I made myself look over to him and agreed, “Yes, it was pretty scary. You saw a twister?”
He nodded eagerly, though his hair didn’t flop quite so much now that I’d trimmed it for him. He said, “We rode back as hard as we could, away from it. I’ve never seen a real one before!”
I smiled weakly at him. Malcolm said, “You look right faint, Lorie,” and in the next moment Boyd was there, leaning over Juniper’s back to regard me with his face as serious as I’d ever seen it.
Boyd said firmly, “She’s just fine, boy.” He looked intently at me, trying to tell me something with his eyes, but I couldn’t read his as I read Sawyer’s. He added, “You’re just fine, ain’t you, Lorie-girl?”
I understood that I needed to pull myself together. I nodded and stood straight, swiping strands of wet hair from my face. Angus and Sawyer were standing now; Angus was pointing out something on the eastern horizon, their backs to me, but I could sense Sawyer’s concern. I studied the set of his shoulders, his shirt soaking and clinging to him, his hair tied back and his hat still in place. Whistler had come near him, nosing his right side as he stroked her neck. My stomach was rendered utterly weightless at the thought of what we’d just shared.
“C’mon, Lorie, you can ride Aces for a spell,” Malcolm said. “I’ll mind the wagon.”
They couldn’t possibly understand my distress, my fears, though I loved both of the Carters as though they were truly my brothers.
“It’ll be a wet ride these next miles,” Boyd said, moving to rejoin Angus and Sawyer, slipping his right arm around Sawyer’s waist and leaning into him for a moment, giving him either a sort of hug or communicating something to him that I couldn’t understand. He mounted Fortune, saying to her, “Sorry, girl. We’ll have to build two fires tonight.”
I gathered myself together as much as I possibly could, rejoining them but unable to keep my eyes from Sawyer’s for any length of time. His eyes were steady, reassuring, a hint of a smile on his lips as Whistler crowded him for attention. His hand was on her neck.
Don’t worry, Lorie, he told me silently.
Angus asked, “Lorie, are you all right?” His gray eyes were concerned upon me, attempting to ascertain why I appeared so distressed.
I nodded, and Angus passed Aces’ reins to me, as Sawyer gave Whistler a gentle shove and then moved to the back of the wagon and rummaged, withdrawing a blanket as Malcolm clambered atop the wagon seat and gripped the lines.
Angus said, “We won’t ride much longer. Perhaps a few hours, and then we’ll settle for the evening.”
“Can we eat a passel then, Gus, I’m starved!” Malcolm asked.
“We can at that,” Angus promised, before mounting Admiral and swinging him around north.
“Here, Lorie,” Sawyer said, carrying the blanket, which he had folded in half. “You’ll be chilly.”
I held him with my gaze. He reached with his free hand and gently tucked a strand of hair behind my left ear, and his eyes told me everything he wanted to say but couldn’t just now. Instead he said softly, “Let’s get you up,” and took my elbow as I climbed atop Aces. Once there, he reached to settle the blanket over my back, smoothing it into place with his strong hands, before untucking my long braid from beneath and letting it rest gently over my right shoulder. My heart ached at this tenderness, my blood pulsing at his touch. At last he collected his leather riding gloves from the ground, where they’d fallen, and handed them to me.
“Thank you,” I told him with all of my heart.
“You’re welcome,” he replied softly. He went to Whistler and climbed atop her, as she shook her damp mane and seemed to scold him with her nickering. He shifted his hips just slightly and set her in motion.
We all kept pace with the wagon, sticking close. The storm had passed, leaving nothing more than a dripping prairie. On the far western horizon there was a strip of blue sky, and then the underbelly of the sun as it sank into visibility from behind the edge of the gray cloud-quilt. The beams struck over the earth with red-gold intensity, making all of us squint. Boyd rode at my right, Angus and Sawyer just behind, and I had the sense that he was purposely displacing Sawyer from my side because he was worried. I knew it, and I understood.
“Remember that thunderstorm the night the boy was born?” Boyd asked over his shoulder, nodding at Malcolm.
“It was the same night the oak tree in our pasture was split in two,” Angus remembered.
