Cherish the Dream Read online

  Other Avon Books by

  Kathleen Harrington

  MONTANA ANGEL

  PROMISE ME

  SUNSHINE AND SHADOW

  CHERISH THE DREAM is an original publication of Avon Books. This work is a novel. Any similarity to actual persons or events is purely coincidental.

  AVON BOOKS

  A division of

  The Hearst Corporation

  1350 Avenue of the Americas

  New York, New York 10019

  Copyright © 1990 by Kathleen Harrington

  Published by arrangement with the author

  Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 90-92993

  ISBN: 0-380-77699-5

  All rights reserved, which includes the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever except as provided by the U.S. Copyright Law. For information address Patricia Teal Agency, 2036 Vista de Rosa, Fullerton, California 92631.

  First Avon Books Trade Printing: September 1995

  First Avon Books Mass Market Printing: September 1990

  AVON TRADEMARK REG. U.S. PAT. OFF. AND IN OTHER COUNTRIES, MARCA REGISTRADA, HECHO EN U.S.A .

  Printed in the U.S.A.

  OPM 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  To my husband, Ed,

  and my son, Rick,

  with all my love

  Chapter 1

  June 1836

  Fort Leavenworth

  Kansas Territory

  “The Gordons have arrived, sir.”

  Carefully trimming his thick mustache in front of a mirror, Captain Blade Roberts snorted in disdain at the news. “It’s about time those damn New England tenderfeet showed up. If they can’t get to Leavenworth on time, how the hell do they think they can keep up with us crossing the mountains?” Scowling, Blade strode over to his aide-de-camp, who remained at attention just inside the door. Taking the vellum paper extended to him, Blade turned it to catch the late afternoon light streaming through the westerly window. The words were brief and penned in fancy calligraphy, as befitted the skilled mapmaker who had written them.

  Have arrived. Delay unavoidable. We are at your service.

  Theo. & Thos. Gordon

  Blade crushed the paper and tossed it into a basket across the room. His orders snapped like a flag in a crisp wind. “Convey my compliments to the Gordon brothers, Lieutenant Haintzelman, and instruct them that their appearance at the ball tonight is mandatory.”

  At his junior officer’s crisp salute, the scowling features on the captain’s face softened, and he reached for a cheroot from inside his dress tunic. “That goes for you, too, Peter. If I have to attend this blasted, mealymouthed affair to honor our departure, by God, I’ll not be the only martyr enduring the boredom. Half the ladies in Fort Leavenworth will expect a dance with at least one member of our expedition.” He grinned, knowing Haintzelman was looking forward to the fete in their honor. More than once that week he’d spoken of waltzing with the commandant’s lovely niece. “I’ll expect you not to disappoint them.”

  Lieutenant Haintzelman returned the grin. “Yes, sir!”

  As he watched the young man leave the room, Blade Roberts absently lit a Havana cheroot. He opened the door that led to the second-story balcony and walked out onto the portico that ran the entire length of the bachelor officers’ quarters. Preoccupied, he gazed down at the bustling, late-afternoon traffic.

  Protected by four sturdy log blockhouses, the square of the cantonment was filled with the equipment and supplies that would be required to undertake the arduous journey ahead of them. Tents, tools, small barrels of water, stout double canvas sacks of flour, coffee, and bacon stood in neat rows on the packed earth. Alongside these were tin canisters of butter oil and India-rubber sacks of sugar. Packages of dried vegetables, tea, and pemmican were stacked in mounds and carefully covered with tarpaulins. In the nearby stables, horses and pack mules were being readied. Their braying and bawling filled the still air. The sharp clang-clang of the blacksmith’s hammer added to the cacophony, denoting the final touches being given to the harness equipment.

  Blade knew that the members of the United States government’s geological team would need everything they could carry. The real trick had been to pack only what was absolutely essential. During the months to come, there would be no luxuries that would slow down their progress. A distance of two thousand miles lay before them, and for most of those miles they would have to live as abstemiously as possible. They were taking only one wagon to transport the scientific equipment; all other supplies would be carried by animals, which could negotiate the treacherous, unmapped mountain passes.

