"Won't give 'em much time to plan your wedding," he said with a raised brow.
Thea couldn't suppress a grin. "That's what I'm hoping. I can't let Trudy try to stuff me into a dress like Madeline's. I don't think there are enough seed pearls in the Western Hemisphere."
Beside her, Booker chuckled. A deep, resonant sound that struck a vulnerable chord inside Thea. She'd seen his anger and frustration, been the object of his concern a time or two, but his laughter revealed a side she wasn't prepared to deal with, the side that loved Zoe with single-minded determination. The side that she feared she could succumb to with little encouragement.
She turned and discovered the deep furrow that formed in his cheek. His smile revealed even, white teeth and did something peculiar to her stomach. "Why, Mr. Hayes, I do believe that's a smile I see on your face."
His gaze flickered over her hair, her eyes, and faltered at her mouth. "And I believe I'd better get Zoe home to her own bed."
Thea stood. "Bring your horse around. I'll carry Zoe out and lift her up to you."
He nodded at Thea, stood and shook Jim's hand.
Minutes later, he waited near the back door. Thea carried Zoe, sound asleep, to the top of the porch stairs. "Think she'll sleep through the ride home?" she asked.
"I imagine."
He made no move to mount the stallion, but stood, hat in hand. Thea waited.
"What I said in there—to your father—is the truth. I'll see to it you're taken care of."
"I have no need to be taken care of."
"Everyone needs something. What can I promise you?"
She shifted Zoe's weight against her breast and remembered being held against his hard chest. What could he promise her? That he'd kiss her again and again like he had tonight. That she'd feel the same way she did when he touched her for the rest of her life. "Just that..." She paused. "You'll smile more often."
In the moonlight, she saw his cheek crinkle.
He climbed the steps, leaned across Zoe and brushed his lips against Thea's. Lightly. Unsatisfactorily. A mere hint of the real thing he'd shown her tonight. Turning, he jumped to the ground, mounted the horse and sidled him as close to the porch as possible. Thea handed the sleeping child up into his arms.
"See you in the morning?" he asked.
"I'll be there."
She watched long after the stallion disappeared into the darkness, long after her heart refused to resume its normal cadence. It beat differently. The irises by the back porch smelled more fragrant. The stars were nearer, brighter. The night didn't seem as humid, as dark. Nothing was the same.
She was going to marry Booker Hayes.
Nothing would ever be the same again.
* * *
In the still, dark night with a warm, gentle breeze stirring the lace curtains at her window, Thea's dream lover slipped in and stole her from the room. Tall and broad-chested, with hair as black as a moonless midnight, he coaxed her from exhausted slumber into a dreamworld of heightened perception. Without words, without the least effort or suggestion from her, he knew exactly what she waited for. Though she'd never seen the darkened place he carried her to before, the surroundings were familiar and comforting.
Thea tingled with anticipation. The dark-haired figure placed her gently on a moss-soft bed, knelt over her and covered her lips with his, instinctively melding his overpowering heat to hers. He surrounded her with sensation, promised untold pleasure with his warm lips and hands. Thea returned his kisses, buried herself in his scent and his heat, and knew he was hers forever, that he loved her beyond measure.
She hadn't noticed until now that neither of them wore clothing. His heated skin conducted agony and delight through her limbs and torso, and she remembered how beautiful he made her feel. He'd always made her feel good. Even about herself.
His inflaming kisses spread from her lips across her shoulders and lower... A fine sheen of perspiration broke out on her fevered skin. He covered her with his body and she knew this was the pleasure he meant for her, pleasure only he could give. His hands and mouth branded her with his heat. Surely she'd burst into a ball of flame if he...
Thea opened her gritty eyelids and stared at the ceiling. Drenched with perspiration, her nightgown lay plastered to her body, the hem bunched between her legs. She turned her head toward the window, her damp hair sticking to her neck. She licked dry lips.
