to every nerve ending in Danielle’s body. Luckily the need to reply was negated by a dozen adolescent voices trilling an enthusiastic response in unison. The fact that he was responsible for making them whittle down their belongings to “regulation size” had done nothing to lessen their infatuation with the romantic figure their wagon master struck in the saddle.
Cody’s grin revealed two devilishly deep dimples at the sides of his mouth as he queried, “How about you, Red?”
“Just fine,” she lied over the blisters on her heel. “And, by the way, my name is Danielle. I’d appreciate it if you used it.”
“Pretty name,” he commented.
Surprised by the warmth evoked by the remark, Danielle felt oddly empty inside except for the steady rhythm of her pounding pulse.
“But,” he added with an infectious grin, “Red suits you better, temperament-wise.”
“Go away!” she snarled, clenching her hands into fists at her sides.
“But I brought you a present,” he protested.
“Let me guess—boxes of dynamite to blow us back to Beverly Hills?”
Ignoring the sarcasm, Cody set his load down. Nestled inside were sacks of flour, sugar, and salt, some dried meat, powdered milk, molasses, a burlap bag filled with fruit, a similar one of potatoes, an odorous lump of sourdough, and lots and lots of beans.
Dumbfounded, Danielle looked down at the contents and back up into pair of eyes so blue it hurt to gaze at them too long.
“You were expecting takeout maybe?” he asked.
That damned grin of his could have buttered a Thanksgiving turkey.
“Hardly,” Danielle snapped, the reference to fast food making her stomach grumble.
Unable at the moment to cope with fixing anything that didn’t come straight out of a microwave, she proceeded to pass out fruit and jerky to the girls, promising them a more filling dinner later.
Cody couldn’t help but compare Danielle’s carefree attitude with his late wife’s preoccupation with fixing three balanced, nutritional meals for her family every day. Here was apparently yet another modern woman willing to put her own needs before those of the children depending on her. What was most puzzling to Cody was why he was at all attracted to someone who was the exact opposite of what he admired most in a woman.
Swinging himself back into the saddle, Cody started to leave but was detained by a small hand pressed lightly upon his knee.
“Excuse me, sir,” Sheila Pooly said in a squeaky voice. Undeniably the prissiest girl in the troop, she was squinting up at Cody’s sunlit profile as if he were God Himself.
“You can just call me Cody,” he said with an encouraging smile.
Scanning the vast expanse of the plains, Sheila posed her question as delicately as possible. “Where’s the...ah... Porta Potti?”
Like resounding thunder, their wagon master’s laughter exploded across the prairie.
Overhearing the conversation, Mollie, too, burst out laughing, and soon everyone within earshot was privy to the city girl’s faux pas. The native Wyomingites hooted with glee as their wagon master pointed to a thick clump of sagebrush.
“Over there,” he guffawed.
The location to which he pointed hardly provided any privacy. Sheila blushed furiously, and Danielle’s eyes flashed like summer lightning, burning a hole right through Cody.
Keenly aware that he had just wrinkled the suit of armor in which these girls had dressed him, Cody felt a stab of guilt at the wounded look in Sheila’s eyes. Maybe he was being too rough with Troop Beverly Hills. The disconcerting thought took him back in time to his own callow youth. How many times had he himself been ridiculed as a country bumpkin when he had been lost in the big city trying to peddle those first humble, heartfelt songs?
Remembering his promise never to become such a selfindulgent big shot that he was beyond simple kindness and common courtesy, Cody hastened to lessen the sting of Sheila’s humiliation.
Bestowing a slow smile upon the girl that made her blush from the top of her blond head to the bottom of her boots, he said with a wink, “I’ll tell you what. There’s a rest stop just over the next hill. If you’d like, you can hop on back of ol’ Champ, here, and I’ll tote you on over there.”
That wink was Sheila’s undoing. She nodded her head gratefully. Cody reached down and in one graceful move pulled her up behind him in the saddle. Squealing with delight, the girl waved to her friends as they galloped over the hill.
When they returned a few moments later, Sheila wore a look of simpering adoration. Danielle thought it obvious that she couldn’t wait to share every heart-quickening minute with her friends who were certain to be green with envy.
That their wagon master had assuaged Sheila’s feelings only slightly mollified Danielle. As far as she was concerned, Cody Walker was brutish and insensitive. Maybe Sheila’s question had been silly, but the extent of camping that these girls shared was limited to backyard sleep-overs. In her opinion, it was as reprehensible for a grown man to make poor Sheila the butt of his joke as it was to lump everyone from the city into the category of utter simpletons. It hadn’t escaped her notice that some of the other Prairie Scouts were now openly referring to them as Troop Beverly Hills. Since Danielle had firsthand knowledge of who had coined that particular phrase, she intended to give that John Wayne wanna-be a piece of her mind the first chance she got.
Like bright but fragile posies, the girls were beginning to droop beneath a sun too hot. What had once sounded romantic and adventurous was quickly proving to be a lot of hard work. Their meager lunches had worn off long ago, and fatigue was beginning to manifest itself in the guise of petty sniping.
“Knock it off!” Danielle commanded, determined to nip such thoughtlessness in the bud. “Time won’t pass any faster if you pick at each other. We’ve got a long way to go and two weeks to prove we’re women enough to handle whatever this trail has to throw at us. I expect not to be defeated from within our own ranks before the end of the very first day.”
She hated sounding so gruff, but this wasn’t exactly a picnic for her, either. It had been a long time since she had put such rigorous demands upon her body, and it was reacting with aching indignation. By the time the wagon train rolled to their final stop of the day, they had traveled a little under eight miles, and Danielle was sure her feet had a blister to show for each one of them.
She pressed her hands to the small of her back before throwing herself into the task at hand. Telling herself that if she could whip up an appetizing dinner using only primitive tools and limited ingredients, she might just consider approaching the Small Business Administration for a loan when they got back to Denver.
“Pssssst!”
Danielle jumped at the sound. Their wagon master had been quite firm in his directive to all participants before they had begun their trek. “Keep your eyes and ears open to any possible danger. You never can tell in what form it’ll jump out at you.”
“Psssssst!”
Praying that it was not the sound of an irate
