The Western Dare (Harlequin Heartwarming) (24 page)

“That’s a relief,” Camp murmured to Emily. “I guess that means she’s over her crush.” When Emily didn’t respond, he bent for a closer look at her face.

She tried to wrap her jacket tighter. Her eyes looked dead. “Oh, see the mess I’ve made of things!” she cried. “I’ve played right into Mona’s and Toby’s hands.”

Camp attempted to enfold her again. To his surprise, she shook him off. “I’m not blaming you, Camp. Last night was as much my fault as yours. But I have to consider what to do now. Please, just leave me alone.”

Numbed, he watched her splash through muddy bogs to her own wagon.

Last night, they’d talked about seeing each other after the trip. They’d made firm promises, or so he’d thought. Now, in just a few words, Emily had dismissed the special experience they’d shared, and Camp didn’t like it. He didn’t like it at all.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

“Women would have been quicker to go West if it wasn’t for the rat-finky men who led the expeditions.”

—Brittany wrote this in block letters across her data sheet, leaving the rest blank.

A
S
THE
MORNING
SKY
lightened, a brisk southerly wind blew the rain clouds away. A beautiful double rainbow arched high over Rabbit Ears, promising hope for a better day. Few noticed. They were too busy choosing sides in the latest skirmish.

Camp wallowed in a black mood, but at least he’d built a fire and fixed coffee. Emily didn’t even do that. She was hiding, as if they’d done something wrong. That was ridiculous, he fumed. They were adults. Unattached, responsible adults.

In the course of sipping coffee and grumping, Camp noticed a lone rider canter in. Not Sherry’s gold-panning professor. A stranger. Maizie’s problem, not his. Rising, Camp tossed the last dregs from his cup and hauled out his shaving gear.

Emily crawled from her wagon just as he propped his mirror on his feed trough. She immediately ducked back out of sight.

“Wait!” Camp slung the towel over his shoulder and lunged for her. He grasped her wrist. “Emily, this is crazy. I love you! But it’s as if you’re willing to throw away everything that’s happened between us.”

Her throat worked convulsively for several seconds before any words came. “Love? You can’t. I...can’t. Oh, Camp.” Tears glistened in her blue eyes.

His fingers tightened. “
We
can. Together. You’re not fighting alone anymore.” Releasing her, he cupped her chin.

Her lower lip trembled. “Don’t do this, Camp. Don’t make me choose between you and Megan. I stayed in a bad marriage for years because I couldn’t...wouldn’t forsake my kids. I won’t do it n—”

“Hush.” He brushed his fingers over her lips to silence what he didn’t want to hear. “How could you even think I’d ask you to? You and the kids are a package, Emily. We’ll work things out. Have faith.”

Sherry and Megan rounded the wagon. Megan’s mutinous expression forced Camp to drop his hands. The two skirted Emily as if she had some communicable disease. Their actions made Camp furious.

“Megan’s gathering some of her things,” Sherry said stiffly.

Emily hopped down and walked away.

Camp stood his ground, facing his sister once Megan had climbed into the wagon. “I’m serious about Emily. I want to marry her, Sherry.”

“Marry...?” He watched the reactions flitting across Sherry’s face. Shock and bewilderment. Camp waited, expecting congratulations to follow. He waited to no avail. Megan handed an overflowing duffel and a cosmetic case out to Sherry. Then, as if he hadn’t spoken, the two brushed past him and disappeared.

So...he and Harv Shaw were to be tarred with the same brush. Social outcasts. Camp steamed all the while he shaved. But...hadn’t he read in pioneer journals that women united behind one of their own whom they felt was being mistreated? And men were blackballed for being too familiar. But that was then, not now! He hadn’t mistreated Emily, and his intentions were honorable. In fact, if they’d had more time to talk, he’d planned to discuss paying her debts to free her from Toby and Mona.

“You’re sure looking sour today, boy. What’s got your tail in a crack?” Maizie sauntered up behind him.

Startled, Camp felt his hand slip. The razor nicked his chin. “Ouch!” He dabbed at the blood. “Do you mind honking or something? Scare a guy out of ten years’ growth, why don’t you?”

“Sorry. You look full-growed to me.” She slapped him hard enough on the shoulder to splatter shaving cream down the front of his clean shirt.

He scowled harder. “You’re in fine mettle. Is that why we’re waiting around here giving the flies and mosquitoes a field day? Shouldn’t we hit the road?”

“I figured after the day we put in yesterday, we all deserved to sleep late. I can see an extra hour’s shut-eye didn’t improve
your
disposition. I thought you’d be walkin’ on air after the fine job you did herdin’ people to safety. I hope you gave yourself credit for heroism in that essay you were workin’ on last night. Burned the midnight oil, didn’t you?”

