Just Once (18 page)

“Don’t move your feet and get Nette’s quilt dirty or she won’t let you come visiting again.” Hunter plucked Luther Junior off the floor and set him on Jemma’s other side.

“Now,” Hunter said, straightening and running a hand through his hair, “is everybody happy?”

“We sure are,” Junior declared with a big smile at Jemma. “Aren’t we?”

“Yep,” Callie had taken hold of Jemma’s hand and was squeezing it in a tight grip. “You wanna get in, too, Uncle Hunt?”

It was Hunter’s turn to go beet-red. Although Callie’s innocent question embarrassed her as well, Jemma found herself enjoying his discomfort immensely.

Hunter was saved having to answer when Nette walked in and had no sooner taken off her coat than Luther and Hannah, each carrying a child in their arms, opened the door again and came in behind her. Bundled in a black wool coat, Lucy trailed in after them. Head down, she crossed the room and climbed the ladder to the loft without a word to anyone.

In the hubbub that followed, Jemma was introduced to the Boones’ other children: Sadie, who was three, and Timothy, a baby not yet a year old. Seeing the brood gathered together, she wondered how Hannah managed. If the few minutes she had experienced alone with Junior and Callie was any indication of what a day with the four children was like, she thought Hannah was ready for sainthood.

Nette poured coffee and the adults gathered about the table near Jemma’s bedside to spend the only idle hours of a long day to welcome Hunter home officially. Within a few moments, Jemma realized Hunter must have already told his family about how they had met in New Orleans, for no one asked. She was thankful that she didn’t have to dredge up the old lie.

Hunter presented Nette with the fabric and the stone pipe he’d traded for in the Choctaw village. Nette laughed at the pipe and said she couldn’t wait to try it, but the gift she was fondest of was the printed fabric. Hunter teased her, claiming he didn’t know what possessed a sane woman to cut up good material just to sew it back together again. They bantered back and forth for a few more minutes while Luther and Hannah spoke to the older children.

When everything quieted down, Luther shifted the sleeping infant in his arms as naturally as if he were carrying a sack of sugar, leaned back, and looked at his brother.

“So, Hunter,” Luther began, “aside from volunteering to bring Jemma upriver, did anything else happen?”

All eyes were focused expectantly on Hunter. Even Junior sat up a little straighter, and Nette, now seated across the room at the quilt rack, paused and peered over the rim of her glasses at him, waiting.

“Nothing to speak of.” Hunter glanced at Jemma and then away. He propped his ankle on his opposite knee and shook his foot up and down. Callie stuck out her lip, her disappointment evident.

Hunter leaned back in his chair. When he looked at Jemma and winked, she wondered what he was up to. “Well, there
was
that one close call …”

“Tell us, Uncle Hunt,” Junior begged. “What happened?”

“Oh, we ran into some Choctaw, is all.”

“Really?” Junior’s eyes were filled with admiration.

Callie tugged on Jemma’s sleeve. “What’s a
chalk-tall?
”

“An Indian tribe.” Jemma said.

“Did you see ’em, too?” Junior asked Jemma. When he noticed that Callie had a hold of her hand, he quickly grabbed the other one.

Jemma glanced over at Hunter to see if he was going to do justice to the story. He simply sat back and smiled, letting her have the floor. She looked around the room and couldn’t resist, not with such an attentive audience.

“I certainly did see them,” she said with an emphatic nod.

Hannah, with Sadie asleep on her shoulder, absently smoothed her hand up and down the toddler’s back. “Were you terrified, Jemma?”

“Most definitely. Hunter was asleep by the fire and I was on watch—”

From her place at the quilting frame Nette called out, “Hunter Boone! You made that child sit up and take the night watch with Indians close by? What were you thinking?”

Hunter cleared his throat. “I was thinking that if I didn’t get some sleep every once in a while that I was going to fall over dead and then I wouldn’t do her much good, now would I?”

“Jemma, please go on. You tell it,” Hannah urged.

