Almost a Lady (20 page)

The question sounded simple enough.

Nothing with Willow could be so simple.

Still, after a moment of careful consideration, he warily answered, “Yes.” It wasn't entirely true; he wouldn't quit meddling in her life if he thought it was in her best interest, but he would stop trying to deliberately provoke her.

"Fine; then I'll marry you."

He blinked.
“Really?"

"No, not really,” she snapped, her breasts thrusting out over her crossed arms. “But you agreed that if I
said
I'd marry you, you'd leave me alone. So I'm
saying
I'll marry you.
Now good-bye."

"Nice try,” he muttered, annoyed by her callous tactic.

"What were you
thinking?
” she charged. “Don't you know better than to blurt out something like that in front of a child—
especially a child like
Erik? All he's ever wanted is to live in
New York
with me, and now he thinks you've magically appeared to grant his fondest wish. How could you
do
something like that?"

Her body vibrated with tension. Her hands were balled into fists at her sides, buried slightly within the folds of her faded green skirt. He'd never seen her in such plain attire and suspected she kept a change of clothes or two here for when she visited. She would certainly look out of place traipsing around in her
New York
finery—though she did look delectable in some of those tight, low-cut gowns.

Drawing his mind back to the matter at hand, he immediately apologized. “I'm sorry. I knew I'd made a mistake the moment I opened my mouth. But if Erik has always wanted to go to
New York
with you, why won't you take him?"

"I can't take him.” Turning, she stalked deeper into the shadows of the barn. “Have you forgotten that I'm a Pinkerton agent?” she asked, coming to rest beside an empty wagon bed. “My work is dangerous. I move around a lot, sometimes never knowing where I'll be from day to day. I couldn't drag Erik into that. And I wouldn't feel comfortable leaving him with just anyone while I'm away."

Brandt didn't respond, wanting to hear what she had to say. The truth, for a change, and only the second time she'd opened up to him.

She boosted herself up on the lowered tail end of the wagon and seemed to relax a bit as she rested her hands flat on either side of her hips. “He likes it here,” she continued. “The Nelsons are wonderful to him. He has a few friends, and plenty of room to run around and be a little boy. The townspeople have known him since birth and are less inclined to judge him for his inabilities. I'm afraid it wouldn't be that way in
New York
—or anywhere else I might take him."

Her eyes had a pleading look in them that nearly crushed him.

"Can't you understand that? I'm trying to protect him."

He did understand.
Only too well, because he now felt protective of not only her, but of her brother as well.
Yet he'd met Erik and taken an instant liking to him, so perhaps others would, too, making that fear unwarranted.

"I do, but you can't protect him forever,” he said, careful of both his tone and words, because the last thing he wanted was to upset her again. If he did, he might find himself banished to sleeping outside with Piddle and waking up smelling like an outhouse. It was not a prospect that enraptured him. “You won't always be able to keep him from people you think will be cruel. You won't always be able to hide him away like you're doing now."

"I'm not hiding him away!"

"You are, and we both know it. You're lucky Erik hasn't figured out what you're doing yet, or I'm guessing he'd have a few things to say about it. He's a wonderful boy, Willow, and he's going to grow into a wonderful man. He's not perfect, though none of us are, so that shouldn't be a vital issue. It's unfortunate that Erik's flaws happen to be physical and therefore more easily visible to those who may not be as accepting of imperfections. Then again, people like that are shallow and vain and will all burn in Hell soon enough, so Erik should be taught not to give a turkey's tail feather about them or the things they might say.

"Are you teaching him that?” Brandt questioned. “Are you teaching him to live in a world where people can be cruel and unfeeling, but where he can thrive all the same? That's what you should be worried about,” he said softly, “not about how many people might see him and notice he's different."

He expected her to charge at him, skin him like a buffalo hide. But instead she buried her face in her hands and burst into tears.

Oh, Christ, what have I done?

Brandt stood motionless, his limbs weighed down by fear and uncertainty. What should he do? He'd never seen Willow cry. Except for that time in Robert's office, which didn't count, because they'd all known she was only putting on a show of female hysterics to get out of pretending to be married to him. But she was actually weeping now, her shoulders quaking in misery as tears dripped out from under her palms to darken small spots on the front of her pale blue shirtwaist.

He was an ignoramus.
A buffoon.
A bumbling idiot.
He wanted this woman to marry him. He should be wooing and romancing and bringing her flowers. Instead, what did he do? He criticized her parenting methods and made her cry.

Stepping forward, his hands hovered an inch from her arms before beginning to soothe and caress. He wasn't sure she'd appreciate the gesture; perhaps she didn't want to be touched right now. Perhaps she didn't want to be touched by
him
ever again.

But she didn't pull away, and he took that as a good sign. His thumbs drew circles on her skin through the fabric of her blouse. And then he moved one hand to the base of her neck, enjoying the feel of her silky hair between his fingers. Pulling her downturned head against his chest, he let her cry.

He was beginning to think that he wasn't completely to blame for this outburst, after all. She was probably upset about what he'd said, yes, but he knew Willow well enough to realize that her initial response to being challenged would be to straighten her spine and turn the air blue with indignation.

