Page 68 of A Rugged Beauty
“There's a pallet already laid inside the wagon," she murmured to Hollis. To the little ones, she put a cheery note in her voice. "It's time for bed. Why don't you climb into the wagon?"
Hollis bent to help Ishmael with his boots while she kept the baby on her shoulder as she squatted to help Charity with her shoes.
"Tanks fer supp'r," she said with a sweet, shy smile.
Before she could brace herself, Charity threw her arms around Abigail’s neck. She wobbled, the unexpected movement throwing her off balance.
Hollis steadied her with one hand between her shoulders.
"You're welcome," she breathed through the tight hug around her neck, unexpected tears pricking her eyes.
What would it be like to have a child of her own, a family of her own? She hadn't thought about it for a very long time. After Mr. Smith had betrayed her, she'd been so focused on reaching Oregon, on finding her brother and settling, that she had put such thoughts out of her mind completely.
But as the girl moved away and Hollis helped Abigail straighten with a hand beneath her elbow, her shoulder brushed his broad chest. Felicity's words from the morning burst into the forefront of her mind.A good match.
Hollis gazed down into her face and, for a moment, his glance appeared to encompass the babe on her shoulder. A soft lightfilled his eyes, the shadow of pain shifting into something else—something that looked like wanting.
Her breath caught, lodging behind her sternum.
And then the moment broke.
Hollis moved away, helping Ishmael crawl up into the wagon in his sock feet. Abigail peered over the wagon's side as Hollis, with his greater height, reached in and pulled a quilt over the two children. They looked terrified, their eyes wide in their faces.
"What if wolves come 'n get us?" Ishmael whispered.
"Wolves," Charity echoed.
Abigail's heart squeezed. "Your mam and papa are sleeping in the tent, right there," she said, pointing over their heads to the tent just behind the wagon, where it was quieter.
"There are lots of men watching over the camp," Hollis said solemnly.
"Watchin' for wolves?"
The big, tough man nodded with a gentle seriousness. "You'll be safe."
Ishmael turned his gaze on Abigail. "I like that song you was hummin'. Wouldja sing it?"
"Pwease?" Charity had the biggest set of pleading eyes Abigail’d ever seen.
She began to sing the lullaby she'd learned from her mother. On her shoulder, Ambrose went relaxed and limp.
"You sing," Charity demanded of Hollis.
Abigail kept singing, waiting for the wagon master to refuse. Only to feel a bolt of shock when he joined her, his bass an octave deeper than her alto. She couldn’t seem to look away from him, though he kept his eyes on the children in the wagon.
Hollis was singing.
He stumbled over the words at first. His voice was rough—from disuse? A note missed here and there. She couldn't stopwondering how long it had been since he'd sung—this song or any song.
He'd been so lost to his grief. And now?—
Hope trilled through her on the wings of this lullaby.
She stood near enough to slip her hand, the one not holding the babe, into his larger one. She couldn't look at him when she’d done it, not when she expected him to drop her hand as if burned. To reject her.
But he didn't.
He held on.
