Come Spring (15 page)

She tried to imagine what Kase might have done when she didn’t get off the train in Cheyenne. Had he wired her parents? She hoped not—not yet anyway—for if all went well and Buck Scott kept his word and delivered her safely to Cheyenne, there was no need to upset them. If the conductor told her brother what had happened, perhaps Kase had started out after her already. She hoped so. She prayed that he ran into them on the trail tomorrow and scared Buck Scott within an inch of his life.

The front door rattled, giving her a start, but it was only the wind trying to get in. The snow was more successful. It continued to force itself through the cracks and chinks in the walls. Mud daubing used to seal the many openings had frozen solid, cracked, and fallen out. She wondered if there would be anything left standing by morning.

The fire burned low; the room grew chill. Still, she could not sleep. When she heard the bed ropes creak and the rustle of blankets, Annika squeezed her eyes shut and feigned sleep. She gripped the covers tightly beneath her chin and waited, afraid to twitch or even breathe while Buck Scott was up prowling around. He padded across the small space, and although she dared not look, she could feel him standing over her.

She didn’t move a muscle. He just stood there.

Finally, she peered out from beneath her lashes, but he was still somewhere behind her where she couldn’t see him. Just as her taut muscles began to ache unbearably, Buck moved. Carefully stepping over her, he bent and picked up a length of wood.

Annika waited in horrified silence while he raised it from the pile.

This is it. He’s going to bash my brains in.

She was ready to scream, set to roll away to try to escape the killing blow when he carefully set the wood on the fire. He hefted a poker, stirred up the embers, and put the poker down. Finally, cupping his hands, he blew on them, stepped over her again, and padded away.

Annika breathed an audible sigh of relief.

She closed her eyes again, then realized he was still moving about the room. Once more he approached her pallet. Again he stopped just behind her. This time he dropped another cured pelt over her and pulled it up to her chin.

The back of his weather-roughened hand accidentally brushed her cheek as he pulled the cover tight around her.

“Better get some sleep.”

His voice, far gentler than she’d ever heard it, was close to her ear. She was afraid to turn and look over her shoulder, knowing his arresting blue eyes would be very near. Refusing to acknowledge his kindness, she kept her eyes shut tight.

It was a little late in the day for Buck Scott to try to make up for everything he had already put her through.

B
UCK
woke with the first light that oozed through the cracks in the lopsided shutters. The weak morning light outlined the frost in the freezing room. Snow had built up on the floor in miniature drifts beneath the largest chinks in the wall. Fully clothed, he was loath to get out of bed, unwilling to face the shock of cold beyond the thick fur covers, but someone had to build up the fire and set the water boiling for the morning meal.

He lay on his back and stared up at the weathered boards that formed the ceiling, for a time doing little more than conjuring imaginary faces and figures formed by the knotholes and scars in the wood. He heard Annika Storm stir restlessly on her pallet and wondered if she had slept at all. It had been hours before he lost himself in sleep, hours spent listening to the soft rustle of her bedclothes and Annika’s frustrated sighs. Each sound only served to set him thinking about the fool he had been for taking her off the train. He rolled to his side and stared across the room at the legs of the table and the barrel stools beneath it.

Last night he had convinced himself he was crazy. He’d acted exactly the way a madman would have when he’d forced Annika to go with him and refused to believe she was not Alice Soams.

The wind rattled the door as it had for hours. He didn’t need to open the shutters to see that the snow had piled itself in high drifts against the outer walls, not to mention the pass into the valley. He threw back the covers and braced himself to meet the cold that attacked his joints just as he knew it would. He stifled a groan. Too many winters spent wading through frozen streams to set traps had stiffened his joints until he felt far older than his years.

He trod softly across the room, careful to avoid stepping on Annika as he reached across her to add more wood to the fire. She seemed to be truly asleep, not merely feigning it this time. She had given up tossing and turning sometime before dawn. He stood for a moment and contemplated her as she slept unaware. The covers were pulled up to her hairline until all that was visible was the top of her golden head. Her thick hair shone brightly against the rich wolf pelts. As he turned away from the tempting sight, Buck raked both hands through his own shoulder-length hair and shook it back, then set out to fill the kettle and hang it over the fire.

