Just Once (16 page)

“I need to go see about the children,” Hannah was telling Nette. “It shouldn’t take long. Noah volunteered to look after them while I helped out here.” She reached up and tucked a wisp of her long hair behind her ear. To Jemma, the sound of her voice seemed to be coming from far, far away.

“We’re nearly done, thanks to Jemma here,” Nette said. “No need for you to come back. Stay home and tend to all those young’uns if you need to.”

Hannah took a coat off a peg on the wall, slipped it on, and left after a quick good-bye to Jemma, who hadn’t left the fireplace. Nette turned her way and paused, studying her closely. “You look white as a sheet. You feel all right?”

Jemma was afraid to speak. Her head was spinning; her knees felt as if they were slowly dissolving. There was a distinct, increasing hum in both her ears.

Nette’s image began to blur. Frightened by the strange sensations, Jemma began, “I’m not … I don’t …”

Before she could explain, the room went black.

Chapter 10

Too many people in one room tended to make Hunter nervous, even if they were spending money that was going into the till. Riding over the knob earlier and seeing the steamboat anchored off Sandy Shoals had given him a shock. He had suspected it was just a matter of time before steam travel took over the river, but he hadn’t realized that day might be just around the corner. They never saw more than an occasional keelboat this time of year, so the steamboat crowd had been a surprise, not just to him, but everyone at Sandy Shoals.

“ ’Nother whiskey.” A short, balding, obnoxious man standing at the counter in front of Hunter tapped his glass impatiently on the stained wood bar.

“Three-shot limit,” Hunter told him as he moved to pour a glass for a traveler farther down the line.

“I never heard of such a thing,” the short man sputtered, his fingers clutching the empty whiskey glass. He’d already had his share and was showing the effects.

“It’s my post and my liquor. I figure I can make whatever rules I want.” Hunter wasn’t in the mood to argue. Luther walked up beside him and crossed his arms over his chest.

“Trouble?” Luther asked. Hunter knew that side-by-side they presented a formidable front, both of them over six feet and in prime condition.

“Ask him,” Hunter nodded to the short gent.

The man slammed his glass on the counter, craned his neck to eye each of them in turn, and backed down. “None at all,” he groused. Hunter watched the disgruntled customer pick his way through the room.

“When did the steamboat dock?” Hunter wiped down the wet counter with a damp rag, keeping his eye on the other men sidled up to the bar. He might sell the best whiskey in Kentucky, but he couldn’t abide anyone abusing Luther’s liquor to the point of drunkenness.

“Just this morning. Took a while for Nette and Hannah to lay out the meal for so many. I even made Lucy come in and serve, but shortly after you got here and that little friend of yours began to help, she slipped out back.”

Hunter had seen Jemma moving around the tables with a tray of pie and helping Nette and Hannah clear dishes. Even when he wasn’t looking her way, he knew where she was and what she was doing.

“I don’t know what’s gonna become of Lucy,” he told Luther. “She’s scared of her own shadow.” She’d been shy even before her mother had deserted her like so much extra baggage; what little confidence Lucy had was slowly diminishing.

“Who is she anyway?” Luther asked.

“Who?”

“Come on, Hunter. That little blond dressed like a boy who sneaked in the door behind you. Who is she?”

His brother was trying to keep his query sounding nonchalant, but Hunter could tell that Luther was curious as hell.

“Her name’s Jemma O’Hurley. That’s all I know about her, except that she paid me good money to bring her upriver and she’s headed for Canada.”

“That’s
it?
”

Hunter pinned Luther with an impatient look. “That’s it, little brother, so quit diggin’.”

“She’s traveling
alone?
”

“Yep. Says she’s trying to hook up with her father and brother in Canada, but I don’t believe a word of it.”

“Why not?”

“ ’Cause she’s fed me a full bucket or two of hogwash already. I don’t know who she really is or what she’s really up to.”

“Canada? Then you can put her on the steamboat when it pulls out.” Luther was watching him closely.

Hunter kept his reaction well hidden as he scanned the room. Men of every shape, size, and description filled the place, all of them different, all with one thing in common—they were headed up the Mississippi to the Missouri as far as the boat would take them and on to parts unknown. Some were scoundrels, some honorable, but he couldn’t tell by looking at them which was which. There wasn’t a woman among them.

“Hunter?” Luther prodded.

“What?”

“So will she be taking the steamboat when it pulls out?”