“I was on watch and suddenly, I could just barely make out a shadowy figure standing amid the trees.” She lowered her voice until each and every one of them was hanging on her every word. Everyone except Hunter, who was consciously avoiding looking at her.

“I wasn’t certain whether or not I was seeing things, so I tried to wake Hunter, but he didn’t hear me calling his name.”

“Big brother, did you actually take her money for protecting her?” Luther laughed so hard that the babe in his arms stirred and smacked his lips.

When Hunter didn’t respond, Jemma continued, her voice low and dramatic. “I wasn’t crazy. Slowly, step by step, a man emerged from the shelter of the trees. In the darkness, with the firelight playing over his face and his shadow wavering against the whispering pines, he frightened the wits out of me. So … I took a shot at him!”

She paused and waited for their reactions.

“Mercy!” Hannah whispered.

“Did you kill ’im, Jemma?” Junior was pulling on her fingers while Callie scooted closer and shivered.

“I didn’t kill him, no, but I did some serious damage—”

“To his pride,” Hunter finished for her. “She blasted the hell out of some pheasant feathers he had used to decorate his turban.”

Jemma stuck out her chin. “I scared him a bit.”

“So much so, that I had to spend the night making amends and palavering with him over coffee while you went to sleep,” Hunter reminded her.

“Then he went away?”

Callie looked so scared that Jemma had to assure her. “Yes. He went away.”

“He didn’t want to scalp you?” Junior sounded disappointed.

“Actually, he wanted to
buy
me,” Jemma said.

“He
what?
” Nette’s needle lay forgotten in the stretched quilt.

“He wanted to trade for her,” Hunter said. “But I got rid of him and we thought we’d seen the last of him.”

“You thought?” Luther prodded.

“Didn’t see him again until the raft accident,” Hunter replied.

“Raft accident!” Hannah cried in disbelief.

Jemma was surprised to see that Hunter was actually able to enjoy himself thoroughly. He baited the family with bits and pieces of information instead of spinning a real breath-holding, heart-thumping yarn like Grandpa Hall used to do. She jumped in before he could string them along any more.

“We came to a particularly wild, raging river, not like the others that we swam the horses over—”

Nette called out again. “Hunter Boone, if I were stronger and you were a mite smaller I would take you over my knee.”

“It turned out all right in the end, Nette,” Jemma assured her, “although we certainly had some hair-raising moments. Hunter built a raft out of fallen logs. He piled everything on it, including me, and tied the bundles together and put a rope around my waist and told me to hang on. Then he shoved the raft out into the raging current.”

“Hunter Boone, you should be shot,” Nette grumbled.

“She’s here in one piece, isn’t she?” he called across the room.

“Go on, Jemma,” Luther said.

“Well, the raft hit a submerged log, I guess, and before I knew it, I was flying head over heels into the river—”

“You would have been all right if you’d left the rope on like I told you,” Hunter cut in.

Jemma went on as if he hadn’t said a word. “I went under and nearly drowned before I was tossed up on the bank a ways downstream. I pulled myself up onto the riverbank—I’d lost one of the shoes Hunter had bought me, but they never fit well anyway—and managed to crawl up the bank on my hands and knees. I saw a man coming toward me and thought it was Hunter. I called out, but it turned out to be Many Feathers, the very same Indian who’d tried to buy me a few nights before. When I realized who it was, I fainted dead away.”

She paused again to see what effect she was having on her audience and found them all spellbound. Only Hunter frowned.

“What’s wrong now?” she asked.

“You didn’t tell me you fainted that day, too.”

“I forgot.”

“Do you faint all the time?”

“No, just when I haven’t eaten a substantial meal for days or when I’m facing captivity.”

“He took you
captive?
” Nette had taken off her glasses and pulled a chair closer to the bed.

Something rustled above them and Jemma looked up. Lucy was peering down from the loft, listening to every word. Jemma smiled and waved at the girl and after a moment, Lucy waved back.

