Whirlwind Reunion (12 page)

Josie screamed again, making a chill shoot up Matt's spine.

“I had no idea it would be this harrowing.” The sheriff's voice cracked. “I feel like I'm being skinned alive.”

There was a very real chance his friends might lose another baby, and Matt had no idea what to say. What could be worse than going through the whole painful process of childbirth only to lose the baby?

He wondered how he would've been if his and Annalise's baby had lived, if he had been present for the birth. But he hadn't been there at all. Not for the beginning or the end. He wasn't sure he could ever forgive himself for that, and now he could see why Annalise might not either.

“Josie was right to kick me out. She would sense my doubt.”

That was probably right, but how could the man feel anything else? He had absolutely no control over this, couldn't protect his wife or child from further pain. Matt would feel the same. He
did
feel the same, he realized. He hadn't protected Annalise or their baby. Rationally, he knew he couldn't
have stopped the miscarriage, but he understood his friend's sense of failure, of responsibility.

The patient groaned then cried out. The sounds began to run together in Matt's head.

Josie's obvious distress had him on edge. He could only imagine how much more trying this would be if Annalise was the one giving birth.

It seemed like hours passed before he heard a guttural moan then a lusty cry. A baby's cry.

The sound of that tiny voice had Matt's breath jamming in his lungs. Overwhelmed by a sudden urge to run, he gripped the table.

Davis Lee jumped up then froze.

The bedroom door opened and Annalise stepped out, looking weary, but smiling. “Josie's just fine and you have a girl.”

The relief on the lawman's face was so stark, so raw that it twisted something in Matt's chest. He clapped Davis Lee on the shoulder. “Congratulations, Papa.”

The other man moved then. He rushed into the bedroom as Annalise came into the kitchen. Matt studied her face, not understanding the panicked reaction he'd had upon hearing the baby.

Lines of fatigue fanned out from her green eyes; her apron was bloodied. She still wore a smile, but he sensed a heaviness in the air. He wasn't sure what it meant.

“It was good of you to stay with Davis Lee,” she said.

“I don't know that I was any help, but at least he wasn't alone.” Matt reached for the basin he'd moved to the table.

“Here, I pumped some water.”

“Thanks. I cleaned up the baby some before I gave
her to Josie.” Annalise washed her hands then dried them with a nearby square of toweling.

Uncertainty hammered at him. “Everything okay?”

“Josie did very well. No problems at all.” She glanced back at the bedroom and lowered her voice. “I was concerned about that.”

The door opened and a beaming Davis Lee came to the doorway holding a blanket-wrapped bundle. “Matt, come see her!”

He covered the short distance between them, staring down at a perfect upturned nose, a tiny rosebud mouth. Her face was scrunched up and she had a head full of dark hair.

“We're going to call her Tannis, after Josie's grandmother. Isn't she beautiful?”

Matt smiled past the crushing weight in his chest. “She sure is.”

“Luckily, she takes after her mama.” Chuckling, Davis Lee carried his daughter back into the bedroom.

Matt shoved an unsteady hand through his hair. He was shaky, unsettled. What was going on? His ears were ringing as if he'd been kicked in the head by a horse, and he couldn't breathe.

Hearing that baby, looking at her, made him feel all jostled up inside. His own child had never cried, never even taken a breath. He had to get out of here, grab some fresh air.

He backed away and walked out to the porch, noting absently that the front door was already open.

Darkness had settled while they waited for the baby. Now a crescent moon hung high in a clear sky dotted with stars. The air had turned comfortably cool yet Matt was hot inside. His chest felt prickly.

An urgency, a desperation rose inside him to find
Annalise, but a look back inside the house told him she was gone. He hadn't taken three steps from the porch when he heard a sound to his left. Coming from the direction of her clinic.

In the shifting moonlight, he could see the white lace on her dress sleeve. She stood at the corner of the building. Her shoulders shook.

He strode to her, his heart pounding. It took some effort to speak past the hard knot in his throat. “Annalise?”

He heard a muffled sob. He touched her shoulder, startled when she turned and buried her face in his chest.

