Where the Lost Wander(51)

I need it because I know too much. I am not a girl afraid of a man’s touch or a man’s body. I’ve lost my maiden dread, and I know the pleasures of the flesh and the marriage bed. Daniel was gentle, and he was quick, doing his business without lights and without baring me or himself more than necessary. I didn’t really mind, though I always felt a little resentful that Daniel finished before I could even get started. It only hurt the first time, and I was curious and confident enough to find contentment in the coupling throughout our short marriage.

But even then I knew there was more. I felt it in the liquid expectation in my limbs, in the coiling in my belly, and in the need in my chest. I just never knew how to draw it forth before it was all over.

With John it is an ever-present ache, and he makes me want to find it, whatever it was that Daniel found when he closed his eyes and shuddered like he’d swallowed a piece of heaven. Like he’d found that transcendence Ma talks about.

“Why is that?” John whispers back, and I hear the same need in his voice. It gives me confidence.

“Because I want to do more than kiss you. I want to lie down with you.”

For a minute he stays curved over me, his cheek against mine, his big hands circling my waist. And then he speaks, so soft and so slow that his words tickle my ear and the heat grows.

“That isn’t going to happen, Naomi. Not here. Not now.”

“I know it isn’t,” I murmur, curling my fingers into his shirt. “But I want to. I want to so bad that I can’t wait until we get to California.”

“Naomi,” he breathes. “I won’t live in another man’s wagon or marry another man’s wife.”

“Is that how you see me? Another man’s wife?” I gasp.

“That’s not what I meant.” He shakes his head. “I cannot . . . marry you . . . under these circumstances. Not with your dead husband’s family looking on, your family listening—” He stops abruptly, and his embarrassment billows around us. “I have nothing to give you.”

“I have nothing to give you either,” I whisper. “But all I want is to be beside you.”

“That’s not your head talking,” he says, shaking his head, and his hands fall from my waist, leaving me unsteady. “Thinking takes time. Feeling . . . not so much. Feeling is instant. It’s reaction. But thinking? Thinking is hard work. Feeling doesn’t take any work at all. I’m not saying it’s wrong. Not saying it’s right either. It just is. How I feel . . . I can’t trust that, not right away, because how I feel today may not be how I feel tomorrow. Most people don’t want to think through things. It’s a whole lot easier not to. But time in the saddle gives a man lots of time to think.”

“What do you think about?” I ask, trying to swallow my disappointment and cool the warmth still coursing through my limbs.

“I think about my place in the world. I think about what will happen when we reach California. What’ll happen when you decide you can do a whole lot better than John Lowry.” He doesn’t sound wistful. He sounds convinced.

“There is no one better than John Lowry.”

“And how would you know that?”

“How do you know I’m wrong?” I shoot back.

“Because you don’t think, Naomi. You just . . . do.”

“That’s not true.”

“It is. You just throw yourself into the wind . . . into the river—do you remember crossing the Platte? Or demanding a horse from Black Paint? You throw yourself forward and don’t consider for a moment that there might be a better way.”

“Sometimes when we think too long and too hard, we let fear get a foothold. But I think about you plenty, John Lowry.”

“No. You aren’t thinking. You’re feeling. And I’m glad of it.” He clears his throat, pausing. “But I’m afraid of it too.”

“Why?” I’m trying not to lose my temper.

“Because eventually, time thinks for us. It cuts through the fog of emotion and delivers a big bowl of reality, and feelings don’t stand a chance,” John says with bleak finality.

“Then why are you here? Why didn’t you turn around at Fort Kearny, if you’re so sure about who I am? I thought we had an understanding.”

“I’m here because I have thought it through. I’ve thought you through.”

“You’ve thought me through?” I repeat. “What does that mean?”

“It means you’re the woman I want. I won’t change my mind on it. I won’t ever want something different.” He pauses and enunciates the next words. “Someone different. I’ll always want you.”

I stare at him, stunned and stirred, right down to the soles of my aching feet.

“But I’m not going to kiss you again . . . not anytime soon. And I’m not going to pretend you’re mine. I’m not going to hold your hand or tell you that I love you. And I’m not going to let that preacher say the words over us.”

The joy that coursed through me only minutes before disintegrates like it never was, so completely gone I can’t even recall what it felt like.

“You don’t know me at all,” I whisper.

His eyes search mine, but I cannot tell what he is thinking. “I know you. And I’m sure. But I want you to be sure.”