Land of Dreams

by Cheryl St. John

  Thea sat beside him long enough to place a few things on her plate. David splattered mashed potatoes on Snake's sleeve, and she hurried to wipe it clean with a damp towel. She refilled water glasses, brought a second platter of chicken from the kitchen and filled the gravy boats.

  Booker ate slowly, listening to the flurry of conversation and watching Thea inconspicuously see to everyone's needs. She hadn't taken a bite of her food. He glanced at her father.

  "William Bowen has a pretty fair chance at that first-place ribbon," Jim told Denzel, and gestured with his fork. "That's the biggest sow I've ever laid eyes on."

  Madeline and Odessa chattered about who they'd seen at that morning's service. Madeline cast Booker furtive glances under her dark lashes. He couldn't help wondering why she didn't get up and help Thea.

  Thea's younger half sisters were classically beautiful. Madeline wore her lustrous dark hair fashioned in an upswept coiffure and drew attention to her striking coloring with an emerald green dress. She and Lexie both had petite figures, high cheekbones, full, rose-hued lips and high foreheads.

  Lexie, dressed appropriately for a young girl in a cornflower blue dress with a demure white collar, spoon-fed the baby.

  MaryRuth had the same red-gold hair and fair skin as Thea, but it was hard to tell if she was younger or older than her sister.

  Booker snuck a glance at Zoe seated on the other side of the empty chair. She bit off a piece of her chicken leg and glanced over at him. He winked.

  She actually grinned.

  Breathless, Thea slid onto the seat and picked up her fork. "Can I get you anything?"

  How about a hammer so I can nail your behind to this chair? He shook his head.

  "I've smelled those pies since I woke up this mornin'." Jim Coulson grinned at his daughter and pushed his plate back. "Is the coffee ready?"

  Thea slid her chair out with the backs of her legs as she stood. "Apple or peach, Papa?"

  Booker watched in amazement as she gathered dirty plates and headed for the kitchen. He glanced down at her plate. She'd taken one bite.

  Throughout the rest of the afternoon's activities, he wondered if she had eaten after the others were finished. He hoped she had. She couldn't keep up the pace at which she traveled without nourishment.

  They crossed paths from time to time. Glancing up from the men's banter, he spotted her walking Zoe and David toward the orchard.

  Denzel plucked a long blade of grass and bit the stem. "You know, Hayes, none of us think anything of Thea's bein' at your place all the time because we know her. But there's some talk in town."

  He'd arrested Booker's attention. "What kind of talk?"

  "You know. It's not exactly proper for a maiden woman to be alone with a man."

  "We're not alone! Zoe lives with me. So does Red Horse and another hired hand."

  "An Indian, another man and a little girl aren't really chaperons." Denzel shrugged. "I'm not criticizing. I just thought maybe you should know."

  Booker cut his glance to Thea's father. "Sir—"

  "No need to say anything, Hayes. Like Denzel said, we're not the ones thinkin' ill of you two." Jim Coulson drew on his pipe, and a smoke wreath formed around his head, then drifted away.

  "I can't let people think wrong of Thea," Booker declared. "I never realized the harm."

  They fell silent as she strode across the grass with tall glasses of cold lemonade on a tray. The subject wouldn't leave Booker alone. Even though he enjoyed the friendly camaraderie and the day away from work, Denzel's revelation disturbed him.

  Before the sun set, the bell rang again, and he followed the family to discover sandwich makings, pies and a pitcher of milk on the kitchen table.

  After everyone had eaten again, MaryRuth and Denzel took their sleeping baby and left. Aunt Odessa and Snake followed. Jim and Trudy disappeared into the house.

  Perched comfortably on a chair on the wide back porch, Booker listened to Thea and her younger half sisters finish the dishes. Zoe sat on the wooden steps, two kittens, obviously siblings of her kitten's, trapped in her skirt. A calf bawled in the distance.

  The screen door opened. "Want a cold drink?"

  Booker frowned up at her. "If I do, I'll get one."

  A line of confusion furrowed her brow.

  "Sit, Thea."

