Montana Wife (Historical)

by Jillian Hart

  If love, like the quilt Rayna was pinning and sewing, could be made. From the scraps and scars of two peoples’ lives to make something whole and good.

  He knew she was coming even before he heard her step in the hallway. He felt her presence as surely as the soft fragrant scent of her. Desire like a banked fire glowed within him. Her eyes widened, her gaze spearing to his bare chest.

  He’d embarrassed her? He hoped not. But it was a cute thing, how busy she suddenly seemed, paying close attention to the tasks of shutting the door and unbuttoning her shoes. He wondered why there were only the two boys. If Rayna had ever wanted another baby.

  Either way, he shrugged off his shirt and went to toss it in the basket she kept in the corner for laundry. Her shocked gasp fired up his adrenaline. He spun around, reaching for the Colt he wasn’t wearing—it was folded up in the holster on the highest shelf in her kitchen—only to find her coming toward him with her eyes bright.

  “Your back. Turn around.”

  What was wrong? He glanced over his shoulder. There was no spider or anything, was there? He felt her touch move through him before her hands lighted on his shoulder blades. Brighter than anything he’d known before spiraled through to the very deepest part of him. Places where he’d stored up his boyhood of sorrow and worse.

  Places that could not take such illumination. He went to step away from her touch, to keep those places buried within him.

  She stopped him. The press of her hands, the brush of her gaze on his bare skin. The faintest warmth of her breath that he seemed able to feel as if it were a spring breeze. Then came the gentlest brush of her lips. One kiss after another in a curing lash up to his nape.

  Hell. It was his scars. He hadn’t meant for her to see them. He’d just forgotten. They’d been a part of him for more than half his life. “Don’t, Rayna. That happened a long time ago. I don’t think about it anymore.”

  Another kiss was her answer. So searingly sweet, it made every part of him ache.

  The caress of her fingertips was painfully soothing, as if she could take away the little boy’s pain. It was too late, it was impossible, but he appreciated the gesture. His throat closed up and he squeezed his eyes shut. Feeling. Just feeling.

  That hurt, too.

  “Oh, Daniel. What made these marks? A belt?” Not repulsion. Not censure.

  He expected both. Maybe even deserved it. “That just shows you’ve never been beaten. A whip did that.” And for no reason at all, because there was no way she could understand he just opened his mouth and out it came. The truth. “I was eight.”

  She sagged against him. “Hans will be eight this spring.”

  One little boy spared the harshness of this world. He’d make sure of it. The little boy with Rayna’s chin and button nose.

  He didn’t tell her why he’d been punished. He’d been so thirsty in the blazing August fields, he’d just given up, hungry and exhausted and hopeless. The foreman had not particularly liked his refusal to work.

  “There is nothing a sweet little boy could do to deserve such treatment.”

  Her comfort was so powerful, it crept inside him, from her soul to his. That’s when he knew how alone he’d been all his life. It wasn’t the solitary way he lived, or the lonesomeness of a boyhood without a family of his own. No, it was this. The way his love for her had taken root inside him. Growing in a place where there had once only been shadows.

  Everything he believed, everything he’d ever done to keep this part of him safe, fell away. And he was hopeless and helpless as a wave of emotion rolled through him like the shock through the earth after a dynamite blast. Shaken, he wasn’t aware that he’d turned in her arms until his mouth was hot on hers. Until the wrenching aftershock rocked through him.

  Need. It burned inside him. Not the need of a frightened child, but the yearning of a man’s heart for its match. Rayna. She was all he was, everything within him that was good and strong. Her kiss, her hands small on his shoulders, her body welcoming him as he walked her back until she was against the bed and he came over her.

  Driven beyond himself for this need to love her, he eased her onto the sheets. She seemed to feel it, too, for she was kissing him fully. Arching against him in silent need, her cheeks wet with tears.

  The tenderness he felt for her was powerful enough to make the world disappear around him. He cherished her, just as he’d vowed to do, with loving words and pleasing touches. He honored her with his hands and mouth as she unbuttoned and slipped out of her dress and corset.

