Clay returned from disposing of the bobcat in the woods to find Ellis gone. “What has that woman done this time?” he asked Jean Paul. “Likely set off without you thinking you’d left her.” He nodded to the empty stall where her horse had been earlier. “Best you catch up to her.”

He nodded. With his meager supplies, it did not take but a moment to toss a saddlebag over the borrowed horse. “I will see to her safety above my own,” he told her grandfather.

“I have no doubt you will,” he said. “I would be much obliged if you would return safely so I do not have to explain to her family why I allowed her to go with you.”

Clay chuckled. “No doubt her family will understand you had no choice, given it is Ellis we are talking about.”

“She is a willful creature.” His expression sobered. “But I value her above any treasure, even the land beneath my feet. Bring her home safely. And if you bring her brother home too, even better. But he can care for himself. My granddaughter may believe she can, but she is prone to impetuousness. She is your first priority.”

“Sir,” he said slowly, “Texas is my first priority. Ellis is next.”

Jean Paul Valmont took a step back and studied him for a moment. Then he nodded. “Go with God, young man. Return with Ellis, though.”

“I will.”

Reaching down from the saddle, he shook the old man’s hand and then set off. He’d gone less than a mile when he spied what had to be Ellis riding up ahead at full speed down the trail that led along the river. Stifling the words he longed to say, Clay urged his mount forward until he was within shouting distance.

“Ellis,” he called. “Stop.”

No response.

After closing the distance between them slightly, he tried again. This time the rider slowed and the horse turned. Indeed it was the feisty female.

“Where were you?” she demanded when they met on the trail.

Her skirt was speckled in mud, and her hair had escaped the impractical straw hat she had chosen for the trip. The brightly colored scarf she wore tied around her waist would have served as much better protection, but he would give her that advice later. After she stopped scowling at him.

“There was a dead bobcat to get rid of,” he told her. “Did you think your grandfather should have to take care of that alone?”

Her haughty expression fell. “Oh,” she managed. “I thought you had …”

“Left without you?” he supplied. “Yes, I see that. Did you know where you were going?”

“Not specifically, but this was the direction Papa and his men went, so I assumed it was the right way.” She turned her horse around and nodded toward the narrow trail. “Go ahead.”

He lifted one dark brow. “You’re certain?”

“Do not be unbearable,” she told him. “Just go.”

He did, but not before fixing a broad smile on his face. “Yes, ma’am,” trailed him as they set off.

After a few hours, Clay stopped to water the horses. He had given Ellis the courtesy of silence and of not continually turning back to check on her. However, he had also maintained a good idea of where she was based on how far away her horse’s hooves sounded.

Landing on the ground, he grasped the reins and led the horse to the river before turning back toward Ellis. He grasped her by the waist and set her on her feet, then held her still when she wobbled.

“Slow down,” he told her. “We’ve got a few more days of this.”

“How many?” She winced as she took a few steps away from Clay.

“If we make good time, we should be in San Antonio de Béxar in five days,” he said as he led the horse over to drink. “Taking the coastal route would be faster, but there is too much danger of attack coming from that direction.”

“Five days?” she said. “I had no idea.”

“Didn’t you?” he said as he knelt down to drink. He lifted his head to find her watching him, a coffee mug in her hand. “What?”

“Nothing.” She dunked the mug into the river and then took a sip of water.

Clay took the opportunity to scout around the area, leaving Ellis to watch the horses. When he returned, he found her sitting beside the river with her head resting in her hands.

“Regrets already?” he asked.

“None,” she said. “Shall we go?”

“We shall,” he said in his most formal voice.

Ellis declined his help as she climbed into the saddle. After a few minutes, they were well down the trail again, stopping only when they arrived at the steamboat landing. Though the trail was a better means of travel for a man on a horse, the steamboats were faster.

“And you’ll take the horses?” he asked the fellow in charge of the vessel.

“If you’ll warrant they aren’t skittish enough to jump, then I’ll take ’em,” the young man said.

“I cannot warrant that, but if you give me a space to tie them in place, I can promise they will not get away.”

After inspecting the space offered, Clay struck a deal. He handed the fellow one of the four silver coins the Mexican leader had pressed into his palm—the same coins that Jean Paul refused to take when Clay offered them—and then headed back to Ellis.

“I thought we were going by horseback,” Ellis said when he returned.

“We are,” he told her, “but this fellow is going as far as Washington. From there we can take the La Bahia Road.”

Though she said very little on the daylong journey, Clay had to admire the fact that she did not complain when informed that her sleeping accommodations for the night included bunking next to her horse. The next morning he awakened before the sunrise and found Ellis cuddled down into her bedroll with a wild spray of red curls covering her face.

His fingers itched to press away the errant strands so he could see her beauty. For as much as she was an irritating woman at times, Ellis Valmont was a true beauty.

Not one of those belle-of-the-ball types he knew from New Orleans, this one. Rather, she was just as lovely with hay in her hair as she was …

Clay froze as he realized he’d had a memory return. How else could he compare this beauty to others he had known in New Orleans? To a dark-haired woman who scandalized society by demanding he dance every dance with her. But where had they been?

Then he knew. The governor’s ball. New Orleans. She had been the intended of another and he did not care. That night caused it all to happen.

But what was it?

Before he could turn away, her eyes opened and she caught him. “What?” she said as she scrambled into a sitting position. “Is something wrong?”

“No, just something I remembered,” he said.

“About your mission?” she asked in a sleepy voice.

He shook his head. “Something else. About me and who I was.”

Ellis found the steamboat trip upriver to be completely different from the voyages the family used to take between Velasco or Quintana and New Orleans. While those trips hugged the coastline but remained in open and unobstructed waters, this voyage by steamboat was vastly more complicated.

