by Jillian Hart
Mariah was the right woman. The best mother for his children. The finest housekeeper and cook. The perfect match for his soul. Marrying her was the best thing he’d ever done.
Making love to her was the worst.
Torn, he padded to the bedside table and turned down the light. Tenderness ached in his chest for his wife. As the flame died on the wick and darkness stole Mariah’s face from his sight, he grieved for it and for what he had to do. The night felt as endless as his loss. He closed the bedroom door the same way he closed his heart. Final. Certain. His soul was as dark as the night, as cold as the wind, as spent as the storm.
He locked his bedroom door, stripped to the skin and fell into the bed where he’d made love to Mariah. His pillow smelled like lilacs.
He could not sleep.
Chapter Twelve
The morning star twinkled like a promise in the clear predawn sky as Mariah hesitated at the kitchen window, a stack of plates tucked against the curve of her arm. It was going to be a beautiful sunrise. Remembering the love she and Nick had made together, it was sure to be a magnificent day.
She played the night over in her mind as she set the breakfast table. Savored in memory each tender kiss and the loving way he’d caressed her. Held close the pleasure of having him inside her, and the harmony of his soul touching hers.
She felt like the dawn, as if the sun were newly rising within her. A new woman, she flipped the pancakes on the griddle and listened to them sizzle. As they cooked, she fetched syrup, jam and butter for the table. It hardly seemed like work to finish up the pancakes, start the ham sizzling and begin sorting the clothes for tomorrow’s weekly washing. Instead of doing laundry for hire, this was for her own family. How her life had changed—and for the better.
Jeb ambled in, unshaven and tousled. Dark circles bruised his eyes from the interrupted night’s sleep. “A cup of your coffee would be heaven right about now.”
“It’s brewed and ready.” Mariah was all too happy to carry the coffeepot to the table.
“Thank you kindly, Mariah.” Jeb folded his powerful frame into the chair. “Sure is something what you did for us last night. Want you to know I appreciate it. You’re a good woman, and trust me, there ain’t many of those in this world.”
Mariah glowed more brightly inside. “Thank you, Jeb. That means a lot coming from you.”
“That’s right. I’m a tough old bird and don’t you forget it.” He winked, his grisly face wrinkling into a rare grin.
Feeling like the first beams of sunshine that were lifting above the far edge of the eastern prairie, Mariah returned to the stove. She flipped the ham slices on the griddle, squished them closer together to make room for the bacon strips, and decided she’d fry the morning’s eggs sunny side up. Nick’s favorite.
Nick. Joy surged inside her. He’d be here soon, striding through the threshold with his wind-swept hair and the confident swagger she loved so much. She couldn’t wait to see him, her husband. Her love.
As dawn chased away the long shadows from the night, Mariah felt it all the way to her soul. It was going to be an incredible day.
All it took was one look, and Nick knew he couldn’t do it. He’d planned to fill his plate and head out to the fields. He had the excuse of needing the corral finished by the end of the workday all ready to use.
One look at her, and he couldn’t move.
“Nick.” Mariah, spatula in hand, shone like a new diamond. So bright, it was a pleasure to his eyes. “Good morning, handsome.”
“Morning.” He wasn’t used to that kind of greeting or that shine of affection on a woman’s face. Lida had never treated him like this. But Mariah… She was an entirely different problem.
“You’re just in time. I’m ready to put the eggs on the table.”
His favorite kind. He didn’t miss that piece of information. Or the smirk from Will already at the table drinking coffee that said it all. You’re in trouble now, big brother.
Yep, he surely was. Last night was proof enough. He couldn’t get it out of his mind. The magic of making love with her, of thrusting gentle and deep. It had been real love, not sex, but bigger, deeper, more tender and intimate. Looking at her this morning, changed into someone new, he saw himself in her eyes. He felt changed, too. Her love was a blanket surrounding him and on the inside, too, warming his heart and soul.
