Chapter 13

13

He was going to lose Boone.

The thought twirled through Ryder's mind all evening like a funnel cloud, picking up debris and growing in intensity so that by the time he climbed into bed, his head ached from the pressure.

Genevieve's efforts to comfort him had been admirable, just like after his fistfight with Tanner. She'd held his hand on the ride home, and her touch had soothed him so that by the time they'd finally arrived back at the ranch, he'd stopped shaking.

When they'd sat down together for a simple supper of dried beef in a creamy sauce over biscuits, she'd attempted to initiate conversation with him about what had happened in town earlier with Sadie, but he hadn't been able to bring himself to discuss it.

Genevieve hadn't nagged him about it either. She'd simply changed the subject and taken the moment to give him a history book that she'd purchased for him in town, assuring him that she still had some money left from her trip west and had wanted to give it to him. He'd tried to be appreciative, had tried to distract himself by browsing through it, but his mind had kept replaying Sadie's threats to take Boone away from him.

Now that the storm inside him was raging, the fear of losing another person he loved—this time his very own son—made him nearly ill. He tried not to shift on the bed with his nervous energy, but sleep was evading him, and he got up to assure himself that Boone was still in his cradle.

Finally, after at least the third time checking on Boone, he returned as quietly as he could to his spot. As he did, Genevieve's delicate fingers brushed against his cheek. "Go to sleep, Ryder," she whispered. "I'll keep an ear open for Boone."

He nodded and started to speak, except that her fingers shifted from his cheek to his hair. The touch was so soothing he closed his eyes and released a tight breath. He didn't know what it was about her touch that was able to calm him, but within seconds, the soft combing had eased the ache in his head and chest.

He liked that she could sense when he needed comforting and that she didn't hold back out of self-consciousness. After living with her for the past weeks, he'd realized she was genuinely one of the nicest people he'd ever met. She was patient, kindhearted, hardworking, sweet with Boone, and generous. He actually couldn't think of a better person to spend his life with, and he wished he had the words to let her know how he was feeling.

But the words seemed to get lost someplace inside. "Thank you," he whispered, all he could think to say.

"You're welcome," she whispered back. "Now try to go to sleep."

With her gentle touch in his hair, his lids grew heavy until at last, the troubles of the world faded away.

He was resting peacefully, nearly asleep, when shouts and gunshots erupted around him. He found himself in the back of a covered wagon. The jolting of the ride came to an abrupt halt, and he could hear a man's deep voice calling out. "Hurry, get the boys into the hiding place."

A woman crawled in through the opening at the back of the wagon. She began shoving aside barrels and crates, then she clawed at the floorboards of the wagon bed. A moment later, she lifted one of them.

"Come on, darling." Ryder couldn't see her face, but her hands beckoned to him—hands that were always so gentle.

He had a hold on his brother's hand, and they climbed off the small bed.

Outside the wagon, more urgent shouting filled the air. And then a piercing war cry in a language he didn't understand.

The woman's hand began to shake, but her voice remained calm. "Down you go for a little game of hide and seek." She lowered him into a tight space between the floorboards that was so narrow he had to lie flat, and a moment later she placed his brother beside him.

Once they were both side by side, she knelt above the opening. Though he couldn't visualize her, he knew she was peering down at them. "You must stay here until your father or I come to get you. Do you understand, Edward?"

He nodded.

As a terrified scream echoed from nearby, the woman began to replace the board, her hands shaking so much that she could hardly hold it. She paused with only a crack and looked directly at him. "You must also keep Donny from making any sound."

Before he could nod, the board fell into place, leaving him and his brother in darkness except for the slit in one of the boards at the side of the wagon.

He could hear the woman shuffling above him. Then a moment later, she seemed to leave through the back of the wagon as the man called to her, telling her to hurry. She passed by the wagon, trailing her hand along the board where he and his brother were lying.

"Mommy?" his brother whispered.

"She'll be back soon." He took hold of his brother's hand. "Now we must be quiet for the rest of the game."

He had hardly uttered the words when a horse thundered past the woman—his mother. "No, please!" she cried out. "Please!"

Her cry was cut off, and in the next instant she fell hard against the wagon, then slid to the ground.

