by Regina Scott
“For everyone,” Kate added. “I noticed the National Hotel had elk on the dinner menu.”
Captain Harris leveled his fork at Vickers. “I thought you took care of that, Lieutenant.”
Vickers colored. “I have had detailed discussions with the hotel management.” He nodded to Kate. “I’m sure it was only what they had left from our last conversation, Mrs. Tremaine.”
She highly doubted that. “Of course, Lieutenant. And it may have been brought in from outside the park. But I promise you the Geyser Gateway will never serve an ounce of game.”
“Forgive me, Mrs. Tremaine,” the commanding officer said, signaling to his private to pour more lemonade. “You are here as our guest, not to talk business. How is your son? Danny, I believe?”
And here she had been hoping to talk business. Still, considering all the people with whom he must have interacted since arriving in the park, she was impressed that he remembered her son.
“Danny is well,” she told him. “He’s taken to mimicking your troops, especially Lieutenant Prescott.”
“Has he?” Captain Harris eyed Will, who seemed to sink in his chair.
“Indeed. And he is fascinated by baseball. Lieutenant Prescott told him about it and has been tutoring him in the sport. He happily tells anyone who will listen about the game he played last week with Lieutenant Prescott and his men and Lieutenant Kingman and the engineering crew.”
“Must be nice,” Lieutenant Vickers said with a look to Will. “Having nothing better to do.”
Will inclined his head. “We patrol the Lower Geyser Basin a minimum of twice a day and maintain the camp. If we have a moment to reciprocate the fine hospitality shown us, it seems a good use of our time.”
“Is it so much more difficult at Mammoth Hot Springs?” Kate asked, locating a piece of meat that yielded to her fork.
“Rather challenging,” Tutherly allowed.
Vickers wasn’t content to leave it at that. “I’ll say. The visitors, the supplies coming through, the infrastructure we must construct. And the fire didn’t help.”
“I can see all that would stretch you thin,” Kate commiserated. “It’s hard enough managing a hotel in one of the busiest visitor areas of the park. At least I don’t get many complaints to deal with. Having Lieutenant Prescott and his men patrolling has only helped.”
“Yes, Lieutenant Prescott is a wonder,” Captain Harris said, holding the nearly empty tureen out to Kate. “May I interest you in a second helping of potatoes, Mrs. Tremaine?”
She’d gag. But he’d given her an opening. “No, thank you. I hope you didn’t use your last potatoes on me. How are you fixed for winter supplies, Captain?”
“We should be fine here at Mammoth Hot Springs,” he said, scooping out the gray mass for himself. “I am told it’s rare a teamster cannot reach Gardiner at least. And I can send men for the supplies if we need them here, unlike other areas of the park that are more remote.”
Kate made a face. “Oh, then the manager of the National Hotel hasn’t offered to house you over the winter?”
His smile was crisp. “He has not.”
“Pity.” She smiled at the other two lieutenants. “Well, you are all welcome at the Geyser Gateway any time you’d care to visit. We fully support the Army’s good work in Yellowstone.”
She allowed Captain Harris to steer the conversation into other areas for the remainder of the meal, which ended with a dessert of bread pudding that wasn’t too bad. But Kate made sure to bring the discussion back to hotels before she left.
“Thank you for a lovely evening,” she told Captain Harris as he and Will accompanied her to the door. “I do hope we’ll have an opportunity to return the favor soon.”
“I’ll see if I have time before winter sets in,” Captain Harris replied. “But certainly when I come through on my inspection tour next spring.”
“And if I could improve the Geyser Gateway in any way before then?” Kate asked. “What would you advise?”
He smiled. “From what I understand, the Geyser Gateway is a rare jewel. Just see that it retains its shine.” He bowed to her. She inclined her head.
As he straightened, he looked to Will. “Report to me after you escort Mrs. Tremaine to her hotel, Lieutenant.”
Will saluted. “Sir.”
