Read the book: «Dreaming Of A Western Christmas»

Chapter Two

“Yeah, she’s waitin’ for ya, Brand. Ain’t too happy, but she’s waitin’.”

Brand glanced at the slim figure pacing determinedly back and forth in front of the sutler’s canned goods display. Small as they were, her leather shoes made sharp staccato sounds on the wood floor, and her white hands were clenched at her sides. Looked as if she was as mad as hell.

Well, so was he. Every bone in his tired body was shouting don’t do this. But the colonel had other ideas. His only hope was to get her to change her mind about going to Oregon.

“Jase, lay out some flannel shirts about her size and some jeans and a boy-sized pair of boots.” While the older man selected the items and piled them up on the counter, Brand approached his charge.

“Miss Cumberland?”

She stopped pacing and spun to face him. Her face had lost that dazed look she’d had an hour ago. Now her green eyes flashed with anger.

“Yes? What is it, Mr. Wyler?”

“I’m taking you to Oregon, like you wanted.”

“Oh? Have you hired a carriage?”

He laughed out loud. “A carriage! Ma’am, you’re smack in the middle of Indian country. We don’t have roads out here, just rough trails. If we’re lucky.”

“Perhaps a wagon, then?” She eyed the growing stack of clothing Jase was collecting and raised one eyebrow.

“Look over there on the counter, ma’am. See those boys’ duds? That’s what you’ll be wearing.”

“Surely you are joking?”

Brand clenched his jaw. So, Miss Fancy Drawers wanted to ride in style and wear dresses and corsets, did she? Tough luck. So what if her eyes still looked kinda funny—made his chest go tight—he still didn’t want to do this.

“We’ll be traveling on horseback.”

Her mouth sagged open and then snapped shut. “Horseback! You mean I will be riding on a horse?”

“That’s what horseback means.” His voice sounded exasperated, even to him. “You ever been on a horse?”

“No, I have not. Where I come from, ladies do not—”

“Well, they do out here, Miss Cumberland. So if you’re in such a lather to get to Oregon, you might as well get used to the idea.”

She just stared at him with that hurt look in her eyes. Then she stared at the pile of shirts and jeans Jase had loaded up on the counter. “I do not think...”

“Take it or leave it,” he said. “Or you could go back east, like I said.”

She bit her lower lip, considering the matter, and Brand tried not to think about how lush her mouth was.

“Very well,” she said at last. She stuck out her hand. “I agree. We have a bargain, Mr. Wyler.”

Without thinking he gripped her hand and shook it. Never in his life had he shaken hands with a woman. He’d waltzed with them, flirted with them, kissed them, made love to them. But shaken their hand? This one was so proper she squeaked.

But her hand felt small and warm and womanly in his. Maybe not squeaky, just stiff and overproper.

“Ya wanna try on them boots, miss?” Jase said from behind the counter.

“Boots! I have proper shoes, thank you.”

“Boots,” Brand snapped. “Winter’s just around the corner and on the trail you’ll want all the warmth you can get. Might hold those other duds up to you, see if they fit.”

Again she stared at him, her eyes even wider and greener than before. Kinda slow in the brain department; you’d think she’d see the clothes and put two and two together.

She dropped her gaze and very tentatively fingered the shirt on top of the stack, a red plaid. Jase shook it out and held it up to her frame. “Too big,” he muttered. He snaked it and two others out of the pile and replaced them. The jeans looked about right.

She disappeared behind the door curtain with the boots. Jase grinned at him and added a wool poncho, a wide-brimmed black hat and a leather belt to the stack.

“You got her between a rock an’ a creek, Brand. Don’t think she’ll be too happy till she’s broke in them boots.”

Serves her right, Brand thought. She’d maneuvered him into this—he could maneuver right back.

She stomped back through the curtain, slapped the boots on top of the pile and propped her hands at her waist. “What else?” she demanded.

He turned to Jase. “Ammunition. Coffee. Bacon. Jerky. Couple cans of beans and tomatoes. And a blanket.” He’d borrow a saddle for the mare she’d be riding, along with saddlebags and an extra canteen. Didn’t figure they’d go five miles before she caved in.

“Put it on my tab, will you, Jase? Better yet, send the bill to Colonel Clarke.” Yeah, he liked that idea.

“I prefer to pay my own bills,” Miss Cumberland said, her tone frosty. “I have adequate funds on my person.”

Brand studied her, wondering where she’d stashed it. “Best keep that fact under your hat, miss.”

