Come Back

by Melissa Maygrove

  She straightened his blankets, folding them down at the chest. “Is there something I can do to make you more comfortable?”

  “Nah. I’m just getting stiff from lying on the ground so long.” She didn’t doubt that. She suspected boredom wasn’t helping either.

  Becca smiled and patted his arm. “Hang on. I’ll be right back.”

  She sifted through a pile of books in the first storeroom. If she could keep him resting one more day, he’d be able to start getting up and walking around. She gathered a few she thought Seth would like and carried them back to his bed.

  “I thought you might like to read.” She read off the titles to him and he chose The Three Musketeers.

  Seth took it from her and read for a while, but then he set the book down and sighed.

  “Finished already?” Becca joked as she carried in wood for the fire.

  He flashed a small smile, but the look in his eyes betrayed it.

  She added a log to the fire, and then she sat against the wall near Seth’s pallet and positioned him so that his head and shoulders were elevated on a pillow in her lap. It hurt him to move, but once he got settled, he seemed more comfortable.

  “Show me where you left off,” she said as she picked up the book.

  For the next couple of hours, she read to him. He was more peaceful than he’d been in some time. The fire kept them warm while flakes of snow drifted through the roof and melted as they fell to the floor. Thoughts of him leaving pricked her heart from time to time, but she ignored them and basked in the comfort of his presence.

  “Don’t stop,” he said, interrupting her reading.

  She was about to ask ‘what?’ when a jolt of self-awareness sent a blazing blush across her face. She’d been running her fingers through his hair!

  “Please, don’t stop.” He was looking up at her now. “My pain goes away when you do that, and I almost forget I’m hurt.”

  The sincerity in his soft blue eyes drew the heat out of her cheeks and filled her with a different kind of warmth. She dragged her gaze back to the page, and then she smoothed the hair at his temple and combed her fingers through his silky locks as she read.

  Seth looked up from the leather halter he was cleaning as Becca entered the tunnel and turned into the first storage room. He gulped as a bolt of heat raced through his veins. Even from the back, the sight of her affected him. His body stayed on alert, simmering with want whenever she was near. For more than a week, he’d watched her go about her chores, felt her tender touch as she cared for him, and grown more attached to her by the day. And they still had weeks—maybe months—of traveling to go. How was he going to say goodbye to her and walk away?

  Just tell her the truth and you won’t have to. She’ll leave you.

  Humbled by that dose of reality, he set the halter aside and headed for the storage room. After being nothing but a burden for days, perhaps he could do something useful.

  Hmph. Not likely, his conscience prodded again. He was still weak and forced to guard his healing side. But it couldn’t hurt to try.

  “Need help?” he asked.

  Becca looked up from the stack of books she was returning to a wooden crate and smiled. Just smiled. She didn’t look startled the way she had when he first arrived, flinching every time he entered a room. That ounce of progress made him happy.

  “No thanks.” She stood and smoothed her skirt. “I’d offer you another book, but I think you’ve read them all.”

  “I think you’re right.” She’d read to him for countless hours while he recuperated, and then he’d read to pass the time. If the men he worked with ever got wind of some of the books—the girly titles—they’d never let him live it down. Well, maybe, if they saw the woman the books belonged to, heard her read a passage or two. Becca’s sweet voice made anything sound good.

  Seth scanned the room. In all the time he’d been here, he’d never come in. Crates filled with everything from shoes to quilts lined the walls, along with several trunks and a desk with an old organ stool for a chair. The desk looked as though it got regular use. He started to ask why she kept it in a storage room instead of her own, but an upward glance answered his question. A large shaft off the main room opened into the ceiling of this one. The lighting was better here.

  “What’s that?” he asked, walking closer and fingering a large, bound book sitting off to one side. It was flat, like a ledger.

  “It’s nothing. Just a sketch book.”

  “Mind if I look?” He glanced up when Becca didn’t answer right away.