  Captain Roberts looked out over the walls of the stockade to the rolling sea of grass in the distance. Westward, beyond Fort Leavenworth, toward the setting sun, stretched those unexplored miles of rivers, prairies, and deserts. Blade knew that the lives of forty men would be solely in his care once they left the protection of the outpost, and the consciousness of that responsibility spread into his reverie like a wildfire burning across the open country. He was determined to avoid the terrible casualties that had plagued Colonel Henry Dodge’s campaign through Comanche territory only two years before. Needless casualties, resulting from ignorance and poor hygiene. As an ignored subordinate officer on that nightmare journey, Blade had watched in frustration while a third of the men fell, and had sworn to himself that no one placed under his command would ever suffer such a useless and unnecessary death. He knew what lay out there on the plains, where he had been raised.

  A hawk, its wings spread wide, drifted on the downward current of a breeze as it sighted its prey, bringing to Blade images of the childhood he’d spent in a Cheyenne village playing mock war games with his Indian cousins, learning to ride like the wind blowing across the prairie, proudly shooting his first bow and arrow with his noble grandfather beside him. Suddenly and irresistibly, Blade’s dark eyes were pulled from their survey of the hawk to follow the progress of a figure crossing the cantonment’s wide square. The form was slim and curvaceous, the small back straight and proud. There was an arrogant tilt to the head, crowned by a magnificent mass of blond curls that seemed almost too thick and heavy for the long, slender white neck. Magically, the hair caught the fading sunlight and threw it back in sparks of gold. Straining to catch a glimpse of the woman’s face, he placed his hands on the wooden railing and leaned out over the edge of the parapet.

  Below, the company’s blacksmith looked up from his work in the open doorway of his shop and, spotting the captain, nodded. “Afternoon, Captain Roberts,” the sergeant called in his deep, booming bass.

  Hearing the greeting, the young woman turned and looked upward, catching Blade’s frank, open appraisal of her.

  At the sight of her straight on, Blade sucked in his breath. She was exquisite. Wide, arching brows framed luminous eyes, a delicate nose, and a pair of soft, finely molded lips partially opened in a half-smile. Her diaphanous yellow dress molded firm breasts and a tiny waist, then fell in unpleated folds to her fancy slippers. She was a fairy creature, as out of place in the frontier world of an army post as an enchanted princess stepping off the pages of a child’s nursery tale.

  She must have just arrived on the steamboat Liberator that afternoon, Blade decided, or he would have heard about the Beauty by now. He surmised she must be the spouse of a newly arrived officer and wondered, in spite of himself, just how faithful a wife she might be. No doubt, she would be at the festivities that evening.

  Unbidden, an image of her, soft and naked, surrendering in his arms, filled his senses. Feeling a tightness in his loins, he watched her salute him with a brief, tentative wave before continuing on her way. Puffing on his cigar, he admired her graceful carriage, hoping she’d look
back at him so that he could return her salutation. She didn’t. Disappointed, he stepped back into his spartan room.

  Theodora Gordon knew he was watching her as she walked toward the commandant’s home, and it took all of her self control not to look back at the magnificent male creature standing on the balcony above the square. So that was Captain Blade Roberts! Not at all what she’d expected.

  He seemed far too young to be in charge of such an important campaign. His powerful shoulders and muscular chest had been evident even under the blue uniform jacket, and his long, well formed legs encased in tight buff pants and shiny black riding boots were those of an athlete. Although she knew she had little experience to draw from when appraising the physique of the opposite sex, she realized instinctively that here was a superb example. Her lips turned up in a smile as she anticipated their meeting that evening with pleasure.

  Did Captain Roberts realize who she was? she wondered, crossing the wide lawn that led up to the colonel’s house. Did he know they would be spending the next six months together on the trail? In her excitement, she could scarcely keep from skipping over the grass and up the steps.

