Read Online Bound For Eden by Tess Lesue - Free Book Online Page A

night.’ Luke frowned. The poor girl was in serious distress at the thought of those vultures. ‘He said to keep you out of sight of his brother.’
    â€˜Gideon.’ Victoria shuddered.
    â€˜Why is that?’
    â€˜He wants my sister,’ Victoria told him miserably. ‘He’d hurt us to get to her.’
    Luke fell silent. ‘Would it help if I get word to them that your sister left you?’
    Victoria nodded. Then gave a despairing shrug. Then the tears began to fall.
    Luke was a sucker for tears. ‘I’ll see if we can leave a bit sooner than I’d planned,’ he said, rubbing her back.
    â€˜What about Alex . . .’
    â€˜Alex is a boy,’ Luke said firmly, ‘and I’m guessing you’re his legal guardian. So, in my book, it’s you that gets to decide which wagon train you join.’
    Looking up into his shining black eyes, Victoria knew exactly which wagon train they were joining. Luke Slater’s. Even if he was headed to the ends of the earth.

Eight
    Alex didn’t recognise her any more. Her plain and mousy sister was blossoming into a pretty young woman. She walked around pink-cheeked and glowing, smiling witlessly at all and sundry. It was infuriating.
    And it was that man’s fault.
    â€˜What do you think you are doing?’ she hissed at Victoria in Cavil’s Mercantile, where Victoria was in the process of buying a length of lovely yellow calico.
    â€˜I’m going to make a new dress,’ Victoria said blithely. ‘Luke says there’s a dance on Saturday night, to farewell the wagon trains leaving, which includes us.’
    â€˜Oh, he does now, does he? And how are you planning to pay for this new dress?’
    There was a glint of gold in Victoria’s gloved hand.
    â€˜That money is supposed to get us set up in Oregon!’
    â€˜One new dress won’t hurt.’
    Alex sputtered helplessly as Victoria sailed up to the counter with the bolt of yellow cloth firmly in hand. She was outraged in so many ways. Firstly, because it really was a waste of money. When on earth would Victoria need a new yellow dress on the trip west? When she was fording rivers, or helping to dig out the wheels of their bogged wagon?
    And secondly, Alex had to admit, she was outraged because she didn’t see why Victoria should have a new dress when she was walking around in Adam’s cast-offs, her face buried beneath a revolting mask of dust and dirt. It just wasn’t fair.
    Being a boy certainly wasn’t all it was cracked up to be, she thought sulkily as they walked back to Taylor’s. Here she was lugging sacks of grain, while Victoria breezed along with only the scrap of calico weighing her down. Then she had to head out into the blazing heat of the day to look over a bunch of smelly animals, while Victoria got to sit in the cool of the hotel sewing her pretty new dress.
    â€˜Come on, Adam,’ Alex snapped, ‘we’d best leave her to it. Try not to give yourself a callus while we’re gone.’
    â€˜I’ve never been to a dance,’ Adam said as they headed downstairs.
    â€˜Sure you have,’ Alex disagreed half-heartedly, still stewing. She was secretly picturing herself in the yellow calico.
    â€˜I don’t think so.’ He frowned, straining to remember a dance.
    â€˜In old Dyson’s barn, remember?’
    â€˜With the cows?’ The memory dawned visibly on his face.
    â€˜They put the cows outside for the dance.’
    â€˜But it smelled like cows.’
    â€˜And chickens,’ Alex agreed. And there’d been no-one to dance with but Pa, Adam and the old men. Except for the Gradys, of course, who always turned up half drunk and belligerent. Silas would make a beeline for her, Alex remembered distastefully, recalling the way he’d slicked his hair back and worn his best suit (the one that was tight across the shoulders and shiny on the knees) in order to