  And when they were naked together and moonlight tumbled through the window to cast her in silver wonder, he entered her slowly, carefully, and cradled her head in his hands as he made love to her. Gazing into her eyes the entire time, so he could see into her soul.

  So joined, he loved her until she surrendered, until pleasure broke through her and into him. They came together, and that’s when she shuttered her eyes and pressed her face into the hollow of his throat. When he was done pouring himself into her, he kissed her brow until she let him gaze upon her one more time.

  And he said it truly, so she would know how he felt beyond doubt. “I love you. With all I am. With all I will ever be.”

  Then she wrapped her arms around him tight, clinging to him. He held her safe until sleep claimed her. His woman who gave him value. He didn’t know love could do that, but now he did. He kissed her brow while she slept, even in her dreams holding him, holding on.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Rayna woke with a start. It was still dark. Surprised she’d been able to sleep at all, she looked to the window. The moonlight was gone. It had to be well into the early morning hours.

  Daniel, what a man he is. Her soul broke watching him sleep. He lay beside her on his stomach, arms flung up over the pillow. The dark shadows played along the contours of his muscular back and shoulders. The covers were pooled low on his hips. The long, lean, hard look of him made her yearn to wrap her arms around him and hold on. To kiss a long string of kisses down his back and reach beneath the covers. But if she gave in to those impulses, he’d come awake, pulling her to his chest, already hard and needing her. She wanted him to come inside her again, so she could lose herself with him. Until there was only him.

  It’s also what she didn’t want.

  He slumbered peacefully, his dark hair tousled, his breathing even and untroubled. She resisted the urge to reach out and slipped from the bed instead. Trembling with emotions she dared not name. Regrets she could not erase.

  The cold air was a shock on her bare skin. She searched for her nightgown in the dark, found Daniel’s nightshirt and had to go to the corner of the room where it had landed. Teeth chattering, she slipped into the warm flannel and found her socks.

  What she wanted was away from Daniel, away from here, in this room where they’d made love. But the house was too cold, and so she grabbed the extra blanket from the foot of the bed and wrapped up in it at the window.

  She pulled aside the curtains, but frost etched the glass so thickly, she couldn’t see out. There was only the vast feel of black night and the hushed tap of snow against the glass. The storm arrived not with a howling crash but a tired inevitability. As if there was no other choice.

  Exactly how she felt. She gave in to the frigid draft rushing through the wood and glass as if it were paper. Let the icy air force her eyes to water. Let the cold sink deep into her bones. Maybe it would numb the pain of her soul.

  It didn’t. The faint chime of the kitchen clock, muffled by the floorboard and distance, marked the passing of one hour to the next. The storm moved in, as it was destined to do, the wind whipping along the eaves was a particular sadness.

  It was an affliction she shared. With Daniel, she’d felt something she’d never had with Kol. No pleasant loving joy, but something so intense it scared her.

  Daniel had devastated her defenses. Every last one of them.

  In the solemn hours before dawn came, she felt revealed. Her soul
was open and exposed, and every emotion quivered. Sorrow at the man she’d lost. Affection for the one she’d gained. Fear at being so close to another man again.

  Anger at her weakness.

  I want him again. Over and over until she could lose herself from this world and let Daniel overtake her senses, her body, her soul. The overwhelming experience of being joined with him, clinging to his brawny shoulders, slick with sweat, as he stroked in her, pushing her to her surrender.

  Until there was only the pure joy of him inside her and the crash of pleasure roaring from him and into her, the rare bliss of her shattering release as he emptied into her with a hot rush that could change everything.

  She could feel the evidence of his seed. How could she have forgotten? The cap lay in her box in the necessary room. It wasn’t going to do any good there. Without it, she had no protection against Daniel’s seed taking root within her.

  This was not the time to be forgetting such an important precaution.

  Daniel murmured in his dreams. Indistinguishable sounds, and he rolled onto his side. Thrashing in absolute silence as the bed ropes groaned beneath him.

