Emma looked up to find Nathan’s eyes on her. Had he heard Millie’s beau? He went on telling the story and she couldn’t tell from his demeanor whether he had or not.
She didn’t think quite the same about Nathan’s stories of life in the wilderness. Each adventure sounded…lonely. He hadn’t had a brother to help him track the cougar, his stories reflected that he was alone most of the time.
The isolation would have driven her crazy, she was sure. Not having someone to talk to, to listen to her joys and sorrows…
She regretted the resentment she’d held for her siblings over the trip West. She’d been at fault for not expressing her fears and desire to stay back home. She was thankful she’d come, or she never would have faced her fears.
But more than that, she wanted to give that to Nathan. Family.
Would he let her? Would he let her in?
Chapter Sixteen
Sarah hadn’t had the baby until well into the night. Emma had settled the kids in the family’s second tent, well after they should’ve been abed. Her limited nursing skills didn’t extend to childbirth and she’d been more than happy to know that several experienced mothers in the caravan were standing by to help Sarah.
She’d lain awake a long time, listening for the small cry and muted voices that signaled a baby’s arrival. Safe and healthy, judging by the squalling.
Sarah had birthed a baby on the trail. She hadn’t been afraid, even though the dangers of the trail had affected her family, with Sam’s injury and Ariella’s near-drowning.
Their family was strong.
But Emma had let her own fears weigh her down along the trail—including her fear of speaking in front of people. She’d let Nathan down with how she hadn’t defended him to Stillwell.
Had she ever really apologized to him for allowing it to happen that night? Perhaps he thought she was ashamed of their friendship. Could that be why he pushed her away?
She was lost in the tangle of her thoughts when she noticed Sam start to twist and turn in his sleep. She sat up, the other children a mass of bodies, elbows and knees. She’d isolated Sam on her opposite side so his leg wouldn’t be jostled in the night.
She reached out and touched his forehead and quickly discovered that he was burning up with fever.
Carefully, she scrambled out of the tent. Movement in the shadows nearby startled her and she whirled with a hand at her chest, letting the tent flap fall closed behind her.
Near the wagon, Nathan sat up, his legs encased in a bedroll, hatless with his dark hair rumpled.
“Whatsa matter?” His voice slurred and in the almost complete darkness she couldn’t see, but imagined, his dear face lax and open from sleep.
“Sam has a fever—I’m worried about the infection.”
Without questioning her further, he struggled to get out of the bedroll and came to her.
“It’s very dark,” she whispered when he’d met her near the tent. Even the stars didn’t seem as brilliant tonight.
“It’s very late,” he countered, “and the moon is new.” He was close enough that his exhalation stirred the fine wisps of hair at her temple. He touched her elbow as if to say I’m near, there’s nothing to be frightened of, and she wasn’t afraid.
Something had changed between them today, unacknowledged, but it was there.
She leaned into his touch slightly. The night was cool around them, the temperatures dropping overnight, and she missed the warmth of her own bedroll in the tent. But Sam’s fever was a worry.
“You want me to get the boy or stoke up the fire?” he asked. Ever present, at her side, ready to help without her asking.
“The fire,” she decided quickly. “And can you fetch some water?”
He was gone before she’d bent to pull Sam out of the tent, careful not to wake the other children.
The fact that Sam didn’t rouse as she lifted him carefully in her arms was a worry. She knew some children slept more soundly than others—her brothers were a fine example of that—but she was afraid the fever had rendered him unconscious, which would be a very bad thing.
She stumbled out of the tent toward the fire.
When she made her way carefully near the fire pit, praying all the while, she found Nathan squatting beside it, tending to the slowly growing flames. A bucket of water waited nearby with a washrag folded over the handle, and Nathan’s own bedroll was laid out close enough to take advantage of the light but not too close that the fire would overheat the feverish boy.
Emotion clogged her throat for the thoughtful care Nathan had given even as she’d roused him from his much-needed rest. “Thank you,” she whispered as she laid Sam out on the bedroll.
Nathan slid one more small willow log on the fire and shifted toward her, his boots rotating on the flattened grasses.
“I didn’t wake his parents,” he said. “I didn’t know if…”
She nodded, reaching for the cloth and dipping it into the bracingly cold water. “Sarah must be exhausted, and Harrison will have care of all the children tomorrow. If he gets worse, we can wake them.”
Nathan settled back onto his haunches as she squeezed excess moisture out of the rag and then applied it to Sam’s forehead like a compress.
Nathan watched her movements.
“Wasn’t so long ago I was bathing your forehead,” she said softly. “I’m grateful you’ve recovered.”
He nodded. “Your nursing pulled me through and that’s the truth. Being around you has…done me a lot of good.”
The hesitant admission sent a thrill through her. For someone as taciturn and silent as Nathan, his words meant a lot.
“You’ve been a blessing to me, as well, Nathan,” she said shyly, keeping her eyes on Sam’s small face.
