Authors: The Searching Hearts
Dorothy Garlock (6 page)
“Maybe. But between now and supper I’ve got to work on that journal.”
“How many steps to the next wagon, Tucker? I’ll walk along here until Lottie comes back.”
“About twenty-five steps from the back of ours. Here’s your cane. The ground is uneven, so be careful.” Tucker handed her the walking stick and watched pensively for a moment as Laura walked away, tapping the cane in front of her.
Inside the wagon Tucker got out a bound book, pen, and ink, and settled down to write.
April 16, 1859.
My name is Tucker Houston and today we started our journey to California. At dawn we left our camp on the Trinity River, a mile from Fort Worth, and set a fast pace in a southwesterly direction. There are nineteen women and three children in our party. I will list their names and ages, also the names of the men accompanying us, below this entry. Our train is made up of ten covered wagons, two supply wagons, and a grub wagon. Mr. Lucas Steele is in charge of this expedition, and Mr. Buck Garrett is the scout. Mr. Steele rides at the head of the column and at times down the line of wagons trying to keep them close together. Today we traveled over rolling prairie land and crossed one creek, the name of which I will
supply later as well as the name of the creek where we are camped for the night.
supply later as well as the name of the creek where we are camped for the night.
* * *
Tucker read through the entry and closed the journal. She would have liked to add that she was dead tired and not at all sure she had done the right thing in bringing Laura into this rugged and untamed land. But she knew the journal was meant to be a strictly factual account of their journey.
She stretched her arms high over her head. She ached in spots she hadn’t even known she had. Before leaving the wagon, she brushed her stubborn hair and firmly twisted it into a burnished copper knot on the top of her head.
The banging on the iron kettle announced supper just as she was stepping down from the wagon. She looked around for Laura and found her talking to the tall, dark-haired woman who drove the wagon behind them. “Laura,” she called to let her know she was coming for her.
“Come meet Marie and Billy, Tucker.”
“Hello,” Tucker said and smiled, but when the woman didn’t smile back Tucker thought, who cares, I’m tired, too.
“Hello,” she finally responded in a voice that was low and cultured.
Tucker smiled at the boy. “I bet he’s a big help to you.”
“He is.”
Tucker decided the woman wasn’t going to say
anything else, so she took Laura’s hand and they walked toward the cook wagon.
anything else, so she took Laura’s hand and they walked toward the cook wagon.
The daylight disappeared while they ate, replaced by the tongues of color licking up from the glowing logs of the campfire into the surrounding darkness. Most of the women were resting beside their wagons, the two with children were putting them to sleep. Laura and Tucker sat on a quilt and listened to the crackle of the fire. The warmth was inviting and the smell of the smoke was pleasant, but Laura was tired.
“Did Lottie come back, Tucker?”
“No. And I don’t see her at the cook wagon.”
“I heard the men come in to eat. Are they still there?”
“There’s no one around the cook wagon. Everyone must be as tired as I am.” She shivered and hugged herself with her arms. “I’m starting to get cold, too. How about you?”
“So am I. And tired. But Mr. Steele said he would bring you the map. Do you want me to wait up with you?”
Tucker got to her feet, stiff and sore. “No, you go on to bed. I’ll see if I can find him.”
She stepped over the wagon tongue and walked alongside the outer circle of the wagons. The ground was uneven, and in her tiredness she stumbled once or twice. She could see the light of the drovers’ fire ahead and their shadowy figures around it, but before she reached it she saw, silhouetted by the red glow, a tall figure coming toward her. She recognized the lithely moving man instantly. Walking close beside
him was a woman. An overwhelming desire to melt into the darkness gripped her. She bitterly regretted her impulsive decision to come looking for him. Uncertainty delayed her until it was too late to do anything but stand and wait.
him was a woman. An overwhelming desire to melt into the darkness gripped her. She bitterly regretted her impulsive decision to come looking for him. Uncertainty delayed her until it was too late to do anything but stand and wait.