“But—”

“And,” he couldn’t resist adding, “start learning to take orders. Here’s your first one—take these clothes over to the colonel’s quarters and pack ’em up in the saddlebag I’m gonna bring over. Colonel’s wife will help. Be ready at dawn.”

Her eyes rounded. “You like giving orders, do you not?”

“Got any objections?”

“I most certainly do. It is rude and officious behavior.”

Brand studied her flushed cheeks. Good. He’d made her good and mad. Maybe she’d give up this whole insane idea.

“Well, like I said, ma’am, take it or leave it. You ride to Oregon on my terms, or you don’t ride at all.”

The look she sent him could bake biscuits.

* * *

First thing the next morning, he gobbled Jase’s overfried eggs and bacon, outfitted his gelding and a sure-footed mare he’d picked out with bedrolls and his saddlebag, and strode over to Colonel Clarke’s quarters to collect Miss Suzannah Cumberland.

She was waiting on the front porch, and he had to look twice to be sure it was really her. The red plaid shirt was filled out in all the right places, and the jeans clung to her saucy little butt like they’d been washed and shrunk on her body.

He looked at her hard and his mouth went dry. She looked crisp and clean and brand-new. And damn pretty. She’d caught her shiny wheat-colored hair at her neck with a red ribbon, and the wide-brimmed black hat he’d picked out rode jauntily on the top of her head.

He swallowed and led both horses up to the porch. “Here’s your mount. Name’s Lady.”

She nodded. Brand picked up her saddlebag and slung it behind the saddle, then waited.

She didn’t move.

“Come on, Miss Cumberland. We’re wasting daylight.”

“I—I did not expect the horse to be so large,” she said. The quaver in her voice made Brand’s gut tense. Oh, for cryin’ out loud.

“All horses are ‘large.’”

“Yes, I see.” Still she didn’t move.

“You want to change your mind?” he prompted.

“N-no. I will adjust.”

Adjust! Riding a horse took a lot more than “adjusting.” What she needed to do was get on the damn horse.

Slowly she descended the wide porch steps and edged over to where he stood holding her mare’s bridle. “How do I... I mean, is there a method for mounting?”

“Yep. Put your left foot in this stirrup and grab onto the saddle horn, that little knob in front of the saddle.”

She did as instructed, and he laid one hand on her behind to boost her up. It was so warm and plump under his palm he broke out in a sweat.

She peered down at him. “It is quite far to the ground. Farther than I thought.”

“Hold on to your reins and for God’s sake don’t kick the horse.” He mounted the black, leaned over and lifted the reins out of her white-knuckled grip. “Relax. I’m going to lead your horse till you get used to ridin’.” He touched his boot heels to the gelding’s sides and moved forward. The gray mare stepped after him, and Miss Cumberland let out a screech.

“It’s moving!”

“Damn right,” he said dryly. “Horses do this all the time. Just hang on.”

He walked both mounts past the goggle-eyed sentry and out the gate while she clung to the saddle horn with both hands and made little moany sounds. God, four hundred miles of this was going to be pure hell.

After a couple of miles he pulled up and laid the gray’s reins in her hands. The gloves Jase had picked out for her were so large the ends of her fingers were floppy. He didn’t want to think about those soft lily-white hands getting sweaty inside the leather.

He didn’t want to think about her at all. Either she’d get used to the rigors of the trail or she wouldn’t. Wouldn’t be his fault if she suffered. This wasn’t his idea, and it sure wasn’t his choice.

* * *

Suzannah detested this man. He was blunt and overbearing and ungracious as only a Yankee could be. A Yankee with no social graces. If it weren’t for her beloved John’s letter, written in haste before a campaign, she would turn tail and run back to Mama and the plantation she loved.

Her back ached. Her derriere had gone numb hours ago, and the need to relieve herself was beginning to feel overpowering. Did this man never rest? How much longer could she stay in the saddle without begging him to stop? She caught her lower lip between her teeth. How humiliating it would be to beg!

But...humiliating or not, in a short time she would be reduced to doing just that. A very short time. She could scarcely imagine begging a Yankee for anything. Papa would turn in his grave.

The man—Brandon, he’d said his name was—had led her horse for an hour this morning, but then he’d stopped, grunted something and handed the reins to her. From then on she was on her own. He had not spared her so much as a single glance of those hard gray eyes. No approval of her desperate efforts at controlling this huge gray beast. Not a word of encouragement.

She eyed his lean, blue-shirted frame moving easily on the shiny black horse in front of her. Not once had he looked over his shoulder to see if she was still plodding along behind him. Odious man! Her beloved John would never, never treat a lady this way. Never.

