Vows (60 page)

 
"Because I almost lost you. And because life is precious and we've squandered too much of ours."

 
Again he covered her mouth with his own and drew her up by the jaws, the kiss a gentle thing of rediscovery. In time he urged her lips apart and tasted her fully, still holding her jaws, for to touch her anywhere else would be to rush his sweet reunion for which they had waited so long. Scarcely lifting his head, he murmured, "We have a houseguest."

 
"He's asleep."

 
"And Frankie."

 
"He's asleep, too, though I believe I should not care if either of them opened the door this moment and walked in. Oh, Edwin, my heart has been yours too long without making it official."

 
"I love you, Fannie Cooper. I've loved you longer than I've loved any other human being on this earth."

 
"And I love you, Edwin Walcott … as much as I might have loved any husband, any father of my children, which in my heart you always were. I love you unconditionally … shamelessly."

 
"Oh, Fanny, Fannie." His voice grew ardent with passion and he strewed fevered kisses across her face and throat. "We should have done this years ago."

 
"I know."

 
He bracketed her breasts; their swells filled his hands as he kissed her again with a lifetime's restraints at last abandoned. As their tongues joined, he found the twist of her belt and freed it straightaway, slipping both hands inside and caressing her through a thin muslin nightgown—breasts, buttocks, spine—then settling her against his hips to discover that their bodies blended as he remembered. Abruptly he drew back. "Let me take this off." As his hands rose, so did hers, and he removed her garments in one clean sweep, relegating them to a puddle at her ankles.

"Ohh … Fannie." His eyes dropped from her pleased smile to the sight of his own great hands lifting her breasts, his thumbs sweeping up lightly to brush their crests. He flattened a palm upon her soft abdomen, examined with his fingertips the nest of feminine curls the color of sunset. "I knew you'd look this way. Small … pale … freckled … I love your freckles."

 
"Oh, Edwin, nobody loves freckles."

 
"I do, because they're yours." He kissed some that tinted her most intimate places while she watched his head from above, loving the sight of him bowed low to her. In time she urged him upright.

 
"I'm impatient … let me see you, too, Edwin." He stood and lifted his arms, and she took his nightshirt the route hers had gone, up and away until it landed with as much forethought as a seed borne upon wind. "Oh, my…" she praised, spreading a hand upon his hirsute chest, riding it down his belly and lower, touching him first with the backs of her knuckles. "Aren't you magnificent," she breathed, watching her fingers skim over his hot flesh.

 
He chuckled once, deeply and affectionately. "You
are
shameless, Fannie, aren't you?"

 
"Absolutely." She smiled, lifting her face for his kiss as she took him in hand without a trace of diffidence.

 
A shock rippled through him at her first stroke.

 
"Fannie—" he whispered, the word throaty and broken.

 
He touched her likewise, without compunction, inside her warmth and wetness, bringing a shudder to her frame as she hunched slightly and sucked in a swift breath. He stirred her until she arched, whispering, "Oh, Edwin … at last… and so good…"

 
Within seconds impatience bore down upon them and weighted their limbs. He swept her up and onto the bed, dropping down beside her, kissing her breasts and belly, murmuring praises against her skin while her hands threaded his hair.

 
She was wholly unencumbered by false modesty, giving access where he would seek, touch, explore. She had always been a woman who knew her own mind, and when that mind was decided, as it was now, she flew free.

 
"My turn," she whispered, rolling him to his back, taking the same liberties she had allowed. Where he'd touched her, she, too, touched him. Where he'd kissed, she, too, kissed, until both had learned the long-denied flavors and textures of the other. Only when she had taken her fill did she allow him dominance again.

 
Once more upon her back, Fannie stretched, catlike, smiling first for herself and secondly for him as he stroked her and watched her arch in unrestrained satisfaction. There, stretched supine, with her arms upthrown, she experienced a grand, racking climax, lifting and shuddering with unexpected swiftness beneath Edwin's hands. Upon its dying ebbs he kissed her beaded breast and said against her skin, "I knew you'd be like this, too. I just knew it. Fannie, you're wonderful."

 
"Mmm…" she murmured, eyes closed, lips tipped up in plain delight. "Come…" and with her small hands she steered him, stirred him, settled him where he should have been since they were seventeen, full upon her waiting, welcoming body.

 
When he entered her Fannie's eyes remained open, feet flat on the bed, hips raised in welcome. He settled himself deep—the first time, deep.

 
"Ahh…" he breathed as they took their due.

 
She smiled, watching the meshing of his black locks with hers of apricot hue. "We're beautiful together, aren't we?"

 
"Beautiful," he agreed.

 
When he moved, she moved in counterpoint, spellbound by the wonder of their bodies expressing what they had felt for so long. In time she threw her head back, chin high, rocking against him. When he shuddered, she watched, thinking how beautiful his face, gone lax in the throes of fulfillment. She watched to the end, savoring the sight of his closed eyes, his trembling arms as he waited out the last ripple of feeling.

 
With its passing, his eyes opened.

 
They smiled with newfound tenderness. Having believed for so many years that they could not love more, they found themselves awed by the force of their feelings now that they had shared each other physically.

 
"Edwin…" She cupped and stroked his silken jaw. "My beloved Edwin. Come closer. Let me hold you the way I've always dreamed of holding you … afterwards."

 
He rested upon her, warming her collarbone with his breath, wetting it with a faint, suckling kiss. A very weary kiss.

