“I have a father?”
“Sadly, no, she was widowed during the pregnancy, which likely increased her stress and made her more vulnerable to Dr. Rathbone’s crackpot medical malfeasance. There were no neighbors. She was all alone having come with her husband from Ireland, and Rathbone merely took the child, you, to the orphanage and concocted the rest for you years later.”
Melinda felt strangely detached, having this weight lifted off her shoulders. She turned to Jake and said matter-of-factly, “Yes.”
“Yes?”
“Yes, I love you. Yes, I’ll marry you. Yes, I’ll try to be the best wife to you and mother to Ginny and any other children we have that I can be. Yes. Yes. Yes.”
Jake gathered her up in a whoop and spun her around before settling into a long, thorough kiss.
Lil watched with a smile. That had worked rather nicely, if she did say so herself. Now, was there a preacher in this backwater town?
Epilogue
“So this is what Sally’s looks like upstairs. I’ve always wondered.” Melinda giggled as she caught sight over Jake’s shoulder of the frolicking cupids painted on the ceiling. She lay back on the red satin sheets of the four poster bed, her arms wrapped around Jake’s neck as he leaned over her, their legs intertwined under the covers. It felt so wonderful to be naked with him again, skin to skin. The last time they had been in bed together seemed like a century ago, although in fact it had only been this morning.
“All of Sally’s doesn’t look like this, my sweet wife. We have the very best accommodations for our wedding night.”
“Oh, is this the bridal suite?”
Jake laughed. “On the contrary, we’ll probably be the first and only couple ever to make love in this establishment who are actually married to each other.”
She liked the sound of that and smiled. “We were married so fast that I can still hardly believe it. Mrs. Jake Stone.”
“Not quite. First, you have to perform your wifely duties, at least once, for it to stick.”
His lips hovered so close to her own, she could feel his warm breath on her face. His green eyes shone with humor. She leaned up a little and flicked her tongue across his lower lip, not quite a kiss, but a promise, grazing her hands lightly along his muscular back to close over his hard buttocks. She felt him shudder.
“Didn’t I take care of that before the wedding?” she teased.
“Oh, no, my love, that doesn’t count. Timing is everything. Why do you think I couldn’t even wait to get you back to the ranch and insisted on booking a room at Sally’s for the wedding night? We have to get going on this right away, just to make sure all the formalities are observed.”
She reached a hand around to the front of his body and brushed it against his very stiff cock. “You seem up to the formalities.”
“I’ll always be up to the formalities with you around, my sweet.”
He kissed her neck and then made his way down to her breasts. “And these,” he ran his tongue over one nipple, “have really not gotten the attention they deserve from me as yet.” He set about to rectify the error, and she arched her back at the pleasure as he licked and pulled and teased until she was panting with her need for him.
“Yes, my sweet wife, just like that,” he encouraged as she writhed beneath him, feeling as if she couldn’t get close enough to him. “Show me how you want me.”
He slid his engorged cock into her and lifted her legs to wrap around his lean hips, forcing her to take him deeper into her body. She felt him fill her with a sense of wonder at the significance of it, the permanence of it. He was making her his wife with this very act. Out of pure instinct, she squeezed her inner muscles tighter around him and tilted her hips up higher, causing him to thrust wildly.
“Oh, my God,” he groaned and came up on his knees swiftly. Slipping both hands under to cup her bottom to him as he thrust, he moved her up and down his cock, furiously, with purpose. The hard strokes pushed her even higher. She felt herself explode in ecstasy just as he came, arching his back and pouring his release into her, crying out her name.
When he collapsed next to her, breathing hard, and gathered her into his arms, he murmured, “Now it’s official Mrs. Stone. Now we’re married.”
She eyed his tousled black hair and sexy smile, and then climbed on top of him. “I don’t know, Mr. Stone. I think we need to be sure. Let’s try one more time.”
His hands slid up to her hips. “Well, we should be sure.”
* * * *
The sheriff had left not long ago. Sure enough, the cowboy who had conspired with Winthrop, or the one they knew about anyway, was long gone. Regina stood with her back to him, facing the darkening window. All that gal had been through, and she still stood ramrod straight.
Jesse figured he better get going. She had a funeral to plan after all.
He approached her, tempted to put a reassuring hand on her shoulder, but then thought better of it and turned away.
“Are you going, Jesse?”
Her voice was quiet, and he still couldn’t see her face, but he didn’t detect any tears or trembling.
“I was, honey.” The endearment came out naturally. It seemed downright ornery to be at each other’s throats now. “Unless you need me for something.”
“I do need you for something.” She turned around. “I need you to make love to me…”
THE END
www.angelaclaireromance.com
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Angela Claire’s first love was romance novels, but she resolved to give them up temporarily for law books (which were considerably less fun). In a quest for a ‘responsible’ career, she headed off to Harvard law school, obtained her diploma and settled into a corporate law practice in New York City - which she hated! After staying in the rat race long enough to pay back her massive student loans, Angela returned to her roots in the Midwest and is now raising two active boys and working as a lawyer at a more leisurely pace than big city law firm life would allow. She writes in her spare time and finds romance in real life with her husband of 24 years. If you would like to contact Angela at [email protected] or www.angelaclaireromance.com, she would love to hear from you.
Also by Angela Claire
Saving McCade
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Siren Publishing, Inc.
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Claire, Angela - Heart of Stone (Siren Publishing Classic) Page 10
