by Jillian Hart
Forcing lightness into her voice, Libby unwound Emma’s muffler. “You’re not kidding when you say you know how to ride.”
“Nope.” Emma’s nose ran from the cold and she sniffed.
Libby pulled a handkerchief from her skirt pocket and handed it to the girl. Emma was a lucky child, kept safe and loved and protected by people who could afford such things as a child’s pony. Why was she here in the middle of this rugged territory? Why had Jacob left Kentucky?
She stood. “Come to the kitchen with me. The milk is warm by now.”
Emma took her hand. “Miss Hodges?”
“Yes?”
“Pa calls you Elizabeth. Can I?”
Libby stopped and stared down into those honest eyes packed full of need.
“You can call me Libby,” she said through a tight throat. It was the best she could do for Emma.
All through supper, he watched her. Gray eyes, unreadable as a storm, followed her every movement. Even when he answered Emma, he didn’t look at the girl. He paid attention, he just didn’t move his gaze.
He complimented her cooking. He told her what a good job she’d done on her first attempt at driving the mare. She told him she’d never driven in a real sleigh before. He said he’d made it himself; it was too much hassle to get one shipped out from back east.
The evening felt perfect. He dried the dishes by her side as she washed them. He carried the conversation, telling her how Maude Baker dropped by to check on her horse, and asked after Libby. How Mr. Ellington wanted to know if she still wanted to sew for him, if she intended to stay in town.
Yes, Libby said, thinking the extra money would come in handy. She had the baby to think about and baby clothes to start making, although she didn’t say that aloud to Jacob, afraid of what he would say.
Emma couldn’t wait until the dishes were done. Libby put coffee on to boil while the little girl dragged her pa across the shining puncheon floors to the rocking chair before the fireplace. Emma had the book out and ready.
While Jacob read aloud of an adventure Libby had never heard before, she gathered her mending. Finally, when she could delay it no more, she carried Emma’s dresses and her sewing box to the empty chair before the fire and settled into it.
Jacob didn’t look up, so she began mending. Listening to his low voice rumble in the lamplight, feeling the coziness in the room, she felt sad and happy at the same time. Why? This was what she’d traveled here to find, wasn’t it?
Yet she couldn’t stop the nagging doubt in her heart. Jacob made no promises, they had no agreement between them. It was best not to hope too much. So, Libby concentrated instead on mending the hem of Emma’s red dress.
Once, she looked up, and Jacob smiled at her. And the world, if only momentarily, felt just right.
The next evening, when she climbed the ladder to her room, Libby found a crisp twenty dollar bill on the small bureau. Her hands shook. He’d paid her, as if she were a housekeeper.
Shame swept over her like a cold wind.
After checking on the fire and on Emma, snug and asleep in her bed, Libby pulled on her wraps, lit a lantern and headed out into the cold night.
She found Jacob in the stable, brushing down one of his bays. Star turned at the sound of her footsteps, nickering softly. Without a carrot, she had only an affectionate pat to offer the horse, but Star seemed satisfied.
Jacob looked down at her over the mare’s withers. “Did you put Emma down for the night?”
“Yes. She was exhausted.” Libby didn’t know what to do with her hands. She touched Star’s warm side and felt the strong power there.
“You seem happy with the horse,” he said quietly, and she looked up.
“Happy?” The single word caught in her throat. “Oh, Jacob, nobody has ever given me something like this. She’s magnificent.”
“Yes.” Something gleamed in his eyes. “I’m glad you like her. Not everyone cares about horses the way I do.”
Libby thought about the man who had beaten Star and said nothing. “You paid me, didn’t you?”
“Yes. Wasn’t it enough?” He didn’t turn around. So friendly, so polite, so damn respectful of her feelings.
“It’s more than enough.” She’d never before made that kind of money in a week. “It isn’t necessary to pay me at all.”
“Of course it is. This is only a trial period. We both know that.” He stopped brushing. “I like having you here. Maybe we have a chance.”
