He moved up another inch to explore the curve of her ear. "Or here?"
"Oh... yes."
He kissed her eyes, her temple, her cheek. "What about there?"
She trembled like a willow in the wind. "Jesse—" she begged against his jaw, then he captured her mouth with his. His touch was a hot summer storm, driving through her like a forked streak of lightning. His mouth on hers, a need as basic as breath. She reached up and took his face in her hands, holding him closer yet. Slanting her mouth across his, she drank him in, inhaling the taste of him wantonly. Her fingers slid into his nape. And when she groaned and felt her knees give in earnest, Jesse swept her into his arms and waded through the water with her to the shore.
He set her gently on the grassy slope at the edge of the water and covered her body with his own. Looking at her with such gentleness, he stroked her face and brushed a wet strand of hair from her eyes. With infinite tenderness, he kissed the drops of water from her eyelashes.
"This isn't the way I wanted it for us, Andi," he said against her neck. "When I dreamed of making love to you, it wasn't on a grassy riverbank. It was... special... right."
"This is right, Jesse, don't you see that? We have been destined for this place since we were young."
Jesse nestled his face between her breasts and inhaled deeply. "I'm a bastard for wanting you here. Like this. I have no right to even ask you—"
This time she put a silencing finger to his lips. "Don't talk about rights, or promises or even tomorrow. I only know that here, now, this is right. Make love to me, Jesse. I've wanted you for so long." She searched his eyes. "Does that make me wanton?"
He shook his head and dropped his mouth onto hers, in a brief, soul-wrenching kiss. "Thank God for it," he moaned against her skin.
She dragged him back to her and their mouths met with a fierceness that made breathing seem superfluous. With a nudge of his knee he spread her legs and settled between them, pressing himself there intimately while his mouth seared hers.
Finally, easing off her, Jesse freed the buttons on her shirtwaist loose and stripped her of it in one clean tug. Untying the small ribbon bow on her camisole, he freed her other breast.
His hand trembled as he ran it over the fullness of her, his mouth brushing her with the barest of caresses, then transferred his attentions to lifting her skirts up past her hips. Finding the tie that bound her drawers to her waist, he loosened it then freed her legs from them.
His hand followed the path of her drawers back up her legs, dragging a palm along the sensitive inner thigh. He lingered there, drawing closer and closer to that warm, moist spot between her legs that longed for his touch. She moaned when his fingers found her at last and sank into the silken curls at the apex of her womanhood, dipping into the slick, damp heart of her.
And suddenly his mouth was on hers again, claiming, demanding, seeking.
His tongue made lazy swirling motions inside her mouth and the pressure of his kiss forced her head back against the sweet-smelling grass beneath them.
Andrea's breath came in shaky gasps. Jesse shed his soaked trousers and hovered above her. She took in the sight of him and her longing became electric. The sun had burnished his skin and bleached the brown hair on his chest the same gold as the thick hair on his head. He was hard and lean but his touch belied the strength in those solid planes. His skin, when she slid her hands across it, was warm and smooth as a river-washed stone. And further down... Oh, my, she thought.
He was beautiful, the way a fine crystal held to the light was beautiful. Or the way a piece of music, played by someone who believed in it with his very soul, was beautiful.
That he was wholly unaware of that beauty, made him all the more attractive to her. She knew from experience that external beauty had nothing to do with a man's heart. But this man's heart was one she longed to touch.
He settled between her legs. Flesh to flesh, the tip of him seared her like a burning ember. She needed that fire inside her, mindlessly.
"Are you sure, Andi?" His words came between ragged breaths. "I don't want to hurt you—"
"Oh, Jesse, don't stop. Please—"
"In a minute, I'll be well past that point," he warned, pressing his cheek against her breast and breathing as if he'd run a long way.
Andi tangled her fingers in his hair. "I want you to. Don't you know that?"
His hands whispered across her skin as if he couldn't get enough of touching her. "You may regret it tomorrow."
She looked up at him. "Will you?"
He didn't answer her. Instead he covered her mouth with his in a kiss so heartbreakingly tender it brought tears to her eyes.
