Page 44 of Caroline’s Compass

“You counted?”

“I measure things.”

“I did not look at you.”

“Twice.”

“That is worse.”

“Considerably.”

Caroline folded her hands. “I do not know what happens at Fort Kearny.”

“Neither do I.”

“I cannot pretend that does not matter.”

“I would not ask you to.” Thomas stepped closer but did not touch her. “Let me court you until we reach the fort. Intentionally. No accidental kisses behind wagons.”

“The second kiss was not accidental.”

His eyes warmed. “I had noticed.”

“And when we reach Fort Kearny?”

“I decide whether to accept the mapping position. You decide whether I have measured anything important correctly.”

“That sounds suspiciously like a trial.”

“You prefer practical arrangements.”

Caroline considered the man before her—the surveyor who trusted measurements, the lonely boy who had marked creeks because they stayed, the man who had made himself foolish rather than expose her.

“Very well,” she said. “You may court me until Fort Kearny.”

“May I walk you to your wagon?”

“It is twelve feet away.”

“I am beginning carefully.”

She let him walk her all twelve feet.

Chapter Ten

May 7, 1854

Fork West of the Prairie Camp

The notice had been nailed to a cottonwood with three square-headed nails and enough confidence to cause trouble.

SHORTER ROAD TO THE PLATTE, it declared. TWO DAYS SAVED. GOOD WATER.

Below the printed words, someone had scratched a warning with the point of a knife: ROAD CUT BY SPRING FLOOD.

The company gathered around the tree.

Before the road council, everyone read the cutoff notice as they saw fit. Mr. Coleman saw TWO DAYS SAVED. Mr. Hall saw SPRING FLOOD. Mrs. Bell saw GOOD WATER and asked who had verified it.