Trail of Kisses by Merry Farmer Page B

the happy couple now reciting the
simplest of wedding vows, then peeked back at Lynne. Her face
relaxed into a smile as the ceremony reached the “I
do’s.”
    Would he marry her? If she had had nothing in
the world and no one to help her, would he risk his whole future
happiness to make her his wife and bring her under his
protection?
    The answer came to him clear as day in tandem
with John Rye’s solemn, “I do.”
    He would. He’d marry Lynne in a heartbeat.
Kissing her had sealed that. But had her kiss been just a show of
bravery or would she say yes if it came to it? He grinned at the
thought and rubbed the handle of the Colt in his belt. He had to
keep her safe long enough to give him the chance to ask the
question.

 
     
     
     
     
    Chapter
Six
     
    Shortly after the sun rose the next day, they
were on the trail once more. Lynne wasn’t sure if she was relieved
to be away from Ft. Kearny, or if leaving the tiny dot of
civilization for the vastness of the prairie was leaving a part of
herself behind. The entire wagon train was in a more somber mood
than when they had set out from Independence, but she didn’t know
whether to smile or rage. She had kissed Cade Lawson. Did that make
her brave or a fallen woman? Should she rail at him… or should she
try to kiss him again? Lynne did her best to force emotion from her
thoughts and to keep going.
    She had other things to worry about. They
weren’t more than three days out from Ft. Kearny when the miners
were stirred up and in a tizzy.
    “ I swear I had that deed at the
poker game, but it was gone the next day,” an old, grizzled miner
by the name of Barney complained as he walked near where Cade and
Lynne rode.
    “ Ya done lost that deed on a pair
of eights, ya old coot,” another miner, Kyle, ragged on him. He
snickered to the man walking with him.
    “ I lost the nugget, I’ll admit to
that,” Barney said, “but I kept the deed in my pocket.”
    “ Barney, you was so drunk by the
end of things last night, you wouldn’t’a known which end of a horse
was which. Ain’t that right, Ben?” Kyle called across Cade and
Lynne to young Ben, driving the wagon.
    Ben flicked the whip across the back of the
oxen and ignored them with a scowl. Lynne pursed her lips and shook
her head. She’d warned him once about spending time with the miners
at his age. She’d have to do it again.
    “ That deed’s got to be somewhere,”
Barney went on. He stopped to scratch his head and look around, as
if it would pop out of the prairie grass. Thankfully, the other
miners stopped with him and the wagon train moved on.
    Lynne let out a breath of relief when the men
were far behind. “Thank heavens they fell back,” she said and
patted Clover’s neck. She’d had her trusty mount checked by a
farrier in Ft. Kearny and was glad to be riding instead of
walking.
    “ I don’t like it,” Cade
grumbled.
    Lynne didn’t know whether to sigh or grin.
“Seems to me you don’t like much of anything these days.” She
leaned low over Clover’s neck and whispered, “Cade has been out in
the sun too long.”
    He kept his eyes forward, but for a flicker of
a second Lynne was certain his lips twitched into a smile. He was
as serious as January a moment later.
    “ What do I have to do to convince
you that the dangers you’re facing are real?” he asked.
    The uncomfortable tremor that Lynne had come
to hate so much caught in her chest. She fought it by sitting up
straight and smoothing her skirt over the knee hooked across the
pommel of her saddle.
    “ I’m not afraid to face danger,”
she said, reminding herself that she was brave.
    He let out a frustrated breath and adjusted
his hat lower over his eyes.
    “ No, really,” she insisted with a
shrug. “I’ll admit it’s there, but I can handle it.” It was the
only answer she could give that wouldn’t end with her hating
herself for being weak.
    At last, he twisted in his saddle to look at
her. The fierceness of his gaze