“Not unduly so,” she responded, grasping my forearms, bared by my rolled-back shirtsleeves. Our eyes held as she stroked the hair on my arms and my heartbeat increased in power and speed. She whispered, “Boyd,” and there was something in her tone that had not yet been allowed release. My hands in her hair fell still and I all but gulped. Calm as a summer day, she whispered, “I want to see you. All of you. I want that so very much.”
My heart seemed to explode in a burst of heat, taking up a thunderous clatter. I could scarcely swallow, even as I grew hard as a whetting stone, my trousers doing little to hold events in check. She lifted to an elbow, with care, hair falling over her shoulder, the lines of her collarbones delicate as finely-carved etchings, her breasts so full they stretched taut the material over them. I slipped my hands from her hair and cupped her breasts for the first time, letting my thumbs graze their peaks.
“You are so very beautiful,” I said, a husk in my voice. “Holy Jesus, darlin’, you are the most beautiful sight I’ve ever seen.”
I could feel her hard-pounding heart. She began unfastening the buttons along my chest, sweat as fine as mist decorating her temples. She’d requested to see me, all of me, and I stood to honor this request, removing my suspenders, my shirt, my trousers, with no self-consciousness, no compunctions, aching to be fully joined as husband and wife.
“Come here,” she implored, her breath shallow, the pulse thrumming in her neck. In nothing but the lower half of my union suit, a tattered garment well beyond its life span and which did nothing to hide my swelling need, I knelt again and claimed her mouth, reveling in the taste of her, in the rousing hunger which overpowered all else. Rebecca’s hands were everywhere upon me; soft, urgent sounds rose, caught between our tongues. She unfastened the button low on my belly, the final restraint between her touch and my body. I took her lower lip in my teeth, shuddering at the wealth of such pleasure, afraid to move; I was but a second from spilling over.
She drew away just enough so we could look upon each other; her eyes shone with such heat I felt the sizzle of it down to my tailbone, cradling her precious face in my hands. She whispered, “I love you so, oh Boyd, let me touch you,” and with no further hesitation curled her fingers about my rigid flesh. Her first stroke sent me bending forward, afraid I would lose control right there. It wasn’t long – I was so far gone I came in her hand in less than a dozen frenzied heartbeats, but she held fast, keeping me in her grip as I cried out, low and hoarse, against her neck.
After a time I lifted my face to her sweetly-satisfied smile, and felt a grin just about crack my skull. I eased to both elbows and kissed her parted lips. Just for the joy of watching her flush deepen – and because I sincerely meant it – I whispered, “Thank you, my wife. Oh holy Jesus, thank you for that.”
“You shall think me wanton,” she whispered, and the merry glint in her eyes showed me that she teased.
“No such,” I scoffed, fetching a damp linen towel from the edge of the basin and cleaning her hand, then bending to kiss her neck and her breasts, taking her nipples lightly between my teeth through the thin shift, delighting in her soft exhalations. Just that fast I was ready again. I knew I could not dare make love to her just now, but I meant to bring her pleasure nonetheless. Shifting to cup her thighs, caressing her hipbones with both thumbs, I said, “I want to tell you something that my old friend Ethan Davis once told me.”
“Sawyer’s brother?” she questioned, her hands resting like a benediction upon my collarbones. The lantern light played over the contours of her face and neck, outlining her breasts with rims of angelic gold. Her legs were bent in my direction, her bare feet crossed one atop the other; like her fingers, her toes were long and slim, and I’d learned she was fond of crossing her feet. I loved these small details only a husband would have the privilege of knowing.
“Yes, indeed,” I said, relishing the telling of a story, as always. “He was a twin to Jeremiah. They looked just alike ’til you heard them talk. Jere was polite, shy as a kitten, but Eth was a true ladies’ man. Lord how he loved attention from girls, and he knew how to get it. Mama once said that she was glad she had no daughters for Ethan to get into trouble with.” I smiled at the memory. “Girls doted upon him, you never saw the likes. We was all jealous as hell and of course he loved every minute of it.”