"Sarah!" came the frantic call of the man.

The war cries only grew louder, drowning out everything else, filling his head, pulsing through his blood, and sending chills down his body. But he lay silent and unmoving as his mother had instructed, the screams and gunshots tapering off until he could hear his own rapid breathing and heartbeat.

Through the slit in the wood, he caught glimpses of the wiry Natives with their bronzed skin and their colorful war paint and feathers.

The hiding place was sweltering in the heat of the summer day, and beside him, his brother was growing restless, probably just as hot.

"I want Mommy," came his brother's soft whine.

With the growing silence around the caravan of wagons, he pushed himself to his elbows, ready to be free from the confines himself. But at the sound of footsteps entering the wagon bed directly above them, he pressed a finger against his brother's lips and whispered, "The game's not over yet."

He peeked through the slit in the side of the wagon bed, and his gaze landed upon a man facedown in the dirt, blood staining his shirt and forming a pool on the ground by his side.

A scream pushed for release, but he swallowed it. He couldn't let it out, couldn't let anyone know he was there with his brother. He had to stay silent, had to keep his brother safe, had to stay undetected.

He squeezed his eyes shut and gulped in one breath after another. Tears wet his cheeks, but the screams and cries remained silent, buried deep inside. The pressure against his chest was unbearable, the air stifling, the confines too much to bear.

Before he could stop himself, he sat up, desperate for a breath.

The cool darkness of the night surrounded him, yet he was burning up and couldn't make his lungs work.

Frantically he shoved off the covers, wheezing and clawing, but for what, he didn't know.

"Ryder?" A soft voice broke through the terror in his mind, and gentle fingers grazed his back.

He jerked up and found himself standing on shaky legs, hardly able to hold himself upright.

"What's wrong?" the voice asked. "Are you having a nightmare?"

He had to get air into his lungs. With a strange desperation pulsing through him, he stumbled across the cabin, banging into the table and chairs before he made it to the door. He shoved at the latch, but it wouldn't unlock.

With a growl, he fumbled with it until it finally opened. A second later, he found himself careening outside and falling into the grass. As his knees hit the ground, the jarring seemed to clear both his mind and his airways. He dragged in a deep breath, his body shuddering as he did so.

He'd had another nightmare. But this one, unlike those in the past, had been more than just images and sounds and terror. It had been real, as if he'd been there reliving what had happened.

At a touch upon his shoulder, he tried to calm himself. He didn't want Genevieve to see him so weak and vulnerable. But before he could assure her that he was all right, she knelt beside him, her nightgown pooling around her.

He sucked in another breath, the cold air soothing his lungs and waking him up even more.

She reached for his hand and squeezed it.

The black sky was filled with thousands of stars so plentiful and full of light that he could see the worry in her expression as she watched him.

He took several more breaths, feeling his heart rate return to normal and his muscles relax. "I'm okay."

"It's okay if you're not." She brought his hand to her lap and caressed partway up his arm with her other hand.

"Edward." He had to say the name aloud before he forgot it. "And Donny."

"Edward and Donny." She repeated the names as if they were clues to a long-lost mystery.

Maybe they were.

There was one more name from his nightmare. What had it been? The woman's name. He didn't want to relive the nightmare, didn't want to experience the tragedy again. But he needed the name for Tanner's sake.

The man in the dream had yelled it.

Ryder closed his eyes and put himself back in the bottom of the wagon, peering through a crack at the woman passing by. The man had called her...

His eyes shot open. "Sarah." He shifted in the grass so that he was facing Genevieve.

Her eyes were wide and her expression serious as she listened to him.

"Sarah." He said the name again, testing it. It didn't have a familiar ring. But he wouldn't have used it or heard it often, would he?

"Are you remembering names from your past?"

He nodded. "I think my name was Edward and Tanner's was Donny. And I think my mother's was Sarah."

"That's wonderful, Ryder." She stroked his arm again as if she were still attempting to calm him.

He was fine now. But he liked her touch—liked it a lot.

"Does Edward sound familiar?" she asked.

He tried to make his mind go back to his childhood, to the days before the orphanages. But as with the other times, everything was blank. "I can't remember if I was called that or not. Or whether Tanner was called Donny."