Kate waited only until the door had closed behind them before turning to Will. “I’ve gotten you into trouble, haven’t I? Something I said upset him.”
“It wasn’t you,” he said, starting back for the hotel. “You were perfect tonight, Kate, as I knew you would be. We’re leaving in the morning. Captain Harris probably just wants to relay orders.”
She wished she could be so sure, but she couldn’t help feeling that, by praising Will, she’d somehow blundered in the captain’s eyes.
How had he attracted the admiration of such a woman? Will could only marvel as he climbed the steps to the porch of the National Hotel, where lamps glowed through the windows. It wasn’t fully occupied, despite what the clerk claimed. The staff hoped to impress her. So did Captain Harris and his men. Truth be told, so did he.
“I’m glad you were with me tonight, Will,” she said, pausing on the porch. “It was good to have a friend in the room.”
“You can always count on my support, Kate,” he promised.
Still she hesitated, watching him, as if she was hoping for more from the evening. His heart started a fierce tattoo, calling him to action. Slowly, carefully, he bent and brushed his lips against hers. Once again, he was certain the earth trembled.
But this time the quake was inside him.
“Good night, Will,” she murmured with a soft smile. Then she slipped into the hotel.
Will walked back to the government buildings. Good thing no one else was about, or they might have commented on the swing in his step. How could he not be optimistic when she looked at him that way, encouraged his kiss?
He was directed to his commanding officer’s quarters on the south side of the blockhouse. One look at Harris’s face, and all confidence fled.
“You wanted to see me, sir?” he asked, coming in and closing the door. The room was perhaps ten feet wide and a dozen long, and it had been filled with a wooden bedstead, campaign chest, washstand, and folding camp chair. Harris had removed his jacket and was giving it a good brushing, suspenders flexing with his cotton-clad shoulders.
“I wanted to talk to you about the conversation at dinner,” he said, running the stiff brush down the wool.
Perhaps someone had misspoken. “If I said anything untoward, I apologize.”
Harris gave the coat a good shake, studying it as if it had offended him. “It wasn’t what you said. It was what Mrs. Tremaine said and you did not say. It is clear the lady has feelings for you.”
Hope shot skyward, like a grouse flushed from the grass. It fell as quickly. “Mrs. Tremaine is grateful for the work the Army is doing in the park, sir,” Will said. “Nothing more.”
“She made her gratitude abundantly clear.” He lowered the coat and met Will’s gaze. “It is unbecoming of an officer to raise a lady’s expectations when he has no intention of meeting them. I assume, therefore, that you harbor feelings for Mrs. Tremaine.”
He could deny it. He should deny it. If anyone had the right to know how he felt about Kate, it was her, and before anyone else. Yet, if he denied it, Harris might reassign him elsewhere in the park, forcing him from Kate’s side.
And he would make himself a liar.
“I admire Mrs. Tremaine more than I can say, sir,” he answered.
Harris hung the coat on a peg against the wall with maddening calm. “Does she know about the incident in Oregon?”
He would never have called the tragedy an incident, but Will kept his head high. “I plan to tell her soon.”
“Good.” Harris turned to him. “That may well put an end of the matter.”
The words were a bullet to his hopes. “I fear as much, sir.”
Harris close
d the distance between them. “If not, then consider your next steps carefully. The Army thought enough of you to give you a second chance. The gift came with the demand of loyalty. I do not expect us to stay in Yellowstone long. Kate Tremaine does not strike me as the sort to follow the drum. You will have to choose between your career and her.”
23
Kate wasn’t sorry to leave Mammoth Hot Springs behind. The National Hotel was beyond what she had imagined, but the long corridors seemed too empty after the bustle of the Geyser Gateway. And that dinner last night could never compare with Alberta’s cooking. Kate may not have convinced Captain Harris to issue a ten-year lease, but she had achieved one of her objectives. Mr. Boyne and his wagons had headed south, fully loaded, early that morning.
