A Stockingful of Joy

by Hannah Howell

  “I had the best man in Saint Louis do them,” she replied, astounded at how calm she sounded, for inside she was twisted into knots of pain and sorrow, and the fear that he was about to add to that. “He is a master forger.”

  “You know some very strange people.”

  “My uncle and Bill often had need of such characters to accomplish their jobs.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me, Maura?”

  “I promised Deidre.”

  He sighed and closed his eyes for a moment before looking at her again. “Why? Didn’t you trust me?”

  “For the first day, perhaps, no, I didn’t. Our meeting was very convenient, against all odds, really. And I am well aware of how good forgeries can be, so your papers didn’t necessarily ease my mind that much. It was such a strange assortment, however, that I began to believe you were who you said you were rather quickly.”

  “That I can understand. It was only smart to be cautious. But after that? And, dammit, even after we became lovers, you still couldn’t trust me enough to tell me?”

  “I had promised Deidre.” She winced at the curse he spat and, deciding she felt a little too vulnerable lying there, sat up against the pillows. “I’m not sure even I understand why I didn’t tell you at some point along the way. At times I felt horribly guilty about it.”

  “Good.”

  Maura sighed. “I was the diversion, if you will. It was my job to pull some of the Martins’ attention my way. They had to believe that I might have all or part of the papers and that they were real.” She shook her head. “I didn’t think you’d betray me to the Martins. Never that. But what if you didn’t agree with our plan? What if you decided someone needed to be told that Deidre was coming with the real papers, thinking to get help to your brother and to her, to even notify your brother to set out after her? These were not things I could know until it was too late to take back the truth, and we both know the Martins seemed to know what we were doing as soon as we did it.

  “I don’t really know how to explain it. Deidre and I came up with a plan. Part of that plan was that absolutely no one but the two of us knew that the papers I carried were forgeries. I promised her I wouldn’t tell and I promised my uncle on his deathbed that I’d help finish this job for him. It’s all muddled up together. I clutched this grand plan tightly to my heart, seeing it as my only and last chance to pay back my uncle and Deidre for all they had done for me. Nothing was going to make me waver from that plan. Blind stubbornness, I suppose.”

  Mitchell muttered a curse and dragged his fingers through his hair. In some ways, he did understand. Stephen was right. In Maura’s mind it did not really have anything to do with whether or not she trusted him. It was the plan and the promise. She had agreed to the plan, stuck to it doggedly, and mostly because she had promised Deidre. The lingering pinch of hurt he felt came mostly from the fact she had chosen loyalty to Deidre over him, but he was not even sure he was seeing that correctly.

  He stared at her, all too aware of how beautifully tempting she was. Her robe was securely tied, but, in the deep vee at her neck, he could see the smallest bit of black lace. Despite how unsettled he still was over why she had never told him of the forgeries and how she might feel about him, he felt his body tighten with interest. Thoughts of what she might be wearing under that robe skimmed the edges of his mind.

  None of it really mattered in the end, either, he decided. She had not betrayed him as badly as he had thought she had. Maura had lied through her silence, no more, no less, and it had nothing to do with trusting him or how she might feel about him. If he had pushed her on the matter of the papers, had asked to see them, or even asked a few pointed questions, she might well have told him the truth. He should have acted upon that sense he had had that she was keeping some secret. That was all in the past, however. He shrugged off the last remnants of the pain he had felt, and that was easy enough to do when he accepted how Maura had looked at it all.

  What would happen next was what had him nearly shaking in his boots. He loved her, needed her, wanted her for his wife, but had no real idea if she felt the same depth of emotion he did. She had taken him into her bed, but she had also not stopped talking about returning to the farm, going back to Saint Louis and making her life there.

  “All right,” he finally said. “I’ll accept that it wasn’t the betrayal I thought it was. You just lied.”