 
"I'm so tired," he admitted, the words nearly indistinguishable against her flesh.

 
"And so beautiful."

 
He smiled, near exhaustion. "You will marry me, Fannie…" he murmured as he drifted off to sleep, "…soon, won't you?"

 
She smiled at the ceiling, combing his clean, damp hair with her fingers. "Absolutely, Edwin," she replied serenely. "Soon."

* * *

Dawn came, and crossed their bed, and another across town.

 
Tom Jeffcoat flexed his legs and winced behind closed eyes. He opened them and saw sunstreaks on the ceiling, angled, oblique—the heavy gold of earliest morning. Outside a dog barked, faraway. Sparrows chirped in the eaves. His bare shoulders were cold, and in the room he caught a scent reminiscent of charcoal. He swallowed with a dry, parched throat and remembered: the fire … the stable … the horses … Emily … Charles…

 
Disconsolate, he let his eyes fall closed.

 
Oh God, nothing's left.

 
The mattress jiggled—barely a flutter. He rolled his head and there sat Emily—dirty, drooping, asleep on his kitchen rocker, with her feet—in soiled stockings—sprawled on the mattress.

 
Emily, you poor bedraggled girl, how long have you been there?

 
He studied her without moving, feeling the weight of depression descend, wondering how he was going to support her, how many horses he'd lost, if they'd gotten the mare out, who else was in the house, if they'd apprehended Charles yet, how he was going to repay his grandmother, how long he'd have to wait now to get married.

 
He let his eyes drift closed and gave way to despair. I'm so thirsty…and tired…and broke… and burned out. Charles, damn you—why did you have to do a thing like this? And you, too, Tarsy. I thought you were both my friends.

 
He opened his eyes and willed them to remain dry. But it hurt, dammit, it hurt to think they'd turn on him this way! His throat felt as if he'd swallowed a piece of his own burning building. While he was still trying to gulp it down, Emily sighed in her sleep, rolled her head, and opened her eyes. He watched awareness dawn across her face, then a quick succession of emotions—fear, relief, pity—before she lunged to her knees beside the bed, capturing his hand and pressing it to her mouth.

 
"I love you," she said immediately, lifting brimming eyes. "And I'm sorry I believed Tarsy."

 
His thumb moved forgivingly across her knuckles. Their gazes lingered while his thoughts became laced with a jumble of emotions too profound to voice. He rolled slightly and drew her close by the back of her uncombed head and put his face against it. He held her thus, breathing the scent of smoke from her hair, feeling tears gather in his throat, segregating matters of superficial importance from those of real consequence. Life. Happiness. Loving. These were what really mattered. As he sorted and logged these realizations, Emily spoke, her voice muffled against the bedding.

 
"I was so afraid you wouldn't wake up so I could tell you. I thought you might die." At the hollow of her breast she clutched his hand, gripping it so hard her nails dug into his flesh. "Oh, Tom, I was so scared."

 
"I'm all right," he managed in a scraping whisper. "And it doesn't matter about Tarsy."

 
"Yes it does. I should have trusted you. I should have believed you."

 
"Shh."

 
"But—"

 
"Let's forget about Tarsy."

 
"I love you." She lifted her face, revealing streaming eyes. "I love you," she repeated, as if afraid he would not believe her.

 
"I love you, too, Emily." He touched her dirty face with a cluster of bruised knuckles and dredged up a weak smile. "But do you think I could have some water? My throat feels like my barn must look."

 
"Oh, Tom, I'm sorry…" She popped up and ran out to the kitchen, returning with a big glass of wonderful-looking water. "Here."

 
He struggled up, with her ineffectually trying to help, and, propped on one hand, downed the entire glassful while she watched.

 
"Another, please."

 
He drank a second in the same fashion, then leaned back as she adjusted the pillows behind him.

 
"How do you feel? Does it hurt to breathe?"

 
Rather than reply he asked a question of his own. "The mare—did she get out?"

 
Emily's sorrowful expression answered, even before her words. "I'm sorry, Tom."

 
"How many did I lose?"

 
"Only two—Patty and Liza."

 
"Liza, too," he repeated—one of the pair who'd brought him here from Rock Springs, his first pair. "Is anything left?"

 
"No," she answered in a near-whisper, "it burned to the ground."

 
He closed his eyes, let his head fall back, and swallowed.

 
The sunny room suddenly seemed gloomy as Emily watched him battle despair, willing herself to keep dry-eyed while she searched for words of consolation. But there were none, so she simply sat down and took his hand.

 
"What about Charles?" he asked, still with his eyes closed.

 
"Charles is at my house. He's got burns on the backs of his hands, but otherwise he's all right."

 
Tom lay motionless, giving no clue to his reaction, but she knew what he was thinking.

 
"Charles didn't set fire to your barn, Tom."

 
He lifted his head and fixed her with judgmental eyes. "Oh, didn't he?"

 
"No."

 
"Then who did?"

 
"I don't know. Maybe it was lightning."

 
"In February?"

 
Of course, he was right, and they both knew it. Though she hated to suggest it, she ventured, "Maybe it was Tarsy."

 
"No. I was standing on her porch steps exchanging insults when we heard the firebells start."

 
"Then who's to say it was
started
at all? It could have been an accident."

 
But he was a careful man who put out lanterns before he closed up for the night. And a forge, contrary to popular belief, was one of the most fire-safe structures built, by virtue of its being a constant threat if improperly constructed and insulated.