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

  She continued picking flowers and trying to enjoy Gideon’s smile, but doubt had entered her soul and wouldn’t let her be.

  “I have to take these to Olivia and help her get ready,” she apologized and started to walk away from him once they returned to the wagons.

  “Wait,” he called after her.

  Lucy turned back. Gideon plucked one of the daisies he’d picked out of the main bouquet Lucy held and handed it to her. “Bridesmaids need flowers too.”

  “Oh.” A sizzle of hope ran from Lucy’s heart, down her spine, to her toes, passing through scandalous places along the way. When he realized her hands were too full of the flowers they’d picked for Olivia to hold any more, he tucked the stem of the daisy behind her ear. His fingers traced the curve of her ear, then brushed against her neck, sending the sizzle in her body soaring.

  Joking or not, now would be a good time for another kiss.

  She leaned closer, closing her eyes.

  “Lucy.” Estelle’s call from the wagons startled her. “Are you ready with those flowers?”

  Lucy gasped and opened her eyes. Gideon had inched closer to her and was staring at her lips. If ever there was a more inconvenient time for one of her friends to stage a surprise wedding, she didn’t know what it was.

  With a sigh, she turned to Estelle and replied, “Coming.”

  As she pivoted away from Gideon with one last, regretful grin, she wondered just what too much kissing could lead her to, and whether what that was might be entirely worth it.

  A kiss, flowers, a wedding. Gideon couldn’t decide if he was having the time of his life out on the trail, under the wide, blue prairie sky, or if he was setting himself and Lucy both up for disaster. Two days after the wedding, he caught himself wondering if he deserved to stand up with a woman, with Lucy.

  Not once in all his schooling or research had the thought of a wife crossed his mind. He wasn’t entirely comfortable with the fact that it was crossing his mind now. Worse still, he caught himself wanting to hold Lucy and slip a ring on her finger and make promises to her more than he’d wanted anything in his life. Not to mention everything that came after that.

  Marriage. Something his fateful actions had denied to every one of those men in the field that day. His stomach twisted at the thought and the back of his eyes stung. How could he let himself feel happiness with a woman when those brave men couldn’t feel anything at all because of him? It was unjust, wrong, and yet his heart ached at the very thought of Lucy’s smile, her almost comical willingness to be kissed, held, more. He was a selfish fool to let this tenderness build between them. He didn’t deserve an ounce of it. How could Lucy live with him when he could barely live with himself?

  “Mark my words, son. You’ll be next.”

  Gideon blinked up from his thoughts and his work attaching springs to the ankle of the artificial leg he was constructing for Graham to find Pete grinning down at him.

  “Let me guess,” he answered, clearing his throat to chase the roughness of his guilt away. “You and some of the other fellows have placed bets on me.”

  Pete laughed, oblivious to the anguish he’d interrupted. “That’s not a half bad idea. But I doubt anyone would take me up on it. It’s like playing cards with Charlie—too much of a done deal.”

  Gideon winced. He would disagree with Pete, only he couldn’t stop thinking about the way Lucy had felt in his arms. She’d been eager, which only fanned flames within him that he needed to fight hard to control. He might not have been good with women, but he was no prude. The urge to mate was natural to every living thing. Humans were no exception. He’d even had some colleagues in academic circles who thought that the constraints society put on humans’ natural urges were ridiculous and damaging. They had some good points.

  “Yep,” Pete went on, taking off his hat to wipe his brow. “I know the signs when I see them.”

  “And where do those signs point?”

  Pete snorted. “Straight to the altar, my friend. Straight to the altar.”

  Gideon shared his laughter, but only barely. The whole thing reminded him too much of irresistible forces and immovable objects.

  “This looks like a merry party.”

  Of course, Lucy would choose that moment to show up in his camp, all smiles and sunshine. The sight of her managed to cut through the thick fog of Gideon’s remorse, lifting him body and soul. But no, just because something was natural and irresistible didn’t mean it was right. He needed to find a way to slow things down.

