Trail of Kisses

by Merry Farmer

  Lynne turned back to the wagon bed. “I don’t know what I was thinking.”

  “I do.”

  Cade caught her around the waist and twisted her to both face him and to press against him. The hardness of his body under his clothes brought every heated, dangerous sensation from the night before crashing back over her. She wanted him so desperately she could cry.

  “Let me go, Cade,” she said, letting out a breath in defeat. She sagged as she stood. She refused to admit she was a coward, but she was unforgivably stupid.

  Cade ignored her, holding her closer. The tension pouring off of him lightened to tender possession.

  “All I want is to keep you safe,” he murmured.

  She glanced up at him, bringing their faces mere inches apart. “By compromising me? By stealing my virtue?”

  “I stole nothing,” he insisted. “You gave freely.”

  She latched onto her one last chance to keep her pride. “I’m not a… one of those kinds of women.”

  “And I’m not one of those kinds of men,” he said. “We’ve been over this.”

  He followed his words by tugging her closer and slanting his mouth over hers. The kiss cut right through her, dredging up every ounce of longing she had and fanning the flames of desire that would be better off left alone. She gave in to him, kissing him back with as much energy as he had. Then sense trickled back to her and she resisted.

  Her resistance caused him to spread his hands across her back and pull her closer, kiss her more deeply. Their passion became a battle. He nipped at her lip and teased her with his tongue, all the while holding her as if she belonged to him.

  At last he loosened his grip and she stumbled, bumping the back of the wagon. Her legs were weak and her body hot and aching. She gasped for breath, then slapped him across the face with all the strength she could manage, which wasn’t much.

  Cade flinched and raised a hand to his cheek as a red spot began to form. “What was that for?”

  “For….” She didn’t have an answer for him, even though she searched for one. She should have slapped herself. Her mouth worked, kiss-swollen lips and all, but she couldn’t come up with a single thing to say except, “I’m not a coward.”

  Her voice betrayed otherwise. She swallowed and balled her hands into fists at her side as tears stung at her eyes, then wriggled away from Cade and ran.

  Chapter Nine

  Cade hadn’t been one for sleeping since the incident while working for George Tremaine, but he usually managed to catch a few hours in the dead of night. Not that night. It didn’t matter that Pete had pushed them hard for the rest of the day or that his entire body was sore from holding tension throughout the afternoon. He didn’t sleep a wink. Judging by the sound of shifting and thumping that came from the wagon all night as he lay out under a cloudy sky, Lynne hadn’t done much sleeping either.

  In the morning, the clouds thickened overhead and Lynne emerged from the wagon looking just as stormy. He made her coffee, just as he had sworn to himself he would do for her every day from yesterday morning on, regardless of the miserable way she refused to look at him. She could be as confused and conflicted as she wanted to be. He wouldn’t stop protecting her or caring for her just because she was determined to pretend nothing had happened between them.

  He wasn’t willing to let it go yet either.

  “We should talk about this,” he said as they rode side by side, several yards apart.

  “There’s nothing to talk about,” she insisted.

  Cade clenched his jaw, looking for a way to get past her defenses. “I can’t do my job if you won’t let me be close to you.”

  She snapped to stare at him, then just as quickly looked away and tilted her chin up. “You can, and you will. You don’t need to be by my side, privy to my every thought—”

  “And your every kiss,” he added with a growl.

  She huffed in indignation and turned scarlet.

  “You’re not going to pretend none of those kisses happened either, are you?” he said.

  She stared straight forward. He could see the wheels turning in her mind. Lord help him, but even that irritating delay was attractive to him. He liked it when she used her mind. Where else would she find a man who would value her for her sharp mischief?

  “Your job is to keep me safe from the men who threatened my father, correct?” she began.

  His heart beat faster, eager to see what kind of trick she would try next. “Correct.”

  “Well, no one has made any sort of threat on my person since before Ft. Kearny.”