The dream had been more vivid, more disturbing, than ever before. She knew what it was like to be kissed now. She knew the urgency of a man's hard body pressed to hers. She knew what she'd missed out on.
Pushing away from the damp bedclothes, she stood in the darkness, drew her nightgown off over her head and tossed the clammy fabric down. At the washstand, she brushed her hair back and splashed tepid water on her neck and face, sponged her body to cool it.
Groping until she found a fresh cotton gown, she pulled it on and perched on the wooden rocker near the window, drawing the curtains back and allowing the breeze to caress her hair and skin. Booker Hayes had asked her to marry him.
She had accepted.
The concept was so unreal it could have been part of the dream. But, no, it had happened. Her mind rolled back over the disturbing fantasy. She would marry Booker Hayes. A severe, dark man who'd shown up on her doorstep only weeks ago and turned her life upside down. She would move into his house.
She pictured the enormous airy room with the eastern view. She would share his bedroom. A pulse throbbed insatiably in the most disconcerting spot. His bed.
They would most likely have children together.
She spread her hand open over her rapidly beating heart. Once married, she would be intimate with Booker Hayes, former army major, fighter of wars and Indians, landowner and mill builder. Guardian of the child she wanted. Father of her own children?
Thea didn't know whether to be ecstatic or terrified. In a few short weeks she would be his wife. She drew a ragged breath. This was either the best thing that had ever happened to her or she was the biggest fool who'd ever stared into the far-reaching Nebraska night sky and wished upon a bright-burning star.
* * *
"Morning, Lucas." A rap sounded on the door, and it took a minute for him to orient himself to the room. Hayes's boots sounded on down the hallway.
The smells of coffee, cinnamon and bacon drifted on the fresh morning air. The back door opened and closed, footsteps sounded on the porch, and water sloshed on the ground, followed by softly spoken words. The Angel.
She could be talking to the cat, to Zoe—to anyone. She had a kind word for everyone. He heard her enter the kitchen again, and he rolled over on the crisp, cool sheets. His stomach growled, but it was a pleasant feeling of being alive, a response to the savory smells from below, not a bone-deep, gnawing hunger that never went away, not a way of life.
He hadn't been bitten by a bedbug, eaten salt pork, beans or biscuits, or been clobbered black and blue for weeks. It was almost too good to be true. The church lady offered him milk and pie every time he turned around. How long could a good thing last? He had no idea since he couldn't remember ever having had a good thing happen to him before.
Lucas's need to use the outhouse got the best of him, and he rolled from the bed. Clean dungarees, shirts and summer union suits lay stacked on a wooden chair, the only other piece of furniture in the room besides the bed. He set the underclothing aside and slid the crisp denims on.
At the returning sound of Hayes's boots in the hallway, Lucas grabbed a shirt and shoved his arms into the sleeves.
"You awake in there?"
Lucas opened the door.
"Well, look at you. You going to be able to walk in those new pants?"
Lucas showed him he could indeed walk while buttoning his shirt at the same time. "I'll pay you back," he said half under his breath.
"Not me," Hayes replied. "Miss Coulson bought those dungarees for you. Made the shirts herself. Come on," he said, turning toward the stairs. "Breakfast is on."
He knew shame and hatred and anger, and could easily identify hunger and disgust and desperation. But this... this feeling was something altogether different.
The feeling frightened him because it felt so good.
* * *
For weeks Thea painted and papered, unpacked and sewed, arranged furniture and planned the housewarming. Everything had to be perfect. By late July it nearly was.
MaryRuth came to help one afternoon, and David napped beside Zoe on a quilt they'd spread on the floor of Lucas's room. Thea hung the bright blue pair of curtains she'd finished hemming and stood back to admire the sun shining through the colorful fabric.
"Thea!" MaryRuth rasped from the hallway in a loud whisper.
Thea met her in the hall.
"You've got to see this," she said, and took her sister's hand.
"What?" Thea allowed her to tug her toward the master bedroom.
