Wagon Train Sweetheart. Lacy Williams

she spoke again, her voice sounded cheery, as if the previous conversation hadn’t occurred. “The good news is you won’t have to bear my company all day.”

      It was a relief. He didn’t know how to act around her.

      But he also felt a small twinge of disappointment.

      It was better this way. Better not to learn to enjoy her company, even for a few hours.

      “What am I supposed to do, confined to the wagon all day?” he asked.

      “You could sing,” she suggested.

      “Sing?” he repeated.

      “Sing. Rachel and I would be cheered if you were to serenade us as we walk.”

      He stared dumbly at her until her lips turned up in a smile and then she dissolved into giggles.

      Her mirth was contagious—how long had it been since he’d made anyone smile?—but he prevailed against the urge to smile.

      She finally controlled herself, hiding her remaining smile behind her hand. “I suppose you’ll have to read to pass the time.”

      “Read?”

      “You can’t read?”

      His education had been spotty at best. But he’d spent several years of his adult life teaching himself to read, not wanting to be cheated by those he traded with.

      And it was a matter of pride for him. A man should know how to read.

      “I can read,” he told her.

      And if there was a flash of admiration in her eyes, he didn’t feel a responding flash of pride.

      She rustled around in the belongings packed against the opposite sideboard. What must it be like to own so many things?

      Even in Nathan’s childhood, his family had scraped by. Never enough money for necessities—like food—and none at all for frivolities like books. The Hewitts were blessed.

      “I’ll need to help break camp, so I’ll leave you to your breakfast.” She placed a dark green hardcover book at his knee, next to the plate of food. Pilgrim’s Progress.

      “Don’t get up,” she told him, face and voice grave. “You’re too weak to bear it.”

      And his fleeting sense of pride dissipated completely.

      * * *

      Emma spent the morning with Rachel, attempting to gather fuel for their campfire. The terrain combined bluffs and rocky hills, sometimes passing over ledges that frightened her if she found herself looking down.

      So she stopped looking and focused on two brothers playing chase through the wagons.

      She and Rachel ranged off from the caravan, though not too far, and worked at gathering buffalo chips among the sparsely growing vegetation. It was not her preferred fuel—she did not appreciate the smell as it burned—but it was something.

      Every time her apron filled and she passed close to the wagon to deposit her load in the fuel box, she felt caught in Nathan’s glittering obsidian gaze. She’d never met anyone with eyes so dark.

      He kept the book in hand, she could see the deep green spine against his worn shirt, but she couldn’t get a sense whether he was really reading it or not. Maybe he didn’t like Christian’s story.

      Once when she passed, he was dozing. When she dumped her load into the crate affixed to the side of the wagon, he started and roused, looking wildly around for a moment.

      “Sorry,” she apologized.

      “Why should you be?” He asked the question almost belligerently, as if he didn’t have a right to a simple apology. He softened the awkward, hard statement by adding, “I’m a passenger—you’re working.”

      He appeared chagrined, his cheeks going pink above his beard.

      Maybe she’d found the one specimen of the opposite sex who was as awkward as she.

      It made her smile. “I am not working that hard.”

      His eyes flicked to her. “Walking so far is hard work.”

      She shrugged. “I’ve stopped noticing. It was difficult at first because I’d grown so used to being sedentary.” Because of all the hours spent at her papa’s bedside.

      His eyes darkened with recognition. He remembered what she’d told him two nights ago.

      “I’ll try not to burden you with my care overlong,” he said gravely.

      “You’ll stay in that wagon until you’re fit to get down, and not a moment less,” she retorted.

      His chin jerked slightly at the familiarity of her statement and she blushed, heat filling her cheeks.

      It didn’t stop her from saying, “I think it must’ve been a long time since someone looked after you, Nathan.”

      “You are the first in a great while.” He didn’t seem happy to admit it to her. His jaw clenched and he turned his head to one side, no longer looking at her.

      Had she irritated him with her bossiness?

      “Well, I’m honored to be your first friend this decade.” She’d meant the words to be teasing, but he didn’t look back at her. Had she offended him?

      She slowed her steps, picked her way over the rocky terrain as her feet carried her back toward Rachel. How she missed their ranch, with its gently rolling hills!

      What was it about the rugged outsider that put her at ease, allowed her to speak as she couldn’t with anyone else of the male persuasion?

      Beneath his gruff exterior—the man she’d avoided because he’d hurt her feelings—there was a living breathing person.

      Was it simply because she’d prayed so deeply, from the pit of her soul, on his behalf? Because they’d been in close confines for that day and a half? Because the man carried such an air of loneliness?

      Or perhaps it was because she saw in him an echo of the loneliness she felt.

      How many nights of whispered conversations beneath the covers with Rachel had she missed because she’d been at Papa’s side? While it had been hard for her to watch her father decline, it had been difficult for her siblings even to visit the sickroom.

      By the time Papa had passed, she’d felt isolated, as if she didn’t even know her own brother and sister. Grayson she only knew from his letters.

      She hadn’t been comfortable enough to tell them she didn’t want to be uprooted and travel to Oregon.

      “What’s the matter?” Rachel asked, wandering closer to Emma. Her apron was half-full of the chips.

      “Nothing,” Emma answered. She put on a smile.

      “Were you thinking of Tristan McCullough?”

      The sound of the man’s name startled her, and Rachel must have seen it. “I suppose not, then.” She laughed.

      What did that mean? Stung, Emma said, “Perhaps you’re the one thinking of Tristan McCullough too much.”

      Rachel’s lips parted in a gasp, but her cheeks also pinked. As if Emma’s guess had been on the mark.

      She hadn’t meant to snap at her sister. It wasn’t Rachel’s fault that she felt ill at ease, uncomfortable in her own skin. As if she was drifting with no real destination.

      “I’m sorry,” Emma said. “Nights of little sleep must be making me grumpy.”

      Rachel considered her with her cheeks still flushed. “Hmm. I forgive you. I think we’re all weary of the journey.”

      It was so much more than that. And they had a long way to go.