Trail of Passion (Hot on the Trail Book 7) Read online

  TRAIL OF PASSION

  Copyright ©2015 by Merry Farmer

  Smashwords Edition

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Cover design by Erin Dameron-Hill (the miracle-worker)

  ASIN: B014AOJJ4Y

  ISBN: 9781311945402

  Paperback:

  ISBN-13: 978-1517011307

  ISBN-10: 1517011302

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  Trail of Passion

  By Merry Farmer

  For Nerdy Scientists and the women who love them everywhere

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Epilogue

  Chapter One

  Independence, MO – 1865

  Gideon Faraday was unlike the other travelers in the wagon train that was busy forming up around him. He was a scientist, an educated man. He was overdressed in his gray wool trousers and fine vest. At least he’d taken off his jacket so that he could prepare his wagon in his shirtsleeves. He still didn’t blend in with everyone else. Instead of furniture and cooking utensils, his wagon was stacked with small, uniform crates, each packed with glass vials and jars containing chemicals. A hand-cranked generator rested at the front of the wagon bed, near the driver’s bench. He was alone—unmarried and without family. But none of those were the true reasons Gideon wasn’t like any of his fellow pioneers.

  Gideon Faraday was a murderer.

  “All right, folks. Pack it up so we can move it out,” Pete Evans, the trail boss who would lead them all to Oregon, hollered as he moved between the wagons.

  Gideon doubled his efforts to stash his supplies and ongoing experiments in his wagon. It was easy to push and shuffle the crates without thinking about them, but the small, fat satchel that rested on the edge of his tailgate was another story. There simply wasn’t any place safe enough for it, and there was no way to stop its contents from being at the forefront of his thoughts. He picked it up, shifted to the other side of the open wagon bed, reached to put it down, then reconsidered. Light as it was, the satchel was like lead in his hands. With a sigh, he put it back where it had been and pushed a hand through his hair, acid eating at his stomach.

  He tried to avoid Pete’s eyes as he walked past, but already Gideon had learned that few things and fewer people escaped Pete’s notice.

  “Everything okay here, Dr. Faraday?” Pete asked, strolling to a stop beside the tailgate of Gideon’s wagon.

  “Okay,” Gideon repeated. It was enough truth for now. He shifted a crate, darting a quick glance Pete’s way. “I’m a little concerned about bumps and rattling, but the graduate assistants at Princeton did a fine job of securing the glass, so it shouldn’t be a problem.”

  Pete eyed the contents of Gideon’s wagon and rubbed a hand over his face. “You sure none of that is dangerous?”

  Gideon shrugged, still reluctant to meet Pete’s eyes. “It can be if tampered with. As long as the chemicals remain separate and in their containers, everything should be fine.”

  “Should be?” Pete crossed his arms, looking anything but confident.

  Gideon attempted a smile. “The only chemical in my inventory that I plan on using at any point on the journey is chlorine, and only if it becomes absolutely necessary.”

  “Chlorine?” Pete repeated.

  “Yes.” Gideon nodded, the familiar urge to explain the wonders of science nipping at him. “Chemists have been exploring its use in water purification for decades. It has been surprisingly effective at reducing waterborne disease in highly populated areas, though we’re still not sure why. My plan is to introduce its use out west in the hopes that thousands of families can be spared the troubles of unclean water sources, particularly in newer cities where sanitation is a challenge. I’ve been experimenting with it for years. In fact, part of my graduate work at Princeton was developing….”

  He let his words trail away as the memory of what his work had actually produced seized him. How could such good intentions have gone so bad so quickly? Lives lost, science turned on its head, and for what? The only choice he had was to go west, to run away from it all, from the lives he’d taken.

  “Dr. Faraday?” Pete shook him out of his thoughts. “Everything all right?”

  Gideon cleared his throat, turned toward his wagon, and continued working, avoiding Pete’s concerned glance. “Yes, I’m just distracted thinking about the journey. I’ve never been much further west than Pittsburgh.”

  Pete’s expression cleared to a knowing smile. “It’s a big, wide world out there, and we’re going to walk clear across it.” He slapped Gideon on the back—causing Gideon to jump half out of his skin.

  The motion also caused Gideon to knock the leather satchel off of the tailgate. It dropped to the ground and flipped open. Stacks of crisp dollar bills spilled onto the grass.

  Pete whistled and pushed his hat back as Gideon dove to scrape the cash back together and into the satchel. “That’s quite a haul you’ve got there.”

  “Yes.” Gideon cleared his throat, face burning, shoving bills and dirt into the satchel, closing it, and standing. “Payment for a… a job.”

  “What kind of job, a bank robbery?” Pete snorted.

  Gideon’s eyes flew wide and he choked as he answered, “No, no, nothing like that. Scientific work.” A bank robbery would have been a thousand times less sinful.

  “Well.” Pete slapped his back once more. “Looks like science pays better than leading wagons trains.”