“It was a sign of what was to come with you, boy,” Boyd joked. He let his hat fall down his back and regarded me with one eye in a squint, just like Malcolm. It must have been a Carter trait, rather than a problem with eyesight. “Lorie-girl, tell us a story of your childhood. We’ve been flappin’ our jaws without let-up an’ you’ve listened so polite.”
“Tell us about the hoop snake your brother found!” Malcolm whooped, and I giggled.
“No more hoop snakes,” I said firmly, feeling a little of my anxiety drain away, tipping my chin to my shoulder for a moment, both to collect my thoughts and allow for a glimpse of Sawyer behind me, from the corner of my eye. I considered, then said, “Well, I always wished I was a boy. I was never allowed to do the things that my brothers did, at least not usually.”
“Dalton and Jesse, you done told me about them!” Malcolm supplied.
“Hush, boy,” Boyd told him.
“Although Daddy did teach me about horses, and to ride. I learned, though I was never as good as my brothers. They didn’t spare my feelings, didn’t let me cry if I fell or was scared of something, so in some ways I had a boy’s attitude. I even got in a fight at school, when I was eight.”
“I bet you were fierce!” Malcolm crowed, grinning down at me from the wagon seat. He knocked back his own hat and listened eagerly.
I laughed a little, seeing the clapboard schoolhouse tucked into the clearing near Jasper Creek, with its bell that tolled clearly through those misty school mornings.
“What happened?” Malcolm pressed.
I said, “Well, Minnie Campbell said—” I paused for a moment, realizing I needed to explain Minnie. “Minnie was one of those girls who wore starched hair ribbons every day, tied in big bows over her pigtails.”
Boyd nodded knowingly. He added, “The kind of ribbons I liked to tug on in my own school days, I’m a-feared.”
“No, a milk-sop girl,” Malcolm added. “I know the kind.”
I laughed again, before continuing, “Minnie and I had never gotten along, even though we were of an age and there weren’t too terribly many girls our age at school. But this particular day she kept insisting that her older brother Davey could beat Jesse in a horse race. I finally couldn’t stand her taunting and told her that I could probably beat Davey in a horse race. That was at noon recess, and Mr. Oliver was inside the schoolhouse, or I never would have dared to behave so terribly. Minnie was red-faced, but I turned my back. I did, truly,” I defended when Malcolm made a disbelieving sound. “And then she came up behind me and grabbed my braid and yanked hard. It nearly took me over backward.”
Malcolm bounced with excitement. “What’d you do, what’d you do?”
“Well, I spun around and I remember she was wearing bright yellow ribbons that day, canary yellow. I grabbed her arms and got my foot around behind her ankle, just like my brothers had shown me, and then I shoved her.” I flushed at the memory of my own misbehavior.
They were all laughing now.
“No, it was awful. She fell hard and started to cry. Everyone gathered around her. Jesse came running from where the big boys played, down by Jasper Creek, and he scolded me too. When Mr. Oliver came out to see the fuss, I remember he took me by the ear.”
“Did you get strapped?” Malcolm asked in sympathy.
“Mr. Oliver wasn’t unkind, but he was very strict. I remember he had wire-rimmed glasse
s, and he looked at me so sternly and said I must be punished, and he used the ruler on my palm. But I was so ashamed that I’d behaved that way that it scarcely hurt at all. That afternoon when Jesse and I walked home, he told me that it wasn’t ladylike to fight. I started to cry because I thought he might actually be proud of me. He was fifteen by then, his last year in school, and I so badly wanted him to notice me. I yelled at him that Davey Campbell certainly could beat him in a horse race, and then I went and sulked on a tree stump. Mostly I was just afraid of going home and having to tell Mama and Daddy what I had done. I knew they would be disappointed in me, too.”
“Aw, Lorie, I woulda been proud,” Malcolm told me, loyally.
