by Laurie Paige
“It wasn’t my fault if you didn’t realize the thousand shares were worth a lot,” she said aloud.
He stiffened. “I realize that.”
“So why should it make any difference now?”
“It doesn’t.”
“Good.” Springing up, she lifted Lass and took her inside. She warmed a bottle and, going to the nursery, sat in the recliner rocker and fed Lass the formula.
The child gazed up at her, one plump hand patting the bottle while she drank.
“Your father is a hard man to figure out,” she told her.
Lass stopped sucking and grinned up at her. Molly’s heart contracted with love. She couldn’t imagine being anywhere but here, in this house, with this family.
But what if Sam didn’t want her?
Now that he was clear of all threats from his father-in-law, he no longer needed to worry about anyone taking Lass from him. Certainly he didn’t need a spinsterish teacher who lectured on everything from table manners to bath towels in his life.
As Lass’s eyes drooped, then closed in sleep, Molly wrestled with the problem of understanding her husband. Well, she’d take it one day at a time and see what developed. She grimaced at her own optimistic attitude. Molly, the great philosopher.
After laying Lass down, she went to the master bedroom. Sam was there. He’d undressed to his briefs and was lying under the sheet, one arm over his face.
She stripped to her underwear and joined him.
To her surprise, he rolled toward her and laid his arm over her waist. She turned to her side and snuggled into his body, spoon-fashion. His breath sighed against her hair, then deepened. She realized he was asleep.
For a few moments, she pondered the way he’d looked at her yesterday when he arrived home and found out she and the baby were all right. It had been fierce, yet tender. She’d thought it was because he was injured and vulnerable, but maybe…maybe she was wrong…
Molly and Lass stood at the window and waved one last time. Nana waved from the window of the plane. The plane moved away from the gate. Behind them, Sam waited silently to drive them back to the ranch.
“I hate to see her go, but truthfully, I’m exhausted,” Molly admitted, heaving a sigh of part sadness, part weariness.
“Your grandmother is an energetic lady,” he commented, taking Lass from her and guiding them toward the door.
“Fortunately she doesn’t stay in one place longer than ten days, as a rule. She says that’s the limit of her patience. I think that’s all ordinary people can last with her.”
During the past ten days, they’d made a thorough tour of the area, looking at landmarks, ghost towns, museums and meeting all the local citizens. The last thing Nana had whispered to her was, “He’s a keeper, your young man. Makes me miss my Bertie.”
Molly blinked away the mist from her eyes. “We’d better hurry. Chuck and Janice will be at the house before we get back. I’d like to have a leisurely dinner with them before the Tisdales arrive to discuss the legalities.”
The two ranches were forming a joint project where their land met at the river. They were going to open a limited area to wilderness camping for families, plus a youth work camp for city kids to build trails, clear brush from campsites and learn to ride and herd cattle and get paid for it.
They arrived at the ranch five minutes before their dinner guests. The other couple pitched in. Soon the meal was on the table. Afterward, they went into the living room and discussed the project over coffee while waiting for the older couple.
“You sure you want to do this?” Chuck asked.
Sam glanced at Molly, smiled and nodded.
Chuck perused one, then the other. He started laughing.
“What’s so funny?” his wife demanded. She smoothed her maternity smock over her rounded tummy.
“I gave Sam some advice once. He wasn’t sure it was the best advice, but he took it.”
“What was the advice?” Janice asked.
“How about another cup of coffee?” Sam interrupted, springing to his feet.
Molly looked from one man to the other. “I detect a devious plot here, Janice. Do you?”
“Absolutely. We’ll tickle you to death if you don’t tell us right now.”
Chuck nodded to Sam. “It’s his secret. Shall I tell?”
Sam refilled their cups and replaced the pot on the tray. He shrugged. “Why not? They’ll bug us from now until eternity or until they find out, whichever comes first.”
“I advised Sam to marry the nursery schoolteacher as a way to solve his problems with his former father-in-law.”
Molly’s smile retreated. She pushed it back on her face.
