“He never will change, that’s what a horrific childhood does to you. I want so much more for Katie.” He tickled his daughter under the chin and she laughed.
Liam had taken well to fatherhood. Hopefully he would take to being a husband just as well. They ate at a leisurely pace, not speaking over much except for Katie who chattered away. Scarlett was proud of how well her daughter spoke, given that she was so young. Spending so much time with adults probably accounted for it.
Liam must have read her mind. “Our little girl is quite the clever one.” A shadow passed across his face. “Why did you give her away?”
“I didn’t, not really.”
“It wasn’t her fault.” Pearl jumped to Scarlett’s defense. “You can’t begin to know how she fought to keep the baby, Jake tried to force her to abort it.”
“What!”
“She had to pay him out of her savings for the time she wasn’t bringing in any money for him. After Katie was born she battled to keep her. Jake wanted her sent to an orphanage.”
“Pearl was so kind, she minded Katie when I had, um…., well you know.”
“Sonofabitch,” Liam muttered on hearing the full story.
“I had to keep reminding Jake how much he owed you, otherwise he would have been even worse.”
“His mind was twisted by his childhood,” Liam said.
“Don’t defend him. My childhood was horrible too. If I hadn’t run away I would have died in that orphanage,” Scarlett said bitterly. “And no-one would have cared, and I’m not ruthless and cruel like him.”
“I’m sorry, Scarlett, I shouldn’t have been judgmental, just grateful I had a happy childhood.”
“I did, too,” Pearl said, “so neither of us is in a position to judge what others have to do to stay alive. I’m tired, I’ll take Katie with me to the hotel. It’s well past her bedtime.”
“We’ll all go.” Liam placed the money for their meals on the table.
At the hotel, their rooms were on the second floor and next to each other. After Liam saw them to their room, he excused himself. “I’ll go downstairs for a nightcap. I’ll see you ladies for breakfast in the morning.”
“All right. Goodnight,” Scarlett said. Pearl gave her a wink.
After Katie was tucked up in bed with Pearl, Scarlett slipped into an almost sheer nightgown and waited to hear Liam enter his room. A couple of hours crept by, Pearl and Katie were both asleep and Scarlett feared she wouldn’t be able to stay awake for much longer.
Finally, she heard the floorboards creak outside their door as someone walked past. She didn’t hear Liam open his door but it closed with a loud click. She waited a few more minutes with the tension building up. Now. If he happened to fall into a deep sleep she mightn’t be able to get him to open the door.
She glanced up the hallway to make sure no-one was about before scuttling to Liam’s door and knocking before her courage deserted her. She couldn’t believe she was acting like some frightened virgin.
The door was wrenched open. “What in tarnation are you doing here?”
She pushed past him and in the flickering lamplight realized he was only wearing his drawers.
“Get out.” He backed away.
“I want to be with my husband.”
“In name only, I said.”
“Well, I didn’t agree.” She leaned into him and kissed him on the lips. He gave a strangled groan and deepened the kiss. Suddenly he released her mouth and stepped back, running trembling fingers through his hair.
“I’m not fit to have a woman, I’m a scarred….”
“Freak? I know, you told me.” She advanced toward him again, hooked her fingers on either side of his drawers and pulled them down. He was aroused, his manhood stood straight as a soldier on parade.
“No, dammit.”
“You like this?” She touched his tip with her tongue and felt him tremble.
He grabbed her hand and ran it down his left arm. “Feel it.”
She did, it felt like dried up leather yet she didn’t flinch, which had been her first instinct.
“See.” He spun around and she gasped in shock. His left shoulder and upper back was scarred. He had obviously been badly burned. She leaned over and kissed the ruined skin.
“It doesn’t repulse you?”
“No, it’s not pretty, but I know how you got it and what you went through.”
“I visited a cattery once, and the whore there screamed when she saw it.”
“Don’t talk.” Scarlett wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him with all the fervor she could muster. He soon took over, his mastery sending waves of ecstasy through her body. He kicked off his drawers, lifted her up and with the flick of one wrist flung back the bed coverings and placed her on the sheet.
“Have I died and gone to heaven,” he muttered into the scented valley between her breasts.
“If you’ve died, then so have I.” She cupped him, even as his tongue encircled her nipple.
Like a raging river that had burst its banks their passion ran rampant, primitive, earth shattering and completely out of control. Each giving yet still wanting more.
He mounted her and thrust deep within her core, roaring when his release came. She sat astride his belly taking him deep within her body, squirming and riding him until he bucked and came for a second time.
Sated, they lay entwined. “You can’t know what this means to me, Scarlett. You’re not planning to return to Pearl and Katie for the night?”
She laughed. “Of course not, Pearl would be most upset if I did.”
“You plotted this out between yourselves?”
“Not exactly, but she knew of my plans to seduce you and encouraged me.”
He laughed. “If I had the energy I’d put you over my knee and spank your bare ass.”
“Ooh, I think I’d like that.”
“Scarlett!” Laughter lurked in his voice. Suddenly his tone became somber. “You know Pearl hasn’t got long.”
“Yes, it’s so unfair. She’s been so good to me and Katie. When I couldn’t keep her myself, I wanted Pearl and Seth to have her. I knew they’d love her and bring her up well. I can never repay her.”
“I think Katie has more than repaid her, Pearl dotes on the child.” He nuzzled her throat, and soon the passion was raging between them again.
This is the honeymoon night to end all honeymoon nights, was Scarlett’s last thought as she lay wrapped in Liam’s arms.
****
They left for home after breakfast. Liam had agreed to move into the main loft bedroom, Katie would have the smaller one, leaving Pearl to sleep on her sofa. They had agreed that Liam would try to buy or lease the land between both properties, which would give them a decent sized ranch.