Luther was watching him so closely that it set Hunter’s teeth on edge, but more than that, trying to picture Jemma traveling with these strangers—fending for herself, the only woman around for miles, alone, at the mercy of her fellow passengers—was making his stomach turn. He glanced across the room at the fat drunk leaning against a table, spitting as he babbled into another man’s face, slurring his words.

“No,” Hunter said abruptly, surprising himself. “No, Jemma won’t be on the steamboat when it pulls out. She’ll leave with a family headed north when one comes through.” He wasn’t putting the woman who might be carrying his child on a steamboat unescorted.

“It’s November now, Hunt. Not many more comin’ through here headed north till spring. She might be here for months if you don’t send her on her way.”

Hunter swung around, about to tell his brother to mind his own business. Luther was grinning from ear to ear.

“That’s what I thought,” Luther said.

“I never figured you for much of a thinker,” Hunter told him. “Why do you have that stupid grin on your face?”

“I didn’t think she’d be leavin’ today, not after the way I saw you watching her every move while she served up dessert. You never took your eyes off her longer than a minute. Know what I think?” Luther didn’t wait for an answer before he volunteered his opinion. “I think you got feelings for her.”

“What I feel is like knocking that stupid grin off your face, Luther.”

Instead of taking offense, Luther laughed out loud. Hunter tried to ignore him as he moved down the length of the counter to where a man stood with a pile of dry goods, waiting to turn over his coin.

The back door opened and Nette came running into the room, the front of her faded apron soaked with dishwater. Her white hair, damp from steam and perspiration, stuck to her forehead and temples. She shoved her way through the men who stood shoulder-to-shoulder at the bar.

“Hunter, you better come quick! That little stray you dragged in just fainted dead away in my kitchen.”

Hunter vaulted the counter and hit the ground running. Anyone unfortunate enough to be in his way found himself reeling across the room. He pounded into the kitchen, his heart beating louder than his feet on the oak plank floor. Jemma was lying on her side, her eyes closed, her face as pale as a catfish belly.

He reached for her, gently laid his hand against her throat, and felt for a pulse.

“Jemma?” He half-lifted her into his arms, cradling her head and shoulders in the crook of his arm as he brushed her hair back off her face.

Nette ran in and stood behind him, peering down at Jemma over his shoulder. “She’s out like an empty lantern.”

“What in the hell happened?” He knew he sounded harsh, but was unable to control himself.

“She was helping with the dishes, walked over to stand by the fireplace and next thing I know, she went white and had a dazed look on her face. Then she dropped.”

“Jemma?” Hunter repeated her name, holding her against his chest.

“When was the last time she ate?” Nette demanded of him. “Or slept? She looks plumb wore out, Hunter. If I know you, you beat her into the ground to get here. She’s not a man, like you. Did you expect her to keep up every step of the way?”

He had, and he regretted it now, but he’d be damned if he would admit either.

“Get me a wet cloth,” he said.

Nette soaked a dishcloth in the bucket of cold creek water and handed it to Hunter. He pressed it to Jemma’s forehead and cheeks.

“Just like you not to notice she was bone tired,” Nette grumbled behind him, still hovering over his shoulder. She reached out to smooth back Jemma’s hair. “Pretty little thing. Don’t think she ever did a lick of kitchen work before. She was scared to death she’d break somethin’. Held those old chipped plates and glasses like they was fine china.”

Jemma began to stir. Hunter handed the rag back to Nette.

“Jemma?” He spoke softly. Afraid to startle her, he shook her gently. Her lips twitched and her eyelids fluttered. Her lashes were spun gold, thick half moons against her pale cheeks. A smattering of freckles coaxed by sun-shine were scattered across the bridge of her nose. They had not been there when he met her.

“Jemma?”

Although she didn’t open her eyes, her fingers closed tight around his shirtfront.

“Grandpa?” she whispered.

Nette hooted. “
Grandpa?
”

“Jemma, it’s me,” Hunter said, giving her another jiggle. “It’s Hunter.”

Her eyelids fluttered again and finally her eyes opened.

“Hunter?” She focused on Nette, who was standing over his shoulder, then around the kitchen cabin. Finally she looked up into Hunter’s eyes. She struggled to sit up. “What happened?”

His relief was overwhelming. He didn’t know whether to shake her for scaring the wits out of him or hold her close. Since he was already holding her, he decided to just hang on a minute more until she got her bearings.

“You passed out. Nette here’s certain I’ve been starving you.”

Jemma looked up at Nette and offered her a weak smile and a nod. “He has. Corn cakes and water. An occasional rabbit.”

