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  She glowered with narrowed eyes. “Never mind, Mr. Cooper, everything seemed to be in order, so there’s no reason to continue this discussion. Would you like something to eat? I have some biscuits and leftover bacon from breakfast.”

  He grinned and shifted his position, wincing with pain. “That would be just fine, ma’am. I’m sorry, but I don’t reckon I know your name. Ezra just told me they were taking me to a wagon to travel in until I could ride again.” He attempted to prop himself up on one elbow, but re-settled himself instead.

  Blowing out her breath, she answered. “My name is Emma Thorpe, Mr. Cooper.”

  As she fixed a sandwich of bacon and biscuits for both of them, she studied Davis Cooper under half closed eyelids. Even though stretched out, she noted his long frame, and powerful thighs. His strong jaw had a slight cleft in the center, below a pleasing face. Curly brown hair fell over his collar in the back, and dusted his broad forehead. The buttons of his brown wool shirt pulled tightly over a muscular chest, the bandages causing extra bulk. For the first time she wondered what his injuries were.

  Afraid of being caught staring, Emma shook her head, and continued to busy herself with the meal preparations.

  Davis closed his eyes briefly. “I’m sorry, ma’am, it was your husband that got killed by the horses, wasn’t it?” He again attempted to raise himself up on one elbow and succeeded.

  “Yes, Mr. Cooper, I am–was–Peter’s wife.” Tears welled in her eyes again. Before they could spill over, she moved away. “Now we better get us some food before the wagons start up again.”

  Joshua poked his head into the back of the wagon, and after conferring with her patient, helped him up and out of the wagon. Sweat beaded Davis’s forehead as he climbed out, his face riddled with pain. Emma placed her palms on her heated cheeks when she realized they were going off into the bushes. How was she ever going to continue this trip with a total stranger doing personal things practically in front of her eyes?

  The sound of female voices caught her attention. Sarah, with Stephen settled securely on her hip, walked alongside Elizabeth as they moved down the line, heading in Emma’s direction. The little boy rested his head on his mother’s shoulder, and slipped a small thumb into his rosebud mouth. Sarah slid the baby down and handed him a biscuit. They all settled on the soft grass alongside Emma’s wagon, the women tucking their skirts under them.

  “How are things going?” Sarah pulled Stephen toward her, and sat him on her lap. “Is Mr. Davis behaving himself?”

  “Mr. Cooper hasn’t done much of anything except sleep. It turns out his name is Davis Cooper, not Mr. Davis.” Pulling her knees up, she wrapped her arms around her legs, and leaning her chin on her knees, studied the women. “I don’t know if I can do this. After all, Mr. Cooper will be sleeping right above me, and he’s a stranger! I think Ezra needs to find somewhere else to put him.”

  “That’s probably not going to work.” Elizabeth shook her head. “Every other wagon is carrying more than one person, and loaded to the limit. I know because Jeb has been asking around. As much as I hate to say it, yours is the only wagon he can travel in.”

  Emma banged her fist on her upraised knee. “It’s not my fault my husband was killed! Why should I be made to take care of the man who wasn’t?”

  Sarah and Elizabeth quickly glanced down, suddenly interested in what little Stephen was doing.

  Noting their discomfort, she glanced over her shoulder to see Davis hanging onto Joshua, walking slowly as they returned from their visit to the bushes. Emma felt the heat rise once again to her face as she looked at Davis. But instead of appearing angry, he looked at Emma with sympathy.

  To cover her embarrassment, Emma stood and left the group for her own visit to the bushes. She grumbled all the way. She didn’t want that man’s sympathy. Truth be known, she wanted to hate him. Hate the fact that he was alive and Peter wasn’t.

  When Emma returned, Elizabeth and Sarah had left, and Joshua waited for her.

  “Ma’am, Ezra asked me to walk with y’all this afternoon to take some of the burden off you.” Joshua took hold of the oxen and added, “Why don’t y’all climb up into the wagon and ride for a bit this afternoon?”

  * * *

  They had barely begun to move when Davis felt the wagon dip with Emma’s entrance. He kept his eyes closed, trying to identify the sounds as she moved around, and eventually settled across from him.

