LITMIR.BIZ

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advantage of this short respite.

      She used to recover from hardships that quickly. She used to take setbacks in stride. But her current situation proved far more difficult. For the first time in her nearly twenty years of life, Rachel was facing a solitary future. With no clear direction. No real purpose.

      No one to care for but herself.

      Though the youngest in the family, she’d seen to her siblings’ needs through the years. After Grayson left Missouri, Ben had worked their small ranch and Emma had nursed their father until he died. Rachel had run the household.

      When Grayson sent a letter encouraging them to join him in Oregon Country, Rachel and her siblings had embarked on this journey as a family. Their individual roles had been clearly defined, their stories tightly woven together.

      But now, Emma and Ben each had someone else in their lives. Someone they loved and who loved them in return. Rachel’s future was no longer linked with that of her siblings.

      Not that she begrudged them their happiness. She simply wanted to know where she belonged in the family now that roles were shifting and two more people had joined them.

      A sigh worked its way up her throat. This time she let it come, let it leak past her lips.

      The worry deepened in Emma’s gaze. Or was that pity Rachel saw in her sister’s eyes?

      Oh, no. She would not be pitied. Anything but that. “If we’re going to finish unloading the wagon before noon we better get to work.”

      Not waiting for a response, she pushed around her sister.

      “Rachel, wait.” Emma stopped her progress with a hand on her arm. “Why do I sense you’re hiding something from me?”

      “Because you’re overprotective of your baby sister?”

      “It’s not that.” Emma gave her a look of exasperation, the kind only one sibling could give another. “You’re sad.”

      Rachel started to deny the shrewd observation, then decided what would be the point? Emma would see through the lie. “Maybe I am. But only a very, very little. I’ve been thinking about—” she shrugged “—Mama.”

      And it was all Tristan McCullough’s fault.

      Though no one spoke of it anymore, he’d joined the wagon train for another, strictly personal reason other than merely to guide them along the last leg of their journey. With Grayson’s urgings, he’d also come to determine if Emma would be a suitable mother for his three young daughters. Rachel didn’t fault him for that.

      She actually admired Tristan’s commitment to his children. It was noble of him to want to provide them with a mother. Rachel knew what it was like to grow up without one. Hers had died of consumption when she was barely five years old.

      What would Tristan do now that Emma was engaged to Nathan Reed? Would he seek out someone else on the wagon train to marry?

      Unable to stop herself, Rachel’s gaze sought Tristan once again. As if sensing her eyes on him, he turned his head in her direction.

      For a brief moment, their glances merged. The impact was like a sledgehammer ramming into her heart. She nearly gasped.

      Her response to the man confounded her.

      But, really, he shouldn’t be so attractive, so capable and strong, so disappointed things hadn’t worked out between him and Emma.

      Why wouldn’t he be disappointed? Emma was beautiful and kind, nurturing and soft-spoken. She would have made Tristan’s daughters a good mother.

      Nevertheless, Rachel didn’t regret pointing out to the good sheriff that Emma wasn’t available to become his wife. She was, after all, in love with another man.

      Although, perhaps, Rachel could have chosen her words a bit more carefully. Perhaps, her delivery could have been slightly less forceful.

      “...and who could forget her cinnamon rolls?” Emma’s sigh jerked Rachel back to their conversation. “I wish Mama would have shared her recipe with us, or at least written the ingredients down somewhere.”

      Rachel pressed her lips tightly together. Apparently, her sister had been carrying on the conversation without her, talking about their mother’s skill in the kitchen. Rachel liked to think she’d inherited her own gift of cooking from their mother. She tried to pull up Sara Hewitt’s image from her memory.

      She came away empty, as always, and felt all the more alone for trying.

      “I miss her,” she whispered, mostly to herself. “So much.”

      She’d been too young when her mother died to remember her face or many of her physical attributes. But she did remember her soft, sweet voice. Her warm hugs and unending kindness. And how their father had never fully recovered from her death.

      “Oh, Rachel.” Emma shifted to a spot directly in front of her, a strange of sense of insistence in the bold move. “You know Mama loved you. Never forget that.”

      Rachel nodded. Of course she wouldn’t forget their mother loved her. She distinctly remembered Sara Hewitt whispering in her ear every night at bedtime, Rachel, my beautiful, precious daughter. You’re my very own, special gift from God.

      She hoped one day to say the same words to her own children.

      “We all love you. Ben, Grayson, me.” Something strange came and went in Emma’s eyes. “Never doubt that, not for one moment of a single day.”

      What a strange thing to say.

      “Of course I know you love me.” A wave of peace wrapped around her like a comfortable old blanket. Family was everything to the Hewitts. So Rachel’s siblings would soon be married. That only meant their close-knit family was growing larger, with more people for her to love.

      Yet Rachel still faced an uncertain future. Alone.

      You aren’t alone, she reminded herself. You have your brothers and your sister. And their soon-to-be spouses.

      Rachel also had the Lord.

      She had to trust His plan for her life would be revealed once she arrived at Oregon City, if not sooner.

      “Rachel? Emma?” Their brother’s fiancée, Abigail Bingham Black, stuck her head out of the back of the wagon. “Can one of you give me a hand? This trunk is too heavy for me to lift on my own.”

      “Coming.” Welcoming the interruption, Rachel hurried around to the back of the wagon. With a flick of her wrist, she unlatched the tailgate and then lowered it with care.

      Smiling her gratitude, Abby moved in behind the trunk and pushed while Rachel pulled. Emma joined in and, after a few grunts and groans, the three of them had the large case sitting on the wet, spongy ground at their feet.

      Clapping her hands together in satisfaction, Abby gave the trunk one firm nod, then deftly climbed back into the wagon.

      Rachel smiled at the agile move, thinking how far the petite blonde had come since the wagon train left Missouri. Had anyone suggested four months ago that the well-bred, overeducated Abigail Bingham Black would become engaged to her brother, Rachel would have openly scoffed at them. She’d considered the spoiled socialite completely unworthy of Ben, especially since Abigail had broken his heart six years prior.

      Rachel had been wrong about the other woman, completely.

      Abigail had pulled her weight from the very beginning of their journey. First, by singing to the wagon train children at night. Then, she’d approached Rachel for lessons in daily practicalities in exchange for music lessons. The suggestion had been mutually beneficial. Over time, they’d become friends.

      Rachel couldn’t think of a better woman to marry her brother. And she liked Emma’s fiancé just as much.

      A movement out of the corner of her eye pulled her attention

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