“Don’t stop now, Jemma,” Lucy called down. “What happened then?”

“Many Feathers led me back to the Indian encampment and threw me into his hut. It was as dark and black as the inside of Hades, and it smelled terrible. There were piles of furs and no windows, just a door and a little hole in the ceiling to let the smoke from the cook fire escape. And there was a pot of reeking stew bubbling over the fire.”

“Were you scared enough to want to die?” Lucy called down again.

Jemma shook her head. “No. I was furious that I’d let myself get into that situation in the first place.” She glanced around at the Boones, young and old, and Nette, and had a change of heart. “Well, to tell you the truth, I was frightened out of my wits. I tried to tell him, in sign language, that I wanted no part of him and certainly wasn’t interested in marriage.”

Luther barked out a laugh.

“Then he did a strange sort of dance with some nut bells and rubbed tobacco on my face. Actually, I think he wanted to rub it all over me, but I shoved him and told him to stop it.”

Hannah gasped.

“Love charm,” Luther laughed, looking over at his brother.

“What are you talking about?” Hunter shot back.

Luther patted the baby’s back and chuckled. “The man was rubbing tobacco over her because it’s supposed to make her attractive, like a love potion.”

Jemma looked over and saw Hunter frowning in thought.

“Go on, Jemma,” Nette urged.

“Then Many Feathers’s son came home. He spoke English, so I thought I could reason with him, but he was as stubborn as the old man.” She sighed and paused. “Then they dragged me out of the hut and made me work alongside the other women, endlessly pounding corn. Pounding and pounding until it was pulverized into meal.” She held up her hands, “I had blisters the size of the pumpkins out there in Nette’s garden.”

“How did you get away?” Junior wanted to know.

Jemma smiled at Hunter. “That’s the best part.”

Hunter couldn’t take his eyes off of her. As Jemma spun the tale of his attempt to make a trade for her and then, as she put it, his daring night rescue, he felt a forbidden warmth seep into his heart that he hadn’t known for a long, long time. She was propped up on the pillows with a child under each arm, her golden hair so clean and shining it caught the firelight in every curl. Her eyes were bright with mischief as she embellished her version of the rescue and flight; her smile flashed and her dimples teased her cheeks and tempted him. Beneath the delicate stitches across the bodice of the white nightgown, her breasts rose and fell with every breath. He knew what it was to kiss that mouth, to touch those breasts, to hold her close.

He forced himself to look away and studied his family. Luther was smiling from ear to ear; Hannah was as speechless and spellbound as the two children on the bed. Nette had stopped interrupting but was still shaking her head, her lips pursed, alternately staring at Jemma in awe and then glowering over at him.

Jemma had them all in the palm of her hand. She had even drawn Lucy out of her shell. The girl in the loft was lying with her chin on her folded arms, peering down at them.

When he looked at Jemma, she was smiling at him, her eyes sparkling as she told everyone how he had spirited her away from a howling, raving war party of Choctaws. His heart tripped, struggling like a newborn colt, fighting to run.

Thinking about what had occurred the night they had stopped running from the Choctaw, he wrestled with the question of what he was going to do if she was with child. He was tempted to ask Nette if Jemma’s fainting might have anything to do with having a baby, but if he did, he may as well stand up right now and shout to the rafters what he had done. If Nette knew, then everyone would know that he and Jemma had slept together.

He caught Jemma smiling his way again and his heartbeat stumbled. He stood up and left the cabin.

Chapter 12

Even the bracing night air couldn’t cool his blood.

Hatless, Hunter let the breeze off the river blow through his hair and tried to banish the tempting remembrance of Jemma’s smile and the lilt of her voice.

He skirted the corncrib, made his way along Nette’s carefully tended vegetable garden, and headed past the springhouse on the edge of the cleared land. The night was scented with wood smoke, rich, newly turned soil, and the dry, dusty smell of the crisp fallen leaves that crushed beneath his feet as he walked toward the river. He could hear the flowing water, a constant, soothing sound that beckoned, “Follow me.”

