by T. S. Joyce
“Maybe in the barn.”
He jogged toward it while Kristina pulled me by the hand to the simmering fire near the old house. “Can’t be too careful with injuries out here. Doctors are a rare find this far out, and even small hurts can bring you big troubles.”
I plopped into the singed rocking chair while she pumped water into a pan and set it on the fire. I suppose the cut wasn’t as shallow as I’d thought because it was starting to drip.
“You ain’t scared of blood?” she asked me warily.
“I suppose not. I haven’t really seen too much of it bar the occasional scrapes and cuts of childhood.”
“Well, good because this probably ain’t the last you’ll see of it around here.”
Jeremiah returned with two strips of white cotton linen. Without a word, he dipped one in the boiling water and cleaned the cut slowly until the bleeding had stopped. My lips were pursed at the sting, but I rather enjoyed the view of my stranger husband bent over my arm in concentration. After bandaging it, he leaned forward and smelled my arm, and with a slight nod of the head, he kissed it lightly and stood. “Luke and I are going to start measuring out lumber but I want you taking it easy.”
“I can help Kristina start on dinner.”
He hesitated and a flame of worry flickered in his dark eyes.
“Aw, piss off, Jeremiah,” Kristina said with a wink. “She’s fine. I won’t let nothin’ happen to your wife, now go on.”
After he left, I said, “I can’t believe he lets you talk to him like that.”
“Who, Jeremiah? A man doesn’t let me do anything. And besides, deep down he likes when I’m vulgar. He’s just too mannerly to admit it.”
“I heard about him proposing to you,” I blurted out.
“Yeah, that wouldn’t have worked. We would’ve killed each other by the end of the first day. Did he tell you we spent a season up here, without Luke? We worked well together but we bickered like two panthers fightin’ over territory.” She looked up from a pile of meat she’d been sawing on with a faraway expression behind her distracted smile. “Naw, Luke was always my man. If somethin’ ever happened to him, I’d never marry another.”
Her heartfelt admission eased a tiny sliver of green jealousy that had been waiting in my heart since Jeremiah told me of his proposal to my sister-in-law. It hadn’t worked out between them because it wasn’t supposed to. Though they hadn’t been able to see it at the time, he was being groomed for me while my troubles were brewing hundreds of miles away.
By the time the venison was finished and the potatoes browned over the fire, the Dawson brothers had managed to secure the main beams that made up the frame of the house and already started nailing the floor boards down around the hearth.
“Is it normal for men to build houses so quickly?”
“They ain’t normal men. Here, set this over there.” She yanked the cast iron pot from the embers with the handle wrapped in the skirts of her dress.
Gathering my own skirts, I took it and set it beside the rocker to cool. She dug the potatoes out of the fire with a stick and with dancing hands tossed them onto a plate. “I have a pail of milk inside the door of the barn. You want to grab it while I tell the boys supper’s on?”
The barn was a short walk and the bucket was just where she said it would be and covered with a cheesecloth. What I hadn’t expected was for it to be so blasted heavy. I sloshed it with every step.
“Let me help,” Jeremiah said from right behind me.
I nearly jumped right out of my skin. Eying the distance between us and our future house, I glowered. “How in tarnation did you get here so fast? I just saw you all the way over there.”
He hauled the milk pail and said over his shoulder, “I ran.”
“Oh, he ran?” I grumbled. “Faster than a horse on fire, he ran.”
His shoulders shook but I hadn’t a guess what he found so humorous. He was much too far away to have heard me.
Dinner was warm and satisfying after a long day. I’d missed lunch somewhere along the line without noticing until my stomach rumbled at the smell of the roasted venison when Luke pulled the lid from the iron pot. “How do you eat these?” I asked, eyeing my ash bathed potato.
“You can peel the skin off real easy,” Jeremiah said. He picked his up and took a long strip right off with his fingers.