  Dreaming of his childhood? A single moan tore up his throat, the sound of absolute suffering and he fell still. The poor man. She wanted to go to him, to trail her fingertips through his hair. To stroke comfort across his brow.

  She was hardly aware of having crossed the room, but she was there, at his side like a guardian angel in the dark watching over him. He was at peace now, breathing slow and deep. His big body sprawled on his side, his arm flung over the pillow. Naked, she could just make out the shape of him in the dark, and he was stunning.

  Tenderness, unwanted and unbidden, blazed through her. The empty place in her chest gave a painful hitch. She reached out to twirl a shock of his hair around her fingertips. Mussed from their lovemaking.

  She let his hair fall away from her touch. Undisturbed, he slept. She felt the uneven lay of scars and skin as she drew the covers up over his thighs. Sweat bathed his skin from his dream.

  What misery had he known?

  She remembered the scars marking his back as her fingers grazed his side. Sympathy swelled within her for this man so strong. He could never be hers. Not truly.

  Sadness crashed over her, as strong as the tenderness that made her tuck the blanket beneath his chin. He was safe and warm now, yet she couldn’t make her feet carry her away from his side.

  “Hmm, Rayna,” he sighed in his sleep. So much love rumbled in those words.

  Her soul broke a little more at the sound. What am I going to do with you, my husband?

  For it felt as if now, this night for the first time, he was her husband truly. They’d finally had their wedding night. The vows promised between them were sealed. What a wonderful lover you are. Her lips tingled in memory of his deep, passionate kisses. Her body felt renewed, alive again, pleasantly sated from his incredible touches.

  Her entire being felt. The emotions she’d tucked away in her heart with Kol’s loss had been sparked to life again. Like eyes kept too long in the dark burned and wept at a sudden light.

  I love you. With all I am. With all I will ever be. Daniel’s sensual baritone rumbled through her. Even in memory, her body responded. Her breasts ached, her thighs parted and she craved him like a hunger that came not from her flesh but from her soul.

  After making love, he’d said those words with unwavering love and honesty, and she’d given up the last of her resolve and clung to him, both relieved and troubled that she’d surrendered to him.

  While she watched, he rolled onto his back with a moan, exposing a wide wedge of his iron chest. Her body clenched with desire. She wanted him. Still. She wanted to slip into his arms and to experience him again.

  “Rayna.” He eased up on his elbows, groggy and sleepy. “Come here. Come to me.”

  She should argue. She couldn’t give in to her weakness, her needs. That was exactly what she wanted. One more time. One more joining. The night was not over. Morning had not yet come.

  She let him draw her over him. Felt the covers fall over her and his arms enfold her. The heat of him, the texture of his skin and wonderful body burned the chill from her soul.

  Like flame joining flame, she let him guide her onto his shaft. Let his heat spear into her until they were both burning. Until there was only their heated coming together and release.

  And sweet, sweet bliss.

  Daniel woke with Rayna in his arms. His heart swelled, filling him with gratitude, and he held her, afraid to move.

  Maybe if he didn’t breathe or move or think, he could make time stand still long enough to soak in this wonderful moment. Nothing in his life had ever come close to the joy of opening his eyes to a new day, with the woman he loved wrapped against him, skin to skin.

  Sated from a night of lovemaking, she lay boneless against him. Using his chest for her pillow.

  I love you, my wife. Tenderness flowed through his blood, more intoxicating than any liquor he’d ever known as he gently cupped the back of her head and held her to him. His heart beat with the unwavering truth.

  He was hers, body, heart and soul.

  But the faint chime of the downstairs clock heralded the hour, and there was no holding back the coming day. It had already begun. But to leave Rayna? No, he didn’t want to do that. For the first time in his life he wanted to stay late in bed. For the first time in his life he had a reason to.

  Oh, she was beauty. He hurt with love for her. How perfect the slope of her nose and the lush curve of her lips beneath. Just parted and relaxed. He knew intimately the feel of those lips on his. Her hand rested, slightly splayed against his belly. Remembering her tender touches and her secret caresses from last night made him ache for more.

