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Dorothy Garlock - [Dolan Brothers] (28 page)

BOOK: Dorothy Garlock - [Dolan Brothers]
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“You look a lot alike—but I said that, didn’t I?” She laughed nervously.
“Folks in Nebraska used to say you could tell a Dolan from a mile away. We all looked like our pa—black Irish Catholics, dancing their way to hell, is how an old preacher put it.”
“If that’s true, maybe you should consider entering the marathon,” she teased, suddenly feeling light and young and happy.
“Will you be my partner?”
“I’ve not danced . . . much. Daddy and I went to a few country square dances. The neighbors would get together and hold them under a brush arbor when a fiddler was available. They’d have watermelon feeds sometimes and dinner on the ground.”
She spoke in a distinctive Texas/Oklahoma drawl. Tom wished that she would keep talking, but she suddenly became quiet, thinking she was rambling on about things he had little interest in.
He finished eating, stood, and stacked the bowl and eating utensils on his plate and placed them on the work counter.
“Thank you for the meal,” he said, looking down at her. His eyes that fastened to her calm, beautiful face held the familiar hint of sadness.
“You’re welcome.”
“I’m beginning to feel like a beggar.”
“I don’t know why. Neighbors around here always help neighbors.” Feeling her face begin to heat, Henry Ann rushed into speech. “Grant and Johnny are on the porch if you have time to sit a while and visit.”
“No, I’d better get on back.” He went to the kitchen door.
Henry Ann reached up, switched off the light, and followed him to the porch. She didn’t want him to leave . . . yet. She pushed open the screen door and stepped out of the kitchen, her eyes searching the darkness, and walked into him. The jolt of bumping into his hard body sent her rocking back on her heels. He grabbed at her arm to steady her.
“I’m sorry,” she gasped. “It’s dark out here.”
Feeling the warm skin of her arm under his hand, and with the sweet, clean scent of her filling his senses, Tom realized that he was trapped as securely as a fly on a sticky strip. He had to have a few more minutes with her. Throwing any niggling misgivings, together with caution, to the wind, his fingers tightened caressingly on her arm.
“Walk with me to the oak tree.” His whisper was urgent.
“Someone could be watching,” she murmured breathlessly.
“Who?”
“Pete Perry, your . . . Mrs. Dolan.”
“I made sure she was asleep before I left. I’ll beat hell out of Perry if I catch him out here spying on you.”
Henry Ann stepped off the porch. Tom’s hand had somehow slid under her arm and was holding it close to his side. The soft, scented darkness closed around them. They reached the tree at the edge of the farm yard. Henry Ann moved without thinking from the time they left the porch until he turned her to face him. Her awareness sprang to life now as her eyes fastened on the buttons of his shirt.
Oh, my goodness! What am I doing? This is wrong. He has a wife. He’s married, he’s married, he’s married—
“There’s so much . . . I’d like to tell you—”
She lifted her face to look into the dark eyes.
“About Jay?”
He sighed deeply. “Jay is part of it.”
“I’ve told you not to worry about him. I love having him here. He’s a dear little boy.”
“Sweet, sweet woman—” The words came on a breath and so softly she wasn’t sure she’d heard them.
Without realizing that he’d made the decision to do so, Tom slowly, almost haltingly, lowered his mouth to hers. It was a gentle, sweet, and lingering kiss. Her lips were moist and slightly parted in surprise. At the first gentle touch of his lips, the ground beneath her feet fell away. With his hands on her elbows, he gently drew her to him and almost groaned when her soft breasts first touched his chest and when he felt the heat of her hands through his shirt, as they slid around his waist. Their lips clung.
A moment became eternity.
When they drew apart, he gasped as if he were drowning. It was an effort that brought no relief to his pounding heart.
She had not been outraged. She had not pulled away.
He buried his face in her neck, kissing it and rubbing his cheek against it. He nuzzled her earlobe, her cheek, felt her breath quicken. Their mouths found each other again. The heat of this kiss was intense.
Reality was swept away in a blinding flash. He became lost in her beauty, her strength, her goodness. They clung desperately to each other, their lips inseparable. His hands moved up and down her back, hungry to feel every inch of her, to mold her to him.
He should stop! But he wouldn’t, couldn’t!
Something was happening to Tom’s restraint. But he didn’t care. He could feel himself slipping away. He was becoming one with the woman pressed tightly to him, joining more than bodies; merging minds . . . souls. She felt so . . . goddamn good! Her hands stroking and caressing his sides and back were driving him to the sweetest sort of insanity. He drank from her mouth like a starving man.
Time passed unnoticed.
The madness had to end. Tom lifted his head. Her face was still tilted to his; her eyes were closed. Panic welled inside him, and he fought against it.
Would his foolish action cause him to lose her?
“I . . . can’t say that I’m sorry,” he gasped. “I wanted it . . . so much.”
Loving the feel of his lean, muscular body pressed to hers, she wrapped her arms even more tightly around him.
“It’s all right.” She stood in his embrace, her head bowed. Their hearts beat together in one rhythm, protesting any move to separate.
Her sweetness and her vulnerability made him feel guilty, unworthy.
“I didn’t plan to do that. But God help me! I can think of nothing but you.”
“It’s . . . wrong—” The spoken words forced her to face reality, and she pushed away from him. His arms fell from around her, but his hands slid down her arms to capture hers and grasp them tightly.
“I would have come here tonight if I’d had to walk through a valley of rattlesnakes. I kept telling myself it was to see Jay, but it was to see you.”
“It’s wrong,” she said again more forcefully, as if to convince herself.
“I know. I know. Emmajean is helpless and sick with a kind of sickness that’s hard to deal with. She hurt Jay, and at times she tries my patience to the limit, but she’s to be pitied. I’m all she has. Her folks don’t want her. They would be pleased never to see her again.”