A layer of ice had formed atop the water in the tall barrel beside the door. The frost shattered and bobbed as he dipped a ladle in and filled the blackened copper kettle. He filled a pot with cornmeal and set it aside until it was time to make the mush, the usual morning fare.

Across the room, Baby sat up abruptly and smiled. “Me get up,” she announced as she started to crawl out from beneath the covers.

Buck kept his voice low so as not to awaken Annika. “You stay put until I get you dressed. It’s freezing today.”

He took her little dress off the chair where he had hung it the night before. The material was dry but cold, so he held it close to the fire to warm it, then carried it across the room. Once the dress was on, Baby dove beneath the covers to retrieve her new shoes and insisted Buck put them on her feet.

He started to slip the hard leather shoes on her when he realized that unlike her soft, martin-lined moccasins, the stiff leather shoes would require stockings to warm her feet and prevent blisters—but he hadn’t thought to buy socks.

“No new shoes today, Baby. Why don’t you wear your old ones until it gets warmer?”

Baby tossed her mussed blond ringlets and said emphatically, “No!”

“Please.” He tried cajoling her, his Voice low but firm, “You can’t wear these without socks. You’ll get blisters.”

“Me want me shoes.”

“You want your feet to bleed and hurt?” Trying to discourage her, he scowled and shook his head.

“Me want me shoes!”

“No.” He tried to take the shoes from her. Out of sight, out of mind. “You can’t wear them yet.”

“Would you just put those shoes on that child?” The muffled grumbling came from the pallet at the foot of the bed.

Buck hefted the struggling Baby and walked over to stare down at Annika. She had pulled the pelts down far enough to stare over the edge at him. Her eyes were bloodshot from lack of sleep and the dry air. His guest was none too happy with either him, Baby, or the circumstances.

“Well?” she said.

“Well what?” he said.

“Will you put those shoes on that child so she’ll quit whining? And when are we leaving?”

“Leaving?”

Her brow furrowed as her eyes narrowed suspiciously. “You said you’d take me to Cheyenne today.”

He turned away and carried the now kicking, squirming child to the nearest chair where he plopped her down and reached for the tiny moccasins on the floor.

“No! No! Me want shoes! Shoooose!” Baby worked herself up to a full roar.

Buck concentrated on shoeing the flailing feet as he applied gentle pressure to keep the child on the chair.

“You said you’d take me home!” Panicked now, Annika pulled herself to a sitting position and shoved her hair back off her face with both hands. “You have to. You promised. If my brother finds you first you may as well—”

Baby’s small foot connected with Buck’s jaw. He stumbled back, nearly upsetting the table as a colorful expletive escaped him.

He straightened, pinned Annika with a stare, then jerked his gaze away and glanced down at Baby, who was howling with fear and frustration. The tiny moccasins in his hands crumpled into wads as his fists balled at his sides. Without another word to either angry female, he threw the moccasins on the table and turned his back on them both.

He grabbed his coat off the peg and jerked the door open.

The drift outside the door fell inward, showering the floor with snow as the wind did its utmost to blow more in behind it.

Buck kicked enough snow out of the way to get the door closed and then stepped out into the blinding white world beyond.

As the door slammed closed behind him, Baby abruptly stopped howling and Annika crossed her arms. New shoes in hand, Baby climbed down off the chair and toddled over to Annika, marched across the wolf pelts, and plopped down on her lap.

“Shoes?” Trustingly, she offered her prized possessions to Annika and waited for the woman to put them on her feet.

Annika closed her eyes and wished away the whole scene, opened them and tried to smile at the moon-faced child gazing up at her with such hope in her eyes. She could count on one hand the firsthand experience she’d had with children. Speaking slowly, she tried to sound sure of herself and as logical as possible, but it was hard to think clearly and fight off the mounting fear that Buck Scott no longer intended to take her back to Cheyenne.

“Listen, Baby. You let me get up and get dressed and then I’ll find something you can use for socks and we’ll get those shoes on. All right?”

