Tender Touch (11 page)

In Oregon territory, islands of civilization were already springing up everywhere, like those left behind in the States. Stores at first: a smithy, a livery, and the inevitable taverns with their smoke and spittoons and ungodly noise. Then the preachers and the teachers and the lawmen—taming the men who had come to tame the land. By then the game would be gone, the trees felled, the wild grasses plowed, and the red men dead or wishing they were.

Nigh felt his eagerness ebb away, thinking about it. Like the old trappers who still haunted the unsettled West, he dreaded the changes, the losses. And he doubted the rightness of it all. The fact that he’d long ago recognized its inevitability didn’t detract from his surprise at finding himself thinking of making a place for himself before all the good land was gone. Before he was too old to force himself into the mold civilization demanded of a man.

Or maybe it was something else that had his thoughts heading that direction. Something tall and soft with blue topaz eyes and hair the color of pine bark, with a hint of red. He glanced over at the boss lady, treading the tall grasses a couple hundred yards from the wagon, and felt a hunger no amount of good stew could satisfy.

It wouldn’t be easy living tame, but he had no hankering to spend the rest of his life existing from one day to the next, guiding pilgrims or helping the army chase down Indians who had once been friends, the way most of the old fur trappers were doing now.

As a boy, struggling to survive on the rat-infested levees of St. Louis, he had yearned for a home and family. Later, he convinced himself he didn’t want anything that permanent. With Little Beaver the old longing had returned and when she died, he’d put it behind him again. He didn’t fool himself about the chances of an old squawman like him hooking up with the likes of Brianna Villard. In fact, he didn’t expect to find any woman who’d be willing to take him on, except a squaw. Still, he could get a piece of ground, build a cabin, and whittle away his old age, even if he had to do it alone.

Yep, the more he thought about it, the better it sounded, and Oregon Territory was as good a place as any to settle down. If things didn’t work out, he could always get him a squaw with a tipi and go back to following the buffalo. Indian life wasn’t a bad way of living, after all. Simply wasn’t what he’d found himself thinking about lately.

***

Long after sundown that night, after the fiddles had fallen silent in the wagon train camp, and snores filled the air like the buzz of drunken bees, two men fumbled in the darkness, setting up camp a short distance from the Magrudge Company.

“Damn it, Stinky!” Barret stumbled over a bedroll. “Why’d you put that there?”

“It’s cold. I want to be close to the fire.”

“Well, move it to the other side. This is where I planned to spread my blankets.”

After midnight Columbus Nigh woke to the muffled sound of a woman’s cry. He lay still, listening. When the cry came again, he crept to the foot of the wagon and climbed inside. Brianna was thrashing about in her bed, mumbling and sob
bing, “No, Barret, please. . .
”

Nigh sat on the bed and gathered her into his arms. “Hush, it’s all right,” he whispered. “Just a bad dream.”

Brianna struggled against Barret until she fully woke and saw who truly held her. Relief flooded through her and she relaxed. Columbus stroked her hair and murmured strange words in a lyrical tongue she’d never heard before. She felt warm and safe, almost cherished, in a way she hadn’t felt in a long time. To send him away was not what she wanted, but his being in her wagon—in her bed, for heaven’s sake—was too scandalous to be allowed.

“No one knows I’m here,” he said, as if reading her mind. “I’ll leave as soon as you’re asleep again.”

The day had been long and the terror of the nightmare had drained her. She knew she should insist he leave immediately, but the words wouldn’t come. It felt so good to be held. No hands grabbing at her body, no repulsive demands, no threats. Only a few more minutes, she told herself. Then she’d make him go. Gradually, she drifted into a dreamless sleep.

With an unerring sense of timing, Nigh woke himself an hour before the sentinels would fire their pistols to wake the train. He hadn’t intended to break his promise to her. A hundred times during the long hours he had lain awake beside her, he had told himself it was stupid to stay there fighting his need for her, when all he had to do was go back to his own bed. But it was an opportunity that might never come again, one too good for an old squawman to pass up. Besides, going to his bed wouldn’t kill his need.

Brianna never knew when he left her. She awoke to the sound of the sentinel’s shot, feeling safe and strangely content, and wondering why.

