The Proposition. Kate Bridges

but I’m looking forward to the adventure, sir.”

      Travis scrutinized her pack. He removed a wide-brimmed cowboy hat and tossed it up to her. “Wear this to protect your head. No sense packing it. Get rid of the bonnet.” Then he pulled out a speckled flannel cloth. “What’s this?” It looked like an infant’s nightdress.

      With an embarrassed gasp, she snatched it from his fingers. “It’s private.”

      He snatched it back. “You don’t need it.”

      Her face reddened. She grabbed it again. “It’s…a gift for someone.”

      He couldn’t believe the frivolous things she was carting. “No gifts.”

      “But—”

      “No gifts.”

      She jumped at the tone of his voice. With her brown hat in one hand, she scrunched the flannel cloth with the other but didn’t move to put it in the discard pile.

      “What’s in this compartment?” he asked.

      She flew to her knees, pushing him out of the way, surprising him with her strength. “That’s my personal business.” She blushed considerably.

      He moved to unbuckle the pocket but she snapped it from his hands. “Personal business,” she shouted.

      The pocket was square and thick, as if it carried paper. “All right, all right. You get the idea now. If that’s your writing journal, remember, you only need to write in one. And just one pencil.”

      Ten torturous minutes later, he was strapping Merriweather’s saddlebag to one of the broodmares. The butler stood twenty feet away, laughing with one of the guards.

      “One more thing,” said Travis to Jessica. “You better change before we leave.”

      When he turned around, he towered over her. She eyed him carefully, then looked down at her clothes, smoothing her blouse with a graceful hand. Two long braids of hair, flung over jutting breasts, sparkled in several shades of gold. A natural rouge sprang to her lips, deepening the outline of her mouth. “Why?”

      “Church clothes aren’t for riding. Too much starch.”

      “I’ll be fine.”

      “I saw a pair of cotton pants in your pile.”

      “My sister threw those in.” Her earrings dangled at the side of her head, catching a beam of sunlight. “I-I’m not taking them.”

      He rearranged his Stetson. “They’re the only sensible thing you’re bringing. You won’t be comfortable in anything else while riding astride.”

      “Astride? I’ll be riding sidesaddle.”

      “No sidesaddle.”

      Her lips puckered. “But—”

      “No sidesaddle!”

      They glared at each other. He didn’t have time for this. Sidesaddle was how Caroline had fallen to her death.

      “Must you always shriek?” She hurled her hands to wide hips and anger found her tongue. “Have you ever thought of having your head examined?”

      He leaned toward her, tightening every muscle, but she didn’t back off. “Just once when I agreed to taking you on this trip.”

      “Do you have to be so domineering?”

      “Yes. I’m the sergeant major, remember?”

      “Roughrider. Grand. Just grand,” she whispered. Digging into her discard pile, she yanked out the ivory pants. “Wait here while I slip behind that tree. God sakes,” she muttered, stalking away, hemline flinging through the air. “If the man follows me, he’s liable to accuse me of wearing too many underthings and must I bring these stockings? And am I aware of the weight of my lacy bloomers?”

      Lacy bloomers. For a moment, he fumbled at the saddle.

      With exasperation, he shook his head. He’d lay ten bucks that they were made of boring linen.

      At least she’d surprised him by dodging behind the tree to change. He thought she’d make a fuss and insist he find a private room inside the fort.

      She came out from behind the tree while he was tightening the lines on another broodmare.

      Glancing over the saddle, he froze. Whoa.

      Ignore her, he commanded himself. He forced his gaze down to the saddle, but it crept back to her. The brim of his hat shadowed his eyes.

      She bent over her pack and began stuffing the discarded items into her original bag, which they’d leave behind with the guard. Travis had already arranged to have them sent back to her home. Contrary to looking less feminine in pants and work shirt, she looked more. Gone was the flowing fabric that concealed her body. Ivory pants clung to well-shaped thighs. Rounded hips swelled to form an hourglass figure. Fabric clung to her smooth behind, and when she walked, the black belt cinched at her waist accentuated her bounce. A simple white blouse, oversize, folded into her waistline. The shadow of her corset hinted at what lay beneath, while the top two buttons of her collar remained open, revealing light and gold shadows illuminating a slender throat.

      He’d always remembered her as a spoiled adolescent, but she’d finally grown into a woman. Still spoiled, but an inexperienced, virginal woman.

      Frivolous and boring is how he’d describe her, he reminded himself.

      Peering at what she gripped in her hand, he gulped. Rolled into a ball, her bloomers were flaming red. Not boring linen.

      “What do you want now, Roughrider?” she snarled. “What are you staring at?”

      “Red becomes you.”

      With a click of her tongue, she threw them over his head.

      Jessica noticed things about him that a conservative woman should not. The way he yanked at his gloves when he was mad—which was almost all the time; the way he instinctively reached for his guns at an unexpected sound; how rough his knuckles were as he tugged the reins; and how forlorn and desolate he looked when he thought no one was watching.

      Travis was the type of man that all good mothers in Calgary warned their daughters against. Temperamental, moody, and thought the world spun around him.

      The man was trouble. Still, Jessica needed him and the thought was daunting.

      For now, she considered herself fortunate that he took the lead on the trail, which allowed her and Mr. Merriweather the opportunity to fall behind, single file, and gain their bearings.

      “We’ll be following the Glacier River most of the way,” Travis shouted two hours later from fifty feet ahead, speaking above the thundering of the water. Turning his huge body around in the saddle to talk, he ducked beneath pine boughs and aspen leaves. The wind lifted the needles, filling her nostrils with cool forest scents.

      “Lead the way, sir,” Mr. Merriweather shouted back. “The foothills are a sight to behold.”

      Jessica nodded, trying to unwind her stiffened shoulders and mask her apprehension of riding so high off the ground. It scared her to be responsible for the broodmare she was leading, with a rope tied around its neck and ponied to her mount. Travis had steered away from taking any stallions on the trip, he’d explained, for stallions too close together often fought. Travis rode a gelding but she and Mr. Merriweather each rode mares. They led compact quarter horses—or running horses or whatever name they went by—to be sold when they reached Devil’s Gorge, but Travis led a massive Clydesdale broodmare. Whenever the Clydesdale snorted, the other animals waited for its lead. She was the dominant one.

      “The horses are shod only on their front feet,” Travis hollered. “That’s where they take most of the weight and strain. In case any of them kick in such close proximity, their back hooves were left unshod for minimal damage.”

      Jessica