Natchez Flame (10 page)

She lifted the heavy cast-iron Dutch oven. Though she could cook—wonderfully, in fact—she had never used one of the heavy iron kettles to bake in. On the old black cookstove in their town house back in Cincinnati, she had cooked mouth-watering meals that had the neighbors clamoring just for the leftovers.

What she hadn’t told Brendan was that she had never cooked a bite of food over an open fire.

Brendan found the berry patch they had passed on the trail, filled the pot with the succulent fruit, washed them in a nearby stream, and brought them back to Priscilla. Entering the camp on silent feet as he had learned to do, he spotted her bent over a rock, busily making a crust, her hands white with flour up to her slender wrists.

As she added a drop or two of water, working to get the consistency of the dough just right, he watched her backside shift gracefully, and his body began to harden. Damn! The woman had the strangest effect on him. Every time he thought of her, his loins grew hot and throbbing.

He thought of Patsy Jackson, of robust hips, heavy breasts, and a red-rouged mouth. There was nothing wrong with Patsy, yet she seemed almost a caricature of a woman to him now.

He cleared his throat, and Priscilla turned and smiled. “I’ve already washed them,” he told her, extending the bucket of berries and moving in her direction.

“Just set them here beside the rock. I’ll get to them in a minute.”

“Anything else I can do?”

She glanced at the fire, seeming a bit hesitant. “No, thank you. Supper will be ready within the hour.”

“What are we having?”

“Hoecakes and molasses, and a version of Hopping John. Of course, I don’t have quite the right ingredients.”

Brendan licked his lips. “Hopping John. I haven’t had that since the last New Year’s Day I spent in Savannah. That was at least six years ago.”

“What were you doing in Savannah?”

“I was raised there. My brother and I headed for the South after we left England. I only came to Texas seven years ago.”

“Why here?” she asked over her shoulder, continuing to knead the dough.

“Adventure, I guess. I joined the Texas Marines not long after I got here. Tom Camden told you how that turned out.”

“Yes….” She turned around to look at him. “You were thrown into a Mexican prison. How did you—”

“I’ve got to take care of the livestock. I’ll be back in time to eat.” He started to walk away, but halted. “By the way. You’ve been walking pretty far from camp to … take care of your needs. I warned you
about that before.” He looked at her hard. “I don’t mean to scare you, but there are snakes out there, to say nothing of scorpions, tarantulas, and centipedes.”

“I don’t intend to compromise my modesty, Mr. Trask.” Her chin went up and tilted at a firm little angle. “But I certainly will be careful.”

Brendan shook his head. “Women,” he muttered.

Priscilla found a grate among the cooking gear and balanced it atop the fire on the circle of rocks. She set the kettle of Hopping John—a stew made with slab bacon and black-eyed peas, minus the usual coconut, which they obviously didn’t have—on top of the grate, and flames licked the bottom of the pot. The Dutch oven she placed at the edge of the fire and silently prayed it wouldn’t burn. The hoecakes she would do in the skillet, once the stew neared completion.

It didn’t take long for Priscilla to realize that cooking on a blazing campfire was hardly the same as cooking above the fire that roared in the cookstove. In minutes, the stew spewed bubbles of red-hot broth, and the heavy Dutch oven hissed some sort of warning about the pie.

Priscilla reached for the handle of the pot with a dishcloth so as not to burn her fingers, lifted the kettle, then dropped it as flames caught the edge of her towel and burned the underside of her wrist. “Ouch,” she said aloud, though the burn was minor. More importantly, the pot hadn’t spilled.

“Priscilla!” The urgency in Brendan’s voice spun her around.

She saw him racing across the clearing at the same instant she realized the hem of her skirt had burst into flame. Priscilla screamed at the feel of white-hot fabric searing into her skin, the sight of wicked red-orange fire eating its way upward toward her face.

As she slapped frantically at the flames, fighting down her terror, Brendan barreled into her, knocking her into the dirt. He rolled her one way and then the other, then turned and batted the remaining fire from her petticoats with the flat of his hand.

“Sweet Jesus!” he said into her terrified face. She could feel his heavy weight pressing into her, then he shifted and came to his feet. “Don’t move,” he commanded, “I’ll be right back.”