Then he entered her with a shuddering sigh of relief. Moving slowly, he gave her time to adjust to him. For Andrea, the discomfort lasted only a few seconds and then it was replaced by the unbearable rightness of having the man she'd loved her whole life inside her. He glided in and out of her, keeping his thrusts shallow, even cautious at first. Andrea arched toward him with a low moan, seeking more.
He complied with deep, sure thrusts of his powerful hips. Still, he teased her with the indolence of his movements, first burying himself deep within her then withdrawing almost completely. Over and over again, he pushed her to the brink of madness until she was writhing against him and moaning in low pants. Like an arrow seeking its mark, he drove with sure eloquence into the center of her being.
She stared up at his beautiful face, his jaw clenched, eyes squeezed shut, he grimaced in his own private agony of pleasure. He took her higher, higher until she forgot to think, forgot even the sunlight spilling through the canopy of trees above them. There was only sensation, the slick, thrusting union of two halves to make an inevitable whole.
He ground out her name, "Andi," then drove into her.
Spiraling, straining, she thrashed against his powerful thrusts as he took her to the delicate precipice between pain and ecstasy and flung her off. Airborne, she cried out his name. He covered the sound with his mouth. Inside her head, her blood pounded like thunder, muffling the groan of pleasure he took in seeing her climax. Andrea clung to him, drifting, soaring as Jesse gathered her close to him to find his own release.
His powerful thrust grew more intense, his hips grinding against hers harder, harder until the friction building inside her again until she thought she would die. Straining against her, head thrown back, he stiffened with a groan of release, and spilled himself into her.
Jesse collapsed against her, dropping his face into the curve of her neck. His shoulders rose and fell raggedly against her bare chest. For a long time, neither of them spoke or moved. She was too happy to do any more than cling to his damp back and hold him close. She loved the weight of him on her, the way his skin smelled, damp and sated with her.
She sighed deeply. No words of love had passed between them. Perhaps it was just as well. Tears gathered at the corners of her eyes and slid down her temples toward her ears. They were not tears of sadness, but tears of contentment. What they'd done today may have changed everything or nothing. But it didn't seem to matter to her now. She had Jesse in her arms, and he'd kissed her the way a man kisses a woman he loves.
She stared up at the treetops bending in the warm breeze and listened to the tempo of her heartbeat slow. The world filtered back, the chirp of finches, the burble of water lapping at their feet. In the tree a few feet away she glimpsed the weathered remains of the tree house they'd built all those years ago. Built in the apex of a strong tree, it had stood the test of time. It made her smile to see it now, as she held Jesse close to her at last. She wondered if she'd ever felt more complete than she did at this moment.
When he lifted his head at last, Jesse didn't attempt to break the intimate link between them. "Are you all right? Did I hurt you?"
She closed her eyes and shook her head. "No, it was... wonderful, Jesse. More than wonderful."
Jesse dipped down to taste her mouth again, then rolled out and off her, stretching out be
side her on the bank with a sigh. It had been wonderful. Damn wonderful, in fact. He'd had a lot of women in his life, but never had he come close to feeling what he did with her just now. He wished he could just hold her the way he was right now, and not let life interfere.
He dropped an arm over his eyes, knowing a moment of despair. He'd spent so many years believing himself unworthy of a woman like her, and here, in a few moments, he'd taken her as if she were no better than the women he'd slept with in his travels. Self-disgust sluiced through him. To even think of her in the same moment as those others now struck him as blasphemy.
He couldn't leave her now, nor, for that matter, did he want to. He'd plow fields from dawn till dusk if he had to. But he'd taken that decision right out of her hands. She'd have to marry him whether she wanted to or not. Wouldn't she? And what about Zach? He found himself wondering if she was comparing him to Zach, unfavorably. How could he live up to a brother who'd been nearly perfect? A man Andi had married, the one she'd planned on spending her life with?
"Jesse?" Andrea pushed her skirts down to her knees and rested her head on his shoulder. "What's wrong? Were you disappointed?"
He sighed and drew his arm beneath her head, pulling her close. "Disappointed? Not hardly. I—I'm still shaking." And he was.