“At what? A business relationship?” She thought of the money in her room, in the same room where he’d lain beside her, made love with her, taught her to ache and want like nothing she’d ever known.
“No, damn it.” His face tightened. “I don’t want to take advantage of you. I’ve already done so. I care about you. You’re a good woman, I just can’t use you.”
The struggle showed in his eyes. “I’m trying hard to make this work, for Emma’s sake.”
“That’s the only reason?” She couldn’t believe it. She thought of his touch, of his emotional needs she’d felt when their bodies joined.
He lifted the brush, returned to his work. “It’s the only reason that matters.”
Twenty dollars. She was nothing but a housekeeper to him. She didn’t want to believe it; she refused to believe it. Sadness rang in his voice—and she realized what was wrong, what was missing between them.
Love. Jacob Stone didn’t believe he could ever love again. That’s why he went to the trouble of finding a mother for Emma, someone who could love her in case he failed, but someone who wouldn’t love him.
Tears filled her eyes. “I won’t accept your money. You can’t pay me for the privilege of knowing you.”
“I made a promise, and I meant it. I won’t touch you.” He turned around, his face set, his mouth grim. Pain lined his face. “I know I made a mistake, and I won’t use you again.”
“I don’t understand. You haven’t used me, Jacob.” Libby looked down at her hands, reddened from work, chapped from the cold. “But I do know why having me in your home is so painful. You’re a widower. You’ve suffered a heartbreaking loss.”
His throat worked, though he remained silent.
“It just takes time. Not to forget, but to learn to live again. It can happen, Jacob.”
“No.” He turned his back to her and started brushing, the rhythm filling the silent barn. Not even the animals moved. “I meant what I said when we first met face-to-face. I don’t want romance. Love doesn’t survive in this cold world.”
“That’s not it. That’s not it at all. You are using excuses, Jacob. You just want a convenient woman, someone to cook and clean for you, to care for your daughter, someone without any emotional needs to fill.” Anger fired through her. So fast, so swift. She spun around, wanting to do something with her hands. Anything with her hands. Like break something.
“You’re wrong, Elizabeth. I don’t mean to be so unfeeling.” Sorrow stood in his eyes, silent like deep water. “I’ve been lonely for so long. I need a friend. I need you.”
He could twist her inside out so quickly. Libby felt the molten anger just slide away. Friends. It was so little; it was so much.
Chapter Sixteen
Jacob sat by the fire late, reading his book by lamplight. He had long ago accepted he couldn’t read Moby Dick without Emma, who seemed thoroughly enchanted with the laborious novel, so he was reading Dickens. Maybe, when they had waded through Melville, Emma might enjoy the Pickwick Papers.
Night claimed the corners of the main room, and Jacob held the novel flat so it would catch the steady glow of the lamplighl Upstairs he heard a loose board squeak where Elizabeth was probably standing, working hard as usual, and he felt his conscience bite.
Everywhere he looked, he saw her touch. Her frilly curtains with starched ruffles edged in lace graced every window in the cabin, including his bedroom. A pile of material lay in a heap by the other rocking chair. According to Emma, she was helping Elizabeth make a b
raided rug.
Now, Jacob could hear her footsteps light on the ceiling above. He had listened to her boil water and didn’t need to ask what she was doing up there.
She had scrubbed the place from corner to corner so when he came home today, the cabin shone. Exhaustion rimmed her eyes and pinched around her mouth, but she smiled, pleased with her work.
Guilt hammered through him, and he set down his book. She was working too hard. Didn’t she know a woman in her condition needed to be careful?
Jacob wandered into the kitchen. Should he go to her and tell her to stop working? He wasn’t sure what to say. He didn’t want to talk about the baby because it reminded him of everything standing between them—his own fears, his own responsibility for Mary’s death.
He made a pot of coffee before working up the courage to climb the attic ladder. As he ascended out of the lamplight toward the dark ceiling, he climbed into the warm pool of light in Elizabeth’s room, light gleaming off the polished floorboards and into his eyes.