“I don't understand why I'm crying.” The tears thickening her voice put a burn in his throat.

He thought he knew why she was crying. The same sense of loss gripped him, too, for the child they'd lost.

“Let's go inside. Come on, Angel.”

Retrieving the key from the pocket of her blood-streaked apron, he unlocked the door and guided her inside.

A
nnalise felt as if she was falling apart. Grief and loss sat on her chest like an anvil. Matt guided her past the cellar and up the hall, bypassing the kitchen then the front room to turn toward the stairs.

Moonlight rippled across the pine floor just beyond the front door, casting pale shadows into the dark corners.

“Here,” Matt murmured, easing her to a stop at the foot of the stairs. “Let's get rid of this.”

He untied the strings of her blood-streaked apron and carefully pulled it over her loosely upswept hair then dropped the garment to the floor. Striding over to the table that sat beneath her front window, he picked up the unlit lamp and came back to her. He struck a match and light flared. He put a hand at the small of her back, urging her upstairs and into her bedroom.

He steered her toward the big bed in the center of the room and sat her on the edge of the mattress. The oilskin shade was up, the moon visible from this position.

She stared blankly at the full white globe, vaguely
aware that Matt had disappeared with the lamp, leaving her to sit in dim light.

He returned with a cool wet cloth and pressed it into her hands as he set the light on the bedside table. “You got any liquor?”

“There's a bottle of Old Tub bourbon in the parlor. Bottom drawer of the cupboard between the two chairs.”

While he went across the hall to her small sitting room, she ran the rag over her sweat-dampened face and neck, then pressed the moist cloth to her swollen eyes.

In a few seconds, Matt was back with a small glass and the bottle of dark-amber liquid. He splashed some into the glass and handed it to her.

She wrinkled her nose at the strong smell. “I don't know.”

“You're trembling,” he said quietly, pushing the glass to her lips. “Drink.”

When she did, she sucked in a breath at the burn in her throat. It wasn't long before warmth spread through her limbs.

She should be stronger, not lean on Matt for support, but at this moment, she couldn't find it inside herself. He poured more liquor and downed it himself, then refilled the glass and offered it to her again. She took a sip as he settled beside her.

Their shoulders touched and she found the power and heat of his body reassuring. Taking the glass from her, he swallowed half its contents in one gulp.

“I'm surprised you had liquor,” he said.

“It was here when I bought the place. I don't know if Jed mistakenly left it when he and Lizzie moved out or if she left it in order to keep it away from him.”

The rawness inside her began to ease. Trying to steady
herself, her gaze moved absently around the room, to the wall mirror over her dressing table. Her hairbrush and ribbons, the wardrobe in front of her with its door open enough to see the dresses she'd tried and discarded before deciding on the one she'd worn to dinner with Matt.

He reached up and gently edged a tendril of hair from her eyes. “How're you doing?”

“I don't know what came over me. That baby isn't the first one I've delivered since I lost ours.” Annalise noticed Matt held the glass of whiskey so tightly that his knuckles were white.

And now that she looked, so was he. His face was cloud-pale beneath his bronzed features. “Are you okay?”

“When I heard Davis Lee's baby cry…” He shook his head then tossed back the remaining bourbon in his glass. “Our baby never cried,” he said hoarsely. “Never even breathed.”

The hurt ravaging his strong features dug deep into a place Annalise thought she would never let him into again. New tears burned her eyes. She could tell this was something he hadn't thought much about until now.

He searched her face. “Can you talk about it? Expecting our baby, I mean?”

“What do you want to know?”

“All of it. Were you sick every morning? Davis Lee said Josie was.”

“Not every morning, but several times. I thought it was just nerves from leaving…Whirlwind.” She bit her lip. She'd almost said ‘leaving you.' “From moving so far away, where I didn't know anyone.”

“Did you cry a lot, like Josie?”

“A fair amount.”

“That's hard to imagine. You never were much for tears.”

That seemed to have changed, she thought wryly as she wiped her eyes.

“And cravings? Was there any of that?” He set the empty glass on the bedside table. “Or hating things you normally liked?”