Later, as she tramped the dew-wet grass while the wagons rumbled over the plain, she remembered the nightmare. To awaken in Columbus Nigh’s arms, his deep sensual voice in her ear as he stroked her hair, seemed a wonderful dream in comparison. She wondered if Columbus had truly been there or if she’d only imagined him.

The nightmare had been of the last night she had slept beside her husband, the night she had learned his terrifying secret. The memory reinforced her determination to escape, and as she watched the ground slide away beneath the slow-turning wagon wheels, she wanted to shout, “Hurry. Hurry faster.” Make the wheels roll, make the miles roll, faster and faster, until she didn’t have to feel afraid anymore. Until the dreadful days of waiting, of expecting every moment for Barret to thunder down upon them and snatch her back home, ended and she could be free. Until she could feel safe all the time, the way she had last night, in Columbus Nigh’s warm embrace.

A glint of sunlight caught Brianna’s eye, a reflection from Lilith Beaudouin’s needle as it darted in and out of the linen she embroidered while she rode, and Brianna willed it, too, to quicken the pace.

At the top of a rise, a gust of ever-present wind lifted her sunbonnet an inch off her head, drawing its bow snug beneath her chin. She held the bonnet in place and gazed in awe at the measureless sky, blue like the petals of the wild flax waving on the hilltops. Never had she seen so much sky.

Back on the damp, wooded Mississippi, a person felt closed in. But here everything seemed open, and liberated. It was more than the endless expanse of blue sky, more than the land that rolled forever toward the mysterious West. It was . . . oh, she didn’t know what, except that it made her feel wonderful, free and safe.

The wind tore the bonnet from her head as she stooped to pluck an armful of flax. She felt it flap from its ribbon against her back as though it, too, enjoyed being liberated. A woman her age going hatless was hardly proper, but the sun on her head felt too wonderful to resist. She lifted her face and drank in the warmth, heedless of propriety and the damage the sun’s rays might do her complexion.

Two hundred yards to her right the wagon train inched over the land, too slow to leave her behind. The shouts of the drivers and the snap of their whips drifted on the wind, sharp and clear like the crackle of summer lightning. Children played King of the Mountain, the gaiety in their high-pitched voices infectious as they chased one another, screeching and giggling.

Beside their wagon Tom and Betsy Coover walked hand in hand, Tom gazing down into Betsy’s upturned face. Brianna didn’t need to see his expression to know it was soft and full of love. Betsy reached up and brushed the hair off his forehead, reminding Brianna of the way she had brushed the stubborn lock from Barret’s forehead, early in their marriage, and cradled him in her arms while he whimpered like a child after one of his dreams.

Reality struck her like a physical blow. She might never see her husband again, but neither would she ever know the love of any other man. She was only twenty-six and would spend the rest of her life alone. Her heart squeezed inside her breast as though clenched in Barret’s vengeful fist. Had she been wrong to leave him? If she went back, would he forgive her? At least she had known what to expect from him.

Turning, she stared across the undulating swells of the prairie toward Missouri and home, the wildflowers and the wide open reaches of freedom forgotten. Her yearning for love and a family of her own bore down on her so strong it rocked the very core of her being, filling her with loneliness and dread.

That was how Columbus Nigh saw her, the wind wrapping her black skirts about her thin legs, her bonnet flapping wildly. She looked every bit the scarecrow he had once thought her, except for the bouquet of flax clutched in her arms, the blue flowers so bright against her black dress, it appeared as though she had captured her own piece of the sky. Wisps of hair torn loose from her bun flailed at her cheeks and eyes. She didn’t tuck them away like a prim and proper matron, only stood there transfixed, like a mouse mesmerized by the eyes of a snake. If not for her height and her widow’s weeds, Nigh might have thought her a girl and ridden on by.

Instead he watched, intrigued. It occurred to him as he snapped the whip above the backs of the plodding oxen, that there were two women standing on that hill. The Brianna who picked flowers and let her bonnet flutter in the wind, and the stiff, somber widow terrified the world would notice she was alive. The Brianna that brought a cat on a two thousand mile trek through the wilderness, and whose dour face could light up with a smile that seared his heart. Which of them was it staring now with such longing at the world she had left behind?

