Trail of Aces (Hot on the Trail Book 8) Read online

  Olivia crossed her arms, jaw clenched. “Do you have shoes in there?”

  At last, his glib expression—or what she could see of it in the darkness as the moon dipped behind a cloud once again—faltered.

  “We both know Chet tried to hurt you or me or both of us by tampering with the wheel of my wagon. We both know he managed to orchestrate the Hamiltons’ wagon crashing in the river somehow. He’s a vicious, spiteful criminal, and I won’t let him hurt you.”

  She had to battle the urge to be flattered by the way he cared for her in order to make him see common sense. “That may be, but is this really the answer?” She spread her arms, looking around at the black forest.

  The moon came out from behind its cloud, showing Charlie’s frustrated expression. “Chet won’t give up until he has Josiah’s fortune, and at this point, I’m reasonably certain he wants at least me, maybe you too, dead.”

  “Dead is a very strong word. He’s a crook and a cheat, but that doesn’t make him a murderer.”

  Charlie blew out a breath and pushed a hand through his hair. He looked around, found his hat, and moved to snatch it up. “Why is this so hard for you to accept? Why can’t you just let me protect you the way that I know best?”

  “Because this is not best.” She raised her arms, then let them drop again in aggravation. “What if there are bears in the woods? What about hostile Indians? Do you even know where we are?”

  “I’d rather face the possibility of bears and Indians than the certainty of a man who is out to hurt you.”

  “People have been out to hurt me my entire life, Charlie,” she shouted before she could stop herself. “Where were you then? Where were you when my mother put me down in front of her friends, when my sister sniggered at me behind my back? Where were you when my friends and neighbors pushed and pushed me to marry a man I despised, who looked at the young girls I taught with a lecher’s eye? You weren’t there,” she answered her own question. “I had to face all of that on my own, and I did. Why do you think I can’t face this on my own?”

  The deep rage within her welled up until it sat, simmering, on the surface. She’d never put a voice to all those things before. It was horrible and frightening, and it left her on the brink of tears. It also shimmered with relief that was just within her grasp, like the sensation Charlie had provoked in her right before she burst into pleasure.

  Charlie remained silent and stoic all through her outburst. The only sign of his emotion was in the way he crushed the brim of his hat in his fist. When she was finished and stood there panting and rippling with old misery, he took three long steps to reach her.

  “I don’t just want to protect you from a greedy, ruthless bastard, Olivia.” His eyes flashed with purpose in the moonlight. “I want to shelter you from the idiots that have never been able to see your true worth. No.” He stopped, shifted his weight, and took a quick breath. “No, I don’t want to shelter you from them, I want to stand beside you and cheer you on as you stand up to them and take them all on yourself, in your own way. I see that you have the strength to do it. You’ve had the strength not to let them beat you down in spite of their insults.”

  “But I don’t want to have to have that strength,” she raged on. She had to. Her anger was too potent, but underneath it, she felt something new and tender, bursting to come out. Charlie was inviting whatever that was to emerge. “I don’t want to always have to be the strong silent one, the one who lets everyone else walk all over me. I don’t want to smile and forgive them, I want to shake my fist at them and ask how dare they.” She raised her fist to prove her point.

  “Then do it,” he said. “Do it and I’ll stand by you. But I won’t keep you in the way of actual, physical harm. You might think it’s best to defy Chet by ignoring him, but he’s not hurling insults at you. He has one goal in mind, and he will hurt you if you continue to stand in the way of that.”

  The reasonable part of Olivia whispered that he was right. The rest of her wasn’t finished venting years’ worth of fury. “Then let him have all those jewels and that money, if you’re so concerned about what he would do to get it. Give him the whole lot and tell him to go away. We can earn more money, both of us.”