  Theodora stood on the veranda and looked out across the fort’s square. How very different it was from her own New England countryside, with its precise stone fences and charming covered bridges.

  For the past eight years, she’d dreamed of coming to the frontier with her brother.

  Even before they had begun their formal education, the Gordon children had spent hours together pouring over botanical and geophysical plates in the tomes of their father’s library. Secretly, they had planned just such an expedition, delighting in the few written reports they read of the natural wonders of the world out beyond civilization.

  In time, the twins’ family had come to share that dream with them, for their father and uncles, all university professors prized scientific research above all other considerations. Thomas and Theodora had been accompanied by their father and grandmother all the way to Philadelphia, where they said a tearful farewell. From the city of William Penn, the twins traveled by bumpy stagecoach to Pittsburgh.

  With a smile, Theodora remembered their excitement as they boarded the riverboat Boston that took them down the Ohio River to the great Mississippi. Riding the packet down that rolling, muddy current, with its power to toss whole trees in its waves, Theodora felt the love of the land tug at her heart She watched in awe the great river that was the lifeline of the frontier, carrying keelboats loaded with furs and hides, and paddle wheelers crowded with emigrants, drummers with goods to sell, and rough frontiersmen returning to the back country.

  Twelve hundred miles from Cincinnati, they reached the bustling waterfront of St. Louis. Tom and Theodora, laughing in exhilaration, had to elbow their way along the crowded sidewalks piled high with produce and merchandise. They stayed at Jefferson Barracks, where they watched in mingled fear and curiosity the arrival of almost a hundred Sauk Indians, painted and dressed in their finest regalia, who were negotiating a treaty for the sale of their land. Eagerly, they began the last leg of their westward journey and boarded the steamboat that would take them up the Missouri River to Fort Leavenworth. They had arrived at the fort that afternoon, and now, as she watched the hustle and bustle of the fort, Theodora felt her ever-present excitement flare up like a torch. They were here at last!

  * * *

  The windows of the commandant’s fine two-story brick home were thrown open to the balmy spring evening. Streams of guests crowded through the main salon into all the rooms, flowed onto the wide second-floor veranda, up and down the staircase, and finally spilled out onto the carefully tended lawn, their noisy chattering reaching up toward the starlit sky. Lanterns placed strategically along the gravel walkway enticed romantically inclined young belles. They strolled with handsome officers of the First Dragoons, who zealously attempted to woo them, for members of the fairer sex were a rare commodity on the frontier.

  Inside the large salon, which had been emptied of all furniture to create a ballroom, an army band played waltzes. Flashes of dress blue uniforms with their yellow facings, orange sashes, and black riding boots contrasted boldly with the whirling pastels of the ladies, as their dainty feet flew across the oak-planked floor.

  Captain Blade Roberts was holding the commandant’s niece in his arms, and he twirled her lightly around the ballroom. Irritated by her nonsensical chatter, but striving to hide his mounting frustration, he looked over the top of her brown curls and searched in vain for the gorgeous blonde.

  “Oh, Captain!” Nell Henderson sighed and rolled her blue eyes up at him dramatically. “I think you are just too, too brave, going out into the wilderness with all those wild savages!”

  “You forget, Miss Henderson, I grew up in that wilderness.” Ignoring her look of shock that he would state in plain words what was only whispered behind spread fans, Blade guided her off the dance floor as the music came to a momentary pause.

  They were met by Lieutenant Haintzelman, who bowed to the brunette hanging so persistently on the captain’s sleeve. He peered at the petite debutante from behind his spectacles. “My compliments, Miss Henderson,” the lieutenant said. “I believe this is my dance coming up.”

  Firmly taking her arm, Haintzelman turned to his commanding officer. His nearsighted eyes twinkled unaccountably, and he appeared to be smothering a grin as he delivered a message to the man beside him. “By the way, sir, the Gordons are here. They’re with Colonel Kearny in his office. He’d like you to join them immediately.”