I said, “Jesse tried to get me to come home with him, even threatened to tuck me under his arm, but I wasn’t about to be moved. I kicked his shin, I was that out of sorts. He told me to suit myself, and so I sat on that stump as evening came over the trees, and I was hungrier and sorrier for myself than ever. I planned to sit there until dark, and perhaps even the entire night. But after a spell, Daddy came walking from down the path, and he was whistling.” Again I saw my father on that long-ago afternoon, his deep-blue eyes under bushy auburn eyebrows, his upper lip hidden beneath his mustache. He’d been hatless, and had stopped whistling and sat beside me, on the ground, regarding me somberly.
“He asked me if it was true that I was getting into fights at school,” I said. “I explained what had happened. I was miserable by then. When I finished telling him, I sat still and waited for him to reprimand me. He said, ‘Lorie, we’ll not say a word of this to your mother, and God willing she won’t catch wind of it from Maybelle Campbell.’ He smiled at me, it was our secret, and then he said, ‘I trust it won’t happen again.’ I told him it would not, and then he took my hand and we walked home. On the way he said, ‘I don’t condone fighting, but on occasion it is justified.’ And to this day I don’t believe that Mama ever found out.”
“That Minnie Campbell had it comin’ sounds like to me!” Malcolm yelped. “She pulled your braid first, Lorie!”
“That was in May,” I added, to finish the story. “And in June, after school let out, we were invited to a picnic at the Campbells’ along with several other neighboring families. I was afraid to go, but Minnie was nice as pie to me, syrupy sweet, and so I was the same to her. But after lunch, Davey made a point of finding me and telling me that he was ready to race, if I was game. He said he’d heard that I could beat him, and would I like to prove it?” I paused and sighed at the memory, as Davey Campbell had been freckled and roguish and all of the girls had adored him, and the fact that he’d died at Sharpsburg, along with my brothers. But I finished gamely, “I told him I’d be happy to race, I don’t know what came over me, as I’d surely have had to prove my words, but Jesse came along and hauled me away and put an end to it.”
“Aw, that’s a shame,” Malcolm mourned. “I bet you’d a-beat him!”
“If I had a good horse like Aces, maybe,” I said, patting the chestnut’s sleek neck. Again I looked over my shoulder, to peek at Sawyer behind me, feeling the caress of his gaze upon me.
“That reminds me of the time when my big ol’ mouth got me in trouble at school,” Boyd said.
“The time?” Sawyer teased him, and Boyd settled into his saddle to relate yet another story.
- 16 -
It was perhaps a half-hour from full sunset when we made camp. We were chilled, the horses in desperate need of grooming. I helped Malcolm set up the tents as the men cared for the animals. Malcolm strung the clothes line between two trees, and I set about hanging out blankets and clothes as he dug a shallow fire pit and hunted about for kindling. I finished my own task and then helped Malcolm, and was on hands and knees when I saw Sawyer heading over to me, hatless, though he’d changed into dry clothes after the tents had been set up. I had hung his damp ones on the line, scarcely resisting the urge to hold his shirt to me and breathe in his scent.
“I’ve got to clean hooves, Lorie, if you’d like to help,” he said amiably.
I looked up at him and my heart soared at the sight of his smile. I teased, “Thank you for thinking of me.”
His smile deepened to a grin and he told me, too low for Malcolm to catch, “I think of little else.”
My heart filled me with its insistent beating, clamoring to give in to my instinct and bound into his arms. I asked, “Have we more than one hoofpick?”
He nodded, our eyes holding and caressing, as we longed to be. I stood slowly, depositing the sticks I’d collected near the fire, and brushed off my hands, then called over to Malcolm, “I’m going to help clean hooves!”
“So, you wished to be a boy and got into fights,” Sawyer said as we walked, and I could tell by his voice that he was smiling.
“Just the one, truly,” I defended. “Though she did deserve it, I still felt badly.”
“No, your daddy was right, and that sounded like a justified fight,” he said. “Your daddy was William and your brothers were Dalton and Jesse. What was your mama’s name?”
“Felicity,” I said on a sigh. “Isn’t that pretty?”
“It is at that,” he said. “I’ll bet she was beautiful.”
“She was, oh she was,” I said, closing my eyes. “Her eyes were green as spring itself.”