"But it's something new." Her voice contained a note of hope. "It's information you can relay to Tanner."

"It's not much."

"It's more than you've been able to give him before."

"But why now?" What had brought these memories to life so vividly this time, when he'd never had a recollection during previous nightmares?

"Maybe it has something to do with Boone and what happened with Sadie?"

His muscles tightened at the remembrance of Sadie's threats. Maybe the fear of losing Boone had brought up the losses of his past.

Genevieve shivered, then released him and hugged her arms to herself.

"You're cold." He reached for her, and before he stopped to think, he was drawing her close.

She didn't hesitate or resist him. Instead, she curled into him, letting him surround her and lend her some of his warmth. Too late he realized he was bare-chested. But she didn't seem to mind that either and rested her head against him.

The air was nippy on his bare skin, and the dew in the grass was damp against his knees. He ought to help her get up, go back inside, and return to the covers where they would both be warm. But with her soft body so near his, he couldn't make himself let go. Instead, he wrapped his arms around her more fully, so that his warmth would surround her.

He had the feeling she was just comforting him, the same way she had when they'd ridden home from town earlier and she'd held his hand like a friend would. But a part of him wanted more than just her comfort and friendship. He wanted her to see him as a man, to be attracted to him the way other women often were.

Even though a voice in the back of his head started ringing warning bells, reminding him that he couldn't ask for more, he buried his nose into her hair and breathed her in. Her familiar rosewater scent enveloped him—the scent that often wafted to him in the night if she turned in her sleep. He loved the scent because it belonged to her.

A swell of emotion rose so swiftly inside him that he stopped breathing. Was he falling in love with Genevieve?

He'd never been in love before and didn't have anything to compare his feelings to—except for how he felt about Boone. The love he had for Boone defied anything else and was so strong that he'd die for his son.

What he was experiencing now with Genevieve resembled that. He was growing to cherish her and would protect her with his life if necessary. He appreciated so much about who she was. And there was no denying how much he revered her beauty. Every time he looked at her, as he'd been doing when he'd been in the livery and she'd stepped out of Worth's General Store, she made his heart stop beating with how stunning she was.

And now, in this moment, with all the emotions swirling together, he knew it was more than simple attraction. Desire had been there from the moment he'd first laid eyes on her. No, this was something bigger and more encompassing.

The question was, how did she feel about him? Was she beginning to care about him in a deeper way too? She hadn't given him any indication of that. She never flirted. Was never suggestive. Was never inappropriate.

In fact, she was proper in every manner of the word, so much so that he suspected she would never initiate anything no matter how she might feel about him.

If he wanted more to develop between them, he would have to make the first move. And he wasn't used to having to do that and didn't quite know what he should do. All he knew was that he wanted to express to her how much he cared.

"Are you thinking about your nightmare again?" Her soothing voice came from against his chest.

"No, not anymore."

"Then what's wrong?"

He forced himself to breathe normally. She was perceptive—one of the many things he liked about her. Would she figure out he was falling in love with her soon enough without him having to say or do anything?

Just in case she needed a little nudging in that direction, he pressed a kiss against her head. The silkiness of her hair against his lips only made him want to kiss her again. He bent in again, this time kissing her harder and longer.

He heard her breathing hitch.

What was she thinking? Was she trying to figure out how to pull away from him without hurting his feelings?

Maybe it was for the best if he didn't allow himself to get caught up in a physical relationship as he had in the past. He didn't want that to be his focus, had already resolved with this marriage he'd be different.

In order to be an honorable man, he had to release her and use the restraint he'd been developing at night sleeping next to her.

He began to sit back, loosening his arms from around her, but before he could let go, her lips grazed his chest, softly, tentatively.

The heat he'd carefully been keeping banked flared into flames, spreading through his body.

Even so, he stilled, held himself motionless. Had her touch been accidental? Or had she purposefully kissed him?

She didn't move either except for her breathing growing more rapid, the warmth skimming his chest. It seemed to tease him with all the possibilities and closeness he could have with her. It was within reach, so close, so available. How could he turn her offering away, if that's what it was?