Seven and Eight were in the back of the wagon, their golden heads visible over the tailgate.
The oxen pulled the wagon into the waters and he followed on horseback, several paces behind.
They were crossing the most dangerous part, the deep middle where the oxen didn’t always have good footholds, and the wagon was afloat when it happened.
Something shifted in the weight of the wagon. There was a shout from the front, maybe from the teenaged boy. One side of the rear of the wagon dipped ominously.
And someone tumbled over the tailgate, out of the wagon, into the swirling waters. A female, in a heap of skirts going over the honey-colored head.
A woman’s scream rang out and Nathan didn’t think. He only reacted.
Emma!
Nathan’s first thought, only thought, was the woman he cared about.
He urged the horse after the golden head that bobbed and sank in the swirling waters.
A familiar form leaned out of the back of the wagon. Emma, with a frantic glance at him.
So it must be one of the little girls in the water. Was it Seven? Or Eight?
He didn’t even know their real names.
The horse was moving as quickly as it could get its footing in the waters, but time seemed to have slowed like spilled molasses and everything inside Nathan went tight and pulsed with emotion.
He couldn’t let this little girl drown.
His horse plunged through the water, going deeper into the stream, and then a current caught Nathan and he was swept off the horse.
His boots instantly filled with water and threatened to drag him under, but he fought with everything in him to keep his head above the water.
Where was she? He struggled against the water that seemed to pull him in several directions at once, pulling his legs this way and his torso that.
If he could just keep his head above water, he could try to catch a glimpse of—
There!
She had traveled several yards downstream and he cut through the water, swimming with all his might.
He didn’t know where his horse had gone, didn’t have a sense how far they’d traveled downstream from the wagon train.
All he could think about was grabbing that girl.
And then he did. His stretching, reaching fingers grasped the sodden fabric of her dress and he dragged her against the current into his arms.
She rested limp against him and a silent scream released inside him, though he had no breath to do anything other than fight to stay afloat.
He held her against his shoulder, fighting against the water, swimming with the water, until his feet found purchase on the muddy bank.
He’d gotten her to shore.
But was she alive?
Chapter Fourteen
Emma raced along the riverbank as fast as her jellylike legs would carry her. Her lungs burned with the exertion but it wasn’t that pain that threatened to overwhelm her.
Nathan!
What if Nathan was lost?
God, protect him!
The prayer, the silent cry was the only thought in her entire being until she saw him crouched on the bank, dark against the greens and browns of the landscape.
He was kneeling over Ariella’s prone form, and the moment she saw that Nathan had survived but Ariella wasn’t moving, her prayer changed to Don’t let her die!
Instantly, she knew that if the girl died, Nathan would be thrown back into the guilt and self-blame he’d borne when his sister had died. Emma had barely glimpsed it, barely understood how he’d cried out for Beth in his delirium, but some instinct deep within her knew that if this child was lost, Nathan would be lost to her, as well. As a friend…as the possibility of something deeper.
Her wordless prayer surged from the deepest part of her heart as she raced those last few yards to his side, Harrison and Chris behind her, Sarah even farther behind them.
Heedless of mud or grass staining her skirts, she fell to her knees at Nathan’s side. “Is she…?”
He’d rolled her onto her side and Emma witnessed how he pounded her back, none too gently.
But Ariella coughed, expelling dirty brown water from her nose and mouth and took a gasping, shaking breath.
And Nathan sat back on his heels as she supported Ariella’s back and helped her sit as beautiful color, beautiful life filled her face.
Ariella began to sob, no doubt latent fear over the whole ordeal, and Emma gathered her close as Harrison and Chris neared, closing in behind Nathan.
But she couldn’t look away from Nathan’s face, from the stark fear still revealed in the planes of his face, the fire behind his eyes.
Somehow she knew the fear hadn’t been for himself. He could have drowned. She’d read accounts of it happening.
He looked away from her, turning his head in profile to look back across the creek as Harrison ran up to them. As if to hide his emotion from her.
But it was too late. She’d seen the vulnerability in the man.
She surrendering the still-sobbing Ariella to her father’s embrace and stood up, her legs still shaking from the adrenaline that had rushed through her and hadn’t abated from the moment the wagon had lost control and Ariella had tumbled into the rushing waters until just now.
Nathan stood, and made as if to turn away, but she reached out to him with both arms and he pulled her into his arms, burying his face in her hair.
Oh, Nathan.
He was soaking wet, and she could feel the cold radiating off him, but she didn’t care.
He was here. He was whole. He hadn’t drowned.
He shook, his entire body trembled against hers as he just held her.
“I’m so glad you’re safe,” she whispered into his shoulder. She didn’t know if he could hear her, but she tried to telegraph the sentiment through the strength of her arms around his neck, through how tightly she held him.
“I thought it was you, at first.”
His words didn’t make sense, and then they did.
