Chapter 10 #2
Morning Fawn jabbed a hand to her hip as he hurried over to her. “Do you have a rule against breathing?”
He frowned beneath his slouch hat, his slim, dark beard contrasting with the deep blue of his eye. “No, just against ladies who don’t stay put.”
She chuckled. “Well, you’d better go play nursemaid to my aunt, then. She’s an expert at that.”
His lips quirked upward. “It’s the troublesome ones who need to be kept within an arm’s reach. That’s why I’m taking you with me on the rest of my errands.”
“What errands?”
A breeze lifted the rim of her straw hat, whipping the ribbon against her cheek.
“The saddle and harness shop, for one.” He held his elbow out toward her as if she might consent to place her hand around the crook of his arm.
She rolled her eyes and stepped back. “Lead the way.”
“First…” He held up a finger. “I have to tell your aunt. Don’t move a step.” He stuck his head inside the mercantile and called to Aunt Judith.
Morning Fawn scooted over a foot just for spite.
“Just full of contrariness, aren’t you?” Reynolds smirked as he pointed the way forward.
A young boy in knickers tugged on his momma’s arm as they strolled past. “Is she the one who stole the horse? She doesn’t look Indian.”
“Hush.” The stout lady with the flower-covered bonnet yanked him along.
Morning Fawn picked up her step.
Reynolds glanced over his shoulder. “Should I have said something?”
“Not a word.”
The smell of leather washed over her as they walked into the dimly lit store.
Harnesses, horse collars, bridles, and their various parts hung on pegs along the barn-like walls.
Saddles straddled narrow benches, and strips of leather, both wide and narrow, lay haphazardly on a long table with a draw knife on the end.
The owner, canvas apron smeared and sleeves rolled up to his elbows, spit tobacco juice in a spittoon and greeted Reynolds with a howdy.
Morning Fawn glanced around as they spoke about a harness her uncle had ordered, and then, of course, the man wanted to know about the war. Reynolds asked about the cotton shipments as if he were eager to drive a load down to Mexico himself. Such a trip would be six to eight weeks each way.
Reynolds seemed intent on taking his time returning to his regiment.
Come to think of it, he’d taken his time on enlisting in the first place, too busy with minor details like ruining her life for three hundred dollars.
And now this whole marriage-for-land scheme?
She’d better figure out exactly what he was up to.
A striped cat with a bent ear scurried out from beneath a bench as she approached. It pattered over to the corner, shaking its paws in the scattering of sawdust and discarded scraps of leather.
Morning Fawn smoothed her hand over the seat of a saddle, rounded and not as hard as the rectangular-shaped, rawhide-covered wood of a Comanche woman’s saddle.
“You miss riding?”
She jumped, startled to find Reynolds two feet from her elbow, studying her. She lifted her chin. “I used to almost live on horseback until a certain party came along and forced an invitation on me to leave the only home I knew.”
He flinched. “Maybe it’s not as wonderful as you remember.” He swatted a fly. “From the little I’ve seen of Comanche culture, you probably spent most of your time scraping and curing buffalo hides, setting up a tipi, or carrying water for some brave.”
She rolled her eyes. “You don’t believe in work, Mr. Reynolds? Not all of us can lounge about as you do until you have another kidnapping.”
“It’s Lieutenant Reynolds, or Devon, to you.”
“It’ll never be Devon.” She crossed her arms.
“Makes no difference to me.” He rubbed his thumb over a rope coil on the bench. “But as for the work part, I left home when I was seventeen. Been working or fighting ever since. I earn my way. I don’t live off the labor of oth—”
He halted mid-word and glanced back at the owner, who was busy talking to a new customer. To see if they’d overheard?
She tossed a strand of hair over her shoulder.
“What about your stepfather? From what I hear, he has a fancy plantation, and you’ve spent your life living off the labor of others.
” Though he sure didn’t look like it. Muscular, tanned, more like a man you’d find around a campfire on the trail than standing around a parlor.
“I have never.” He glowered at her, his voice more hushed than it had been before. “My stepfather and I don’t see eye to eye.”
