Using a makeshift stretcher fashioned from two pine poles and a wool blanket, Sergeant O’Malley and Indian Joe carried a woozy Seth Claymore up the hill to Meggy’s cabin. When they had lowered the boy onto her narrow cot, the two men disappeared, then returned with pallets and bedding for Nobby and for herself. She supervised Swede and Indian Joe as they unloaded her trunk for the second time in as many days, then busied herself making up the pallets as O’Malley strung a rope across one corner of the single room.
“I’ll be hangin’ up a sheet here for yer privacy, ma’am, in case you’re wonderin’.”
Meggy set the teakettle on the stove. “Mr. O’Malley, I have come to accept your good judgment without question.”
The sergeant flushed with pleasure. “Well, ma’am, I’m honored, that I am.”
Indian Joe clunked an armload of small pine logs into the woodbox. “You have flint?”
“I have a container of sulfur matches, thank you.” She rummaged in the side pocket of the now-open trunk which stood in one corner and slipped the round metal container into her pocket.
The black-haired man straightened. “Flint better. Not get wet if fall in river.”
“You can be assured I will endeavor not to fall in the river, though I thank you for your advice.”
“Best you not take a bath, neither, ma’am,” the sergeant said from behind a white muslin sheet. “Leastways not without me or the colonel standin’ guard. Like he said before, if you recall.”
Meggy started. “Oh, I do indeed, Mr. O’Malley. I most certainly will call upon you when the need arises.”
She’d call on the sergeant, yes. But not on the colonel. The thought of taking off her clothes with Tom Randall anywhere near would be most unwise. Foolhardy, even. The very idea sent hot prickles up her forearms.
“Then I’ll be biddin’ you a good evenin’, ma’am. Tom said to signal with your candle if you need anything.”
“Signal?”
“Just pass something in front of your light—a dish towel, or your hand.”
“He can see me up here?”
“From his tent, yes, ma’am. Well, not you, exactly, just the light when you move around inside. Y’see, Walt Peabody didn’t have time to fill the chinks between—”
“I see.”
“First couple o’ nights you was here, Colonel hardly slept fer watchin’ you.”
“I see,” Meggy said again. The chill in her voice brought a frown to the Irishman’s smooth forehead. O’Malley scratched his head.
“Watchin’ over you, that is. We never had a woman in camp before, miss. Can’t blame the colonel for feelin’ responsible-like.”
Meggy gazed into the man’s guileless blue eyes and suddenly all the starch in her drained away. Someone was watching out for her? After nine years of watching out for everyone else—five sisters and a maiden aunt, and the old people of her father’s congregation, even the hungry pickaninnies who came to the kitchen door—she had someone, the colonel, watching over her?
All at once she felt as if her heart were pumping hot maple syrup through her veins. In a haze of warmth she bade good-night to the sergeant and Indian Joe, closed the door and turned her attention to her two charges.
Seth’s forehead was cool, and he didn’t wake up when she smoothed her hand over his skin and pulled a cover over him. Nobby had pulled his bedroll close to the cot on which his brother lay and had curled up into a ball on the floor beside him. His narrow chest rose rhythmically.
Poor little mite. His tear-streaked face needed washing, but Meggy didn’t have the heart to disturb him.
Someone tapped against the door. When she opened it, Swede Jensen thrust a tin cookie sheet into her hands.
“Fong sent some food so you don’t miss supper. Good stew he made from the last of the venison, by golly. I t’ink plenty for all three of you.”
Meggy smiled at him and sent a message of thanks back to Fong. The savory smell from the blue enamelware bowls woke Nobby. Meggy settled the tray on the floor between them and together they spooned up their dinners. Before he reached the bottom of his dish, Nobby’s eyelids began to droop.
“Miss Meggy?”
“Yes, Nobby, what is it?”
“D’you think Colonel Tom’d let me grease the skid road ’stead of Seth?”
“Why, I have no idea. What does one do to ‘grease the skid road’?”
“You take a bucket and fill it up ’bout half-full of water and sprinkle it on the logs, see? The skinned ones that Swede and the others laid down so the oxes can drag the logs down the mountain. Ya hafta be quick, ’n run fast, or you’ll get trampled on, like Seth. But I could do it, I know I could.”
