"Here, this gown is too small for me. I don't know why I brought it. Go behind the screen and change. I'll look after Maria. We can wrap her in a blanket if nothing else."
Tyler didn't return until after dark. By that time Evie had raided the supplies for dried apples and pickles and cans of beans and the six of them had picnicked merrily. Daniel had taught the boys how to play Hangman until even Jose had learned enough of his letters to hang Daniel on "cat." The baby fell asleep wrapped and pinned in one of Evie's linen chemises, and Carmen had raptly fallen in love with the trunk of books.
She wasn't the only one who was in danger of falling in love. Daniel kept sending Carmen surreptitious glances, but Evie had caught enough of them to guess their meaning. Once Carmen's hair dried, it was a luxurious black that she tied back with a ribbon from Evie's collection. Her face was an oval of creamy perfection, accented by the slash of black eyebrows and lashes too thick to be real. Although little more than a child, she was already developing the shape of a woman. It was easy to see what Daniel was seeing. And her love of books was no strike against her with a bookworm like Daniel.
Evie had intended to make pallets in Daniel's room for the boys and put the girls on the floor in her room when dark came. But by that time the pain in Daniel's face was evident, and Manuel and Jose were bickering and had to be constantly separated. Resignedly, she directed Manuel to move the overstuffed chair in Daniel's room to her room, then sent him back to make a pallet for himself with Daniel. Carmen and the two youngest she installed in her own bed.
Tyler wasn't going to like it, but she hadn't seen more than his hat all day. Apparently a boat had been found somewhere, and the rescue mission had spread to stranded families throughout town. The hotel was filling with people. He couldn't object too mightily to just these children.
After they settled down to sleep, Evie folded her muslin gown and hung up her petticoats and donned her nightgown. She didn't fool herself by wearing chemise and pantalets beneath it. If Tyler was coming, he had enough to object to. She wouldn't give him more.
Removing a spare blanket from her trunks, she curled up in the chair and rested her feet on the seat of her bedroom chair. Tyler would have to find a place on the floor if he returned. For all she knew, he'd gone over to the saloon to fortify himself. She couldn't object. He hadn't wanted to marry her any more than she had wanted to marry him. She wasn't certain what their relationship could be called, but it certainly wasn't husband and wife. She wouldn't pamper him by playing a role they both knew to be false.
* * *
Tyler had to walk across sleeping bodies in the hall by the time he returned to the hotel. He was drenched to the skin and had survived the day on little more than black coffee and the flapjacks he'd had that morning. There was only one thing on his mind at the moment, and that was getting out of these clothes and into bed with Evie.
He had his coat and hat off and was starting on his shirt by the time he reached her room. Ever since he had returned from that federal prison camp to learn he no longer had a home or family, he had turned his back on the life he had known and created a new one. There wasn't any place in that life for a wife and children, but there was always a place for a woman in his bed. As long as he thought of Evie like that, he would do just fine.
The room was dark and silent when he entered, but Tyler hadn't expected anything else. It was late. He dropped his coat and hat on the floor, and stripped off the soaked shirt. He could see the outline of the dressing screen near the window, and he started for that, knowing he would find the washstand and towels there. He stumbled over an unexpected object, and his hand caught on the back of a chair that hadn't been there this morning.
Eyes adjusting to the dark, he glanced down to a pair of blanket-wrapped legs. He followed the blanket upward to thick chestnut hair falling over a white-clad shoulder huddled on a pillow laying over another chair arm. He knew only one woman in this world with hair as thick as that. Evie.
Cursing silently, Tyler sat down and removed his boots, then tiptoed to the bed. He didn't think Evie was the type to give up the comfort of her bed just to get even with him for some imagined wrong. He looked down at three sleeping heads and ran his hand through his hair. He hadn't known she was the mothering type either, but then, there was a hell of a lot he didn't know about Miss Evie Peyton.
