Jodi Thomas (10 page)

One board came off and clamored to the floor. “Patience has never been my strong suit. I’m not sure I can live here in silence. If you didn’t want me around, why did you pay the fine and marry me? Maybe you just want a housekeeper. But that doesn’t make sense. Except for a little dust, this place is clean.”

Another board hit the floor. “It’s not that I don’t thank you for fetching my things. That was a kind thing to do, but you could have told me about Mosely. If I’d gotten a foot closer to him, I never would have invited him inside. He smells worse than a horse.”

Fascinated, Carter watched her. He’d never seen anyone argue with herself.

She took a deep breath. “All right. If you won’t tell me what bothers you, tell me what you like.”

She faced him squarely, a warrior preparing to fight.

Carter swallowed, guessing she wasn’t going to back down. He had to say something to her, and he had to say it now. “I like ...” He hesitated. “I liked it when you kissed me.”

She couldn’t have looked more surprised if he’d slapped her. “Well, that was only proper. That is what married folks do.” She no longer met his stare.

He was in over his head. He should stop talking. But he had to ask, “How often?”

“How often what?” she answered.

“Do married folks kiss?” He couldn’t remember ever seeing his parents kiss, and he knew he never saw the preacher and his wife touch.

She pulled linen from her crate as if it were vital she got everything out as fast as possible. “I don’t know,” she answered without looking up. “As often as they like, I suppose. I can’t stand around all day talking. I’ve work to do.”

Carter walked to the door as she turned back to her boxes. He decided she was the most fascinating creature he’d ever met. She’d demanded he talk and when he’d asked one question, she’d suddenly been too busy to discuss anything.

He couldn’t get her out of his mind as he unhitched the oxen and put them out to pasture, or when he brushed down the horses and backed the wagon into a comer of the barn. He pulled out his tools and began repairing the bench seat. It would take a month, maybe more, of working a few minutes at a time to get the wagon back in shape. But he could find the time. If she wanted to keep the thing, he’d see that it was in good shape.

He was hanging up the newly oiled harnesses in the tack room when he heard her enter the barn. He didn’t turn around as she neared, he only listened to the swishing sounds her skirt made as she walked and wondered if she ever walked anywhere slowly.

“I thought I’d come out and say thank you once more for bringing my things back from town. Everything happened so fast, the letter, Mr. Mosely, and all. I didn’t tell you how much having my things means to me. The week we were in jail, I was sure someone had taken them or that the weather would ruin them. Not that they’re worth much, but some of my belongings have been with me all my life.”

He could hear her shifting, waiting for him to say something.

“Well, I’ll be getting back. It’s almost time to start supper.”

He turned to face her just as she moved to leave. He held his hand up but stopped short of catching her arm. The memory of how she’d stiffened to his touch was still too fresh.

Her eyes were bright with question, but he saw no fear.

Slowly he brushed his hand along her waist. When she didn’t step away, he slid his fingers to her back and tugged slightly.

Hesitantly she took a step closer to him.

He leaned down, until his mouth was a breath from her lips. There, he waited.

All she had to do was step away, for his hand rested only feather light against her back.

But she didn’t. She waited.

He moved closer, brushing his lips against hers in a kiss as light as summer lace. He wouldn’t frighten her. He’d step away the moment she stiffened to his touch. He just wanted to feel what her kiss would be like on his mouth. He wanted to taste her lips.

To his surprise, she leaned closer.

B
AILEE REMINDED HERSELF SHE’D BEEN KISSED A FEW times before by men who seemed finely polished in experience, but none compared to Carter. He barely touched her lips, yet a warmth spread through her, melting muscle and bone to butter. This wasn’t an advance he made, or conquest. His kiss was simple and straightforward, an experiment in intimacy.

When she leaned closer, his body jerked slightly. She knew he was a man who’d let very few people near.

His short beard tickled her nose, but she wouldn’t break the kiss. Not after she’d told him this was how married people behaved. He was doing what he thought was right, what he obviously wanted to do. Yet at the same time, his silence asked that she respond.