Easy enough if my potato wasn’t still on fire. I’d have to wait for it to cool. Maybe Jeremiah didn’t have any feeling in his fingers after working all day in the cold, and the majority of it without gloves. His plate was completely clean before I’d even taken my second bite and without a word, he and Luke slunk into the waning evening light to return to work on the cabin. Relentless, tireless men. I sank back into the rocking chair and watched them work. They didn’t seem to say anything to each other, yet they knew exactly where to put every board, where to help hold lumber, when to hand the other more nails. The speed and efficiency with which they worked was downright disconcerting.
“What’re you thinking?” Kristina asked as the firelight danced across her face. “I can see you’re workin’ something out over there.”
“I’ve just never seen men quite like them.”
“Nor will you ever again. We got lucky they mail-ordered us if you ask me.”
“Are all country men so fast and strong?”
She shoved a giant bite of food into her maw and shrugged.
We talked by the firelight deep into the night. How Luke and Jeremiah could even see where to bang a hammer was beyond me, but then again, it was growing obvious there were a lot of things they could do. I’d have to work on controlling my surprise.
Kristina told me stories of her days before the saloon—of her mother and odd jobs they’d worked in Chicago. I found it comforting to listen to her voice. She looked at life differently than anyone I’d ever met. Where a woman would be bent to breaking, Kristina found humor. Where a lesser woman would drown in sorrow, she found a positive light cast on every situation that had happened in her life. Her happiness was like medicine for my soul. How could I mourn my old life when she’d suffered worse and came out of it with a genuine smile? I’d do well to let her optimism infect me.
I told her of friends and grand parties and the dresses I’d worn, and she listened with the intensity of a child who was hearing about dragons and castles for the first time. If ever we went back to Boston, I’d like to go to a party with her. It would be an experience just watching everything through her eyes.
Somewhere in the wee hours of the night, I nodded off. I woke to the smell of man and pine and jostled gently as Jeremiah carried me through the woods that led to our crude camp.
“I didn’t say goodnight to Kristina,” I argued half-heartedly.
“She’s already asleep in the barn. You can tell her tomorrow.”
That defeated the purpose but I didn’t tell him that. As I scrambled for the furs inside the tent, Jeremiah snatched a folded towel and small leather bag from the corner.
“Where are you going?” I didn’t mean to sound hurt but still, it came out that way.
“I’m going for a swim.”
“A swim? But it’s freezing out here.”
“Woman, I’ve been working on that house for the better part of the day. I need a bath.” The jangle of his spurs was loud in the quiet of the night as he turned and paused. “You wanna come with me?”
He turned his head slowly, and in the moonlight on that cloudless night, I could see the expected answer in his eyes. He didn’t think I was brave enough, and that stirred within me an empowering stubbornness I hadn’t felt in years.
I’d show him. “Do you have soap?”
Chapter Eighteen
Jeremiah
Very few times had anyone managed to shock me through the years, but Lorelei had just done it in a big way. I’d mostly invited her along to draw a wide-eyed look right out of her. Through the days we’d spent together, I’d latched onto that doe-eyed look she graced me
with when I surprised her. Admittedly, I’d been saying and doing little things so I could watch her pretty face transform from reserved and passive to animated. Her eyes were the color of fine whiskey and surrounded by all those dark eyelashes—well, she nearly knocked me over with a look sometimes. Add that to the staggering fact that my wolf hadn’t tried to eat her last night, and I’d been floating on a cloud of downright jubilation since the early morning hours.
My wolf had gone straight for her. He could hear her breathing and smell her fear and still, he’d sniffed around the tent and when he was satisfied she was safe, he left. I remembered because I’d been present. He’d let me share his head space for the first time since Anna had passed.
Now, I wasn’t a reckless man. I had Luke sittin’ in the tree above the tent to make sure she was safe from me, but even he’d relaxed and eventually left for the barn when I’d let her be. There wasn’t a better test for my psychotic wolf other than to put her out there in plain sight and see what he did.
I was as close to flying as a man could get.
