What the Heart Wants Read Free Page A

temperament than the latter. Papa had also taught me to ride and to shoot, “Two necessities for a girl living so far from civilization,” he had said, followed by, “Please forgive me, Ariana.” His apologies to my mother each time he handed me the reins or put a gun in my hand told me what she would have thought of her daughter behaving like a man. But Papa had raised me as he thought best under the circumstances, and now it looked as though my less than ladylike education was going to come in handy.
    My last thoughts before falling asleep were about the man my father had in mind for me to marry. He was the nephew of Papa’s friend Colonel Hudson, and I’d never even seen a picture of him. All I really knew about Thomas Parker was what the Hudsons had told Papa, that he was at least twenty years older than me, a recent widower with two children, and the owner of a very lucrative dry-goods business. He and Papa had exchanged a letter of introduction, and though there was no agreement between the two, he seemed to have his heart set on me marrying the man. I was much less enthusiastic. What if Mr. Parker and I didn’t suit? What if his children didn’t like me? What if, by the time we reached him, he’d already found a new wife? Pushing these unsettling thoughts from my mind, I finally fell asleep.

Chapter 2
    Within days we had all fallen into a routine. At the communal campfire, the women cooked for the entire group while the men hunted, took care of the livestock, and maintained and repaired the wagons. When we stopped for the night, my father and the other men who’d been assigned to take care of the oxen often had to drive the big animals away from the beaten path to nearby meadows where food was still in plentiful supply. Then, after the great beasts fed for a few hours, the men would drive them back again. Even though I knew he was not out there alone and that he was a good marksman, I worried about Papa during these times.
    Walter Drummond, who was a single man and a schoolteacher by trade, was one of the volunteer herdsmen. During the day he tutored some of the children, the ones whose parents thought book learning was important. They would gather in his wagon right after breakfast, perching on the bench seat next to him or inside the wagon, wherever there was space among the many boxes of books and other school supplies he had brought along to start his school in California. The eager children read aloud and recited their sums, and we could often hear their cherubic voices chiming in cadence, the pleasant, innocent sounds carried on the cool spring breezes.
    It became clear that first month that Mr. Drummond saw me as a prospective wife. And, while I liked the man, and even found him attractive in a sort of ordinary way, I did not wish to lead him astray. Though I wasn’t actually promised to any man, I felt that I owed it to my father to remain faithful to Mr. Parker, the man he wished for me to marry.
    * * * *
    On the day marking our sixth week on the trail, my thoughts were on other matters. Our wagon train was circled up beside the river for which the nearby military post was named, and I was feeling lighthearted. Fort Laramie was one of several outposts we would be stopping at on our way to California, and to most of us who had never traveled so far from home before, it was like a sanctuary to our homesick souls. And tonight many of us were going there to attend a dance. As I was getting ready for the dance, it occurred to me that I could not imagine myself married to the schoolteacher or to any man I did not love. I might be an old maid, but I still wasn’t willing to settle for anything less than the romantic love my parents had shared. And since that was the case, what would happen when Mr. Parker and I finally met? If I disliked the man, would I be able to refuse him, knowing how disappointed my father would be? The idea that I might love Mr. Parker didn’t even occur to me.
    Listening to the