  A flicker of something bright flashed through his eyes, only to disappear into a scowl. “I can’t. That money is mine, not because I stole it or tricked a man out of it, but because it was entrusted to me. I can’t let Josiah down.” She opened her mouth to argue the point. He silenced her by stepping closer and pressing his fingertips to her lips. “The best way to get Chet to give up and leave us alone is to convince him that Josiah’s money is long gone. I took you out here into the middle of nowhere as a ploy to convince Chet we’d run off to get away from him. In the morning, when folks wake up, Pete is going to tell him that we left in the middle of the night to head back to Ft. Hood. He’s going to convince Chet of some story about me deciding to go to San Francisco as soon as possible to sell something, then start a new life.”

  Olivia’s mouth dropped open. “Is that the sort of story Chet would actually believe?”

  Charlie shrugged. “Both of us have done similar things in the past, skipping out on obligations and hightailing it to the closest major city to dispose of questionable winnings.”

  Olivia’s shoulders sagged. “We rode north, not south, didn’t we?”

  He nodded. “With any luck, Chet will head off in the wrong direction chasing after us.”

  It seemed like a good plan, at least on the surface. It still didn’t quell Olivia’s anger. “Why didn’t you tell me what you had planned?”

  “Because I just thought of it this afternoon and wanted to act before either of us could tip too many people off to what we had in mind.”

  “I wouldn’t have told anyone,” she insisted. Except perhaps Estelle and Josephine. She shook her head to dispel that shred of doubt. “What good does it do for us to be lost in the woods with few supplies and no idea what we’re doing?”

  A flicker of a grin crossed Charlie’s lips. That half smile only showed how exhausted Charlie was. “I’ll show you in the morning,” he said, sliding a hand down her arm to take her hand. “Right now, how about we put those bedrolls to good use.”

  “Here?” She glanced around. The ground wasn’t even. It was dark, but she could make out scrubby bushes, tree roots, and rocks.

  “We’re not likely to find a better place. Besides, I’m tired enough that any spot will do.”

  Olivia let out a breath. “I suppose you’re right.”

  Charlie gave her hand a squeeze, then led her back to the horse, who, thankfully, hadn’t tried to wander off again. Charlie unfastened two bedrolls from the saddle while Olivia searched the ground for a likely spot, then spread them out, Charlie tied the horse to a tree and brought the saddlebag and a sack that looked suspiciously like the one she’d been keeping her borrowed clothes in to the uneven ground of their camp.

  “We can use this as a pillow,” he suggested, laying the sack on the ground at the top of the bedrolls, then sitting to tug off his shoes.

  “We?” Olivia sank to her own bedroll, peeling back the blanket and crawling under it fully dressed. She supposed she should be thankful that she had gone to bed fully dressed back at the wagon train, and that she hadn’t stripped down to her chemise and drawers before Charlie kidnapped her.

  “Yes,” Charlie answered with a chuckle. He scooted the stuffed sack closer to her head, then moved his whole bedroll right up against hers. “You’re my wife, after all, and I just made a very pretty speech about wanting to protect you and stand by you.”

  “So?” She knew she sounded snappish, but her heart was light and almost cheerful, as if they were playing.

  “So I can lay down by you just as well as I can stand. Maybe better.”

  He closed his arm around her and pulled her back against his chest to prove his point. Olivia stifled a gasp and scolded the swirls of excitement that zipped through her. The warmth of his body was temptin
g, and as he snuggled closer to her, settling her firmly against him, she could at last feel that certain stiffness of his against her backside. After that, it was hard to breathe.

  They were both silent. The breeze in the treetops and the unfamiliar sounds of birds and critters shuffled around them. Olivia was too tense to sleep—for a dozen different reasons, including the scandalous urge to grind her hips against that part of Charlie, just to see what he would do about it—and so was Charlie.

  They lay there for a long time before Charlie murmured. “If you really want to do things on your own and build your own life, as soon as we get to Oregon City, we can find a lawyer and have our marriage annulled.”

  Terror gripped Olivia’s gut. It was as unexpected as it was sharp. End her marriage to Charlie? Go on alone without him? The very thought made her feel as though she’d misspoken somehow, as if she needed to take back her entire declaration of her own independence.

