A Hero's Heart (9 page)

“The blasted thing is too heavy,” he insisted. “It’s got to go if we’re going to make it across the mountains.”

Rachel felt tears welling up. “No. It was my mother’s.”

Wade grabbed her by the arm and pulled her through the creek, sloshing water past their knees. Out of the water he tugged her up onto the bank, into a small grove of cottonwood trees.

“I told you that instrument or the Bibles would have to go.”

“Don’t make me give it up. I can’t bear to part with it,” she implored.

“Rachel, the animals can’t pull the heavy load. Something has to go. Now choose something or I’m going to pick for you.”

Hot tears scalded her eyes. He was right; she knew it, but the organ had belonged to her mother, the Bibles to her father.

Frustration and anger welled up inside her, combined with her chafing at Wade’s absence of the last two weeks. As defeat and sorrow overwhelmed her, she turned her disappointment on Wade. “Why are you doing this? Can’t you understand how much those things mean to me? Why did I ever let you into my life, Wade Ketchum?”

He stared at her, his emerald eyes soft with an understanding she refused to acknowledge. His voice was tender. “Because you needed me, Rachel. Though your stubborn pride would never admit it.”

She was stunned by his words. Her stubborn pride! The very idea of the man. “I needed my father. Not some two-bit gambler who waltzes in and out of camp just long enough to eat a meal, and then disappear again. Don’t you dare stand there and tell me I’m stubborn, or I’ll rattle off a list of your faults that will keep us here all afternoon.”

“So, you’ve missed me!” he teased.

“I didn’t say that,” Rachel snapped her cheeks reddening.

Wade smiled a confidently, cockily. He stood so close she could see the laugh lines gathering around his eyes. The next thing she knew, he was hauling her in his arms. He pushed back a stray lock of her hair, brushed her cheek with the back of his hand, sending tingles all the way to her toes.

“It’s been hard to sleep beside you each night,” he said so low his voice was almost a whisper.

Rachel’s mouth opened in surprise. He pulled her in tighter. Through her wet, thin petticoat she felt the hard muscles of his thighs pressed against her legs, his rigid manhood solid and hard against her belly. A sliver of fear raced down her spine, mingling with anticipation. She watched as he lowered his lips to hers.

“Why do you make me feel this way, Rachel?”

His lips covered hers, and the anger that had moments before coursed through her veins changed to liquid fire as he caressed first her top, then her bottom lip.

Rachel moaned, amazed that the sound bubbled from her. She loved the way his lips made her feel so warm, so hungry. She wanted him to continue kissing her until… Until what?

She slipped her hand between them and pushed him away. “Wade, stop. We mustn’t.”

He opened his eyes and Rachel shuddered at the passion reflected from their depths. “Why, Rachel?”

“It isn’t proper,” she whispered as she watched his chest rise and fall with ragged breaths. “It isn’t right.”

Wade sighed with frustration and released her, putting distance between the two of them. “It might not be right to your way of thinking, but it feels damn good to me.”

With that, Wade turned and strolled away, leaving Rachel behind in the grove. She had only kissed one other man in her life. And for some reason the memory of Ethan’s kisses didn’t compare to Wade’s.

A sudden noise, the scrape of wood against wood, sent her scurrying from the grove. She ran out just in time to see Wade drop the third box of Bibles on the ground.

“What are you doing?” she cried.

“I’m dumping the Bibles.”

Rachel watched as he went back into the water and sloshed to the wagon to retrieve another box. She chased him into the stream and grabbed at his arm. “Stop. You can’t do this. We must have these Bibles for the church.”

Wade pulled his arm free and climbed back into the wagon. He lifted the box and started to shore. When he reached the bank, he dropped the box onto the ground. Rachel ran to the waterside and tried to lift the heavy box to lug it back to the wagon.

Several wagons pulled up at the edge of the bank to await their turn to cross the small creek. One of the men yelled at Wade, “What’s in those boxes, Ketchum?”

