Page 3 of Luna

He raced into the car and plopped down beside her, handing her one of the cold bottles.

“You didn’t have to fetch a soda on my account,” she said, although she was quite grateful for the cool, refreshing drink. Coca-Cola was her favorite.

“I was thirsty before we ate the treats you so graciously shared. This will wet our whistles until we get to Pendleton.” Hunter tipped his head toward her. “You might want to wait a minute before you open that, though, or you’ll have a sticky mess all over you.”

“Thank you,” she said, grateful for the kindness he’d shown. Maybe he wasn’t a down-on-his-luck degenerate, as she’d first assumed. In fact, if he were dressed in a suit with a proper haircut, she might have pegged him as a well-educated man.

She couldn’t quite picture the cowboy beside her sitting studiously in a college classroom, though. Something about him seemed a bit too untamed and rugged for formal learning.

Determined not to let her tendency to dream up stories to fill in details she didn’t know to push her thoughts off track, Luna decided to refocus her attention. As the train chugged away from La Grande and carried them toward Pendleton, she dredged through her memories for anything she could recall about Nik’s wife. They’d been married a few years. She thought Dally had been raised somewhere in the South but couldn’t exactly recall where. Was it Kentucky? Tennessee?

Luna wished she’d paid more attention to the news her family read and the rare visits from her Oregon relatives. She’d been so busy with her own life and love to pay much heed to what was happening with a distant relative’s in-laws all the way across the country. It was too late now to worry about what she’d failed to learn or listen to in regard to family in Pendleton.

“The trees are magnificent,” Luna said, fixing her gaze on the woods visible outside the window as the train chugged into the Blue Mountains.

“Sometimes there’s still snow up here in the middle of the summer.”

“Really?” she asked in astonishment, glancing over her shoulder to find Hunter leaning forward as he also stared out the window.

The train hit a bump in the tracks and they jostled into each other. She was so close to him she could see the thick dark lashes rimming his gorgeous eyes and a deep scar on his forehead above his left eyebrow. Her fingers itched to reach out and trace the scar, to know what had placed it there, but she moved back and expelled a soft breath.

It wasn’t until Hunter took the bottle of Coca-Cola from her hand that she even remembered she still held it.

“Here, Miss Campanelli, I’ll open that bottle for you. Otherwise the train might bounce it around until it loses all flavor.” He took a knife from his pocket and slowly pried the cap off the bottle, then handed the beverage to her so nonchalantly, she wondered if she’d imagined the previous moment when they’d been so near that it would have been quite natural for them to kiss.

Kiss? Good heavens! Where had that thought come from? Luna concluded the mountain air must be addling her thoughts.

She took a sip of the Coca-Cola and settled back in her seat, watching the scenery pass by. It was glorious in the mountains, and, as Hunter said, they could see snow in the distance despite the warmth of the day.

Hunter kept her entertained with stories about the area and people he knew in Pendleton who were either related to or acquainted with her cousins.

“Explain the families again,” she said as the train chugged out of the mountains with Pendleton visible in the distance. “Please?”

“It started with Aundy and Garrett Nash. They are best friends with your cousin Caterina and her husband Kade Rawlings. When youngsters came along, they referred to the adults as aunts and uncles. The familiar titles extended to Aundy’s sister Ilsa, who is married to your cousin Tony, Aundy’s brother Lars and his wife, Marnie, and several other couples in the area they are all friends with.” He grinned at her. “It’s easy to get confused since most of them aren’t really related. If I rattle off too many more names, I’m afraid it will just muddle everything together.”

Numbly, Luna nodded, unable to express that her thoughts were already well and truly jumbled, not by the names he’d listed, but by his presence. Not since Matteo … She slammed the door on her memories and forced herself to look out the window as the train approached the depot in Pendleton.

Luna watched as miners, cowboys, farmers, Indians, businessmen, women wearing everything from calico to silks, and children of all ages mingled together on the boardwalk and platform. She’d seen few Indians in her travels from New York and couldn’t help studying the three men and two women standing on the platform. They all appeared so stoic.

The train rocked to a stop, and Luna smiled as a young woman, her black hair caught up beneath a fashionable hat and her traveling suit in the latest style, raced off the train and into the open arms of one of the Indian women. It appeared a beloved daughter had just returned home.

“Do you have baggage to collect, Miss Campanelli?” Hunter asked as he stood and motioned to the overhead compartment.

“Yes. A dark brown satchel with a purple ribbon tied to the handle.”

“A purple ribbon,” he repeated, smiling as he retrieved her bag. “Of course, I should have known a ribbon-bedecked bag would belong to you.”

Even with the whiskers on his face making it hard to see, she noticed a dimple in his right cheek and found herself entirely fascinated by it.

His gaze entangled hers, and she wondered what it would be like to be kissed by a man with a whiskery chin, especially when his lips were as full and tempting as she found Hunter’s to be.

Annoyed with her musings, she reached for her bag as she stood.

Rather than hand it to her, Hunter offered her his arm. “It can be unsteady on the train,” he offered as an excuse. “You wouldn’t want to lose your balance on the way out the door.”

Flimsy as the excuse was, Luna was more than happy to latch onto it.

“So it is,” she said, steady on her feet in spite of the bubbles popping in her stomach and the slightly lightheaded feeling she experienced as Hunter helped her down the steps of the passenger car and onto the platform.

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