Meggy swallowed. She fervently hoped the boy would not be allowed to take on such a dangerous-sounding task. Nobby was so small and spindly. The thought of his thin legs under the hooves of a team of oxen…
She clacked her spoon into the empty bowl. “I…I will speak to the colonel about it.” Most assuredly she would! She would demand that Nobby be kept safe from danger. She didn’t care how far behind Tom was in meeting his timber quota, he had no right to—
Another knock sounded at the door.
This time, Indian Joe stood at the threshold, holding a floppy bouquet of some sort in one hand. “Nettles,” he announced. “For boy. Make tea, help bone to knit.”
Meggy reached for the greenery, but the Indian lifted the bunch out of her reach. “Not touch. Nettles burn skin like fire.”
He laid them on Fong’s cookie sheet. “I fill water bucket on porch. Boil half hour.”
In the next moment, he was gone.
Meggy gathered up the two empty bowls and set Seth’s portion aside for when he woke up. Then she lit a candle in the fading twilight, stuck it to the wood counter and dipped a kettle of water from the water bucket.
Nobby curled up on his pallet again and within seconds was sound asleep. He hadn’t even removed his boots!
She laid a fire in the fire box and, using one of her precious matches, blew on the spark until it caught. While the tea water heated, she washed the two dishes and the spoons and dried them with a tea towel on which Charlotte had embroidered a verse of poetry.
All precious things discovered late,
To those that seek them issue forth,
For Love in sequel works with Fate,
And draws the veil from hidden worth.
The candle flame guttered as she moved around it, and all at once she thought of Tom, watching the light from his tent. Watching her.
The notion that he was aware of her, even though she was far away from his tent, twisted a blade of pleasure in her chest. If she moved in front of the candle he would know that she had done so. If she—
Again came a rap on the door. What could it possibly be this time?
A grinning Vergil Price greeted her. “Miss Meggy, I hope I’m not disturbin’ yore evenin’.”
“Actually, I was making some tea. Nettle tea,” she added at the sudden gleam in Vergil’s heavy-lidded eyes. The man made her uneasy in a way she could not pinpoint. With the others, even dark, silent Indian Joe, she felt perfectly at ease, but somehow when Vergil looked at her it was…well, different. “For Seth,” she explained. “To help his bone set.”
Vergil advanced into the room without invitation. “Care to set a spell on yer porch? Awful hot night.”
“Is it? I hadn’t noticed. To be truthful, I have been busy unpacking my trunk and caring for the boys.”
Vergil peered over her shoulder. “’Pear to be sleepin’. They won’t miss you none.”
Meggy back away from him, maneuvering to keep the flickering candle between them.
The candle!
She grabbed the damp tea towel and held it in front of the flame for three heartbeats, then lifted it. “Mr. Price, you could do me a great favor if you would.” She pretended to inspect the towel, dangling it again in front of the candle for a count of three. A signal, Mr. O’Malley had said. But what kind of signal? Was Tom even paying any attention?
“Whazzat, Miss Meggy?” He smiled at her, exposing yellow teeth.
She snatched up the enamelware bowls. “Here. Return these to Fong. It will save me a trip down to the cookhouse.”
“Wouldn’tcha like to set on the porch first?”
“N-no. I must…keep my eye on Seth’s medicine.”
“Jes’ bein’ here with you’d be good enough medicine for me. My, you shore do smell good.”
“Mr. Price?” She flapped the towel in front of the candle once more. Tom, she called out silently.
“Yes’m?”
“Mr. Price, I—I understand you have just returned from Tennant. Would you care to share some of your, um, insights about the town?”
Vergil’s arm stretched toward her.
Tom!
Tom lifted his forehead off his folded arms and shook his head to clear it. He’d fallen asleep over his account ledger again. Someone, O’Malley he guessed, had doused his lantern. No doubt the Irishman would tsk-tsk about it all day tomorrow, but it had happened before. Tom sat up studying the book so many nights he was continually short on sleep. Usually, though, if he fell asleep in spite of his efforts, he slept straight through until morning. Tonight something wakened him. Like a voice, calling his name.