  “Unless you count the faulty trigger on my gun and my wrecked boots,” he growled.

  “Which I’m still not convinced was anything more than shoddy merchandise.”

  “I liked those boots.” Cade swallowed the rest of his answer. Fighting about things he knew for a fact was not going to get him any closer to resolving their impasse. He took a breath and glanced up at the sky. A storm was definitely on its way. The horizon was dark with thunderheads. A few flashes crossed through the clouds. They were in for a miserable day. It didn’t help him to have patience with Lynne at all.

  “I think it’s perfectly reasonable for you to continue to do your job from a distance, without speaking to me at all,” she went on, though her words faltered near the end. If he wasn’t mistaken, her lip quivered before she sucked in a breath and adjusted her posture in the saddle to keep her back straight.

  He shook his head. “Lynne, we have to stop this nonsense.”

  “Nonsense?” Her arched eyebrow was a sure warning that she was close to arguing for the sake of argument.

  “Is it so terrible for you to have feelings for me? Or to have acted on them? Lord knows I care for you.” She shot a sideways glance to him. “Yes. I said it. And I’m proud of it too.”

  She squirmed in her saddle without giving a response. A boom of thunder sounded in the distance. Maybe if they had a chance to spend the afternoon hunkered together in the wagon while the storm passed, they could work a few things out.

  “You don’t understand,” she whispered at last.

  “No, I don’t,” Cade replied. “Explain it to me.”

  Instead of explaining, she tossed him a moody look. Thunder boomed closer to them than Cade liked. He sat higher in his saddle, searching for some sort of shelter beyond the wagons. They were more or less out in the open, only a few scrubby stands of trees closer to the river.

  Lynne was beginning to take notice of their surroundings and their situation now too. “I don’t need you to take care of me or to protect me,” she said. She was more distracted than not now. “I’ll tell my uncle you did your duty. Ben can—”

  She was interrupted by the twin distractions of Ben shifting in his seat driving the wagon to scowl at her and lightning striking ahead of them. Cade steered his horse to walk closer to her.

  “We should probably find some way to get out of this storm,” he said. “Pete will stop the train any second now.”

  Before he could finish his thought, the angry, greenish clouds began to swirl in the distance. The storm had been churning miles ahead of them the whole time he and Lynne argued, but now it took on a more sinister form. The spinning in the clouds coalesced into a funnel that reached out as if hungry for the ground.

  Screams and shouts echoed across the wagon train. No one waited for the word to stop. Some people attempted to steer their wagons to the right or the left in an attempt to guess which direction the tornado forming in front of them would go. The animals, be they oxen or horses or the few chickens and goats settlers had brought with them, sensed the danger and screamed and scattered. People jumped down from wagons and headed for the shelter of the stands of trees nearer to the river, even as lightning struck closer to them. Callie and John were among the smarter folks. They jumped down from their wagon and unhitched all of their animals.

  “We can outrun it,” Lynne shouted at Cade’s side.

  Cade frowned at her, then ch
ecked on the progress of the tornado. It was forming fast and speeding straight toward them.

  “You can’t outrun something like that,” he called back to her.

  The best they could hope for was to get out of the way, but with no clear sense of which direction the tornado would decide on, even that was a crap shoot.

  “This way!” Lynne shouted over the growing noise and chaos. She reined her frightened horse about and tore through the breaking line of the wagons, heading for the river.

  Cade swore under his breath and kicked his horse to follow her. He checked over his shoulder on Ben, who was struggling to keep the team of oxen from bolting. Whether or not the boy could handle the team, Cade’s heart had gone with Lynne, and so must the rest of him.

  “Lynne!”

  He leaned low over his horse and charged to where she was running. The rain began in earnest, beating down on them even as lightning flashed and thunder boomed with deafening crashes around them. The tornado was growing steadily fatter ahead of them, eating up the prairie and any trees that got in its way. It raged with a ferocity that Cade could feel in his throat and lungs and throughout his body.