“Bibles.”

Mr. Drake, one of the immigrants, laughed. “Your wife thought she was going to get ’em all the way to Oregon?”

Wade frowned at the man. “My wife’s father was a missionary who was killed on the trail by Indians. He was going out West to start a church.”

The man abruptly quit laughing. Wade popped the wooden lid off the box, reached down and lifted out five of the brand new books.

He handed Drake one of the bibles, “Here, maybe you could use one.”

Exhausted by the strain and emotion, Rachel watched in disbelief as Wade walked down the row of waiting wagons and handed each woman a Bible, coming back to the boxes time and again until he’d emptied every one. From the expressions on their faces, she knew Wade had just won the heart of every female on this train at the expense of her father’s Bibles.

It was hard to accept, but she had to give Wade credit. It was better to give the books to their fellow travelers than to leave them by the trail where they would only rot in the hot sun. They would serve people’s spiritual needs as her father had intended. And at least she still had her mother’s organ.

But Wade’s actions confused Rachel even more. She didn’t know whether to thank him or curse him. Then there was that small part of her that just wanted him to hold her.

* * *

Struggling with the wagon in the mud had already delayed them over an hour. Rachel watched the men gather to help Wade free the wheels.

From the corner of her eye she glimpsed a masculine blonde head bobbing in the crowd. His build caught her attention. Somehow he seemed familiar. She hadn’t seen him previously with the group, and his back was turned to her, but something about the way he carried himself, the shape of his body told her he wasn’t a stranger.

The man turned and headed toward the wagon, and Rachel saw his face clearly for the first time.

She did a double take and stared unable to believe her eyes. For the first time in four long years she gazed in disbelief at the man she had loved so long ago.

“Oh, dear,” she murmured, stunned.

Rachel jumped up, her previous discomforts forgotten as she ran towards the wagon calling, “Ethan Beauchamp, is that you?”

The man stopped. His gaze shifted to Rachel. The clear blue eyes she had cried for stared back at her in disbelief.

“Rachel?”

Ethan ran towards her and grabbed her, sweeping her up in a spin, hugging her regardless of her wet, muddy state.

“Oh, Ethan, it’s been so long. I can’t believe you’re here!”

Chapter Seven

W
ade stared, his jaw clenched. Rachel wrapped her arms around this stranger, hugging him as if he were the prodigal son returned. He watched in irritation as the man stepped back from his wife’s embrace and scrutinized Rachel. Though he couldn’t hear their words, Rachel’s laughter sounded joyous, and her faced beamed, bright with excitement.

Wade had never seen her truly happy. It rankled him that another man had brought that smile to her face.

He tried to tell himself that he wasn’t jealous, that he didn’t want any gossip or speculation about their marriage. But damn, he didn’t like this man pawing Rachel.

A loud splash drew Wade’s attention from the couple, and he watched in disbelief as the priggish Miss Becky waded through the creek as fast as her long, wet skirts allowed. When she reached the happy couple, she stepped between Rachel and the man to throw herself in his arms. Whoever he was, both women were delighted to see him.

The women hooked their arms in the man’s and proceeded to the bank, where Wade purposely positioned himself. Rachel demurely met his gaze, her hazel eyes uncertain, as her hand rested in the crook of the man’s arm.

She cleared her throat nervously. “Wade, I’d like you to meet a friend from home. Ethan Beauchamp.”

The name hit him like a fist in the face. Wade struggled to remain nonchalant in front of the man whose name Rachel had murmured that night when she’d kissed him by the fire.

The insidious cord of jealousy wound its way around Wade’s heart, strangling the organ. The urge to throttle the man was strong. But instead he offered Ethan his hand. “I’m Rachel’s husband, Wade Ketchum.”

Ethan turned to Rachel, clearly ignoring Wade. “You’re married! Why didn’t you tell me?”

A blush stained Rachel’s face.”It’s only been two weeks. We were married in Fort Laramie.”