  He opened his eyes and studied her as she waved her bonnet slowly in front of her face.

  Emma Thorpe would be a pretty woman if she didn’t always look annoyed, scared or embarrassed. She had beautiful light brown curly hair that refused to stay tucked into her bonnet. Her changeable eyes appeared hazel right now, but earlier they had more of a green hue to them. She had a full lower lip, high cheekbones and a smattering of freckles across her nose.

  Although of a slim frame, her breasts were full enough to please any man. The apron tied around her small waist gave way to full hips and what he would bet were long slender legs. In all she made a lovely looking companion for him while he recovered. Too bad she most likely wished he’d been killed instead of her husband.

  He cleared his throat. “Can I trouble you for another drink of water? If you’ll fetch the canteen from my saddlebags, there’s some left in there. I know you can’t get to your water barrel with the wagon moving.”

  “Certainly.” She flushed as she fumbled with the saddlebag, yanking things out and stuffing them back until she found the canteen.

  She unscrewed the top, and handed it to him. When he continued to stare at her, a slight smile on his lips, she sighed and placed her cool hands behind his neck to lift his head so he could drink.

  “Thank you, ma’am, I appreciate it.”

  “Well, Mr. Cooper, I’ll leave you to get your rest.” She climbed over boxes and barrels and left through the front opening, the wooden seat creaking as she settled there.

  Davis swayed with the movement of the wagon. Hopefully, he wouldn’t be troubling this woman for long. Never one to be comfortable lying around, he already felt restless in his first day of recovering from his injuries. He hadn’t been badly hurt, certainly, not as badly as Peter Thorpe had been, but riding a horse was out of the question for a couple more days with his damage ribs.

  He shook his head when he thought about Emma being on her own now. A wagon train was no place for a widowed woman. And this woman’s slight build could never handle the rigors of the trail.

  The rumbling of the wagons together with the clanking of pots and pans lulled him. His thoughts turned to his jumpy nurse. He grinned as he realized he obviously was the one who made her anxious. He had seen her talk with Ezra, Joshua and Jeb in a sane, rational manner, but every time she had to look at him she flushed red, stuttered, and began that nervous habit of picking at her clothes.

  Davis struggled to get more comfortable. Unfortunately there wasn’t any easier position for him. The doctor with the wagon train who had tended his injuries said his ribs were bruised, along with cuts, scrapes and other slashes all over his body. Peter Thorpe had taken the worst of it when that horse went wild. Davis was damn lucky to be alive, and he knew it.

  Thinking about how close he came to dying, he considered Peter and the cute little wife he’d left behind. Although everyone was aware there were plenty of dangers on these trips, it rattled the group to lose someone so soon into the journey.

  He smiled to himself when he thought of Emma going through his saddlebags looking for “spirits.” He had been awake and listening to her conversation with Ezra. She may have been embarrassed when he called her on it, but she certainly didn’t back down. The woman had a bit of spirit herself.

  Now that he knew her identity, he recalled a rumor that Thorpe’s wife was a bit of a princess. She apparently didn’t want to leave her home in Indiana, and her husband had pretty much dragged her along. Talk was she’d been too attached to her parents.

  Thinking of Emma’s parent
s had his mind drifting back to the last time he saw his own mother. She and his little sister, Jenny, dressed in a yellow flowered calico dress with two long braids hanging down her back, had been swinging hands, climbing the stairs to their small farmhouse. Davis had waved as he’d headed to town to take care of bank business.

  Stuart Granger had not been just the banker in the small town; he and Davis had been best friends. They had grown up together, wandering the woods near their homes, chasing small animals and each other. They’d swum in the lake, fished in the summer, and skated on the frozen pond in the winter. As the years went by their focus had shifted from chasing small animals to pursuing the pretty young girls in town.

  Davis had made the trip to the bank alone because he hadn’t wanted his mother to know about the financial problems that forced him to ask for a loan. If he didn’t get the money from the bank, the farm could go under and he had no idea how to tell his mother the house her husband had built with his own two hands when they were first married would be sold out from under her. She had barely recovered from his death merely six months before.

