Gerrity'S Bride (28 page)

“You love me, Gerrity?” she asked, with a delicate emphasis on each word.

He nodded and waited for her reaction.

It was beautiful beyond belief. Her expression was almost like that which she had bestowed on Tessie at times, and yet it was different. She was blossoming before him like the cactus on the desert to the south. Damned if she wasn’t the prettiest thing he’d ever laid eyes on, with that soft mouth and those blue eyes filled with wonderment.

“Oh, Matt!” She looked at him helplessly, blinking until a single tear overflowed from each eye, to vanish into the hair at her temples.

“Oh, Matt!” she repeated in a soft whisper, as if they were the only words she could speak.

“Emmaline?” He was prompting her, willing her to give him the words her eyes were speaking silently.

She reached for him and buried her face in his throat, her mouth open against his skin. In a whisper that brought a shiver of delight to his soul, she answered his plea.

“I’ve loved you for such a long while.” It was a breath of surrender, a giving of herself, and he cherished the moment, holding her close, relishing the softness of her curving length against his hard body.

“Since when, Em?” he asked against her ear, his breath warm, his mouth damp, his lips moving against the convoluted curl of her flesh.

“I don’t want to tell you,” she said primly. “You’ll gloat.”

“No...” he told her with a chuckle. “Just tell me.”

“Since before the night in the hotel...since that afternoon.”

“That afternoon?” He was puzzled. “Before we got married?”

She nodded her head. “Well, after the first time...but before the second time. When you sent for a bath for me and had someone bring in my wedding clothes.”

“That made you love me?” he asked incredulously.

She peeked a look at him, her cheeks rosy, her mouth pursed, her eyes gleaming with joy. “You knew what I needed, Matt. You were willing to stand before the preacher and do the whole thing up right, and I knew then that I was glad we were getting married.”

“Coulda fooled me,” he growled, intent on touching her tender flesh, his hand brushing against her arm and across her shoulder.

“I was afraid, you know,” she confided softly.

“Of me? I wouldn’t hurt you, Em,” he told her quietly.

“No...just of everything. You know, the loving...the part when you...” She groaned and turned her face from him. “You know what I mean!”

“Doesn’t hurt anymore, does it?” he asked in a silky whisper.

“No.”

“Got a headache, Em?” His whisper had deepened into a husky growl.

She shook her head. It was a small, infinitesimal movement.

“How bad do you hurt, honey?” The words were barely audible as he buried his face against her throat.

“Only down my side, a little,” she allowed.

“Hmm...not here?” he asked, his hand cupping the soft weight of her breast.

“A little, near my ribs, I think.”

“Hmm...” He scooted down till his mouth settled with feathered kisses on the bruise that marred her flesh. “I know you didn’t have Tessie kiss this one,” he told her.

“Matt!” She cuffed at his ear with a restrained touch, her voice reproving.

His eyes narrowed as he lifted to look more closely at the bruise, and his mouth tightened as he thought of what she had suffered at the hands of Kane Burton and Olivia Champion.

“Are you sure I won’t hurt you, Em?” he asked soberly as he struggled against the urge that drove him to possess her.

“I need you, Matt,” she whispered. “I need you to touch all the places that hurt, and drive away all the bad memories.”

He framed her face with his palms, holding himself back from crushing her into the bedding. The words came more easily this time, and he spoke them with tenderness. “I love you, Emmie. I’ll always love you,” he promised. “I’ll take care of you and Tessie for the rest of my life.”

She sucked in her breath with a sob, and he stiffened. “Don’t you cry now, Emmaline. You hear me? Or I’ll never tell you that again,” he vowed.

“I cry sometimes when I’m happy,” she admitted, blinking back the tears that threatened to slip from her eyes.

“Are you happy?”

She nodded. “I love you, Matt.” She slipped her arms about his neck and drew his face to hers, nibbling at his lips and stretching against his hard body.

It was an invitation he couldn’t resist, and he responded as she’d known he would. With the power of his passion restrained, lest he crush her beneath him and take her before she was ready to accept him, he moved against her. With his strength harnessed into gentleness, he caressed her, moving with careful precision, caging the desire that would have had him surging against her tender body, his hands and mouth worshiping the fragile flesh he had bared to his inspection.

She twisted, her body reaching for him, her hands grasping to tug him closer; but he quieted her, whispering and coaxing until she could no longer contain the plea of her heart.

“Matt...please. I need you to...” Her movements were agile as she readied herself beneath him, her fingers searching between their bodies to lay hold upon the hard, thrusting length of him. And then she sighed, sobbing her relief as she brought him to herself, surging upward as she captured him within her flesh.

“Emmie,” he murmured, “I love you,” and realized anew that it was true.

* * *

Tessie was full of questions, and her eyes were big as she looked from Matt to Emmaline at the dinner table. “Won’t Miss Olivia be coming back anymore?” she asked. “Did you send her away ‘cause she lied to me, Matt?”

He shook his head, choosing his words carefully. “Sometimes people do bad things, short stuff,” he told her soberly. “Miss Olivia lied to everyone. She caused a lot of bad things to happen, and she has to be punished for it.”

