Deborah Camp Read Online Free PDF Page B

shoulders. She bent toward the pot near the fire. Steam curled from it. “It’s good soup, seasoned with turnips and buffalo fat.”
    When she reached for one of the wooden bowls stacked on a high shelf, her buckskin dress clung to her body. Tucker swallowed a groan. Not only was she beautiful and unmarried, she was great with child.

Chapter 3
     
    S lowly coming awake, Tucker opened his eyes to slits and watched firelight play over the walls and the skins that covered him. It was night, but he didn’t know how late. Time had ceased to exist for him. Day into night, minutes into hours, all jumbled together, leaving him in limbo.
    His body parts responded to his brain’s commands with caterpillar-like slowness. Random twitches and stabs of pain bedeviled him, interrupting his sleep, turning his dreams to nightmares.
    He opened his eyes wider, the simple action requiring a great effort. He turned his head, sensing the woman’s nearness before his eyes located her. She sat by the fire, using its light to see the stitches she poked into buttery soft leather with an awl. She was making mitts. Mitts too big for her delicate hands.
    The wind whined outside as if wanting to come in and blow out the fire in the hearth. One of her dogs lay beside her and lifted its head to listen to the high-pitched moaning. Tucker’s gaze drifted to the woman’s belly, swollen with life. God in heaven, what was she doing out here in that condition? She should be with her family, her mother, a nursemaid—any grown female would do.
    “Hungry? There’s stew in the pot.”
    He cleared his throat, uneasy that she’d knownhe was awake and studying her. “Later, maybe. My throat doesn’t seem to be working very well. It burns.”
    “Parched, most likely.”
    “Are you making those mittens for yourself?”
    “No, for a friend. It’s part of a trade.”
    “What’d you get in this trade?”
    “A wolf skin. Silver wolf.” She smiled, although she still didn’t look at him, keeping her attention trained on the handiwork. “I’ll make a cradle blanket out of it for my baby.”
    The baby. He shut his eyes, seeing trouble ahead. “When’s the baby supposed to come?”
    “Soon.”
    “How soon?”
    “Next month.” Her gaze lifted briefly to his, long enough for her to see his grimace. “You ever been around babies?”
    “Not much. I do know that you don’t have any business giving birth out here in this wilderness all alone.”
    “I’m not alone.” Finally, her dark eyes met his and seemed to envelope him in a warm, brown embrace. “And where else would I have the child? This is my home. This is where I live and where my child will live.”
    “You should have gone to the fort to be near a doctor.”
    She shrugged. “Women don’t need doctors for birthing. It’s a natural thing between the woman and her maker. I can manage without a doctor, but it wouldn’t hurt to have a friend about after the baby’s born. At least for a few weeks.”
    “You have one near here?”
    Setting aside the mitts, she folded her hands in her lap and faced him. The firelight burnished her flaming hair. A quiet strength emanated from her. She was younger than he’d thought at first. No lines marred her skin. She was no older than twenty-five, he figured. Young, optimistic, full ofvigor and mistaken beliefs in her ability to survive.
    “Are you a trading man, Tucker Jones?”
    “Sometimes,” he answered, as wary as a coyote approaching a baited trap.
    “What say, we trade off services, you and me?”
    He didn’t answer; didn’t know what to say. He couldn’t fathom what
services
this pregnant woman could offer him.
    “I’ve saved your hide. Guess you’ve figured that out by now.”
    He nodded, his bearded cheek rubbing against the pillow’s ticking. “Much obliged.”
    “It’s said that you’re a deserter and a horse thief. People are sniffing your trail. Indians, white men, army officers. You’re a Yank, aren’t you? You were