“Uh, thanks for the praise, but the piece I’m writing isn’t about me. It’s about the women. And they deserve most of the credit for the way they handled themselves.”

“Yeah. Share the glory—that’s fine. Hey, I really came for a different reason. From here to Ute Creek we’re on private farmland. The owner sent a rider with an invitation to join ’em this afternoon for a barbecue. Palmer Jones declared a holiday in our honor.”

“How’d he know we were here?”

“He had a plane up at first light checking crop damage. The pilot relayed how close we’d come to the path of the tornado. I know Palmer. He’s probably majorly grateful that he didn’t have to deal with our dead bodies strewn over his new-plowed ground.” She guffawed heartily.

Camp couldn’t resist a grin. “He’s not alone in that.”

“You got that right, sonny. With Philadelphia ready to call his lawyer as it is, I shudder to think what would’ve happened if you hadn’t gotten the others into the rocks as fast as you did.”

“Isn’t there some way to muzzle that nincompoop?”

“Last time I checked we still had freedom of speech in this country.”

“Too bad.” Camp dabbed at the dot of blood again. “Won’t attending this barbecue put us farther behind and give Harv more to bellyache about?”

“The ground’s a hog-wallow anyway. What’s eatin’ you, boy? I thought you’d be happy as a possum in a strawberry patch. The farmers on the trail always threw a wingding for passing wagons. Can’t get more authentic than Palmer’s hospitality.”

“Sorry. Guess I’m not in a party mood. I’d be more inclined if my sister and her pals quit acting as if Emily and I had smallpox.”

“Don’t they appreciate that you saved their sorry hides?”

Camp’s eyes found Emily as she sat beside Mark’s fire, brushing curls into her gleaming, just-washed hair. “The two are unrelated, Maizie.”

“Uh-huh,” she grunted. “That ol’ green-eyed monster, then?”

He eased out a breath. “Are they right to object? There’s reason enough on both sides to avoid entanglement, I guess.”

“Well, if it means anything...when you turn your back that lady looks at you with her heart in her eyes. Now, it ain’t my business, mind you, but seems to me two college professors oughta be able to figure a way around most any problem.”

Camp’s gaze remained locked on Emily as Maizie walked away. Obviously she didn’t understand the extent of Megan’s dislike for him. It presented a critical hurdle. However...there’d been a time he was a pretty fair hurdler.

He repacked his razor while Maizie spread the word about the barbecue. Plainly, her message perked up everyone else’s spirits. Only, his mood remained pensive. Already he missed Emily’s quick wit and her bubbling laughter. To say nothing of the sense of well-being that came over him when they were together. But he’d worked with enough teens to know that it’d take more than a smile or a teddy bear to win Megan’s favor. He just wished he knew what it
would
take.

Out of habit, he kept tabs on Emily in the line of wagons. Long after he ceased to see her profile, he imagined how her lips had felt last night on his. His mind relived every moment in her company as the train wound through miles of fields laid waste by the storm.

The smell of barbecue smoke reached the column before anyone could see the Jones farm—which turned out to be a huge, multipillared estate with wide verandas reminiscent of Southern plantations.

Palmer and Evelyn Jones were nowhere near as ostentatious as their home. “Welcome, welcome,” he boomed in a jocular voice. “Climb down and sit a spell. We’ll have that side of beef cooked faster’n you can say bar-bee-cue!” Jones sported a snowy beard that contrasted with leathery skin toasted to the color of teak.

“According to my pilot, you’re all luckier than a snake in the Garden of Eden. Storm reminded me of the big twister we had in ’52.”

“Palmer, dear, don’t get started. At least let them eat before you bore them.”

He turned to his wife, a plump woman with warm brown eyes. “All right, Evie. Bring on those horse-
durveys you and Cora’ve been fussin’ with all morning.”

At that signal, a row of duded-up farmhands lounging against the fence doffed summer straw hats and rushed to help the women from their wagons.

Camp watched three cowboy-types stumble over their polished boots trying to be the first to reach Emily and Sherry. He wasn’t at all pleased with the gallant giant—a younger version of Clint Eastwood—who won the stampede to Emily.

The saving grace was that Megan Benton looked as miffed as Camp felt. Although that was probably because the cowboys had unmistakably relegated her to the status of kid.

Oblivious to any undercurrents, the locals boisterously led the way to a side yard set with long picnic tables, leaving Camp and Robert to unhitch the wagons. Even Mark and Jared went after the tempting canapés Mrs. Jones and Cora had begun to pass on trays. But when Mark chanced to glance back, he returned to the wagons to pitch in.