And then after the best day I’d had in years, Lorelei just said she’d go skinny dippin’ with me? I must have fallen into a patch of four leaf clovers without knowing it somewhere along the way.
Listening to her stumble through the dark behind me was a lesson in patience. I wanted to help her, to hold her hand and make sure she didn’t fall, but there was a very real risk she’d balk at my touch and change her mind. She’d done it time and time again. I didn’t have a guess what her last husband had done to cause her so much fear of affection, but he’d sure done a number on her confidence. I’d gift it back to her if it was the last thing I did, but going would be slow. Damage like that wouldn’t be undone in a week, or a few months, or a year even. She’d have to be reconditioned to accept that she was worthy of a love. I didn’t know her entire story, but no small piece of me wanted to kill that rat bastard Delaney for giving her one to tell.
The creek was across the clearing and through the woods. As soon as the house was finished, I’d build her a soaking tub so she didn’t have to bathe like a mountain man. She deserved better and I was going to give it to her.
The night was much colder without the sun to warm the land, and the chilly breeze rocked the bare tree branches that creaked and groaned in a lullaby only the forest knew the cadence to. An old hoot owl asked who was trespassing in his woods, and the sound of scurrying field mice traveled from the dry leaf blanket of the wilderness floor to my oversensitive ears. Though the night woods likely seemed quiet and unsettling to Lorelei, for me it was vibrant and humming with life. The sound of the babbling brook was soothing and as we approached, I hung my towel on a nearby low-hanging branch.
Her brows were knitted in fierce stubbornness as she passed and without a word, she slowly began to unpin her hair in what was the most seductive dance I’d ever seen. Tendril after tendril of raven-dark hair fell and tickled her hips. She never looked back but she had to have known I was watching. I shed my clothes as she unlaced her dress and by the time it billowed in a pile around her ankles, I was ready to race into that half frozen creek. The sight of her stopped me in my tracks.
I’d seen her body last night, but this was different. The moonlight caressed her skin and made it glow as she dipped her toe into a lapping wave. The wind kicked up and gooseflesh rippled across her back.
“I can’t swim in there,” she mumbled.
“Oh, no you don’t.” I catapulted at her before she could step back, and in one fluid motion I scooped her up and jumped into the deepest part of the creek I knew would submerge us.
“Jeremiah!” she gasped as we broke the surface. The cold and shock leeched away any anger from her tone, and the rasping of my name against her lips brought me a chill that had nothing to do with the weather.
The freezing water was needles against every square inch of skin but I’d been prepared for it. Lorelei, on the other hand, panted with the pain and shock of it.
“Not quite as romantic as you’d imagined, huh?” I said.
Her teeth chattered away. “Give me the soap so I can get this over with.”
When her feet touched the rocky bottom, I scrambled for the leather pouch I’d dropped on the shore line. As I turned with the lumpy bar of lye soap in my hand, Lorelei sank into water up to her nostrils. Her fixed eyes were as big as fine porcelain tea plates as she raked her gaze over my bare skin. I could no more stop the satisfied grin that commandeered my face than I could the tiny water droplets from freezing in my hair. She could give a man the hungriest looks I’d ever seen on a woman.
We scrambled to scrub our numbing bodies in what had to be the fastest bath in the history of the world. She made little squeaking sounds as she rushed to lather her hair, and stumbling over a slick river rock, I rushed to help. In the springtime, I’d take my time and enjoy her wet hair in my hands, but right now, my instincts were screaming to get her out of the water and warm again. When her hair was rinsed thoroughly, she stumbled for shore.
Lorelei fell on the craggy rocks before she could reach the warmth of the towel, and the little gasp she emitted as her knees hit earth was too much.
To hell with not touching her.
Even a patient hunter had his limits.
****
Lorelei
Jeremiah was there almost before my knees had even scraped the rocks. It should’ve hurt but I couldn’t feel anything but the pricking of cold numbness from my neck down. Then, fast as a lightning strike, he was there lifting me away from the jagged stones that cried for a taste of my tender skin.