  “Lynne,” he called again.

  She had pulled her horse to a stop close to the river. The usually mild-mannered Clover reared, screaming, eyes wide. Lynne shouted and grasped the saddle, her face white and her eyes just as wide as her horse’s, but somehow she managed to stay mounted. Cade urged Arrow toward her, but as soon as Clover’s hooves were on the ground again, she changed direction and shot back into the prairie toward the wagons. He wheeled Arrow around and chased after her.

  The tornado bore down on them with a speed so horrific that fear boiled in Cade’s gut. Not fear for himself, fear that something would happen to Lynne. Clover made it halfway to the ragged line of wagons before rearing again. This time Lynne wasn’t so lucky. With a shout, she went spilling off Clover’s back, turning head over heels as her foot came loose from the stirrup and she rolled over Clover’s rump. As soon as she was free of Lynne’s weight, Clover bolted.

  “Lynne!”

  Cade jumped off of Arrow, letting his trusted friend run free and save himself as the solid funnel of the tornado roared closer. The winds were so strong now that he couldn’t hear his own voice. He sprinted across the wind-torn ground toward the spot where Lynne lay balled up in her skirts. There would be time to check to be sure she was unhurt later. As he reached her, he dropped to the ground and covered her body with his, embracing her as if he could single-handedly stop the twister from carrying her away. He willed himself to weigh ten times more than he did to keep them anchored to the ground.

  Amidst thunder and lightning and wind so harsh it hurt the roots of his teeth and made his ears ache, the tornado roared past. Cade kept his head down, but he could feel when the raging funnel crossed close to them, farther from the river than their scattered group had stopped. It wouldn’t be a direct hit. The twister missed them by the space of about half a mile. None of that mattered as the earth shook and churned so close to where Lynne was. Every sinew of his body and every thought in his mind was directed to keeping her safe.

  Slowly, with aching minutes that felt like lifetimes, the tornado passed. In its wake was the last remaining thunder and lightning, followed by thick, warm rain. It beat down on them, soaking everything that had been tumbled and scattered by the tornado, hail mixed in. They had gotten lucky. More lucky than he wanted to think about.

  Lynne lay trembling under the solid shelter of Cade’s body. Every inch of her ached. Shooting pain radiated through her back where she had hit the ground when Clover bolted. Her ears and behind her eyes ached with the heavy air of the tornado. It took her several more long, painful minutes to realize she was weeping. The noise of the storm had hid her sobs, but now that it was subsiding, all she was left with was the starkness of her fear.

  No, she had Cade as well. His arms around her and his body sheltering her were the only things keeping her from losing her mind. She was face down with him pressed against her back. The only part of him that she could reach for and hold was one of his hands, so she clung to that as if clinging to life. The pressure and release of his chest as he breathed in and out kept her from feeling as though the world was flying to pieces around her.

  “It’s all right,” he murmured at length, voice hoarse and laced with emotion. “It’s gone.”

  She answered him with the barest of nods. Inch by inch, details of the world around her began to come into focus. It was raining. Her clothes were soaked around the edges, her hair damp and sticking to her forehead. Cade’s breath was hot against her neck. The hand that she clutched was curled through her fingers, squeezing her just as tightly as she held him. His weight was as oppressive as it was comforting. She couldn’t breathe freely.

  “Let me,” she panted, working to gather her thoughts. “Let me go.”

  He tensed above her for a moment before relaxing. “Are you sure?” he asked even as he swayed to the side. “Are you sure you’re not hurt?”

  Her back ached, her throat was raw and constricted, and her world was ripped ragged, but she answered, “I’m fine.”

  Cade lifted himself to the side and slid off of her. The rain hit her with full force, running rivulets down her face as she pushed herself to sit. She hoped Cade would see the rain and not the tears. She didn’t think she could bear it if he saw her tears. He would know why they were there. He would know, and she would be humiliated.