“I wanted nothing to do with coffee. Just the smell made me nauseous.” She gave a small laugh. “What I couldn't get enough of was lemon. Lemonade, lemon drops, lemon cake, just plain lemons.”

Slipping his big hot hand into hers, he threaded their fingers together. “I never knew you liked lemons.”

“I didn't. I still don't.”

He smiled faintly at that. “When did you realize you were expecting?”

“The lemon craving made me suspicious, but I wasn't sure until the miscarriage.”

Matt winced, his blue eyes dark and troubled.

“I woke up bleeding and couldn't get it to stop.” She paused when his hand tightened on hers. “There was a midwife in the boarding house where I stayed. She helped me through it then I got an infection.” He cursed.

“Are you sure you want me to talk about it?”

“Not if you don't want to, but I need to hear it. I need to know what you went through.”

She told him how the infection had nearly killed her, how she had missed a few weeks of medical college in the middle of first term. “I made them up the following term.”

The self-loathing, the torture on his face made her stop.

“What is it?” she asked softly. “It's more than hearing about the miscarriage and what happened afterwards.”

He felt as if he'd been trampled by a herd of cattle— aware of a pulsing pain down deep but too numb on the surface to really feel it.

“You probably think I don't have the right even to feel the loss. And I'm not sure I do.”

She squeezed his hand. “He was your son, too.”

“But I wasn't there when either of you needed me.”

She laid her head on his shoulder and the silent comfort she offered tore a hole in his heart.

“I was a real bastard to you.” The words were thick and he had to clear his throat in order to continue. “I really let you down.”

Taking him by surprise, she tugged her hand from his and put both arms around his neck. His eyes stung as he lifted a hand and curled it lightly over her forearm. “I understand why delivering Davis Lee's and Josie's baby upset you. I can't believe you felt like this and had to be alone after the miscarriage.”

“But tonight, I'm not alone. Neither are you.”

Her green eyes were soft with understanding and shared grief, somehow soothing the jagged edge inside him. He wanted to thank her, to apologize over and over, to promise he would never turn his back on her again.

He couldn't spit out one single word.

When a fresh tear rolled down her cheek, he pulled her onto his lap and buried his face in her neck. The faint scent of primrose along with a womanly musk swirled between them as he tried to steady himself. The warm, wet feel of her tears released something inside him and he pressed her closer.

They stayed like that for a long time, until she settled and lay soft against him.

He nudged her chin up with a knuckle, wiped at the dampness on her face. “Can I get you something? Water? More whiskey?”

“No,” she whispered. Her eyes, deep green and wet, met his. “I don't need any of that.”

She looked as lost as he felt. Lost and hurting. And he recognized something else. Need. Stunned, he slowly realized that she needed him. And
he
needed
her.

He didn't know who moved first, but their lips touched. And when she leaned fully into him, it blew every thought out of his head. The kiss was slow and searching, filling him with something he couldn't define, but he knew Annalise was the only one who could give it to him. She wanted this as much as he did. To be held, to know she wasn't alone.

The press of her breasts against him, the feel of her fingers delving into his hair had reckless desire shooting through him. He wanted her until the hunger was a sharp throbbing ache. But she hadn't asked for that.

She drew away, her mouth wet and red from kissing his, and he realized he was squeezing her too hard. Loosening his hold on her, he flattened his hands on her back and lightly kept her in place.

Her fingers slid gently down the side of his face. “I don't want to be alone. I don't think you should be either.”

Blood pounded in his ears, his groin. “I can stay for whatever you need.”

“I…need to feel close to you.”

“I'll be here as long as you want.”

Searching his eyes, she pressed a soft kiss to his lips. “I need
you.
”

He went still inside, trying to think past the haze of desire and need and comfort. Did she mean—

She kissed him, sweet and hot, a little desperately. There was no way he could turn away from her, especially when her hands slipped into his hair again and her mouth parted beneath his.

This was real. He was holding her. He had wanted to be with her, had imagined it, but in his mind, it hadn't been this bittersweet give and take.