She was concentrating so hard on the dust-swirled trail ahead of her she failed to see his raised arm and the signal to stop until she almost blundered into him.

“Water ahead,” he said. “Gotta rest the horses.”

“The horses! What about the riders?”

“Water’s for them, too.” He spoke the words while gazing ahead to a single spindly-looking tree, more dirty gray than green. Never once did he look at her. Fury battled with desperation as she tried to estimate how long it would take to reach the shade. And personal relief. Too long.

“Could we not move a bit faster?” she called.

He didn’t answer, just kicked his mount into a trot. She touched her boot heels to the horse’s sides as he did, and it jolted forward. With a cry she hurtled up level with him and would have passed him had he not leaned sideways out of the saddle and grabbed her reins.

“Whoa, girl. Whoa.” He then proceeded to walk both animals toward the tree as if he had all the time in the world. Well, she didn’t.

He pulled up by a stream tumbling over large flat rocks, and Suzannah gritted her teeth. The sound of running water triggered something in her body, and without thinking she swung her leg over the saddle horn and dropped to the ground.

Her legs buckled. She grabbed onto the dangling stirrup and suddenly there he was behind her, one hand gripping her leather belt.

“I have to—”

“Yeah, I’m sure you do. Over there.” He laid his hand on her back and shoved her toward the tree.

There was no privacy at all. The tree trunk looked no wider than a sleeve press, and the sparse branches would not screen a four-year-old child.

“I trust you will turn your back, Mr. Wyler?”

“We’ll take turns. You first.”

It was so much easier for a man, she fumed. Just unbutton and... She, on the other hand, would have to shimmy her jeans down over her hips, then lower her underdrawers and squat practically in plain sight.

She perched on her haunches with her bare bottom exposed and watched to be sure he didn’t peek. While she did her business, he brought their horses to the stream and bent to fill his canteen. He did keep his back to her, for which she thanked the Lord who created men and women.

His voice startled her. “You finished?”

“Y-yes.”

“Come on over here, then. Fill up your canteen.”

She tried to stand, but her legs shook so they wouldn’t support her weight. She kept squatting near the ground and wondered how she could pull up her drawers and jeans without standing up. She hadn’t been this embarrassed since she fell in the mud hole under the cypress tree back home when she was nine.

Think! She needed some way to pull herself upright, but... A low-hanging branch would do, but the tree’s foliage started several feet over her head. The tree trunk, that was it. She reached for it with both hands and managed to scrabble her fingers against the bark.

“Miss Cumberland?”

“Oh, leave me alone!” she cried. Inch by inch her fingers clawed their way up the trunk until she was halfway vertical. When her belt was once again cinched in the waist of her jeans she wanted to weep with relief.

“Ma’am? You all right?”

“I am perfectly all right, thank you.”

“Kinda stiff, I’d guess.”

She opened her mouth to lambaste him, but then heard the unmistakable sound of a stream of urine hitting the ground. Why, he wouldn’t dare!

But he did. He stood in plain sight with his back to her. She turned away with a huff and after a minute he called that it was time to mount up.

“I am coming, Mr. Wyler.” She took two steps toward the horses and realized she could scarcely move, much less mount her horse.

He met her halfway, took one look at her crabbed walk and snorted. “You sure as hell are no horsewoman.”

“And you sure as hell are no gentleman!” she blurted out. Oh, my! Mama would wash my mouth out with soap for that.

“You got that right.” Then he chuckled and gave her a thorough once-over. “You look half-dead.”

She did not deign to answer such an uncouth remark. Instead she lifted her chin and tried to edge past him.

“Guess I should have stopped sooner,” he said.

“You were paying no attention whatever to me, Mr. Wyler.”

“Not true,” he replied. “Maybe not the fancy kind of attention you’re used to, but attention nevertheless.”

Before she could draw breath, he scooped her up into his arms and plopped her into the saddle.

“Ow!” It slipped out before she could catch herself.

“Sore, huh?”

She didn’t trust her voice, so she sat up as straight as she possibly could and nodded in what she hoped was a regal gesture.

“Well, damn,” he said under his breath. “I plumb forgot how green you are.”

He slung both canteens behind his cantle and swung up into the saddle. “Five more miles,” he said. “Think you can make it?”

She nodded again, but he wasn’t looking. He walked his mount close to hers, caught up her reins and laid them in her lap. “Try to keep up.”

She ached to slap him. She wanted to ask how long it would take to travel five more miles, but he spoke before she could form the question.

“About another hour and a half.”

She stifled a moan. In addition to being the most insufferable male she had ever encountered, he could read her mind, too.