Sweet Prairie Passion (Savage Destiny) Read Online Free

about.”
    LeeAnn giggled and climbed under her quilt. “I declare, Abbie, for a girl who this morning didn’t want anything to do with boys, you sure did change your thinking of a sudden! Now quit talking. I want to sleep.”
    As she snuggled down into the quilt, Abbie sat staring at the lamp.
    “I changed my mind because it isn’t a boy I’m thinking about,” she replied in a near whisper.
    “That’s a fact,” LeeAnn teased. “It’s a man—toomuch man for the likes of you, little sister!” She giggled again, and inside, Abbie felt like crying. LeeAnn was probably right, and she wished with all her heart she could grow up overnight and emerge a full-grown woman from the wagon in the morning. She sighed and, snuggling down under her own quilt, closed her eyes and thought of Zeke. She dreamed she was walking up to him, smiling, and she put out her hand and he took it. She told him he had a friend, and that she didn’t hate Indians; and he smiled his handsome smile and was grateful. Then he kissed her cheek and told her he was glad to have a friend, and they walked away together. But then she fell asleep, and that was the end of the dream.

Two
    The next day found them at Sapling Grove, but to Abbie’s disappointment, Cheyenne Zeke was not there to greet them. She watched for him the rest of the afternoon, as they made camp and met the others who began to congregate and introduce themselves.
    The Trents had arrived with the four Kelsoe wagons and the Connely wagon, and among the six wagons there was a total of thirty-two mules, six horses, and four oxen. Most of the mules belonged to Kelsoe, who had six hitched to each of his wagons, plus four extra mules and four horses. Connely’s wagon was pulled by four mules, and the Trent wagon was pulled by two oxen, with two spare oxen and two horses along.
    Connely still appeared nervous and spoke to hardly anyone, but the rest of them were soon sharing stories of why they were there and what they intended to do in Oregon. David Craig kept watching LeeAnn, but she paid him no heed. For one of the new arrivals at Sapling Grove was a smooth and handsome man named Quentin Robards. LeeAnn could not help but be attractedto him, for in her mind, Robards was just the man she had been seeking. His dark hair was slicked back tidily, and his well-tailored pants and long coat complemented his lean, attractive build. But there was a prettiness about him that Abbie did not like. His skin was too clean, his hands too white, as though he had never worked hard. She guessed his age to be thirty or so, and thought it humorous that just the day before LeeAnn had been warning her about older men. It was possible Robards was even older than he looked, for he had apparently led a soft life and had pampered his looks.
    Robards spotted LeeAnn’s flirtations immediately, and quickly introduced himself when a group gathered around the Trent campfire. Abbie tried to keep from making a face at the man’s perfumed smell, but LeeAnn smiled beautifully and fluttered her eyelids as he gave his name and bowed in a gentlemanly fashion. He spoke well, as though he was educated, but in spite of her youth and inexperience, Abbie suspected he was a ladies’ man, who had cared for no woman in particular in his whole life, and who cared mostly about himself. He wore flashy rings, and earlier she had seen him smoking an expensive-looking cigar. She wondered if he was a gambler. She had already heard whispers to that effect, and it angered her to see her scatterbrained sister mooning over the man. Robards had no wagon. Instead he rode alone on a horse, a grand, shiny, black stallion that carried two fancy carpetbags on either side of the saddle.
    As Robards smiled prettily and introduced himself to the others, they were joined by another man, sober of face and stern looking, who introduced himself invery pious tones as Wendell Graydon, a preacher. But to Abbie, Preacher Graydon did not seem like a preacher,