Last Chance Bride

by Jillian Hart

  “Jacob—” She wanted to argue, but his gaze met hers. He wanted to take care of her. The luxury of it kept her silent. She smiled, but he didn’t return it.

  He tugged on long johns, thick socks, a shirt, his trousers and returned with the same clothes she’d shed before the fire last night. Libby blushed in memory as he laid her garments on the bed, but his gaze didn’t catch hers.

  She shivered until she was warm again. The snapping crackle of a fire popped in the hearth, and she waited until the muffled sound of the outside door closing echoed through the house before she tossed off the blankets, braced herself against the icy air, and pulled on her clothes, her teeth chattering.

  The fire burning robustly in the hearth gave very little heat. But it didn’t matter. Her heart felt warm.

  Humming, she glanced out the front window and saw clear, crisp skies. A brand-new day.

  “Libby?” Emma’s voice called from upstairs.

  She hurried to the kitchen. “Stay in bed until the cabin is warmer.”

  “But Pa was supposed to get me so I could feed Holly.” Libby heard the disappointment in the girl’s voice. “I guess he decided it was too cold this morning. I bet he’ll ask you to help him tomorrow.”

  “Oh rats.”

  Libby smiled as she hurried with her morning work. She ground coffee, sliced salt pork, mixed pancake batter.

  Jacob clamored into the lean-to just as a wall of wind slammed into the cabin. “It’s freezing out there. The milk froze solid in the pail.”

  “I’ll thaw it over the stove.” Libby reached out.

  His gaze met hers over the tin bucket. “What do you think of our Montana winters?”

  “They could be warmer.” The icy bucket burned cold straight through to her bones. She set it on the floor by the stove and warmed her hands.

  Jacob laughed, but not deep and rich like he always did. “I hope it warms up enough for us to go outside.”

  “Yes, ’cuz I want to ride Holly.” Emma’s head poked out from the attic door. “Can we go to town, Pa?”

  Jacob shivered out of his heavy coat. “We’ll see what the temperature does.”

  Emma sighed, deeply disappointed. “I hate waiting.”

  “Here, this will warm you.” Libby handed him a cup of steaming coffee.

  Jacob’s hand touched hers. Sparks of sensation sizzled up her arm. “How are you feeling this morning?”

  Happy. Did he feel the same? She read the worry in his eyes. “Fine.”

  He nodded. “I thought I’d do some reading aloud after the morning work is done, since it will be too cold on the horses to head for town just yet.”

  “Yippee!” Emma disappeared from the attic door. Her feet pounded against the floorboards above.

  Jacob smiled. A real smile. One that brightened his eyes and changed his entire face. “You look beautiful this morning,” he said, then he kissed her long and hard.

  All day long he thought of her. Shoeing horses, cleaning stalls, buying oats at the feed store. The hired boy had taken good care of the animals over the holiday and so there was only the most basic chores to keep him busy. He had plenty of time to think.

  Snow blew in with the wind, and by noon Jacob found his hands empty. Images of last night battered him. He remembered the feel of her, the taste of her, the amazing rush of emotion. He couldn’t stop wanting her. All of her.

  Jacob knew he didn’t just have sex with her, he’d made love to her. Love. There was no mistaking it. His heart began cracking like ice on a frozen lake. Emotion lived there. Sorrow and hope. Grief and joy.

  Elizabeth had done this, taking his hand and helping him to love again. She had broken wide his heart with her gentle loving, with her tender acceptance, with the press of soft lips against his throat.

  Friendship? Companionship? Is that what he wanted from her? Hell, he was only fooling himself. Elizabeth lit his life like the sun, warmed his heart and his bed. She was the reason he hurried home at night. Even if it was just to see the smile in her eyes.

  He shut the bam doors against the frigid wind and wandered to the back. His tools lay in an organized disarray on the table, pieces of lumber stacked neatly by the outside wall.

  He sorted through the wood, made plans, picked up his smallest hammer. There could be friendship between him and Elizabeth. And, maybe, there could be something more.

  “Pa!”