“I would imagine.” Rebecca smiled, gliding her palms along the muscles of my upper arms. She was so flushed she appeared sunburnt and I delighted in it; she looked as though she wanted to eat me up in one bite. She whispered, “What did he tell you, my handsome husband?”
“He told me,” and I slowly unfastened the lacing between her breasts as I spoke, letting my knuckles brush her skin, “that ladies like to be touched just as much as we like to touch them, and we’d do well to remember it.” Rebecca shivered as I slipped the shift to either side, letting the soft material glide across her flesh. I could hardly speak for the stampeding blood in my body. “And you, my darlin’, are every bit a lady.”
Her nipples were a dusky pink, her breasts with a sifting of tiny freckles that continued from the skin of her chest. I trailed my lips over each freckle, lingering, wishing to prolong her pleasure and loving every blessed second. She twined her fingers in my hair, lifting towards my mouth, and I grinned anew, rubbing my chin between her breasts.
“This may be my favorite one of all,” I murmured, grazing a small, cinnamon-colored freckle on her nipple with my tongue.
“Boyd…”
“Aw, darlin’, there ain’t nothin’ sweeter than hearing you speak my name…”
Her neck was arched on the pillow, her breath coming in gasps, and I waited no longer, taking her nipples in my mouth one after the other, the puckered sweetness of them swelling against my tongue. I slid my left hand beneath her hem, cupping her knee, moving upwards along her thigh. I kept my touch unhurried but came close to seeing stars as I reached the delicate folds of skin between her bare, parted legs. Gentle, keep gentle, I thought, no more than a thimbleful of blood left in my head as I stroked the sleek, heated center of her.
Later, both of us sweating, I lay beside her on the bed, fathoms-deep in love and equally met; I felt whole. Rebecca assured me her ribs were not in pain despite my overwhelming concern. She eased my fears, resting her cheek upon my chest, plying her touch through the hair there. In time she whispered, “I knew it would be this way with you, a consecration. I imagined moments such as these as early as the night we met.”
I cupped her nape, my chest rumbling with my words. “The way I feel with you is sacred and beautiful both, darlin’. I would never have guessed you imagined this, not that first night.” I thought back to that dark time, Lorie missing and Sawyer out of his mind. If not for Rebecca’s help, God only knew what might have happened to us. I recalled the surprise I’d felt when Rebecca had pulled me aside after Quade marched Sawyer to the Iowa City jailhouse, and her hushed insistence as she ordered, Saddle your horses, yours and Mr. Davis’s, and meet me beyond the jail once the town settles to quiet. She had still referred to me as ‘Mr. Carter’ back then; I hadn’t possessed any reason to trust her, there in Iowa City, and yet I had done so. She’d been a stranger who was not truly a stranger at all; I’d been too worried to realize.
I traced the line of her fine jaw, studying the eyes that saw to the depths of me. I rested my thumb upon her lips, her skin flushed and damp with the pleasure we’d just shared. I pictured the high-necked dress she’d worn that first night; the color of it was lost to my memory but I remembered well the pearl buttons fastened so properly to her delicate chin, the notches of her waist, the shining dark hair pinned up so neat. And I rejoiced afresh at the naked woman in my arms, her loose, tangled hair spilling all about us.
“You helped us so very much, chasing me into that alley, finding those keys, bustin’ Sawyer out of jail. You risked yourself, sweetheart. You’re stubborn, and brave as a warrior. There’s few traits I admire more, I’ll have you know.”
&nb
sp; “From the moment I heard Lorie was missing I knew I must help all of you, more than I’ve ever known anything,” she murmured, nuzzling closer, rubbing her chin against my chest in a tender way that strove to cave-in my heart. It was the gesture of wife to husband, a gift of cherishment that made my throat ache, it was so damn beautiful. “When you rode out with Sawyer, the two of you in search of her, you took my heart with you, though I would not admit it to myself for a long time. I worried every second you were absent from me, realizing I had less than no right. I scanned the horizon a hundred times a day, even more than did dear Malcolm. I had to believe you would return to me. I prayed for your return.”
And I’d returned only to leave again. I buried my face in her hair. “Forgive me. Forgive my stupid pride, for refusing to listen to my heart. Last winter, apart from you, I was as sorry and lonely as I ever been, Rebecca. I figured you’d have married the marshal and done your best to forget my sorry hide. I thank God you did not.”
