Journey of Honor A love story by Jaclyn M. Hawkes Page B

be scrambling all of her personal inspiration.
    Unsure of what to do, she turned on her side restlessly and then scooted close enough to him to just touch him with her elbow. Even that little contact with him was comforting and she was finally able to get back to sleep.
    The next morning, Trace was up and gone as usual when Mose showed up with a concerned face to deliver his lifesaving biscuit. She thanked him gratefully. “What would I ever do without you, Mose?”
    He stayed bent down to talk to her before he turned back around to leave. “You’d be fine. Just fine, Miss Giselle. Maybe you’d even drum up the guts to tell your husband why you’re sick. You need to. He’s going to be both mad and hurt when he finds out. The longer you go, the worse he’s going to feel.”
    She nodded guiltily. “You’re right, Mose. I know you are. I just can’t figure out how to go about it. It won’t matter soon anyway. It won’t be long before it’s glaringly obvious. I can hardly bend to climb under here without ripping out my dresses already.” He didn’t say anything, just looked at her steadily and she wanted to squirm. “I’ll figure it out, Mose. As soon as I can. Honest.”
    He nodded and looked up. “Now would be a good time. Here he comes.” With that, he stood up and walked away, pausing to talk to Trace for a second as they passed.
    A second later, she saw Trace’s head appear under the edge of the wagon box. He noticed her biscuit and said, “Hey, what is this? Breakfast in bed? Hop out of there and I’ll roll up our gear and stow it.”
    She knew she couldn’t get right up just then. She’d have thrown up on Trace’s lap. She groaned inwardly. “Can I have just another minute or two, Trace? I’ll be up in a second, I promise.”
    He looked at her quizzically. “Sure. Whatever. Is something wrong?”
    She glanced up to where Mose had just disappeared and sighed. “No. I’m fine. Sometimes I’m just a bit slow moving when I wake up. Give me a small moment and I’ll be up.”
    He followed her glance after Mose and wondered what he was missing. “Take as long as you want, Elley. I’ll do some other stuff before the bedding.”
    She nodded and he stood back up. He paused for a second. Something wasn’t right with her, but she didn’t appear to want to talk to him about it. On a hunch he went to hunt up Mose. On finding him building a fire, he asked him point blank, “Was there something wrong with Giselle this morning?”
    Mose looked back at him steadily and asked, “What did she say to you?”
    “Nothing, why? She just said she wanted me to give her another couple minutes in bed. But it was kind of weird. She seemed almost sad when I asked if she was okay. What’s wrong?”
    Shaking his head, Mose said, “Nothing’s wrong. Maybe she’s just still tired. Did she sleep okay?”
    Trace thought about that while he looked from his best friend to his own wagon and back. “I don’t know. She got up once, but I was tired enough that as soon as I knew she was back, I went back to sleep.” Mose was almost acting guilty or something, and Trace suddenly had a thought that really bothered him. He looked Mose right in the face and asked, “What’s going on, Mose? Why are both of you acting strange? There’s not something between you and Giselle is there?”
    Mose looked him squarely in the eyes and said earnestly, “Of course not, Trace. Not only is she your wife, but I would never do something like that. If you think about it, you know that.”
    “I didn’t think you would. So what is going on? Is something going on?”
    After hesitating a few seconds, Mose looked out at the lightening horizon. “If something is going on, Trace, it’s going on with her. There’s nothing that has anything to do with me.”
    Still confused, Trace said, “Okay… So do I ask her? Or what?”
    Mose looked back at him and smiled. “I’m not the official expert on what to do if women act strange, Trace.