Pearl seemed to give up the fight for survival now, serene in the knowledge Katie would be loved and cared for by her parents. A week after the wedding, Scarlett found Pearl dead. She had obviously passed away in her sleep. She covered the body with the sheet and tiptoed out of the room to find Liam.
Epilogue
Two years later
Liam lifted Katie down from the wagon and turned to help Scarlett and one year old Benjamin.
“I’m so excited, Pa.” Katie jumped up and down.
“I know you are, darlin’.”
This was her first day at the little one-roomed timber school.
“I hope I make some friends.”
“You will.” Scarlett tweaked one of Katie’s curls that peaked out from under her bonnet. There were three other buggies outside the school gate, so obviously Katie was not the only child attending school for the first time. Liam carried Benjamin while Scarlett took hold of Katie’s hand.
A small blonde haired girl dashed past them.
“Polly, come back,” a woman called out to the child.
Scarlett stopped dead in her tracks and swung around. Blood rushed to her head with such speed she thought she might faint.
“Jessica!�
� In her wildest dreams she had never thought to see her friend again.
“Scarlett?”
“I’m sorry for what I did,” Scarlett blurted out straight away.
“Don’t be, I wouldn’t have met my husband. Ethan, come and meet my friend. Scarlett was with me at the orphanage.”
A tall man stood at Jessica’s shoulder. “Pleased to meet you Ma’am.” He held a snowy haired little boy in his arms.
“Liam, come over and meet my friend Jessica and her husband Ethan.
“We’ve met before at horse sales,” Liam said, extending his hand to Ethan’s.
“Yeah.” Ethan grinned. “You always beat me for the best horses, too.”
“Well, the army only want the best mounts, and that’s what I provide.”
The men stood chatting together while Polly and Katie dashed into the schoolroom, leaving their mothers together.
“I’m truly sorry about tricking you into working for Jake.” In a few words Scarlett explained about Jake’s ultimatum. “I did it for Katie. I had no choice. If I didn’t procure women for him he would have kicked us out into the street.”
“I understand. Maybe best if we don’t mention it again, though.”
“Because of me, Jake turned you into a soiled dove,” Scarlett said, “and you can forgive me? I don’t know whether I could be so gracious.”
“We live at Rainbow Valley,” Jessica said.
“We’re a few miles out of Twisted Creek.”
“Nearly neighbors.” Jessica giggled and the memories flooded back for Scarlett.
“Polly can’t be yours, I mean….”
Jessica explained about finding Polly alone in a cabin because her parents had been killed in a mining disaster. “My baby boy is named Angus, after Ethan’s Scottish father.”
“Our son is Benjamin, and you saw Katie flash by.”
Their conversation was interrupted by the school bell. The parents waited while the new pupils were shown to their desks. Scarlett waved to Katie who was too busy giggling with Polly to give more than a slight wave back. Scarlett hated herself for feeling jealous. I ought to be glad she’s made a friend so quickly.
Jessica waved at Polly. “They’re not interested in us,” she said, wiping a tear from her eye. “I was more nervous than she was.”
“Me too.”
“We’ll have to pay each other visits,” Jessica said.
“I’d like that. We could catch up on all that has happened to us since we last met.” Scarlett could not believe how well and happy Jessica looked, or how she could forgive her for doing such a terrible thing. She’s a better person than me, I could never forgive such treachery.
The friends linked arms and headed over to join their husbands and toddler sons.
Life was good for her and Jessica now. They had loving, caring husbands and beautiful children. Who would have thought that two neglected, frightened orphans would survive all the hardship of their childhood, and triumph over such terrible adversity?
THE END
Books by Margaret Tanner
Lily – Guilford Crossing Brides – Book 1
Freddie – Guilford Crossing Brides – Book 2
Alfie – Guilford Crossing Brides – Book 3
Beltane Bride
Edwina, Bride of Connecticut
Cowboy Christmas
The Sheriff’s Outcast Bride
The Cowboy And The Quaker
Savage Possession
His Brother’s Wife
Fiery Possession
Gunslinger’s daughter
Historical Romance
Pearl Harbor And More Anthology
A Rose In No Man’s Land
Reluctant Father
We Never Said I Love You
Daring Masquerade
Allison’s War
Rich Man’s Folly (Sequel to Allison’s War)
Lauren’s Dilemma
Falsely Accused
Contemporary Romance
Baby Maker
Haunted Hearts
About the Author
Margaret Tanner is an award winning, bestselling Australian author, who mainly writes Historical Romance and Historical Western Romance. She loves delving into the pages of history as she carries out research for her novels. No internet site is too boring, no book is too old or tattered for her to trawl through, no museum too dusty.
Her love of Westerns came about because of the movies and TV shows of her childhood. Some of her favorites were Gunsmoke, Bonanza, Wagon Train and Little House On The Prairie.
Many of her novels have been inspired by true events, with one being written around the hardships and triumphs of her pioneering ancestors. She once spent a couple of hours in an old prison cell so she could feel the chilling cold and fear.
Apart from her family and friends, writing is her passion.
Margaret is married with three grown up sons and two gorgeous little granddaughters.
Website: http://mjljtanner.wixsite.com/fictionalromance
Website: http://www.margarettanner.com/
Amazon Author Page: http://amazon.com/author/margarettanner
Book Bub Author Page: https://www.bookbub.com/authors/margaret-tanner
Be the first to know when Margaret Tanner’s next book is available! Follow her at http://bookbub.com/authors/margaret-tanner to get an alert whenever she has a new release, pre-order, or discount.
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