Free A Wild Yearning by Penelope Williamson Page A

he held out his hand to her. "We'll have to pick up a horse for you later. For now we'll ride double."
    Delia didn't move. She stood in the middle of the street, staring up at him. She wished he hadn't forgotten her. How could he have forgotten her? But then, what was she to him except a minor irritation, a package to be delivered and then dismissed from his mind?
    "Come on, Delia," Ty said, impatient. "The reverend and his wife have been waiting for us at the Common for over an hour."
    She approached the horse warily. "I don't know how to ride."
    "Well, I haven't time to teach you!" he snapped. "Here, give me your arm, put your right foot on top of mine, and throw your left leg over his rump."
    He tied her grist sack to the front of his saddle, then hauled on her arm, and she went flying up in the air to land with a hard jar, straddling the horse's rump. Its hide felt scratchy beneath her bare legs and her petticoat had been pulled clear up to her knees, but Delia had little time to think of that before Ty urged the horse into a fast trot. The sudden movement threw her against his broad back. She swallowed a nervous cry and wrapped her arms tight around his waist. Lacing her hands across the hard slab of his stomach, she pressed her cheek against his shoulder blade.
    It didn't take long to make their way to the Common. Delia was just beginning to enjoy the wonder of being so close to Ty, close enough to feel his warmth, to hear his heart beat, when they turned onto Common Street and there, stretching before them, was a wide, muddy pasture dotted with grazing cows. At the very edge of the field waited an ox-drawn cart loaded with chests and furniture. A woman sat on the seat while a man paced at the team's heads, peering anxiously down the street Ty lifted his hand in greeting as they trotted up. He slid from his horse, causing Delia to tumble down after him, and he had to grab her arm to prevent her from sprawling in the dirt at his feet.
    "Reverend Hooker," Ty said with a smile, releasing Delia to reach out and shake the young man's hand. "I'm sorry I'm late."
    The Reverend Hooker was in his early twenties, with a thin, aesthetic face that seemed befitting to his profession. He was dressed in a plain dark broadcloth suit and a wide-brimmed hat with a low round crown. Even his stock was black.
    He answered Ty's smile, then his solemn hazel eyes flickered over Delia. He smiled at her as well, a smile that slowly faded as he took in her bedraggled appearance.
    "I'm Delia," she said. "I guess we all must be going to the Merrymeeting Settlement together."
    The reverend looked taken aback. "Er, uh, I'm Caleb," he said, wiping his hand nervously against his leg. Then he cleared his throat and turned back to Ty, and when he spoke again it was in a preacher's voice, low and rhythmic. "I'm just glad you're here. We were starting to worry." He turned to the woman seated in the wagon. "Dr. Savitch, may I present to you my wife Elizabeth."
    Delia looked with frank curiosity at the young minister's wife. Her neck was long and delicately bowed, like an egret's, her skin as white as fresh milk. Her nose and eyes were child-like but in perfect proportion above a small mouth that curled up on the ends like the petal of an iris. She, too, was dressed all in black, except for a white, undecorated bib over her bodice and a touch of white showing at the turned-back cuffs of her long sleeves. A calash covered most of her head, except for a few inches in the front where her hair showed pale, pale blond. In her lap she clutched a Bible bound in calfskin with a gilded clasp.
    "Lizzie, this is the good doctor I was telling you about," the Reverend Caleb Hooker was saying, and the affection he felt for his wife showed in the gentle inflection of his voice. "The man who's going to take us to the Merrymeeting Settlement. And this is, uh, Delia."
    The girl's gray eyes, as solemn and still as a dawn sky, glanced at them briefly before falling back down to