Baby sniffed, shuddered with dramatic gasps, and then nodded. She held her shoes to her chest and stood up, trampled back across Annika’s makeshift bed, and then sat on the hearth beside the fire.

Annika felt a surge of success and decided that dealing with children might not be as hard as she thought. She noticed Baby was shivering, whether from emotion or cold she couldn’t tell, but as soon as she crawled out from beneath the covers and stood up, she knew. Despite the fire, the cabin was freezing. She threw another log on the already good-sized blaze and then hurried to put on her clothes. She took up her rumpled, water-stained suit and decided not to take off her nightclothes. Instead she pulled her petticoat over the two nightgowns, then donned her wool skirt. The fitted jacket barely closed across the bodice with so many layers beneath, but she soon succeeded in buttoning most of the buttons.

Once she was dressed to her satisfaction, she put on her own shoes, thankful that she had left her stockings on all night, and as she did, she wondered what she might use to line Baby’s shoes. With efficient motions, she stuffed her shirtwaist in her bag, pulled out her comb and brush, and worked them through her hair. She twisted her hair into a thick knot atop her head and smoothed the fabric of her shirt with her palms.

Baby was still sniffling and shivering by the fire.

“Where’s your coat?” Annika asked.

The child pointed to a peg on the far wall above the box of pitiful items she called toys. Annika took down the coat, a smaller, fully-lined version of Buck’s own fringed buckskin jacket, then helped Baby pull it on before she went to look through her bag for something to cut up and fashion into stockings.

She fingered her blue shirtwaist and shook her head. She would need the blouse. Her eyes lit on the pelts at her feet and she wondered if she could somehow cram pieces of fur into the shoes, much like the lining of the moccasins. “May I see your new shoes?” She stood over Baby and reached out her hand.

Baby hugged the shoes tighter, shook her head no, and sucked on her thumb.

“I need to see them if I’m going to make you some socks that will fit.”

Another shake.

Annika sat on the hearth beside Baby, cupped her numb hands, and blew on them. The water in the kettle had started to hiss. She longed for a cup of hot tea, but ignored the sound and concentrated on Baby instead. There was a pitiful hopelessness in the child’s slumped shoulders and the way she kept glancing at the door, waiting for Buck to return.

“Don’t you want to put the shoes on anymore?”

A lone tear trickled down Baby’s cheek. She nodded yes.

“Then you have to let me see them so that I can make you a pair of socks.” Suddenly Annika had an idea. “I only need one. You keep one and I’ll take one.”

Baby stared down at the shoes and then up at Annika. With slow uncertainty, she handed her one shoe.

Annika stood up and thanked the child.

“W’come,” Baby said softly.

At least Buck Scott had taught her some manners, Annika thought. She picked up a wolf pelt and wrapped it around the child’s bare feet. “Now, don’t move and I’ll fix you right up.”

Instead of using anything of her own, Annika opened the lid of the chest from which Buck had procured the nightshirt. She rustled through a pile of well-worn clothes—mismatched stockings, shirts that were frayed and faded, some gingham and calico gowns in equally poor condition. She set aside a cigar box and pulled out a pair of rough woolen ladies’ stockings with holes in the heels and smiled in triumph. Then, she rummaged through her own valise until she found a small pair of scissors, then cut the feet off the stockings.

With the tubular legs of the stockings in her hands, she went back to Baby and slipped them on her feet. They were bulky but snug, and except for the fact that the toes were open, Annika thought they fit considerably well. Baby studied her feet and legs, then silently watched Annika, who was chewing on her lower lip, trying to decide how best to proceed.

Her valise contained a small sewing kit with only enough thread and a needle to sew on a few buttons. Now, as she faced the challenge of the socks, Annika pulled the kit out and set to work. In no time the toes were closed and Baby was shod. The black stockings reached well up to the child’s thighs.

“There,” Annika said, her own gaze shifting to the door, “that was simple. Now, let’s see about some tea.”

It took a few moments to convince Baby that even though she must wear her coat, they were not going outside with Buck. “If we’re lucky, he’ll freeze to death,” Annika whispered to herself as Baby climbed onto a chair and demanded mush.