Just Once

by Jill Marie Landis

  “No,” Hunter said abruptly, surprising himself. “No, Jemma won’t be on the steamboat when it pulls out. She’ll leave with a family headed north when one comes through.” He wasn’t putting the woman who might be carrying his child on a steamboat unescorted.

  “It’s November now, Hunt. Not many more comin’ through here headed north till spring. She might be here for months if you don’t send her on her way.”

  Hunter swung around, about to tell his brother to mind his own business. Luther was grinning from ear to ear.

  “That’s what I thought,” Luther said.

  “I never figured you for much of a thinker,” Hunter told him. “Why do you have that stupid grin on your face?”

  “I didn’t think she’d be leavin’ today, not after the way I saw you watching her every move while she served up dessert. You never took your eyes off her longer than a minute. Know what I think?” Luther didn’t wait for an answer before he volunteered his opinion. “I think you got feelings for her.”

  “What I feel is like knocking that stupid grin off your face, Luther.”

  Instead of taking offense, Luther laughed out loud. Hunter tried to ignore him as he moved down the length of the counter to where a man stood with a pile of dry goods, waiting to turn over his coin.

  The back door opened and Nette came running into the room, the front of her faded apron soaked with dishwater. Her white hair, damp from steam and perspiration, stuck to her forehead and temples. She shoved her way through the men who stood shoulder-to-shoulder at the bar.

  “Hunter, you better come quick! That little stray you dragged in just fainted dead away in my kitchen.”

  Hunter vaulted the counter and hit the ground running. Anyone unfortunate enough to be in his way found himself reeling across the room. He pounded into the kitchen, his heart beating louder than his feet on the oak plank floor. Jemma was lying on her side, her eyes closed, her face as pale as a catfish belly.

  He reached for her, gently laid his hand against her throat, and felt for a pulse.

  “Jemma?” He half-lifted her into his arms, cradling her head and shoulders in the crook of his arm as he brushed her hair back off her face.

  Nette ran in and stood behind him, peering down at Jemma over his shoulder. “She’s out like an empty lantern.”

  “What in the hell happened?” He knew he sounded harsh, but was unable to control himself.

  “She was helping with the dishes, walked over to stand by the fireplace and next thing I know, she went white and had a dazed look on her face. Then she dropped.”

  “Jemma?” Hunter repeated her name, holding her against his chest.

  “When was the last time she ate?” Nette demanded of him. “Or slept? She looks plumb wore out, Hunter. If I know you, you beat her into the ground to get here. She’s not a man, like you. Did you expect her to keep up every step of the way?”

  He had, and he regretted it now, but he’d be damned if he would admit either.

  “Get me a wet cloth,” he said.

  Nette soaked a dishcloth in the bucket of cold creek water and handed it to Hunter. He pressed it to Jemma’s forehead and cheeks.

  “Just like you not to notice she was bone tired,” Nette grumbled behind him, still hovering over his shoulder. She reached out to smooth back Jemma’s hair. “Pretty little thing. Don’t think she ever did a lick of kitchen work before. She was scared to death she’d break somethin’. Held those old chipped plates and glasses like they was fine china.”

  Jemma began to stir. Hunter handed the rag back to Nette.

  “Jemma?” He spoke softly. Afraid to startle her, he shook her gently. Her lips twitched and her eyelids fluttered. Her lashes were spun gold, thick half moons against her pale cheeks. A smattering of freckles coaxed by sun-shine were scattered across the bridge of her nose. They had not been there when he met her.

  “Jemma?”

  Although she didn’t open her eyes, her fingers closed tight around his shirtfront.

  “Grandpa?” she whispered.

  Nette hooted. “Grandpa?”

  “Jemma, it’s me,” Hunter said, giving her another jiggle. “It’s Hunter.”

  Her eyelids fluttered again and finally her eyes opened.

  “Hunter?” She focused on Nette, who was standing over his shoulder, then around the kitchen cabin. Finally she looked up into Hunter’s eyes. She struggled to sit up. “What happened?”

