Pat Tracy - Beloved Outcast

“The wagon master may have been willing to ride off without you, Miss Amory. He probably figured you’d come to your senses and lighten your load. He made a mistake I’m not willing to. The books stay. We go.”

Victoria stared into Mr. Youngblood’s unwavering gaze and knew intuitively that he would not yield to any pleas to spare her beloved volumes. Yet a spark of defiance still burned within her.

Inspiration struck. “It would take half the morning to unload the wagon. Don’t you think we should leave now?”

She forced a determined smile onto her stiff lips. Oh, there was a rational part of her that knew it was foolish to risk her life over inanimate objects. But there was another part that was convinced she could keep both her scalp and the works of Cooper, Hardy and Bronte. After all, man did not live by bread alone.

Youngblood rose to his full height. A look of frustrated resignation stamped his rugged features. Victoria held her breath as she silently counted off the passage of seconds. She truly had no idea what the barbaric man might do.

Abruptly he turned his broad back to her.

“Get into the wagon,” he ordered brusquely.

She scooped Alcott’s book from the ground, shook the dust from it, then hurried up onto the wagon’s high bench seat. She supposed she shouldn’t have been surprised that her surly companion was there ahead of her, already taking his place behind the reins.

She swallowed back her protest, counting herself fortunate that he’d agreed that there wasn’t time to unload all the volumes she’d spent days meticulously organizing and arranging in the corners and crannies of her wagon’s interior.

Victoria had scarcely clambered beside Youngblood before he released the hand brake and reached for the bullwhip. In a careless gesture, he uncurled it above the animals’ backs.

A loud crack sounded, cutting through the fort’s stillness. As one, the team lurched forward toward the open gate.

With a start, Victoria realized she’d linked her hopes for survival to a total stranger. She couldn’t help wondering whether she’d just made the worst mistake of her life.

From the corner of her eye, Victoria sneaked covert glances at the man sitting beside her. They had been following this fairly wide stretch of wagon-rutted roadway for close to an hour, and he had yet to address one word to her. His profile was harsh and unrelenting. As luck would have it, his swollen eye faced her. Whenever a wheel struck a particularly deep rut, the jostling provoked a tight-lipped grimace from him.

At this evidence of his pain, her feelings toward him might have softened, had he offered a friendly word or two. His continued silence, however, grated on her nerves. It seemed unfair that fate should shackle her to a companion who was no more inclined to conversation than her plodding oxen. At least the animals had never glowered at her disapprovingly.

The wilderness continued to roll by, mile after mile of lush greenery. The air was redolent with the unrestrained scent of pine. Nearby, the Ruby River splashed across granite boulders.

The sun climbed higher in the cloudless blue sky. It didn’t take long for the warming rays to intensify to an uncomfortable degree. She shifted on the wooden seat, convinced she could feel new freckles popping out on her skin. By the time they reached Trinity Falls, she would probably have a hundred more of the unattractive little devils spotting her face.

She tried to think where she’d left her sunbonnet, recalling that she’d worn it the day before. She remembered removing the bonnet when she crawled beneath the wagon to sleep. With a pang, she realized she’d left the wide-brimmed covering on her makeshift bed when Youngblood’s voice jerked her awake. Had he thought to include the bonnet when he packed up her campsite?

She turned to peek into the wagon’s interior. One of their wheels slammed into another deep rut. Caught off balance, she steadied herself by clutching at the closest thing of substance, which turned out to be Youngblood.

She let out a startled yelp. At the same time, Youngblood’s powerful arm curved around her, anchoring her to his side. Several impressions struck her. First and foremost, she was aware of the muscular strength in the arm that bound her to Logan Youngblood. Secondly, she sensed that same latent power leashed in the rest of the strong body she was pressed tightly against.

The rough fabric of his blue shirt scraped the tip of her nose. His male scent inexorably wove itself into the very air she breathed. While not unpleasant, the earthy aroma seemed shockingly invasive. Goodness, she’d never been as close to, or as aware of, any man in her entire life. Not even seeing Horace Threadgill with his trousers around his ankles in her bedchamber had seemed as intimate as being trapped in this scoundrel’s embrace.

“What in the blazes are you trying to do?”

His husky voice vibrated in her eardrum, causing a strange tingle to skip across her forearms. Her palms came up to push herself free. “I’m trying to right myself.”

He gave her a look of disgust. “You could have fooled me.”

“You may release me now.”

His mauled countenance hovered a scant inch from her upturned face. She looked into his good eye. It was the darkest shade of brown, almost black. It was also penetratingly intent. She felt as if she were caught in a beam of lantern light shining from a lighthouse on a fogbound night-which made no sense, because his glare was as dark and forbidding as a moonless sky.

“Are you ready to sit still?”

It was the kind of question one would address to an unruly child, and she resented it.

“I was trying to fetch my sunbonnet,” she informed him loftily as she struggled to extricate herself from his embrace. She didn’t want to trigger an all-out tug-of-war that would make him aware of how indelicately he held her.

Her instincts warned it was essential she keep a safe distance from a man as unapologetically primitive as Youngblood.

He eased his grip. “You should have warned me.”

“I’ll remember to do so next time.” She sank back to her side of the seat.

He pulled back on the reins. The oxen came to a dusty halt.

“Thank you for stopping,” she said briskly, turning again to look inside the wagon’s interior. “Do you happen to remember picking up my sunbonnet?”

She leaned more fully inside, scanning her dust-covered possessions for the green calico fabric. Her companion made no comment. Irritation nipped at her fragilely held patience.

She glanced at him from her ungainly position of being half in and half out of her wagon. “I asked you if—”

She broke off, disconcerted by how Mr. Youngblood’s gaze seemed affixed to that portion of her anatomy stuck outside the canvas opening. The indecorous upward thrust of her bottom was mere inches from that interested regard.

What a rude rascal he was, not to avert his glance. She scooted onto the seat, trying to regain a more orthodox pose. She blew back the strands of hair that had fallen into her eyes.

“Did you think to retrieve my bonnet as you loaded the wagon?” She refused to comment upon his impertinent inspection of her lower person. There was little point in trying to teach manners to a man who frequented military stockades.

“I rolled it up in one of your blankets.”

She let out a sigh of relief. “Thank goodness. I was afraid you had left it. Just give me a minute, and I’ll get it.”

“Be quick about it.”

Such a gracious fellow. She turned and entered the inside of her wagon feetfirst. It was still an awkward movement, but at least she wasn’t sticking out in all the wrong places for Mr. Youngblood’s entertainment.