  “It can,” Gideon answered, though as he tucked the satchel of money between two stacks of crates, he doubted if it should.

  “You watch out for that.” Pete nodded to the back of Gideon’s wagon, then moved on. “Load it up, folks. We’re leaving in just a few minutes.”

  As soon as Pete left, Gideon blew out a breath and slumped against the back of his wagon. A fine sweat had broken out on his brow. He reached into the pocket of his trousers and pulled out a handkerchief to mop it. That had been close. Too close. It was one thing to get excited about the things he loved, about the miracles of chemistry and the good it could do for mankind. It was an entirely different thing to slip and reveal what he’d done, the stain on his soul. The whole point of this journey was to fo
rget those things, to leave the horrors of his past behind him, and to do some good in the world to make up for it. He could ruin that with a few careless words. The less he said to his fellow travelers the better.

  As he set the last of his crates in order, took out the modified watch he’d constructed to keep track of mileage traveled, and closed the tailgate of the wagon, a bubbly, female voice caught his attention.

  “Hurry along. My father’s waiting for me to come home to Wyoming, and if we are held up, he’ll have words for all of us. No one holds up Howard Haskell, and no one holds up his daughter.”

  Gideon stood straighter in spite of himself, searching for the source of the voice. When his gaze fell on a spry wisp of a woman—a fashionable hat on her auburn hair, her green dress a bit too sophisticated for the trail—his heart bounced down to his gut and back.

  “Yes, Miss Lucy,” one of the wagon train’s crew said as he pushed a trunk into the back of the woman’s wagon.

  “I can’t wait to get home,” the woman, Lucy, went on. “I miss my Papa and my Aunt Virginia, and even my bratty little brother, Franklin. When I got Papa’s letter telling me Franklin had been injured, I had to come right away. Mama took the train, but I need more adventure than that. I wish I’d been alive twenty years ago, when the first pioneers came out this way. It would have been dangerous and exciting, don’t you think?”

  “Yes, Miss Lucy,” the crew member sighed.

  “It’s still dangerous, at least a little bit,” Lucy continued, following the assistant when he finished with her things and tried to move on. They both came closer to where Gideon stood. “I love danger. It makes me feel all shivery inside, like, like….” She shuddered, cheeks flaring with color, and lowered her eyes with a mischievous grin. “Well, never mind what like.”

  A rush of unwelcome heat flooded Gideon. Lucy was close enough for him to see the flash in her eyes—a scintillating contrast to her otherwise sweet, virtuous face. One lingering look and he had a hard time believing that she was anything other than innocent, in spite of her provocative speech. His heart hammered… and his stomach pinched with guilt.

  “The Indians are still there, after all,” Lucy went on as the crew member tried to get away. “They’re dangerous. And there’s always wild animals. I bet we see a herd of buffalo once we get to the true West. I’ve seen them. They’re everywhere, but not so much as before.”

  It wasn’t until Lucy’s gaze zipped across him, stopped, and focused on him that Gideon realized he was staring. Not only that, his mouth had dropped open. Worse, he couldn’t look away. Miss Lucy was beautiful, her delicate features accented by the light of adventure in her eyes. Her auburn hair caught the sunlight and absorbed it, giving her a warm, excited glow. And when she smiled, well, Gideon was as aware as the next man that some chemical reactions went far beyond a laboratory.

  A heartbeat later, sense—and shame—caught up with him. He closed his mouth, swallowed, and focused on his watch, adjusting the settings. That didn’t stop Lucy from approaching him.

  “Do you think we’ll encounter dangers on the trail?” she asked, skipping nearer with a lightness that spoke of both dexterity and enthusiasm. “I’m certain there are other things besides Indians and wild animals that we should watch out for. My father is always saying that you never know what you’ll find under a rock or around a crook in the creek.” She laughed suddenly, and Gideon’s eyes snapped up to her, round and wary. “I like the way Papa says that. ‘Crook in the creek.’ It has quite a ring to it, don’t you think, Mr.?”

  It took Gideon a moment after she stopped speaking to realize she wanted a response. A cold sweat broke out down his back. Aside from the fact that he didn’t deserve to make Miss Lucy’s acquaintance, he’d never had much luck speaking to women before. They weren’t interested in the things he held dear, and since he didn’t have that boldness that other men possessed….

  He cleared his throat and stood straighter, forcing himself to focus. “Faraday.” He tucked his watch into his trouser pocket and held out a hand. “Dr. Gideon Faraday.”

  When Lucy blinked and stared at his hand, Gideon cursed himself. It was the wrong way for a man to introduce himself to a woman, especially one who appeared to be from a finer class than most. He should have bowed and possibly kissed her hand. He should have warned her to stay away from him. He should have—

  She took Gideon’s hand, squeezing it. Her beautiful, green eyes sparkled as she grinned.