If there was one person in this entire passel of sore footed emigrants who had reason to look ahead rather than behind, it should be her. The bruises on her face and body had faded, the swelling gone. But he hadn’t forgotten them, and he was all-fired sure she hadn’t.

Ordinary homesickness, he reckoned. It was hard on women to leave their homes behind, as if they had to leave the memories along with them.

Glancing back at her one more time as the wagon moved on, Nigh saw her pull up her bonnet and retie the ribbons under her chin. Her head was bowed and he wished he could let the wagon roll on by itself so he could go comfort her.

Had it occurred to him that she might be questioning her decision to leave her husband, he would have flung down the whip—oxen be damned—and flown to her. As it was, he eyed the dark clouds gathering in the north and let his mind turn to the drenching she might get if she tarried too long on the prairie.

Chapter Eleven

As fast as her long legs could carry her, Brianna ran up one rise after another as if it was Barret who pursued her rather than her memories. Her calves ached and her breath came in ragged gasps. Exhausted, she flung herself down on the warm grassy earth. Her pulse raced and her flesh tingled beneath a sheen of sweat. She lay there a long time, watching the birds and the insects and the gracefully nodding flowers while peace once more invaded her being.

Everything would work out somehow. She knew it. All she had to do was wait.

Rested, she heaved herself to her feet and started back toward the wagons, away from the lowering sun. She had just topped a rise when she saw a rider coming her direction. When he saw her, he put the horse to a gallop. Her thoughts went instantly to Columbus and her heart soared. But a quick study told her it was not Columbus. This man was short, boxy and alarmingly familiar.

Barret!

For an instant she wondered if she might have misjudged his feelings for her. Surely he must love her to come so far to fetch her back. Then the sun glinted off his frigid blue eyes and she saw her error. She recalled the pain his hands could inflict so well, recalled the pleasure it gave him. She wanted to run, to hide, to scream for Columbus Nigh. Her heart pounded so hard she thought it would burst and kill her before Barret could lay a hand on her.

But her feet had grown roots.

“Brianna!” he shouted as he threw himself from his saddle. “Damn! I can hardly believe my luck, finding you so quickly.”

Her fists balled at her sides as she stared at him. Why had she come out here alone where he could get to her? Why hadn’t she run? Would the sight of him always hold this power over her? To make her heart crawl up into her throat, her body to tighten and draw in on itself as though trying to disappear? She deserved whatever he did to her. Anyone as stupid and worthless as she deserved a beating.

“You’ve put on weight,” he said. “Christ, you look almost as good as you did when I married you.” The same eyes that had so often stared at her with icy contempt now smiled with arrogance and the cocksure gleam of triumph.

Had he figured out that she knew his secret? That was the key. It wouldn’t matter what she said; if he knew what had driven her away, he wouldn’t dare let her live. She tried to steel herself against what she knew would come, while refusing to give in.

“I won’t allow you to hurt me anymore, Barret. Let me go with the wagons. I’ve never meant anything to you, not really.”

His eyes glittered like shattered ice, the smile gone. “You’re my property. I’ll do anything I please with you.”

His thick hands flexed, then balled, and she held up a restraining hand as she backed away.

“Please, Barret, you don’t realize how much you hurt me when you hit me. I know you don’t mean to, but you’re stronger than you realize and—”

“You think I’ve hurt you before?” His breathing grew ragged, his words hard and clipped. “I suppose that’s your reason for running away? Because I slapped you once or twice? Maybe it’s time you learned what hurt really is.”

She tried to run. He moved like summer lightning. Grabbing her by the arm, he spun her about and backhanded her across the cheek. She reeled, then caught her balance. When he reared back to hit her again, she kicked him hard in the shin. He cursed, letting go of her arm to clutch at his leg. Brianna fled.

Before she made a dozen yards he knocked her to the ground. Then he straddled her and slapped her again, the sound like a crack of thunder. “You damned bitch,” he muttered. “You need a lesson in respect.”

She lay beneath him submissively, her chest heaving. Aroused by his own violence, he grabbed at her breasts, squeezing and pinching.

“I’ve been in jail, did you know that? I rode night and day to catch up with you.” He gave an ugly, panting laugh. “That upstart Will Rainey was so sure I’d killed you. I ought to. Maybe I will yet. But first, you’re going to make me feel good. It’s been too long since I had a woman.”