  "I will in a minute, but I—"

  "Please, Thea. Sit here with me."

  Untying her apron, she slid it off and hung it on the door handle. She sat in a chair beside him. They listened to the night sounds as darkness fell. Zoe moved to sit in the shaft of light from the doorway. One of the kittens escaped, and she let it go. Booker caught her yawn.

  "Want to come sit with me, pumpkin?" he asked.

  She crawled across the floor and sat between them. Occasionally, her arm brushed his pant leg. It was enough for now.

  "Suppose Red Horse and Lucas ate fish tonight?" Thea asked.

  "I'm sure they did," he replied.

  "He probably made Lucas a pole." She smiled.

  "No," he corrected her. "A spear."

  She glanced toward him in surprise. "Really?"

  He nodded. "Only way I've ever seen him fish. His patience is the envy of a saint. Stands like a statue in the water until the fish don't notice him. Waits for a big one, then wham!"

  "My goodness!" Zoe had rested her head in Thea's lap, and Thea still caressed her hair absently.

  "Is she asleep?"

  "Sound."

  "I should have taken her home earlier, but I wanted to talk to you."

  "All right."

  Booker stood. "Do you think we could lay her down and take a walk?"

  She nodded in the darkness. Bending, he lifted Zoe's weight effortlessly, and followed Thea into the house. She led him into a tiny bedroom behind the kitchen, and he placed Zoe on a narrow bed.

  "Let me tell Papa and Trudy she's in here."

  He waited on the back steps, and a minute later the door creaked open. Two steps above, she towered over him, and he realized for the first time how tall she actually was. She descended quickly, as though she'd noticed, too.

  He set a slow pace along the drive. The house and barn fell behind them. One of the dogs followed at their heels until something in the weeds caught his attention, and he ran off.

  "Did you ever eat today?" he asked.

  "What?"

  "Did you eat today, I asked," he clarified.

  "Well, sure I ate today. That's what today was all about, wasn't it?"

  "I don't know. I never actually saw you take more than a bite between jumping up and waiting on everyone."

  They walked on in silence for several minutes.

  "This is all too much for you, Thea," he said, referring to the way her family took her for granted. The way she worked at both homes, catered to two households. He couldn't forget the sight of her napping beside Zoe days earlier.

  "It's not too much for me," she denied.

  "It is."

  "It's not."

  Land sakes, she was a bullheaded woman! In frustration, he stopped and faced her. Her hair caught highlights in the moonlight the same way it did in the sun. He wondered what it would look like loosened and spread across her shoulders. What it would feel like in his hands.

  Booker sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. "Well, that's not all."

  "What else?"

  "People are talking."

  "About what?"

  "About you and me."

  "What about us?"

  "About us—together—alone. At my house. You know, talking about us!"

  He could have sworn a smile passed her lips.

  "Let them talk." She walked on.

  "Whoa, just a minute, lady," he said, catching up with her. "Let them talk! What kind of logic is that? I don't intend to 'let them talk.'"

  "What harm is there?" she asked innocently.

  "Thea." He stopped her with a hand on her arm. She halted, and he let go. "Think about your reputation."


  To his indignant surprise, she threw her head back and laughed out loud.

  He scowled. "What's so funny?"

  Thea choked on another gale of laughter, finally drawing her face into a mask of seriousness. "Mr. Hayes, I don't have a reputation. You don't get it, do you? I'm on the shelf. Over the hill. Out to pasture. An old maid. Nobody'd think twice about Too-Tall Thea keeping time with a man!"

  She shook a finger toward the town as though pointing the citizens out. "They know you wouldn't want me any more than any of those other single men ever did."

  With a sigh, she cocked her head. "If anybody's reputation is in danger here, Mr. Hayes, you'd better consider that it's yours." Her wry words contrasted with the girlish tilt of her head. "If the town thinks you're involved with me, you're the one who needs vindication."

  He absorbed that rush of information. He'd known all along, he guessed. An unmarried woman living with her parents was highly unusual, especially in these parts. But he couldn't imagine others not seeing her sensuality, her beauty and charm. What was wrong with them?