  “I’m perfectly fine,” she repeated and forced herself to stand. It took more effort than she wanted it to. Her back was bruised from her fall and her limbs weren’t sure if they wanted to move. It was only when she was most of the way to her feet that she realized Cade had jumped up and helped her to stand. His hands were large and steady, one on her arm, one around her waist. It would be so easy to let him continue to support her, to admit it felt good, but if she gave in to someone else’s strength, it was an admission that she had none.

  “Take it easy,” he warned her, even as she tugged to get away from him. “You don’t have to charge off to do anything yet.”

  She frowned, confused at first. Then the scene around them came into slow focus.

  Their wagon train was a mess. The tornado may not have hit them directly, but it had scattered people and wagons and animals in all directions. Several wagons had been tipped over or damaged or smashed entirely to pieces. Only one or two remained standing, untouched. People were beginning to stand from where they had taken cover, whether it was behind the few trees or by the river or in ditches or hollows in the ground. As far as Lynne could see was nothing but destruction and disruption, wide eyes and wringing hands. They had been hit as surely as if one of the Briscoe Boys had appealed to Mother Nature to carry out his villainous mission.

  Somehow, she spotted her wagon in the carnage. It had been tipped over, the canvas cover ripped, and boxes of her things lay open and scattered in a wide arch. Ben and the oxen were gone. She started forward, only to have Cade grab her arm to stop her.

  “Move slowly,” he cautioned her. “It’s not going anywhere, and I don’t want you to strain yourself if you’re injured.”

  “I’m not injured,” she said without thinking about it. She pulled away from him and stumbled across the wind-whipped ground to the mess that was hers. Her things, her life, her fortunes. Seeing it all scattered and broken sent a chill down her spine. This was her life.

  “Where’s Clover?” she asked, her voice as high and thin as when she was a girl moving to a strange, new town.

  Cade strode to stand close to her, closer than he should. He searched the stormy horizon with her. The rain was letting up.

  “She’s over there.” He pointed off toward the river. Clover, saddle still in place, was standing with her head low, sniffing at the grass.

  Lynne took a breath and marched toward her. With each step, she forced herself to gather her courage. She was her Papa’s brave girl. She was her Papa’s brave gir
l. She had always been brave, when they’d moved, when her mother died, when Graham and Robert went off to war. She was brave, and she could get through this on her own.

  Halfway to Clover, she stumbled over a white-swathed object in the grass. It startled her enough to pause to see what it was. Her heart caught in her throat and she bent to snatch it up. It was her doll, the doll her Papa had insisted she take with her. A huge chunk of porcelain had been knocked out of the back of her head, even though her painted face still smiled blankly up at the softening rain. Even still, she was ruined.

  Lynne sank to her knees and snatched the doll up to her chest. It didn’t ease the pain. Before she could stop herself, tears burst from her, from the depth of her soul. She sobbed again, the way she had sobbed when the tornado hid the sound. Her doll was ruined, her childhood gone. All she could do was sit there and weep.

  “Lynne?” Cade was there, although she hadn’t heard him approach. He sat beside her, resting a hand on her shoulder.

  That gentle, comforting hand only caused her tears to flow more freely.

  “This is not my war,” she moaned, hugging her doll as if she could put her back together with love. “I never asked for any of this.”

  “I know you didn’t, sweetheart.”

  “Please don’t call me that,” she said, too upset to hold back or remember her manners. “I won’t be called charming pet names or made to feel like I’m of no use to anyone without help.”

  “I won’t call you sweetheart,” he said.

  “I never asked to come out here in the middle of nowhere,” she went on, venting emotions that had taken a whirlwind to let free. “I’d never heard of the Briscoe Boys until they showed up in Papa’s courtroom. I didn’t know who they were and I don’t want to know who they are. Why would they want anything to do with me?”

  Cade let out a breath, lowering his head and shaking it. His hand slipped from her shoulder to her waist and he drew her closer.