She rested her hand on his shoulder. His body was solid, like an oak. When she opened her lips slightly and moved them against his, she once more felt a quake rivet through him. The very core of his being reacted to her.

But he didn’t step away. He stood, suddenly turning to stone while she brushed her mouth over his, teaching him something he hadn’t known to ask about.

Her fingers slid from his shoulders to his chest, testing the wall that was him, feeling heat pass through the thin layer of his cotton shirt. After a lifetime of being surrounded by people and still very much alone, she needed to know someone was close. She loved pressing her palm against the drumming of another heart. She slowly moved her hand down to his waist, sensing his reaction to her. He was newborn to the feel of her so near.

When her fingers rested at his belt, his hand moved to her shoulder. This time it was her turn to be shocked. His fingers slid down the front of her blouse.

She sighed against his lips as he brushed over her breast. Her mind told her his action was totally improper. Such advances, if they had to occur, should only happen in the bedroom. But she’d been so long without feeling anything but fear or anger that his caress warmed like a beam of paradise accidentally slicing through on a cloudy day.

He was like a child in his discovery, but there was nothing childlike in the way he made her quiver inside. No man had ever made her warm this way, not even Francis Tarleton. How could she be so wanton, so free with a man she hadn’t known twenty-four hours? She’d known Francis all her life. He’d never touched her so intimately. He’d never tried.

Carter was her husband, she told herself. The man with whom she would carry out her marriage duty. But this was far more than duty. This was pure pleasure.

His hand now rested solidly at her waist. The warmth and the strength of it penetrated her clothing. His mouth opened slightly, as hers had, and the light pressure increased against her lips.

Bailee shook once more, for the warmth became a fire inside her. A fire she’d never known, sweeping through her limbs and stirring her blood. Anger also crept into paradise. Anger that she’d lived her life without ever knowing this feeling existed.

She broke the kiss and lowered her forehead against his shoulder while trying to control the emotions running wild within her. How could a man, a silent man, make her discover this huge gap in her life, especially when he knew even less about what he was doing when it came to loving than she did?

“Is something wrong?” he asked between quick breaths. His words seemed rusty, unsure.

“No,” she lied, knowing something was very wrong. Not with him, or even with them, but with her. “Your beard.” She grasped for something to say. “Your beard scratches my face.”

He stepped away without a word. For several minutes she watched him working, putting all his tools back in order. She couldn’t tell if he was angry at her or embarrassed at what they’d done. For once, he didn’t stare. He didn’t even look at her. He seemed to have forgotten she was in the barn with him.

“I best be getting back to the house. I think it’s time to start supper if I plan to have it ready by dark. I need to stop at the garden, and I want to check the smokehouse as well.” She was rambling. She knew it. All her life she’d hated people who spoke simply to fill the silence. Now she was doing just that. She hurried away before she made an even bigger fool of herself.

The sun had completely disappeared by the time Carter joined her hours later. He looked tired. His clothes were stained and sweaty as though he’d been working hard. Droplets of water dotted his beard and sleeves. She guessed he’d washed his hands and face at the stand by the well.

Bailee wondered if his dress was unusual or if he returned to dinner every night like this. Except for a few tobacco stains or ink spots, her father never got anything on his clothes, and though he often looked tired, he never looked sweaty. His dress was a ritual with him, as orderly as his accounts.

Bailee watched Carter twist his shoulder as if trying to work out soreness. His shirt tightened across his back, revealing the muscles beneath. The bulk of him seemed unnatural. Her father and Francis were both lean. Compared to Carter, they looked little more than skin over bones. She’d seen men on the street, workingmen, with such bulk, but never a gentleman.

She thought of telling him to change his clothes before he sat down at her best table, but she guessed people who lived out here isolated from all society didn’t follow such rules. She also had no idea where he kept his extra clothes, surely not the barn or tack room. Yet there were no dirty clothes lying around, and the ones he’d worn last night in the rain had disappeared.