They released the horses into a field of deep grass where Jones had told Maizie to let them graze. Several such fenced fields circled the house, making a lush oasis on the endless brown prairie.

Moments after the last horse was turned out, Mark and Robert joined the revelers. Camp, slower to seek the laughter that rang out from the side yard, plucked a piece of sweet grass to nibble. That was when he noticed Megan slumped against Sherry’s wagon, tears streaking her cheeks.

In view of her continuing hostility, he could have left the girl to her own devices. But it went against Camp’s nature.

“Megan...” He tossed the stalk of grass before he sauntered toward her. “Sometimes it helps to get frustrations off your chest. As a teacher, I’ve developed an impartial ear. So if you feel like talking....”

“Mind your own business,” she sniffed, gouging a knuckle into very red eyes.

“If I had a dime for every time a student started out saying that, I’d be a millionaire. Come on, Megan, you don’t have to like me to talk to me.”

“Why are you so cheery? Mom took up with that other dude fast enough. She doesn’t know
you’re
alive, either.”

Camp heard the bitterness in the girl’s hoarse voice. “‘Took up with’ is a strong term for someone she’s just met. I imagine the young man was just flirting with her because Mr. Jones asked his staff to make us feel welcome—that’s all.” He tried not to grit his teeth. “Anyway, Emily called for you. I heard her.”

“She didn’t mean it. Because...because she hates that I look like my dad. Mona said. She didn’t even cry when they told her Daddy died.”

Mona again.
“I’m afraid I can’t comment on that, Megan. I do know that sometimes people are too shocked to cry at first. I’m reasonably sure you were aware that your parents were having a tough time before the accident. Your grandmother can only guess what your mom felt inside.”

“But it’s true she hated my dad. They didn’t even sleep together,” Megan cried.

“When a marriage breaks up, it’s never one-sided.” Camp weighed his next words carefully, eventually deciding to lay his cards on the table. “There’s no question that your mother loves you, Megan. This morning she said that if she had to choose between you and me, I could take a hike.”

The tears dried on Megan’s cheeks. “Is that why you let the dude horn in?”

Over the top of Megan’s flyaway mahogany curls, Camp had been following the outline of a man jogging through the field next to the one with the horses. He’d burst from a small stand of cottonwoods. Camp found it curious that the rail fence surrounding that parcel of land was interspersed with barbed wire.

His gaze left the man momentarily to snap down and clash with Megan’s accusing eyes. “That’s not it at all. Emily is worth fighting for—even if that means fighting with
you
—until the cows come home. I just can’t conceive of doing anything to hurt her.”
There, let her chew on that!

A shout for help interrupted Megan’s reply. It came from the puffing man Camp now identified as their obnoxious wagon mate from Philly. Charging fifteen feet behind him, with massive horns lowered, was the biggest, ugliest bull Camp had ever seen.

“Quick, call Mr. Jones or one of his men,” Camp ordered Megan over the enraged bellow of the bull. Expecting her to obey, he took off at a run.

“Why would you help that jerk?” Megan yelled.

Believing the panic on Harv’s face spoke for itself, Camp scrambled over the fence and dropped inside. Shaw, who carried fifty pounds of extra weight, had begun to flag. “Hurry, man,” Camp shouted. “Don’t stop now. Here...I’ll give you a boost.”

Face as red as the shirt he was wearing, Harv had his hands full trying to keep a grip on his unzipped pants. He lost his grip and they floated down around his knees. It didn’t take Einstein to figure out why the man had made a trip into the trees.

Camp didn’t see how he could distract the bull and heave himself, plus someone who outweighed him, over a six-foot fence topped with barbed wire. Rivulets of sweat ran into his eyes as he ducked behind Harv and tried to heave him over the fence.

Harv grunted. “I’m caught on the wire.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Camp saw the bull change directions. And he saw two other things. First, the seat of Harv’s pants was firmly caught in the top strand of barbed wire. Second, Megan still stood outside the fence, doubled over laughing.

Worse—much worse—the snorting, drooling, plunging bull pawed menacingly a few yards away. Camp shoved frantically at Harv again. His flabby butt bounced immediately back. Camp decided this whole thing must resemble The Three Stooges.

Harv’s shouts finally penetrated the party noise. Harv’s wife, Sherry and Emily dashed pell-mell toward them.

Just as the bull lowered his head to charge, Camp saw Emily vault the fence.

“Don’t just stand there, Campbell,” she shouted. “Move it.”

“No way! Get out of here.” He made a move toward her.