Chapter 11: Caught in a Storm

~A wonderful fact to reflect upon, that every human creature is constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to every other.~—Charles Dickens.

Dannie woke up with a start. Lifting her head, she tried to make out just what her pillow had been. It slowly dawned on her that she had been sleeping on a man’s shoulder.

“Oh, I’m sorry, Paul,” Dannie mumbled, trying to shake the drowsiness away. Rubbing her eyes, she glanced up and found herself looking into a pair of very amused, pale green eyes.

Dannie’s heart skipped a beat.

“Oh no! Did I just fall asleep on your shoulder?” Her voice was filled with embarrassment. She caught her breath again when the reality of her second mistake came crashing down on her. “Did I—did I just call you Paul?”

“That would be a yes to both questions,” Jake chuckled. “I’d say you slept the better part of an hour.”

“Oh my, I am so, so sorry.” Dannie wished she could shrink and shrink until she disappeared. “I don’t usually do things like this. How horribly improper of me.”

“Don’t worry about it, Miss Preston, it’s all right.” Jake was amused at her obvious embarrassment and sought to make light of the situation. “Don’t know why you went ahead and called me Paul, though.”

“Oh, that.” Dannie looked around as though searching for some place to hide. “I’ve only fallen asleep on someone’s shoulder like this once before. It was when Paul and I went out for a ride in the country. I was just—confused when I woke up. Once again, I’m terribly sorry, I don’t…”

“Dannie, it’s all right,” Jake cut her off.

Dannie blinked at him. “You just called me Dannie,” she pointed out with a small frown.

“Shoot, I did. Don’t take offense, Miss Preston, you were just gettin’ on my nerves.”

“I don’t think that I am upset,” Dannie reassured him. “It’s just—only close friends have ever called me Dannie.”

“Seein’ as you are on first name terms with me, and Dannie is shorter than Miss Preston, maybe I can just keep callin’ ya that?”

Dannie eyed him for a few seconds. “As long as you promise never to call me Danny Fanny.”

He laughed at this. “I promise. Is it Danny with a ‘y’?”

“No, that would be the boy’s way of spelling it. I spell it with an ‘i e.’ Danielle is a French name, actually.”

“Yes, you said yer mother spoke that language. Was she from France?”

“Certainly not,” Dannie burst out laughing. The thought of her mother being French was hilarious. “No, both my parents were about as British as you can get. I was named Danielle for the meaning.”

“And what’s the meaning?”

“God is my judge. Are you Jake for Jacob?”

“Could be!” Jake’s voice was crisp, and his eyes were glued to the road ahead. It was clear he was not going to talk about himself.

Dannie studied his face and wondered why he was so determined not to share any personal information. Was there some terrible secret he didn’t want to reveal? Or maybe he was hiding a dark, devious present…

~Why do you have to be so mysterious, Jake?~

It was as if he was purposefully making it hard for her to like him~.~

Jake didn’t notice the way Dannie was studying him. His mind was fully occupied with a couple of large rain clouds he could see in the distance.

“Looks like we might be in for a pretty big storm,” he said, pointing to the sky. Dannie’s gaze followed his outstretched arm, and her eyes widened at the angry black clouds in the distance.

“Do you think we’ll make it to Hopewing before it hits?” she asked.

“Not by a long shot. We’ll never outrun those. We need to find some place of shelter and wait out the storm. I wouldn’t worry though. This time of year, if a storm does hit, it don’t last very long.”

The wind had picked up, and the clouds that had seemed so far away only moments before were now hovering above them.

“How about we hide there?” Dannie pointed to a fortress of rocks and boulders.

“Looks like a pretty good spot,” Jake said, urging the horses to go faster.

Dannie found herself gripping Jake’s elbow as the two horses picked up speed. They were going a lot faster than she was comfortable with. The road was bumpy and rocky, and the wagon jostled about. Closing her eyes, Dannie tried not to think of falling off the wagon if they should hit a really large bump.

Soon, droplets began falling on her, and Dannie allowed herself to open one eye and look upward. The clouds were right above them, and the rain was coming down faster and faster with every minute.

Jake flicked the reins again, and the horses broke out into a gallop. Dannie shut her eyes and clung to Jake’s arm with both of hers. She silently prayed in an effort to calm her beating heart.

The horses came to an abrupt halt, and Dannie opened her eyes. They had reached shelter beneath a jumble of huge boulders. Slowly, she let go of Jake’s arm.

