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Or maybe she imagined the meekness as his illness forced him to whisper.
“Good.”
And it was good. She hadn’t lost this man, who’d become more than an acquaintance. Did she dare to call him a friend?
Chapter Four (#ulink_b502a5a2-0886-57d5-9330-ddaf3a5e5646)
Later that morning, Emma was able to leave the wagon and assist Rachel with the breakfast preparations. Her fears had been unfounded. Nathan had revived.
“You’re humming,” Rachel observed.
Emma looked up from where she flipped bacon in the fry pan. “Was I?”
“Yes. You were.” Rachel’s pointed gaze seemed to demand Emma admit to something, but she couldn’t imagine what.
She let her eyes linger on the landscape of tall, brown summer grasses before she returned her eyes to the pot. Did even the sunlight seem brighter this morning? “I suppose I am relieved that Mr. Reed is faring better.”
“He is?” Ben’s voice rang out as he joined them.
“His fever broke just before dawn,” Emma told her brother.
“Good.” Ben reached for the plate Rachel extended to him. “I won’t have to send someone riding after a doctor.”
“His cough still worries me.”
“Sally Littleton said she’s seen pneumonia develop from measles,” Rachel said. The thirtysomething mother was one of their neighbors in the wagon train and had been friendly since they’d left Independence.
Pneumonia. The word silenced the three of them. At the end, Papa had contracted pneumonia and never recovered.
“We’ll pray it isn’t that.” Ben’s voice remained grave. “I can’t spare any men to ride out. We need everyone on guard against the thief.” The last was said quietly, as if to keep the words from prying ears.
Emma set aside her spoon. “It isn’t Mr. Reed.” She had no evidence, but somehow she didn’t believe the man who’d been compassionate enough to comfort her through her fears of the storm could do such a thing. “I think Mr. Reed must have had a difficult life. But I don’t believe he is a thief.”
* * *
Nathan sat upright in the Hewitts’ wagon bed, bracing his hands against the sideboard, panting from just that little exertion.
And completely floored by Emma’s quiet, resolute statement, by her faith in him.
He’d done nothing to deserve it. In the face of her unexpected…friendship, he was ashamed of how he’d acted before this illness, brushing off and ignoring her attempts at kindness.
How long had it been since he’d known someone he counted as a friend? His childhood, twenty years ago. Or more.
And she was wrong. He’d done his share of thieving. When his pa had drunk away any money they would have used for food. As an adult, when his belly had been so empty he’d had actual pangs of hunger.
Having Emma’s faith in him, even if it lasted only for this moment and no longer, made him feel as though he could face whatever punishment the wagon train committee deemed necessary. It made him feel as if maybe there was a chance that he could really be forgiven. Be redeemed.
And that was dangerous thinking. He, more than any other, knew how black his soul was. And that good things didn’t come his way.
But then he heard Ben Hewitt’s next words through his swirling thoughts. “Someone stole a wad of cash out of the Ericksons’ wagon the night of the storm, during the fire.”
“It couldn’t have been Mr. Reed,” Emma’s sister chimed in. “You were with him in the wagon.”
“Yes,” Emma agreed.
“Whoever did it is sly,” Hewitt said. “Every able-bodied man was working the bucket brigade—or so we thought. Mr. Erickson didn’t notice the cash was missing until this morning. He thought his wife had it—she thought her husband had hidden it in their belongings. But it’s definitely missing.”
“How awful for them.”
The three siblings kept talking, but their voices faded out of Nathan’s head as he tried to scoot toward the tailgate.
If he was cleared, then he might still have a paying gig driving the Binghams’ wagon to Oregon. He’d taken the chance of joining up with the wagon train, knowing that if he could earn enough for a stake, he might get the fresh start he needed when the caravan arrived at its destination.
He could drive…if he could get his bearings. His head was swimming. He felt off-kilter, a little afraid he was going to fall out of the wagon if he got too close to the edge.
And then his hopes for a silent getaway went up in smoke as he started coughing. And couldn’t stop.
When he finally got his breath back, he was gripping one of the bows that supported the canvas, and Emma and her brother stood watching him from just outside the back flap.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Emma asked, her words more like a demand. Or those of a concerned sister.
“I thought I would—” A cough surprised him and cut off his sentence, though thankfully this one didn’t last long. “Head back to the Binghams’ wagon. Hitch up the oxen and get ready to pull out.”
Emma’s expression had turned into a thunderhead to rival what they’d seen the other day. Hewitt coughed, but when Nathan’s gaze slid to the other man, Hewitt had his hat off and was hiding behind it. Was he…chuckling?
“I figured I’d get out of your way, now that I’m better.”
Her frown only intensified.
“Better?” she echoed. The word sounded more disbelieving than questioning.
Maybe if he wasn’t so dizzy, he could follow the conversation a little better. Although that wasn’t a guarantee because he was awful rusty at talking to folks.
She stepped up onto a crate that must’ve been put in place to help her reach or get up into the wagon. She was muttering to herself, something that sounded suspiciously like, “If this is what your thinking gets you, I recommend you stop.”
But that couldn’t be right. He’d only ever heard Emma speak kind words, not sarcastic ones.
“Lie back down.”
He balked at the order and this time he heard Hewitt laugh.