It had been difficult for her to say those words, her yearning to tell Ethan the truth all too clear.

The man turned back to Wade, and shook his outstretched hand, his grip soft but firm. “Ethan Beauchamp. Nice to meet the man who stole these two lovely ladies from me.”

Wade nodded in acknowledgement while he scrutinized Ethan.

“Well, you’re not the only ones with news. I, too, got married before heading out West,” Ethan proclaimed.

Wade thought he was going to have to hold up both women as they absorbed this new information. Becky dropped Ethan’s arm as if it were a red-hot poker, and Rachel’s turned whiter than the snow-topped Rockies.

Rachel gulped. “How nice.”

The stunned look on Becky’s face dissipated, only to be replaced with a pout. “Whom did you marry, Ethan?”

“Someone you’ve never met. Her name is Mary,” he replied.

“My my, you always were impulsive.” Becky glared at Ethan with open hostility. “I guess we just weren’t good enough.”

He reached out and lifted Rachel’s hand to his lips. “Oh no. I never forgot my two favorite girls. But it’s a lonely life being a circuit preacher, and I couldn’t bear to be alone.”

Wade snorted with disgust. Did women really fall for this sappy foolishness?

“We’d better get that wagon moved, so the rest of these people can cross,” Wade said, ready to be rid of Mr. Beauchamp. Of all the people in the world, he had to wind up traveling with Rachel’s old beau.

* * *

“Rachel, I’d like you to meet my wife, Mary,” Ethan said later that night. Rachel set her sewing aside, and stood up to greet the petite woman with a cherubic face.

Her sweet smile, blonde curls and sapphire eyes gave her the look of an angel. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Ketchum.”

She couldn’t have been much older than Becky, Rachel thought, watching her stand in the flickering firelight, expectant and unsure, while Ethan disappeared to speak with the rest of the men.

The two women eyed each other dubiously. “Please, call me Rachel. While the men go off to talk business, why don’t you sit here with me beside the fire?”

Rachel had been prepared to dislike Ethan’s wife, to resent the woman who had taken the place she had once hoped to occupy. But it wasn’t Mary’s fault Rachel’s father had objected to her marrying Ethan. It wasn’t Mary’s fault fate had ended their courting.

“Thank you. I thought it so gallant of your husband to give the women Bibles this afternoon. I know you didn’t want to lose them, but you must be awfully proud of him.”

A twinge of guilt pricked Rachel. “Yes, it was better than leaving them to rot by the trail.”

“I made a note in mine, so that my great-grandchildren will look back and see his name,” Mary proudly proclaimed. “Your husband must be a wonderful man.”

Rachel picked up the sewing that she’d momentarily laid in her lap. “He’s…unique.”

Every woman on the train must think that Wade a hero for giving out the Bibles, but none of them knew he was really a bullheaded gambler down on his luck, who had taken her and the children under his wing. The only reason Wade had agreed to their proposition was money.

Mary took out her own needlework and sat on the stool beside Rachel’s rocker. “How long have you been married?”

Rachel bit her tongue, trying to control the sense of uneasiness that question always seem to bring. She gazed intently at the button she was stitching on Toby’s shirt. “We were married a little over two weeks ago, in Fort Laramie.”

“Oh, my! How exciting!” Mary exclaimed. “Ethan and I have been married for six months.”

Rachel lifted her head to gaze at Mary, her curiosity overcoming her. “Where did you meet Ethan?”

A tender smile graced Mary’s delicate face. “At a church social. He was the visiting preacher. We had a whirlwind courtship, and two weeks later we were married.”

“You married him two weeks after you met him?” Rachel exclaimed.

A soft smile touched Mary’s lips. “It was rather sudden, but as a missionary, he would be leaving to continue his work. I had to go with him.”

Rachel frowned. Ethan had been visiting her father’s church when they’d fallen in love. Yet he’d left Rachel after her father found them kissing. Had she misconstrued their relationship four years ago, or did he find a woman at every church he visited?