  She shrugged. “If you want to.” She was fiddling with the end of her braid—something she only did when she was nervous or uncomfortable.

  Her discomfiture fed his curiosity. He lifted the cover.

  The first page was blank, but a pencil drawing of a sparrow perched on a branch was centered on the next one. The drawing was so detailed and accurate, it looked real. He turned the page.

  A sketch of the mountains spread across this one, complete with snowy, cloud-draped caps and trees lining a stream at the base. He might as well be looking at the real thing. The skill of the artist was exceptional.

  On the next page, a woman stared back at him. Her features were comely, her lined eyes kind, and her face oddly familiar. She was an older version of Rebecca.

  Seth looked up at her, working to find his voice as realization dawned. “You drew these.”

  “Yes.” She was staring at the picture, not him, the longing in her eyes palpable.

  “This is your mother, isn’t it?”

  She nodded.

  Seth looked back at the sketch and paused, his eyes lingering on the benevolent ones staring back at him from the page. He didn’t want to cause Rebecca pain, but letting a wound fester only made it worse. Opening it hurt. But opening it meant the healing could begin.

  It was his turn to tend wounds.

  He picked up the book and gestured toward two trunks sitting side by side along the wall.

  Becca took a step back and glanced at the door.

  Don’t run.

  She looked at him again. Her shoulders slumped, and she sat on one of the trunks.

  Seth sat next to her and opened the book so that it lay across his lap.

  The next few pictures after the one of her mother must have been of her life before she left home. One was of a barn. Another, a window looking out a girl’s room. And another, a man fishing from the bank of a pond. Even in profile, Seth could see the resemblance. “That must be your pa.”

  Becca nodded, her lashes glistening with unshed tears.

  Seth pulled his handkerchief from his pocket and handed it to her.

  A half a beat later, she took it with a muttered acknowledgement.

  He nudged her and muttered back, “Better that than my shirt.”

  A bashful smile spread across her face.

  That’s better.

  The next several pictures depicted life on the trail, the last of them drawn from the perspective of someone walking alongside a wagon, watching a single line of shrinking prairie schooners curve and disappear into the distance. She’d even managed to capture the dust.

  Seth slowly shook his head. “Becca, these are good. You’re very talented.”

  She just shrugged, dismissing his words as if she didn’t believe him. Could she not see the quality of her work? Not hear the honesty in his voice?

  He tipped up her chin and looked into her eyes. “I’m serious. Your drawings are some of the best I’ve ever seen.”

  Now a battle raged in those blue-grey depths. Disbelief warring with a bid for validation. For worth.

  The familiarity of their position sent a tremor of heat from the tips of his fingers to the soles of his boots and drew him like an ant to sugar. Before he did something he’d regret, Seth let his hand fall away from her face.

  Her gaze dropped to her lap and the handkerchief she held in her hands. Disbelief had apparently won.

  Vivid colors surprised him w
hen he turned the page. The other pictures had been drawn in shades of gray, but not this one. The laughing young lady whose face filled the page boasted lightly-freckled cheeks, sparkling green eyes and a head full of wavy red hair—a mixture of copper, scarlet, and gold. “Who’s this?”

  Becca wore a pleasant expression, almost wistful. “That’s my friend Charlotte.”

  “From Missouri?”

  “No. She came from Kentucky. We met on the wagon train. I didn’t think she liked me at first, but we eventually became friends.”

  Seth studied the picture. “Why didn’t she like you?”

  “She...”

  “She what?”

  Becca shook her head. “I shouldn’t. It isn’t nice.”

  “C’mon. Tell me.” He leaned in and whispered, “I won’t breathe a word. I promise.”

  Becca gave a quick upward glance. “Oh, all right.” She looked up at him through her lashes. “Charlotte’s rather haughty. You know. One of those people who thinks they’re better than everyone else, that they shouldn’t have to get dirty or do any real work.”

  “Ah.” Seth nodded. “I see.”