“I understood why you must go, I truly did. There was a time when I tried to forget you.” She slipped her arms about my neck, kissing my chin. “But I could not. My thoughts of you were constant, by day and night. I recalled every word you spoke to me. I lay awake, hearing your voice, longing for you.”
I recalled all the nights I’d done the same, never suspecting. I kissed her eyes, one by one, her brow, her cheeks, saving her lips for last, lingering there to savor her, a slow kiss that spoke of forgiveness. We’d spoken of many things, but there were so many more I wanted to tell her and these all at once, I hardly knew where to begin.
“Before we were attacked that night along the Missouri, I was intending to ride for Iowa, to come back to you. But then – ” My innards grew tight. The image of the solitary oak on the Missouri River struck me at unusual times, often unbidden, forcing a pause in whatever task the thought intruded upon; I’d grit my teeth until the darkness of remembrance passed over. That goddamn tree still existed out there in the Territories, no matter how I wished I could forget it.
“Then what, love?” she whispered, caressing the damp hair at my temples.
It stabbed at me to remember, let alone give words to what had occurred that night. But I opened my eyes to the eloquence of Rebecca’s and was able to begin.
“You see, they meant to hang Malcolm…”
I FOUND GREAT joy in being a daddy to Cort and Nathaniel. The two of them dogged my steps as we journeyed slowly northward, chattering like jaybirds and trying so hard to outdo one another that they could have been Beau and me in the holler, long ago. Cort was a thinker, whose steady gaze could often be found fixed on the horizon towards which we traveled; he spoke as polite as Rebecca even when begging to have his own horse, or to fire a rifle. Natty was still young enough to relish his mama’s lap come evening, deprived as the little boy had been while Rebecca lay healing in St. Paul, and curled at her side at the nightly fire, poking a thumb in his mouth as she feathered his hair until his eyelids fluttered shut. I loved them because they were Rebecca’s boys, for being a part of the woman I loved, but also because they were now my sons and I intended to see them grow into good and honorable men.
But, damn my infernal selfish hide, if I didn’t wish to God that they had their own space to sleep, come nightfall.
The covered wagons didn’t provide much room as it was, chock-full as they were with our belongings, from cook pots to rocking chairs to seed bags and blacksmithing tools, trunks and candles and blankets and food, enough to sustain our first winter in northern Minnesota. Before we left town I’d made up a thick pallet for Rebecca within our wagon, arranging a feather tick and two pillows so she would be able to rest as she required in the day and sleep well at night, and reminded myself with all the severity I could rally that my need to make love with her could not overpower all else, including her healing body and the presence of two little boys who wanted to sleep near their mama at night. Her sons loved her and would protect her to their last breath, I knew, and I loved them for it, but…damnation.
I was truly grateful for our large contingent, with Sawyer, Jacob, Tilson, and Malcolm armed to the gills at any given moment, same as me, and for the security their presence afforded at night. I found deep contentment in teaching little Nathaniel how to hold the reins steady over Trapper and Admiral as they pulled the wagon, or instructing Cort in the skinning of a rabbit. I loved the hours I spent hunting with Sawyer, and sometimes Tilson or Jacob, by turns, ranging out front with our squirrel rifles, Sawyer now more accustomed to his one-sided vision and adapting his aim to the difference. I relished talking with him about our women, and the lives we would all build together; listening to Jacob describe farming practices along the water, growing wild rice on the frigid-cold lakes of his wife’s homeland, and its delicate harvest, and of his own knowledge of flax and corn and buckwheat. I imagined the cabin I would build for Rebecca and the boys, and the children that would join our family, and my heart would ache with the joy of it.