The Mississippi never stood still. He loved her for that. She flowed ever onward, changed her course with every new thaw the way a woman changed her mind. She challenged the sandy banks that failed to hold her and moved on like a fickle lover. He knew of those.

For years he had dreamed of being like a river, ever on the move, challenging the boundaries of life, leaving the wilderness changed in his wake. He wanted to see things few white men had seen, watch the sun set on new horizons. But then responsibilities had come to him, held him back, kept him home.

Luther had asked for his help. Luther, who had been determined to find a place where he and Hannah could raise a family and make something of their lives. Luther, who couldn’t do it alone. And Hunter couldn’t refuse him.

They had met Nette and Jed Taylor on the trip down the Ohio, and Hannah soon approached him with the notion that it would be a godsend to have the older couple living on the homestead. Nette would be there to help her when birthing time came. The older woman’s companionship would stave off the loneliness of a young wife used to living near family and friends. Hunter couldn’t deny his sister-in-law. The Taylors joined them.

The bond among the inhabitants of Sandy Shoals had been forged as they all worked tirelessly putting back-breaking weeks and months into clearing the fertile ground, carving out a place in the Kentucky wilderness. Hunter worked alongside Luther and Jed, willing to stay as long as it took to see the families settled and prosperous.

The work had proved too strenuous for Nette’s husband. Luther had found Jed in the field, facedown in the newly turned earth, fallen behind his plow. Unwilling to be a burden to Luther, Nette knew there was no way she could support herself without help and decided she would have to move back east. But Hunter agreed to stay on until Luther was established enough to provide for her. In exchange, she volunteered to cook and clean and see to Hunter’s household needs.

So a bargain had been struck between them, binding him more tightly to Sandy Shoals, holding him on the banks of the Mississippi far longer than he had anticipated.

Living near the confluence of four rivers, Luther and Hunter decided a trading post was sorely needed by travelers and settlers alike, so they enlarged what had been Hunter’s own small cabin. Word went out along the river; that first spring, produce began to arrive by oxcart from all over the surrounding area. The venture between him and Luther soon proved highly profitable, but it further complicated his life.

Whenever he looked back, Hunter knew that if he had left Sandy Shoals early on, as he had fully intended, he would have never met Amelia White. He had made the fatal mistake of letting his body do the thinking instead of his head.

Her desertion had added Lucy to the little band dependent upon him. And now there was Jemma with her fabricated past, her enticing smile, and the fact that she might be carrying his child.

What bothered him even more than waiting out the month was the unsettling way he was beginning to feel every time he looked at her. Luther and Hannah had seen something in him today that he had been trying to deny for weeks.

He stared out at the Mississippi, flowing black with moonlight sparkling on her breeze-rippled surface, but all he saw was Jemma. Jemma, settled in the midst of his extended family. Jemma, whose radiant beauty and charm had not only struck him with a burning need to touch and taste her again, but threatened to flood him with a peace and contentment he had never known before, had never wanted to stay anywhere long enough to know.

The stirrings of what he had felt while he watched and listened to Jemma in Nette’s cabin had scared the hell out of him. So much so that he’d had to escape.

Jemma felt a wave of disappointment when, out of the corner of her eye, she saw Hunter get up and leave the cabin. Still, her joy was not entirely diminished. Concentrating on ending the tale with a grand flourish, she came to a triumphant conclusion and everyone burst into applause with such enthusiasm that Sadie awoke and looked around the room, and baby Timothy broke into fits of fussing.

In that moment, Jemma experienced something she had never known before—the delight of sharing laughter, camaraderie, and friendship within a family gathering. With the two children nestled beside her, Luther and Hannah and Nette encouraging her, and even knowing that she had been able to draw Lucy out for a while—she had been given a chance to experience being a part of a whole, to bask in the love of a tightly knit clan.

