Bound For Eden (41 page)

‘You
think
.'

‘I
know
.'

‘He doesn't know the way.'

‘He'll find out,' Alex said stubbornly. She and Stephen had been arguing ever since they'd discovered Adam was missing. Stephen wanted to head for Oregon City; Alex was all for bypassing it and heading directly to Utopia.

‘I don't know where Utopia is!' Stephen had shouted. So she'd agreed to head for Oregon City, but only to get directions.

‘Wait,' Ned said, alarmed, as Stephen flicked the reins. ‘I came to see you.'

Victoria gave him an encouraging smile. Had he come to court her? To ask Stephen for her hand? She began planning speeches in her head;
Oh Ned, if only my heart didn't already belong to another. Can you ever forgive me? One day you'll find a good woman . . .
she scowled suddenly at the thought. She didn't want Ned to find a good woman. She wanted him to stay in love with
her.
He was the only man who'd ever fallen in love with her. Not like Alex, who broke hearts wherever she went. Except for Luke's, she thought smugly, remembering the way he'd completely ignored her beautiful sister. He didn't so much as look at her. Neither did Ned, Victoria thought with a dreamy smile. Maybe Alex was losing her touch.

‘It's the Gradys!' Ned called after them, struggling to turn his wagon on the narrow track. His oxen lowed irritably.

Alex's heart stopped. She grabbed the reins from Stephen and yanked. ‘What?' They waited for Ned to pull up beside Stephen's wagon.

‘They sent a rider from Laramie. I said I'd bring word to you. The Gradys have escaped.'

‘How?' Alex asked numbly.

‘I don't know, but it was weeks and weeks ago.'

Weeks ago? Alex felt faint. Gideon would come for her. She knew he would. She remembered the insane rage in his eyes and his loonish laughter. And what about Silas? She'd just about bitten his tongue off when he assaulted her, and then he'd been peppered with Deathrider's arrows and beaten senseless by Luke. He would have reason enough to come for her too. Oh hell, and Adam was out there alone. Suppose he ran into them? What would they do to him?

‘There's more,' Ned said gently, watching the blood drain from their faces. ‘They found one of them outside Fort Hall. Dead.' He refrained from saying more. He could hardly tell the ladies that the man had been gutted, pinned out and disembowelled like an animal. By his own brothers.

He didn't need to say it, the look on his face told them enough.

‘Another one was picked up heading back towards Independence. Apparently he was cut up pretty bad.'

Gideon, Alex thought sickly, remembering the jagged ‘A' carved into Silas's face. If he could maim and kill his brothers, what would he do to her?

‘We have to hurry,' she said, an edge of hysteria in her voice, ‘we have to find Adam.'

‘If you think he's heading for Luke, I can take you,' Ned volunteered. ‘Our land is right by the Slater place.'

‘Your land?' Victoria said numbly, still white with shock.

‘Six hundred and forty acres,' he said proudly. ‘We'll be staying with Luke until the house is built.'

‘Oh.' Victoria was barely listening. All she could think of was the feel of Gideon's gun between her lips and against her tongue.

‘Miss Sparrow can ride with us,' Ned suggested. ‘It can't be too comfortable in the back of that wagon.'

Stephen's wagon was just a light farm vehicle and Victoria was rattling around in the back tray. She let Ned help her across and sat gratefully beside him. It was comforting to have him close. She remembered that it was he who had defeated the Gradys last time. She inched a little closer.

Alex and Stephen fell in behind the covered wagon. Consumed with fear, they didn't speak.

‘Luke's going courting again,' Tom chuckled, when Luke emerged from his room, freshly shaven and dressed in his Sunday best.

Luke ignored him. ‘Why aren't you dressed for church?' he snapped at Matt, who was still lounging at the kitchen table.

‘What church?'

Utopia didn't have a church to speak of yet. Church services were held in Harding's barn when there was a crowd, and in his parlour when only a smattering of people showed up. Luke was hoping they'd be in the parlour today. Then he might be able to sit next to Amelia on the loveseat.

‘You're not wearing that,' Luke objected when Matt rose and jammed his mangy old coonskin cap on his head. Matt ignored him and headed outside.

‘Do you have to?' Tom sighed. ‘You've only been back a week.'

‘It ain't decent.' Luke settled his own hat on his newly cropped hair and headed out too.

Tom rolled his eyes. Things were always tense when Luke and Matt were under the same roof. Tom figured that in another few days Matt would decide that he'd had a gutful and he'd disappear into the wilds for a bit. He had to laugh when he got outside to find Matt saddling Fernando, the old gray donkey.

‘What the hell are you doing?' Luke was growling. ‘There's a whole corral full of horses right there.'

Matt didn't respond. He didn't need to. The horses were Luke's, except for Tom's two paints.

‘I'm not having you ride in on a damn donkey,' Luke snapped.

Ignoring his older brother completely, Matt mounted the donkey and set off in the direction of the Harding place, his feet just about dragging on the ground.

‘I don't see what you find so funny,' Luke said, turning on Tom.

‘I must say,' Tom observed, following him into the barn, ‘you've been in a fine temper since you returned. Something you'd care to tell us? I thought you'd be full of sunshine after getting that Arab you were after. Speaking of which, why the hell aren't you riding him?'