Priscilla nodded and sat there shaking. In minutes he returned carrying a chunk of spiny cactus wrapped in one of the handkerchiefs he always carried. Snapping the cactus in two, he knelt beside her and reached for the hem of her skirt. Unconsciously, Priscilla’s hand shot out to stop him.

“There’s something in the cactus,” Brendan said gently. “The Indians use it for burns. It’ll take away the pain.”

“It’s really not that bad.” It wasn’t proper for a man to see a woman’s legs, and she had already been improper enough. “I only burned my ankle. I think I can do it myself.”

All trace of gentleness fled. “I assure you, Miss Wills, yours won’t be the first woman’s ankle I’ve seen. I’ll hardly be overcome with lust and ravish you.”

While Priscilla’s face turned as red as the flames they’d just put out, Brendan lifted the blackened remains
of the bottom of her skirt and several inches of fire-chewed petticoat. He started to apply the salve, but his eyes picked up a flash of color and his hand stilled in mid-air.

He lifted the skirt a little higher and glanced down at her petticoat. One corner of his mouth curved up. “You sew this?”

Priscilla blushed more than she had before. “Yes.” In a burst of color across her lap, bright red flowers bloomed in profusion, covering the entire white circle of fabric. Somber colors pleased her aunt; the vibrant colors Priscilla so loved were forbidden. Her petticoat, and several others like it, were a secret show of defiance—as Trask seemed to guess.

“So prim and proper on the outside,” he drawled in that sensual way of his, “I wonder what you’re like underneath.”

Ignoring the retort she started to make, Brendan rolled down her scorched and burned stocking and applied some of the clear, sticky salve he scraped from the inside of the cactus.

At the soothing feel of the mixture, Priscilla breathed a sigh of relief. “Whatever it is, it’s wonderful.” It did indeed relieve the pain, which had grown considerably in the last few moments. “I could use a little on my wrist, too.”

Brendan grumbled something she couldn’t hear and finished applying the salve. “What the hell were you-”

“The stew!” Priscilla wailed at the distinct odor of burnt meat. She tried to get up, but Brendan pressed her back down.

“Son of a bitch,” he growled, lifting the kettle of
burnt Hopping John off the grate. “Why didn’t you wait for the fire to die down?” He reached for the heavy Dutch oven, set the cobbler aside, lifted the lid, and groaned.

“I suppose it’s ruined, too,” Priscilla said morosely.

“I thought you said you could cook.” “I can.”

“You sure couldn’t prove it by me.”

“Under normal conditions, I’m a very good cook. I … I just never tried it on a campfire.”

Brendan swore softly. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because I thought I could do it.”
And I wanted to prove myself.

“Well, obviously you can’t.”

Oh, yes I can.
“We’ll see, Mr. Trask.”

Brendan didn’t answer. The set of his shoulders told her he wasn’t about to let her try it again.

At least the hoecakes were good. Brendan cooked the batter and they ate them with hunks of beef jerky. It wasn’t exactly what either of them had in mind, but it was filling, and darkness had settled around them.

After supper Brendan checked her ankle, grunted in satisfaction that the burn really wasn’t that bad, and they both curled up in their bedrolls—Priscilla’s some distance from Brendan’s.

She heard him stir sometime before dawn, watched him pull on his boots and start the fire. Pretending to be asleep, Priscilla watched from her bedroll while Brendan made coffee, then quietly left to check on the livestock. Afterward he would probably go down to the creek to shave, as he had each morning
since their departure, which would give her the time she would need.

Priscilla dressed hurriedly in a clean brown gingham dress, took care of her morning ablutions in the opposite direction from where Brendan had gone, then went over to the fire. This time she spread out the coals, as she had seen him do, and carefully kept her skirts a goodly distance away.

She had bacon frying and pan biscuits warm and ready to eat when he arrived. The bottom of the cobbler had burned, but some of the berries were still good, making a fine rich jam.

Brendan strolled into camp, wearing his doeskin breeches and a clean white shirt, his hair still damp and curling against his collar. Seeing Priscilla bent over the fire, his expression turned hard. “I thought you understood—from now on, I’ll do the cooking.”

Priscilla just smiled. “Homemade biscuits, warm berry jam, and crisp fried bacon. There’s even a bit of gravy made from the drippings.”

“Biscuits?” he repeated, unconsciously running a tongue over his lips.

“With warm berry jam—or gravy, if you prefer.”

