Sweet Sarah Ross. Julie Tetel

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СКАЧАТЬ idiot hadn’t been with him, he would have preferred to go naked. However, since she was with him, something about keeping to the conventions of dress seemed like a good idea.

      He had already packed up the sack he had made from one half of her petticoat. It now held the suspenders, the torn shawl, the strips of cloth retrieved from the traps, and the beautiful idiot’s shoes. Her scissors he carried in one of his back pockets. He had already dismantled the rocks he had used for the two fires he had made, the one for the tree frogs, the other for the jackrabbits, which he had built a few feet away from the first. He had scattered twigs and leaves over the warm ground where the fires had been and had disposed of the jackrabbit remains. All day long he had been rescaling the map of the territory in his head to fit the proportions of crossing it on foot. He had charted their course.

      He figured they were ready to go.

      When he took his first tentative steps toward the riverside edge of the trees, he became aware that the beautiful idiot had not moved. He looked over his shoulder and repeated, “It’s time to move on.”

      She remained seated and motionless at the base of the tree. The twilight silvered the golden hair that was swirling about her heart-shaped face and shoulders like a fallen halo. The soft half-light paled her rosy skin, giving it the texture of flower petals. Her big brown eyes were luminous with a feisty mix of emotions, and her pretty lips were set in a line oddly expressive of seduction and obstinance at once. She had crossed her arms under full breasts and crossed her legs at their shapely ankles. Her feet peeped out from under the flounces of her petticoat and overskirt. The moccasins lay untouched in her lap where he had tossed them.

      “You cannot be serious,” she stated in that falsely pleasant voice that grated on his nerves.

      It took him a moment to absorb the impact of that statement, then another moment to suppress the desire to strangle her. He shifted the sack on his back and demanded, “Are you always like this, or only when survival is at stake?”

      “Always like what, sir?”

      Why mince words? “Always idiotic.” He saw the flash in her eyes shift from seductive obstinance to outright anger. “We’ve done fine for the day here, but I’ve no desire to linger longer and make myself easy prey for either man or animal. And I’m assuming you see the advantage of traveling at night, so that I don’t have to spell it out for you.”

      “No, you don’t have to spell it out for me, but I’d like to point out that I’m the one who’s been working all day while you’ve been sitting around.”

      He gave her a very deliberate once-over. “You look like a healthy woman, and the amount of ‘work’ you did is nothing compared to the physical demands that will be put on both of us tonight—which is why I gave you half an hour to rest. We need to move, and the time is now.”

      She didn’t budge.

      It would take only one more idiotic word from her for him to leave her here to her own devices. Let her die, for all he cared. But then he thought of her scissors in his pocket, the valuable cloth in his hands and the fact that she had fetched him water more than once today, and he realized that it wouldn’t be fair to leave her. But when was life ever fair? Besides which, it was her choice, after all, to stay or come. You could lead a horse to water…and all that.

      He turned to go.

      “I need my shoes,” she said. “I don’t see them lying about, so I’m guessing that you have them in the half of my petticoat that you have slung over your shoulder.”

      “Wear the moccasins I made you.”

      “I want my shoes.”

      “Moccasins don’t leave the same footprints as white man’s shoes, and I had to cut up the laces of your ankle boots to make four ties for our two pairs.” He saw her lift the rabbit skins and examine the ties. He saw her jaw drop. He cut off whatever idiotic thing was going to come out of her pretty mouth by saying swiftly, “They’ll fit you perfectly. I measured them against your shoes. Now, let’s go!”

      He slipped through the trees and stepped out onto the riverbank, half hoping she wouldn’t follow him.

      No such luck, but, then again, that was just his luck. He hadn’t gone ten paces before she was behind him, asking, “Where are we going?”

      “To deliver you to your family.” He added, with feeling, “And without delay.”

      “Oh! Why didn’t you say so in the first place?” When she caught up with him, she said, “You know, we might get along much better if you would explain yourself to me instead of making me out to be an…an idiot! And I could think of you less as a man-beast and in a more kindly manner if I had a name to call you.”

      At that he stopped in his tracks and looked down at her. She was looking up at him, her beautiful eyes wide and almost beseeching, but not quite. Her practiced social smile held a hint of something else that he wasn’t willing to examine just yet. Instead, he pinned his thoughts on the incredible idea that she had called him a man-beast, and he almost laughed. Good God, she was an irritating woman, but she had a way of diverting his attention from the pain in his feet. He’d grant her that much.

      “I asked you your name, sir,” she repeated.

      “Powell.”

      “Just Powell? Only that?”

      “Wesley.”

      “Well, which is the first name and which the last, sir? I’m afraid I cannot distinguish.”

      “Wesley Powell,” he said slowly. “My name is Wesley Powell.”

      “Very well, then, Mr. Powell.” She nodded her head graciously. “I am Miss Harris.”

      He regarded her a moment longer, then grunted and began walking again. Really, she had expected no better from the man-beast, but she found that it humanized him to have a name, and such a perfectly ordinary one, although he had pronounced it with a kind of reluctance. Or did his tone hint of challenge?

      No matter. Since their immediate goal was to find her family, she was content—if content was an appropriate word to describe her emotional state in a situation where her survival was not assured from one hour to the next—to walk along beside him. She hardly needed to be told that he didn’t like her any more than she liked him, and she didn’t need to be told twice, no, three times, that he preferred her silence to her conversation. However, since she saw no reason why she should behave according to his preferences rather than hers, she continued chattily, “So, Mr. Powell, can you tell me how we are going to achieve the very worthy goal of finding my family?”

      “First, tell me whether, before embarking on this journey, you and your family established a meeting place in the event you should become separated.”

      She had to consider that question at length. She did recall her father and mother discussing such a situation, but she hadn’t paid attention to what the outcome of the discussion had been. At the time, she had been thinking it would be a mercy to be separated from her bratty little sisters, but now, imagining that they had met some unspeakable fate—but, no, she turned her thoughts from dwelling on horrors and bent them toward remembering the names of the various stages of the journey that Morgan Harris had recited on more than one occasion. It seemed logical that her father would have decided that, if separated, the family would meet up at the next СКАЧАТЬ