Page 75 of The Enchanted Land

“Let me help you up.” He put his arm around her shoulders and she leaned against him. She took one step and collapsed to the ground.

“I’m so sorry, Mr. Colter. I don’t seem to be able to walk at all. Maybe you could get my father for me and he could carry me back to the wagon.” She looked coyly up at him through her lashes.

Easily, chuckling to himself, he bent down and picked up the large girl.

“Mr. Colter! You don’t have to carry me. I’m much too large to be carried.”

“You hardly weigh more than a bird, Miss Chandler,” Seth lied.

Ed Chandler was upset at first to see his daughter injured, but when he noted the smile on Seth’s face, he guessed Gladys’s trick.

Sudey was furious with her sister. At night in the wagon, she viciously grabbed her sister’s ankle. “You weren’t really hurt. You had no right to act like that!”

“And who says I have no right?”

“He’s mine. I’ve wanted him ever since I first saw him!”

“Well, so have I.” She turned to her sister, smugly. “You can’t imagine what it’s like to be held in his arms. He’s soverystrong.”

Sudey leaped at Gladys, catching some of her hair in her fingers.

Their screams brought their mother.

Ivy Chandler lectured the girls for some time on their behavior toward Mr. Colter. She reminded the girls that they knew very little about the man, that it was possible that he had a wife and several children somewhere.

The girls stayed away from Seth for a week. Sudey looked out from the wagon one night and saw Seth sitting alone by the dying fire. Quietly, she left the wagon and joined him.

“I couldn’t sleep,” she explained.

“Coffee?” He poured her a cup.

She rubbed her upper arms. “Nights in the mountains get awfully cold, don’t they?”

Seth stepped to his horse and got a blanket from his bedroll on the ground. Sudey stood up as he put it around her shoulders and lifted her face to be kissed.

Instinctively, he kissed her. She molded her body to his. Her lips were very receptive, but Seth felt nothing.

Angrily, he pushed her from him. “I think you’d better get back into your wagon.”

Sudey smiled up at him, happy, oblivious.

Seth watched her go, his hands clenched by his side. Damn you! Damn you, Morgan! He went to his bedroll and stretched out. He tried to remember Sudey’s kiss, but all he saw was Morgan. He compared every girl to Morgan. Sudey had yielded to him, but all he thought of was Morgan’s body. It was a long time before he went to sleep.

After the kiss, Sudey became very possessive of her father’s helper. She took care that his shirts were mended and his plate was always full. But the longer they spent on the trail, the more Seth stayed by himself.

When Ivy Chandler questioned her daughter about this new possessiveness, Sudey told her of Seth’s kiss.

They were coming close to the edge of the desert when Ivy confronted Seth with Sudey’s admission.

“I just want to know what your intentions are, Mr. Colter. My daughter is very young and very forward, I know … but I’d like to know where you two stand.”

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Chandler. I did not mean to take advantage of your daughter. I’m sorry it happened. As for intentions toward your daughter—I have none.”

“Are you married, Seth? Do you have a wife somewhere?” Her voice was gentle. She saw the pain her question caused.

“Yes, I have a wife somewhere. Though, at the moment I don’t know where.”

She put her hand on his shoulder. “You carry a heavy weight with you. I hope you will find peace someday.”

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