  Charlie had gone rock hard with tension at her back. His arm around her was heavy with desperation. His breathing was quick and shallow against her neck. She blinked. He didn’t want to get an annulment. A man did not hold a woman he was eager to get rid of that close. She shouldn’t have been shocked to discover that Charlie wanted her, but she was so unused to having anyone care for her as more than an obligation—or as their teacher. The thought ignited a glowing ball of warmth in her gut—warmth that spread through her, reaching deep into her heart. She smiled and closed her eyes against the sack-pillow.

  “We don’t have to think about that now,” she said, lips twitching with a grin. “Let’s worry about that after we’ve taken care of the bears and snakes and fortune hunters.”

  It might have been a bit too mean of her to tease Charlie when she felt he was at his weakest, but the man dealt in teasing. And she had a fair idea that he knew what her real answer was, as she wrapped her arm around his and relaxed against him. The tension drained out of his body so fast it brought a wide smile to her face and pulses of longing to her body—particularly when he kissed the back of her neck with smiling lips.

  Olivia never thought she’d fall asleep after that, but mere minutes later, she was drifting in a vague dream world where she and Charlie held each other and giggled over some untold joke. It was a pleasant way to sleep, even though she awoke to early morning light filtering down through the leaves of strange trees.

  A cold dew had settled over them in the night. Waking up chilled and damp was a far cry from the warm, sweet dreams she’d had, but at least daylight allowed her to see the wilderness around them more clearly.

  “It’s almost primeval,” she commented as they cleaned up their bedrolls.

  “If you want primeval, you should visit the swamps of Louisiana.” Charlie nodded as he fastened the bedroll to the saddle. They would have to move on and find a water source—both for the horse and for themselves—soon.

  “I have a hard time picturing you in the swamp.” She shook her damp clothes out as she changed into fresh ones from the sack.

  Charlie snorted a laugh and shook his head. “I may have grown up in the streets of New Orleans, but I spent just as much time hiding out in the swamps when situations called for it.”

  “What situations?” Olivia wasn’t sure she wanted to know, but she felt as though she needed to know.

  With a wry smile, Charlie said, “My mother was a prostitute. She worked at one of the finer brothels in the city, mind you, but she was kicked out when I was eight. Things went downhill from there, but we managed to survive. And by survive, I mean that we would suddenly have food and money for lodgings…until the police came after us. That’s how I ended up with the Brothers of Saint Benedict.”

  Olivia gaped at him, at his ability to tell such a horrible story with such a rakish grin. When he raised an eyebrow at her stunned expression, she closed her mouth, shook her head, and said, “Did the police catch you and give you to them?”

  “Nope. The police would have sent me to an orphanage or a work-house or some such.” He finished securing the bedrolls and came to her to fetch the sack and saddlebag. “Mama took me to the Brothers and begged them to take me in because she was knew the police would catch up with her in the end.”

  “Did they?” Olivia dreaded the answer. She was astounded that she should feel such fear and compassion for a prostitute, but she was Charlie’s mother.

  “The Brothers? Yes, they took me.” Charlie nodded. “And the law?” His expression grew grim. “They caught her. She died in prison when I was eleven.”

  Olivia clutched her chest. “I’m so sorry.”

  “So am I.” Charlie finished securing the sack and saddlebag, and lowered his head for a moment. He glanced up at her with wary eyes. “You sure you want to be married to the son of a whore?”

  She shuddered to think what her mother would say if he put it that way to her.

  Ah, her mother.

  A wicked grin teased its way across Olivia’s lips. “Yes. I do.”

  Charlie grinned. His grin turned into a laugh. “Well, all right, Mrs. Garrett.” He held a hand out to her. “Let’s move on so I can show you what I was going to show you.”

  Olivia took his hand and let him help her up onto the horse. He climbed up behind her, and in no time they were moving on through the forest. It didn’t take long for Olivia to figure out that Charlie was looking for some sort of higher ground, some way to see above the trees. He found the sort of spot he was looking for after about half an hour.