  Maura blinked, inwardly delighted that he had forgiven her, yet a little irritated by his conclusion. “I didn’t really lie,” she said, ignoring the way his eyes narrowed. “I didn’t have to. You never really asked any questions. I was always worried that you would.”

  “Because you wouldn’t have been able to continue the lie?”

  “Probably not. I won’t say I wouldn’t have tried, but it would’ve been a poor effort, easily seen through.”

  “That’s some comfort, I suppose,” he muttered, then smiled apologetically when she winced. “I believe you. I believe it wasn’t a lack of trust in me. That belief will take a little while to salve all the bruises, however. And I still don’t like it that, in a way, you lied to me, no matter how much I can sympathize with how you felt. And, hell, the whole thing was for the benefit of the Callahans, no matter what your reasons were for whatever you did. It’d be damned churlish of me not to at least try to understand when you literally put your life on the line and me and my brothers gain the most from that.”

  “Well, thank you,” she said, and added softly, “I’m sorry.”

  “Apology accepted. Now, for the next item of business.”

  “Next item of business?”

  “We’re getting married.”

  Mitchell inwardly cursed his ineptitude, but knew it was too late to try again. It should have been done more slowly, the question asked amidst a flurry of kisses and love words. He hoped the shock he saw on her face was because of his bluntness. What really troubled him was that he thought he detected just a hint of fear in her eyes.

  “I have no wish to marry,” she said quietly, ruthlessly beating back that heedless part of her that wanted to throw herself into his arms and say yes.

  That hurt, but there was too much at stake to falter too quickly, Mitchell decided. “You don’t wish to marry at all, or you just don’t wish to marry me?”

  “It’s not you.”

  He got up and strode over to the table near the window, pleased to see that the brandy he had ordered when they arrived had been delivered. Mitchell was tempted to tell her that Deidre was here and was probably going to marry Tyrone and stay in Paradise. He resisted the urge. He wanted Maura to stay for him, only him, and not because it would allow her to be close to one of the last members of her family.

  “I see,” he drawled as, drink in hand, he walked back to stand by the side of the bed. “I’m only good for stud.”

  “What a horrible thing to say!”

  “What else am I supposed to think? You were a virgin. Despite your taste in underclothes, you’re a proper lady to the marrow of your bones. I bedded you. Hell, we’ve burned the sheets for the last few hundred miles. The next logical step is to get married.”

  The next item of business. The next logical step. Maura hated those words and almost hated Mitchell for using them. They cut into her like knives. Still reeling from the horrible confrontation over the papers, from all the personal revelations that followed, she was unable to deal with this new twist. Maura felt choked by the myriad of emotions swirling through her.

  “Maybe I’m not a very logical person,” she said. She could hear the way her voice trembled and feared she would soon break into a thousand little pieces.

  “Maura, you will marry me. For all you know, I’ve set a baby in you.”

  “Oh, so you would marry me for the sake of the child I might be carrying.”

  Mitchell frowned at her. He knew he was doing this all wrong, but desperation drove him. Tomorrow she would know that Deidre was safe and the job was done, the Martins defeated. Even if D
eidre was staying, Maura might still think to go back to the farm. He could not let her go. The way she was reacting to his words, however, seemed unusually strong. Anger, yes, and he felt he could soothe that. Maybe even a little sense of insult because he was not spouting pretty words, was, in truth, almost ordering her to marry him. That, too, he felt he could soothe, given time. But Maura looked almost frantic. She was beginning to tremble, her voice had risen a notch, carrying a faint hint of shrillness, and she was wringing her hands so tightly and consistently that he thought she might be hurting herself.

  “Of course I would. I’m not a man to shirk my responsibility.”

  “Responsibility,” she whispered.

  “Maura, we could have a good marriage. We like each other, respect each other, and desire each other.”

  Maura started to shake her head. Business, logic, and now responsibility. She covered her face with her hands. She was rapidly losing control and was terrified of what she would do or say, yet could not seem to calm herself down.