She reached out to him. Her hands settled on his shoulders. Her kiss played against his mouth. Incredible tenderness swelled inside him like a soap bubble expanding in the air, lifting above the ground, higher and higher…
He squeezed his eyes shut and stepped away from the woman he loved. It took all his strength, but he did it.
“The food smells good.”
“Thanks.” She beamed at his compliment, and it was easy to see her heart. The love he’d felt when they were together last night shone in her now, as bright and steadfast as the sun. She was lovelier today than he’d ever seen her.
Love threatened to overtake his good senses and he walked away. The wise thing to do. The smart thing. But he ached, suddenly lonely. He wanted her in his arms where he could hold on to her forever.
This had gone too far, and he didn’t know how to stop it. He sat in misery at the table, passing platters of meat, fried potatoes, eggs and pancakes as he did every morning. He wanted to make love to Mariah again. He wanted to reach out and simply hold her hand. To bask in this rare gift of love and make the most of it.
But he couldn’t. This was never going to work out. Love never did. And he didn’t have enough heart left for another woman to shatter. He feared that, when Mariah fell out of love with him, she’d destroy him irrevocably. Not only his heart, but rip him clean down to the soul. He loved her that much.
He had that much to lose.
“I wanna ’nother apple.” Georgie clasped her hands together, standing in the waist-high bunch grass, the wind stirring her blond curls and snapping the hem of her pink calico dress. The sun worshiped her like an angel. “Please?”
“You can have the last one.” Mariah tugged the remaining apple from her apron pocket and handed it to her little girl. “Careful with your fingers.”
“Bad Boy tickles.” Georgie giggled as the big ox nosed the sunbonnet brim, trying to decide if the hat was good to eat. Georgie jabbed the apple at him. “Stop it! Here.”
Mariah patted the gentle steer’s neck as he deftly lifted the treat from those small fingers and crunched into the fruit. He was much happier with the other oxen. Nick had a matched set for breaking sod and hauling that was too heavy for the horses. Bad Boy rubbed his poll on Mariah’s hand, begging for affection.
“We may have to start calling him Good Boy.”
Georgie laughed. “That’s not a real name.”
After apologizing for running out of apples, and to escape the other oxen coming to see if they could get apples, too, Mariah grabbed her basket, took Georgie’s hand and led her toward the split-rail fence. The oxen followed like puppies waiting for a treat.
“Tomorrow,” Mariah promised. Nick would be out of town at the livestock auction, and he’d be gone for a few days. She’d have plenty of time to fill. “Georgie, go ahead and climb through.”
“’Bye, Bad Boy! O-oh, he kissed me.” Georgie wiped her cheek thoroughly before crawling between the ground and the lowest fence rail.
“More roses!” Georgie scampered through the tall grass, nearly head-high on her. She was only a bobbing crown of blond curls topped by a pink calico sunbonnet. She disappeared, kneeling into the grasses.
Mariah went on tiptoe, watching as the little girl found a fistful of wild roses from the low spreading bushes sprinkled across the prairie.
“There’s more, Mariah! Come pick ’em! They’re stickery.”
Mariah was already cutting through the thick grasses. Grasshoppers sprang out of her way. Meadowlarks scolded. A hawk circled lazily overhead, as if keeping an eye on them. Mariah knelt beside Georgie, took out the clippers weigh
ing down her apron pocket and carefully snipped the stems.
“They’ll make our supper table smell nice, won’t they?” Mariah asked as she held the blossoms up for Georgie.
She buried her face in the soft fragrant blooms. “Pretty. Like my dress.”
The colors were the same. Mariah slipped the roses, the first of summer, into her basket. The hawk overhead glided away. The birds had quieted. Remembering the incident with the coyotes, Mariah scanned the tall, rustling grasses. She couldn’t see any danger, and they were close enough to the house.
Still, she took Georgie’s hand. “Let’s go find your papa, okay?”
They skipped together through the flowering pasture, the prairie daisies, bluebells, asters and sunflowers waved in the warm breezes. The vibrant white and purple and yellow blooms scattered color across the grassy plains for as far as she could see. She felt like those wildflowers, newly open to the warm sun, dancing for the first time in the wind.