  “See? There.” He pointed out across the treetops and into the valley.

  Olivia followed the line of his sight. She spotted what he saw right away. Far away, down the line of trees, several long columns of smoke curled up into the air. “The wagon train.”

  “Exactly.” Charlie nodded. “Pete said he’d keep smoky fires going whenever and wherever they stop. That way, we’ll be able to follow the train as it moves along. Pete said he’d send a rider into the woods to find us a week after Chet leaves the train. By that point, we can assume that he’ll be long gone and in the wrong direction, and we can rejoin the train.”

  Olivia’s brow flew up. “That plan might just work after all.”

  Charlie grinned and kissed her cheek, then nudged his horse to go on, following the vague line of the Snake River that they could see from where they were. “See, your fool husband isn’t as big of an idiot as you thought he was.”

  Olivia laughed. “I never thought you were an idiot,” she said. “Although you should have let me bring my shoes.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Even the best plans could use a little work.

  “You should have let me go back for my shoes,” Olivia sighed for the fiftieth time as she and Charlie picked their way along a clear, cold stream.

  “I’m willing to concede that that might have been a better idea.” Charlie loved his fiery, stubborn, brave wife so much that it made his head spin, but if he had to listen to her lament the loss of her shoes one more time…

  No, it didn’t matter if she spent all day complaining and reminding him of his short-sightedness, she was safe. They’d ridden Pete’s horse, Barnaby, through the forest for an hour or so before finding the stream. Charlie figured it must have been a tributary of the Snake River. They’d stopped to let Barnaby drink, had breakfast themselves, and cleaned up, then continued to follow the course of the stream.

  By midday, Olivia was ready to get down and walk, shoes or no shoes. Patches of the stream were sandy and easier to walk through, but other stretches were rocky. Even smooth river rocks were difficult to walk on for any length of time. By late afternoon, they were both starting to drag.

  “Why don’t you let me carry you?” he asked, also for the dozenth time.

  “No, no. I can do this.” Olivia waved off his offer. “I’m going to need tough feet if I’m going to live on the frontier anyhow.”

  In spite of his exhaustion, soreness, and impatience with the pace they were keeping, Charlie chuckled. “Wha
t makes you think that?”

  “Life is rougher out here, isn’t it?” Olivia reasoned. She lifted her skirts and stepped over a particularly deep patch of the stream. “There’s no telling what sort of conditions I’ll have to endure if I’m to make good on my promise to teach wherever I’m needed most.”

  Charlie was glad she walked a few steps in front of him and couldn’t see his momentarily grouchy expression. Olivia could continue to teach until she was old and gray, with children and grandchildren hanging off of her, but if she kept using the word “I” on matters that involved the both of them… Unless he’d been imagining her unspoken answer to his question of whether she wanted an annulment last night. He didn’t want to think about what he’d do if she left him.

  “If you decide you like roughing it, we could always come back here and build ourselves a shack in the woods.” He fell back on teasing to hide his heart’s panic.

  “And who would I teach out here?” At least she sounded cheery instead of irritated.

  Charlie took a few steps to reach her side, pulling on Barnaby’s lead to get him to speed up. “I saw a couple of squirrels back a ways that looked a mite ignorant,” he said. “And the bears would probably appreciate learning their numbers.”

  Olivia laughed out loud. She stopped and turned to face him. “You want me to set up a school for bears and squirrels?”

  “Of course not. It’d have to be two schools. Every fool knows you can’t educate bears and squirrels together.”

  Olivia giggled, and Charlie felt as though the forest had parted, showing them the way straight to paradise. It didn’t matter what problems befell them when Olivia laughed at his stupid jokes.

  “I suppose the bears would eat the squirrels,” she went on, concentrating on the edge of the stream as she picked her way along.

  “No, no. Squirrels are highly competitive. They’d get jealous if the bears did better than them and they’d start throwing nuts. It would be chaos.”