  His relief was overwhelming. He didn’t know whether to shake her for scaring the wits out of him or hold her close. Since he was already holding her, he decided to just hang on a minute more until she got her bearings.

  “You passed out. Nette here’s certain I’ve been starving you.”

  Jemma looked up at Nette and offered her a weak smile and a nod. “He has. Corn cakes and water. An occasional rabbit.”

  “Take her over to my place, Hunter, and make her comfortable,” Nette directed. “I’ll just make up a plate for her and bring it right over.”

  Jemma struggled to sit up. Hunter helped her to her feet, but kept his arm firmly around her waist. A loud shrill whistle sounded, long and high.

  “Steamboat’ll be leaving in a half hour. They’re calling everyone back aboard,” Nette explained.

  “The steamboat,” Jemma whispered.

  There was uncertainty in her eyes and something more, something he hadn’t seen since before they escaped the Choctaw camp. Fear.

  She clutched his shirtfront. “You said that it was headed north … that I should go … and I—” She paused, waiting for him to do something, to say something. Anything.

  Hunter shifted uncomfortably, his arm still riding her waist, his hand resting on her hip, where it seemed to belong. His mouth had gone dry. For the life of him, he couldn’t think of what to say or do. She had been dead set on heading to Canada, but since New Orleans she had rarely, if ever, mentioned the father or brother she had been so desperate to find.

  It was hard to think with her looking up at him with those trusting blue eyes. Perhaps she hadn’t thought through the ramifications of the night they had shared in each other’s arms. Was she so innocent that she didn’t realize she might be with child? There was no way he was going to send her on, no way he could leave Sandy Shoals until he knew for certain. For a few days more, at least, they were ordained to be together.

  Before he had time to say anything, Nette said, “You don’t mean to put this child on that boat any more than I do, Hunter Boone. Now you just get her over to my cabin and see that she’s comfortable. I’ll get some vittles dished up.”

  Hunter let out a pent-up sigh that he didn’t even know he’d been holding and looked down at Jemma. She was watching him closely, tentatively, as if she expected him to object. He could feel her trembling.

  He bent and scooped her up into his arms, cradling her against him. She was as light as a feather.

  “What are you doing?” she said, as she slipped an arm around his neck without protest.

  “When Nette gives an order, she expects it to be followed.”

  The air outside had grown colder, the sky dark and leaden. The first snow of the season would fall before morning. He could feel it in his bones, smell it on the dry fall air.

  “I’ll miss the steamboat.” She looked toward the river, but didn’t sound all that disappointed.

  Hunter wanted to attribute her lack of enthusiasm to exhaustion, not the haunted look he had seen in her eyes earlier.

  “There’ll be a keelboat along soon enough. Better that you go with a family than that motley crew out there.”

  “I don’t have any money left to pay for passage anyway,” she said as they passed the smokehouse with its distinct hickory smell. “I was thinking about that while I was drying dishes. I was thinking maybe I could work for you … so I could save up enough for passage upriver. I’ll have to pay my way when another boat comes along.”

  He frowned down at her. He suspected Nette had been right when she said th
e girl hadn’t ever done a lick of work in her life. At least not of the house-tending kind, anyway.

  “Why are you looking at me that way?”

  “I can’t quite see you slopping hogs or baking pies.”

  “And why not?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t imagine you had much practice at the convent.”

  “I can learn.”

  “About all I’ve ever seen you do is pray.”

  They had reached another cabin, this one not as small as the kitchen outbuilding nor as large as the trading post. He lifted the latch and the door swung inward to reveal another one-room affair with rough walls and a loft that covered half the room. Poised in the center near a spinning wheel, looking like a cornered doe with nowhere to run, stood Amelia White’s girl, Lucy.

  She was tall and thin, her hair of a nondescript brown shade that matched the drab, too-small dress she was wearing. Parted in the center, her hair had been fashioned into a simple knot at her nape. Stray locks straggled from the uneven part and hung into her eyes.

  “It’s only me, Lucy.” He didn’t miss the girl’s immediate relief.

  “Hey, Hunter,” she said so softly he barely heard her.