Luke scowled as he saddled Isis instead. He wasn't about to tell Tom that he could barely stand to look at the Arab. He wished he hadn't bought him; when he looked at him he thought about Alex and the feel of her palm when he'd handed her the money. He'd barely even touched her, just the merest brush of his fingertips against her hand. Yet his fingers tingled at the memory.

‘It's Amelia, isn't it?' Tom said sympathetically. ‘I know you went to see her the other day . . .' he trailed off. Luke thought it was some kind of secret that Amelia kept refusing him, but just about everyone knew. Tom couldn't understand his brother's fascination with that empty-headed little twit. Unless it was the fact that Amelia was the only woman who'd ever offered Luke a challenge. Mostly they melted at his feet.

Luke
had
gone to see Amelia. Had sat in the parlour with her, on that plush little loveseat by the window, sipping her mother's overly sweet tea and nibbling at those dainty little cakes they had that seemed to fall apart in his big hands. He'd listened to Amelia chatter, filling him in on the local gossip, and he'd meant to ask her again, he really had. But for some reason he couldn't bring himself to do it.

She'd seemed like a complete stranger.

He'd looked at her as though he'd never seen her before. He'd never noticed how fine and straight her dark hair was, without even the slightest hint of a curl, or how close together her brown eyes were, or how narrow her upper lip was. He'd never noticed how high and clear her voice was, without even a hint of huskiness. And she was so little. All fine-boned and delicate. Instinctively he knew that if he pulled her hard against him he would feel the jut of her hipbones. Amelia was small and sweet, and breakable.

He left feeling very mixed-up. He rode the familiar trails of the lower Cascades until both he and Isis were exhausted, and returned home feeling empty and strange.

As he and Tom rode up to the Harding place for the Sunday service he felt the same mixed-up feeling rising behind his breastbone.

‘Luke!' Pam Cressley yipped when she caught sight of him. Beside her, Johanna Sprat and Mary Tonkin waved enthusiastically.

Tom noticed that every one of the local women, the married ones as well as the maids, had dressed in their best today. Word had obviously got around that Luke was back.

‘More people than usual today,' Tom drawled as he joined Matt by the porch. Matt was slouching and looking surly. His unkempt beard reached halfway down his chest and looked like it could comfortably accommodate half a dozen birds' nests. Matt looked like the roughest of mountain men, but Tom knew it was mostly for Luke's benefit. Matt would paint his face green and dance naked on Courthouse Rock if he thought it would annoy Luke.

They watched as a flock formed around their brother. Matt snorted. ‘Look at him. Happy as a pig in mud.'

‘No, I don't think so,' Tom said thoughtfully. ‘Haven't you noticed how ornery he's been since he got back?'

‘Luke's always ornery.'

‘Only around you, little brother,' Tom laughed. ‘Seriously, look. When have you ever noticed him be ornery around a flock of women?'

Matt looked. Luke's smile was thin and tight. In fact, he seemed to be trying to get away. ‘Maybe it's because Curt Loughlin proposed to Amelia,' he said with a dismissive shrug. He didn't really care why Luke did the things he did.

‘He did?' Tom said, surprised. ‘I wonder why.'

‘She's the prettiest girl around, Tom,' Matt told him with a measure of exasperation. Tom didn't seem to notice girls at all. Matt didn't understand it; the girls seemed to think Tom was good-looking – he came a close second to Luke, anyway – and he was a happy, genial sort. But women lost interest the minute they saw that he didn't really care for them. Tom's whole world was his damn ranching. All he was interested in was driving his herds down to California.

Tom's gaze searched Amelia out curiously. ‘I guess she's pretty enough.'

‘Well, who would you say is prettier?'

Tom was able to answer that question a couple of hours later when he and Matt returned home, leaving Luke to have dinner with the Hardings. There, waiting on their front porch, was the prettiest girl he'd ever seen in his life.

She wasn't just pretty, she was breathtaking. So beautiful he would have sold every last head of cattle he owned just to know her name.

Alex's heart plummeted when she saw that it wasn't Luke. From a distance she'd thought it was him and her heart had lodged in her throat. ‘Are you sure this is the right place?' she asked nervously as she watched the two men approach. One was as big and dark as Luke, riding a hardy-looking brown and white speckled horse. The other looked as wild and frightening as Jim Bridger, and seemed about to break the back of a tired old donkey.

‘According to Luke's directions,' Ned assured her.

Alex had her doubts. The house was so pretty. It was a large two-storeyed house, with a long porch. It even had a porch swing and lace curtains at the windows. There was wild honeysuckle growing up the posts, and a few hardy sweetbriar roses were still flowering by the stairs. Not too far in the distance Alex could see the Cascade Range rising above wooded slopes of pine and fir, maple, mountain ash, hemlock, and a dozen other kinds of tree she couldn't name. Every window of the house would have a perfect view of this bountiful Eden. Had he built this place for Arnelle Hardnose?

The two strange men came to a halt directly in front of her and Alex fixed a smile on her face. They were staring at her like they'd never seen a woman before. She fiddled nervously with her skirts and wished she'd changed into her best pink-flowered dress. She'd just about worn this gray to death and she was painfully aware of its stained hem and frayed cuffs.

‘Good afternoon,' she said politely, wincing under their stares. Now that she could see them properly she knew very well who they were. There was no mistaking their resemblance to Luke. What had he told them about her? They were looking at her like she had two heads. ‘I hope you don't mind us intruding,' she blathered on, blushing as they remained silent. ‘It's just that my brother has run away, and we assumed that he would come here, because of Blackie.'