She dodged out of the way just as he tried to pinch her. "You wouldn't care if the ground split wide open and those oxen fell right in. You went to see where Sister Ash was. What she was doing. 'Cause you were afraid she might be off somewhere with Mr. MacQuade."
Renny flinched at the memory of what he had found in his search—Sister Ash and that MacQuade man together. Even from beside the wagon he could see their shadows melting into each other, had known MacQuade must have been kissing her.
Renny had fled to where Cooley had been picketed, feeling a fear more devastating than any he'd ever known jolt through him until he had stood there shaking like a baby, like Liam would have, while Sister Ash and that horrible man kept on kissing.
He had stolen back to the wagon just before she had returned, and in the moonlight Renny had seen her face all flustery, her eyes all shiny, and then he had known that what he had most feared had happened.
Sister Ashleen loved that mean, ugly-tempered, kid-hating Garret MacQuade who had yelled at Meggie, thrown out their rocking chair, and sold their horses without even asking.
A choked sound came out of Renny's throat, his eyes burning. He wheeled away from Shevonne and scrubbed at them with one fist. She was quiet all of a sudden. And Shevonne never shut up.
"What happened, Ren?" she almost whispered, and he could hear fear threading through her voice. But wasn't it better if she knew the truth, so she had time to prepare before... before what? Renny thought, an awful lump clogging his throat.
Before Sister Ash dumped them all at some orphanage in Texas and rode off with Garret MacQuade?
"I saw him kissing her," Renny said at last. "And she... she was kissing him back."
"Sister Ash kisses us good night all the time. Maybe it was like that."
"You're so stupid, Shevonne! It wasn't anything like that! It was like sweethearts kiss afore they run off to get married."
Shevonne nibbled at her lip, uncertain. "Well, Mr. MacQuade doesn't seem too terrible. It might not be so bad if he came with us."
Renny gave a hoarse laugh. "Do you think a man like him would want a passel o' kids nobody else'd bother with? No, sir, he wouldn't take us if his life depended on it. He'd want just Sister Ash, all to himself."
Shevonne's hands balled on her hips. "Well, that's the silliest thing I ever heard. What do you think she'd do? Dump us all out here in the middle of the prairie like we were the leavings from dinner?"
"No, but she might just dump us at a foundling home in Texas. She might—"
"She would never! You just—just quit sayin' things like that, Renny! Just stop it, or I—I'll tell!"
"Go ahead! Ask her if she's been kissin' him. Ask her what they were doin' last night! You just ask her!"
Tears sprang into Shevonne's eyes, her lips quivering as if she were trying to say something. But she was trying so hard to hold her crying inside, she couldn't get it out.
Renny glared at her, wanting to cry himself. He was glad when she slapped him, because it gave him an excuse to let his tears fall free.
* * *
He should've stayedin the damn horse trough, Garret thought as he glared blearily at the wagon nestled in the valley. It would've been more merciful if he'd just let himself sink under the water's surface and drown. But no, he'd had to follow after Ashleen O'Shea, had to lose himself in those incredibly blue eyes, that winsome fairy smile. Had to want her in his bed so badly that he had lain awake night after night, those brief bits of sleep he'd managed to capture tormented with dreams of her warm, willing, wanting him—only him—in a way that even made his hands tremble.
But the reality of last night, the reality of Ashleen's wonder-filled eyes, her hands, so tentative in their innocence, and yet so excruciatingly sensual on his skin, far surpassed any erotic dream he'd ever indulged in—had made even his interludes with the most skilled of prostitutes seem tawdry and dull and distasteful.
She had made him quiver, made him ache, made him feel things he had not even imagined existed. And sometime between the moment she had sunk her teeth into his lip in the Double Eagle Saloon and the moment he'd watched her run back to the wagon last night, her hair aglow with moon fire, he had done the unthinkable.
He had fallen in love with her.
Garret knuckled eyes gritty from lack of sleep and stared at the drawing board he had cast aside minutes before, the half-finished picture he'd worked on through the night allowing him no quarter.
It was all there—in the woman captured on the paper—the laughing, vulnerable mouth with just a touch of hidden sorrow, the eyes that could look at ugliness and see beauty, the courage caught in the curve of her chin, the hints of a child's mischief still hiding in the dimples dancing upon soft, smooth cheeks.
Garret squirmed inwardly at the image, feeling vulnerable, exposed, wary, as a hundred well-tended walls around his heart cracked like glaze ice, plunging him into rivers of emotion more dangerous than any he had ever dared before.
How the hell had it happened?
He'd been so damn careful in those first years after the massacre at Stormy Ridge not to get attached to anything, anyone. Only his friendship with Kennisaw Jones had managed to survive the wasteland that had become Garret's heart.
After a while he hadn't even had to try to keep a distance between himself and those he met. It had come naturally, chilling him inside little by little until he hadn't even noticed any longer how alone he was.