  “Turn back the quilt, will you, Luce, and watch after Jemma till Nette comes in?”

  He carried Jemma over to Nette’s bed in one corner of the room, knowing better than to set her atop one of Nette’s prized patchworks as filthy as she was.

  Lucy flitted over to the bed, turned down the spread, and backed herself into the corner where she could observe without being noticed.

  “I’ve got to go back and help Luther,” he told them, his gaze on Jemma. She looked young and vulnerable and lost sitting there in the middle of the big bed. He felt lower than a skunk’s belly for what he had done and wished he had never obliged her when she’d talked him into taking her virginity.

  “Sit tight and Nette will be right here. This is Lucy. She’ll look after you.”

  “I’m fine,” she told him. He watched Jemma’s gaze flash over to Lucy, curiosity plain in her eyes. When he failed to move, Jemma looked up at him again and said, “What are you looking at?”

  “Nothing. I’ve got to go.”

  He turned abruptly and headed for the door, wondering what in the hell had come over him. After he’d set Jemma on Nette’s bed, he felt as if his feet had been nailed to the floor and he couldn’t move. Seeing her there in the cabin with her face still smeared with dirt and streaked from the steam in the kitchen, garbed in the filthy, tattered boys’ clothing, she appeared so defenseless, so vulnerable, that he hated to leave her.

  Shaken, he walked out of Nette’s cabin without a backward glance. Head down, he marched back to the trading post, where he found Luther counting the money in the battered metal cashbox while Hannah straightened up the benches at the trestle tables, sweeping under them as she went.

  “She all right?” Luther said as Hunter crossed the floor.

  Hannah stopped to greet him. “Welcome home, Hunter. How’s Jemma?”

  “Fine.” He wasn’t about to say more until he looked up and found them waiting expectantly for an explanation. “She’s exhausted and hungry. Nette’s going to fix her a plate and see to her.”

  Hannah propped the broom in the corner and wiped her hands on her apron, then walked over to the table closest to the counter. She sat down on the end of the table and braced her hands on each side of her, wrapping her fingers around the edge.

  Hunter looked at his brother’s wife, thinking that if he were the marrying kind, he’d be lucky to find a wife as good-hearted and hard-working as his brother’s. Hannah and Luther had been married seven years and had four children already. She’d been a bride at sixteen, already pregnant on the way to Kentucky from Ohio. Together they’d seen trials and heartaches, winters of want and sickness, but still, whenever Hannah looked at Luther, her love shone bright in her eyes and her smile.

  Yes, if he were the marrying kind and not a loner, he’d want a woman like Hannah. Amelia had been flighty, with a head full of clouds and the body of a siren. She had never even held a candle to his capable, loving sister-in-law, but Hunter hadn’t seen that until it was too late.

  “Where’d you find this one, Hunter?” Hannah asked. “I thought after Amelia you’d learned about inviting home strays.”

  “Jemma’s not anything like Amelia. Besides, I didn’t bring her home to stay. She’ll be heading to Canada soon.” As soon as I know she’s not pregnant.

  Hannah and Luther exchanged a look that Hunter didn’t miss.

  “That’s the truth,” he said emphatically.

  “I saw the way you were looking at her, Hunt. Did you notice, Hannah?” Luther asked.

  She looked mightily disappointed. “No. I was too busy running back and forth to the kitchen to see much of anything.”

  “I wasn’t looking at Jemma in any particular way,” Hunter told them. “I barely had time to look up.”

  “He spent all his time watching her from across the room,” Luther told Hannah. “Even poured whiskey on the counter twice.”

  “So you are sweet on her,” Hannah laughed. “Never thought I’d see the day again.”

  “I’m not sweet on her or anybody else for that matter.” Hunter picked up the cashbox and bent over to stuff it under a pile of blankets beneath the counter. When he straightened, they were both still watching him expectantly.

  “I mean it,” he went on, “I’m through with women and you both know it. I’m not cut out to live with anybody.”

  “Hunter Boone, you’re full of peanuts,” Hannah laughed.

  “You intend to live up in the loft of this trading post like a hermit forever? You’re only twenty-eight,” Luther reminded him.