“Sorry about that, Paul,” she mumbled.

“Jake.”

Dannie widened her eyes and felt her wet face growing hot. “Oh dear, did I call you Paul again?”

“Reckon you did,” Jake said with a chuckle.

“I’m terribly sorry, I don’t know why I keep doing it.” Dannie avoided Jake’s gaze as he helped her off the wagon.

“No worries. Come on, I’ll build us a fire to dry off a bit.” He hopped off the wagon and helped her down.

“Where will you get any firewood?”

“Rule number one in Arizona Territory: be ready for anythin’,’’ Jake said with a grin as he walked over to the back of the wagon and pulled out an armload of firewood. “Besides, I’m sure if we look around here, we’ll find some spare sticks and dried up bushes.”

The shelter they had come to consisted of several large boulders that provided a sort of roof from the rain. Jake found a spot for the horses. It was rather damp, but with their blankets he was sure they would be fine.

A quick search revealed a more sheltered spot in the form of a small cave. After hunting around, they found some more firewood and soon had a small fire going. Dannie took off her bonnet, let her hair down, and brushed out the damp locks.

“You sure got long hair,” Jake couldn’t help pointing out.

“Thank you,” Dannie smiled, “though I will admit it is a bit of a nuisance when it comes to traveling for miles and miles in the dust.”

“Yeah, I can imagine,” Jake said with a nod and a chuckle as he settled down a little more comfortably and leaned back. “If you don’t mind, I’m going to catch a few winks, seein’ as there is nothing better I can do.”

Dannie only nodded her head and kept brushing her hair. Looking out, she watched the rain as it poured down.

How strange it all was. Only an hour ago, they were toiling through insufferable heat. Now, it was raining cats and dogs. Not that she wasn’t used to rain. After all, they had plenty of it up in England. But somehow, the heat of the past two days had made her quite forget what rain was like.

On a sudden impulse, Dannie put her comb down and went over to the mouth of the cave. Reaching out her hand, she felt the droplets pelt against her palm. She took a deep breath, threw all caution to the wind, and ran out into the torrent.

It was at this precise moment that Jake opened an eye and lifted his hat a little bit, just to make sure the horses were doing okay. In the next instant, he took his hat off his face and sat up straight. He blinked a couple of times to make sure that he wasn’t seeing things. But no, Dannie was no longer in the cave—she was outside, twirling around and around in the storm.

“What are you doing, Miss Danielle Frances Preston?” he called, jumping to his feet and walking to the mouth of the cave. “You git your little self right back in here! The last thing I need is for you to catch pneumonia. What am I going to do with you if you get sick?”

“I don’t know,” Dannie laughed. “And honestly, at this moment I really don’t care.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t know nothin’ about treating sick people, and we’re still about half a day’s journey from Hopewing, so will you please come back here?”

“No,” Dannie said with a laugh.

“Miss Preston, you want to tell me what on earth has gotten into you?”

“It’s like this, Jake.” Dannie walked up closer to where Jake was standing. “I just realized that I could go ahead and dance in the rain, and no one is going to care.”

“Oh yeah, and what about me?”

“Who cares about you? This entire journey, all you’ve done is boast how you don’t care about proper etiquette. All my life, I’ve lived under a certain code of conduct that could not be broken, and just now I realized that, out here, the code doesn’t exist. I mean, I’ve ridden for three days, completely unchaperoned, with an unmarried man. How’s that for breaking the rules of proper conduct? But who is going to care?”

Dannie laughed and spun around again. “If I ever felt true freedom, it has got to be right now!”

Jake shook his head. “Fine, go ahead, catch your death. I’ll busy myself with digging yer grave. I always knew I’d be the one conducting yer funeral.”

“Oh stop being such a ninny and join me,” Dannie retorted in a joyous voice.

“I ain’t being a ninny, Miss Preston, I’m just being realistic. Hopewing don’t have no doctor, so you really don’t want to get sick.”

“All right, all right, you win.” Dannie gave in and crawled back into the little cave. “Though it felt so nice to go and be a part of the storm and have all the horrid dust wash off my face and hair.”

Dannie whipped her hair, and it fell over her shoulders in a tangled mess. Little droplets covered her face, her neck, her hands. Her dark brown eyes sparkled with mischief, and Jake had to admit that the Danielle he was looking at right now was actually quite attractive.

Maybe too attractive.