Into the Wilderness by Sara Donati

Author:Sara Donati [Donati, Sara]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Romance, Adult, Historical, Adventure, Western
ISBN: 9780553107364
Publisher: Bantam
Published: 1997-12-31T13:00:00+00:00

It was a hot, searing kind of pain that spiraled instantaneously into a great burst of color, but it didn’t last long. Elizabeth bit down hard on the urge to scream; if no other lesson had been learned, Nathaniel had made it clear to her how important it was to keep their noise down to a minimum. But tears brimmed in her eyes and the world doubled and tripled. When it cleared, Nathaniel bound her wound with her third-best handkerchief dampened with Axel’s schnapps, and then slipped the delinquent moccasin back on her foot. With a few deft motions he pulled her legging down and laced the moccasin over it. Elizabeth observed while he sewed the tear in the sole with the same needle he had used to fish the splinters out.

“Very handy of you,” she noted, still out of sorts.

“You should be able to walk on this tomorrow.”

“I intend to walk now. Can’t we camp on the shore back there?” Just before her misstep, they had come past a small lake with a good protected place to settle under an outcropping of rock. At that point they had thought to walk for another three hours, but now Elizabeth was glad to have a valid excuse to go back. It had been an unusually pretty place, even for this wilderness. And since she had finally learned the basics of swimming, she took every opportunity to practice.

Nathaniel took all the packs and let her manage on her own, limping gingerly. She felt slightly silly, and looked around herself as if there might be curious neighbors watching. Instead, she caught a pair of fox cubs at play in the sun before their burrow hole, their red coats gleaming bright. They looked at her without fear, and she looked back.

Once settled, Nathaniel gathered wood for a fire. The shore was lined with a wide margin of sweet flag, and he pulled up great armfuls of the long green spikelike leaves to lay over the burning wood. The smoke that rose and filled the air would keep flying things away.

Elizabeth breathed a sigh of contentment, knowing that she should rouse herself to see to the food, but she was feeling strangely indolent. Reclining on the smooth, warm expanse of rock, she enjoyed the feel of the breeze on her inflamed face.

“I must look a sight,” she said. “And you needn’t bother to contradict me.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it, Boots.”

She snorted, and liking the sound of it, snorted again. “If I had the energy I’d make you pay for that,” she said, and grinned in spite of herself.

“Now you’re fishing for more than compliments,” he said, eyeing her with one raised brow while he shredded a long stalk of grass and tossed bits into the fire, absentmindedly.

She looked out over the lake, thought about swimming, and then lay back down lazily.

“And if I were? Isn’t that my right?”

He came to sit beside her. “Aye, that it is. So what is it you want?”

She managed to look him in the eye.

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