“You don’t have to . . . explain.”
“I do!” he said desperately. “I told you how I came to marry her. I never loved her, not for one minute, but I’ve got to stay with her, take care of her. I can’t help it if . . . I have feelings for you. I tried to hide how I felt about you because I knew nothing could come of it. But now you know, and it’s even worse. Henry Ann, look at me. Please.” He tilted her chin with a gentle finger and gazed into her eyes. “I took a vow and I must honor it. I owe her. She gave me my son.”
The face close to hers was the same face she had dreamed about . . . only dearer now.
Please say you love me.
The unspoken wish jarred her, then filled her with fear and dismay. This was a destructive path they were on. She loved him and wanted him to love her. What was she thinking of now? Folks would believe that very flaw they condemned in her mother had been passed on to her.
“Does this change things?” His breath fanned her wet lips.
“What things?”
“Will you still keep Jay? Will you let me come over?”
“Why . . . why, of course, I’ll keep Jay and . . . I want you to come over.”
Henry Ann was still stunned by the enormity of what had happened between them. She had come to terms with the fact that she was in love, deeply and forever, with Tom Dolan, a married man. She loved his wild manliness, his complexity, his dedication to his child. She even loved his loyalty to the vows he had taken.
That he could have feelings for
her
was almost unbelievable. Then, it occurred to her that perhaps his feelings were mere . . . gratitude. She noted that he’d said he had
feelings
for her, not that he loved her. She swallowed the lump that rose in her throat.
“I’d better go in.”
“I . . . can’t let you go until . . . this thing is understood between us.”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“Don’t worry about it?” he echoed and his hands gripped her shoulders, his face so close she could see the intensity there. “How can I not worry about it? You’re everything in the world to me—you and Jay. I’ve never been in love before. Never.”
“You mean . . . you mean that you—” She couldn’t bring herself to ask. It was too important to her.
“I mean that I’m in love with you, you sweet, wonderful woman. I’m crazy in love with you and will be until the day I die!”
“You can’t be!”
“I love you. I can’t keep my eyes off you. I don’t go around kissing women I merely like. Oh, sweetheart, I don’t know why it happened, but I’ve known for days now that I’d gladly give up an arm and a leg to be free to have you by my side for just a little while.” He couldn’t see the tears, but he knew that she was crying.
“Don’t cry, my love. I’d not have told you if I had thought it would upset you. Doesn’t it make you a little happier to know, even if . . .”
“I am glad that you love me. I’m happy tonight, but tomorrow I’ll realize how hopeless it is and think myself a fool for daring to dream about you.”
“Then you care for me? Tell me. You’d not let me kiss you or hold you if you didn’t.”
He wrapped her in his arms and held her. Her face fit in the curve of his neck. He closed his eyes and breathed in the essence of her. This was woman as she was meant to be: warm, caring, giving, wonderful and sweet. He had never questioned God’s wisdom before, but how could He have let them find each other and yet keep the barrier of Emmajean between them?
“I’ve wanted to kiss you almost from the first time we met. You were wearing that crazy hat and trying so hard to be patient with Isabel. Then the morning after your daddy died, when I was at the woodpile and saw you coming across the yard toward me, I felt that somehow we were connected, and that fate had brought us together.”
“I never imagined that love could be so complicated, or that when I met the man I loved, he’d already be married.” Her breath was warm and moist against the skin of his neck. “We can’t do this again.”
He groaned deep in his throat. “I can’t promise it won’t happen again, my love.”
Feelings she couldn’t express choked her, numbing her brain. In his arms she was mindlessly savoring his strength, loving the feeling of being close to his warm, hard body. She had never felt so protected, so cherished.
This is all I’ll ever have, and it will be over all too soon. But I’ll have something to remember.
Tom leaned back and brushed her forehead with a feathery kiss. His hand moved up her back and under her hair at the nape of her neck.
“Go back to the house, sweetheart. I’ll watch until you’re inside.”
“When will you be back?”
“You want me to come back?”
“I do . . . and I don’t. Oh, I do!”
“I can’t stay away!”
Henry Ann was aware of the tremor in his arms and the intensity in his voice. Impetuously she pressed her lips to his cheek. His face turned and his mouth was suddenly there, tasting hers with a hunger they both shared. Breath left her. They were in a world alone. She clung to him with eagerness, their lips blending with an impatient urgency and rode on golden waves of pleasure as the kiss went on and on. As his mouth caressed hers and his tongue branded her with its fiery touch, she trembled with the fervor that built within her. He raised his head and she looked up into dark smoldering eyes.
“I want to think of you as my wife, my partner, my lover. Please let me—” There was a ragged edge to his pleading voice, a roughness to his breathing.
“It’s hopeless! It can . . . never be—” she whispered.
“It can! In our hearts.”
Henry Ann closed her eyes, reveling in the enchantment of being in the circle of his arms. Never had she felt this magic, this closeness to another human being. When she turned her face, his lips were there and she welcomed them, savored the sweet ecstasy that his mouth created with its warm exploration of hers and returned the pressure, the nibbling, giving as much as she was receiving.
“I didn’t mean to kiss you like that.” When he looked at her, he saw the glimmer of tears.
“I’m glad you . . . did.”
He dipped his head again. The brush of his lips was gentle and familiar now. The kiss was quick and terribly sweet. His arms dropped from around her, but he held her hand tightly in his as she moved back, her eyes still on his face. He dropped her hand. She turned and almost ran to the house. On the porch she looked back, but the darkness was too dense for her to see him. Yet she knew that he stood there . . . yearning for her, as she yearned for him.
BOOK: Dorothy Garlock - [Dolan Brothers]
5.45Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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