Page 34 of Wagon Train Melody
Instead, he turned his attention to Alice. There were so many things he wanted to know about her. “Was there no one who would give you a home back—” He tried to remember the town she’d mentioned. “In Moosehead?”
“I doubt it.” She shuddered. “Evelyn and John’s deaths were so sudden. It was sad and jarring when my parents died, but they were both sick for several weeks, so it wasn’t totally unexpected. Not like when Evelyn and John died. One minute there. The next... dead in a wagon accident. The really ironic thing was that Evelyn had been sick a long time after Kitty was born and was finally beginning to feel better.” She paused as if lost in thought. “When she was feeling particularly poorly a long time ago, she made me promise to take care of the girls if anything should happen to her. She was feeling rather morbid that day and suggested if something happened to John too, I should go join Clint. Give the girls a family such as we knew growing up.”
“I see. That explains why you’re crossing the prairie on your own.”
She chuckled. “If by alone you mean in the company of a younger brother and two nieces.”
He studied her for a moment. She held his gaze, perhaps taking an assessment of him as much as he was of her. “Surely you have beaus. Seems to me it would have been a good time forone of them to step up, marry you and help you raise the girls, accompany you to the fort if that’s what you wanted.” The words stung him even as he spoke them. Alice would, no doubt, have had beaus. It wouldn’t surprise him, nor should it bother him like it did.
She shrugged. “I’ve had boys show an interest in me, but I wanted to be as happy as Evelyn and John or Ma and Pa and none of them made me feel like I could have that with them. And then there was Jimmy. I really liked him. Maybe even thought I was in love. I was seventeen, the same age as Evelyn when she got married. But Evelyn was doing poorly and needed my help. Jimmy wanted someone who cared only about him. Can you imagine anything so selfish? I stopped seeing him.” She sighed. “I know he wouldn’t have stuck with me after Evelyn and John died.”
“He sounds like a callow young man.”
“He was a boy.” Her tone carried so much disdain that he laughed.
Could it be she saw him as a man? He pushed aside the question.
She ran her gaze over his features. He resisted removing his hat and letting her take full measure of him. After all, this was to be a temporary time together.
“You must have courted girls.”
“Nope.”
He laughed at her look of disbelief. “Oh, I might have escorted a gal or two to a social event, but I wasn’t in any place long enough to get serious.”
“What about that town you spent the winter in when you went to church on Sunday? Weren’t there young women in the congregation? Or the town?”
“I guess there were.”
“Uh-huh. Tell me more.” She jabbed her elbow into his ribs.
He laughed. “Or what? You’ll torture me?”
She jabbed him again. “I might at that.” The way she smiled at him, her eyes brimming with humor, he guessed the torture had begun, and he didn’t mind.
“There was a gal or two I kind of liked. One of them was never out of her mother’s sight and her mother did not approve of me. So that was the end of that. The other—” He sighed dramatically.
“Yes. Do go on.”
“She was the prettiest thing I ever saw. Brown ringlets hung down her back tempting me to tug them. She had the biggest, brownest eyes—almost like yours.”
She lowered her head but not before he saw the color rise in her cheeks.
“This gal always greeted me with a big smile. I often went to her home for a meal, and she was very entertaining. She cried mightily when I informed her I was leaving.”
“You didn’t consider staying there?”
“I didn’t think I wanted to wait for her to grow up. She was only six.”
Alice blinked. Blinked again. Then hooted with laughter. “You are a tease.”
“Glad you enjoy it.”
She sobered though her eyes sparkled. “Who says—” She waved her hand. “Forget it. I admit you had me.”
He sat back, rather pleased with himself as they rode onward.
Several times, she glanced at him and chuckled.