Brendan’s mouth curved up in a lazy grin. “I’ll have both.” They sat down to eat, and Priscilla watched him through dark, lowered lashes. The look on his face was worth all the effort—and maybe even the burns.

“This is delicious.” Closing his eyes, he savored the bite of biscuit he chewed with incredible relish. “I’ve never tasted any better. And that gravy—God, Priscilla, you do have a knack.”

She should have stopped such informality long
ago, had made a half-hearted try or two, but now it was too late. Instead she beamed at the compliment. “I’m glad you like it.”

“Like it? I love it. Now I feel twice as bad about the Hopping John.”

Priscilla laughed. “I’ll make another batch tonight. We’ve still got two more days before we reach the Triple R.”

Brendan stopped chewing. His eyes fixed on her face until she had to look away.

He set his tin plate down beside him. “You’d better finish eating. It’s time we hit the trail.”

Two days
, she thought, and suddenly the food seemed to lodge in her throat. Setting her half-finished plate aside, she rose numbly and started cleaning up the dishes.

Neither of them said much for the rest of the morning.

The trail paralleled the stream for most of the day, heading north into drier country. Patches of cactus and stands of oak and pecan trees dotted the landscape; wild grapes in stifling green curtains hung from the branches, blotting the sun and nearly touching the earth.

“Lots of wild turkey hereabouts,” Brendan told her. “A little fresh game would sure be good in that stew you’re planning to make.”

“I’m not quite sure how to pluck one, but if you’ll show me—”

“I’ll get it ready,” he said with a smile. “You just cook it.” He gazed at the landscape ahead of them, wearing a look of pleasure. “Pretty country, isn’t it?”

She studied the raw red dirt, the rocks and the cactus. “You think this is pretty?”

“It is if you know what to look for.” He pulled the wagon to a halt and pointed toward a pecan tree near the narrow streambed. “There’s a doe and fawn over there, but their coloring blends so well you can barely see them.”

Priscilla looked hard, but couldn’t seem to spot them.

“Just a few feet to the left of the tree. The mother is starting to walk away.”

“Yes, I see them now.” She felt a rush of warmth as she watched the tiny fawn, its protective white-speckled coat blending into its surroundings. “They’re beautiful. I’ve always loved animals.”

“My brother and I always kept a menagerie around the house. I had a big red retriever named Dillon I was crazy about. Funny, I haven’t thought about that dog in years.”

“What happened to him?”

“He just got old. He had a helluva good life, though. Aren’t many people get as much love and affection as Dillon got from the two of us.”

It didn’t seem hard to believe.

“I like the freedom of this land,” he went on, saying more than he usually did. “It brings out the best in a man.”

Not always
, she thought, remembering the men at the trading post.

“At night the sunsets can be spectacular. Almost worth suffering the heat of the day. In the spring the grass comes up soft and green, and there are wild-flowers of every size and color.”

“I’ve always wanted a flower garden. It’s hard to imagine whole fields of them.”

Brendan smiled at that. When Priscilla smiled back, he cleared his throat and looked away. Urging the mules a little faster, he fixed his eyes on the horizon as if he wished he could make it move closer.

Priscilla straightened on the hard wooden seat and settled her eyes on the same distant line. To her amazement, she found herself wishing she could move it farther away.

Two more days
, her mind repeated. In two more days she would reach the Triple R and the man she would marry.

What would he look like? Aunt Maddie had described him as handsome. Her aunt had met Stuart Egan on a trip back to Natchez to see Deder Wills, Maddie’s dying brother, the last of Priscilla’s family in Natchez. At Aunt Maddie’s insistence, Priscilla had stayed in Cincinnati with Ella Simpkins so she could finish her schooling. That had been two years ago.

Stuart had been in mourning, still grieving over the death of his first wife when Aunt Maddie had met him through Uncle Deder. They had struck up an unlikely friendship—Priscilla still could not fathom why. Whatever the reason, they’d begun corresponding. Then Maddie had taken sick, and Priscilla had answered Stuart’s letters in her stead. Their friendship had grown, and a long-distance courtship had begun.

When Aunt Maddie died, Stuart had proposed, solving her financial problems and promising to fulfill her dreams of having a husband and family. If Priscilla hadn’t known better, she would have believed
Aunt Maddie had planned the whole thing—controlling her even from the grave.