  "Then they're fools," he replied.

  "That may be, but—what did you say?"

  "I said they're fools. Blind fools."

  She turned her face up to his in the moonlight, and he saw her disbelief. He'd watched her with Zoe, with her family, had observed the way others took her sacrificial good nature for granted, and was astonished that anyone could overlook her femininity. Army days behind him, Booker had a great need for gentleness in his life. Thea was the embodiment of that gentleness.

  He did what he'd wanted to do since he'd first met her: He pulled her into his arms and kissed her.

  bookmark:Chapter 7

  Chapter 7

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  Booker Hayes hauled her against his solid chest and his lips closed over hers before Thea had time to register his intent. He angled his nose alongside hers, his lips surprisingly warm and insistent, and at first all she could do was wonder what in the world he was doing.

  Kissing her? This must be a joke to prove the point he'd been trying to make. His hands on her upper arms radiated warmth through the thin fabric of her shirtwaist. Her breasts crushed against a chest as hard as oak. And his mouth... oh, his mouth. A kiss, she discovered, wasn't just pressing lips to lips. A kiss was molding one mouth to the shape of another's, testing its pliancy with infinite nerve endings, and experiencing an allover fusion of intent that merely centered where lips met. Thea realized she'd closed her eyes, but couldn't recall when.

  His chin scraped delightfully against hers, and without conscious thought, she raised her right hand and indulged herself in the sensation she'd wondered about, placing her fingertips against his jaw and skimming them over the delightfully foreign texture.

  Booker released her arms, his right arm now banding her waist and drawing her flush against him. His other hand splayed in the hollow of her spine.

  He angled his head the opposite way, and Thea learned how natural it was to follow him, to tilt her face and meld her lips against his in an unsynchronized play of sliding, probing, increasing pressure.

  Like a newborn sucking air into its lungs for the first time, Thea kissed him until her chest hurt and her eyes welled with tears. All the wonder, all the forbidden, midnight fantasies, all the questions and longings and needs she'd buried, clawed their way into the kiss and revealed with vivid, soul-torturing clarity the incredible pleasure she'd missed out on.

  Booker kneaded her back, then slid his hand to her waist and spanned her ribs. With heart-stopping slowness, he dragged his palm across her cotton blouse and paused with his thumb beneath her breast. Thea's pulse pounded in her ears. She delved her fingers into his hair, her other hand rising to his shoulder, and waited, realizing she wanted him to touch her.

  Instead, he removed his hand, leaving an ache where heat had been, and circled her wrist with his fingers. He disengaged her other hand from his hair, too, and he took his mouth from hers, stepping back.

  They stood connected only by his fingers around her wrists, staring into each other's faces, their awkward breathing audible.

  "Still think there's nothing to worry about?" His breath grazed her cheek.

  The inches between them seemed an embarrassing chasm. Thea noticed her breasts, abdomen and thighs, which had been pressed against him, pulsed with the heat and dampness of the humid night. "Why did you do that?" she asked.

  "Why did you?"

  Because I wanted to know. Because somehow I knew it would be like that with you. Because you slashed through every barrier of denial I'd constructed for myself and made me unsatisfied again.

  She pulled away from his easy grasp, and he let her go. She gripped both elbows and hugged her forearms against her quaking midriff, her profile turned to him. "It wasn't very funny, if that's what you intended."

  "Am I laughing?"

  She shot her gaze back to his face. "You never laugh."

  Moonlight glinted off his blue-black hair, hair she now knew felt thick and silky-cool against her fevered palm. In the darkness, she saw the grim set to his stern jaw and knew again the distinctive rasp of his evening shadow beneath her fingertips. Intimate knowledge. Intoxicating knowledge. Knowledge that to her was definitely no joke.

  "Well." Booker's shoulder rose and lowered in a slow-motion shrug. "I guess now that my reputation is ruined, you'll have to marry me."

  Thea's chin dropped. Seconds passed. She closed her mouth and stared hard at the black ground. "Why are you doing this?" she whispered through her constricted throat.