And if he held her a bit too tightly, that was all right. He did care about her.
When a sobbing Sarah finally reached them, Nathan gently released Emma.
Sarah held her daughter close, as close as she could with her very pregnant stomach between them, then moved toward Nathan.
Emma was likely the only one who saw his slight flinch as the other woman rounded on him. But the surprise written across his expression when Sarah flung herself at him was there for everyone to see.
He patted her back awkwardly through the unexpected hug.
“You saved our girl,” Sarah said as her tears began to dry. “How can we ever thank you?”
She moved back from Nathan, placing a hand to her lower back.
The younger children, all except little Sam, ran up to them, followed by several other men from the caravan, though they stayed a little apart to give the family its privacy.
“That was the bravest thing I ever saw!” warbled Aaron, the second youngest at five years old. “I can’t believe you jest jumped off your horse to save Ariella.”
“Ariella,” Nathan breathed beside her. Then said, “The horse.”
One of the other men chimed in, “Elijah caught him downstream. Got him tethered up at the Harrisons’ wagon.”
Nathan blew out a breath. She knew that must be one worry off his mind.
But Emma couldn’t forget the small boy waiting for news back at the family wagon. Nathan had saved Ariella. But what would happen if she couldn’t treat Sam’s infected leg? Would he lose it? Or worse, even lose his life?
* * *
Nathan felt the change in Emma and knew where her thoughts had gone.
Her blue eyes had gone dark with worry. For Sam.
He knew she couldn’t care as much as he’d begun to care for her—more than the bonds of friendship—but for those few precious seconds, he’d pretended that she felt just as strongly for him as he did for her.
He overheard some of the men talking of the short stop they would have for a quick mealtime and remembered that Emma wanted water boiled. There wouldn’t be much time to attend to the tasks she needed done, not with the delay that his impromptu swim had caused.
He hurried back to the family wagon, his feet squelching inside his boots with every step. They’d settled a good distance from the creek. He was gratified to see Ben’s horse tied off like the men had said.
He found a spade among the family’s belongings and was halfway through a decent-size hole for the campfire when the family trudged up from the gathering on the creek bank.
“Thank you, Nathan,” Emma said.
He made the mistake of looking at her. Something sparked between them, something that had been dormant until just now. Because of that embrace down by the river.
“Why don’t you let me finish there,” the teenaged boy offered. “I can make the fire.” The young man’s seriousness seemed to be his natural state. Nathan hadn’t seen him smile even when he’d come running up to his sister.
Nathan relinquished the spade, intent on finding buckets to start hauling water for Emma.
He turned and almost ran smack-dab into Harrison.
“You’ve got to be uncomfortable with your duds soaked,” the other man said. “They’ll be too large around the waist, but these of mine should do for you until yours can dry out in the sun.”
Nathan stared at the man’s outstretched hand, holding a pile of clothing.
Offering it to Nathan.
He shook his head, bewildered. “You’d let me wear your clothes?”
Nathan couldn’t wrap his mind around the offer. The folks in the Hewitts’ caravan had been worried he would steal their belongings, but Harrison offered his up, just like that?
“You saved my daughter from drowning,” Harrison said, gravely serious. “I owe you a debt, far more than I’ll ever be able to repay.”
But you don’t know me, Nathan wanted to say, but the words stuck in his throat.
He took the clothes, mostly because Harrison looked as if he would stand there holding them forever if Nathan didn’t.
Nathan had suffered worse than wet clothes, but didn’t refuse.
By the time he’d changed into the dry clothes—which were too wide in the waist!—the young man had a good-size fire going and water on to boil.
Emma knelt over a blanket laid out on the ground, where someone had moved Sam out of the wagon.
“Is it gonna hurt?” the little boy asked his mama, who was hovering close beside him.
Nathan hung back, ready to help when Emma needed him, but not wanting to be in the way.
The pregnant woman gasped a little and laid a hand over her stomach, her face going pale and lips pinching for a moment.
“Are you all right?” Emma asked.
“Just one of those pains that comes with bearing a little one,” Sarah said.
Nathan didn’t know much about childbearing, but her reaction seemed a little extreme for a common discomfort.
Seven—whose name he had found out was Anna—and Ariella knelt nearby with Aaron, their attention on their injured brother.
“His face is pretty white—like a slice of bread,” Anna said.
Aaron contributed, “Chris did it.”
“Aaron,” Sarah chided.
Chris, the teenaged brother, was nowhere to be seen.
“Is he supposed to look like that?” Ariella asked. Her voice was slightly hoarse, and she was wrapped in a blanket with her hair wet and loose down her back.
“Will it hurt him?” Aaron asked, lower lip trembling on his brother’s behalf.
And Emma sent Nathan a half amused, half exasperated glance. What did she expect him to do about the children that chattered like magpies?
A look at Sarah revealed a white face and perhaps even a sheen of sweat on her upper lip.