She was strong and independent and probably never let an emotion through her defenses unless it had a direct bearing on the case she was working. For her to fall apart like this—in front of another person, no less—most likely signaled that she'd
been needing
a release for quite a while.

So he let her cry it out and did nothing more than hold her, pat her back, and whisper calming words above her temple.

After several long minutes, Willow's tears seemed to subside. She sniffed, wiped her eyes and nose on the front of his shirt, and sat up, avoiding his gaze.

He refused to let her be embarrassed. Being a man, he didn't cry very often himself, but he knew from experience how purging tears could be. He ran his thumbs beneath her eyelids and over her damp cheeks, ran his lingers through her auburn curls.

"Feel better?” he asked softly.

"No.” Her voice broke, creating a new wave of misery. “Do you really think I'm too protective of Erik? That I'm smothering him?"

"I don't think you can ever be too protective of a child,” Brandt answered honestly, stroking her face and neck. “But I do think you need to begin teaching him how to take care of himself.
How to deal with people who may not be as accepting as you and I and the Nelsons.
And I don't think bringing him to live with you is such a bad idea. He misses you, he loves you,
he
wants to be close to you.” Brandt put a finger under her chin and forced her to meet his gaze. “Am I wrong to believe you miss him, love him, and want him to be close to you, too?"

He didn't need to hear her answer to know he was right, but her nod pleased him all the same. “Just think,” he continued, “you could tuck him into bed every night, read to him,
teach
him about guns and knives and other assorted weapons from your personal arsenal.
Though I'd wait a few years to tell him about his sister's adventures as a songbird in a Jefferson City brothel."

To his great relief, she laughed. The sound was higher pitched than usual and a bit watery.
Music to his ears.

"But how am I supposed to take care of him?” she asked in all seriousness. “You know how tenuous my position is at the Agency; even Robert isn't sure how much longer he can keep Superintendent Warner from dismissing me. And I travel so much. I'm not sure I can afford to pay someone to stay with him when I have to be away."

Brandt framed her face in his hands, smiled into her shining violet eyes, and planted a kiss smack on her full, luscious lips. “That's why you have me, sweetheart. I make a good living with me Union Pacific and my job doesn't require me to travel as much as yours might, so I can be with Erik anytime you can't. And most of the times you can. How does that sound?” he asked, still grinning.

A trace of amusement lifted the corners of her mouth. “You're not going to stop pestering me about that, are you?"

He shook his head. “Uh-uh. Are you ever going to stop rejecting me?"

She took a deep breath, wrapped her own arms around his neck, and leaned forward to press a kiss to his mouth. “Uh-huh."

Brandt pulled
back,
staring at her with what he knew must be a dumbstruck expression. He was hearing things. She'd said
uh-uh,
the same as he had,
hadn't
she? But his ears were full of wax, or his mind was distracted by her close proximity, and he'd misheard her. “Did you say ‘uh-huh’ or ‘uh-uh'?” he asked to be sure.

"Uh-huh.” She kissed his jaw and toyed with the ends of his hair.

He took another step back, breaking all contact with her. Her fingers were beginning to raise his temperature, her lips raising other things, and he wanted to be able to focus his entire attention on her answer to this next question.

"Are you saying. . .
”
He had to swallow and moisten his dry throat before he could get all the words out. “Do you mean that you
will
marry me? You're not simply telling me that to lull me into a false sense of security?"

She chuckled and slipped her fingers into the waistband of his trousers to pull him forward, into the crook of her legs. “Yes. I will marry you. No lulling involved.” She fumbled with the buckle of his belt while pecking small, closemouthed kisses along his
jawline
, down his neck, to the throbbing pulse just above the collar of his shirt.

Still awash in disbelief, he put a hand over hers to halt her motions. “Why now?” he wanted to know. A strangled sound moved up from his diaphragm, part laugh, part snort. “After putting me off all this time, why capitulate now, when I've upset you the most about Erik?"

Her eyes grew serious as she held his gaze. “You're the first person who's ever been so accepting of Erik. And even though I was suspicious early on that you were only being nice to him to earn favor with me, I know now that you really do like him. Because you wouldn't be so concerned about his future if you didn't. You'd be trying to convince me to leave him here so you wouldn't have to deal with him, not talking me into bringing him with us. You wouldn't be thinking about how he feels and how he'll develop and who's going to be around to take care of him. I trust you with him,” she said simply. And then she tilted her head and gave him a mischievous look. “And you didn't wrinkle your nose when you finally got a good whiff of Piddle."

They both broke into chortles of laughter at that.

"You're wrong about how badly he smells, you know. He doesn't smell like an outhouse. He smells like two outhouses and the East River."

Willow laughed so hard, she fell backwards onto the hard floor of the
wagonbed
. Chuckling along with her, Brandt climbed in next to her and rolled to one side, propping his head on his bent arm. With the other, he reached out and hauled Willow flush with his long frame.

