Renee Ryan - Wagon Train Proposal

Rachel started to deny the shrewd observation, then decided what would be the point? Emma would see through the lie. “Maybe I am. But only a very, very little. I’ve been thinking about—” she shrugged “—Mama.”

And it was all Tristan McCullough’s fault.

Though no one spoke of it anymore, he’d joined the wagon train for another, strictly personal reason other than merely to guide them along the last leg of their journey. With Grayson’s urgings, he’d also come to determine if Emma would be a suitable mother for his three young daughters. Rachel didn’t fault him for that.

She actually admired Tristan’s commitment to his children. It was noble of him to want to provide them with a mother. Rachel knew what it was like to grow up without one. Hers had died of consumption when she was barely five years old.

What would Tristan do now that Emma was engaged to Nathan Reed? Would he seek out someone else on the wagon train to marry?

Unable to stop herself, Rachel’s gaze sought Tristan once again. As if sensing her eyes on him, he turned his head in her direction.

For a brief moment, their glances merged. The impact was like a sledgehammer ramming into her heart. She nearly gasped.

Her response to the man confounded her.

But, really, he shouldn’t be so attractive, so capable and strong, so disappointed things hadn’t worked out between him and Emma.

Why wouldn’t he be disappointed? Emma was beautiful and kind, nurturing and soft-spoken. She would have made Tristan’s daughters a good mother.

Nevertheless, Rachel didn’t regret pointing out to the good sheriff that Emma wasn’t available to become his wife. She was, after all, in love with another man.

Although, perhaps, Rachel could have chosen her words a bit more carefully. Perhaps , her delivery could have been slightly less forceful.

“...and who could forget her cinnamon rolls?” Emma’s sigh jerked Rachel back to their conversation. “I wish Mama would have shared her recipe with us, or at least written the ingredients down somewhere.”

Rachel pressed her lips tightly together. Apparently, her sister had been carrying on the conversation without her, talking about their mother’s skill in the kitchen. Rachel liked to think she’d inherited her own gift of cooking from their mother. She tried to pull up Sara Hewitt’s image from her memory.

She came away empty, as always, and felt all the more alone for trying.

“I miss her,” she whispered, mostly to herself. “So much.”

She’d been too young when her mother died to remember her face or many of her physical attributes. But she did remember her soft, sweet voice. Her warm hugs and unending kindness. And how their father had never fully recovered from her death.

“Oh, Rachel.” Emma shifted to a spot directly in front of her, a strange of sense of insistence in the bold move. “You know Mama loved you. Never forget that.”

Rachel nodded. Of course she wouldn’t forget their mother loved her. She distinctly remembered Sara Hewitt whispering in her ear every night at bedtime, Rachel, my beautiful, precious daughter. You’re my very own, special gift from God.

She hoped one day to say the same words to her own children.

“We all love you. Ben, Grayson, me.” Something strange came and went in Emma’s eyes. “Never doubt that, not for one moment of a single day.”

What a strange thing to say.

“Of course I know you love me.” A wave of peace wrapped around her like a comfortable old blanket. Family was everything to the Hewitts. So Rachel’s siblings would soon be married. That only meant their close-knit family was growing larger, with more people for her to love.

Yet Rachel still faced an uncertain future. Alone.

You aren’t alone , she reminded herself. You have your brothers and your sister. And their soon-to-be spouses.

Rachel also had the Lord.

She had to trust His plan for her life would be revealed once she arrived at Oregon City, if not sooner.

“Rachel? Emma?” Their brother’s fiancée, Abigail Bingham Black, stuck her head out of the back of the wagon. “Can one of you give me a hand? This trunk is too heavy for me to lift on my own.”

“Coming.” Welcoming the interruption, Rachel hurried around to the back of the wagon. With a flick of her wrist, she unlatched the tailgate and then lowered it with care.

Smiling her gratitude, Abby moved in behind the trunk and pushed while Rachel pulled. Emma joined in and, after a few grunts and groans, the three of them had the large case sitting on the wet, spongy ground at their feet.

Clapping her hands together in satisfaction, Abby gave the trunk one firm nod, then deftly climbed back into the wagon.

Rachel smiled at the agile move, thinking how far the petite blonde had come since the wagon train left Missouri. Had anyone suggested four months ago that the well-bred, overeducated Abigail Bingham Black would become engaged to her brother, Rachel would have openly scoffed at them. She’d considered the spoiled socialite completely unworthy of Ben, especially since Abigail had broken his heart six years prior.

Rachel had been wrong about the other woman, completely.

Abigail had pulled her weight from the very beginning of their journey. First, by singing to the wagon train children at night. Then, she’d approached Rachel for lessons in daily practicalities in exchange for music lessons. The suggestion had been mutually beneficial. Over time, they’d become friends.

Rachel couldn’t think of a better woman to marry her brother. And she liked Emma’s fiancé just as much.

A movement out of the corner of her eye pulled her attention back to the riverbank. Back to Tristan.

Their gazes locked and held once again.

A dozen unspoken words passed between them. For a moment, the world seemed to stop and pause. Rachel couldn’t catch a decent breath. Then...

Her pulse skittered back to life.

Her breathing picked up speed.

Remorse filled her.

Perhaps she’d overstepped when she’d first met the widowed sheriff.

Rachel had been so caught up in protecting Emma, insisting her sister “follow her heart” and be allowed to make her own choice, that she hadn’t considered how doing so would affect Tristan. Or his three young, motherless daughters.

She’d never met his little girls, yet Rachel still felt a connection to them and their plight.

More to the point, she owed their father an apology. Not for warning him away from Emma but for the way she’d addressed the situation.

If not now, when?

* * *

Tristan felt the corner of his mouth twitch. It was the only outward sign of his irritation as Rachel Hewitt approached him with strong, purposeful strides. She might be small, but she was certainly determined.

He couldn’t deny the young woman was pretty, in an untraditional sort of way. Her wild, curly brown hair that seemed to defy any attempts at taming and those dark brown eyes were an attractive combination. Her sweet, youthful face held no guile, and she’d proved herself to be full of life, especially when she was around, or caring for, little children.

Tristan admitted, if only in the privacy of his own mind, that he’d been a bit taken by Rachel Hewitt when they’d originally met.

Then she’d opened her mouth.

Out rolled one unwelcome opinion after another. Although she was almost always right, he wasn’t used to a woman speaking her mind with such...enthusiasm.

How like her to seek him out and share one of her opinions when he had far too many other concerns on his mind. There were countless tasks that needed addressing before the wagon train set out down the river. He wished there were a better route, but the Columbia was hemmed in by steep slopes and cliffs of hard rock on either side.