He looked up and froze at the naked image of Elizabeth reclining in the washtub. Her honeyed hair spilled over the drab silver side of the tub, pooling on the floor like luxurious blond silk. She sat in profile so Jacob could see the intelligent plane of her forehead, the slight tilt of her nose, the rounded firmness of her jaw and full curve of her bare breasts.
Move, damn it. But his body refused to obey him. Too stunned to move, he could only watch the lamplight glow like honey on her smooth skin. He couldn’t tear his gaze from the dark disks of her nipples peaking her full, firm breasts.
She hadn’t seen him yet. If he just slipped silently back down the ladder, she would never know he’d been peeping at her like...like...he couldn’t think what. Desire slammed through him like a freight train, delivering memories he could never forget. She’d been so...everything lying beneath him. Exciting. Loving. Thrilling. She had genuinely wanted him.
Ashamed as he felt over touching her in such an intimate way, Jacob had loved being bound to her, loved the glorious texture of her skin, the taste of her breasts, the feel of her body accommodating when he entered her.
She still hadn’t noticed him. Jacob glanced down at the ladder, placed his foot on the nearest rung and almost moved...Elizabeth stared at him with surprise rounding her mouth.
“Jacob!” Water splashed everywhere like little prisms of light. She covered her beautiful breasts with her arms, shock lighting her eyes.
He fumbled for an explanation and felt his foot slip on the ladder rung. He fell, tumbling down several rungs, knocking his bad leg painfully in the knee, jarring his old injury. Pain shot through him like a lance.
“Jacob!”
He heard her cry out in alarm as he caught a rung with his good leg. Then he heard splashes and the patter of wet bare feet on the floorboards above. Lord, she was naked. He kept his eyes low and, by using the strength in his arms, edged his way down to the kitchen floor.
“Jacob! Thank God. You didn’t fall all the way.”
He heard her voice from above. Elizabeth was already kneeling at the head of the ladder, he guessed, without her clothes. Lord, she had to be naked—she hadn’t the time to dress. How could he look up and see—? A man could take only so much temptation. He couldn’t survive seeing her naked again.
“Are you hurt?” she persisted, her concern genuine.
He would not look up. No matter how beautiful she looked. Just the thought of the water blushing across her bare silken skin heated him to the deepest core.
“I’m fine,” he managed to reply. “Just a foolish man.”
Foolish? It didn’t begin to describe the fire burning in his blood. He turned his back to the ladder, fighting the temptation to look up. He took a step, intending to grab the coffeepot, but his bad leg buckled, refusing to hold his weight.
Caught by surprise, Jacob fell against the stove. Pain shot to his brain, and already he’d pulled his hand away. Biting back a cry, Jacob didn’t dare move to find cold water for fear his leg would fail him again.
“Oh, Jacob,” Elizabeth’s voice soothed as she hurried down the ladder. He listened to the soft thuds of her bare feet on the wooden rungs.
His breath wedged sideways in his chest. Lord, she was coming to him naked.
“It’s nothing,” he said quickly, but not fast enough to stop her.
She reached with bare arms, colored a soft peach in the lamplight. And he kept his gaze low so he only saw her bare fingers catch his wrist and hold his burned hand up to the light. He felt the swish of fabric against his arm—thank God She’d tugged on a chemise.
He winced at his own foolishness. Of course she wouldn’t come down naked. He snatched a sideways glance to verify it. His eyes widened. His breath caught sideways in his lungs.
She might as well be naked Elizabeth wore only a thin shiver of fabric that hugged her unbound breasts and clung to her skin. He could see the round disks of her nipples, her full breasts and every curve of her body.
Jacob concentrated hard on the ugly burn on the palm of his hand.
“It’s already blistering and look, you’ve lost some skin.” Elizabeth gazed up into his face, her morning-sky eyes wide with sympathy. “It must really hurt. Can you make it to the table?”
Make it to the table? Hell, he wanted to run all the way to Texas just so he wouldn’t have to look her in the eye. He forced himself to nod.
“Good. Here, lean on me. You must have hurt your leg.”