Automatically he glanced out the front tent flap. Light glowed from Meggy’s cabin. She must be up, tending the Claymore boy.
The light winked off, as if something had blocked it, then winked on again. Nursing took a lot of moving around, he guessed. Off, then on again. Same length of time, about one long breath’s worth.
As if she was…
He reached her porch at a dead run and burst through the door. Vergil Price had her cornered next to the stove.
“Price!” Tom yelled. The man whirled around.
“I told you to stay away from her.”
“Wasn’t doin’ no harm, Tom. Jes’ came to…fetch her supper dishes. Wasn’t—”
Meggy’s chalk-white face told him everything. Price had forced his way in, maybe would have forced her….
Tom grabbed the man’s shirt in one hand and latched on to his belt with the other. “Get out.” He shoved him out the door and off the porch, watched him stumble off down the trail.
Breathing hard, Tom reentered the cabin. “You all right? Did he hurt you?”
“Yes. No.” Her voice sounded unsteady.
Nobby sat bolt upright, his eyes as round as two brown pine knots. Seth, too, had been awakened by the noise.
“You boys all right?”
“Yessir.”
“Seth, how’s the arm feeling?”
“Don’t feel nuthin’, Colonel. Sorry about not bein’ able to protect Miss Meggy.”
“Not much you could have done with a busted arm, son.”
“Coulda yelled some.”
“I coulda bit him, if’n I’d waked up,” Nobby offered. “Next time I’ll—”
“Won’t be a next time, Nobby. Miss Meggy’s going to have a twenty-four-hour guard from now on.”
Meggy came toward him. “Tom, you can’t afford to spare a man for that. You’re already shorthanded.”
“So?”
“So, the obvious solution is to…well, at the moment I cannot think. Seth, your dinner is still warm. Here’s a spoon. Can you eat left-handed?”
Nobby jumped up. “I’ll help him, Miss Meggy.”
Tom motioned with his head toward the porch. Meggy nodded. She propped Seth’s head on a folded-up blanket and put the bowl in Nobby’s hands. Then she moved through the doorway ahead of the colonel.
The instant he swung the door shut, she turned into his arms, her whole body trembling.
“I am so sorry,” she whispered. “I didn’t know how frightened I was until you shouted, and then my knees just turned all soft, like they did the time that Yankee climbed over the fence into our yard, and my goodness, at least then I had enough presence of mind to go find the broom! This time I couldn’t make my feet move….”
“You signaled, didn’t you? With the candle?”
“Well, I had to think of something. My father’s revolver is at the bottom of my trunk, and I don’t have a broom!”
Tom stared at her, then started to laugh.
She gave a little jerk. “I fail to see what is so funny.”
“It isn’t funny, exactly. Well, yes it is. I’ll make sure you have a broom tomorrow.” Then he sobered. “But keep the revolver handy.”
“Yes.”
“Then again, I think we have a problem a gun won’t solve.”
“You want to fire Mr. Price, is that it?”
“In the worst way. Trouble is, he’s a good skinner, and I’m short on crew.”
“I cannot let you lose your timber contract because of me. You must keep Mr. Price on.”
She had stopped shaking, and now she stepped away from him and raised her head. “It is I who am dispensable.”
Hell’s bells, he wasn’t going to argue with her. Her presence was not dispensable, but for a reason she would never dream of. He wanted her near because it made him feel good. Because the thought of never seeing those thoughtful green eyes looking at him with such unfeigned concern stopped his breathing. If she left him, he would ache for her all the rest of his life.
And what about Susanna? Would you betray the honor of your sister by protecting the enemy who bore witness against her?
Meggy stepped away and looked up at him. “Tom, I have quite regained my composure now, and I believe there is a solution to this dilemma.”
“Yeah? Well, let’s hear it.”
Yeah, pretty lady, let’s hear it. Bet you wouldn’t be so all-fired composed if’n you knew ol’ Vergil was out here listenin’. And I’ve got me a plan. Somethin’ that’s gonna make you look at me with diff’rent eyes.
Somethin’ that’ll make all you bastards remember me.