Hunter’s family had welcomed her with open arms and taken her in, no questions asked. They made her feel a part of them, let her join in their laughter and easy exchange. They allowed her to give them the only thing she had to give—her gift of storytelling.

For that one brief hour, that sliver of a lifetime, Jemma had caught a glimpse of something the Boones and Nette took for granted. Hunter and the others had given her a peek into a treasure chest she had never known existed. Now, after all these years, she had experienced the true meaning of family.

She had possessed many things, lived a life buoyed by a wealth beyond any these honest folk could imagine, but this closeness, this bond they shared so easily was something her father’s money could never, ever buy.

Her joy was tempered only by the sadness she felt when she realized that the priceless bond of love and family was something Thomas O’Hurley had never known how to give, never even realized she needed.

Nette suddenly announced that Jemma looked tired and needed her sleep, so Luther and Hannah quickly rounded up their brood. Everyone lined up to kiss and hug Nette good-bye, as if they were leaving for months and not just walking a few hundred yards.

Lucy called out softly that she was going to turn in. Nette said she would join her shortly and then hurried around the table, collecting dirty coffee cups and stacking them on the dry sink. Finally, when the fire was banked and the cabin still as a rock, she walked over to Jemma’s bedside.

Jemma smiled up at the older woman, whose wisdom and experience shone in her eyes. Nette’s open, loving expression inspired the sharing of confidences.

“Do you know why Hunter walked out without telling anyone good night?” Jemma had fought asking, but her own stirrings won out. The evening had been picture-perfect, until Hunter was no longer there to share it.

Nette picked up the new pipe, sat down on the edge of the bed, and glanced up toward the loft. She lowered her voice.

“I reckon he’s got a lot on his mind that needs wrestling with tonight. Hunter Boone is as stubborn as a crick rock, but he’s got a heart of gold. You know anything about Lucy’s ma?”

Jemma shook her head. “I know she walked out and left Lucy behind, but that’s all.”

Nette traced a diamond-shaped patch of sprigged muslin on the quilt. “Hunter always talked of movin’ on after the cabins were built and we had the first good crop in. Then my Jed died, so Hunter stayed on. He and Luther built the post. One day, along come a flatboat headed downriver with Amelia White and Lucy aboard.

“Amelia was a real looker, far too beautiful for her own good. She got one look at the post and the kind of business Hunter and Luther were doing and had her cap set on Hunter before she’d been here a good hour.

“The poor boy didn’t know what hit him. One day he was talking about moving on, the next Amelia had moved into his loft and Lucy was living here with me. I didn’t object. Why, I could see that little girl needed more love than what her mother was givin’ her.”

“Was he in love with Amelia?” Jemma felt an odd twist in her chest. A slow ache.

“I can’t say, but I know he wasn’t thinkin’ straight. He quit talking about movin’ on, though, and even offered to marry her as soon as a preacher came through because he didn’t want to set a poor example for the young’uns, but Amelia kept putting him off. Then the war came and he went down to Louisiana with the other Kentucky boys fighting under General Adair and Jackson. While he was gone, a boatload of high-steppers came by, gamblers in shiny satin waistcoats and tall hats on their way to New Orleans. When their boat pulled out, Amelia was on it.”

“Poor Hunter,” Jemma sighed. “And poor Lucy.”

“If it did break his heart, he never let on. Kept it buried, the way he does most of his feelings. All he ever said to Luther was that everything worked out for the best and that he’d been feeling the itch to move on anyway. But since then he hasn’t made mention of leavin’.”

“But he just went down to New Orleans.”

“He went down to sell Luther’s whiskey. Said he just needed to get away. I wondered if he might not be looking for Amelia, but nobody would know that but Hunter. Luther thought we might have seen the last of him when he left, but I knew he’d bring the money back. When he come riding in with you this morning, we thought maybe he’d finally found someone who could put his heart at ease.”

Jemma shook her head. “It’s not like that, exactly.”