He didn't like having those children in here. He didn't want anything to do with children. But he could see where she couldn't put them out for the night. Silently Tyler went behind the screen and stripped off the rest of his clothes. He didn't even have a clean shirt in here. He hadn't planned on an extended stay in town. His beard itched, and he wanted a hot bath. Most of all, he wanted Evie in a warm bed. He didn't know how to correct any of that.
He couldn't wander around naked in front of children, but he sure as hell wasn't going to put those wet clothes back on, either. Remembering Evie's trunk of linens, Tyler pulled on his wet pants and crept back out to look for it. She'd left it open for him, and he helped himself to a flannel sheet. There was something to be said about a woman who came prepared.
Deciding if he couldn't have a warm bed he was going to make do with the willing woman, Tyler left his pants on the floor, tucked the sheet around his hips, and came to stand beside Evie's sleeping figure. She couldn't be that sound asleep in that position. Lifting her gently, he slid into the chair and settled her on his lap.
Evie woke instantly. Tyler smothered her gasp with his fingers. She wriggled around to stare at him. He chuckled as she tried to wriggle away. The chair wasn't big enough for either of them to go anywhere but where they were.
Tyler pulled her blanket up around her shoulders. "I'm cold and hungry, wife. What do you mean to do about it?"
Evie knew she was occasionally naive, but she wasn't dumb. The hunger he talked about had nothing to do with food. She had managed to prop her buttocks against his thigh, but even so, she could feel him stirring beneath her. There were layers of material between them, but Tyler's hands were already roaming beneath the blanket, pulling at her rumpled nightgown.
"Find you a hot chocolate?" she asked sweetly.
"Best idea I've heard all day. I'm ready for chocolate now."
Tyler's mouth closed over hers, and Evie drowned in the taste and heat of him. She could smell whiskey on his breath, but he was far from drunk. His fingers were sure and accomplished as they moved along her thigh, now bare of any encumbrance. Instead of sliding into the warmth of her as she had expected, they stroked her backside, applying pressures that had her squirming as surely as if he had stroked her elsewhere. Evie wanted to cry out, but Tyler's mouth had prior claims, and her tongue entangled with.
"The children!" she whispered as she felt his sheet go the way of her nightgown and skin brushed tingling skin.
"Practice being quiet," he replied as he turned her so her breasts brushed against his chest.
Her knees were on either side of his thighs, and Evie could feel the male part of him rubbing against her. She couldn't believe she was doing this, but as Tyler unfastened her gown and bent his head to tug at her breast, she didn't stop to think what she was doing. In Tyler's arms, everything was sensation. There wasn't time for thought.
His hands lifted her breasts and pulled her upward so he could suckle. Then they drifted downward, circling her waist, sliding over her hips until he cupped her firmly, bringing her closer.
Evie gave a muffled cry as his hands opened her over him. The word "Tyler!" escaped in a breathless rush before his lips closed on hers, and then he was in her, and around her, and pushing her wildly to that brilliant horizon he had shown her the night before.
She was more than ready for him. She bit his neck in an effort to be quiet. Tyler groaned and buried himself deeper, pulling her down hard and long until she bucked against him in frustration. He let her go, letting her make the moves, but responding with a wildness that his controlled performances of the night before had kept in line.
Evie re
membered the wildness from the first time, only this time it wasn't pain that it brought but rapture. She wanted to scream with the pleasure of it. She wanted to scream with the sheer frustration of having to be quiet She wanted to bury herself inside of him, take him deeper, find that place where they could each enter the other's skins and become one. She knew it was there, she could sense it, feel it coming closer, and she rocked and rode him in desperate search for what she was being denied.
In the end, it was too much for both of them. The children stirring in the bed put an edge on the pleasure. Tyler caught Evie's lips and branded them with his kiss while his fingers found the place that would give her release. She convulsed around him, and he gave a smothered cry of relief as he pushed deeper and gave up his seed. Gently, he eased her legs around so she could stretch them free once more.
She fell asleep on his shoulder almost at once. Tyler stayed awake awhile longer.
