response.
Behind the wagon, he heard Emma and Clara arguing in low, tense voices. Something about Clara and an injury that had her bleeding…
Until he took their meaning and blocked out the rest of their words. Emma must be worried about her friend and the baby. She’d already been concerned when he’d found Clara sick and immobile all those weeks ago.
But it sounded as if Clara didn’t want the extra attention or Emma’s meddling.
Finally, Emma brushed by him and walked away, avoiding his gaze.
A hot flush of shame rushed up through his chest and neck, blinding him momentarily so that he almost pinched his fingers in the yoke.
He nearly stumbled over Clara when he turned around. He rubbed the constant ache at the back of his neck, hoping she didn’t think he’d been eavesdropping on her.
“You need anything else?”
“No,” she said shortly. “And don’t come back tomorrow morning.”
He ignored her rebuff and was about to step away when she said, “Did something happen between you and Emma?”
The heat returned to his face and he slapped one hand against his thigh in agitation. “What do you mean?”
“You two have been dancing around each other ever since the night you found me sick.” They were the most words she’d ever spoken to him. Usually she avoided him in stony silence. And it was the one thing he most didn’t want to talk about.
“It’s nothing about you,” he muttered, eyes on the ground. Why would he admit the kiss to her? She didn’t even like him. They weren’t friends.
“Your cheeks aren’t red for nothing,” she said.<
br />
His face flamed even hotter.
He gritted his teeth. He wouldn’t lie to her. But he didn’t have to admit to anything, either.
He didn’t know what business it was of hers, but her next words flabbergasted him completely. “If you intend on courting her, you should speak to her brother.”
“I don’t intend anything of the sort.” Saying the words twisted a knot in his gut. Courting Emma had never even crossed his mind. Well, maybe in his wildest imaginings.
She had Tristan McCullough waiting on her.
“Why not?”
Clara’s frank question made his mouth drop open.
She laughed, a short, sharp sound. “You’re a hard worker, Nathan Reed. A woman could do a lot worse in a husband.”
The sharp pang of want cut like a hot knife through his belly, but he shook his head. Blundered, stumbled over his words.
And finally left, without a real answer for her. The momentary wild surge of hope that swirled through him at her words faded into emptiness. Emma was not for him.
His feet carried him toward the Hewitts’ and Binghams’ camp.
He was surprised to see a tall stranger standing near Ben, whose serious expression made Nathan want to detour to Hewitt’s side and find out what was going on.
He made himself walk to the Binghams’ wagon, though he loitered at the tailgate, pretending not to listen to Hewitt’s conversation while he did just that.
Emma knelt nearby, loading several utensils into a large cast-iron skillet. Her movements were quick and the utensils clanked loudly against the skillet—she was working faster than just the threat of the bugle signaling them to move out.
“We need help,” the stranger was saying. “We heard you had a nurse in your wagon.”
A nurse? Was he talking about Emma?
Ben’s jaw locked and Nathan felt a frisson of worry. What was going on?
“My sister has no formal training—”
“Word back at the fort is she nursed a bunch of kids with measles. I rode all night to catch up to your caravan. Please, my son is bad off—”
“She did nurse a bunch of kids, but—”
Emma stood to her full height, and both men stopped conversing to look at her. “I’ll go,” she said firmly.
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