  Not stopping to explain further, Haintzelman pulled the reluctant girl onto the dance floor. Blade was left to find his own way to the commandant’s study.

  As he entered the cluttered office, Blade felt a surge of satisfaction. There, in the center of the room, deep in conversation with three admiring gentlemen, stood the mysterious beauty he’d seen earlier in the square. She was dressed in an emerald-green satin gown that barely covered the firm, white globes of her breasts. When she turned from the civilian with whom she was talking to greet the new arrival, he saw that her green eyes exactly matched her gown. Her eyebrows were dark, surprisingly so for one of such fair complexion, for her flawless skin was the color of cream. Long, thick, luxurious lashes swept down, casting shadows on her rosy cheeks. With her was a young man dressed in a black tuxedo that set off his blond hair like a flag on Independence Day. A wide smile lit up his face and his clear hazel eyes reflected his bubbling excitement.

  So the mysterious lady was one of the Gordon brothers’ wives.

  Blade noted Lieutenant Wesley Fletcher, an idiotic grin on his pretty-boy Southern face, hovering beside her, practically drooling all over her bare shoulders. He was doggedly elbowing Corporal Overbury out of the circle, which was not easy to do given Overbury’s girth, while keeping up a nonstop flow of Dixie flatteries into her dainty ear.

  Leaning over the huge map spread out on his desk, Colonel Kearny looked up and smiled. “Ah, you’re here, Blade. Thomas and Theodora Gordon, may I present Captain Roberts of the renowned Corps of Topographical Engineers.”

  Bending from the waist in his best West Point bow, Roberts took her small white-gloved hand in his large white-gloved hand and lifted it to his lips. “Mrs. Gordon, the pleasure is all mine.”

  As she stood in front of him, her fingers resting lightly in his strong ones, Theodora tilted her head back and looked up into his dark eyes.

  He was very tall. And very handsome. Thick black hair came down to the top of his collar and a mustache framed his strong mouth. High cheekbones rose above a straight, aquiline nose. His chin was square and determined. Shockingly, a small gold hoop hung from one earlobe, adding a barbaric splendor to his appearance. Yet despite the shiny bangle, he exuded sheer, raw, male power.

  A knowledge of that effect upon her was evident in his confident gaze. It seemed obvious that he was used to women staring at him. Yet, despite his nonchalant acceptance of her open admiration, the attraction she�
�d felt toward him earlier that afternoon became even stronger and more compelling. His smile awoke within her a stirring of some unknown emotion. She suddenly felt awkward and defensive.

  With a slight frown, she snatched her hand from his grasp. “You have the wrong title, Captain Roberts,” she answered, determined to remain unruffled. “It’s Miss Gordon.”

  Not a wife, but an unmarried sister! How lucky can I get? Blade Roberts asked himself.

  Without comment, he turned to the golden-haired man standing beside her and addressed him with annoyance. “Good to make your acquaintance at last, Gordon. I was afraid we’d have to leave you and your brother behind. Once the new grass covers the prairie, the journey can’t be put off, or we’d risk being stranded in the mountains in an early snow. You can understand my concern over your tardy arrival.”

  Gordon blushed and hastened to apologize. “I’m sorry, sir. We were regrettably detained on the last stage of our journey.” Blade’s disgust at the excuse was undisguised. “Being sorry doesn’t get us over the mountains, Gordon. I suggest that in the future you keep it in mind.”

  Stepping closer, Theodora reached out and clasped her brother’s hand. Her voice shook with humiliation at the public dressing-down. “The delay wasn’t our fault, Captain Roberts. The steamship hit a sandbar and had to be pried off with long poles by the passengers and crew. It was two days before we could continue our journey.”

  Recognizing her distress on her brother’s behalf, Blade bent his head and spoke to her as though she were a foolish child. “Such delays are not uncommon, Miss Gordon, and should be planned for accordingly. On a journey of this importance, no possibility should be overlooked. However, now that your brothers are here, we need put off our departure no longer..”