  “I approve of men who shake women’s hands,” she said. “It shows a real sense of equality. I can’t abide it when a man snakes his fingers under mine and tries to kiss my knuckles. Kissing knuckles. Can you imagine? Other than the fact that that kind of greeting happens when you first meet someone, who wants their knuckles kissed? I can think of much nicer places to be kissed.”

  Gideon choked at her words. His collar—and trousers—were suddenly too tight. He would have pulled away, but Lucy still had his hand trapped in hers.

  “Oh,” she gasped, eyes going round. “That doesn’t sound at all proper, does it?” She laughed, pressing her free hand to her chest. “How scandalous of me. But then, I come from a line of scandalous women. You should meet my Aunt Virginia. She would shock the life out of you, I’m sure. She carries a pistol at all times and rides horses like a man. Of course, I can ride horses like a man too.” She winked.

  Gideon’s heart slipped that much further out of his ability to control it. If he had a shred of decency left, he would turn and run and spare Lucy the torment of knowing him.

  “I should probably let go of your hand now,” she went on. “And, oh! I haven’t even told you my name yet. Here I’ve gone on, talking about danger and Aunt Virginia and horses, and I haven’t even told you my name. Silly. Typical. It’s Lucy Haskell, by the way. Miss Lucy Haskell. My father is Howard Haskell of Wyoming. I’m heading west to go home, which, I suppose, makes me different from just about everyone else on this wagon train.”

  At last, Lucy let his hand go. It was a great loss. As great a loss as his loss for words in the face of the avalanche that was Miss Lucy Haskell.

  “Move on out, folks,” Pete’s cry sounded over top of the din of wagons and people around them. “The journey to your new life starts now.”

  Gideon would have glanced around to see what was going on and if he needed to take any action, but his eyes were locked on Lucy’s smiling face. A blind man could see that she had energy and drive. He may have spent his whole life studying the Laws of Nature, but a whole different law was at work here, one of attraction.

  “Miss Lucy,” Pete called from several yards behind him. “Your wagon isn’t going to drive itself.”

  “Oh. I’d better go.” Before Gideon could get out another word, Lucy picked up her skirts and scurried back toward her wagon. She glanced over her shoulder at him as she went, though, the green ribbons on her hat fluttering in the breeze.

  Gideon blinked. Lucy Haskell was a whirlwind, and it would take him at least a few minutes to digest what had just passed between them.

  As he turned toward his wagon and the oxen that were hitched to draw it, his eyes stayed glued to Lucy. One of Pete’s crew members met her at the front of her wagon and handed her a goad, demonstrating how to use it. Lucy nodded and smiled at the man, took the goad, and steered her oxen into place like an expert as soon as she was given the go ahead.

  Like a magnet drawn to iron—and against his better judgment—Gideon’s mind shifted into action. He retrieved the goad resting on the seat of his wagon and hurried to bring his oxen around and into place as close to Lucy’s wagon as he could manage. He wasn’t fast enough. One other wagon managed to slip into place in the long line that was forming and stretching out toward the western horizon.

  It took Gideon a moment to see that the man driving that wagon only had one leg. The realization caused him to frown. The man was wearing a Union soldier’s uniform and propelling himself forward on crutches, but why would anyone choose to walk
the Oregon Trail with only one leg?

  As the wagon train pulled away from Independence and out into the vast prairie, Gideon’s mind was filled with all sorts of calculations. He worried about the chemicals in his wagon and reorganized them in his mind for maximum safety. He watched the way the soldier in front of him walked and calculated what it would take to construct a wooden leg to make the man’s journey easier. But above all, he mulled over the problem of whether he dared to get closer to Miss Lucy Haskell or if he would be even more of a villain than he already was for saddling her with someone like him.

  “Beginnings are always exciting,” Lucy declared to her newest friend, Miss Josephine Lewis, a splendid woman near forty who was also traveling west on her own. “I simply love setting out on new adventures, meeting new people, seeing new things. That’s why I decided to travel home to my father’s house in Wyoming along the Oregon Trail instead of taking the train. Trains are lovely, mind you, but I would so much rather experience the land and the journey in full, don’t you think?” She wasn’t sure where all of her words came from, but at least they kept the silence and the loneliness at bay.

  Miss Josephine tilted her head to one side and fixed Lucy with a stern look, as if asking if she was done yet.

  “I’m talking too much, aren’t I?” Lucy blew out a breath and let her shoulders droop. “It’s just that there’s so much to see and so many new people. I can hardly help myself. But I’ll be quiet now and let you talk. Are you looking forward to this journey?”

  “I am.” Josephine smiled and settled back on the barrel Pete Evans had taken out for her to sit on as they ate supper. “It’s about time I got away from the nonsense of the East and looked for something new.”

  “I’m sure you’ll find just as much nonsense out in the West as you found in the East,” Lucy replied. “Cincinnati—where my mother and I have been living for the past several years—was the height of nonsense, but if what Papa’s been writing to me is true, there’s just as much of it in Wyoming. Do you think we’ll encounter nonsense on the trail?”