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If this is freedom, why am I still broken?
~ Rachel
Rachel should be used to long days in the saddle. After more than four months of this wearying journey, her muscles no longer screamed each morning from the previous day’s tortures. But the closer they drew to the Canadian border, the more she itched to be done with this final phase of her old life.
It was past time she and Andy started fresh.
She’d been riding second in line behind Elias since they stopped for the noon meal two or three hours before. Her gelding breathed hard as they ascended the rocky incline of a low rise between two peaks. She couldn’t help a sigh of relief as she glanced up at the mountain on their right. Its snowcapped crown rose high enough to steal her breath, and she was more than thankful they wouldn’t be scaling its top like the mountain goats did.
“In a few minutes, you folks’ll lay eyes on a sight ya won’t soon forget.” Elias’s voice drifted down to them.
“What is it?” Andy seemed to be growing a little bolder each day he spent among these men. Not dangerously bold, just more comfortable in his own skin. Exactly what she wanted for him.
Elias glanced back with a grin. “You like to swim, boy?”
Andy jerked back. “Swim? I...” He glanced at her as though for permission. At the same moment, her horse surged forward to climb a steep section, occupying her focus so she couldn’t give her son the encouragement she would have liked to.
“I do.” His voice took on strength as he responded to the man in the lead. Perhaps he didn’t need her support after all.
Elias reined in at the crest of the hill, pulling off to the side so all the animals could stand and catch their breath from the climb. Even though the altitude was much lower than the peaks on either side of them, she still had to ease herself into looking down toward the valley below.
Her stomach swooped as she gradually lowered her gaze. But then the glimmer of crystal captured her focus. Sparkling green stretching out in the most beautiful lake she’d ever seen.
“Is that water?” Andy’s voice sounded as awed as she felt.
“Sure is.”
“Let’s get down there," Seth said. "It’s been far too long since I’ve given Samuel the dunking he deserves.”
She looked over just in time to see Seth shoot a grin at his brother.
Amazingly enough, Samuel Grant—the one who rarely spoke—returned the same look. “I think you’ll find that just as impossible as you did fifteen years ago. But if you can best me in a race from one side to the other, I’ll give you a chance at a dunking.”
“Oh, ho.” Seth turned to Andy with a wink. “He talks much, but can he stand behind his boasting?”
Andy’s eyes had widened with the interchange, almost as though he expected them to come to blows. Her heart panged at the thought. He’d seen too much of the evil side of men.
When the horses had rested sufficiently, they started down the incline, and even the animals seemed eager to reach the water.
Two trees of the same variety stood along near the water’s edge, their white bark and heart-shaped leaves similar to the grove of aspens behind their house in Missouri.
Elias halted beneath the shade of their branches and dismounted. “This is as good a place as any to stop for the night. That way you boys can play fer a while.”
Once the animals had been hobbled in the grass around the edge of the lake, there was still another hour or so before dusk fell in earnest.
“You want me to look for firewood, Ma?”
She glanced up from the painful task of unfastening the pouch that contained their cooking utensils. Everything was still so much harder, even though her burn was healing well.
But just before the yes slipped out in answer to her son’s question, she caught the shift of his gaze toward the clear green of the water. She’d gladly gather wood one-handed to allow him a moment of pleasure, but did she dare let him swim without someone out there to help? It had been three or four years, at least, since the land containing the swimming hole was sold. And even before they lost the right to use the spot, he’d not been adept at much more than making a good splash.
But he needed time to be a youth. She had to allow him the chance.
“Enjoy the water before it gets dark. Just stay in the shallows, please.”
He spun back to her, eyes wide and eager, perhaps checking to see if she were playing a cruel joke with the offer. She gave him a warm smile but couldn’t help adding, “Be careful. Don’t take risks.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He was already pulling his shirt tail from his trousers as he slipped out of his boots.
“I say we all take a swim.” Seth’s voice tore her gaze from her son, and she swiveled to face him.
He met her look with raised brows. “What say you, Rachel? Elias?” He turned to the older man before she could call him to task for using her given name.
He did it only to tease her, she was fairly certain of that now. And for that reason, she should ignore the prod. Yet she still didn’t like how the intimacy of her name on his lips lowered the barriers she was so careful to keep around her.
“I think that water’s a mite cold fer these ol’ bones.” Elias reached a hand to his back with a boyish twist to his mouth that said his excuse may not quite be true. “Mrs. Gray should try out the water, though.”
Seth turned and stepped toward her, a devilish smile on his face. For half a breath, it looked like he might hoist her up and toss her in the lake.
Her body tensed, remembering the last time she’d been man-handled. She scrambled to her feet and backed away, her heart pulsing like a hummingbird’s wings. “No.” She took another step back, wrapping her arms around herself. Hating the fear that closed off her throat. “No.”
He froze, his smile slipping away as he took in her reaction. “Rachel, I didn’t mean...”
She took another step back, half-turned away. Just enough to draw a clear breath of air. To regain control over her reactions.
“I’m sorry. I would never have forced you.” Seth’s voice came low and earnest, truth marking each of his words.
She breathed in another cleansing breath, letting it steal out of her and take the terror with it. Another inhale, another exhale. Finally, her breath didn’t quaver with the leaving.