  Located in west North Carolina, the Cooper farm had been small, with all the effort going into growing vegetables for the market, as well as selling eggs from the chickens and milk from a few cows. Two years of bad weather had resulted in poor vegetable crops and the death of one of the cows had added to their losses.

  During a heated conversation between the two men over the unlikelihood of Davis securing a loan, a young boy raced past the bank, his hands cupped over his mouth as he shouted “fire.”

  The smell of smoke had greeted Stuart and Davis as they stepped through the bank’s doors onto the boardwalk. “That smoke’s coming from my direction,” Davis yelled as he vaulted onto his horse.

  He’d raced the distance between town and his home. The dusty road leading up to the farm had already swarmed with neighbors, hauling water in pails from the nearby creek. A line had formed from the creek to the barn, with men, women and children passing buckets. He’d jerked the reins and slid off his horse. Black dense smoke poured out of the barn, and flames shot up into the sky.

  Someone shouted to him that his mother and sister were in the barn. Davis pushed his way through, in an attempt to reach the door, but strong arms pulled him back seconds before the roof collapsed. Smoke and debris mushroomed up from the ground, sending sparks raining down on the crowd. Within minutes, two of the four walls had collapsed, and Davis stood staring at the old barn that had become his family’s grave.

  After almost two weeks of drinking himself into oblivion every night Davis received a visit from Stuart. No surprise to Davis, friendship or not, there would be no loan from the bank. Stuart convinced Davis it was in his best interests to sell the farm and start over somewhere else. So Davis handed the deed over to Stuart, placed flowers on his family’s graves for the last time and left.

  A year and a half later, he’d grown tired of his life of drifting and hiring out as a cowboy on various ranches. He joined up with Ezra Franklin who took him on as a scout. Looking into the bloodshot eyes of the young man, Ezra told him right off no liquor for scouts on the trail, and Davis agreed. The nightmares had pretty much stopped, so he didn’t need oblivion anymore to sleep.

  Good food, no booze, and hard work had cleared Davis’s head. The hours he had spent roping cattle and chasing strays had toned muscles in his arms, legs and back.

  Davis had plans for Oregon himself. He’d already told Ezra this would be his last trip scouting. The check tucked securely in his pocket that Stuart had sent him covering the balance on the farm’s sale, Davis had finished running from demons and was ready to settle down and start over in Oregon country.

  5

  Things went smoothly for the first few days. Davis and Emma fell into a routine. Joshua came by first thing in the morning to get Davis up and out of the wagon. While they were gone, Emma busied herself straightening up the wagon and cooking breakfast. After Joshua came back with Davis, he rounded up the oxen and got them yoked for the day. Following breakfast, Emma cleaned the dishes, re-packed the wagon, and they were off. Joshua stayed with them most of the day.

  About a week after the accident, Emma came back from her jaunt to the bushes to find Davis slowly walking the oxen over to the wagon. He was obviously still in some pain, although the cuts, scrapes and bruises on his face had pretty much healed, leaving yellow marks where the black and blue ones had been.

  “What are you doing?” She asked. “Who told you to get up?”

  “Well, ma’am, I figured I’ve had enough of inactivity, so it’s time for me to pull my own weight. I can’t sit a horse yet, but I can do more than lie around. You just go ahead and finish packing up and I’ll get these animals ready for the day.” Davis winced as he spoke softly, but with determination in his voice. Emma shook her head when he paled as he tightened the reins, but decided not to confront him. If the fool wanted to be in pain that was up to him.

  Emma started off the morning riding on the front seat of the wagon while Davis plodded alongside. The day was hot, but with cloud cover. As the hours went by, Emma found her gaze drifting toward Davis’s sweat-soaked shirt, the muscles rippling on his back as he handled the animals and trudged slow but steady. Taller and broader than Peter had been, her cohort’s dark hair curled over his collar, and he used the red checkered bandana around his neck to repeatedly wipe his face.

  “Mr. Cooper,” Emma called, “I filled your canteen before we left, would you like a drink?”

  Davis turned and smiled up at her. She felt as if the clouds parted and the sun came out. Again she felt a shiver when she looked into his unusual blue eyes. She tramped down any reaction to this man. Her husband was dead barely a week. Even though she and Peter had only known each other a total of seven months when he’d died, it didn’t sit well with her to be aware of Davis at all.

