“Interfere?” he spat back at her. “You’re my…You’re in my care,” he finished. “Damn you, Justin, what if you caught a man behaving like this with your sister?”
“I’d demand he marry her,” Justin said calmly. “I’m leaving, Wes, because I don’t want this to become a fight. I don’t want there to be hatred between a woman’s husband and her relatives.” With that he walked out of the water toward his waiting horse.
Wesley didn’t speak until he heard Justin’s horse moving away. “Who does he mean by ‘husband’?” he asked accusingly.
Leah snatched Kim’s underwear from the driftwood where it had caught and started out of the river. There was no need to lift her skirt since it was soaked.
“I asked you a question,” Wes demanded once they were on the bank.
“I didn’t tell him about us if that’s what you mean,” she snapped. “You can relax. Your pure Stanford name wasn’t sullied by me. Now if you’ll excuse me I need to rewash a garment of your fiancée’s.”
Wesley’s mouth hardened. “Is that what you two were talking about so long? Kim?”
She threw Kim’s wet drawers on his boots. “It may surprise you to know that we lower class people have things to talk about other than our betters.”
“It didn’t look to me like you were doing much talking when I arrived. Both of you were wet. Did you go swimming together? Did you let him take your clothes off again?” He took her shoulders and pulled her to him. “When he kissed you,” he whispered, “did he make you feel like you do when I kiss you?”
Leah would have given a great deal not to react when Wesley touched her, but she was utterly powerless. It wasn’t the same as kissing Justin; this was surrender. His body crushed next to hers, his lips touched hers, and she felt or saw nothing else. She remembered no hate, had no thoughts at all.
When he released her, she was dazed, barely able to stand upright.
“It didn’t look as if you were feeling like that in Justin’s arms,” Wes said so smugly that Leah’s eyes flew open.
She knew with every fiber of her body that she had to wipe that look off his face. Without thought, she used a trick her brother had taught her. She brought her knee up between Wesley’s legs.
Immediately he crumpled, and Leah ran to his horse, mounted quickly, and started back to camp. As she rode, knowing he’d have to walk back, she laughed with pleasure, but after a few minutes she halted the horse. Maybe she’d injured Wesley. She had a right to be angry, but she didn’t feel right in hurting him.
She was still hesitating when Wesley dropped from a tree above her, catching the horse’s reins.
“How—?” she began.
He didn’t answer her but began to lead the horse back to the waterfall. She didn’t like the look of blind anger in his eyes and she dared not speak to him. Would he beat her?
At the river he stopped. “Get down and get the clothes,” he said in a steely voice.
Leah obeyed him.
He mounted his horse, took the wet laundry from her, and offered his hand to help her behind him. She was afraid of the look on his face, scared to refuse him, and when seated she tried to keep from touching him, not wanting him to remember she was there.
Once, the horse stepped sideways and Leah nearly fell off.
“If you can’t bear to touch me at least hold onto the damn saddle,” he said with a growl, and again Leah obeyed.
They were silent the rest of the way to the camp and Leah might have thought Wes hated her before, but now his anger was like a hot red cape encircling him—a cape that would burn one’s fingers if one dared touch it. She was careful to avoid him.
Chapter 10
Two days later they met the Greenwoods: Hank and Sadie and their three little boys. Leah was the one who suggested they travel together. For the last two days it had been very unpleasant traveling with Kim, Wes, and Justin. Wesley kept watching, staring at her with dark eyes, while Justin treated her as if she might break at any moment, and Leah was beginning to find his hovering an annoyance. Kim seemed oblivious to the tension and just kept demanding more and more from Wes.
The Greenwoods and their noisy, active children were exactly what was needed to take away some of the tension within the group. There were many travelers on the road heading for Kentucky and even farther west. They were drawn by the enticement of riches beyond belief, of fertile, virgin land that was theirs for the asking. There was no longer an Indian problem and Kentucky was a state, so they felt safe, protected from hardship. Some of the travelers were well prepared, their wagons loaded with goods. They’d sold their farms and had money to buy new land in the west. But too many others had merely walked away from where they’d lived, their families trailing behind them with no more than the clothes on their backs and a sackful of food.
All along the way were inns, and although the majority of them were too filthy to consider, they charged much for their services and received whatever they asked.
Leah was reminded of her own childhood when she’d see a family of children dressed in rags, looking gaunt and worn-out but trudging westward, dutifully following their parents. At first secretly, she began to feed some of these children, not letting Wesley see her because it was, after all, his food. The evening of the day they met the Greenwoods, while everyone was sitting around the campfire she’d tentatively suggested that they offer food to some people with several children who were camped not too far away.
It was one of the few times Kim expressed a strong opinion. “Aren’t you being awfully free with someone else’s goods?” Kim asked. “People should learn to take care of themselves. If we start giving them things they’ll never learn to depend on themselves. They’ll always expect us to
take care of them.”