“I can’t feel my legs very well,” I whispered like talking in a normal voice would wake up the forest. Like it would chase away the magic somehow.
“I’ve got you.” He whipped the towel from the tree and dried me off with a rough hand and before I even had a chance to reach for my dress, he’d thrown one of the furs he’d snatched from our bed around my body. “Shhhh,” he told my chattering teeth as he rubbed life back into my arms through the blanket.
Maybe it was the enchantment of the woods playing tricks on my eyes or maybe Jeremiah really did just run as hot as a steam engine because under the light of the moon, a thin veil of steam wafted from his bare, moist skin. He wasn’t even shivering. Before I could chicken out, I threw my arms, and the fur, around him and hugged him close. He wasn’t exactly a campfire, but he was certainly warmer than me and selfishly, I absorbed as much as I could.
A contented sound rumbled from his chest as he pressed my back against a tree. He was the noisiest man I’d ever met. He had a sound for every emotion and though it was strange and new, my body unceasingly reacted to it. This soft noise ran a delicious shiver down my spine. His back was firm and strong under my hands and slowly, I ran my nails down the length of him, raising gooseflesh with my touch.
He pressed his hips against me, and his thick erection pressed into my belly while he looked at me like I was the most beautiful thing he’d ever laid eyes on. I wasn’t repulsive or unsavory to him like I had been to Daniel. On the contrary, my touch sped up Jeremiah’s breathing until he finally rested his face against my neck and kissed it gently.
How could a man make me feel so much? Every single fiber in my body reached for him, like I could never get close enough to be completely satiated.
“Lorelei,” he rumbled against my sensitive ear.
I could hear the question in it, and I lifted my chin. I wanted him to see the truth in my eyes as I told him, “I want you, Jeremiah. I’m ready.”
The thick cords of muscle in his throat moved as he swallowed. I thought he’d take me right away, but he didn’t. Instead, he lowered his lips to mine and cupped my sex with his warm palm. A soft sound came from my throat unbidden as he ran his finger along my wet seam. This was scandalous. I hadn’t the foggiest idea what he was doing, only that it felt good for him to touch me.
My knees grew weak as he slowly slid his long finger inside of me, and his other arm he
ld me tight so I wouldn’t go down to the gravelly ground at our feet. His lips trailed down my neck and I lifted my chin and stared at the moon through the tree branches above. He eased out of me, and pressed upward again, and pleasure burst through me as his knuckle rasped against a sensitive spot. The man was going to bring me to my knees.
If I’d had any doubt that what Daniel had done with me was wrong, those were laid to rest under Jeremiah’s tender caresses. This was how making love should be.
My new husband wasn’t stalling.
He was preparing me.
I should’ve been embarrassed at how wet I was becoming with each stroke he pressed his finger into me, but as his erection grew impossibly hard and thick against my belly, it was difficult to hate what excited the man I was falling in love with. He liked me like this. The frantic way he nipped my bottom lip, and the helpless sound that came from his throat as I found the confidence to wrap my hand around his shaft and pull upward said he needed me just like I needed him.
His teeth grazed my sensitive earlobe, and he cupped my neck with his hand as he pressed into me up to his knuckle. “I’m going to find every sensitive place on you, woman,” he rumbled softly. “I’m going to make you feel how much I care about you, and when I’m through, you won’t be afraid of my affection anymore. You hear me?”
The chill was banished with his words. Between the confidence in his promise, the blanket wrapped around us and his warm body pressed against mine, there was no room for winter. There was no room for doubt.
Something was happening to me. Something amazing and terrifying all at once. I rocked my hips against his hand in order to get closer to…something. Tingling pressure was building and I wanted more. I wanted everything.
“Jeremiah, please…” What was I even begging him for?
He pulled his touch away from me so quickly, it made me gasp at the disappointment. I’d been so close to the edge of something big. Something that I knew in my heart would change me from the bones out.