  “No, no, no,” she muttered, and she knew she was talking more to herself than to Mitchell.

  “Why the hell not?” he demanded.

  “I won’t marry a man who doesn’t love me,” she shrieked, the nearly hysterical sound of her voice only somewhat muffled by her hands over her face. “I will not do as my mother did. I won’t. I won’t. I won’t fall into that trap that just slowly sucks the life out of you. I won’t be one of those poor pathetic creatures sitting there waiting for what her husband can never give her, spending all of her time and energy trying to make him love her, and crying all night, night after wretched night, because she can never do enough. I won’t.”

  Mitchell stared at her, and suddenly a lot of things made sense. This was what kept Maura so tightly controlled. There were scars here, scars made by watching her parents destroy each other if he was understanding her tearful babble correctly. He set his drink down on the table by the bed. Despite how badly her upset and pain made him feel, he also felt a stirring of hope. She would not be so afraid if she did not care for him, care deeply. He sat down on the bed and pulled her into his arms, holding her firmly for the minute or so it took her to stop fighting him.

  “Tell me about your parents, Maura,” he commanded gently, smoothing his hands over her hair.

  “It’s not important,” she mumbled, slowly calming beneath his touch and feeling embarrassed by her outburst.

  “Oh, but it is. What happened with them is putting a big wall between us and I want it knocked down.”

  “Mama loved Papa desperately,” she began hesitantly.

  “And he did not love her?”

  “I don’t know. He might have in his way. He was a roamer, a gambler, and a womanizer. They may have been happy in the beginning, but by the time I was old enough to understand things, it was all wrong. Papa would come home and Mama would be so happy. He’d tell tales of his travels, stay a week or two, leave a little money, and be gone again. She would cry. There were always other women. That made her cry, too. She would sit by the window watching for him to come down the road and cry when another day slipped by and he didn’t come home. That was her life, all she cared about. Day in, day out. He was her world and it was filled with tears. When he was shot, caught in bed with another man’s wife, she still didn’t stop. I sometimes think she cried herself to death. Despite all he had done, it was as if she no longer wanted to live in a world where he no longer lived.”

  “You still lived there,” he said, knowing her reply would probably reveal even more scars, but needing to know it all.

  “Yes, I did.” Her voice was flat, emotionless. “As soon as I was old enough to work around the farm, I was useful in that I gave her more time to watch for Papa, to write letters begging him to come home, and to let her spend every minute with him when he did stop by. She taught me to be a lady because she believed he would soon be rich and we would move in society as equals. But, you see, my being there also meant that she was not free to chase after him. Sometimes she hated me for that. She followed him in the end, though, didn’t she.”

  He cupped her face in his hands and tilted it up to his. “Maura, my love, I am not your father.”

  There was such a soft look in his lovely eyes, she felt her heart beat a little faster. “No, you’re not,” she whispered, and felt the truth of those words in her heart and her mind.

  “I don’t itch to wander the world. I don’t gamble except for the occasional friendly game. And”—he brushed a kiss over her mouth—“I don’t womanize. Now, get that suspicious glint out of your pretty eyes. I haven’t been a saint. Never wanted to be and never claimed to be. But I was also a single man. I’m no great lothario, though, and don’t frequent the bawdy houses.”

  “Somehow I just can’t see you being like that, either.”

  “And you are not your mother.”

  She sighed. “No, I don’t think I am. I have given it a lot of thought lately and I know I would never have put up with Papa’s roaming and infidelities. In fact, a few painful memories reminded me that, even as a child, I had little tolerance for them.”

  “And there’s one other difference to consider.”

  Maura closed her eyes as he brushed tender kisses over her face, letting the warmth of desire chase away the lingering chill of fear and painful memory. “Mmm. And what is that?”

  “I love you.”

  She jerked back so fast he had to tighten his hold on her to keep her from sprawling on her back. Maura stared into his eyes, trying to read the truth there. Her heart was pounding so fast and so hard, she put her hand over it as if, with her touch, she could calm its pace.

