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her pure-white cloth, pressed the open bottle of whiskey into the material until it was soaked. “This may burn.” A quick but gentle touch of the medicated cloth met the cuts and scratches on his face and the exposed skin of his hands and arms and neck. It stung a little.
    “I don’t recall you saying this would be such a dangerous trip.” She dabbed at the dirt around the cuts. “Or such a long one.”
    “Difficult. I said it would be difficult. That implies danger, don’t you think? It was why I wanted a doctor to join us this time. We need one in the new town that’s waiting for us.”
    “So you’ve told me. Have you traveled with a doctor before?”
    “One or two came with my wagon trains to California, but people went their separate ways at the end of the trail back then. This time it’s different.”
    She set the bottle down on the log and continued to clean the rest of his face until the white disappeared beneath a coating of mud. “You have quite a bruise on your forehead. Do you recall losing consciousness?”
    “I stayed awake for the whole thing.”
    “Why is this trip different?”
    He couldn’t tell her it was because it was the only way he believed he could convince her to leave St. Louis. “Why are you surprised by the hardships? You told me you and Matthew traveled.”
    “We never went by wagon train over rough terrain with barely a trail to follow.”
    “I believe I warned you we would have to take the road less followed by others for the safety of our mission. We’ll encounter the wrong people on the main trails. I’m expecting more trouble the closer we come to the border of Kansas Territory.”
    Her whole body stiffened for an instant and he saw fear plainly in her eyes.
    “Victoria? I’m sorry. I thought you understood. I didn’t mean to frighten you. My plans are to take the southern route into Indian Territory, then head north once we’re well past the border. I’m hoping to have less trouble with border ruffians on that route.”
    “You’re right, of course. I knew it would be a difficult journey.” She sank onto the fallen log beside him, her dress already so covered with mud that the black material appeared brown.
    Something disturbed him about her posture—erect, stiff. “You were planning to make this a permanent move, weren’t you?” he asked.
    She nodded. “I feel safer here in the wilderness with these companions than I have felt since Matthew’s...death.”
    A slight change in her demeanor caught his attention. “Why is that?”
    “I was determined to keep the clinic open by myself, but many didn’t appreciate my caring for the wounded slaves. I had my windows broken three times, someone tried to burn down the clinic and my wagon was burned.”
    “Then I was right to worry. I prayed for your safety all winter, but as I said, the snows made it impossible to get back.”
    She took a deep breath and her shoulders slumped. She met his gaze. “Thank you for caring.”
    He suppressed a smile. That was putting it mildly. But mild seemed to be all she could handle with him right now. Or maybe ever. Ten years was a long time to harbor the love he’d held for her. He was an oddity, he knew. How could he expect her to still care for him after all the changes in their lives? And there had been plenty. Because of her, he’d never moved on with his life, never married, had lived the life of a loner.
    “You definitely had a change of heart since you left for Georgia,” she said.
    Yes, he’d changed, but not about her, as she seemed to think. “It took me several months, but your words struck me forcefully when I reached my father’s plantation.”
    “And now you’re leading abolitionists into Kansas Territory.”
    “Remember those arguments we used to have?” he asked. “As you told me, power corrupts most men. When one human being has total power over another—”
    “It’s too easy to become corrupt, to see the slave as nothing more than a piece of