And I’d think, Our cabin will have a separate room for Becky and me, where I can make love to her day and night, lavish her for hours on end, until I can hardly walk straight…oh holy God…
It was so damn hard to withhold, even as I realized I was a grown man with self-control and a duty to be respectable; but my unruly mind ran wild, spurred on by the beautiful, hushed lovemaking Rebecca and I managed to steal in the night hours of our crowded camp, the two of us as wayward as any newlywed folks have a right to be…
The first night along the trail out of St. Paul, I’d settled Rebecca and the boys within the wagon come evening and then claimed the ground beneath; not my first choice of sleeping conditions, but one I accepted as the most dutiful and responsible. Besides, I’d known Rebecca was just above me, safe and warm and so very close. I lay flat on my spine on the cold ground, allowing myself to feel the relief of that blessed knowledge. I’d tucked a forearm beneath my head, reaching to press my other hand to the underside of the wooden structure, and had smiled so wide it would have stretched from one end of the holler to the other. We’d undertaken the final stretch of our journey, we were all alive, and I lay there warm with happiness, listening as my uncle and Rebecca’s uncle chatted over their pipes at the fire, as Lorie soothed little Rose with a hushed song, as Malcolm murmured to Cora in the wagon where the two of them, plus Tilson, slept. I dozed for a spell, waking at some point after midnight to the rustle of a rising breeze, and to the soft sound of my name.
“Boyd,” she whispered again, and I realized Rebecca was crouched near my legs, which stuck out past the side of the wagon, and wrapped in her shawl.
“Rebecca,” I uttered. I would have squirreled out from under and gathered her close in less than a heartbeat, but she ducked beneath to join me before I could move.
“I missed you. I’ve grown so accustomed to sharing a bed with you,” she whispered, aligning herself against my side, pressing kisses to my face, and just that fast the cramped space beneath the wagon became heaven. I tucked her to my warmth, keeping her from the ground, returning kiss for hungry kiss. Her hair was loose, spilling over the both of us, her breath upon my neck and her breasts against my chest.
“Aw, honey, come here, I’m so glad you’re here,” I rejoiced, rocking her closer. Though the darkness robbed her of color, I filled in the tints of her eyes and skin, lips and lashes. I felt wetness upon her cheeks and asked at once, “What’s wrong? Are you hurting?”
She shook her head, adamant as she whispered, “I’m not hurting. I’m so very happy.” She grasped my ears, as she was wont to do when demanding my full attention. Her voice was very soft as she confessed, “I cannot do without you, Boyd.”
“Sweetheart. Oh God, I can’t do without you.” I kissed her again, this time with less restraint.
Mindful of Rebecca’s healing, we’d not come fully together as husband and wife before leaving St. Paul but I sensed it was time, here beneath the wagon on our first night on the trail. Never mind that we were not enthron
ed within a proper bed. Never mind that it was a chilly night on the prairie and there was scarcely room to roll over, or that our families were near enough to suspect, had they been awake. Nothing mattered but our need for each other. Her tongue circled mine, our heads tilting to deepen each kiss. I inhaled against her neck, kissed her eyes and forehead and ears, burying my hands in the luxury of her thick hair, kissing her breasts through the layers of cotton separating them from my tongue, finding the rounded swells of her nipples.
“I love you, oh Boyd, I love you so,” she whispered, rolling atop me, her hair silken as it fell over my face. My shoulder blades touched the earth. I tucked hair behind her ears, gently shifting my thighs so that they better cradled her hips.
“All I want to think of ever again is you,” I whispered. “Aw, darlin’, you feel so good in my arms.” I drew her closer and kissed the soft indentation between her collarbones, inhaling deeply, feeling her pulse beneath my lips. She curved a hand about my jaw and our kisses were deep, a reclaiming of one another, her soft moans caught between our tongues. I ran both hands carefully down her ribs to anchor about her backside, hauling her full-length against me.
“I want – I want you to…” The love and desire in her voice was a divine, two-part harmony.
“You tell me what you want, darlin’, just what you need,” I said against her warm neck, clutching her hips, and she made another small sound, her mouth at my ear.
She murmured, “I need you inside of me,” and issued a hushed laugh, latching her arms about my neck and hiding her face. “You are not shocked?”
“Holy God, woman, there ain’t a thing you could do to shock me.” I grinned at her teasing, my heart galloping like a runaway horse. “I want you to tell me what you need, always. Rebecca, honey…oh God, we’re on the ground… under the wagon…”
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