Now she rode beside Will, sun rising over the plateau on their left and anointing the dusty ground with patches of gilt as the shadows from the mountains retreated. Following the winding way south, all she could smell was pine and fresh water. A hawk called overhead before diving for prey against the gold of aspen.
“With this shipment and Alberta’s canning, we should have plenty for winter,” she told Will as the horses walked past a white tumble of rocks that were all that remained of an ancient slide.
“Then it was worth the trip,” he said. He tilted back his head and took a deep breath, as if relishing the cool air as much as she did.
“What did Captain Harris want last night?” she asked.
He dropped his head and aimed his gaze on the road. “He wanted to know my intentions toward you.”
“Your intentions?” She started, and Aster balked. She urged the mare forward. “Who does he think he is, my father?”
“He was more interested in protecting the Army’s reputation than yours,” Will said with a shake of his head.
“And should I applaud him for that?” she demanded.
“No,” he assured her. “But his point is well taken. I have no right raising your expectations, Kate.”
She still wasn’t sure whether to be insulted by the captain’s interference. But Will’s words made the air seem chillier. “So, you have been dallying with me.”
“No, I . . .” Now Bess sidestepped, as if she felt her master’s agitation. He patted her and eased her back along the road.
“I meant I have no business entertaining the notion of courting a lady unless she knows what she’s getting into,” he said, hand tight on the reins.
Courting. Her nerves tingled. The first kiss could have been the result of the moment. But last night? She’d stood on the porch, waiting, wondering, hoping. And her hope had not been in vain. That second kiss had made sleep difficult. Why else offer it if not with the expectation that they were courting?
But courting implied taking a chance, the willingness to make a commitment. She was a mother, a businesswoman. Did she really want to take a chance on marrying anyone again?
But it wasn’t anyone, it was Will. And she knew the answer was yes.
Yes, she was willing to try. Yes, she was willing to offer her heart. Yes, she was falling in love.
“I’m coming to know you,” she told him as they neared the Golden Gate. “So I’m not approaching the matter of courting blindly. I have some inkling of your character. I’ve seen how well you treat Danny, your men, and my staff and guests. You have an orderly disposition and a kind heart.”
His brows quirked. “You might withhold judgment until you know all.”
“What more is there to know?”
They clattered onto the bridge, the world dropping away on one side. When he still didn’t answer as they reached the road beyond, she glanced his way. His shoulders were hitched up, as if trying to carry a heavy load.
“Will?” she asked, stomach falling as if she’d gazed over the precipice. “What more should I know?”
“Forgive my hesitation,” he said, voice rougher than usual. “It’s not a pretty tale.”
Had she been wrong to trust him? As with Toby, had she rushed in without sufficient consideration? Had she risked the reputation of the Geyser Gateway, the safety of her son, the depths of her heart, on a phantom? The very idea made her throat tight.
“Perhaps I should hear it,” she allowed.
He nodded as if accepting his fate. “You may wish you hadn’t, but very well. When I joined the Army in Boston, I was sure I was bound for glory. Worse, I was a cocky recruit: brash, undisciplined. But I managed to distinguish myself and rise in rank quickly. I’m ashamed to say I didn’t pay much attention to the men under my command. Advancement and recognition were all that mattered.”
She found it hard to reconcile the person he described with the man riding beside her, face guarded. “You must have mended your ways.”
“Dishonor forces a man to see things differently.”
“Dishonor!” She wasn’t sure what to say, how to react, only that the word could have no association with this man. “How could you possibly act dishonorably?”
He shook his head, but at her disbelieving tone or his own actions, she wasn’t sure. “Far too easily, I assure you. We’d been sent to Oregon to chase Bannock, who had left their reservation. A rancher wanted to thank us for our efforts. He invited me and my men to dinner. I took the offer, but I sent my men on patrol. You see, the rancher had a pretty daughter, and I didn’t want her distracted from fawning over me.”