“I’d sure never do bad stuff, Matt,” the child assured him as she tucked into the meal on her plate.

“I know you wouldn’t, honey,” he told her, flashing a smile at Emmaline.

“Who’s gonna teach me now?” Tessie asked. “Maybe I’m old enough to go to real school, don’t you think?”

“Not yet,” Matt said firmly. “In another year or two, maybe.”

Emmaline laid her fork down and rested her arm on the table in front of her. “Maybe I could be Tessie’s teacher for a while,” she suggested quietly. “I think I could keep up with her, at least for a couple of years.”

Matt grinned his approval, and she relished the warmth of his smile. “I can use the same books, and add a few of my own,” she suggested. “I think she was pushing Tessie a little, anyway. Maybe we can lay off the lessons for the rest of the summer, and take them up again in September.”

“How does that sound to you, short stuff?” Matt asked the child.

“But I can go to real school next year?” she wanted to know.

“We’ll see,” Emmaline said, making no promises.

“We’ve got another project to work on, you know, Em,” Matt reminded her with a wolfish gleam in his eye. “You may be up to your neck in—”

“Matt!” she admonished him, her cheeks flaming.

“Suppose we might have already taken care of it?” he asked innocently.

She gave an exasperated groan. “Will you behave yourself?” Her eyes flew to where Tessie sat, her fork halfway to her mouth, her eyes flashing with interest in the guarded conversation.

“Well,” he conceded, “I guess we could talk about it later. I’m feelin’ pretty perky this evening, anyway, what with sleepin’ half the day away.” His eyes sparkled as he set to with vigor, eating the dinner Maria had prepared as a celebration for them.

Emmaline poked at her food, aware of places on her body that would be tender for days to come, conscious of the weariness that still held her in its sway. And more aware than ever of the man who sat at the end of the table, his knee almost touching her own beneath the concealing folds of the white tablecloth.

He loves me, she thought with a sense of wonder. He said so, she remembered with a flush of pleasure as she recalled his impassioned words.

“Emmaline?” His voice nudged her into awareness, and she looked up to find him leaning toward her, his gaze intent on her face.

“Yes?”

“Are you all right?” he asked. “You looked like you were...” He shook his head, descriptive words escaping him.

“I’m fine, Matt. I’ve never been better, in fact. A little tired, a little sore, and a whole lot happy.”

“Me too,” Tessie chimed in. “I’m a whole lot happy, Emmie. We’re really a family, aren’t we?” she chirped, already far removed from the near tragedy that had threatened their lives.

“Yes, we’re a family,” she agreed. “At least we’re the beginning of a family,” she amended with a smile. “Just the beginning, Tessie.”

“S
hould we tell Oswald Hooper?” The question was spoken into the darkness, and Matt frowned.

“I thought you were sleepin’ already,” he said accusingly. “You need your rest. Besides, unless old Oswald is blinder’n a bat, he probably knows already.”

“If you don’t quit picking at me, I’m going to change my mind about this,” she threatened. “I’ve been resting every afternoon and eating everything Maria pokes at me. I’ll sleep when I please, thank you!”

“Damn, you’re a spitfire these days, Emmaline Gerrity!” He turned to her and scooped her against him, his hands tender as he arranged her to his satisfaction. She wiggled against him, and he groaned.

“Now, cut that out, Em,” he told her. “I’m doin’ my best to take care of you here, and you just won’t let me.”

“I have a real need to be taken care of tonight,” she told him soberly, snuggling closer.

His hand swept up beneath her gown and rested with a possessive gesture against the roundness of her belly. “Are you sure it won’t hurt him?” he asked. “‘Course, I can be real careful. In fact, I can probably think of something new that will—”

“Matt! I’m fine. The doctor said that this baby is about as safe as he’s ever going to be in his life, right now. He told me that it would be a good two months before he’s born, and—”

“He? He? Emmaline?” he asked hopefully.

“I thought you wanted a boy,” she reminded him.

“Yeah, I guess,” he agreed. His hand moved against her swollen flesh, and he grinned in the darkness as a small limb poked into his palm. “Feels like a boy’s foot to me,” he said solemnly.

She giggled and nestled against him suggestively.

“Tell you what,” he said, lifting her gown higher and easing her from its confines. “I’ll look things over, and little Sam and me’ll take a vote.”

“A vote?”

“Yeah, we’ll decide just how to go about this tonight. And just you wait till I tell you a new idea I thought of today while I was gettin’ your stud into the breeding pen.”

“Gerrity, will you behave?”

His mouth was seeking, his hands were urging, and his voice was husky with the need he carried with him like a second skin. “I’m tryin’, Em. I guess there’s just no hope for me, is there?” he said sighing against the tender flesh of her breast.

“Umm...not much, Gerrity,” she agreed. “But I’ll keep you, anyway.”

* * * * *

ISBN: 978-1-4592-8356-5

Gerrity’s Bride

Copyright © 1995 by Carolyn Davidson

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