  The instant he opened the lean-to door, Emma jumped off the chair and ran straight for him, rattling all the lamps in the room.

  “Hi, precious.” His voice rumbled low, sounded alive.

  He was home. Happiness spilled through her. “We have a surprise for you.”

  “Don’t breathe too deep or you might guess it, Pa.” Emma warned.

  “I can’t smell a thing. Honest.” But when his gray eyes met hers, they sparkled with humor. It was hard to miss the scent of fried chicken.

  Libby closed the reader and stood. “Let me get the table set and we’ll eat.”

  “Hmm. It smells good,” Jacob teased.

  “Pa, don’t breathe or you’ll guess!” Emma pleaded.

  His laughing gaze met Libby’s across the room and her heart beat wildly.

  He needed her. She could read it in his face, see it reflected in his eyes. No one had ever made her feel complete, whole the way Jacob could. She’d never needed anyone so much.

  Libby trembled with the knowledge. For even Jacob could leave her and she would be alone again.

  Night had long since crept in to darken the small cabin. He should be in bed holding Elizabeth while she slept, sated from their lovemaking, so beautiful in sleep.

  Tonight, she’d known what he wanted. Offered herself to him with a small smile that twinkled in her eyes. Her hand had been so warm in his, so pliable, so accepting as he led her into his bedroom. He laid her down and undressed her slowly in the dark, fearing what she thought of his base, physical needs.

  But Elizabeth had welcomed him with a loving warmth he didn’t deserve, pleasured him with an innocent attempt that doubled his guilt, accepted him into her body with one quiet whisper. “Please.”

  She’d given him her heart, and he took it. Wanted to take it. Wanted to give his to her. Now, what did he have to protect him? Jacob stared into the dying fire. Too much pulled at him. Emma’s needs. Elizabeth’s love. His mother’s letter. Mary’s memories.

  He buried his face in his hands. For so long, he’d lived each day like the next, bleak and unfeeling and as cold as a winter’s snow. But now she was here.

  “Jacob?” Elizabeth stood framed in his bedroom doorway, her nightgown glowing eerily in the dark corner of the cabin. “Jacob, are you all right?”

  The concern in her voice came gently, as open and as caring as her heart. He’d long since forgiven her for loving another man—she loved easily, cared so much. Loving easily was the same reason she saved him, guided him with her loving acceptance. And now he could no longer deny his feelings or how she warmed his soul. Fully. Completely.

  His heart cracked open, melting more each time.

  She knelt on the floor before him. The low red-orange glow of the dying embers licked dark shadows over her, glinting like molten gold in her hair. She lifted a tender hand and gently wiped one tear from his cheek.

  “It’s a lot easier to be alone than to love someone else. People disappoint you. You can disappoint them.” He didn’t move from her touch. “People die.”

  Her eyes watered and he saw the hurt there.

  “People also live to be old, gray and very wrinkled.” Her warm hand slid down his throat and rested on the crest of his shoulder. “The question is, will you love me when I’m so old I don’t have any teeth?”

  Pain so pure it broke shuddered through him. Jacob took her hand in his. “As long as you can love me.”

  He stood, taking her in his arms. Cold stiffened the air in the cabin, but Elizabeth felt warm in his arms. His mouth covered hers as solid as a promise made.

&nbs
p; “What I have, I want to give to you,” he said quietly. “My heart. My soul. My life. It’s all yours.”

  Jacob’s touch was like fire even in the cold room, and Libby gave herself up to the spellbinding heat. Like flame, his kisses claimed her, leaving hot tingling trails where his lips nibbled along her skin. His touch consumed every part of her, igniting the desire in her belly coiling tighter and tighter.

  Oh, Jacob. She marveled at the sensations swirling and twisting deep inside. As his kisses nibbled at her throat, lined her jaw, circled her mouth, she leaned back in the pillows pulling Jacob with her. As his lips brushed hers, she reached out to seal the kiss.

  Both of his hands framed her face, holding her tenderly. His tongue traced the curve of her lip, laved the sensitive inside of her mouth, tickled her tongue. Every part of her ached for his touch. She felt restless, then lost when he touched her. He bunched up her nightgown and the burning, tantalizing brush of his hands kneading her breasts stunned her with intimacy. Then, the exquisite pleasure built, amazed her, threatened to break her into pieces.