“Take her over to my place, Hunter, and make her comfortable,” Nette directed. “I’ll just make up a plate for her and bring it right over.”

Jemma struggled to sit up. Hunter helped her to her feet, but kept his arm firmly around her waist. A loud shrill whistle sounded, long and high.

“Steamboat’ll be leaving in a half hour. They’re calling everyone back aboard,” Nette explained.

“The steamboat,” Jemma whispered.

There was uncertainty in her eyes and something more, something he hadn’t seen since before they escaped the Choctaw camp. Fear.

She clutched his shirtfront. “You said that it was headed north … that I should go … and I—” She paused, waiting for him to do something, to say something. Anything.

Hunter shifted uncomfortably, his arm still riding her waist, his hand resting on her hip, where it seemed to belong. His mouth had gone dry. For the life of him, he couldn’t think of what to say or do. She had been dead set on heading to Canada, but since New Orleans she had rarely, if ever, mentioned the father or brother she had been so desperate to find.

It was hard to think with her looking up at him with those trusting blue eyes. Perhaps she hadn’t thought through the ramifications of the night they had shared in each other’s arms. Was she so innocent that she didn’t realize she might be with child? There was no way he was going to send her on, no way he could leave Sandy Shoals until he knew for certain. For a few days more, at least, they were ordained to be together.

Before he had time to say anything, Nette said, “You don’t mean to put this child on that boat any more than I do, Hunter Boone. Now you just get her over to my cabin and see that she’s comfortable. I’ll get some vittles dished up.”

Hunter let out a pent-up sigh that he didn’t even know he’d been holding and looked down at Jemma. She was watching him closely, tentatively, as if she expected him to object. He could feel her trembling.

He bent and scooped her up into his arms, cradling her against him. She was as light as a feather.

“What are you doing?” she said, as she slipped an arm around his neck without protest.

“When Nette gives an order, she expects it to be followed.”

The air outside had grown colder, the sky dark and leaden. The first snow of the season would fall before morning. He could feel it in his bones, smell it on the dry fall air.

“I’ll miss the steamboat.” She looked toward the river, but didn’t sound all that disappointed.

Hunter wanted to attribute her lack of enthusiasm to exhaustion, not the haunted look he had seen in her eyes earlier.

“There’ll be a keelboat along soon enough. Better that you go with a family than that motley crew out there.”

“I don’t have any money left to pay for passage anyway,” she said as they passed the smokehouse with its distinct hickory smell. “I was thinking about that while I was drying dishes. I was thinking maybe I could work for you … so I could save up enough for passage upriver. I’ll have to pay my way when another boat comes along.”

He frowned down at her. He suspected Nette had been right when she said the girl hadn’t ever done a lick of work in her life. At least not of the house-tending kind, anyway.

“Why are you looking at me that way?”

“I can’t quite see you slopping hogs or baking pies.”

“And why not?”

“I don’t know. I don’t imagine you had much practice at the convent.”

“I can learn.”

“About all I’ve ever seen you do is pray.”

They had reached another cabin, this one not as small as the kitchen outbuilding nor as large as the trading post. He lifted the latch and the door swung inward to reveal another one-room affair with rough walls and a loft that covered half the room. Poised in the center near a spinning wheel, looking like a cornered doe with nowhere to run, stood Amelia White’s girl, Lucy.

She was tall and thin, her hair of a nondescript brown shade that matched the drab, too-small dress she was wearing. Parted in the center, her hair had been fashioned into a simple knot at her nape. Stray locks straggled from the uneven part and hung into her eyes.

“It’s only me, Lucy.” He didn’t miss the girl’s immediate relief.

“Hey, Hunter,” she said so softly he barely heard her.

“Turn back the quilt, will you, Luce, and watch after Jemma till Nette comes in?”

He carried Jemma over to Nette’s bed in one corner of the room, knowing better than to set her atop one of Nette’s prized patchworks as filthy as she was.

Lucy flitted over to the bed, turned down the spread, and backed herself into the corner where she could observe without being noticed.

“I’ve got to go back and help Luther,” he told them, his gaze on Jemma. She looked young and vulnerable and lost sitting there in the middle of the big bed. He felt lower than a skunk’s belly for what he had done and wished he had never obliged her when she’d talked him into taking her virginity.

“Sit tight and Nette will be right here. This is Lucy. She’ll look after you.”

“I’m fine,” she told him. He watched Jemma’s gaze flash over to Lucy, curiosity plain in her eyes. When he failed to move, Jemma looked up at him again and said, “What are you looking at?”