She blocked him from moving anywhere but backward, deeper into the wagon. She’d pulled her hair up in a severe style since he’d seen her at dawn, the sun breaking behind her and casting a halo of light around her mussed hair.
He sent a glare over her shoulder at Hewitt. The man only shrugged, leaving Nathan to wonder if she made a habit of bossing him, too.
“As far as I’m concerned, you’re cleared of the thefts,” Hewitt said. “I’ll speak to the committee when I’m able.”
Nathan nodded his thanks, unsmiling. If Hewitt would’ve investigated better, maybe Nathan wouldn’t have been blamed in the first place.
But he knew better than to expect an apology for the unfounded accusation or the manhandling of his meager belongings as if they had had the right to do so.
They might’ve found him innocent, but Nathan knew he did not have the respect of most of the men.
But a sudden weakness took his limbs. He wavered, and for a moment wanted nothing more than to lie down like Emma had told him to.
“Get some rest,” Hewitt said. “You can drive when you’re up to it.”
The man walked off and Nathan wanted nothing more than to be able to do the same, to find somewhere private to lick his wounds, as it were.
But he was still near face-to-face with Emma, who remained half in and half out of the wagon, waiting for him to lie back.
He acquiesced, only because he didn’t think his legs would hold him if he tried to climb out of the wagon. He stared up at the white underside of the bonnet, unsure whether, if he looked at Emma, he would see her disappointed that he hadn’t been more grateful to her brother.
He wasn’t good at this, at being friendly with people.
“It’s good you’ve been cleared,” she said. He heard the clink of a fork against a plate and smelled something that had his gut twisting in a reminder that he hadn’t eaten in two days.
But he still couldn’t look at her.
“I imagine Stillwell was disappointed.” Nathan was surprised that the words emerged so easily when he hadn’t intended to say anything at all.
“Why?”
He wasn’t going to answer, but she touched his forehead, a gentle brush of her fingertips, and his eyes flicked to her of their own accord.
Her gaze reflected only sincere curiosity and he found himself saying, “He seems to have it in for me.”
He watched a tiny crease form between her eyebrows, just above the bridge of her nose.
But she didn’t laugh at him, she didn’t dismiss his statement out of hand.
“Are you certain you’re not…” She hesitated.
Her voice trailed off, but he could guess what she’d been going to say.
“Imagining that he dislikes me?”
He couldn’t hold her gaze and turned his head to stare at the opposite sideboard. His cheeks burned with embarrassment.
Was he imagining Stillwell’s watchful, suspicious gazes? No. The man expressed more suspicion toward Nathan than most folks, who tended to simply avoid him.
When she spoke again, her voice sounded cheery, as if the previous conversation hadn’t occurred. “The good news is you won’t have to bear my company all day.”
It was a relief. He didn’t know how to act around her.
But he also felt a small twinge of disappointment.
It was better this way. Better not to learn to enjoy her company, even for a few hours.
“What am I supposed to do, confined to the wagon all day?” he asked.
“You could sing,” she suggested.
“Sing?” he repeated.
“Sing. Rachel and I would be cheered if you were to serenade us as we walk.”
He stared dumbly at her until her lips turned up in a smile and then she dissolved into giggles.
Her mirth was contagious—how long had it been since he’d made anyone smile?—but he prevailed against the urge to smile.
She finally controlled herself, hiding her remaining smile behind her hand. “I suppose you’ll have to read to pass the time.”
“Read?”
“You can’t read?”
His education had been spotty at best. But he’d spent several years of his adult life teaching himself to read, not wanting to be cheated by those he traded with.
And it was a matter of pride for him. A man should know how to read.
“I can read,” he told her.
And if there was a flash of admiration in her eyes, he didn’t feel a responding flash of pride.
She rustled around in the belongings packed against the opposite sideboard. What must it be like to own so many things?
Even in Nathan’s childhood, his family had scraped by. Never enough money for necessities—like food—and none at all for frivolities like books. The Hewitts were blessed.
“I’ll need to help break camp, so I’ll leave you to your breakfast.” She placed a dark green hardcover book at his knee, next to the plate of food. Pilgrim’s Progress.
“Don’t get up,” she told him, face and voice grave. “You’re too weak to bear it.”
And his fleeting sense of pride dissipated completely.
* * *
Emma spent the morning with Rachel, attempting to gather fuel for their campfire. The terrain combined bluffs and rocky hills, sometimes passing over ledges that frightened her if she found herself looking down.
So she stopped looking and focused on two brothers playing chase through the wagons.
She and Rachel ranged off from the caravan, though not too far, and worked at gathering buffalo chips among the sparsely growing vegetation. It was not her preferred fuel—she did not appreciate the smell as it burned—but it was something.
Every time her apron filled and she passed close to the wagon to deposit her load in the fuel box, she felt caught in Nathan’s glittering obsidian gaze. She’d never met anyone with eyes so dark.
He kept the book in hand, she could see the deep green spine against his worn shirt, but she couldn’t get a sense whether he was really reading it or not. Maybe he didn’t like Christian’s story.
Once when she passed, he was dozing. When she dumped her load into the crate affixed to the side of the wagon, he started and roused, looking wildly around for a moment.
