Free Ripples Along the Shore by Mona Hodgson

spun around and marched toward the door.
    Vindictive? Someone had to be sensible. Certainly wouldn’t be her … thinking she could up and drive a wagon through hill and dale, mile after mile.
    Boney joined him at the table and let out a low whistle. “Looks to me like you’ve got lady trouble.”
    “Not anymore.” Garrett glanced toward the stiff-backed redhead. “She’s a war widow. Told her she couldn’t take a wagon west by herself.”
    “Sounds to me like she might have something to prove.”
    “Well, she won’t do it on my watch.” He’d have his hands full with all the young uns riding along. Didn’t need her distracting him … worrying him.

    Caroline didn’t bother to mind a ladylike pace. Her neck burning under the heat of ire, she marched toward Anna, who stood alone near the back.
    If Caroline had her druthers, she’d walk straight out the door, not look back. But she didn’t have a say in anything. She was a widow, and that changed everything. Without a man, she couldn’t go west. Not in a wagon, anyway. On a ship, she’d have no escort. No friends accompanying her.
    And no Garrett Cowlishaw in sight.
    That suddenly seemed reason enough not to go on the caravan come spring. Four months with that man would be more burdensome than fording rivers or facing a bear. Six months under his leadership would be the death of her.
    “You look like you’ve swallowed a frog.” Concern narrowed Anna’s blue eyes. “You told Mr. Cowlishaw you wanted to add a wagon to the train, did you? What did he say?”
    “No.” She refused to follow Anna’s gaze to the man. Whatever she did, she wouldn’t give Garrett Cowlishaw the satisfaction that he’d won his first battle as captain of the company. “He said no.”
    Anna didn’t look the least bit surprised. She opened her mouth as if to say something, then closed it.
    “Mr. Cowlishaw doesn’t want widows on the trail.”
    “He said that?” Anna’s eyebrows arched.
    Guilt dried Caroline’s mouth. “Not in those words, exactly.” She moistened her lips. “But he did say a single woman couldn’t travel alone … in her own wagon. He thinks every woman going should have a man.” Grudgingly, she did too. Elsa Brantenberg had Rutherford. Mrs. Kamden had her son. Anna had her grandfather.
    All options she didn’t have.
    “Life’s not that easy.” Anna’s statement carried a wistfulness that Caroline understood.
    She knew Anna expected the trip to invigorate her grandfather’s spirit and pull her family together.
    Caroline swung her shoulders, settling her cape. She wouldn’t be a wet blanket putting a damper on her friend’s hopes. “Speaking of men, has Mr. Hughes talked to you yet?”
    “Ha! Mr. Hughes. I can’t make myself think of him so formally. My brother called him Boney.” Anna shook her head. “Not yet. But he’s busy talking with Mr. Cowlishaw right now.”
    “No doubt about addle-headed women who don’t take the dangers of the trail seriously and think they have the constitution to make the trip west.”
    “We can leave any time Charles is ready.” Anna looked about the room. “Have you seen him or Hattie? Boney and I can catch up on another day.”
    “Yoo-hoo, Mrs. Milburn.”
    Caroline’s shoulder’s tensed. She was hardly in the mood for polite conversation, but she turned toward the familiar voice anyway. Mrs. Kamden waved a gloved hand and rushed toward her, the littlest of her five grandchildren in tow.
    Anna raised her hand to her mouth. “The woman you told us about from your trip home from Memphis?”
    Caroline nodded. “Hello, Mrs. Kamden.” She regarded the little girl with the big brown eyes.
    “This is Maisie, the youngest of my Ian’s children.”
    Following the introductions, Mrs. Kamden laid her gloved hand on Caroline’s arm. “Dear, I saw you at the table with your friends, then in line behind us. Are you going west with the caravan?”
    “I had hoped to.”
    “With your sister and