“I’m up for it,” I announced at once, understanding what he was about to ask. “I’ll be fine.”
“Good, since I wasn’t planning to let you from my sight,” Malcolm said, just serious enough I couldn’t discern if there was a hint of humor in his words, or not. My heart throbbed fiercely. He looked next to Derrick. “Yancy, what of you? Can you handle a firearm?”
Derrick shifted uncomfortably, tugging his gaze from Patricia. “I’ve never shot a gun in my life.”
“Well, there ain’t time for lessons anyway.” Malcolm’s observant eyes flickered over the wagon, then back to Derrick. “You’ll stay and help keep watch.”
Derrick struggled to submerge his unease. “I’d rather we stuck together if it’s all the same to you, Camille.”
I knew he feared losing what he considered his only connection to the future and I couldn’t blame him, but the decision was out of my hands.
“There ain’t enough horses.” There was zero room for argument in Malcolm’s tone. “We’ll catch up once we’ve sent a message. Give us until tomorrow night, Cole. We’ll look for you in Windham.”
And so, less than ten minutes after our first meeting, I was hugging Patricia good-bye. “Be safe,” I begged in a whisper, closing my eyes against the softness of her hair. “Please, be safe.”
“You have already saved us, dear Camille.” She drew back and studied my eyes. “I could never thank you enough. I pray you are able to warn Ruthann. I shall pray every moment until we meet again.”
Derrick masked his fear with admirable effort, cupping my upper arm as he ordered, “Watch out for yourself. Jesus Christ, Tish will kill me if you get hurt.”
“You’ll be safe with me, I swear on my life.” Malcolm held Aces by the horse’s lead line, eyes steady on mine as he spoke. Fate enclosed my heart in a merciless grip – how many times had I stood facing this man, this horse, with the sun beating down on my head and the prairie grasses rippling to the horizon on all sides? The exact number was lost to me – only Malcolm and Cora would ever know for certain – but it didn’t matter.
One last time, I thought, aching from the inside out. Give me this one last time.
Chapter Twenty-Six
The Iowa Plains - June, 1882
ACES HIGH CANTERED OVER THE PRAIRIE WITH US ON HIS back, the miles disappearing beneath his long, graceful legs. Malcolm slowed him to a walk roughly every twenty minutes and the animal’s ribcage expanded and contracted as his powerful lungs drew huge breaths, preparing for another bout of running. I buried both hands in the coarse hair of the horse’s thick brown mane while Malcolm held the reins, his arms encircling my waist from behind, his thighs aligned with mine. I tried at first to pretend his proximity didn’t affect me but it was absolutely no use. An agony of need and desire battered me with full force. And love. I loved this man so much it hurt.
My hair was tucked beneath Malcolm’s bandana, which he’d been kind enough to lend me, a tattered rectangle of indigo cloth which I tied over my loose hair so it wouldn’t blow in his face, knotting it at the nape of my neck. At first he’d offered his cowboy hat but it was too big, slipping down to cover my eyes. My clothing was what I’d left Shore Leave wearing – a pair of faded jeans, wool socks, and snow boots with rounded toes never intended for fitting in stirrups; a ragged gray t-shirt under an old green sweater. Clothes meant for chilly, slushy, late-winter Minnesota, not a prairie in Iowa under a hot June sun. Even with the wind created by Aces High’s fast pace, sweat trickled in slippery paths beneath my double layer of shirts.
Malcolm’s forearms rippled with lean muscle, exposed by the rolled-up sleeves of his threadbare shirt, a garment that might once have been white. His fingers were long, with blunt square nails, his hands calloused and hard and more capable-looking than any man’s I’d ever seen. I’d noticed almost immediately the braided leather band on his right wrist, with Cora’s name carved upon its surface; one winter night long ago I’d used a magnifying glass to read the word on the surface of a photograph. And again the unreality of this situation beat at my senses; after all this time, I was in the same physical space as Malcolm Carter.
“What was her last name? I’ve wondered for so long.” I touched the band on his wrist as I asked, rubbing a thumb over the single word carved upon the smooth leather. I felt an undeniable connection with this woman, not only because she had loved Malcolm as much as I loved him, but because she was also part of me. In this century, Cora had been me.
“Lawson. Cora Elizabeth Lawson.” He spoke her name with a quiet reverence that tore at my heart.
“Who was she? How did you meet? When did you meet?” I was dying with curiosity.
“I was a boy of thirteen, green as sawgrass. It’s a long tale, but we have a long ride.”
“Tell me everything,” I demanded, smiling as I sensed him grin.
“Only if you promise the same.” He tightened his elbows around my waist, just slightly.
“I promise.”
He was a talker. But I already knew that, basking in the warm flow of his words.
And I listened, peppering him with questions, as he told me of his first sight of eleven-year-old Cora Lawson in the late summer of 1868, on a cattle drive toward Montana Territory. He backtracked, at my request, relating memories of his boyhood in Tennessee with descriptions so vivid I felt I’d been there with him. He spoke of running wild in the holler, trying to keep up with his older brothers, of