He didn’t seem to notice the white linen across the table, or the napkins, or her best candlesticks. He watched her, as though seeing only her in the room.

Bailee set the food on the table in serving bowls, not pots. He didn’t say a word as he studied her, following her lead when she filled her plate. She thought of several things to say, but feared the words would sound like rattling so she remained silent. His table manners were not polished, but they were passable. Bailee wondered if he tasted his food, for his attention never left her.

When they finished, he helped her carry the dishes to the washstand and, to her shock, began washing them. Bailee dried and put everything away, thinking how strange it was for a man to do such a thing. She tried to reason that, of course, he’d done dishes thousands of times if he lived alone, but she’d never seen a man do any housework with a woman near. The few times she’d left her father for a day or two, her work had been waiting for her when she’d returned.

As she put the last of her dishes in Carter’s china hutch, he slowly folded into the rocker by the fire. A book rested on his leg, but he didn’t open it. For a time he watched her. Then, slowly, his eyes closed, and she knew he’d fallen asleep.

She debated waking him, but decided to let him sleep. Whatever he’d done all afternoon must have been hard work. Besides, she wasn’t sure he hadn’t slept in the rocker last night. Maybe this was where he planned to sleep until the month was over and he joined her in her bed.

She sat in the shadows beside the hearth and listened to the sounds beyond the house. The noises of the night in the cities she’d lived in were totally different from what she now heard. All her life she fell asleep to buggies rolling in the street below and people talking as they walked. With the night’s aging, there were fewer walkers and they talked in whispers.

But tonight there were no rolling wheels, no hushed conversations. Even the mumblings of families bedding down on the wagon train were gone. Tonight there was only silence.

She scooted closer to the fire, telling herself the strange sounds she now heard were nothing to fear. The warning in Lacy’s note crossed her mind as it had a hundred times today. Zeb Whitaker wasn’t alive. He couldn’t be. Lacy was only listening to rumors. There was nothing to fear, Bailee reminded herself. She was safe.

Carter’s hand moved against the rocking chair’s arm. For a moment she hoped he was awake so she could tell him how silly she was being, worrying about a dead man. But Carter’s eyes were closed in sleep, his face relaxed. Yet his fingers twisted in odd movements as if making a pattern of shapes.

He had to be dreaming, trying to accomplish something in his sleep. She lay her hand gently over his. The movements continued inside the cup of her hand. Slowly his fingers relaxed as he traveled deeper into sleep, and she leaned back into the shadows.

Bailee stood and lowered the lantern’s wick. Hesitantly she brushed a kiss across his forehead and lifted the book from his leg, then checked to make sure all the locks were in place. Yet, when she crawled into bed, she still didn’t feel safe. If, by chance, Lacy’s note was true, Zeb Whitaker might be out there somewhere planning to kill her. He seemed a ruthless man who would stop at nothing if he thought she’d taken something from him. Alone in the darkness, she wasn’t sure the locks, or even Carter, would be enough to protect her.

If she were being practical, she would be safer and so would Carter if she left.

Bailee twisted deeper into the covers. Reminding herself she had married. She couldn’t just announce she was leaving because someone she thought she killed might be alive.

Staring through the shadows, Bailee tried to reason. Her eyes drifted to the thin strip of brown paper she’d first taken from her pocket and placed on the dresser when she’d arrived. The room was far too dark to read the words, but she remembered what Carter’s note said: “Be my wife, all my life.”

It didn’t matter if Zeb Whitaker was alive or dead. There was no more running. She’d agreed to Carter’s terms of marriage, and she wouldn’t back out.

Beneath the covers Bailee moved her fingers as Carter had done, hoping by repeating his action she too would fall sound asleep. She remembered the way his lips had touched hers, how she’d felt safe in his arms. Finally she fell asleep thinking of being wrapped safely in his embrace.

 

After a restless night Bailee was up and in the kitchen at dawn. The sun came through the long windows, brightening the room. Carter had disappeared from the rocker, but he’d already made a pot of coffee, which told her he was up and probably working.