about Faith’s vulnerability, he took a deep breath and exhaled noisily as he reentered the trading post. Near the door, the pale girl with corn-silk hair still sat atop the filled sacks. White flour dusted the back and shoulders of her blue dress, a clear reminder of her fainting spell. An older man and several women were fussing over her. Unsure of whether or not to approach, Connell paused to listen to what they were saying.
“No! I can’t stay here. I just can’t,” the girl whimpered. “Please, take me back to camp with you.”
“Now, Miss Charity,” the man was cajoling, “you’ll be perfectly safe with Mrs. Morse. Your sister might need you.”
“No! No, no, no.” She stamped her small foot. “It wasn’t my idea to come here in the first place and I’ll not stay. I demand you deliver me back to Captain Tucker.”
One of the matrons patted Charity’s hand. “There, there, dear. Of course we’ll see that you get to the captain. I’m sure your sister is in good hands.”
Shaking his head in disgust, Connell watched them leave before he started for the staircase.
Anna Morse met him halfway up and solidly blocked his path. “Well?”
“The sister left,” he said, scowling.
“Figures. What about the fellas what done the hurting? Did you clean their plows for ’em?”
“Enough to get their attention. I never did intend to start another set-to.” He transferred the money he’d collected to the proprietress. “If you want more…”
“No need. This’ll be plenty. I bandaged her myself. You was right. She’s got a few sore ribs.”
“You bound her tight?”
“’Course. I did fine and so did she. She’s a spunky one, that Faith.”
Connell nodded. “That she is.”
“Too bad about her ma.”
They made their way to the base of the stairs, Connell in the lead. “Her ma?”
“Got kilt by the same twister that wiped out their house and most of their belongings,” Anna told him. “That’s why she and that worthless sister of hers are on their way to Californy to look for their pa.”
“Alone?” Connell couldn’t believe how many women tried to cross the plains without proper help or preparation. He didn’t fault them for their courage, only for their lack of common sense.
“That’s right. Ramsey Tucker’s supposed to be lookin’ after them. To my thinkin’, they’d be better off all by themselves than trustin’ him.” Heading toward the busy young man who was trying to wait on three families at once, she slipped the coins Connell had collected into her apron pocket. “I’m comin’, Will.”
Connell followed and asked, “When does the Tucker train pull out?”
“Tomorrow.” Anna smiled with understanding. “Don’t fret. Our girl’ll be able to travel just fine. Now, scoot. I got work to do.”
It wasn’t till Connell was outside that he remembered what Faith had said about having to drive her own team. Well and whole, she might be able to do it. Hurt the way she was, the pain would be dreadful. Besides, she might make her condition worse. Maybe even puncture a lung.
Muttering and gritting his teeth, Connell argued that Faith wasn’t his concern. Irene was. He found his horse where the boy had left it, rechecked the cinch on his saddle, then mounted. It was time to head for Maguire’s or some such place. The drink and eats he’d promised himself a whole lot earlier were way overdue.
Standing in the upstairs room in her chemise and drawers, Faith listened at the slightly open door, then quietly eased it closed. Thanks to the tight bindings around her midriff, she’d managed to get out of bed without too much discomfort. She hated corsets. Always had. But she had to admit wearing one might have spared her poor bones.
Placing her forehead and palms against the wood of the door, she closed her eyes for a moment, hoping that somehow, when she opened them again, her current predicament would prove to be no more than a bad dream.
Such was not the case. Breathing shallowly when she really wanted to sigh deeply, she straightened and took a long look at the room. The bed sagged in the middle where the ropes had stretched, but at least it was clean. Mrs. Morse had hung her soiled dress on a peg next to the pine washstand. On the floor in front of it was a small rag rug, just like the ones Grandma Reeder used to make, and laid across the foot of the bed was a plain lawn wrapper.
Barefoot, Faith crossed to the bed and slowly threaded her arms into the wrapper, folding it closed. The process was painful, though not nearly as bad as she suspected trying to put on her dress would be. Pensive, she tied the sash and padded across the cool wooden floor, in search of a breeze from the open window.
The wide, busy street lay below, it’s clattering traffic an ongoing performance. Wagons of all shapes and uses were passing, as well as riders and enough foot traffic to more than fill the fondly remembered old streets of Burg Hill. In the midst of all the hubbub sat a man in buckskin astride a giant horse the color of a rusty rose.
With a trembling hand, Faith drew aside the lacy curtains and studied the traveler who had so recently borne her to safety in his arms. It was a kindness she hadn’t expected here in this wild country. She fingered her pendant and thought of home. Of family. Oh, how she wished her mother were there to be a companion in her travails, to understand her the way Charity never could.
Well, at least her Good Samaritan had the hope of someday finding his missing betrothed, Faith mused, looking down at him and stifling a tiny twinge of jealousy. She would never again see her dearest ones or the home place she’d loved, no matter how hard she wished or prayed or toiled.
Suddenly realizing she had taken her deliverance for granted, Faith was penitent. Not only had she been spared the fate her poor mother had suffered, she’d been rescued a second time since then. Given the unsympathetic reactions of the other travelers she’d encountered at the fort, it was a wonderment she was not still lying in a heap in the street.
In retrospect, Faith realized she’d drifted in and out of consciousness while being carried to the trading post. She’d felt the rumble of the man’s voice beneath his buckskin shirt as he’d told the boy she’d fainted. There was also a vague recollection of a gentle hand on her face as someone touched her to brush back a lock of hair. Could that have been him?
Stepping in front of half of the curtain, she toyed with the loose curls that hung down over her shoulders. Decent, grown women didn’t let anyone but their husbands see them with their hair thus, Faith reminded herself. And they certainly didn’t stand in a window clad in nothing more than their chemise and a wrapper. Yet she didn’t move away, even when the man’s head tipped back and he gazed boldly in her direction.
Did he know who he was watching? He must. If not, why stare like that? There was plenty to see in the street below without bothering to peer into a tiny window fifteen feet above the entrance to the trading post.
Faith knew she should step back into the shadows. Displaying herself was indecent. Wanton. Still, there was the remembered touch of a hand on her cheek, the pounding