  “I’ll be moving on soon, off across the river. Maybe down to Texas, but most likely up the Missouri. Plenty of new land waiting to be explored, lots of open space for a man like me. I want to see it all.”

  “Oh, Hunter, you can’t mean that, not when this place is just starting to flourish,” Hannah said, unable to keep the disappointment out of her tone. “You’ve worked harder than all of us put together. If it wasn’t for you leading the way, none of us would have made it this far.”

  Hunter felt edgy and uncomfortable. They meant the world to him, Luther, Hannah and the children. In some ways he had done it for them, pushing on through the forest, searching for just the right place to settle on the Kentucky frontier—but he’d been looking to open up a new world for them, not for himself. Never for himself. He had a dream of exploring, had the urge to keep moving and pulling up roots before they took hold. A wanderer’s life wasn’t something he could ask a woman to share.

  “I’ve always planned on leaving—you know that. I’ve just been waiting for Lucy to get a little older, a little more sure of herself. And then there was Nette, with Jed up and dying on her. There was no way Luther could have supported you all, so I stayed. Now that the steamboats will be coming upriver, there’ll be plenty of shipping and trade. More folks will move in nearby. You can all take care of yourselves and make something of this place.”

  “I don’t want to talk about you leaving, Hunter. I want to know about Jemma.” Hannah crossed her arms and began swinging her feet back and forth beneath the edge of the table.

  “Found her in New Orleans, or I should say, she found me. Persuaded me to bring her this far. She even offered me a gold piece—”

  “And you took it?” Hannah looked skeptical.

  “Took nearly that much to outfit her and buy another horse,” Hunter said. “But she doesn’t know that.”

  “She’s headed up to Canada?”

  “That’s what she said, but I don’t believe her,” Hunter said honestly. After nearly a month on the trail with her, he still didn’t have any idea who or what Jemma O’Hurley really was and he told them so, along with her absurd story about escaping from the emir’s men and stowing aboard ship in an oil jar.

  “She might really be str
aight out of a convent, if all the praying she does is any indication, but I don’t think she’s ever been anywhere near Algiers,” he finished.

  Luther finished stacking glasses on the back wall and walked around the corner of the counter to stand beside Hannah. “Well, whoever she is, she’s gotten to you, brother. Anyone can see that.”

  Hannah nodded.

  “I’ll tell you the truth, Luther, she’s gotten to me all right. She drives me plumb crazy.”

  Jemma stared at the cabin door after it closed behind Hunter, so relieved that he hadn’t bundled her off aboard the steamboat that she had forgotten Lucy was still in the room. When the girl stepped out of the shadows, a tall, lanky waif with deep-set, soulful dark eyes, Jemma nearly jumped up off the bed. When her fright passed, she settled back and watched the girl step closer.

  “I’m Jemma O’Hurley,” Jemma volunteered, waiting for the girl to reply.

  “I’m Lucy White.” Lucy stood there with her arms crossed almost protectively over breasts that strained the fabric of her too-small gown. The hem was way above her ankles, which stood out like knobs on her thin legs. When Jemma looked up, she found Lucy watching her. When the girl blushed, Jemma wished she hadn’t been caught staring at the inadequate gown.

  “Nette’s got a new gown all cut out for me,” the girl whispered, rubbing one foot over the other. “I know this one’s way too short, but she hasn’t had time to finish the new one, what with all the cooking and farm work. ’Sides, she likes working on her quilts a lot more than sewin’ up a dress.”

  Her apology only made Jemma feel even worse.

  “I’m … sure it will be lovely,” Jemma floundered.

  Lucy shrugged. “It doesn’t matter.”

  Since when doesn’t a new gown matter to a young girl? Jemma wondered.

  “You need anything?” Lucy was still standing there, an awkward bedside attendant to say the least.

  Jemma shook her head. “No, thank you. Nette should be along any moment.”

  “What happened to you?”

  Looking down at her filthy, trail-weary outfit, the stiff moccasins, and her chapped hands with their broken, ragged nails, Jemma simply shook her head.