The woman had her hand on Lucas’s arm. “Thank you, Mr. Steele,” she was murmuring.
“Go on over to her wagon. Mrs. Hook will see that you get settled in.” The shadow that was his face turned to Tucker. “We have another name to add to the list, Miss Houston. Cora Lee Watson. I’m putting her in with Mrs. Hook and her boy for the time being.”
Cora Lee was still standing very close to Lucas and looking up into his face. “Where will I find Mrs. Hook?”
“Over there.” He pointed toward the right wagon. “Lottie already went ahead to talk to her.”
“Thank you again,” she said with a soft purr, and Tucker could almost see the demure sweep of her lashes. “’Night.”
“’Night.” Lucas watched her as she walked away. “How did it go for you today, Red?”
The tone of his voice nipped at her temper, which was already aroused by her indecision and discomfort, and she clenched her teeth together angrily.
“Well enough,” she snapped. “I came for the map.”
He took her arm and propelled her toward a clump of trees. “I said I’d bring it to you.”
“When? Midnight?” She tried to pull her elbow from his grasp, but his fingers tightened.
“Couldn’t wait to see me again, huh?”
His teasing made her writhe in helpless fury. “Would you mind letting go of my arm?”
“Make me,” he said in a soft voice deliberately calculated to infuriate her.
“What’s the point? You’re bigger and stronger than I am.”
“Smarter, too.” He knew he was goading her, but couldn’t seem to stop.
“What do you mean by that?” She spun around to face him.
“I know you like my hand on your arm, even if you won’t admit it,” he told her with a flick of his lashes that sent his eyes skimming over her tense, slender body and back to her flaming cheeks.
Tucker stared into his face with bitter distaste. “You’re quite the dandy, aren’t you? You should have a very enjoyable trip to California, but don’t expect me to be any part of your pleasure.”
The gray eyes stared down into hers, narrowed and amused, as though he could read the rebellion inside her head.
“You’re going to be
all
of it, Red.” There was a world of meaning in his voice.
all
of it, Red.” There was a world of meaning in his voice.
“You are out of your mind!” She choked the words out.
“Temper getting away from you?” he teased.
“In about a half a minute you’re really going to feel my temper, because I’m about to lose it!”
He laughed, and hard, brown fingers came up to close around her throat and tilt her head up to him. “I can’t help it, Red. I can’t help teasing you. You rise to the bait like a bear after honey.”
The note of patronizing superiority made her spine prickle the way it had the day they’d met. She started to pull her arms away from his grasp, but it was undignified and humiliating to struggle against his easy strength.
“I don’t like you! I don’t like anything about you.”
“You liked my kiss last night.” He shook her gently.
“I didn’t! I hated it!”
“That’s the second lie you’ve told me. Why did you tell O’Donnell you’re a widow?”
“Because it suited me at the time!”
His hands tightened. The gray eyes were sharp. “Don’t ever lie to me again, Red.” He sucked in a deep breath. “You’ve never had a man, have you.”
Tucker’s face flushed with color. She bit her inner lip. His words were not really a question, and she was startled by her reaction to them. Her stomach tightened with nervous apprehension at the open mention of such intimacy. It was merely a form of tension she had not felt before, she told herself, but it made her strangely uneasy. It threatened the safety of the guard she had had to place around her feelings.
“Sit with me while I smoke.”
The gentle request caught her unaware, and she moved with him to a downed tree trunk. The constant sniping at each other was tiring, and her heart was beating twice as fast as it should have been. It was a
relief to get off her shaky legs, and she let out a sigh as she sank onto the log.
relief to get off her shaky legs, and she let out a sigh as she sank onto the log.
“Tired?” Lucas asked as he began to construct a smoke between long, slim fingers.
“I expect I’ll get used to it.”
The match flared and he held it between cupped hands until it blazed, then raised it to the cigarette in his mouth. The light outlined his face and turned it into a bronze mask.