"What then?"
"I guess I was wondering,"—he lied—"a little belatedly I might add—if I... got you with child."
She relaxed against his shoulder. "Don't worry about that."
He lifted his head off the ground. "How can you say that? You do know where babies come from don't you?"
She exhaled a little breath of laughter. "You can ask that after delivering mine? No, I'm nursing. It's nature's preventative. So Isabelle says."
He dropped his head back against the grass with a groan of disbelief. "Oh, Isabelle. Isn't she the one with nine children? Damn, I feel so much better."
Andi laughed again, drawing circles through his chest hair with her finger. "I haven't even gotten my—" she blushed, "my curse again yet."
He relaxed a fraction. "Thank God for that."
"I used to have dreams that we had a child together. I always thought it would be a wonderful thing."
A long moment of silence had stretched between them. He sat up with his back to her.
Andi sat up silently beside him, pulled her camisole up from her waist and covered herself. She reached for her blouse. "Obviously you don't."
He grabbed her wrist and her hurt gaze met his. "No, it's not that. I..." He ran a hand through his hair and confessed, "I've had the same dreams."
Shocked by his confession, she stared. "You have?"
He nodded. "It's just—"
"Just what?"
"I gave up on them long ago."
Andi stroked his bare back with her hand sending shivers down him. "Things change," she said, echoing the words he'd used on her earlier.
He looked at her sideways and smiled sadly. "Some things can never be changed."
She stared at him intently. "Is it... Zach?"
He bowed his head unable to admit to her his fear. With shaking hands he reached for the trousers he'd discarded.
"Jesse, I don't want your brother to come between us."
"That's pretty tough, isn't it?" He stood and shrugged into the soaked pants. "I mean, you're still wearing his ring on your hand."
She stared at her hand, a little surprised to see that she hadn't removed her wedding ring. It hadn't occurred to her to take it off, nor, she supposed, would it have been proper if she had. She got to her feet beside him and touched his arm.
"Jesse, I loved Zach in a... special way. He was there for me when I needed him most. I'll always love him for that and for giving me my son. But..." she hesitated, "it's you I've always loved. I never stopped even when you left. Even after I married your brother."
His eyes rose to meet hers with a shadow of accusation... and hope.
"You cannot make me feel more guilty about it than I did at the time," she told him. "You broke my heart when you left. I did what I had to do to survive."
Jesse felt deeply sorry that his brother had never had the love he saw in Andi's eyes for him at this moment. But guilt was not only her burden, it was his. "Did he know?"
She stared at the leaf-scattered ground, tears gathering behind her eyes. "He knew. He always knew. He loved me without condition, Jesse. I loved him for that and would have been proud to be his wife for the rest of my life. I grieved deeply when he died; for myself, and because he'll never know the son he wanted so. But Zachary will know about his father. I'll tell him how funny his daddy was and how gentle and,"—her voice broke—"how loyal. Zach was a wonderful man. I'll never forget him and neither will you."
Jesse nodded. He knew that only too well.
"I never wanted to want you back in my life again, but in you came. As much as I loved Zach, you've always owned my heart, Jesse. I never imagined I would trust it to you again." Implicit in her words was the fact that she had allowed herself to do just that.
He reached for her, pulling her close and dropped a kiss on her forehead. "Are you sure you should now?"
She started to reply, but the sound of approaching hoofbeats on the road to the south of the house cut her off. He peered through the trees in that direction, but could see nothing. "Riders." Damn!
"The children—" she gasped, her fear of the worst clearly imprinted on her face. The incident at the Rafferty place was too fresh in both their minds. With trembling fingers she buttoned the blouse and tucked it into her skirt then reached for her drawers.
Jesse was already hurrying to where he'd left his boots and guns. His thoughts ran along the same lines. Jamming his feet into his boots, he was already running for the house.