"You won't believe what the men just carried up the stairs."
Thea had heard the commotion on the landing, but she'd grown accustomed to Mr. Hayes's and Red Horse's occasional forays into the house during the day. Deliveries by train and last-minute details to the house constantly interrupted their work on the dam.
MaryRuth pulled her into the east bedroom. Thea's attention riveted on the room's focal point. An enormous bed stood, its head several feet from the wall, in the center of the room, the brilliant noonday sun illuminating its uniqueness. The headboard and footboard were enormous slices of tree trunk, the bark still attached but halved with the straight bottom edges resting on the floor. The half circles, the head larger than the bottom, were varnished to a high gloss, hundreds of rings testifying to the tree's unbelievable age. Thea had never seen anything like it in her life.
MaryRuth perched on the lofty, bare mattress, the headboard three feet higher than the top of her head. "What do you make of it?"
Thea reached out and touched the warm-colored slick wood. "I have to admit there's a natural beauty about it that is... matchless." She touched the outer strip of bark. "Rough on the outside. Aged and beautiful on the inside." She glanced at her sister. "Like him."
MaryRuth studied her curiously. "Are you sweet on Booker, Thea?"
Sweet on him. Is that what she'd call it? "I don't know," she answered. "I don't know what I feel for him. I just know that he's the only man besides Papa who's ever paid attention to me." She dared a girlish question. "Do you think he's handsome?"
She hadn't seen her sister smile with such heartfelt warmth for a good long time. "Yes."
"And he's tall." Thea bounced on the mattress and faced her. "It's been hard for me to wait to tell you, MaryRuth. I didn't want Trudy and the girls to know because I didn't want them to fuss, but he's asked me to marry him."
MaryRuth's eyes widened in surprise. "What have you told him?"
"I said yes. We're going to announce it at the house-warming."
"Oh, Thea," MaryRuth whispered, tears filling her sad eyes. She laid a hand on Thea's knee. "I hope... I hope..."
"What, Mare?" Thea covered her hand with her own.
"I hope you're not disappointed," she whispered. "I hope he's everything you think he is."
She touched MaryRuth's pale cheek. "Why ever are you so gloomy? How can I be disappointed any more than I have been?" MaryRuth's words struck too close to her own misgivings. "Be happy for me."
MaryRuth hugged her tearfully. "Of course. I am happy for you, Thea."
"Come on. Help me finish Lucas's room before you have to leave."
MaryRuth's doubts so closely paralleled hers that, in the days following, Thea found herself wondering if those doubts were grounded in anything other than misgivings because of the short time they'd known Mr. Hayes. For the first time she wondered if MaryRuth had experienced a disappointment of her own. She'd been crazy about Denzel, eager to marry him and have his children. Now that she thought about it, MaryRuth hadn't seemed her own happy self for quite some time.
Maybe marriage wasn't all MaryRuth had expected it to be. Maybe marriage was never what a woman expected it to be.
A hundred times in a hundred situations, Thea had wished for a mother. Someone to whom she could ask questions. Never had she needed her mother as badly as she did now. She wouldn't dream of confiding in Trudy. As girls, she and MaryRuth had shared so much: Fears, the loss of their mother, even their bed. Many a night they'd lain awake spinning tales of the rich, handsome men they would meet and marry. If there was a way to ask MaryRuth about her doubts she would find it.
* * *
Work on the dam was backbreakingly slow. The July sun beat down unmercifully on Booker's bare, peeling shoulders. He paused in maneuvering a wheelbarrow load of rocks. He straightened, grimacing at the pain that shot up his back and removed his hat. Soaking his kerchief in a pail of sun-warmed water, he wrung the excess on the ground and tied the fabric around his forehead before settling the hat back on his head.
At least the backbreaking work took his mind off Thea for a few hours at a time. And at night he was too exhausted to do anything but fall onto his bedroll.
