Free Enchanted Heart by Brianna Lee McKenzie Page B

them apart forever, was gushing with the desire to envelop her in the heart-stopping embrace of his loving arms again and to make all of her pain disappear.
    She did, however, want to admonish him for speaking to her, for touching her, in such a familiar manner for propriety’s sake. But she was tired, too tired for an argument that she knew that she would not win. He had saved her life, had warmed her with his body and had encircled her with his arms and he would certainly argue that they were close enough to be acquaintances that were on a first name basis, if not soon to be very close friends.
    Marty sat, snuggled into the blankets next to her sister’s knees and was filled with the warmth that mere man-made materials could not provide. She closed her eyes against the reality that only a friend was not what she needed Caid McAllister to be. The memory of his warming arms around her and the searing stare that he had stolen at her fueled a fire in her that she had thought had been dowsed long ago.
    But she knew that the few times that they had touched, had exchanged glances, had spoken polite words through courteous conversation, had aroused a myriad of emotions in each other, including anger, and had indulged in a luxuriously languid embrace, were not enough to bind their hearts together with the infinite love that withstands life’s tribulations. Only time and Heaven’s affectionate intervention could unify their hearts and seal their fate. And only when she was finally willing to allow such a life-changing event to occur, despite the fear of lost love and disregarding society’s rules, would she ultimately find the true and unending love that she needed so desperately for her very survival.
     
     
     
    Chapter Nine
     
    Caid drove the wagon while Marty recovered, which gave her time to get to know the man who had saved her life. Within a few days after he had rescued her from the river, she had felt well enough to ride beside him on the seat of the wagon where they would talk, but he seemed to be less forthcoming with information about his life than she was with hers. She told him about their voyage across the ocean when she and Greta were seven years old and how Papa had died and how sad that had been for her, for which, she received a quick sympathy hug. Then she elaborated about Elias and how very distraught she had been to be a widow at such a young age, which got her a nudge on the shoulder and an insistence that she was not like any widow that Caid knew. She reminded him of her miscarriages and confided that she was more than a little jealous of Greta, who had Seraphina, but he furrowed his brows and reminded her that Greta was not as strong as she was and that such a loss to her twin would quite possibly kill her sister, to which, Marty agreed with a resounding sigh that puffed around her face in the cold morning air.
    Greta, having no reason to stay inside, walked along with their cousin Elsa and the children. She had not heard the conversation and was not privy to the fact that she had been the subject. She twirled her daughter around, igniting excited giggles from the curly-headed girl who held onto her mother with adoring arms.
    Elsa stumbled on a rock with Baby Jake in her arms and fell to her knees, keeping the infant safely in her arms but scratching her leg on a mesquite bush. Caid stopped the wagon and helped Elsa to her feet while Marty took the baby and climbed back onto the wagon seat. Caid walked Elsa to her own wagon where her husband carried her to the back and bandaged her leg. She rode there for a few miles while the train went forward and while Marty held Baby Jake in her arms next to Caid, who seemed to her to sneak peeks at the little pink face wrapped in a bundle of blankets.
    Jake’s little arms popped out of the warmth as if they had a mind of their own, stretching and balling the tiny fists and then flopping back to his body. Marty captured them and snuggled them back into the blankets