"You
can
trust me, you know. With
Erik,
and with yourself."

She touched his face with one fingertip and drew it down to the center of his chin. “I know,” she said softly. “If I didn't, I wouldn't be marrying you."

He let out a prolonged breath and touched her forehead with his. “I'm awfully glad we finally got all that worked out. Courting you is damn draining."

She punched him in the gut, just hard enough to elicit a cough of pain. “Don't get cocky, Donovan. I can still back out if your pompousness becomes unbearable."

"You like my pompousness,” he teased, giving her a squeeze.

"Hardly,” she said with a most unladylike scoff. “Piddle's stench is preferable to your overblown conceit."

"Which reminds me,” he whispered in a low voice, “before we got sidetracked by Piddle's differing degrees of
malodorousness
, I seem to recall your hand being somewhere around the area of my belt buckle. Any chance you planned to continue along those lines?"

Her mouth quirked up in an inviting moue.
“I could,” she tempted, letting her eyes drift down to his waistband and then back up as she fiddled with the row of buttons on his shirtfront. “Or you could undress me."

That simple suggestion had him hard in an instant. “Are you trying to seduce me?” he asked, surprised the words came out as anything more than a moan.

"Uh-huh."

"God,” he groaned, “I love this agreeable, complacent side of you. Tell me what I did to bring this on so I can do it much, much more often."

"Don't get too used to it,” she warned him with a laugh, her hands once again working the belt free of his pants.

"Damn,” he muttered.
His own
hands were busy loosing the buttons of her blouse and cupping the lush swells within the lacy confines of her camisole. “Then I guess I'll have to make do with getting used to this.” He kissed her with all the love and passion that had been building in him since their last encounter, since he'd begun to know the real person inside the woman who would soon be his wife.
“Every night, every day, for the rest of our lives."

"Brandt,” she breathed, coining up for air and doing clever things to his heartbeat as her fingers wriggled their way beneath his cotton drawers. “You talk too much. Now shut up and make love to me, or I'll find someone who will."

His grip tightened on her waist. “Snippy, snippy, snippy,” he murmured with a
tsk
of his tongue. “You should have warned me I'd be marrying a fishwife."

"You should have warned
me
that I'd be marrying a man who would rather talk than pleasure his woman."

His woman.
Damn, he liked the sound of that. “You're right, I've been remiss.” He pulled the tails of her shirt out of the waist of her skirt and then undid the single button at the small of her back. “I hope you'll let me know if I give you
too
much pleasure. I wouldn't want to disappoint my future bride."

"Oh, I'll let you know,” she replied dryly.

Sliding the full skirt past her legs and off, he let it fall to the straw-strewn floor of the barn. She wore a pair of frilly white drawers and silky, equally white stockings beneath her lace-up shoes, held to her thighs by light blue garters.

"And were those . . . bells?” He tinkled the tiny silver chimes. “Your garters match your shirt
and
they have bells on them?"

"I like to stay in fashion,” she said. “And I just thought the bells were cute."

"Very.” He gave them another flick. “But aren't you afraid someone will hear them and get suspicious?"

"The weight of my clothes keeps them quiet. They only jingle when I'm walking around half nude.” She chuckled when he waggled a brow. “Shall I take them off?” She asked the question as if she already knew the answer.
Because she did.

"No. The shoes can come off, the garters stay. I want to see just what makes them sing."

"I can think of a few things.” She bent her knee and placed the sole of her foot flat on his upper thigh, giving him leave to unlace her boots.

He removed one shoe and then the other, letting both drop to the floor. And then he ran his hands along the arches of her delicate feet, over her calves, and up to the edges of the pale stockings.

"The drawers next."

He smiled.
“Yes, ma'am.”
This was one situation where he was more than happy to take her direction. He skimmed the thin material over her hips and off her legs,
then
paused. “What else?"

Lying there in a pose of delectable perfection, she regarded him with heavy-lidded eyes, her head resting on her bent arms. Her auburn curls ran riot around her face, reminding him of how she usually looked
after
they made love. The thought sent a bolt of desire down through his limbs.

"My shirt and camisole,” she instructed, making no move to help him disrobe her.

He ran his hands over the outlines of her garters, tracing her naked torso, until his fingers came to rest under the hem of her top. With his palms against her back beneath the material, he lifted her into a sitting position and watched the shirtwaist fall from her shoulders. Then he lifted the camisole, pushing her arms up over her head until he could remove the garment altogether.

Lowering her back to the
wagonbed
, he let his gaze absorb every inch of her ravishing beauty. Tousled hair; bare, pouting breasts; smooth belly; tight auburn curls; and long, slim legs encased in fantasy-inspiring garters and hose.

He licked his lips and swallowed hard. “What next, Madame Seductress?"

"Now. . .” she purred slowly, “it's my turn."

Rising to her knees, she hovered above him, pressing on his chest until he leaned back against the side of the wagon. She tugged at his boots first, tossing them to the growing pile of clothes on the barn floor. She lifted herself by placing her hands on his upper thighs, then letting them drift between his legs, practically cupping his rampant desire.