Free A Hero's Heart by Sylvia McDaniel Page A

little hole it sank into.”
    Wade laughed. “Admit it, Rachel. You’re stuck.”
    “I’m not stuck,” she denied.
    “Okay, you’re not stuck. Your wagon is.”
    Rachel stood up and sighed. Her voice heavy with resignation, she admitted, “Just a little. But I think we can get it free.”
    Sliding off his horse into the stream beside her, Wade reached down and pulled her upright to face him. Gently, he wiped a spot of mud off her cheek.
    Rachel took a deep breath, trying to control the butterflies that took flight in her lower body.
    “Move over and let me help,” he said as he nudged her aside. He called to Becky, “Okay, give’em the signal.”
    “Giddyap,” Becky yelled.
    Wade put his shoulder to one side of the wagon, and Toby took the opposite side. Rachel slogged through the water to combine her weight with Toby’s. Together, the three of them pushed the wagon forward until the back wheels rocked fruitlessly.
    Finally, Wade yelled, “Stop. We’re only sinking deeper.”
    He stood up, pulled his hat off, and wiped the back of his arm across his slick forehead. The muscles beneath his shirt rippled with the movement and Rachel swallowed the knot building in her throat.
    He gazed at her, his expression serious. “You know what’s next, Rachel.”
    “No. Wade, please. Let’s try again,” she pleaded.
    “I told you the first time the wagon got stuck, the organ was gone.”
    “No!” Rachel cried. “Not my organ, Wade. Let me go through the trunks. I’ll get rid of some of the household goods before I’ll let my organ go.”
    “The blasted thing is too heavy,” he insisted. “It’s got to go if we’re going to make it across the mountains.”
    Rachel felt tears welling up. “No. It was my mother’s.”
    Wade grabbed her by the arm and pulled her through the creek, sloshing water past their knees. Out of the water he tugged her up onto the bank, into a small grove of cottonwood trees.
    “I told you that instrument or the Bibles would have to go.”
    “Don’t make me give it up. I can’t bear to part with it,” she implored.
    “Rachel, the animals can’t pull the heavy load. Something has to go. Now choose something or I’m going to pick for you.”
    Hot tears scalded her eyes. He was right; she knew it, but the organ had belonged to her mother, the Bibles to her father.
    Frustration and anger welled up inside her, combined with her chafing at Wade’s absence of the last two weeks. As defeat and sorrow overwhelmed her, she turned her disappointment on Wade. “Why are you doing this? Can’t you understand how much those things mean to me? Why did I ever let you into my life, Wade Ketchum?”
    He stared at her, his emerald eyes soft with an understanding she refused to acknowledge. His voice was tender. “Because you needed me, Rachel. Though your stubborn pride would never admit it.”
    She was stunned by his words. Her stubborn pride! The very idea of the man. “I needed my father. Not some two-bit gambler who waltzes in and out of camp just long enough to eat a meal, and then disappear again. Don’t you dare stand there and tell me I’m stubborn, or I’ll rattle off a list of your faults that will keep us here all afternoon.”
    “So, you’ve missed me!” he teased.
    “I didn’t say that,” Rachel snapped her cheeks reddening.
    Wade smiled a confidently, cockily. He stood so close she could see the laugh lines gathering around his eyes. The next thing she knew, he was hauling her in his arms. He pushed back a stray lock of her hair, brushed her cheek with the back of his hand, sending tingles all the way to her toes.
    “It’s been hard to sleep beside you each night,” he said so low his voice was almost a whisper.
    Rachel’s mouth opened in surprise. He pulled her in tighter. Through her wet, thin petticoat she felt the hard muscles of his thighs pressed against her legs, his rigid manhood solid and hard against her belly. A sliver of fear raced down her spine,