  “Miss Lucy,” Pete greeted her, tipping his hat. “If you’ll excuse me, I was just on my way to… to do something else.” He gave Gideon a knowing wink, then walked off, leaving the two of them alone.

  Lucy was quick to move one of the spare barrels to sit beside him in the shade of the wagon. “Working on Graham’s leg?”

  “Mmm hmm.” He focused on attaching springs to the leg, testing the movement of the ankle.

  “Is there anything I can do to help?”

  She was so genuine, so eager. How was he supposed to slow things down when too much of him wanted to speed it all up beyond the bounds of propriety?

  Of course, if he really wanted to put things in check right then and there, he would tell her about Princeton, about the army and its gruesome experiment.

  “No.” He answered both her question and his concern with the same short, sharp word.

  Lucy flinched away from him. He refused to look at her to see the damage he knew he’d just done, but he could feel her smile drop.

  She was silent for a long time before venturing, “Gideon, you don’t think I’m a joke, do you?”

  Her simple question was as pointed as an arrow. He let out a breath and dropped his shoulders, dragging his eyes up to meet hers. The sheer volume of genuine worry in her eyes plucked him to the core.

  “No, I don’t think you’re a joke at all.” He swallowed and went on with, “I’m sorry if I’m not very communicative when I’m trying to work.”

  Her worry didn’t lessen. She chewed her lip. “It’s just that everyone usually thinks I’m a joke. It’s because I talk so much,” she went on without prompting. “Because I am always doing silly, shocking things. I don’t talk because I think I have anything interesting to say, you know.”

  “No?”

  “Not at all.” She managed a weak smile, shifting on her barrel to angle herself toward him. “I can’t stand silences. I hate them.”

  And yet, she let one sit between the two of them for a moment before she went on.

  “Mother didn’t like it in Wyoming, you see. But Papa loved it, still loves it, so much. It would have been better if they’d gotten into terrible fights about it with all sorts of screaming and shouting. They didn’t. Instead, they just wouldn’t talk to each other for days and days. When they did talk, all Mother could say was that she missed Cincinnati and the life she had there, and Papa would only respond by discussing the business of the ranch. So when they stopped talking, I started.”

  A lump formed in Gideon’s throat. He slowed his hands, lowering his work to watch her as she went on.

  “The problem was, the more I talked, the less anybody listened to me. Unless I said or did something outrageous. Then they paid attention. When Mother decided to go back to Cincinnati, she insisted I go with her, but as soon as we got there, all she wanted to do was spend time with her sisters or her old friends, who I didn’t know. She would leave me at home or send me off to play with other girls my own age, but they were only interested in fashion and boys and socials. I like adventure and danger, like my Aunt Virginia.”

  Something was wrong with Gideon’s heart. It ached and pulsed and felt too big for his chest at the same time that it felt as though it was breaking. All he could manage to say was, “I’d like to meet your Aunt Virginia someday.”

  That tickled a smile out of Lucy. “She would like you.” She paused. “I hated leaving her. She was one of the only people who took me seriously. Everyone else
just laughed about me behind my back, called me ‘Chatterbox,’ and poked fun at me. I think the girls in Cincinnati only invited me to their teas and balls because they wanted to see what stupid thing I would say next. And believe me, I never disappointed them. At least I can lay claim to that. But I’m quite certain they never really liked me.” She lifted her eyes to meet his. “I don’t know why I just blurted that all out. I should hold my tongue. But… but I don’t want to be a joke.”

  That was it. The earnestness in her expression was the last straw. Right or wrong, he couldn’t let her go. Ever. He lowered his eyes and shook his head, a wry grin playing on his lips. Their children would likely be brilliant little whippets, discovering scientific breakthroughs in the nursery and giving long, rambling speeches about them to whatever audience would listen. The thought lifted his heart, even as the realization that she would hate him when she learned the truth beat him back down again. He couldn’t live without her, but as soon as she knew what kind of a monster he was, she wouldn’t live with him.

