The Pursuit of Tamsen Littlejohn (31 page)

Tamsen poised the rag again. “Why are you sorry?”

“You were right about me. I tried so hard to hate you, to make you look small in Jesse’s eyes. I
am
sorry. I know I said it weeks ago, but I mean it now.”

At the mention of Jesse, Tamsen closed her eyes, yearning to be near him, to see to his injuries, or relieve herself if they were only minor. She sent half her attention back through the cabin, out to where he and Cade stood under the eave, sheltered from the rain, talking in low tones. Giving her and Bethany privacy. Was Cade explaining his long absence? Or were they discussing the Trimbles and what had just happened? A violation of Bethany, but also this cabin. This home.
Her home
.

She let that notion wrap itself around her heart.

“I know,” she said. Bethany looked at her, uncertain. “How about we put that behind us and start fresh?” It mightn’t have been the best way to phrase the question. Bethany started crying again.

“Did he rape you?” Tamsen asked softly.

Bethany made a face, like she might be sick. Tamsen put a hand to the basin, ready for it, but the girl firmed her broken mouth. “Jesse got him off me in time.” She shot a glance at the door. “I don’t want to see him.”

“Who?” Did she think Dominic was out there still? He was long gone, bloodied and battered and cursing Jesse all the way, while Cade, still down the slope on his horse, kept that rifle trained until he’d mounted his horse and ridden after his brother. “Who don’t you want to see?”

“Jesse.”

The whispered answer surprised Tamsen. “All right. I’ll help get you home.”

Bethany shook her head. “Pa’s away hunting, but I don’t want to see Mama either. I just want to die!” She ended in a wail, and Tamsen didn’t know what to do except take the girl in her arms and cry with her, thinking of a mountain clearing and an unbearable weight of grief, and a young man with his head on his knees praying over what to do for her.

She let Bethany sniffle and cry into her hair until the girl was done, then asked, “Do you want to stay here in this room with me tonight?”

“Could I?” It came out a little sob.

Tamsen stroked the sleek blond hair she’d helped brush into order. “Of course. Don’t you worry about a thing. I’ll bring you in some supper later. Jesse shot a goose today.”

“And rescued another.” Bethany pulled away, hands falling into her lap to twist the blanket. “I came here thinking to see if … Oh, I don’t even remember now what I had in mind, but there they were, those two, riding up the creek trail. Should’ve turned around and gone back home the second I saw them, but I thought … Jesse might be jealous if he found me here with them flirting … I been so
stupid
. He’ll always be faithful to you.”

Tamsen’s mouth fell open … and just in time she remembered. Bethany didn’t know the truth.

He’ll always be faithful …

She managed a smile for the girl. The very worst hadn’t happened;
they could be thankful for that. But when Tate Allard saw his daughter’s face, worse might yet come of it.

Bethany seemed to be listening to the low murmurs drifting through the darkening cabin. “Cade’s back. That’s good, right? Y’all been worried about him.”

“Yes, we have been.” Tamsen had crossed the mountains to escape one encompassing worry but seemed to have gained a whole new set besides. Jesse had gotten himself wound around her heart so tight that she didn’t know where her concerns ended and his began. Maybe they were one and the same now. But were the two of them twice as burdened, or twice as strong to face it all?

“I should go speak to them. Let them know you’re staying. Will you be all right if I leave you for a bit?”

Bethany lay down on the tick, pulling the blanket across herself. “All right. Just don’t shut the door.”

Cade was changed. Something in his spirit was lighter, though he’d avoided explaining where on earth he’d been so many days. He’d stabled his horse, unloaded a pack of fresh hides—proof he’d spent at least part of the time hunting—and was leaning now in the cabin doorway while the rain tapered off in the yard and dusk crept up from the creek.

Jesse leaned opposite, watching the clouded night steal in, glancing aside at his pa as their conversation drifted along. Even the scene he’d come home to hadn’t ruffled Cade, once he knew Jesse and Bethany hadn’t come to any lasting hurt. Jesse’s jaw was bruised. He’d be sporting a black eye for White Shell’s wedding. But he’d given worse than he’d got.

“Thanks for bringing that goose up.” He nodded at it lying against the doorstep. “I best get to plucking it. Tamsen will want to get it over the fire.”

Cade’s brows rose. “Her cooking’s improved, I take it?”

“Practice makes perfect,” Tamsen said close behind them. “Tolerable, anyway.”

Jesse turned to see her standing in the fire’s light, hair down and shadowing her shoulders, brow furrowed as she took in his face.

“Jesse …” She lifted a hand to his temple and stroked down along the side of his face to his jaw, where Dominic’s fist had caught him hard.

The touch left him breathless. He took her hand and gave it a squeeze, feeling Cade’s eyes on him as he forced himself to let her go and step back. “Looks worse than it is. How’s Beth?”

“She wants to stay here tonight. I told her she could.”

“Doesn’t she want to be home?”

“I think …” Tamsen lowered her voice, glancing shyly at Cade. “She’s not ready to face anyone just yet. She’ll go home tomorrow.”

“I’ll head over,” Cade said. “Tell Janet what happened. She’ll be worried Beth’s not come home.”

“Thanks, Pa.”

“Yes,” Tamsen said. “Thank you. Will you tell Janet I’m looking after Bethany and to come over in the morning when she can? And Cade … it’s good to see you. I’m very thankful for your timely return.”