  “You love me?”

  Mitchell smiled, a little hurt that she did not immediately reply in kind, but seeing hope for himself in her expression, which was an intriguing mixture of doubt and exhaltation. “Yes, have done that nearly from the start.” He slowly tugged her close again. “You see, I’ve always believed I would recognize my woman, my mate, almost at first sight. I suspected you were she. That first kiss confirmed it. Now, I won’t say I put the word love to what I was feeling, not right away. But, I knew it was right between us from that first kiss, knew I had to get you to see it, too, because my plan has always been to marry you.”

  Maura smiled at him, making no attempt this time to hide her feelings. “Oh, Mitchell, that’s so, so romantic,” she said, and laughed softly when he blushed.

  “I can be romantic from time to time.”

  “Yes, you can.” She touched his cheek with her fingers and bit back an urge to weep, for she knew he might not understand that they were tears of joy. “I suppose that’s why I love you so much.” She gasped softly when his hold tightened so much that it was nearly painful.

  “Maura?” He cleared his throat, his voice so hoarse with emotion he doubted her name had come out clearly. “You love me?”

  “Oh, yes. Why do you think I was so upset? I wanted you, wanted to stay with you, but you never spoke of love, and, even though you were proposing marriage, you said no soft words at all. Everything in me wanted to say yes, but I was terrified of staying with a man I loved but who did not love me.”

  She giggled when he somewhat awkwardly arranged them on the bed so that she was sprawled beneath him. As always, the feel of his big, warm body caused desire to heat her blood. It amazed her a little how three small words could so completely change fear and despair into hope and happiness.

  “I swear to you, Maura, you won’t regret marrying me,” he vowed as he opened her robe, then groaned as he viewed the deep maroon ensemble he so appreciated. “I will love away any doubts you have.”

  After she helped him shed her robe, she began to undo his shirt, eager to touch his skin. Mitchell was soon helping her take off his clothes. Their kisses and caresses grew more frantic, their need for each other openly desperate. Now that they had expressed what they felt for each other, laid their fears to rest, Maura needed him as she had never needed him before
. She wanted to show him how much she loved him with her body as well as her words and she could tell that Mitchell felt that same compulsion. He did not even take time to completely undress her. Once he was naked, he tugged off her little demi-drawers, and thrust inside her.

  “Mitchell,” she whispered, a hint of a question in her voice when he remained still, ignoring the quaking need of their bodies.

  “Ah, Maura, I do love you.”

  She tugged his mouth down to hers and brushed her lips over his. “I love you, Mitchell Callahan, and always will.”

  “And this . . .” He pulled back until he was almost out of her, then slowly rejoined their bodies, smiling faintly at the way they both shuddered. “Ah, yes, this is home.”

  “And it will always be enough?” she asked, unable to completely cast off all her fears.

  “More than enough. Hell, sometimes it’s almost too damn much.”

  She laughed, but it was quickly cut off by her rising passion. Maura wrapped herself around him, struggling to hold him as close as humanly possible as he took them to the heights. They found them together, their cries of release blending beautifully. When he slumped down on top of her, she continued to cling to him, savoring all the new rich feelings the acknowledgment of their love gave her. She murmured her regret when he finally eased the intimacy of their embrace, rolling onto his side and pulling her close in his arms.

  “Happy, love?” he asked, rubbing his hand up and down her back, and smiling faintly when he realized he had been too eager for her to take all of her clothes off.

  “Yes,” she replied, and kissed his chest. “There is only one thing that could add to my happiness. I want Deidre here to share it with me. I want her safe and all of your problems solved.”

  “Ah, well, there is something I have to tell you.” He smiled at her when she lifted her head to look at him, pleased he could ease the last of her concerns.

  As Maura listened to all Mitchell had learned from his brother Stephen, she gasped. “Married? Deidre is to get married to your brother?”