She blinked at him and pivoted toward the harnesses.
Was he against slavery, maybe even an abolitionist?
A crime in these parts. Enough to get a man hated, or even tarred and feathered.
Maybe that was why he was after a piece of land any way he could get it.
Maybe he’d lost or declined his inheritance.
“I’m curious, Lieutenant.” She kept her voice low. “Why did you volunteer for the Confederate Army if you’re against slavery?”
“I never said I was.” Jaw firm, he placed his hand on the wall. “But regardless of what sympathies I may or may not have, I’m loyal to Texas, and I’m willing to risk my life to defend her.”
She nudged her straw hat farther back on her head and searched his walled expression for truth. The glance didn’t give her anything but a flutter in her belly. She turned, almost stepping into a blasted spittoon. The nasty things were everywhere, it seemed.
Reynolds hooked his thumb over his cartridge belt. “What I was trying to say before you got snippety was that if you missed riding, perhaps I could ask your uncle for permission to take you on a ride sometime. I wouldn’t mind exploring more of the county.”
A genuine invitation? Her pulse quickened, but she shrugged and meandered toward the bridles. “I heard you already took Thea riding the day after you got here.”
“Thea tagged along. Her choice, not mine.”
“Well, I’m sure she’d be happy to keep you company.
Besides, my uncle will likely remind you that I already went riding a few days ago, and it ended with some off-duty soldier yanking me off Mr. Franklin’s Thoroughbred.
” Why did her stupid voice rise and fall like a leaf on a breeze?
As if she were a maiden greeting a favored warrior by the creek.
Maybe the laudanum had finally soaked her brain to the core too deep to ever dry out.
He tugged on a harness ring, testing the strength of the leather. “You can’t run off like that, with no supplies and no plan. Especially on a stolen horse.” His breath smelled like mint. Had he taken one of the peppermint sticks for himself?
“When should I run off, then?”
“You shouldn’t.”
“Stay at my uncle’s forever and be his china doll on a shelf?”
“I didn’t say that either.”
“Oh, you mean take my uncle up on his deal.”
He pressed his lips together.
Of course, that’s what he’d recommend. Marry him. She’d be free of her uncle. Stuck with a man who cared more about money and land than her. She knew every bit of the cold logic, yet the tug was as real as if Devon Reynolds had looped a pair of reins around her heart.
The cat jumped up on a nearby bench and swished her tail.
“I don’t like bridles.” Morning Fawn reached for one that hung near his shoulder, inhaling soap and horse and bay rum as she did so.
He’d used cologne? “My aunt seems to think marriage is about bits.” She ran her finger along the edge of the shiny metal, almost as sparkly as a ring. “What do you think, Lieutenant?”
Reynolds’s eyebrows arched toward his hairline.
Her cheeks heated. What a stupid question. Didn’t she have any sense? “Forget it.”
He exhaled and brushed his thumb over the headpiece of the bridle.
She turned to move away.
“If you really want to know, Morning Fawn…” He whispered her given name. “Marriage has nothing to do with bits. And it shouldn’t have anything to do with land. It’s about love and commitment. And choosing to honor God and the other person before yourself.”
She gaped at him as a lake-blue eye met hers. Her stomach wobbled, and so did her knees as his words penetrated her core. “Then why did you come up with the whole marry-for-land scheme?”
“I didn’t. That was your uncle’s doing. My idea was that he give you a horse.” He rubbed his nose. “He thought that was too risky.”
“A horse? You expected me to sign my life away for a horse?”
“No. My suggestion had nothing to do with marriage.” He scrubbed his hand over his jaw. “Your uncle added that part on. I was only trying to save you from the laudanum.”
She blinked at him. “Save me?” As though she was some charity case.
He wasn’t interested in marrying her. Why not?
Not that she wanted anything to do with him, anyway.
But what about all of that sweet talk about giving her the moon?
Maybe he’d been drinking that night. Or felt sorry for her and wanted to ease his conscience.
“I don’t need your help, Lieutenant.” She clunked the bit against another.
Gathering her skirts, she marched for the door. She’d show him and her uncle too.