  She squeezed her eyes against the burn of the tears, against the too-much feeling in her heart. Love sizzled there like water on a hot fry pan. Emotions licked through her, tentative at first and then burning bright. He had to love her. And it felt too much to endure, too much to accept, yet Libby couldn’t help reaching for more. So much more.

  Jacob’s mouth slipped from hers, nibbling down her throat to her breast. Laving, suckling, nibbling. She closed her eyes, feeling the deep vulnerability of trust grip her heart. She trusted him not to hurt her. She trusted him to love her in this new, gentle-exciting way that rushed through her blood like fire.

  Libby didn’t know where this would lead, what love would be like, how long it would last. She only knew she could never deny what Jacob wanted from her. He loved her; she could feel it in the way he clung to her, in the desperate yet gentle way he spanned his big hands over the girth of her waist.

  He rained kisses along the curve of her stomach, and Libby couldn’t swallow the tears. They wet her face as his lips dampened her skin. Jacob’s breath fanned across her belly, hot and fast.

  His fingers slipped through the tight curls at the juncture of her thighs. White-hot sensation buzzed through her, tingling in the very tips of her fingers. She felt near to exploding, certain she would fracture at the thrilling mix of pleasure and sweet pain.

  Jacob’s hand explored her, finding a hot, delicious spot that spiked bolts of unbearable pleasure through her. Libby couldn’t hold back the pleasure, couldn’t hold back her heart. Tears squeezed from her eyes as he drew her up to him. He kissed her so thoroughly, so tenderly she could only cling to him.

  No one, nothing, had ever mattered to her this much.

  Jacob rubbed one tear from her cheek. He knew. As if he could heal all her scars and every old wound, he brushed back the hair from her face.

  “Oh, Jacob.” She loved to say his name. Loved the way it felt on her tongue. “I love being with you.”

  “So do I.” He hesitated, as if he meant to say more. If he didn’t say he loved her, it was all right. She knew it to be true, knew what lived in his heart. And that was enough.

  Jacob caught her hand in his and guided her to his erect shaft. As Libby wrapped her fingers around his thickness, she felt the pulse of his heart thrumming there.

  She never imagined he could be so soft there where he was rock hard. As she ran her fingers down the length of him to where curling hair tickled her hand, she was amazed at the trembling there. She found the drop of moisture at the rounded velvet tip of his erection and wondered at it.

  If only he had planted this life inside her. If only this were his baby.

  As if he understood, as if he could read her mind, Jacob laid his big hand on her huge belly.

  “Take me inside you,” he said quietly. “I want to love you, Elizabeth. I want there to be nothing but this love between us.”

  How could she ask for anything more? Libby had never had so much.

  His erection swelled even more tightly against her palm. She gasped when she felt his hands at her waist, helping her move her awkward bulk over him. He sat against the wall. As Libby moved over him, she realized what he intended.

  “I don’t know how,” she whispered, feeling foolish. She had been so forward with him, kissed him and lain with him and accepted him into her body as she had. But she knew nothing of love, nothing of this.

  “Trust me.”

  His hot eager thickness nudged her inner thigh as she straddled him. Jacob’s warm chuckle brushed against her throat, and when his mouth found hers, she kissed him back with everything she had.

  “Wait.” He caught her as she tried to take him inside.

  Libby waited, her heart hammering in her chest, her body aching for completion. Jacob reached for a match, and soon light licked from the lamp on a shelf siding the bed.

  She could see the hunger flicker on his face, not for physical release but for emotional ties. He smiled, and his whole face softened. Love lit his eyes like sunshine on clouds.

  “I want to see you.” His voice came raw with emotion. “I want to watch your face when I enter you.”

  Libby couldn’t find one word to say. She shook with need as she felt the hard nudge of him against her. Jacob’s big hands steadied her unbalanced weight as she straddled him, reaching with one hand to guide his heated thickness inside her.

  “Look at me,” he moaned softly.