  "Zoe needs a mother," he replied. "You made me promise I wouldn't keep her from you if I married. What better solution than to marry me?"

  Speechless, she dared slant a glance at him.

  "Zoe will be happy. The townspeople won't talk. Your father won't have to come after me with a shotgun. And you'll have Zoe."

  Thea couldn't sort her jumbled thoughts. He was suggesting she marry him! "Are you proposing?"

  "I am. Will you marry me?"

  "And what do you get out of all this?"

  "I told you I was getting the best end of the deal last time. I still think so. You have to make up your mind what you want."

  She placed both hands against her scorching cheeks and attempted to commandeer her senses. She'd been kissed and proposed to. Her. Thea Coulson! What a liberating, overwhelming night! She teetered precariously between hysterical laughter and ungovernable tears, knowing exactly what she wanted to answer.

  A husband and a child of my own.

  Her heart pounded erratically in her aching breast. She glanced back at the house in the distance, yellow light spilling from the parlor windows. "I'm twenty-nine years old," she said at last.

  "I'm seven years older than that," he replied.

  "I have a respectable dowry."

  "You don't have to point out your assets to me," Booker said. "I know everything I need to know."

  Everything he needed to know. How old she was. How big. The unbecoming combination of her brassy hair and pale, freckled skin. Her inexperience with courting and her lack of feminine frailties. And he would marry her, anyway.

  Booker Hayes was a severely handsome man. His strong, muscled body and intense dark eyes equaled his gentlemanly manners and ambition. He was ambitious, hardworking, and would soon operate a profitable business.

  Marrying him would mean being with Zoe permanently.

  She would never have a better offer.

  As good as it sounded, a niggle of doubt germinated in the back of her mind. What would she really be getting herself into if she agreed? If she was honest with herself for a heartbeat, she didn't know this man from Adam.

  Before her apprehension sprouted into an actual deterrent, she shriveled it with the thought of her life continuing the way it had and dropped her hands to her sides. "Mr. Hayes," she said before caution could change her mind, "I accept."

  * * *

  "Thea-girl, do you know what you
're doin'?" Jim Coulson asked a few minutes later around the pipe between his teeth. The three of them sat in the Coulsons' parlor.

  Her gaze slid to Booker's, and her fiancé had to study his thumbnail. "I do, Papa. I'm going to be Mr. Hay— Booker's wife." The words sent a little shiver of excitement through her stomach. "He needs a wife and a mother for Zoe. No one could do that as well as I."

  "I know that, lamb," her father intoned. "And I know how you feel about the girl. She'd be lucky to get you for a ma." He didn't ask her how she felt about Booker Hayes. Nor did he mention that the joining of their two properties would eventually be one of the most vast holdings in the state. What he did was look Booker straight in the eye and say, "You're a decidedly lucky man to have Thea willin' to marry you."

  “Yes, sir.”

  Her father studied her with an unsettling mixture of sadness and acceptance. "Thea's a good companion. Never wastes herself on nerves or gettin' mad. She looks life square in the eye and accepts the hand she's dealt."

  Thea realized he would miss her. Love for him welled in her heart. He was the only man she'd ever known, ever loved, ever spent time with. He'd always been proud of her and treated her with love. She reached across the space separating them and squeezed his hand.

  "She takes her obligations seriously, Hayes," he continued. "There isn't a finer woman this side of the Missouri."

  "I agree with you, sir. I have every intention of making a home and providing for her the best I can."

  "See to it," Jim said. "And see to it she don't want for anything. Anything," he punctuated by jabbing the air with his pipe stem.

  "I will, sir."

  "When will this wedding happen?"

  Booker glanced at Thea.

  She raised her brows as if to say ‘Me?’

  "We could announce it at the housewarming," Booker suggested.

  "Grand idea." Thea's father released her hand and leaned back in his chair. "Are you ready to tell the womenfolk?"

  Thea imagined the fussing and squealing, and instantly thought of The Dress and all it entailed. "Let's wait, shall we, Papa? I'd rather surprise them at the housewarming."