He had seen the initials on her pillowcases. EPH. He didn't even know what the Evie stood for. And Maryellen had nothing to do with the "H." She had been a virgin; he knew that. So she couldn't have been married before, could she? So who in hell was the "H"?
In the morning, he had to have a long talk with his wife. After they got rid of the kids.
Chapter 19
"Thtop it, Hothay," a tiny voice whispered indignantly. A rustle of bedcovers and a giggle followed.
Evie stirred. The whispers continued. "Stop it, both of you" came from a properly horrified Carmen. Evie wiped her eyes.
And realized where she was. Tyler was practically snoring in her ear, and he was jaybird naked beneath the blanket. She was lying across his bare thighs, and her fingers were curled in the hairs on his chest. Opening her eyes cautiously, she got a glimpse of his two-day beard and decided she had finally hit rock bottom. She was lying in the arms of a naked gambler with children tussling in the bed across from them.
At least there wasn't any liquor on the premises. She may have behaved like a drunken wanton, but she hadn't been drunk. Evie wasn't certain that was anything to be proud of. She grimaced as she moved her sticky thighs and tried to pull her nightgown down around her and keep Tyler covered at the same time. It wasn't an easy maneuver, but she managed it.
He was stirring by the time she got her feet to the floor, but she made a hasty dash for the dressing screen. This was not at all as she had pictured married life from her chaste bed in Nanny's house.
As she stripped off her nightgown, Evie gazed in dismay at the stains of red on the fragile lawn and the dried stains on her thighs. She scrubbed in the fresh water she had brought up last night, but the evidence didn't disappear with washing. She was bleeding. She dumped the dirty water in the chamberpot but didn't know how she could hide it from the others. She'd never had to live in such close quarters with so many people.
Hastily supplying herself with a cloth and dressing in yesterday's underclothes since she'd not had the forethought to put fresh ones behind the screen, Evie wrapped up in her robe, pulled a brush through her hair, and exited to see if she could keep the children from waking Tyler entirely.
It was too late. Maria had escaped while Carmen was trying to keep Jose from ransacking open trunks. The toddler had happily climbed up on the mountain of blankets and sheets that was Tyler and perched herself with a finger-sucking grin in his lap. Tyler scowled back at her through bleary eyes and stubbled jaw, but Maria only added a second finger to the first and continued to peruse him with wide-eyed wonder.
Tyler growled as Evie hurried to relieve him of his unwanted burden. Jerking the blanket around him, he rose with uncertain dignity and took advantage of the dressing screen while Carmen politely kept her back turned. If the fourteen-year-old thought it odd to wake and find a man in her teacher's room, she was too polite to mention it.
Evie flung Tyler's still-damp pants and shirt over the screen to him. It wouldn't do any good to go next door to Daniel for dry ones. Tyler would bust the seams. He should have thought of that while out playing hero the day before.
Maria's tiny gown was dry if spectacularly wrinkled, and Evie busied herself pulling that on the toddler while listening to Tyler splashing fresh water into the washbowl. Would he notice? What was he going to say? If she weren't so terrified, she would be hideously embarrassed. Would he think she lied? Of course he would.
Jose made a dash for the door, and Evie caught him by the collar just before he could escape. He wriggled and hollered, "I gotta go! I gotta go!" while she held him.
Tyler stepped out from behind the screen, menacing in his height and in his appearance, and the youngster silenced at once. The rough beard and wrinkled clothes made him appear more an outlaw than a handsome gambler, and when he reached for Jose, even Evie had second thoughts about letting him go. The look Tyler gave her was sufficient to release him.
"The privy is underwater," he rumbled as he deposited the boy behind the screen with the chamber pot. "Use that. That's what it's there for."
Having solved that minor problem, Tyler turned a stony look to Evie. So he knew. The color drained from Evie's face as he glared at her, and when he jerked his head in the direction of the door, she nodded faintly and followed him out.
The children's racket had apparently roused the guests sleeping in the hall, for the bodies that had been out there last night had disappeared elsewhere. They had the hall to themselves. Tyler watched as Evie pressed herself against the wall, trying to become part of the wallpaper.