  She raised her eyes to his and felt, for the first time, the power of joining two lives, felt the power of making another.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Jacob opened his eyes in the webby dawn light in Elizabeth’s bed, and loved that she was the first thing he saw. That, and her smile.

  “Stay here where it’s warm,” he whispered, brushing one hand against the silk of her sleep-tousled hair. “It looks like another cold morning. I’ll come get you when the cabin is warm enough.”

  “I should get up and help with the chores.” She moved up onto one elbow.

  She looked soft, beautiful. “No. I want you to stay warm.”

  “Jacob, you are going to spoil me.”

  “So, what’s wrong with that?” He brushed her forehead with a kiss. “I want to take care of you. Relax. I may even make breakfast for you.”

  She smiled at his words. “You are so good to me, Jacob.”

  He rubbed one hand along the soft satin of her face, unable to speak. She said his name with so much feeling, so much affection, his eyes smarted.

  Last night’s closeness hadn’t faded with the cold hours of night. He was glad. He felt stronger as he knelt down before the cold hearth. He built a fire and watched the flames grow.

  “Pa?”

  Jacob glanced up the length of the ladder toward the pitch dark ceiling. A small button face blending with the shadows stared down at him. “It’s too cold for you to be up. Slip back into bed.”

  “But I want to help feed Holly this morning.”

  Jacob smiled at his daughter who shared his passion for horses. “It’s too cold for me this morning, let alone a girl as little as you.”

  “But I’m big!” Emma protested. “Pa? I wanna ask you something.”

  “You should get back in bed where it’s warm,” he said, but already she thudded down the ladder. Quick as a shadow, she hopped into the room.

  “Can I crawl in with you?” She gazed up at him with eyes as wide as hope. “Granny always used to let me crawl in with her when Grandpa lit the stoves.”

  Jacob dropped to his knees. “You sure miss your granny, don’t you?”

  “I used to cry every night because she wasn’t there to tuck me in and sing to me. But not anymore.”

  Emma slipped into his arms, and she felt like a small delicate bird against his size and his strength. Jacob hugged her more tightly, close to his heart.

  He took her little hand in his. “How would you like to write Granny a letter? I’ll
help you.”

  “Can I tell her about my doll and my quilt?” Excitement shimmered in her voice. “Can I tell her about Libby?”

  Jacob’s heart twisted. “Yes. You can tell her anything you want. But right now I want to get you warm and snug into bed. Should we ask Elizabeth if she’ll let you crawl in with her?”

  “Yes!”

  Emma bounced into his arms. Jacob lifted her up and she giggled with delight.

  When he stepped into the room, Elizabeth stirred. She sat up in the dark, and he could see the white flannel of her nightgown shimmering in the faint light.

  Elizabeth rolled over to smile up at them. “Well, look who’s going to cuddle up with me.”

  “I have cold feet,” Emma warned with a bubbly giggle as Jacob stooped to lay his daughter on his side of the bed.

  “So do I.” Elizabeth laughed, a warm throaty sound that seemed to fill up his heart. “Let me warm up those cold feet of yours.”

  Everything would be all right. They were going to be a family.

  Libby stood in the kitchen and watched Jacob leave for the livery, slumped against the bitterly cold wind. Her heart sank knowing he was gone, even just for the day.

  “Will you help me read the letter I wrote to Granny and Grandpa?” Emma gazed up from her place at the kitchen table, the letter open before her.

  “Again?” Libby asked.

  Emma grinned. “Yeah. I wanna make sure it’s just right.”

  Jacob had worked over the letter with Emma while Libby had washed the breakfast dishes. Now she turned from sprinkling the clothes.

  “I guess the ironing can wait. Some things are more important.” Libby tugged out her chair at the table and settled her awkward weight into it.

  “I wrote all about you in my letter. See?” Emma leaned close with the wrinkled parchment gripped tightly. “And I wrote these words all by myself.”

  “You did a wonderful job.” Libby scanned the page, recognizing Emma’s wobbly, unpracticed scrawl beside the black ink of Jacob’s bold, intelligent handwriting.