  There was nothing to do but to get it over with before either of them fell deeper than they’d already fallen. He set the wooden leg aside and reached for her hand. “Lucy, I need to tell you something.”

  Her expression lit with curiosity, but before he could begin to frame all of the confessions he had to make, the orphan boy Alvin rushed toward them.

  “Miss Lucy, Miss Lucy. I need your help,” Alvin said. He wore enough genuine distress on his young shoulders that Gideon abandoned what he was going to say to turn to the boy.

  “What is it, sweetheart?” Lucy sent Gideon a sideways glance as if she too regretted the interruption.

  “I didn’t mean to do it,” Alvin went on, blushing and frowning at once. “I just wanted to get a look at it. It’s pretty, and I thought you might want to see it. I didn’t know that I was sitting on somebody’s grave when I dropped it.”

  Gideon blinked wide, exchanging a baffled glance with Lucy.

  “Dropped what?” she asked.

  “The ring.” Sullen worry replaced Alvin’s frown. “Now we can’t get it out, and no one wants to reach in or move the stones in case there’s a dead person under them.”

  Lucy jumped to her feet, and Gideon rose beside her.

  “Show me,” she said.

  “This way.”

  Alvin led the two of them out of the cluster of wagons. Pete was already rounding people up to move on after the heat of midday. A group of children and a few adults stood around a pile of stones by the side of the rutted trail. No one looked like they knew what to do.

  “It’s probably a grave,” one of the adults—a man Gideon thought was named Carlton—told them. “They pile stones over them so’s the Injuns and wild things don’t get them.”

  Gideon drew closer, Lucy by his side. The children parted to make way for them.

  “See? Look. It’s right there.” Alvin pointed to a particularly deep gap between a pair of larger stones.

  Gideon leaned closer, Lucy right over his shoulder. Sure enough, more than a foot below the surface of the pile of rocks was a gleam of gold. The gap it had fallen down was too narrow for even a child to reach their arm in to retrieve it. A bundle of desiccated cloth beneath that seemed to prove that the ring was resting on a corpse.

  “Have you tried moving the stones just a little?” Lucy asked. It was the same question Gideon would have asked.

  A few of the children backed away at the suggestion. “What if whoever is buried in there reached up and grabbed you if you did?” one of them asked.

  Gideon tried not to smile at the juvenile fear. There were plenty of other, legitimate reasons not to disturb a grave like this, though. If it was new and if whoever was buried there had died of disease, exhuming them could spread infection. Even if it was years old, there was the matter of respect for the dead to consider.

  Respect for the dead. Gideon stood straight, swallowing the lump in his throat. His stomach turned. What kind of respect had they shown for those that they’d killed? Scattering them across a battlefield? Making it look like they’d been shot so that their families would believe they died as heroes? Where was the respect in that?

  “Gideon?”

  Lucy’s gentle touch on his arm jerked him out of his memories. The concern in her eyes pushed him to find something else to think about that would draw attention away from his guilt fast.

  “We could construct something to extract the ring from between the stones,” he said in a rush.

  Several set of children’s and adult eyes snapped to him. He only hoped they only saw what was on the surface.

  “Like a fishing hook?” one of the children asked.

  Gideon tilted his head to the side. “More like a very small fire iron. Can somebody fetch me a long, thin stick?”

  In an instant, the children scattered to look for the stick and a list of other items they might find lying out on the prairie. Gideon studied the placement of the ring as they fetched things. As the children returned with sticks, bits of strings, and fishing hooks, more adults wandered over to investigate, including the ring’s owner.

  “That little thief,” the ring’s owner, a middle-aged man with a scraggly beard, barked.

  “I didn’t mean nothing by it, Mr. Poole,” Alvin made his excuse. “I just wanted to take a look at it in the sunlight and show it to Miss Lucy.”

  “I’m very sorry,” Lucy added. “I didn’t know. I would have told him not to.” She closed a protective arm around Alvin’s shoulders.