His leg? Right now it wasn’t his hand or his leg that gave him the greatest discomfort. And if she moved closer, she was bound to discover it, too.
But she took firm hold of his arm and said nothing more. Grateful, Jacob tested his bad leg. Pain shivered through the bone, but he managed to hobble the length of the kitchen and, with Elizabeth’s help, ease down into the closest chair.
“I’ll be right back,” she said. “I’ll get dressed and then I’ll tend that hand for you.”
He nodded. Heavens, she could tempt a saint, smelling of rose-scented soap and with that chemise clinging to her wet skin, although she didn’t realize it. She turned away, offering him an inspiring view as she climbed up the ladder. Jacob closed his eyes, breathing deeply, calling himself all sorts of names.
Elizabeth returned wearing a hastily put on dress that had been hardly buttoned in the back. She set the lantern on the table and a bucket of snow on the floor. Jacob watched her wrap some of the snow in a towel.
“Hold this to your hand,” she said quietly. “This will take some of the heat out of that burn.”
No wonder Emma loved her so. Jacob swallowed. “Thank you.”
All business, Elizabeth said nothing as she slipped away into the darker part of the kitchen. He heard her working at the stove, heard a rattle of the pan and the sound of her bare feet padding into the lean-to.
The pain in his hand was enough to jam those naked images of her right out of his head—temporarily. As she worked, the only sound between them was the tick of the clock and the snap of the fires. Was she furious with him?
“I thought you were washing the floors,” he said, knowing it was a lame excuse. “That’s the truth.”
She said nothing as she stood with her back to him at the stove.
“I’m sorry.” The words sounded so powerless compared to the way he’d invaded her privacy. “I’d wanted to ask you down for coffee..”
“I see.” She set a cup of coffee on the table for him.
“I wasn’t peeping at you.” Jacob looked up at her, and with the fall of her long hair like a silken curl against her soft face, desire kicked through his loins. “I mean, I was watching you, but I didn’t mean to. I thought—”
“You thought I was washing the floor?”
“Yes.” He’d never felt so stupid.
“Well, that does explain it. I didn’t think you would spy on me.” She turned to walk away, leaving him to watch the straight line of her slender back.
Jacob closed his eyes. Li
fe was a lot simpler before she rode into town. But this was better.
Elizabeth returned. She knelt down at his feet, keeping her eyes low. He watched the luxurious fall of her hair and how it shimmered in the lamplight. Her soft touch tugged the towel away from his hand, and she bowed her chin to study his injury.
“This is a bad burn.” She piled more snow on his palm and rewrapped the towel.
“Yes, I can feel it.”
Elizabeth smiled, an amused grin curving her lips. “You should have seen the look on your face when you fell down the ladder. Oh, Jacob, you looked so surprised.” Then she started to giggle.
It wasn’t funny. But then, he could see her side, see how the joke was on him. He started to laugh, and that only made Elizabeth giggle harder. She laid a hand to her belly as it shook with each breath.
“Oh, you nearly fell all the way to the floor,” she gasped. “You thought I was naked, didn’t you? That’s why you wouldn’t look up at me when I came to check on you.”
“Yes,” he managed. His stomach muscles ached, but he couldn’t stop laughing. “I’m so sorry, Elizabeth. I had no idea. I expected to see you on your hands and knees with a scrub brush.”
“What a shock I must have given you.” She laughed even harder, leaning over, both arms wrapped about her thickening middle.
A shock? The laughter died in his throat. The sight of her naked in the tub, the wash of light on her skin, the shimmering beauty of her hair, the tantalizing curve of her full breasts filled his head.
Looking up into his eyes, Elizabeth stopped laughing, too.
“You’re a beautiful woman,” he said quietly, emotion so thick in his throat he could hear it tremble in his voice.
“Oh, Jacob.” Her voice melted, warm with wonder. Her moming-sky eyes sparkled in the lamplight, those tears winking like diamonds. “No one has ever said such a thing to me.”
“I can’t believe it.” His gaze slid to her midsection.
The wonder in her eyes faded. “Believe it. Not every man is good.”
