Heart of a Dove by Abbie Williams

Author:Abbie Williams
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Publisher: Central Avenue Publishing
Published: 2014-11-24T08:00:00+00:00

- 13 -

An hour later the sun was melting into the west in a hot river of molten gold. Boyd was especially disappointed that we’d not caught so much as a single fish.

“You two was having too much fun racing horses,” Malcolm complained as he, Angus and I rode three abreast on the wagon seat, me squeezed comfortably in the middle, Admiral tethered on a long lead line to the back of the wagon, clomping along behind. No matter what, the men refused to leave their horses behind, even such a short distance. Sawyer and Boyd were just ahead on Whistler and Fortune, chatting together.

I could not keep my eyes from Sawyer as he rode; no matter how many times I redirected my gaze at the magnificent setting sun, or to my hands in my lap, or Malcolm’s profile as he chattered, my eyes moved relentlessly back to Sawyer. I fidgeted endlessly, tucking hair behind my ears as it escaped from its pins; I’d dressed properly and pinned up my hair, in deference to the strangers who had invited us to dine with them. I was nervous about meeting them, my face warm and my heart refusing to stop fluttering.

“They’re a kind couple,” Angus told me, on my right. “Bound for Montana Territory.”

“And they’ve five young’uns,” Malcolm explained again. “Two boys an’ three girls. Though I’m older’n all of them.” He turned to me and complained, “Why’d Sawyer let you ride Whistler? I been begging an’ begging.”

“Perhaps it was his way of apologizing,” Angus said quietly, his tone hushing Malcolm’s petulance.

“For what?” Malcolm piped then, and I asked immediately, “What are the children’s names?”

Malcolm’s lips protruded as he struggled to recall, at last reciting, “Cole, Annabel, May, Charles, an’ Susanna. She’s the baby, still on the breast, she is.”

“Son, I’ll ask you to mind your manners one more time,” Angus said mildly.

“Gus, I know, I know,” he said, and in the next moment I could smell a cookfire and caught sight of two covered wagons, a passel of children running through the grass like prairie chickens. This family possessed six horses I could see, plus a pair of dirty-white pigs. A lean, spare man rose from his seat at a wooden table one would normally see in a farmhouse kitchen and lifted his hand to greet us, joined momentarily by a woman in a full-skirted dress, a child of perhaps a year or so caught on her hip. Anxiety rippled across my skin, though they smiled and called over; I reminded myself that they had no idea I’d spent the last three years of my life as a whore.

“Gus, welcome,” the man said as Malcolm drew Juniper to a halt. Boyd and Sawyer dismounted, immediately removing their hats.

Angus hopped down and then lifted me; I was overwhelmed as the children came running and the woman moved to me at once and hugged me briefly with her free arm, then drew back and smiled into my eyes.

“So good to see a woman,” she said.

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