“Why don’t you take the children on a short walk while I assist Miss Emma?” he suggested.
A chorus of aww! had a smile tickling the corner of his mouth, but he resisted. One crack in his expression and Emma would never be rid of the children.
“Are you certain?” Sarah asked, one hand resting on the mound of her stomach.
Emma nodded. “We’ll manage.”
The little boy whimpered when his siblings and his mama left.
Emma gently brushed his hair back from his forehead. “It’ll be all right, Sam. They’ll be back in a moment.”
Nathan could imagine her gentle touch for her own children. For McCullough’s children.
Imagining her with the other man and his family burned like a hot poker in Nathan’s midsection.
He closed his eyes briefly against the image.
Sam was having none of Emma’s comfort. He knew she wasn’t his ma and the lip that had been trembling was suddenly open in a whimper.
Nathan joined her at the blanket. “What do you want me to do?”
The faster they helped him, the faster his ma could come back and comfort him.
“Keep him from thrashing about.”
Nathan put his hands on the boy’s shoulders but didn’t apply pressure as the boy stilled. No doubt when it began to hurt worse, he would squirm, but Nathan didn’t want to scare him.
Movement from the opposite side of the wagon drew Nathan’s gaze beneath the conveyance, where he could see a pair of trousers and boots. Chris, he suspected. Curious, or something else? Maybe watching over his brother?
Beneath Emma’s hands, Nathan caught glimpses of the angry red cut, several inches long, scoring Sam’s shin.
“This will hurt, Sam. Can you be a brave boy?”
She’d lathered a washrag with soap and didn’t give the boy time to anticipate the hurt, because she began scrubbing the cut even as she spoke.
Sam cried out and tried to break away from them. Nathan pinned him in place, using only as much strength as necessary to keep the weakened boy still.
“I’m sorry,” Emma muttered, but she didn’t stop using the soapy rag. “We’ve got to get it cleaned out—”
She’d pinned Sam’s opposite leg with her elbow but as she worked on his injured leg, the good leg flailed upward.
“Don’t—” Nathan ordered, but the boy was past the point of being rational, and Emma was the one torturing him—or so he must’ve thought.
His small boot caught her on the jaw. Nathan reached out a hand to press down on Sam’s leg, but that left one of the boy’s shoulders without an anchor and he clawed at Nathan’s hand, raising scratches on the back of his wrist.
“Sam. Quit it!”
Nathan didn’t look up at the voice, but knew it when Chris knelt near his brother’s head.
The teenager wasn’t here out of blatant curiosity, like his siblings had been. He wanted to help. Nathan had seen—recognized—the guilt in his face earlier, before he’d even overheard about the boy’s part in his brother’s injury.
“Can you hold his shoulders?” Nathan asked the boy.
“Nathan—” Emma began to protest, but Nathan flicked a resolute glance at her.
She might not want Chris to help, but Nathan wouldn’t let her be hurt again. He could see the darker red mark on her jaw.
“You’ll need my hands,” he said simply. He moved next to her and pressed both of Sam’s ankles into the blanke
t, gently. “You okay?”
She nodded, her attention not diverted from cleaning out the wound.
“I w-want Ma!” Sam cried, voice quivering.
“I know you do, but you know she can’t stand the sight of blood with the baby coming,” Chris explained quietly.
The young boy was not comforted by Chris’s explanation. He wanted his ma.
Emma reached across Nathan for a pitcher of water, her shoulder brushing his. She washed out the wound, the soapsuds sliding away to reveal angry red skin.
Chris sucked in a breath and Nathan watched his face go pale.
Sam still cried soft sobs.
And Nathan caught sight of a single, silver tear, rolling down Emma’s cheek.
She was such a tender heart—no doubt she disliked putting the boy in pain.
His gut twisted painfully tight. He had a moment of wondering exactly how he’d gotten here.
And he knew why.
Emma.
He couldn’t stay away from her, couldn’t resist her sincere request for help. Even when he knew better.
Because he was starting to fall in love with her. There would be time for reflecting on that later.
He wanted to ease this moment for her, for the boys.
But what could he do?
* * *
Emma felt Nathan go still at her side and for a moment she wondered if both he and Chris would become sick at the sight of blood and whether she would be on her own doctoring the boy and avoiding his kicking foot at the same time.
Her jaw still throbbed from where he’d gotten in a good kick moments ago.
But Nathan surprised her by offering, “I once got lost in a snowstorm.”
At first, his words didn’t make sense to her.
But he’d gotten Chris’s attention, and even Sam’s sniffles quieted slightly.
Ah. He was telling a story. About himself.
“I’m ah…” He hesitated slightly and when she flicked a quick glance at him, she saw the red creeping into his cheeks. “I’m a trapper and I was out checking the lines and didn’t realize a storm was brewing—it came on too quick.”
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