Nathan made a noise of disagreement and she looked up to see him staring off in the distant darkness, his jaw tight and expression drawn.
“You have,” she insisted, her eyes remaining on him this time. “You allowed me to share my fears about the journey, and you didn’t treat them as trivial. You’ve lived out in the wilds enough to probably dismiss my fears, yet you never made me feel silly.”
She swallowed and looked down at the boy lying prone. “Your…friendship has become very important to me.” She wanted it to be so much more. But she was afraid to put herself out there, afraid of what he would think of her if she pursued him, especially after what had happened.
“Nothing about you is silly, Emma.” She couldn’t help but notice that he hadn’t responded to her comment about their friendship.
She left the rag across Sam’s forehead and moved to lift the boy’s nightshirt, just enough to get at the bandaged shin.
When she touched his ankle, Sam moaned and his head rolled to one side.
Nathan moved to sit beside the boy, careful not to block her light. He put one hand on the boy’s opposite leg. “Don’t need you getting kicked again,” he said gruffly. Taking care of her.
Beneath the bandage, the wound had become inflamed and pus-filled again.
“That’s bad, right?” Nathan asked at the soft catch of her breath.
“I believe his tissues are trying to rid themselves of the infection,” she murmured. “The fever is the body’s attempt to help, as well, but it is dangerous.”
She washed his wound with soap again, and again left it open to the night air.
Her worry intensified when Sam didn’t rouse even through her ministrations. Earlier in the day, he’d thrashed through the pain, but now he barely moved.
She bathed his forehead and chest with the damp cloth, her fears rising in the dark quiet of night.
What if her efforts weren’t enough? What if he died because there wasn’t a doctor to be found out here in the wilds?
She hadn’t realized her movemen
ts had turned jerky and uncontrolled until Nathan’s large hand covered hers, stilling her and enclosing her hand with warmth.
“Why don’t you go lie down? Get some rest. I’ll stay up with him.”
* * *
Nathan wasn’t surprised when Emma dismissed his suggestion she return to bed.
Sitting beside her in the night, with the crackling fire near, he was lost. Not physically. He trusted himself to be able to locate water, game for food if they needed it. Even finding the wagon train come tomorrow wouldn’t be an impossible challenge.
But traversing the terrain of Emma’s emotions was fraught with dangers. He cared about her. There was no denying it after what had happened earlier in the day.
He could tote water and tend fires, even nurse a sick child, but sharing himself with Emma frightened him worse than anything.
He’d heard what the young neighbor had called him earlier. Emma’s beau.
The words—and that Emma hadn’t refuted them—had knocked the wind out of him as if he’d been socked in the gut.
Did she really consider him her beau? She had to have simply let the comment pass, not wanting to embarrass him. Knowing they would likely never see these folks again after they parted ways.
But the words had stuck in his mind all night.
Igniting his hope.
He wished there was some world in which she would have meant it.
Now, faced with her fear and upset over the boy, Nathan was frozen. Impotent.
Maybe they never should have come. Then she never would have been here, to be upset.
What would she feel if the boy didn’t survive?
But if they had never come to this caravan, what would’ve happened to Ariella when she’d fallen in the river? Would someone else have rescued her? Or would she have drowned?
Mired in uncertainty and self-blame for bringing Emma out here, Nathan did nothing.
But he didn’t have to.
Emma leaned toward him, first a brush of her shoulder against his arm, then more fully, her weight against his chest.
Sam had calmed, and was resting quietly now. It was so very late that there was no other noise from their fellow travelers. Everyone except the watch was sleeping.
His arm went around her shoulders of its own accord and her head rested in a hollow between his jaw and shoulder. It fit there naturally, as if he’d been made to hold her.
That was a dangerous line of thinking.
And then she whispered, “I feel safe with you.”
And that was an even more dangerous thought, one that filled him with both joy and terror.
She shouldn’t. He’d failed Beth. What if he did the same with Emma?
“Tell me a story,” she whispered.
Because his throat closed tight with memories, he whispered, too. “Once upon a time, I was twenty years old and even though I didn’t come from much or have many worldly goods or an education, I thought I had a future.”
She remained quiet, breathing steadily in the quiet night.
He cleared his throat because it was hard to talk about this, but maybe if he did, she would finally see why they could never be a match.
“Growing up, my pa was…difficult. Always drunk. Often mean. My sister, Beth, got married ’bout as soon as she could find someone. Only the man she married was even meaner than our pa.”
Old anger stirred, that someone would hurt a woman like Beth.
“Beth was… She was something special. Always so cheerful. Always with a kind word. Telling me I was better than our upbringing.”
In the fire, a log split and sent sparks spiraling into the night sky.
He took a deep breath so he could go on.
“She came to me and asked for help. Needed to get away from her husband. It was the first time she told me how he’d been treating her.”
He still remembered the violent anger that had coursed through him, but also the helplessness.