Squaring her shoulders, she turned back to him. “I’d rather not swim, but I’ll not stand in your way.”
His dark eyes held such a well of sadness, they were almost her undoing. “I understand.”
Did he? The way he seemed to see inside her, all the way to her core, maybe he did. She wrapped her hands around her, trying to conceal his gaze from seeing too much.
Yet covering herself didn’t seem to make a difference. She turned away again, back to the pack she’d been unfastening. “I’ll make a stew while you swim. Something warm for when you all come out with your teeth chattering.”
“Thank you.” His voice kept that earnestness.
She hunched against his words and his gaze, which was still drilling into her.
Long moments passed before his footsteps finally faded behind her. More moments before his deep tenor joined in with his brother’s and Andy’s higher tones.
Not until then did she finally take in another breath.
~ ~ ~
SETH FORCED HIMSELF to push Rachel’s reaction out of his mind so he could focus on Andy in the lake. The boy hadn’t been exaggerating when he said he’d had only a little experience swimming. In truth, his movements in the water were choppy and held more than a hint of uncertainty.
Drawing up beside the lad, he sank down in the water until it reached his chest, where his undershirt clung like a second skin. “When I taught Samuel to swim, we used a side stroke that made it easy to learn the feel of the water. Shall I show you?”
Before Andy could answer, Samuel interrupted. “When you taught me to swim, you pushed me under the water and climbed on my shoulders. ’Tis I who taught you the side stroke.”
Seth winked at the boy. “He doesn’t remember well when his brain is water-logged. Shall I show you the stroke?”
A hint of pleasure lit Andy’s green eyes as he nodded.
Working together, he and Samuel demonstrated the method, then coached the lad through the process until he was making good progress through the water.
The first time the three of them reached the far end of the narrow lake, he stood with a wide grin. “I did it. I made it across without stopping once.”
That pride glimmering in his eyes—those eyes so like Rachel’s—pressed on Seth’s chest so much, it felt like he might burst from pleasure. “That’s something Samuel can’t even claim.”
His brother took on a look of mock indignation. “I only touched down once. And that was to see why you were lagging so far behind, brother.”
Seth took the teasing with a grin. “You ready to head back?” He posed the question to them both but watched Andy for signs he was pushing the boy too hard.
He nodded firmly. “Beat ya there.”
~ ~ ~
RACHEL TUGGED THE WOODEN spoon through the stew but couldn’t stop her focus from drifting toward the water.
She’d never seen grown men play like boys, not with the gusto and laughter that now drifted from the lake. Andy’s higher pitch sounded among the deeper male tones, and the happy voice swelled her heart.
This was what he needed.
Splashing mingled with a burst of laughter and shouts, and she sharpened her gaze to make sure Andy wasn’t in danger. They appeared to be having some kind of splash fight. Seth was deep in the midst of the battle, instigating, most likely.
He lived life so fully, so intensely. Whether he was skinning a deer carcass, bandaging her burned hand, or teaching her son to swim, this man dove into whatever he set his mind to. Felt every part of it. Spent himself in the act.
So different than she, who did everything possible not to feel. Not to allow herself to be entrenched by what was happening. She had to keep herself separate. It was the only way to survive through the pain of life.
A flash of movement drew her gaze upward again. As if her thoughts had summoned him, Seth Grant slogged up the bank, emerging from the lake like a sea creature, water dripping from every part of him.
His undershirt and trousers clung to his body, outlining every curve of his muscular chest and arms, his lean middle. She was staring but couldn’t seem to look away. He was the most beautiful specimen of a man she could ever remember seeing.
As he drew nearer, her gaze flicked to his face. His eyes met hers, his mouth tipped in a half-smile that seemed to be enjoying her attention.
She dropped her focus back to the stew, heat surging to her face that had nothing to do with the fire.
He moved into the campsite and plopped down on one of the logs Elias had found. “That fire feels good.”
She needed to say something that would prove she wasn’t tongue-tied by the sight of him. “The water’s cold?”
“I think this lake is fed by run-off from snow in the mountains.”
She raised her face to the white-capped peak keeping guard above them, then looked to the lake where Andy made small waves in the water as he talked with Samuel. “Perhaps it’s time everyone came to get warm.”
“I think he’s enjoying it.” Seth’s tone was low. Not chiding, but she could feel his suggestion that the time of leisure might be good for her son. He was right, even though the suggestion that he might know better than she what her boy needed riled. Yet, she knew better than to let emotion overwhelm good sense.
So she turned her focus back to the meal, reaching for a plate. After scooping a goodly portion from the pot, she handed the tin to Seth. “This will warm you.”
“Mmm... Just what I need. Thank you.”
She shouldn’t allow his appreciation to bring so much pleasure, but she couldn’t seem to stop herself. She’d worked hard to squelch the desire to be wanted, even needed. Letting that craving arise now would impair her ability to protect herself.
And Andy.
“There we go.” Elias’s high voice broke the stillness between them. “I think this’ll be enough wood to see us ’til morning.” He dropped his load and brushed the dirt from his hands. “Come mornin’, I imagine we’ll all be hankerin’ to hit the trail.”
Yes, they should push on tomorrow. Every day would bring her closer to her brother. Closer to the day she'd leave these men.
She only had to make sure she didn’t leave her heart at the parting.