She’d never been so happy.
“Papa!” Georgie ran, arms outstretched, toward the shirtless man hard at work in the afternoon sun, face shaded by the dark brim of his Stetson.
As he turned toward them, pivoting from his boots, turning his lean hips, setting his broad shoulders, the sight of him hit her deep in the chest. Like a blow from a boxer’s glove, she reeled. This man was hers. Hers to love with her entire heart. Forever and ever.
It was as if he felt it, too. As Georgie raced across the last ten yards separating them, an invisible connection looped from Nick to Mariah. A connection that lifted her up in a way nothing ever had.
“Papa!” Georgie flew into her father’s arms.
“Howdy, princess.” His drawl was gentle with affection. “Did you come all this way to see your old pa?”
“Yep. Know what me and Mariah did?”
Mariah noticed Joey in the background, lowering his hammer into the tool bucket. He sauntered over to his father, so like Nick in the cut of his profile and the stance of his young body. It was easy to see the good in the boy as he checked to make sure his sister was cared for.
Her family. She took a step toward them, and then back, unsure.
Nick held out his hand. “Come over here, pretty lady. Whoever your husband is, he’s daft for letting you wander all by yourself. Someone might get the notion to steal you away.”
“Oh, and who would want me?”
“Any man would call himself lucky to have you, but I, for one, would be the first to fight for you.”
“That would make me the lucky one.” She slid her hand on his, palm to palm. The gold of her wedding band flashed in the sun, as if the angels above were granting their approval.
“With Joey’s help, I’ve got the corral ready. We did a good job, too. It’ll hold that stallion I intend to bring home.” Nick released her, stepping away.
It was a small thing, but she felt distance, instead of intimacy. Her palm felt cool where he’d touched her, even in the steady sunshine.
Maybe it was nothing. He was tired. He’d worked hard since before sunup, and had little sleep last night. What the storm hadn’t interrupted, she had.
Remembering made her blush. Made her want to feel the power of being joined with him. Tonight.
“Do you two lovely young ladies want to come to the creek with Joey and me?” Nick’s invitation was spoken to Georgie, who chanted, “Yes! Yes! Yes!” But over the top of Georgie’s sunbonnet, Nick’s gaze lassoed hers. Need shone in the tired depths of his eyes.
Need and fear. Mariah could feel both emotions. She needed him, too. She feared this love that sizzled between them, a connection more binding than marriage vows and shared goals and one night of physical intimacy. So much more.
When the four of them headed toward the stable, Nick casually kept the children between them.
She was killing him, and more completely than Lida ever could. Nick splashed through the ankle-deep water, the shallow end, where minnows and water bugs skidded out of his way. Mariah had her skirts tied above her knees, wading barefoot alongside Georgie. Heads bowed, woman and child gazed into the sparkling water.
“There’s one!” Georgie’s call startled waterfowl from the trees and small trout from their shady resting places beneath rocks and the jagged bank. Water splashed as she plunged one fist into the water. She came up empty-handed.
“Let me try.” Mariah reached down into the sparkling creek and pulled up the desired pebble. She held it, dripping, on her palm.
“Oh, pretty!” Georgie added it to her skirt pocket, which made the left side of her dress scoop downward, dangerously close to the water. “Oh, get that one.”
“This one?” Mariah moved into the deeper current, reached down without concern for her new dress. She had a streak of mud on her cheek, and her sunbonnet was slightly askew. Her dress bore wet patches in several places.
“That one.” Georgie confirmed, studying Mariah carefully, then changing her stance so she stood exactly as straight, with exactly the tilt of her head as Mariah did.
Nick stopped in midstride, letting the creek’s current caress the tops of his feet and his ankles, cool against the hot Montana sun. Look at what you stand to lose. It was right here in front of him. He’d been playing newlywed last night, not thinking with his brain, instead of sticking to his guns.