“I had no money to speak of. She had things all planned out, if I could get her a sum of cash, she could buy a train ticket and escape him.
“I did every job I could think of. Went town to town, begging for work. But it wasn’t fast enough. I went to the cabin and found her dead on the floor, beaten by his hand.”
He swallowed, the memories pressing in on him even after all these years.
“Later, a doctor told us she’d been pregnant when she died. I couldn’t save her or her baby.”
He waited for her recrimination, but when she said, “Oh, Nathan,” it was only to put both arms around his neck in an embrace.
He sat there dumbly, one arm slung around her slender waist, mind mired in the past while part of him soaked up the comfort she offered so freely.
For once, he couldn’t deny himself.
* * *
Emma didn’t have words to comfort Nathan. Knowing what he’d gone through, the guilt he carried…she didn’t know how he’d borne it.
He was strong, so much stronger than he’d given himself credit for.
It was no wonder he had trouble trusting people, no wonder he kept things about himself so private.
“I’m sorry you went through that,” she whispered.
He was shaking.
Maybe that’s what he needed, to share his past, to realize he could be forgiven of his guilt.
Sam stirred beside them, breaking the intimate moment when she had to pull away. His skin was mercifully cooler to the touch.
“Miss Emma?” he rasped. “Where’s my ma?”
She smoothed back his hair from his still-damp forehead, aware of Nathan still close at her side. “She’s with the new baby, remember?”
He nodded sleepily. “C’n I have some water?”
She fetched him a dipper, relieved beyond measure at his animation. When she asked about his leg, he said the pain had lessened. And then he wanted back in the tent with his brothers and sisters.
Nathan helped her stand with a hand beneath her elbow, his presence steady at her side.
He carried Sam to the tent and helped her settle him just inside before backing out of the canvas.
She caught him by the hand, as he was still halfway bent over with only his head still inside the canvas flap.
“Thank you for telling me—for trusting me,” she whispered.
It was too dark to see his face, but he squeezed her hand, hard, letting her know he’d heard.
Chapter Seventeen
By midmorning the next day, Nathan and Emma had traversed the last of the familiar landscape that they had seen two days ago when they’d been with the Hewitts’ company, passing through a course of thickets and narrow ravines.
Once past the landmarks he recognized, Nathan followed the signs of recent travels. A scrape in the dirt at the bottom of the ravine, where a wagon tongue must’ve dug into the earth. Hoofprints. A bush that someone had raided for its blackberries.
As far as he was concerned, the faster they caught up to the company, the better. He didn’t like traveling on their own.
He felt exposed, as if eyes watched them constantly.
Maybe it was superstition, or maybe it was because he was responsible for another person.
He was still reeling from the revelations he’d made to Emma last night, and the fact that instead of turning away from him, she’d turned toward him.
He had been unable to crush the wild hope that had taken root inside him and refused to be quashed.
He wanted Emma in his life. He wanted it badly.
And if he could be forgiven, why couldn’t he have it?
He guided the horse out of the ravine and over a stone ridge. There was still no sign of the caravan when he caught sight of movement on a high bluff to their north.
“Indians,” he murmured to Emma.
A whole line of them, maybe a dozen, sitting on paint ponies. From this distance, he couldn’t tell if the men wore war paint on their bodies.
Emma’s hands clutched his waist. “What should we do?”
He didn’t know. Indecision held him immobile as thoughts of what could happen ran through his mind.
If they tried to run, and the horse went lame, they would be dead.
If the men were friendly, the best thing to do was face them and see what they wanted.
But Emma’s presence complicated things. She was the most beautiful woman Nathan had ever met, with a crown of beautiful, long hair.
What if the Indians tried to take her? Nathan was just one man.
Worst-case scenarios played through his head in quick succession.
“Nathan.” Emma’s frantic whisper galvanized him into action.
“We’ll keep going as we were,” he answered, affecting a calm manner when he felt anything but. His heart pounded frantically in his rib cage. “You keep watch on them. Tell me if they move off the ridge.”
He guided the horse along the same path they’d been following, parallel to the wagon train marks in the grass, but nearer the woods concealing the creek.
If the Indians gave chase, they would attempt to outrun them, and catch up to the wagon train. Ben Hewitt’s horse was larger, faster than the Indians’ paint ponies, but also carrying two passengers.
If forced, they could attempt to hide in the woods, but Nathan knew the Indians were excellent trackers.
Did they have a chance of survival?
His mind spun with self-recrimination. If he’d argued harder, maybe Ben wouldn’t have allowed her to go and she wouldn’t be in this danger.
Or if he’d insisted on leaving yesterday afternoon, as he’d wanted, they would already be back in the caravan with her family.
Nathan laid the blame right where it belonged.
He could’ve insisted on leaving yesterday and she would’ve had no choice but to go with him. He could’ve manhandled her onto the horse with him. He was larger than her; he could’ve done it easily.
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