His mouth left a trail of wetness over her face and down the slender column of her neck. Like slug slime, she thought.
Oh, Col, please come and find me
.

Delicate bone buttons snapped in two as he ripped open her dress. His fingers raked her tender skin as he clawed the bodice down off her shoulders.

“Please,” she said. “I’ll take the dress off, don’t tear it.” Barret laughed and yanked harder on the fabric. A groan issued from his throat as his mouth seared her flesh like a hot brand. He adjusted his position while he dug beneath her skirts, pulling at her drawers. The feel of his touch on the warm skin of her inner thigh, once he had freed her legs, felt like spiders on her flesh. Torn from her apathy, she clawed his face and kicked his legs.

“Stop it, bitch, or I’ll beat you unconscious,” he muttered, hitting her again. “I’m only taking what’s
mine.”

Her skirts were up around her waist and Barret was fumbling with his trousers. Like something wild, Brianna scratched and bit and kicked. His hands found her neck and circled it. She tore at his fingers and tried to scream. His thumbs closed off her throat. She could get no sound out, and no air in. Tighter and tighter he squeezed. She struggled for breath, too weak now to fight. A sound like galloping hooves filled her ears and fireflies danced before her eyes as darkness closed in on her.

When she came to, she felt light, free. A cool breeze blew across her face and bare legs. Nearby, she heard the whisper of grass and the thud of feet and fists as bodies rolled over one another, grunting and groaning. Memory returned and her eyes flew open.

Columbus Nigh and her husband were wrestling on the ground, all cusswords and flailing arms and legs. Col was on top, his hands around Barret’s thick neck while Barret shoved against his opponent’s chin with all his might. Col let go with one hand to gouge his enemy’s eyes. When the man let go, Col slammed a crushing blow to Barret’s ribs and another in his soft stomach, and then finished him off with an upper cross to the jaw that left the man unconscious.

An instant later Col knelt beside Brianna, murmuring reassurances and promising to get her back to the wagon as quickly as possible. He pulled her skirts down over her legs and covered her breasts with the remnants of her bodice. Gently, he scooped her up in his arms and set her on his horse. There had been no time to saddle the horse, and he reckoned it a good thing since a saddle would have made riding double more awkward. The dappled gray stood still until Col leaped up behind, settling her comfortably in his lap. Then they were off.

Now that Brianna was safe in his arms and he could relax, Nigh’s fear for her turned to anger. “What in thunder were you doing so far from the wagons?”

His voice was harsh. She didn’t dare tell him the truth, that she had been wishing for home, and that, like an answered prayer turned nightmare, Barret had appeared before her.

“I just wanted to be alone. I only meant to get out of sight for awhile, to find some privacy.”

“Now you know what privacy can get you out here.”

“Did . . . did you kill him?”

“Ought to’ve. He’ll think twice ’fore he tries to rape another woman, but I’ll warn the other wagon companies about him.”

Brianna’s head bowed and she was quiet for some time. “You shouldn’t have interfered, Col. He was my husband. He had a right to treat me that way.”

“Your what!”

Nigh pulled the dappled gray to a halt and turned her to see her face.

“That was Barret Wight, my husband.” She looked away. “And he was only giving me what I deserved.”

“Giving you . . . Dammit, woman, he woulda choked you to death if Tobias Woody hadn’t seen you bolt like a blinded buffalo and some stranger sneakin’ after you. No man has the right to beat and rape a woman. Any woman.”

They started off again. In the stony silence, he became aware of the way their bodies jogged along together, his hard chest pressed close to her bare shoulder and back, her buttocks neatly fitted within the vee of his legs.

“I shouldn’t have run away,” she murmured. “He was accused of murdering me and spent a week in jail. I’ve put him to a lot of trouble; it’s no wonder he’s angry.”

The wind picked up. It whipped her loosened hair against his face and a strand caught on his mustache, feeling like fine silk when he pulled it loose. The scent lingered in his nostrils long after he tucked the hair behind her shoulder. It reminded him of roses after a thunder shower, sweet and clean, earthy, natural. He had a hunch she smelled that way all over, every inch, but he was too angry to be aroused.