Men were employed to do all sorts of moving of obstacles in the river, often to the point of removing an entire felled tree blocking the way. The captain of the vessel not only had to steer around obstacles that could not be moved but also was required to avoid sandbars and areas too shallow for the vessel to pass.

At some points in the trip the going was so slow that Ellis was wishing for the trail and her horse. Most of the time, however, she reveled in the voyage upstream.

From a brief stop to take on supplies to the occasional stop along the way to pick up or deliver items, Ellis found it all fascinating. When their trip ended at the town of Washington late the next day, she was almost disappointed.

Almost but not quite, for when her feet touched dry land, she found she very much had missed walking where the ground beneath her was not rolling. Removing the horses from the steamboat was much more difficult than getting them on, so Ellis left the taming of them to Clay while she stood back and watched.

He brought them to her one at a time, and then together they led them up the embankment to the town of Washington. It was a tiny town, though one she could easily learn to like.

While Clay made their purchases for the remainder of the trip, Ellis waited with the horses. Two ladies in fine hats and dresses strolled past her as if she weren’t there. With pieces of hay likely still hiding in her curls and the mud from two days of being on the road decorating her skirt, who could blame anyone for thinking the worst of her?

Ellis moved around to the other side of the horses and spied a sign advertising an inn. Closing her eyes, she imagined an actual bed with no straw or horses and a bath in a tub with real soap. She opened them to see Clay standing there.

“I have some news,” he told her.

“Please tell me it involves real soap and a bed with no straw.”

He shook his head as he untied his horse. “I have no idea what you’re talking about, but no. It does not involve either.”

“Then enlighten me, because I cannot imagine that anything other than that would actually be good news.”

“I made a trade,” he said over his shoulder as he motioned for her to follow him. They plodded along down the muddy street until they arrived at the livery. He indicated for Ellis to wait and then went inside.

He came out with a young man who nodded enthusiastically. Clay’s horse was led away. Then Clay came back for Ellis.

“We’ll be making the rest of the trip in a wagon,” he told her.

“A wagon?” She shook her head. “I don’t understand. Why?”

“I traded my horse for one. A wagon will let us travel in more comfort, and after we find Thomas it will allow for more room to bring him home. Two on a horse would mean for much slower going than three in a wagon.”

“Oh,” she said, feeling like a fool. “I hadn’t thought about that.”

The wagon in question was nothing spectacular. Indeed, she had seen finer quality work on the rag wagon back home in New Orleans. But the wheels looked sturdy, and there was a seat that spanned the front that had to be more comfortable than a horse’s saddle.

Ellis nodded her approval even as she went back to wishing for that bed and bar of soap. Clay supervised the moving of the packs into the wagon and then hitched the horse himself. When all of that was done, he helped Ellis up onto the seat and then stepped around to the other side to join her.

They set off down Washington’s main road, falling in behind a wagon of similar style and condition. “The talk here is that the convention will be held over at Noah Byers’s place. It’ll be spring before the delegates can all arrive, but the men in the store were adamant that there will be a declaration of Texas independence signed then.”

Ellis smiled. “How exciting,” she said. “I would love to see it.”

“You’ll have to take that up with your family,” he said. “You’ll be home with them well before then.”

“I should hope so,” she said as she shifted position.

“Comfortable?” he asked as he negotiated a turn in the road.

“Yes,” she said. “Much better than on horseback.”

He glanced at her and nodded. They fell into a companionable silence as they left the city of Washington behind and rolled onto La Bahia Road. Built for the royal use of the Spaniards, the road was surprisingly smooth and wide. The roll of the wagon wheels lulled her into an almost sleeplike state.

Ellis jolted. The wagon had stopped in a shaded spot with a view of rolling hills dotted with cattle. A brook bubbled beside them. She blinked and then realized her head rested on Clay’s shoulder.

“Oh,” she said as she felt the heat rise in her cheeks. “I’m sorry, I—”

“Get out and walk some while I water the horse,” he told her, chuckling.

She walked off her embarrassment, stretching her legs by venturing downstream to a spot away from Clay’s view. There she knelt down to cup water in her palms. Though it was icy cold, she splashed her face with it and felt the dust of the miles slip away.

Had it not been November, Ellis might have been tempted to jump in, clothes and all. For surely her dress would be improved by a quick dunking in clean water. Still, she did have a quilt in her bedroll that would keep her warm until her garments dried.

Was it better to be warm or clean?

“Ellis?” Clay called, ending any opportunity to decide.

She rose and shook the water off her hands then dried her face with her sleeve.

Clay eyed her curiously but said nothing as his hands grasped her waist to help her up onto the wagon seat.

That night they camped at a place that looked very much like the Valmont land in Quintana. Clay made a fire and brought back something he’d shot for their evening meal. When he offered to also clean and cook it, Ellis readily agreed.

“I’m not much of a frontier cook,” she told him later after the food had been cooked. “But I do know my way around a kitchen. This is delicious, by the way.”

“Thank you. If only we had a kitchen nearby,” he said with a grin.

Clay offered her seconds, which she quickly accepted. “My grandfather loves to cook. Until now I have never met another man who did.”

“Well,” he said slowly, “I wish I knew who to credit for the skill, but I don’t.”

“No,” she said as she set her tin plate aside. “I don’t suppose you would remember, and yet the actual skill of cooking is something you did not forget.”

He shrugged. “I can also tie bootlaces, hitch a horse to a buggy, and do any number of other things. My mind may be filled with more holes than swiss cheese, but at least I can remember the things I need to survive.”

When it came time to prepare for bed, Ellis moved their supplies to the center of the wagon and then settled her bedroll down on one side, leaving room for Clay on the other. If he had any complaints about her system, she never knew about it, for she was sound asleep before he finished hobbling the horse.