The pull between them, the longing, was physical, yes, but there was also a sharp desperation clawing at him.

His lips glided down her slender neck. The soft sound of surrender, of encouragement, she made went straight to his heart then lower.

Neither of them spoke. The only sounds were of his rough breathing, her sighs, the occasional sweep of the wind outside of the clinic.

She clasped his face in her hands and kissed him again. Compelled to taste the rest of her, Matt's mouth moved to the sensitive spot behind her ear, the silky hollow of her collarbone.

He wanted to say something, but no words seemed enough for this sobering, extraordinary moment. The emotion rushing through him was like nothing he'd ever felt. It was freeing. And terrifying.

Pulling the pins from her hair and dropping them on the bedside table, he buried his hands in the thick mahogany cloud and held her still for a deep kiss. She melted into him, and a sense of possession surged through him.

All he wanted was to keep her close and, for a moment, it was enough.

Then she made a sound of need deep in her throat, her small hands tugging his shirt from his trousers and slipping beneath to touch his bare, hot skin. When she
dragged the fabric up to his shoulders, he reached back and jerked the garment over his head, tossed it on the floor.

Laying her on the bed, he propped himself up on one elbow beside her so he could thumb open the buttons on her dress. He got it off, leaving it in a pool of rose silk on the floor, then her corset. There was a slight whisper and hiss as he pushed off both her petticoats, then her stockings as she toed off her slippers.

She pulled her chemise over her head and reached for him. Aching, he nearly groaned when he felt her lotion-smooth flesh against his. His lips glided down the satin length of her throat then to the sweet creamy swells of her breasts.

Her fingers fluttered over his back, a barely-there brush over his healing scars.

Mesmerized, he watched his weathered hand slide over her pale velvet skin washed in golden lamplight, a pretty pink flush rising in his wake. He wanted to touch every inch of her—the tight dusky nipples, her soft flat belly, the wet heat between her legs.

He stroked the curve of her breast then closed his mouth over her.

“Matt.” Her smoky voice broke on his name.

Compelled by the rush in his blood as she opened her thighs to him, he levered himself over her—breast to chest, heart to heart. When her dreamy green eyes locked on his, he felt bored open, stripped raw. He wanted to give her all of himself. Fleetingly, he wondered if it would be enough.

Urging him to her, she stroked his hot, rigid flesh. She met his kiss, her arms and legs wrapping around him, and he sank into her, muscles quivering as he fought to
go slowly. Every nerve ending pulsed with nearly painful sensation.

He had never needed her like this, never needed anyone like this. She took him in, her hands gliding down the long line of his back then holding on tight so there was no space between their bodies. He brushed a kiss across her forehead, her eyelids.

Rocking her gently, his mouth covered hers and a tiny sob shuddered out of her. His chest ached as though it was too small for his heart. Their loving was slow and deliberate and reached into the place only Annalise had ever been able to touch.

The end was more than a physical release. It was a sharing. A cleansing.

Matt rolled to the side, holding her tight with one arm around her shoulders, the other resting on her bare hip. He stroked her downy-soft skin.

Neither of them spoke for a long moment. She was quiet as her breathing leveled out.

A sliver of doubt wormed in. “You did want that?”

“Yes.” She nodded, her silky hair sliding over his chest.

He inhaled her clean floral scent. After another long moment when she still hadn't spoken, he pressed a kiss to her head. “Do you want me to stay?”

“Yes.”

Good. He wasn't sure he would've been able to make himself leave, no matter how badly he wanted to do whatever she needed.

She relaxed against him as he drifted off. Curling her into his side, he whispered, “I'm sorry, Angel. For all of it.”

She didn't speak, just stretched her arm across his chest and held on.

He wanted to take away her pain. Maybe he had, a little bit. She had certainly done that for him.

It had taken a while to work their way back to each other. Matt didn't kid himself that things would be sunny from here on out, but they were together. That was what mattered.

 

What had she done? The next morning, Annalise lay in bed watching pink-gold light push around the edges of the oilskin shade. She had thrown caution to the wind, exactly what she had said she wouldn't do.