Cade pushed off the doorframe, holding her gaze. Tamsen met it, though Jesse read uncertainty in her eyes. Cade looked down at her, and for the first time Jesse could ever recall, smiled at her. “You look well. Better than he does,” he added, with a teasing nod at Jesse.

Tamsen’s face fell blank, then slowly her mouth curved in an answering smile so full and sweet Jesse’s whole body responded in a riot of longing he could barely restrain.

One smile from her had him more rattled than an all-out brawl with Dominic Trimble.

“At my best she does, Pa. Go on over the ridge. We’ll talk more later.” He spoke lightly enough, but he was thinking Cade had got himself home
just in time to save him utterly failing to keep that vow he’d made to their preacher.

Jesse watched him go through the tapering-off rain. The storm had been brief, violent, but the earth was giving back its cool breath in a mist gathering along the creek, the smell of soaking leaves. Night coming down. The peace flooding over him now made what happened in the dooryard scarce an hour since seem hard to credit, were it not for his throbbing face and half a dozen other aches taken limb to limb.

“Jesse?”

He looked at Tamsen, taking in her tired eyes, her worried brow. “She really all right? He didn’t …”

She shook her head. “She’s upset and hurt, all the same.” Her lower lip quivered, and the distress that wracked her face cut him to the soul.

“Are you all right?” he asked her, but even as he was speaking, she’d walked straight into his arms, wrapped hers around his waist, still wet from the rain, and heaved a sob against his chest. He swallowed back a groan and stroked her hair, whispered her name, but didn’t try to stop her crying.

Finally she said into his chest, “Was it our fault?”

He leaned back, sliding his hands around to cradle her face. “What?”

She didn’t lift her gaze. “She’s been flirting with Dominic trying to make you jealous.”

He pressed her head against his chest, where it rested as snug as if she’d been made to put it there. “She may be young, but Beth’s old enough to be accountable for her actions.”

He felt her heave a sigh against him and held her tighter.

“Lord,” he said, and it was a prayer. “I’m sorry as I can be this happened, and we’re asking You to set it right. Protect that girl in there and heal her, body and soul.”
Protect this woman in my arms
, he added silently. “Amen.”

“Amen,” she said and pulled back, but not far, still touching him. “Thank you, Jesse.”

He wanted badly to go on holding her, but he put her from him gently, firmly, worried she’d think he was trying to take advantage. Worried he might do so. It was near dark now, the only light that from the cabin spilling out. No stars. No moon.

She looked at him, eyes dark and fathomless as the heavens. “It was
One Thousand and One Nights
.”

He stared, understanding the words plain but finding no context for them. He opened his mouth to say something full of brains and dazzle like “Huh?” but she’d already read his confusion.

“That’s the first book ever read to me,” she said. “You asked, remember? I used to pretend that Mama was Scheherazade.”

A venison ham roasted on the spit. Tamsen, seated on a bench drawn near, kept a close eye on it. The other eye was on the cloak spread across her lap. It was uncomfortably warm thus, but soon enough she would appreciate the rabbit fur lining she was stitching to the garment’s inner side.

Jesse had given her the pelts. In the morning, he and Cade were leaving for Chota. They were gone now to the Allards’, taking the extra horses and the cow to stable. Tate was back home and promising to stay close while Cade and Jesse were away. He’d spent the past two days hunting the Trimbles, who’d abandoned their cabin near Sycamore Shoals and lit out for parts unknown, no doubt anticipating his wrath.

Alone with the door open, Tamsen glanced with longing at the sunlight streaming in. It would be easier to see her work outside, but she was determined not to budge from the hearth and risk burning the last meal she would make for Jesse. At least for a fortnight.

Holding up the cloak to the firelight, she examined her work with satisfaction. If not for variations in the small pelts, it would have appeared a solid fur.

She’d begun the task after supper the previous night. With Jesse out tending stock, it had been the first time she and Cade were alone in the cabin since his return. He’d sat at the table, rifle across his knees, cleaning the weapon with a rag and grease, pausing now and then to peer through the spectacles set across the bridge of his nose at the Bible open on the boards, illumined by taper-light.

Despite the spectacles, she’d had to remind herself that Cade was only
half Delaware. Apart from his eyes, his white blood hardly showed. At least to her, who’d never seen a full-blooded Indian that she could recall. Surely such a one couldn’t look more fierce than Cade. She’d dropped her gaze to her sewing, wondering what he thought of her now. Was he resigned to her presence?

“Jesse tells me you’ve a keen eye.”

She’d jerked her gaze up to find Cade no longer attending to rifle or Bible but to her. She glanced quickly at the pistol on the table, waiting its turn with rag and grease. “So he tells me too.”

Cade studied her in silence, then said, “When Thunder-Going asked us to come to Chota, none of us knew our paths would cross with yours. If it troubles you to be parted from Jesse, I’ll go alone.”

With all her heart she wanted that. “I don’t want that,” she said. “I’m fine staying with the Allards for a spell.”

They’d talked about it, she and Jesse. Cade, he’d told her, had been in Sycamore Shoals before coming home. There’d been no fresh word of an eastern merchant searching for an abducted stepdaughter. Winter wasn’t far off. Soon snow would seal off the mountains, sundering east from west, making travel between a hardship she doubted her stepfather would risk. Dared she hope that he’d returned to Charlotte Town … that he’d never find her … that he’d never seek to harm Jesse for helping her escape?

If only there was something she could do to lift this burden of
not knowing
.

The crinkle of turning pages joined the fire’s fluttering. Just when she’d thought Cade had gone back to reading, he’d spoken again. “I’ve something to say to you. Will you hear it?”