Far too handsome, Tucker thought. Her eyes clung to the smooth skin and hard cheekbones. Suddenly she felt an inchoate fear of this man, a fear of the completeness she felt when she was with him. She wanted to rid herself of the sensation. The black lashes lifted and the gray eyes looked into hers. Oh, my God! Why was she being so docile? Why was she sitting here?
He blew out the match. “Don’t run, Red.”
Did he know her every thought? Her green eyes were bits of sparkling ice. “It’s impossible to like you,” she spat at him.
“You were thinking about hightailing it.”
“Run? From you? Why would I run? I’m not your prisoner.”
“No.” He began to laugh, shifting the lines in his face. “We sure strike sparks off each other, don’t we, Red?”
In spite of her determination not to, she laughed. “I guess so. But for some reason you make me . . . mad!”
“Yeah, I guess I do.” The laughter was still in his
voice. “Have you ever had a smoke?” He drew deeply on the cigarette and the end flared briefly.
voice. “Have you ever had a smoke?” He drew deeply on the cigarette and the end flared briefly.
“No!”
“Want to try a puff?”
“No.” She shook her head vigorously.
“There’ve been a few times in my life when I would have given a year of it for a smoke.” He held the cigarette between his thumb and forefinger and held it toward her mouth. “Try it, it’s sometimes relaxing. Draw the smoke into your mouth, but don’t let it go down your throat.”
She put her hand on his wrist and bent her head until her lips found the end of the cigarette. It was damp from his lips. The shock of finding it so—and the sudden realization of what she was doing—caused her to draw in more smoke than she intended to. She coughed, her eyes watered, and his hand moved down her back, gently thumping.
“You got too much. Want to try again?”
She shook her head and coughed again. Remotely, as if she watched another person, Tucker registered the fact that she was sitting in the dark with a strange man and had taken a puff from his cigarette. For the rest of her life she was to remember this moment, but for now she was consumed with a variety of emotions: guilt, for the surge of joy that went through her; fright, because what she was experiencing was so strange; and regret, because she didn’t know how to handle her feelings.
“You feel it, too.” Ordinarily Lucas would not have revealed this crazy thought, but there was
something about her that made him reckless. The words were out and he could not take them back.
something about her that made him reckless. The words were out and he could not take them back.
Tucker tried to absorb what he said. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I believe you do,” he said quietly, his eyes intent on her face.
She felt an unreasonable flash of resentment that he could read her thoughts so clearly. “I must get back. I shouldn’t have come out here.” She got to her feet, feeling giddy and uncertain. “I’ll get the map later.”
He was on his feet, towering above her, and he pulled her into his arms, holding her so tightly she could hardly breathe.
“It’s too soon for you, isn’t it, Red?” he murmured, his voice muffled in her hair. He lifted her chin, forcing her to look at him, and gazed down into her face.
All her newly discovered feelings swirled around inside her until finally they burst from her in the form of a moan. “I don’t understand you!”
“I don’t understand myself, either, Red. I just know that all day I’ve waited for now. I want to kiss you again, hold you again. I’d crawl inside you, if I could.”
“I don’t understand,” she repeated in breathless amazement even as she raised her lips to meet his. There was no thought to what she was doing. Instinct alone guided her. She lifted her hand to the hard contour of his jaw and held it there while the pressure of
his mouth threatened to whisk her into the edge of blackness.
his mouth threatened to whisk her into the edge of blackness.
The bittersweet taste of tobacco on his mouth, the smell of smoke as her nose was pressed against the roughness of his cheek, did nothing to quench the slow-burning fire inside her that kept growing and growing. Finally he dragged his mouth from hers and buried it in the softness beneath her ear.
“Red, Red! Oh, Tucker Red!” His voice was a tormented whisper. His pulse was racing as wildly as hers. His skin was hot to her touch, and the heat seemed to fuse them together. She made not a whimper of protest when his mouth found her parted lips again, and she felt his tongue exploring the inner surfaces. She was enveloped in a whirling velvet mist of sensations. It seemed right and good that his hand was caressing her breasts and her nipples were straining to reach the source of their arousal.
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