“Well, that was a bit arrogant,” Kate acknowledged. “But I’ve heard of men doing far worse.”
He glanced her way, and his eyes were hollow. “It was worse than I could have imagined. My men were understandably angry about being slighted. They happened upon a band of Bannock women and children while on patrol. They slaughtered them, every last one.”
Bile rose in her throat, and Aster stuttered in her step. “No!”
“Yes,” he said, voice now merciless. “I carry their blood on my hands, Kate. If I had been where I should have been, if I had led my men as I should, I would have seen those families escorted to safety. But I wasn’t there. Because of my selfishness, they died. I will never forgive myself.”
Emotions swarmed her—revulsion, denial, disgust. He had made an error, and the consequences were too high. Nothing she could say, nothing he could do, would ever erase that.
“Those poor people, caught in the middle,” she murmured. “But your men bear a greater shame. They had a clear duty, and they failed.”
He guided Bess down the road toward the flats, his shadow rippling across the boulders beside them. “Easy to say when you haven’t faced hostiles. My men were jittery, afraid of an ambush. Anyone who looked remotely like the enemy was to be destroyed.”
“You’re making excuses for them,” Kate said, holding Aster steady as they descended. “The mere presence of the children should have warned them this was not a band bent on fighting. I cannot see this as anything but a tragedy, for all concerned.”
His face was so tight she wondered he could speak. “The Army saw it even more harshly. My sergeant was hanged, my corporals sent to prison for three years. My men were reassigned to better leaders. And I, the cause of it all, I was demoted to corporal, stripped of the spurs every cavalryman treasures, and given a month of hard labor, as if those were just punishments for the harm I’d caused.”
His lips curled, as if he tasted something bitter, but she thought the bitterness was inside him. He expected her censure, was sure he deserved it.
“I don’t know much about the inner workings of the Army,” she said. “But I was under the impression it wasn’t easy to break through the noncommissioned officer ranks to lieutenant. That would be even harder after a disciplinary action, I would imagine. And yet here you are, and not solely on bravado, I think.”
“I’ve done all I can to be worthy of the rank this time,” he acknowledged.
And still didn’t think it was enough. She couldn’t help remembering his statement earlier, about not raising her expectations. “Then I suppose befriending me and Danny has just been par
t of your penance.”
His gaze met hers. “Everything I do is in penance.”
Kate smiled though her heart protested. “Thank you for telling me, Will. You’re right. I could have mistaken your attentions for something more.”
He reined in, and she pulled Aster to a stop as well. The horses were not breathing nearly as heavily as he was, as if he’d traveled the greater distance.
“That’s not why I told you, Kate,” he said. “I care about you, more than I have any right to care. Even Captain Harris noticed. And I thought you might have been coming to care for me. You deserve to know the truth.”
And he thought she’d give up on him, perhaps order him away from her and Danny. How could she make herself take such a step? His awe of the wonders around them had reawakened hers, broken through some of the wall of caution she’d built around herself after Toby’s death. Because of Will’s kindness, she’d forgiven herself for not going out to help Toby that night.
Her kindness might not be enough to help Will. His guilt was multiplied by the number of the dead. Yet how could she throw the first stone to condemn him?
“What truth?” Kate challenged him. “That you are sincere in your concern of the men under you now? That you take your duty to protect Yellowstone seriously? That you work every day to be the best leader, best friend, best example? I knew that already.”
He frowned at her. “Did nothing I just told you change your mind about me?”
“No,” she said. “I can never truly empathize with such pain. I’m not sure I would have liked the man you were then. But I see someone different now. A man who takes time away from his duty to teach a lonely seven-year-old baseball. Who cranks an ice cream churn for an hour in the heat to please two elderly women. Who holds a widow while she cries over the loss of her husband. That’s the man I see. I hope you make his acquaintance one day.”
He might not listen. He might not be ready to forgive himself. But there wasn’t much more she could say. Leaving him to consider her words, she resolutely set Aster toward home.