  “She wasn’t so bad. She pitched in. And she was lots of fun—we laughed all the time. She just didn’t like the same things I did.”

  “Like what?”

  Becca shrugged. “Gardening, fishing, those kinds of things.”

  The lady sitting next to him may be able to hunt and butcher with the best of them, but she was no less refined. And haughty she was not. Not anywhere near.

  Seth flipped through a few more pages of landscapes and animals. “Why are some of your pictures in color and others not?”

  “I found the sketch book and pencils first. I didn’t find the pastels until later.”

  The picture on the next page made him smile. A blue-eyed, towheaded child not more than two grinned back at him, with rosy cheeks and wispy curls framing her face. He turned to Rebecca, expecting a similar reaction.

  She wore a smile, but the tears pooling along the edges of her lids belied it. “That’s Emily,” she finally said, “my sister.”

  He should have known. “How did she die?”

  “She caught a bad fever. Momma cared for her night and day—we all did—but...” She dabbed her eyes with his handkerchief.

  “Aw, Becca.” Seth put his arm around her shoulders and tucked her to his side. The action sent a throbbing ache through his wound, but he didn’t care.

  Becca clutched the handkerchief in her lap and drew a shuddering breath. “We buried her on a hill behind the house. I used to visit her grave every day and talk to her. I miss my home and my friends in Missouri, but the worst part was leaving Emily behind.”

  Seth gave her shoulders a gentle squeeze. He waited until she regained her composure, and then he turned the page with his free hand. The most pompous-looking female he’d ever seen stared down her beaky nose at him. Pursed mouth, severe hair, close-set eyes with a skeptical glare—now that was a haughty woman.

  He was almost afraid to ask. “Who’s she?”

  “That’s my Aunt Prudence.”

  Fitting name. Although ‘Pretentious’ would have fit even better. Seth stifled a chuckle.

  Becca outright giggled.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “I was thinking about what she’d say if she saw us right now.”

  He raised a brow.

  “You know. Sitting here alone like this, un-chaperoned.” She’d drawn out the last with a nasal tone, apparently imitating her aunt.

  Seth grinned. Then he promptly removed his arm from around her shoulders and cleared his throat.

  The spark of humor left Becca’s eyes, and she scooted away. Those tiny few inches felt like miles, but he forced himself to tolerate it. Soon it really would be miles.

  He flipped through several more pages, enjoying both the art and the commentary, truly amazed at the talent Rebecca possessed.

  They both grew quiet when he turned the next page. Drawn in shades of blues, browns and grays was a portrait of him atop Cyrus in the base of a valley—the sky ashen, the land filling with snow, and the tails of his duster flying in the wind. His hand shielded his eyes as he looked up in the direction of... the artist. It was the day he tried to take her with him, the day he he’d searched for her to no avail.

  “You were watching me,” he said, looking at her.

  Becca’s gaze dropped to her lap, to hands nervously twisting his handkerchief. She didn’t speak; merely nodded.

  He looked at the picture again, recalling how she’d run and hidden that day. He didn’t ask why, because he already knew the answer—she didn’t want to be found—even though he didn’t fully understand it. He didn’t scold her either. What was the point?

  With a heavy sigh, he shoved his annoyance aside and turned the page. The next picture was also of him. In this one, he was sitting by the campfire, smiling. The next was him sitting on a rock, reading, and the next was of him asleep in the hut.

  He looked over at Becca again.

  Now she was staring up at him through her lashes with a tentative look on her face.

  He smiled at her and kept turning pages. Him tending Cyrus. Him fishing with her homemade lines. Him injured, eyes closed, lying under blankets in the cave. He didn’t miss the feminine hand on his forehead—her hand. He also didn’t miss the fact he was the subject of more of her drawings than anyone else, even members of her family. What did that mean?

  “It’s easier for me to draw people if the image is fresh in my mind,” she said as if reading his.

