Remembered by Tamera Alexander

Author:Tamera Alexander
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9780764201103
Publisher: Baker Publishing Group
Published: 2007-05-31T22:00:00+00:00

Jack’s senses remained on alert as they wound their way down the mountain. After an hour, his pulse had returned to normal. Once they’d crossed Maynor’s Gulch, he began to relax. When they were little more than two hours from Willow Springs, the trail they were on joined up with the route they’d taken from Jenny’s Draw. And once he’d traveled a route, it remained etched in his memory.

“Jack?” Her voice sounded overly small.

He looked beside him. Her brown eyes appeared luminous in the half-light of approaching evening. Seeing her arms wrapped around herself, he wondered if she was chilly. “Would you like your coat?”

“Oui, please. It is in the top of my bagage.”

Jack stopped the wagon. He reached behind him and located her satchel, unlatched it, then felt around for her coat. Unsuccessful, he finally stood and leaned over the seat. He couldn’t believe the assortment of items she’d stuffed inside the bag—mirrors, powders, a bottle of perfume, books, and undergarments galore. But not a coat to be seen. He finally came across something and held up a tiny nothing of a jacket. “This is the coat you brought along with you to stay warm?”

A nod, far less confident than usual.

He stuffed it back into her bag and reached beneath the bench seat for a miners’ jacket he kept stored there. “Put this on.”

She did so without question. It dwarfed her small frame.

Between the events of the day and the earlier drizzle of sleet, her blond hair had long since evaded her efforts to keep it situated atop her head. It fell in a thick swoop over one shoulder. With her customary defenses reduced to shambles, she looked more than a bit defeated—and far too alluring.

He found himself thanking God again that nothing worse had happened to her back at the Peerless. When he’d returned to the wagon to find it empty, he’d panicked. He knew enough to realize that the deeper root of his anger was tethered back fifteen years ago. But the emotions of that day, and of the days following Mary’s and Aaron’s death, had returned with a vengeance when he’d seen the empty wagon.

Véronique was in his care, and he hadn’t been there to protect her.

“I would like to speak with you about something, Jack, if I may.”

Her formality struck him as odd, in light of all they’d been through. “You may speak with me about anything you wish, Véronique.”

She gave him a tiny smile. “I realize that the likelihood of finding my papa in this Colorado Territory is . . .” She paused as though searching for the right word.

“Slim?” Jack supplied, his voice soft.

She shot him an unexpected look. “It was my intention to say ‘not as promising as I once considered it to be,’ but . . . I suppose the idea of my hopes becoming more slender also fits the description.”

The serious tone of her voice kept Jack from smiling at her mild correction. “Twenty years is a long time to go with no word from a man.

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