Look at Georgie, beginning to recover from Lida’s loss. There was Joey, sitting on a fallen tree over the creek, fishing in the shade. There was no burden weighing down his shoulders. No worry stark on his face. He was a boy again. He’d spent all morning riding his pony. Half the afternoon helping to finish the corral. Playing and riding and hanging out with his pa. Just like he used to do. Seeing his son like this, was everything.
His children were going to be all right, and he knew who to thank. It was Mariah’s doing. Selflessly, and without condition or complaint, she’d walked into their lives and their house and healed everyone she touched. She was a hundred times the woman Lida was.
“Look! I gotta trout!” Joey stood on the tree trunk, holding the struggling fish up for all to see. “He’s pretty big, too!”
“Good job, son.” Nick hopped onto the bank. “Let me help you clean that.”
“It’s big enough for me to fry up for your supper,” Mariah offered in that soft voice of hers.
“If I catch more, will you fry ’em up, too?” Joey asked, fidgeting with excitement.
“Of course.”
“I could feed our whole family!”
“I got it! Look.” Georgie held a pebble on her palm, water dripping off her chin.
“Good job,” Mariah praised, the honest, hardworking, sincere woman Nick had always loved, beautiful because of all the ways he loved her.
From the sixteen-year-old schoolgirl he’d first been enamored with, to the spinster whose loneliness matched his own, to the beautiful wife and lover who’d eased the lonesomeness from his heart.
His chest ached, and he couldn’t stop the pain of it. The scent of her lilac water was still on his shirt. Faint, but noticeable, calling back the sensation of holding her in his arms. Soft and sweet and sensual. Of loving her last night as if there could be no yesterday and no tomorrow, just that one moment frozen in time.
His trousers were tight again, because seeing her was wanting her, craving the absolute bliss he’d found in her arms. Mariah was all woman, no simpering girl, no petulant child, but a woman grown and all the more beautiful for it, and she made him feel…
She made him feel. There was no blissful indifference around Mariah. No simple, heart-frozen, indifferent, one-foot-in-front-of-the-other life that he’d been living. Last night she’d opened him up, like an ax splitting a stubborn piece of wood. He felt the resulting fissure from outside in. His heart suffering from it. That’s what love did to a man, what a woman did to a man, and he would not allow it.
“Pa, I’m gonna catch more of these.” Joey hopped to the bank, proud of his catch. “Are you gonna come fish with me?”
> “You bet, cowboy.”
Love was many things, and the kind that came with responsibility came first. Over the sparkling creek and the afternoon so beautiful it hurt to look at, Nick turned his back to Mariah and made his choice.
She’d felt Nick’s distance all afternoon, growing stronger as the hours passed. Because he and his brother were leaving for the auction tomorrow, Nick spent time with the children. After he tucked them into bed, he disappeared into his room to pack.
Mariah dried the last of the pots and pans, putting them away on the shelves of the shadowed kitchen. She could hear the tap of Nick’s gait on the boards overhead as he moved from the closet to the bed and back.
She’d finish up here and go to him. Offer any help he might need. Maybe even offer herself naked on his bed. She burned inside, remembering how he’d behaved when she’d come to his room last night. The way he’d led her to his bed, steady and silent, as if he were perfectly calm. But the shiver of his breathing and the tight grip he held on her hand said everything. This was no casual meeting. No convenient marriage. No, it was a union based on love. She shivered, wanting him so much. Nick, her love.
She tossed out the wash water and tipped the basins up to dry, all the while buzzing with excitement. Nick was still in his room. She was definitely going to go up to him. Only Jeb was in the parlor to say good-night to as she whipped by and flew up the stairs. Breathless and eager, she headed down the hall toward the splash of light from Nick’s room.
It was amazing to think he was her husband. That she had the right to walk through his house to his bedroom. To reach out and pull him close. All the years she’d longed for him, and now he was hers. Hers to love and cherish for all time.
His back was to her as he gazed out the window. His shoulders were straight and his arms were lifted, braced on either side of the frame. He was a big, powerful man that made desire curl through every inch of her. Love filled her in a quick swoop, like a hawk racing straight up into the sky.