The light over the prairie glowed soft golden-yellow, the air scented with the essence of the rain that had plundered the earth earlier. I’d recalled our kisses without let-up all afternoon; truly, I thought of nothing else either. I dared to peek at him out of the corner of my eye; there was something I meant to ask him.
“What were the words you said? They sounded so lovely.”
Especially spoken in his deep, throaty voice, with its lilt of home, of Tennessee.
He smiled and flushed, I could tell even without looking directly at him, and my heart thrilled. He said, softly, “Mama spoke the Irish Gaelic. Sometimes it comes to me before English.”
I braved another sidelong look at him, and this time sent the question in my mind.
What does it mean?
“It means ‘my sweet darling,’” he answered softly, and all breath caught in my throat. We had reached the horses, just out of sight of the tents.
I felt a flush spreading like wildfire over my cheeks and when Whistler nickered in welcome, stretching her nose to us, I moved to her at once, cupping her jaws and kissing her, rubbing her neck with both hands, one on either side. Sawyer had called me his sweet darling. I was overcome with emotion; how I longed to be his sweet darling, to the end of time.
“If you only knew what a picture you make, just there,” he said softly.
I turned, keeping my hands on Whistler. My heart landed a blow to my ribs at the sight of him in the sunset, his hair tied back, the angles of his face sharply defined, his lips soft and so very appealing. His eyes lanced directly into my heart.
“Sawyer,” I whispered, and I could hardly breathe.
He moved forward and cupped my face, trailing his thumbs over my cheeks. He asked, “May I kiss you, Lorie? I didn’t ask your permission earlier.”
I leaped into his arms so quickly that I startled the horses. His arms caught me close against his chest, lifting me from the ground. I encircled his neck and held him, desperate to give and to take in these seconds we had stolen. He cupped my head with one hand, tilting me into his kiss as I touched him with unceasing motion, his hair and his shoulders, his neck, letting my fingertips learn his feel, just as my tongue learned his taste, my body the hard lines of his.
When we drew apart, he peppered my chin and cheeks with soft kisses, holding me aloft against his powerful chest. His eyes glinted with humor as he murmured, “I’ll take that as a ‘yes’ then.”
I laughed and smoothed my hands over the sides of his face, as I was incapable of not touching him, tracing his cheekbo
nes and his hair, then catching his ears lightly and replying, “A thousand times, yes.”
He smiled into my eyes and held me closer, gently kissing the side of my neck, breathing against me as I shivered and clung, melting into him delightedly. He nuzzled me and whispered, “You’re so soft.”
I kept my face close to his neck, almost shyly, as I whispered, “Will you speak those words again?”
I felt him smile against my skin and he whispered back, “My Lorie, mo mhuirnín mhilis.”
I shivered at the lovely endearment as he stroked my hair and rocked me side to side. I kissed his chin before reclaiming his mouth, drawing his lower lip between mine and running my tongue over it, as he groaned deep in his throat and kissed me as though this was our final night upon the earth. The last of the sunlight was falling over us, dusting our hair, and the intensity of our kissing grew overwhelming. We were both breathless, our hearts thrusting fiercely against each other.
“I’ll keep watch over you tonight,” he told me, drawing back just enough to speak the words, his lips against my skin.
I pressed myself even more tightly to him. I said, “I knew you were there, last night. I lay by the entrance, as close as I could to you.”
His eyes were so very intense upon mine.
“Lorie,” he said, and again my heartbeat echoed through me, my blood a rushing stream that flowed to him, for him. He whispered, “Mo aingeal, my angel.”
Although I knew it was dangerous, foolish to even think it, I was unable to stop.
Sawyer, oh Sawyer, I love you, I am in love with you.
Everything I felt was in my eyes and he saw it there; his own answered back.
Malcolm’s yodeling call came rolling across the prairie, “Lorie! Sawyer! You two up here?”
Sawyer kept me close, kissing me one last time, with such sweetness, such tenderness. I shuddered with the pleasure of it, even as I knew we must stop. He let my feet back to the ground and softly kissed my forehead, turning to Whistler just as Malcolm appeared from the direction of the camp.
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