“That don’t give him the right to hit you.”

“I’m his wi—”

“Even a wife.”

The silence between them lasted until they rode down into the last hollow before reaching the wagons. Brianna sensed his anger and knew she had some explaining to do. First, she needed to do something about her dress. Her torn bodice exposed almost as much as it hid. “Col, I . . . I can’t ride into camp like this.”

“Why not?”

Nigh had been concentrating all his senses on their back trail, in case Barret Wight came after them. The man might be older and his muscle turning to fat, but Nigh knew the fight wouldn’t have ended so quickly if he hadn’t had such an advantage over the blackard. No man fought well when taken by surprise—especially with his trousers down around his rear. For the first time Nigh took a good look at her. And his anger fled.

The front of her dress had been torn clear to her waist. She was clutching the remnants over her breasts but the lacy edges of her chemise showed. In a flash, he saw her sprawled on the ground after he’d torn the man off her. He saw her full, firm breasts, and long slender legs. It came to him then that she was naked under her torn skirt. Nothing but the thin black cloth of her skirt and his own leather leggings kept his flesh from touching hers. A heady thought. He prayed she didn’t notice how it affected him. The urge to reach up and cup the rounded flesh she was trying to hide nearly overwhelmed him.

Instead he yanked off his shirt and ordered her to raise her arms. Then he drew the shirt on over her head and pulled it down to cover her body, flinching when his fingers brushed the satiny skin of a soft, round breast.

He froze. She froze.

His gaze met hers. Their lips were only inches apart. “Bri—”

Desire whipped through Nigh like a cyclone, wrecking havoc on his control. It would have taken every ounce of strength he could summon not to devour her the way he yearned to, if not for the haunted look in her eyes and the knowledge of all she’d just suffered.

Minutes later the Magrudge cavalcade came into view. Voices drifted up to them along with the lowing of cattle and the cracking of whips. Thunderheads were building in the north, bringing the scent of rain and fresh manure. No one but Tobias Woody paid them any attention as Nigh walked the dappled gray to the wagon.

He lifted Brianna directly into the back of the slow moving wagon. Shakespeare uncurled himself from the bed, stretched and came to greet her. Gladly she enfolded the small furry body in her arms. She buried her face in warm fur and let the familiar scent comfort her. Outside, Tobias Woody was asking if she was all right, and she heard Col assure him she was fine.

Lying on the bed with the cat in her arms, she ignored the tears that streamed from her eyes, and thought about the way Col had taken off his shirt to cover her nakedness. How could such a rough and uneducated man be so gentle while her supposedly high-born husband was evil as sin. Obviously background and social position had nothing to do with goodness. A man either had it or he didn’t, and beneath Columbus Nigh’s rough exterior existed nothing but good.

His voice came to her through the wagon cover, asking Tobias to drive the team a little longer while he went to check on something. She knew the “something” was Barret. The thought that her husband might kill him horrified her. She found herself wishing for Barret’s death instead, and hard as she tried, she could feel no guilt.

The sounds of the shouting came to Nigh before he topped the rise. He reined in to listen, then dismounted and crawled the rest of the way up. Lying on his belly he peered down the other side. Barret Wight was on his feet, but Nigh had a feeling it would be some time before the man could catch up to Brianna again. A Kansa warrior was relieving him of his clothes. Not surprising actually; no mile of the trail was safe if a man let himself get caught alone and unarmed too far from help. Always the Indians were waiting to take advantage where they could.

Nigh chuckled softly. Wight was ranting at the warrior while he stripped off his trousers. The Kansa took them, looked them over, and started pulling at Wight’s woolen underwear. When the man refused to turn them over, the Indian drew a knife. Wight quickly peeled off the garments. Satisfied, the Kansa warrior tied the underwear to his lance like a tattered banner. Then, yodeling a fierce war cry, he leaped onto his pony, grabbed up the reins to Wight’s horse and galloped away.

Wight cursed and stomped his bare feet like a child in a tantrum until a rumble of thunder caused him to look up at the sky. Dark clouds were boiling in from the west, promising a storm. He put his hands on his hips, kicked once more at the trampled grass and stalked off toward the south, probably the direction he had come from.