  There would be time for that come nightfall. When he could have her all to himself again. Smiling, he stroked the satin strands of her rich hair, a wild tangle from last night. Who would have thought prim and proper Rayna could—

  She moaned, snuggling against his chest, exposing the soft pillows of her breasts. Hell, she was perfection. He watched as her lashes flickered and she gazed up at him sleepily.

  “Good morning, beautiful.” He cradled her head and came over her. She was beneath him, all soft woman’s heat. A hard punch of love rose up from his soul.

  Her answer was a kiss, and she felt so relaxed and supple beneath him. He loved knowing he’d pleased her last night. The shadows in her eyes were still there, but she closed them as they kissed.

  As if it was too much to feel, she tore her mouth from his and buried her face in the crook of his shoulder. He feared for a brief moment that she was going to push away from him, but he was wrong. She opened to him again, searching to take him into her, and he was only happy to oblige. For he belonged to her.

  With a growl he wrapped his arms around her, filling her deep. He felt her need as she wrapped around him tight.

  Oh, she was his love. His first and his only. He didn’t know how to tell her.

  So he showed her.

  The entire morning through, the memory of being intimate with Daniel did not leave her. Nor, she realized, did that memory leave him. Through breakfast he watched her intense and steady. As she helped wrap Hans into his muffler, she could feel Daniel’s gaze like a tug on her soul.

  Just where she didn’t want to feel him. She turned her back to him but it didn’t help. Every movement he made—pulling on his boots, feeding the fire, finding the warming potatoes she’d put on to heat for the cold ride into town—grated along every inch of her skin.

  It made her even more aware of the man in the room with her. The man she shouldn’t have turned to last night.

  “Ma, I can do it.” Hans fretted, pulling away.

  She had to fight to get the muffler close around his ears. She was persistent because it was cold out and she didn’t want him getting sick. Once she was satisfied, she pulled his hat over his ears and kissed the tip of his nose. Not much of her littl
e boy showed. “Now you’re snug as a bug.”

  “Ma, I’m not a baby, you know.”

  “I know.” Sadly, he was growing up far too fast. “Do you have all your homework?”

  “Kirk has the books and stuff.” Hans squirmed, overwarm in his layers of clothing.

  She tugged his cap down. “What about your slate?”

  “Uh…” Hans rolled his eyes upward. “I guess I forgot that.”

  “I’ll run up and get it. You get your lunch, okay?”

  On her way through the kitchen, she had to pass Daniel. Daniel, who made her nerve endings stand up like flowers to the sun. That intensity pricked and crackled through her and no distance seemed to diminish it. Every step away pulled at her very being.

  As she walked past her open bedroom door, she caught sight of the bed made, without a wrinkle on it, and the pillows fluffed and in place, just the way she’d made it earlier. But it was so neat and tidy, and she remembered how mussed the covers had been after a night of passion spent in Daniel’s arms.

  She squeezed her eyes shut until she was safely past, but she could not close off her thoughts as easily. Or the recollection of Daniel’s touch, Daniel’s words, of Daniel’s heat fusing with hers.

  By the time she returned to the kitchen, glancing at the clock fearing the boys would be tardy, she didn’t see him at first. Not until she cleared the edge of the table and there Daniel was, crouching on the floor so he was eye-to-eye with Hans, who glared at him with eyes filled with all the hatred his grieving heart could muster.

  Hans yanked down his muffler. “I can help Kirk take care of Ma.”

  “I know you can help take care of your ma. But someone has to take care of you, little boy.”

  “Nuh-uh. You go home.”

  Rayna’s jaw dropped as she watched her son tug his muffler back over his face as if he hadn’t said anything so hateful. The slate nearly dropped from her fingers as she took a breath to scold him.

  But Daniel beat her to it. He didn’t seem angry. No. It was hurt that brought his voice so low. “This is my home now, too.”