“Then how is it, honey?”

“I … I needed someone to bring me upriver, that’s all. Hunter and I … sometimes we don’t even get along. He’s told me he intends to head west. I never thought otherwise.” She was stammering and blushing and, for the first time that she could recall, at a genuine loss for words. There was a lump in her throat the size of an apple.

“You don’t think he could still be in love with Amelia?” Jemma whispered.

“I don’t think what he felt for Amelia was love, but the woman changed him, that’s for sure. Whatever innocence Hunter had about women is long gone. I thought it would be a month of Sundays before he let another woman into his life, but here you are, although I imagine he’ll fight the notion hard as he can.”

Nette’s words explained the way Hunter had acted on the last leg of their journey. They had been fighting the same intense emotions—feelings that were all mixed up and hard to fathom.

She wondered if he was having any better luck than she.

Nette blew out the lamps and slowly climbed the ladder to the loft. Jemma rolled to her side and cradled her head on her arm, watching the fire’s glowing embers. Outside it was cold enough for frost, a good night to have the journey behind her. Here in Nette’s cabin, she was warm and toasty.

She ached all over, as if now that the trip was over, her body had given itself permission to complain. She had thought sleep would come easily, but she lay awake, thinking of Hunter. It was the first night since she had laid eyes on him that they would not spend together.

The fire popped and a log crumbled into embers. Jemma rolled over and faced the wall. She closed her eyes and let her mind wander. She thought of all that Nette had told her and let her mind put images together with the details.

Wrestling with the memory of her own days and nights with Hunter, unable to forget what had passed between them, she tried to sort out her feelings. Her imagination ran away with images of Hunter and Amelia. She didn’t want to think of him touching the woman in all the ways he had touched her, but couldn’t change the direction of her thoughts.

Filled with doubt and indecision, she was at a crossroads, unwilling to move on, uncertain of what to do next. Hunter might not want anything further to do with her, but she wasn’t ready to say good-bye. Perhaps if she told him the truth, he would let her stay on until she thought her father might have given up the notion of marrying her off.

Finally, after tossing and turning, she decided that if she was going to get any sleep at all tonight, there was only one thing to do—turn her problem over to someone else. Jemma folded back the covers and slipped out of bed. The wood plank floor was cold and hard as she knelt down beside the bed, a far cry from the plush carpet in her room in Boston or the rich velvet upholstery on her
prie-dieu
.

Resting her forearms on the edge of the bed, she folded her hands, closed her eyes, and prayed.

“Dear Ladies and Gentlemen, thank you all for seeing me here safely. Please keep my father safe, too, and while you are at it, if you could begin to help him see things my way when he returns from London, I would be truly grateful. Bless Hunter and his family and Nette and Lucy. Keep them all safe.”

She pressed her fingertips to her lips, thought a moment longer and added, “Grandpa Hall, I want you to understand that I’ve kept my promise to you. I’ve had my taste of adventure and now I’d like you to rest in peace.” Jemma started to cross herself and then stopped and bowed her head again.

“St. Clare, you ran away from two offers of marriage at eighteen, but at least you knew where you were going. I have no intention of founding a holy order of nuns, like you did, but that’s about all I’m certain of at the moment. If you have time, would you kindly put some thought into helping me decide what I ought to do next? I’d really appreciate it.

“And if anyone up there knows anything about getting a good night’s sleep, please help me out. Amen.”

The ground was covered with a film of frost that sparkled on the fallen leaves and crackled underfoot. Hunter opened the door of the post and stretched, then rubbed his eyes. The morning sky was leaden, low with heavy clouds that would dump snow before nightfall.

His walk through the woods had done little to ease his mind, and afterward he had spent a restless night, tossing and turning in his bed in the loft above the trading post. More than once he had paced over to the window that faced north and stared through the darkness in the direction of Nette’s cabin, wondering if Jemma was asleep or if she found sleeping indoors after so long on the trail as confining as he did.