Booker studied the progress of the men submerging rocks in an attempt to divert the creek until the real dam was constructed, and thought instead about the bed he'd ordered all the way from Colorado. A beautiful piece of craftsmanship and natural beauty. It spoke of unadorned loveliness and strength. Like Thea.
As much as she tried to draw attention away from herself with drab clothing and somber hairstyles, he'd seen through her guise. In each room she touched, every window and wall she treated, bright color appeared like paint behind a brush, her love for color and beauty evident in everything from Zoe's dresses to the kitchen curtains.
Her father had been right about her good companionship. Booker could easily see how her nature allowed others to impose upon her. She sacrificed, accommodated and obliged in such an adroit manner, doing each task competently and without complaint, that it would be easy to overload her with responsibilities.
Booker would never take her for granted as her family did. And if it was within his power, he would see that no one else ever took her for granted again, either.
He wondered if she'd seen the bed, and what she thought of it. If she'd considered sharing it with him. Heat warmer than the July sun dispatched a twinge of raw desire low in his belly. He'd only kissed her once. Once, but it had been enough to know he'd been right about the passion he'd sensed beneath the surface.
He found her incredibly beautiful. Sometimes when she was absorbed in a task, he watched her just to enjoy her efficient movements, the delicate curve of her cheek, the way her glorious hair spiraled into tiny corkscrews around hear face in the hot kitchen. He observed the symmetrical curves and lines of her hips and waist, her generous breasts, the length of the legs defined by her split riding skirt. He already appreciated her more than she'd ever know. Probably more than was wise ever to admit.
And in a few short weeks she'd be his wife.
On the bank below him, Red Horse stood ankle deep in water, prying stones from the creek bed. His bare copper back and shoulders glistened in the sun. A kerchief banded his forehead, restraining his flowing hair. He straightened and squinted up at Booker. "How much higher do you think we'll have to pile these, Major?"
"A half dozen more wagonloads ought to do it," Booker replied with a wry shrug.
"Did you know this creek was deeper than the Missouri before we started?"
Good-naturedly, Booker tossed a stone a few feet in front of his friend, splashing water across his bronze flesh.
Red Horse laughed, a wide-tooth
ed smile splitting his ruggedly handsome face.
"You need a hat," Booker admonished. "The sun is frying your brain."
"I wondered why white men wore hats. I thought it was to hide those awful haircuts."
It was Booker's turn to laugh. He'd laughed more these past weeks than he had in all his previous years. Until lately, he hadn't had much to laugh about. The thought, of course, returned his attention to the woman responsible for his uncharacteristic good humor.
Booker threw his energy into stacking the heavy rocks on a raft to be dumped in the center of the swiftly flowing water. If he kept busy, he wouldn't have time to torture himself with lusty thoughts of Thea Coulson... soon to be Mrs. Booker Hayes....
bookmark:Chapter 8
Chapter 8
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The day of the housewarming party promised to be sunny and warm. Thea woke with the birds, packed supplies and food into the springboard and drove it to Booker's—her new home. Red Horse greeted her on his way from the barn.
"Morning, miss. I don't think the major's up yet."
"That's okay." Thea carried a basket heavy with jars of pie filling toward the back porch. "I wanted an early start. There's so much to be done today."
Red Horse intercepted the basket. "Let me unload the wagon for you."
She released her hold and met his deep-set eyes. "Thank you."
She had a fire going in the stove by the time he'd carried several more baskets into the kitchen. "I'll have some coffee ready in a minute, if you'd like a cup."
"I don't care for coffee, thanks. I wanted to speak with you."
She nodded and waited.
He stood beside the table. His flowing black hair had been gathered into a tail that hung down the back of his chambray shirt. "I wish you the best, Miss Coulson."
She smiled. "Thank you."
"I've known the major for quite a few years. We've shared many campfires. He is an honorable man. A man anyone would be proud to call friend. A man you will be proud to call husband."
"As you're a good friend, Red Horse."
Land of Dreams Page 11