“Told him it was my best advice. And it was.” Chuck beamed at them, quite pleased with his legal counseling.
“Yeah, it was,” Sam agreed.
A beat of silence followed while he gazed at Molly. She felt the tenderness of his look and swallowed against the emotion that closed her throat.
Marriage was good, she mused as the conversation flowed around her. She and Sam had a solid relationship. Tomorrow, they would have made it six months. Six months of marriage to a man she loved more than anything. She sighed. Yes, it was good.
The Tisdales arrived, and the talk grew lively. There had been times during the past months when she and Elsie had had to intervene between the two strong-minded men.
Moving around the kitchen, cutting the pie and serving dessert, she wondered if anyone noticed she always included food during their meetings. The ritual stemmed from ancient times.
Sitting down to a feast symbolized peace and a measure of trust between two warring factions. Only the lowest form of humanity would betray this sacred treaty. She’d found it worked as well in modern times.
William had shed his anger slowly, like a snake shuffling off its old skin. It had been interesting to watch the transformation. Gradually the charming man he had once been had emerged from the twin shadows of resentment and frustration.
As for Elsie… Molly studied her friend while she placed the plates on the table. Elsie was positively blooming under the gentle warmth of Lass’s love.
Yes, life was good. Tomorrow, on the day of their six-month anniversary, she had a favor to ask of Sam. A hint of the nervousness she felt deep inside penetrated her poise.
She would soon be thirty-three. It was time.
Chapter Fourteen
The day had been hot for October, but now the shadows were long under the mesquite branches, and the air had cooled. Molly smiled as Lass followed the cat around the porch.
The “yearling,” as Sam had called her since her birthday, walked with that all-out gait toddlers used to get from one place to another, her eyes always on the prize she was after and never on her feet. She wore sneakers—her first pair of real shoes and a gift from Elsie.
Across the pasture, she could see Sam and the two cowhands pulling barbed wire tight and stapling it to posts. They were moving the cattle in close for the winter. During the summer the field had grown alfalfa, now stored in a huge barn as hay.
She’d planned a special supper for the men. Chicken-fried steak and mashed potatoes, with gravy smothering everything. Also baking powder biscuits, which she’d learned to make just right by trial and error.
She grinned. Terrible tastes these Western men had, but once a month she indulged it. She had grown to like gravy and biscuits herself.
Nana, who was originally from the South, had laughed about that. “You’ll make a cowgirl out of her yet,” she’d said to Sam.
“I hope so,” he’d replied, giving Molly one of those mysterious glances that stopped her heart. If only Western men weren’t so darn silent!
When the men headed in, she set the table and had their supper laid out by the time they came to the house.
“Next year, I’d like a garden,” she said, taking her place beside Lass. She’d found it was easier to sit beside Sam with Lass in the high chair between them at the corner of
the table.
Sam paused as if studying the idea from every angle. “It’s a lot of work,” he finally said.
“I know, but I’d like to try it one time. Maybe Mrs. Stevens would come more often.”
“We could plow it for you,” Tom volunteered. He paused. “Uh, if we’re here next year.”
“You’d better be,” Sam ordered. “You’ll have most of the responsibility for the ranch while the resort is getting off the ground. If it does.”
Molly grinned at his skepticism. “It’ll be fun. We’ll use camp hosts like the National Park Service does to keep an eye on the campers and report any problems.”
“We’ll probably spend half our time rescuing lost kids.” Sam smiled when she started laughing. “All right, I’ll quit being such a pessimist.”
When dinner was over, he gave Lass a bath and got her ready for bed while Molly cleaned the kitchen. She listened with a deep inner contentment to Lass’s shouts of glee as she splashed in the tub. Sam’s deeper rumble scored a vibrant counterpoint to the child’s treble tones.
She hummed while she finished up. After a while, feeling another presence, she looked up. Sam lounged against the doorframe, watching her work. She smiled at him.
“Lass is ready for her story,” he said.
She rubbed lotion into her hands and went to the bedroom. Holding the child in her lap, she read a bedtime story about some bears going into the woods at night. Lass pointed to the pictures and growled in imitation of her father.