"Have I done something to the child?" he demanded in a low voice that didn't sound as if he believed his own question. He rested his hand above her head, preventing her from escaping easily.
He was giving her an easy out. The lies came swiftly and surely to mind. She could tell him the doctor had warned her it would be a difficult pregnancy, but she hadn't wanted to worry him. She could tell him there was a history of miscarriage in her family. She had heard enough women's talk to make up a dozen different lies, each one better than the next, particularly since she didn't think Tyler knew all that much about pregnant women. The worst of it all was that she wasn't even sure what was the truth. Evie struggled with her conscience and fear.
"I don't know," she finally answered. That was as close to the truth as she could come.
Tyler scowled, but there was an element of worry in it this time. "Should I find the doctor?"
Evie shook her head, embarrassed at the idea. "There's no pain," she whispered.
Tyler removed his hand from the wall and stood in front of her, hands hooked in his front pockets as he stared down at her. "Could you have just been late?"
She was so embarrassed she thought she would burn right through the floor in another minute. She should have known that Tyler would know more about women's things than she did. A practiced womanizer would have to know.
"It's possible," she admitted. "It's never happened before."
Tyler sighed and rolled his shoulders back, looking anywhere else but at her. He clenched his hands against his pants. "I'll go find some coffee. What do I get for those birds in there?" He threw a grudging jerk of his head in the direction of the bedroom door.
Evie closed her eyes and tried to breathe. He'd had her almost fainting with fear. "Milk, if you can find it. Fruit and bread, if you can. We have no stove or utensils."
Tyler nodded curtly and stalked off. Evie peeled herself from the wall and stared after him. Her knees were still trembling. He was furious, she could tell by the set of his shoulders. He was furious, but he hadn't taken it out on her. She ought to count her blessings.
She hurried back into the room to find Carmen regarding her curiously, but she was in no humor for answering questions. She sent the children scurrying for clothes while she searched out something new to wear. She wanted something frivolous, something defiantly gay. Her choices were growing limited. She needed a laundry. There was little chance of Tyler helping them out now. She would be lucky if he didn't ride out of town by sundown.
Pulling
out a sultry blue-gray silk with an almost immodest neckline, Evie grinned in triumph. It was then that Jose knocked over the water bowl and Maria fell down in it, screaming her lungs out. By the time Evie had grabbed up the little girl and comforted her, prevented Carmen from boxing her brother's ears, and restored order once more, she decided silk wasn't precisely the thing to wear today. She was beginning to understand why the women in town with children didn't wear anything but aprons and cotton.
She didn't own an apron, and her cottons were a far cry from the gingham and stripes of the town matrons, but Evie pulled out one of her schoolteacher gowns and made do. It didn't require a bustle or a hoop, and the dove gray would stand up to attack by a two-year-old. She would at least look clean and unrumpled for a while. Glancing at the loose gold ring on her finger, she carefully set it in her jewelry box. She wouldn't want to lose that; Tyler might want it back.
She looked in on Daniel and found him engrossed in a deadly game of checkers with Manuel. Neither of them paid her much notice, other than to complain that they were hungry. Evie glanced out the window, saw that the water had almost retreated to mud-puddle level, and left them to the battle. It was time she learned what had happened to Mrs. Rodriguez.
Benjamin was carrying the tray upstairs as she started down. Evie had him set it in Daniel's room and explained her problem. She wasn't about to ask where Tyler had gone. Maybe if they pretended this whole thing hadn't happened, it would go away.
Benjamin gave her a look that said he knew more than he was telling, but he agreed to go looking for Mrs. Rodriguez. After questioning Carmen, he set out, leaving the children to their noisy meal together.
Tyler didn't return. When the sun came out and set the spongy mud and puddles of the main street to steaming, Evie finally gave Manuel permission to check their home for clean clothes. He came back with tales of a snake in the rafters and mud over everything, and Evie's heart plunged a little lower. What was she going to do with these children?
Texas Rose TH2 Page 17
