Carolyn Davidson - Colorado Courtship

The stark memory of Lyle sharing her bed caused her to tremble, and for a moment she wondered if ever she would welcome a male presence beside her. The blessing was that she no longer had to fear a cuff from a closed fist or a slap from his narrow, gambler’s hand. The sound of Dave’s low voice, speaking teasingly in masculine tones caught her ear and she thought of Arlois, waiting for him to join her beneath their wagon.

The thought that she might one day welcome a man lured her beyond her fear and she envisioned golden hair and blue eyes that smiled on her with approval.

Without a moment’s regret for the loss of the husband she’d buried only yesterday, she recognized the depth of the attraction to Finn Carson that had gripped her so quickly. Refusing to allow the burden of guilt to weigh on her shoulders, she thumped her pillow and nestled it beneath her head as she spread a sheet over herself.

She’d done her best to be a good wife to Lyle, and had only years of neglect and abuse to show for it. The blame for her unhappiness rested on the gambler she’d spent four years trying to please, and now she was free from the millstone her marriage had become. Her sigh was deep as she settled herself to sleep.

But in only moments she heard her name spoken in an undertone, and at the sound her eyelids flew open. “Jessica? Are you awake?”

“Yes.” It was all she could manage to whisper as she crawled from beneath the sheet and made her way to where he stood, the wooden rear panel of the wagon rising between them. She knelt, leaning her forearms on the barrier, and looked up at him. He was in the shadow of the wagon, but his hair glimmered silver, and she could barely resist the urge to touch its damp length as he looked down at her.

“What do you want?” Her voice was a hushed whisper, and Finn swallowed the answer that begged to be spoken aloud.

You. Just you. Instead, he murmured quiet words of concern. Did she need anything? Was she all right?

His hand brushed against strands of hair waving about her face, and he rued the braid she’d formed to tame the heavy fall, wishing with all his heart that he might see it undone in the moonlight, might wrap his fingers in its length. He watched as her slender hands moved to settle on the piece of wood that separated them, noted how she clutched at it, and dropped his own hand to rest beside hers.

If he bent just a little, he thought…if she tilted her head just so…if only there weren’t others nearby.

“I’m fine,” she whispered, drawing him from his fanciful meandering. “Thank you for planning the jaunt to the stream. The women were all so pleased, and I haven’t been clean all over at the same time for longer than I want to think about.”

It was silent for a moment, only the sound of fractured breathing apparent as Jessica inhaled and then allowed her breath to pass through soft lips that opened as if she would speak again.

And then she tilted her head—just so—and he bent, just a bit.

Without a twinge of regret, his lips touched hers, lingered for a moment and then retreated. “Good night,” he said, aware that his voice was rough, his breathing rapid, and his arousal apparent. He turned aside to walk in the darkness outside the circle of wagons. His horse was tied to the wagon he normally slept beneath, and he quickly exchanged halter for bridle and reins, and then with one leap was astride the animal.

He wouldn’t be gone more than twenty minutes or so, he figured—just long enough for his body to resume its usual condition—before he sought his bed. Although his normal condition these days was one of longing for a woman who was patently still off-limits to him, at least until he could get a ring on her finger.

A woman who held a deed to property he’d vowed to retrieve the day he’d stood by his brother’s grave. A woman whose husband had fired a bullet into Aaron Carson and then set off to claim his gold strike and the property surrounding it.

A woman who was unaware of Finn’s dual purpose in courting her.

Jessica Beaumont. The woman he intended to claim as his own.

Laundry was the order of the day, with rope lines strung between wagons, where a motley assortment of clothing was hung to dry in the hot sun. Men carried baskets of trousers and shirts, dresses and undergarments up from the stream, and their womenfolk reached high to drape them higgledy-piggledy over the lines. Those men without wives did their own or paid out good cash money to willing ladies who were not averse to accepting their coins.

The children ran wild, as if it were a holiday, and even though they were ever under the watchful eyes of their parents, they splashed downstream in the water and played tag beneath the trees. The noon meal was taken together, the womenfolk carrying food from their individual campfires to where quilts were spread beneath the willows near the water. Upstream, several of the men had cast lines into the water, and their catch lay on the stream bank.

“It feels like Fourth of July, doesn’t it?” Arlois asked Jessica as she settled her youngest boy with a pewter plate on his lap.

Jessica nodded, remembering picnics from her childhood, and for a moment she was lonesome for the company of her parents, who were lost to her now. She would write them, she determined, before they arrived at Council Grove, and send the letter back to Saint Louis. By that time she would be able to tell them her news, of Lyle’s death and the man who would be her husband from this time on.

“You’d think we were celebrating July fourth early, wouldn’t you?” Finn picked up a drumstick from his plate and bit into it with gusto.

“That’s almost the same thing Arlois said,” Jessica told him, enjoying the smile he tossed so casually in her direction. She watched him eat, noting the manners he exhibited with unconscious ease. His upbringing had obviously contained the presence of a mother who taught her son well the everyday courtesies, judging from his ability to make himself at home with any company.

“I think these folks will take any opportunity to have a good time,” he said, waving his drumstick in the general direction of the men and women sitting in small groups beneath the shade of the willow trees. He looked down at his plate. “I’m glad the ladies were able to come up with picnic food. I saw some of them picking berries at daybreak. Must’ve been for this cobbler.”

“Hazel O’Shea contributed three eggs to make that,” Jessica said. “They’re about worth their weight in gold. Her husband had a fit when she insisted on bringing along her hens in a cage, but I’ll bet he’s happy now that she won that fight. He’s about the only man on the train who eats eggs for breakfast a couple of times a week.”

“How about seeing if we can pick up a couple of hens for you once we get to Council Grove?” Finn asked. “I can make a cage for them if there’s wood available.”

“Would you?” she asked. “I thought of it in Independence, but Lyle said it would be too much trouble turning them loose to scratch every evening, and they’d probably get eaten by hawks once we let them run free a bit.”

“You just have to keep a close eye on them,” Finn told her. “We could manage if it’s something you’d like. We’ll have a chance to buy some supplies at the general store there, too. The prices are high, but you’ll know better now what things you need to fill in the gaps in your supplies.”

“Your hunting expedition is what made this such a good meal, you know,” Jessica told him. Finn had headed up the group of hunters early in the morning while the women did their washing, and the wild turkeys and rabbits they’d shot and prepared for roasting over the fires formed the basis of the meal they shared. Along with the berry cobbler, another of the women had generously used her store of dried apples to make fried turnovers, then cut them in pieces for the children to share.