Andrea grabbed her boots, stockings, and garters. A sudden chill sliced through her, despite the warm breeze that tugged at the willow branches above her head. As she started off after Jesse, a branch snapped across the pond. She stopped dead and turned back, searching the shadowy thicket of trees. She saw nothing. Probably a squirrel, she decided, dismissing it as nothing more than imagination. Still, the coldness didn't leave her. Years of living on the edge of fear had made her skittish.
Without wasting another moment's thought on it, Andrea turned and hurried back to the children.
Chapter 16
Jesse was still buttoning the last button on his shirt one-handed as he plunged over the small hillock and into the yard. Gertie and Ruthie were chasing one another through the rows of drying garden corn in a game of tag, while Addie, holding Zachary, watched the dust of the approaching riders cut a trail between the fields of man-high corn.
She turned at the sound of Jesse's footsteps, a look of fear in her eyes. "Who are they?"
He opened his mouth to tell her to get the children in the house when Sheriff John Cobb and two deputies rounded the corner of the field and trotted into the yard.
Jesse's heart gave a leap of relief. Andi appeared at his side, out of breath, and put her arm around Addie. He thought he heard her murmur a prayer of thanks at the sight of the three lawmen. But glancing at his sodden clothes, Jesse knew they couldn't have chosen a, worse moment to appear.
Cobb had been Elkgrove's peacemaker since before Jesse left for Montana. Some thought that had been too long. Cobb had put on a few pounds since he'd seen him last. His barrel chest and broad shoulders gave the impression of strength, but Jesse wondered how much of that strength had turned to complacency. Still, his steely blue eyes missed nothing, and as he lifted off his hat in greeting, Jesse became all too aware of how he and Andi must look, soaked to the skin.
"Jesse?" His gaze went from Jesse's wet clothes to the rifle in his hand as he dismounted. "I'm glad I ain't who you musta been expectin'."
"Me, too. Hello, Sheriff," Jesse replied taking the man's extended hand. "Good to see you again."
"You know Jim Strands and Howard Lukes, don't ya? I've taken 'em on as deputies considerin' our... crisis."<
br />
The deputies nodded a greeting. Jesse nodded back.
Cobb's gaze strayed to Andi, whose cheeks had gone pink. "Mrs. Winslow. How do? We didn't, uh, catch you in the middle of somethin' did I?"
"No," she said with a nervous laugh, touching a hand to her wet hair. "Well, I mean... Jesse was teaching me to shoot his gun,"—she held out her wet skirt delicately between her thumb and forefinger—"and, well, it's really so embarrassing. I stupidly slipped and fell in the water down at the pond."
Cobb raised an eyebrow and did his best not to notice the boots she concealed behind her back or her bare toes peeking out beneath the hem of her gown.
"You know," she rushed on, "that nice little natural pond we have on the, um, on Willow Creek?"
The Sheriff's bemused gaze slid back to Jesse. "Oh, yes, ma'am. An' them banks can be right slippery this time of year."
Andi rushed on, covertly picking grass from her sleeve. "Yes, well, then of course, Jesse came in to help me and then he fell in and so you see, w-we both got soaking wet and... and well..."
Cobb rubbed his nose with his knuckle. The two deputies had the good grace to study the cloud formations.
"Actually," Jesse added, with an innocent smile, "a cool dip in the pond was quite... invigorating."
Andi pinched him while she smiled at the sheriff.
"Can we go swimmin', too, Miss Andrea?" Gertie piped in as she came trotting over to them.
"Yea!" chorused the two-and-a-half-year-old, Ruthie. "Thwimmin!"
"Of course, dears," Andrea told them quickly.
"Why don't you let Miss Andrea go and change out of those wet things first before she catches a chill," Jesse told them. "We'll talk about swimming in a few minutes. I'm sure the sheriff didn't ride out here for nothing."
Cobb cleared his throat. "Well, now that's exactly right, Winslow. The boys and me just come from the Rafferty place and John said you seen some riders makin' tracks away from here yesterday."
Jesse glanced at Addie. "Why don't we go for a walk, Sheriff? I'll tell you what I can."
Cobb might be old, but he wasn't dense. "I reckon that's a good idea, Jesse. Boys, why don't you tie up over by the well and give the horses a drink o' that cool water. We'll be right back."
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