“That’s right. The bears go grrrr,” Molly agreed.
Once again Sam watched from the door with an unreadable expression in his eyes. A shiver sluiced down Molly’s back. There’d been such a depth of emotion in his glances of late. She couldn’t figure out if it forebode trouble or not.
After Lass was settled with her blanket and a thumb in her mouth, Molly slipped out of the room and closed the door.
Going to the master bedroom, she found Sam in the sitting room, which doubled as the ranch office, watching the news on television. He’d showered and put on a blue sweat suit.
Her heart skipped, then settled down. She flew into the shower and out again in five minutes, eager to be with her husband. They still made love nearly every night, but Saturday night was their “date” night.
After blow-drying her hair, she added cologne at a few strategic locations and slipped into a new nightgown frothy with lace and the color of champagne. With the robe, she was modestly covered, but everything about the outfit whispered “seduction.”
That’s exactly what she meant to do.
She glided into the sitting room in her bare feet and sat beside Sam on the daybed, curling her body toward his and resting her legs across his.
“You smell good,” he said, dropping an arm around her shoulders. He rubbed a smoothly shaven jaw against her head.
“You do, too.” She took a breath. “Sam—”
“Molly—”
They stopped and looked at each other expectantly.
“Ladies first,” he offered.
“No. You.” She was about to chicken out.
He nodded. He reached behind him and pulled a box from under a pillow. “For our six-month anniversary.”
“Oh, Sam,” she whispered, touched that he’d noted the date. The box contained a necklace and earrings that matched her engagement ring. “Oh, how beautiful. I can’t imagine a more perfect gift.’’
“I can,” he murmured.
She looked up. Her gaze was trapped by his.
“I watched you and Lass tonight. She’s your daughter in every way that counts. I thought… I wondered if you’d be willing to make it legal.”
“Adopt her?” Her heart soared like a helium balloon. “Of course I will. I’ve thought about it, but I wasn’t sure…I didn’t want you to think I was pushing … Oh, Sam, you know how much I love her.” She set the box on the table and kissed him rapturously all over his smiling face.
He chuckled and caught her mouth in a shattering kiss. She sighed and laid her head on his chest when it ended. His heart was pounding hard. Against her thigh, she felt the arousal that always followed their kisses. That reminded her…
“I have a request,” she murmured, no longer shy about asking for her favor.
“Ask away.” He idly smoothed her hair.
“Could we start a baby now, tonight?”
She felt him stiffen and wondered if she’d read the situation wrong. She lifted her head and gazed at him.
Time stopped, just stopped, and lingered suspended in the dark blaze of his eyes for an eternity.
“Sam?” she said and heard her voice tremble.
He didn’t speak. She suspected he couldn’t. She saw him swallow, then take a deep breath. His heart knocked against her breasts in a pagan beat that started an answering beat in her.
She didn’t need the words. She saw it in his eyes—the love he couldn’t, didn’t try to hide, the fierce protective love that was utterly sweet and utterly tender.
This time it was for her.
“Sam, my love.” She raised her face, needing his kiss.
He kissed her lips, her cheek, her ear. Then he said the words. “Molly… I love you.”
So softly. A whisper of sound. Words. Tender. Loving.
Words. For her.
“You’re the only woman I’ve ever loved, truly loved.”
She couldn’t believe it was possible for one body to hold so much happiness. “I believe you.”
Laughing, Sam lifted her into. his arms and carried her to their bed. He laid her down as if she was precious. To him, she was… this woman who believed in him, who’d taken his part and kept faith with him, who’d made each day a joy and showed him in a thousand ways that she was in for the long haul… this woman who loved him and Lass with a deep, abiding love that they’d come to trust and depend on.
Yeah, he loved her.
He gathered her close, needing to say the words in his heart. “Molly. Molly, darling.”
“Love me,” she said, restless for him. “Just love me.”
“Forever,” he promised.
And he did.
* * * * *
eISBN 978-14592-8046-5
MOLLY DARLING
Copyright © 1996 by Olivia M. Hall
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