  Mr. Poole grumbled, but any further protest he would have mounted was cut off as Gideon finished putting together his hook. “Let’s just see if this works,” he said.

  Lucky for him and for Alvin, the hook worked like a charm. Within seconds, Gideon was able to fish into the split between the rocks, catch hold of the ring without disturbing whatever it sat on, and draw it up to safety. He plucked it off of the hook once it was rescued to take a look.

  “Oh, it is beautiful,” Lucy observed beside him. “How lovely.”

  The ring was simple—a gold band set with a pink stone. It could have been some sort of pale ruby, or perhaps another gem. The gold was carved with tiny leaves, giving the gem the appearance of a rose. Gideon couldn’t resist handing it to Lucy to try on.

  It was no surprise to him that as soon as she took it from him, she slid it onto the third finger of her left hand. Yes, fate had pretty much sealed itself there.

  “Can Miss Lucy have it?” Alvin asked.

  Mr. Poole frowned. “I won that ring in St. Louis, fair and square. It’ll fetch a good price out in Denver City. So no, no she can’t have it.”

  “Of course not,” Lucy said, removing the ring. She handed it back to Mr. Poole, a little too disappointed for Gideon’s liking.

  He thought of the satchel of cash back in his wagon, of his need to get rid of all of it. Poole looked like the sort who would accept a decent price without question. It wouldn’t take much.

  “Come on, folks, we’re moving out,” Pete called from behind them.

  The group around the rocks straightened and stood, rushing back to their wagons to continue the day’s journey.

  “Thank you for retrieving the ring,” Lucy told him as they started toward the train. She punctuated her comment by lifting to her toes and pecking his cheek.

  Heaven help him, Gideon wanted more.

  Across the distance, he caught Pete’s laughing grin. Yes, all signs pointed toward the altar. It was all just a matter of how long it would take to get there.

  Chapter Six

  The wagon train stopped for an extra day that Sunday. Lucy was ready for a break. The long walk across the flat prairie was not proving to be as dangerous as she had hoped it would be, but it certainly had been interesting. She paused in the middle of setting up chairs, barrels, and benches for Olivia’s trail school in the field beside the rutted path, across from where the wagons were clustered, and raised a hand to her forehead to look back the way th
ey’d come.

  It hardly seemed possible that the journey she was on had changed her life so drastically from what it had been in the East, and in just a few weeks. She had friends now, she had opportunities to be helpful, and she had Gideon.

  “Maybe I can construct something that you could use as a blackboard,” Gideon told Olivia as he stood near the front of the benches, scratching his head. “I doubt we’ll be able to find a piece of slate that’s big enough or that could withstand the rattling of the wagons along the trail, but something should do.”

  “Thank you, Gideon.” Olivia sorted through the short stack of hand-sized slates she’d brought with her. “I suppose these will do for now.”

  “We don’t have to actually learn anything out here, do we?” Young Freddy Chance made a face as he and his sister, Muriel, plopped onto one of the benches near the front.

  “Yeah. My Pa said learnin’ can wait until we get settled in Oregon,” one of the McGovern boys agreed.

  “It doesn’t matter where you are or what you’re doing, you will always be surrounded by opportunities to learn,” Olivia told them.

  “Well said,” Charlie added, strolling into the makeshift school. He marched straight up to a red-faced Olivia and kissed her on the cheek.

  Lucy giggled, slapping a hand over her mouth to hide the reaction for Olivia’s sake. Wedding or no wedding, Olivia was still muddled over Charlie, and not in a bad way. Lucy stole a sideways glance to Gideon to see what he thought.

  Gideon was watching her, a distant grin battling with something more worrisome, almost painful. She’d caught him with that look a few times in the last several days, since she’d slipped and told him about her family’s troubles. And then there was that moment with the ring. When he’d handed it to her, she thought her heart might leap out of her throat or fail altogether. How lovely would it be to have Gideon give her a ring in earnest?