  “Appreciate that ma’am.”

  Emma climbed into the wagon and retrieved the canteen. Hot and flushed herself, she took several sips before climbing out, then handed the container to Davis. “Here you are, Mr. Cooper.”

  “Mrs. Thorpe, since we’ve been traveling together for a week now, do you suppose you can call me Davis?” He handed the canteen back to her and wiped his mouth on his sleeve. Emma took it from his hand and held it in her lap.

  “I’m not sure that would be proper, but I’ll consider it, Mr. Cooper.” She began fussing with her apron. “But I’m thinking that now you should come into the wagon and rest a bit. You’re looking tired and sore.” The fumbling with her apron grew stronger.

  * * *

  She’ll shred that entire apron before reaching Oregon.

  “No, I’m doing fine. We’ll be stopping for the noon meal in a bit, and I’ll rest then.”

  About a half hour later Ezra blew his bugle from his position at the head of the wagon train. The first vehicle rolled to a stop, with the rest following. Emma stretched, and rotated her neck muscles.

  Despite his bravado, Davis winced every time he moved, and felt ready to drop where he stood.

  “Mr. Cooper, I insist I walk with the animals this afternoon so you can rest.”

  “I don’t need much rest,” Davis said, holding onto the side of the wagon.

  “Nevertheless, I will be walking the animals this afternoon.” She glared at him, hands on her hips, chin thrust forward.

  Stubborn woman.

  She made her way to the back of the wagon and gathered some things for the noon meal. Davis ambled to the front of the line and spent time talking to Ezra and the other scouts.

  “Boy, you look like hell. Why you up and about already?” Ezra peered at him through narrowed eyes.

  Davis nodded. “I’m a tad sore, but I’m done lying in that woman’s wagon. She needs help and I aim to give it to her.”

  “And how much help are you gonna be when you collapse and we have to drag your lifeless body away?”

  “I’m fine. I’ll rest a bit this after
noon.”

  Ezra shot a stream of tobacco juice at his feet, then shaking his head, strode away.

  The noise increased as families enjoyed the break, easing sore muscles, and chomping down on cold meat and biscuits. Free at last from the confinement of the wagons, children ran around gleefully, shouting and calling to each other. The women made quick visits to the bushes, and the men checked over wagon wheels and animals. The cloud cover grew darker and thunder rolled in the distance.

  Davis walked slowly back to Emma and edged his sore body down on a tree stump next to the wagon. She handed him a cloth wrapped over a biscuit, apple and cold bacon. She joined him on the ground and began to eat.

  “Mrs. Thorpe, it’s not right for me to be sitting here with you on the ground. Get up, and sit here.” Davis said slowly moving himself.

  “No, sir, not at all. You’ve been walking all morning, and I’ve been riding. I’m fine. You just go ahead and eat.”

  This she said to the general direction of his throat. Davis grinned at her nervousness, but made no comment. Emma Thorpe was skittish as a baby colt around him. He wondered about her marriage to Peter, how well they’d known each other, and how long they’d been married. Emma had the look and manner of a woman not yet fully grown. Mommy and daddy’s little girl.

  After wiping his mouth on the napkin, Davis pushed his hat back with his finger and leaned two forearms on his knees. “I’ve noticed I seem to make you nervous,” he said staring straight ahead. “Do you think you have cause to be afraid of me?” He glanced over at Emma, but she kept busy smoothing her dress, messing with her bonnet ribbon, and folding the napkin. At least she wasn’t picking at that apron.

  “No, not at all. Why would you think something like that?” She stood and began to brush her dress but a red blush crept up her neck and made a good effort to reach her hairline.

  “Okay, if you say so.” Davis rose from the tree stump, his breath catching with the ache from his ribs. “I just want you to know I appreciate your kindness. I hope I can repay you by being a bit of a help now that I’m on my feet again. I don’t think I can ride my horse for a while; the ribs are still pretty sore. But the wrapping the doc did for me at least lets me get around. So if you have no objection, I’d like to take over some of your chores.” He stepped closer as he finished his speech. When Emma continued to be interested in her shoes, he gently put his knuckle under her chin and nudged her head so he could see her face.