“Are you all right?” Scott asked.

“Yes, just…I’m sorry.” She took a step away from his grasp, giving a little gasp as her foot hit the ground. The twinge was turning into a definite throb. “I seem to have twisted an ankle.”

Scott reached out and took her slender hands. He pulled them toward him and turned them over slowly studying them in the starlight. Then he looked into her eyes. “Perhaps those heavy boots are too much for what must be delicate little feet…Miss Gallivan.”

Under the smears of dirt on her face, Kerry blanched. “I…what do you mean?”

Scott smiled. “Don’t worry, lass. Your secret is safe with me, though I can’t imagine how anyone on this train can actually believe that you’re a male.”

Kerry pulled her hands away from him. “When did you know?” she asked dully.

“The minute I saw those beautiful blue eyes,” Scott answered cheerfully. “I couldn’t believe that God would be so cruel as to waste them on a man.” As her features became more dejected he added gently, “Your face is well disguised by the dirt and floppy hat, lass, but I saw your hands. Those slender wrists couldn’t belong to a man.”

Kerry moved another step backward, only to be reminded once again of the pain in her leg. “The lawyer in St. Louis told us that they wouldn’t take a lone woman,” she explained, a little breathless with nerves at her sudden discovery and the pain.

“And you wanted to come anyway.”

“Yes. My brother and I have to get to California.”

Scott nodded, suddenly serious. “You’re a brave lass, Kiernan. Is it Kiernan?”

“Kerry.”

“Ah. That’s better. You’re a brave lass, Kerry, and, as I said, I won’t be turning you in. In fact, I hope you’ll consider me a friend.”

His eyes were kind and his hand gentle as he gave her shoulder a little squeeze. “If you will keep my secret, Mr. Haskell, I will definitely consider you a friend.”

“Good.” He cocked his head. “But you’ll have to learn to call me Scott.”

She smiled, then sighed. “I guess I’d better, Scott, because I’m already going to take advantage of your friendship.”

“Just ask.”

Giving her foot a rueful glance, she told him, “I’m afraid I’m going to need some assistance getting back to my wagon.”

Scott frowned. “You are really hurt, then. Damnation, what luck. I wonder if anyone in the group is trained in medicine?”

Kerry put both her hands up in protest. “No, please. I’ll be fine. If you’ll just help me to my wagon, I’m sure by tomorrow this’ll be back to normal.”

Scott hesitated. “You don’t want anyone looking at you too closely. Is that it?”

Kerry tightened her jaw against the pain that was beginning to radiate in rings up her leg. Scott grasped her elbows as she swayed. Her hands clutched at his forearms. “Will you help me? Please?” It was not a plea that came easy to her, but at the moment the pain was overriding her usual sense of independence.

Scott bent his head to see her eyes in the starlight, then without a word scooped her up in his brawny arms.

“You don’t have to carry me,” she protested.

Scott shook his head. “You weigh no more than a feather, lass. I could carry you from here to California without breaking a sweat.”

The ache pulsating upward from her foot obliterated all sense of embarrassment she might have felt at this unexpected intimacy with a man she had barely met. “Thank you,” she murmured. Then added in a tired voice, “Tomorrow I’ll be back on my feet.”

But the next day there was no way Kerry would be able to walk and take a turn away from the dust. Her foot had swollen so that even Patrick’s large boot would not fit over it. Patrick had bound it in rags over which Kerry had painfully pulled on a large wool sock.

Scott appeared at breakfast to ask about her injury. He offered to make a bed for her in the back of his much roomier wagon, but she refused, accepting only his offer of help in climbing up onto her wagon seat.

Kerry told no one else of her mishap, but there seemed to be some mysterious network of communication among the wagons, and before they were a half hour out on the trail, Jeb Hunter rode back to them, his forehead creased with worry.

Without preliminaries he said, “I understand you hurt your leg last night, Kiernan.”

She nodded, keeping her face down under the big hat. After her discovery by Haskell, her confidence in her disguise had disappeared. “Just an ankle twist—nothing serious,” she mumbled.

Jeb shook his head. An injury already—the very first day out. He hoped it wasn’t an omen. “Are you sure it’s not broken? We won’t exactly be running into any doctors between here and Fort Kearney. I guess I’d better have a look at it.”

Kerry tensed, and Patrick, riding alongside her in the box, gave her a reassuring pat on the knee. “My brother will be fine,” he said. “Honestly. You don’t have to worry about it”

Jeb hesitated. The boys’ independence was admirable, but the health of his band was his responsibility. He’d seen broken legs fester and turn rotten. “I’ll just check it over to be sure,” he said in a tone that left no room for argument. “I’ll come around when we stop for the nooning. In the meantime, Patrick, why don’t you take over the reins and let Kiernan climb in the back to lie down—get that leg propped up.”

“There’s no room back there to lie—” Patrick began, then stopped as he saw the slight shake of his sister’s head. “All right, Captain. We’ll do just as you say.”

“Good lad.” Hunter wheeled his horse and headed back along the train.

“Now what?” Patrick asked after a moment.

Kerry had turned her head and was watching the guide’s retreating form with an indignant expression. She was starting to get a little tired of Captain Hunter’s high-handed ways. Her father had paid good money to hire his services, as had the other people on the train, yet he acted as if he were the one who had the final say in everything.

“I’m not sure I like that man. He thinks he’s the boss.”

“Well, he is the boss in a way,” Patrick said reasonably. “Everyone on the train has to do what he says.”

Kerry turned around on the seat to face her brother. “We’re paying him, remember?”

“But he’s responsible for all of us.”

“Well, he’s not responsible for…” She sputtered a moment, letting her temper build. “For my feet!” she concluded, looking down at her bandaged leg.

Patrick shook his head. “I think he’s going to want to look at your ankle—one way or another.”

Kerry thought for a minute. “As soon as we stop for lunch, I want you to run up and fetch Mr. Haskell—Scott Tell him I need to take him up on his offer.”

Patrick frowned. “What offer?”

“Of help. If my foot’s already been looked at by an expert, Captain Hunter can’t insist on treating it.”

“Mr. Haskell’s an expert?”

Kerry’s chin lifted and her smile held a touch of defiance. “He shoes horses, doesn’t he?”

Scott had agreed to help deflect the attention of the wagon train captain from Kerry’s obviously feminine legs, but only with the condition that she let him really check on the state of her ankle.

“I’m telling you, it’s nothing,” she said, her dirtsmeared face growing red. She’d been without a mother since she was a child and had grown up in a household with two males. She wasn’t used to anyone seeing a portion of her body that should in all decency be covered up.

“Sorry, lass,” Scott answered with a charming grin as he climbed up on the side rail to lift her down from the wagon seat. “If I’m to help out with this little deception of yours, I’ve got to do it with a clean conscience. What if your ankle’s actually broken?”

“It can’t be broken,” Kerry answered firmly. “I can’t afford for it to be.”

Scott chuckled and bobbled her a bit in his arms as he awkwardly stepped backward down to the ground. “It wouldn’t dare,” he clarified.