  “Makes sense.” It did, but it stung. Even though he and Becca had no future together, the idea she favored him meant a lot.

  The next one showed Cyrus stealing some work gloves out of his back pocket with his teeth. Seth scowled and shook his head. “So that’s what happened.” He’d frequently reached for them only to find them on the ground. “Stupid horse.”

  “Ha. He seems pretty smart to me.”

  Seth laughed. “I shoulda known you’d take his side.” He turned a few more pages. Regrettably, they were blank.

  “That’s the end,” Becca said.

  “They really are good.” He peered into her eyes, wishing she’d believe him, and wishing their time together didn’t have to end. When his gaze was drawn to her soft, pink lips, he forced himself to turn away.

  He lifted the sketch book to close it, and a crinkled page fell out. One edge was uneven where it had been torn from the book, and the drawing was smudged. It looked as though it had been crumpled into a ball and smoothed back out. A tall, young man stood alone by a wagon, his dark hair blowing in the wind and his piercing blue eyes enlivened by the smile on his face.

  “Who’s this?”

  When Rebecca didn’t answer, he turned and looked at her.

  Her face was blank. “No one important,” she said flatly. Her gaze lingered a moment more on the drawing, and then she stood and strode from the room.

  On closer inspection, several small spots dotted the surface of the portrait, the color washed out of their centers and concentrated in dark lines around the edge as if water had dripped on the page.

  Rain? No. Becca was too careful with her things to let that happen.

  It had to be tears.

  Seth slid the page back in and closed the book. The smiling man by the wagon might not be important to her now, but at some point in her life, he was.

  Becca left the cave and went for a walk with Cyrus. As she led him to a nearby field to graze, she turned her face up and let the sun bathe her cheeks with warmth. She hadn’t bothered putting on her coat. The weather had taken a turn, bringing spring-like conditions.

  Plucking a few blades of grass, she sat on a large rock and watched Cyrus nibble, wondering if Seth would follow her and question her about the drawing. She should have thrown it away. Unlike the others, the pleasant memories it stirred no longer outweighed the bad.

  The familiar trod of Seth’s boots appro
ached, his left step slightly heavier than his right, especially now that he was injured. He’d told her he was as good as healed, but she knew better. He still favored his side, and his stamina hadn’t completely returned.

  He stopped a few feet away—hatless—studying her from under the lock of golden hair that swept sideways across his forehead.

  “You forgot this,” he finally said, holding out Cyrus’ lead line.

  “Don’t need it.” She squinted up at him, the curve of her lips more a reaction to the sun in her eyes than an actual smile. “He follows me around like a puppy.”

  Seth’s arm dropped back to his side, the coil of rope still in his grasp. He inclined his head toward the rock she was sitting on. “Mind if I join you?”

  Becca scooted over and motioned to the empty spot beside her.

  They sat there in silence, staring out at the prairie while the breeze fanned their faces and stirred the ruffles of her skirt. That was fine with her. She didn’t feel like talking.

  Seth shifted his boots in the dirt and fingered the coil of rope in his lap. He didn’t say anything, but she could feel the tension building the longer they sat there. Directly, he looked up at her. Here it comes. “Who is he?”

  She tossed the grass aside, never breaking her gaze from the line of trees in the distance. “His name is Nathan Keating.” She stood and took a few steps, keeping her eyes on the horizon and her emotions locked away. “I met him on the wagon train. His family’s wagon was near ours in the line, and our parents became friends. They were planning to claim land near each other and build farms. Nathan was, too.

  “A few weeks into the trip, he began paying attention to me—doted on me quite a bit, actually. He eventually made his intentions known and asked me if I’d marry him once we got to California. I said yes.” Becca turned and faced Seth. “He was my intended.”

  His eyes widened, and what little color had returned to his cheeks over the last few days drained away.

  She stood there, waiting for him to respond. When he didn’t, she turned away again. The breeze took on a mournful sound, and the prairie seemed emptier than ever before.