She rolled toward him, her closed eyes leaking tears. He noticed she still wore that too-big plaid shirt over her nightgown. Gently he began to undo the top button. “You need to get out of this, Eleanor. It smells like smoke.”
Her head dipped in a nod, so he continued, unbuttoning it all the way and spreading it open so she could shrug out of it. He slipped one hand under her shoulder, pulled the garment down her arms and tossed it onto the pile of wet clothes on the floor. When he glanced back up he found her eyes were open. He reached to pull the quilt up over her shaking body, but she stopped him.
“My nightgown is all wet.”
“Yeah?” He held his breath.
She began to undo the buttons, starting at the high neck and working slowly downward. Her trembling fingers had trouble with the buttonholes.
“Eleanor, you sure you know what you’re doing? Your gown will dry out in an hour or so.”
“I kn-know exactly what I’m doing,” she said.
“No, you don’t. You’re scared and exhausted and not thinking clearly.” He caught her hand to stop her, but she deliberately moved it away and continued with the buttons.
“I am also cold and lonely and so glad you are here with me I could cry.”
“You’re already crying,” he said, his voice quiet. “You haven’t stopped crying since I brought Mama Cat out and chased your cow into the pasture.” He leaned over and pressed his mouth to her damp eyelids. “Eleanor Malloy, you are one helluva woman.”
She wriggled free of the muslin gown, and when he’d added it to the pile on the floor, she laid her forefinger on his lips. “Remember when I said I would never break my marriage vows?”
“Yeah. I’ve thought about that a lot. Keeps me awake most nights.”
She touched his face. “Cord, I have a confession to make.”
“Oh, yeah? What’s that?”
She stretched out beside him on the bed. “I lied.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
Cord laughed aloud. “You lied? You lied?” He brushed aside her hand and bent to kiss her. When he lifted his head his breathing was uneven.
“First of all, I don’t believe you lied. And second, we’re lying here next to each other buck naked, and whatever you said that night doesn’t matter.” He kissed her again, moving his mouth slowly over hers, then behind her ear, her closed eyelids, the hollow of her throat.
The tips of her breasts began to swell. She wanted him to kiss her there, touch her there. She ran one finger across his bare chest, trailing it over his shoulder and finally circling one of his nipples. When he thrust his head back she knew it was what she ought to do. She had no idea how to make love to a man. Tom had never done more than roughly knee her legs apart and plunge inside her.
But this... Cord had barely touched her and she wanted to do all sorts of things. This cannot be wrong. Being with this man is too glorious to be wrong.
And then his kiss changed. It went on and on, deeper and more demanding. His tongue slipped between her lips, inviting and teaching; it made her light-headed. He was showing her things she had never dreamed of, inciting feelings she never knew she had, responses she never knew existed.
His mouth found her nipples. She felt them ache as he touched her breasts, then moved his hand down to her belly and below. No one had ever touched her in such an intimate way. She had never known about such things, this sharp sweetness that flowed through her body like a hot, lazy river of sensation. She moved in his arms and heard his breathing catch.
His warm breath washed over her breasts. “Remember that night in Gillette Springs when we talked about all the reasons we weren’t going to do this?”
“I remember it very well,” she whispered. “I lay awake a long time that night, watching you while you slept. I kept wondering if we were wrong to deny ourselves this.”
“I didn’t do much sleeping that night. Maybe it was wrong that night, Eleanor, but it’s not wrong now.”
She reached her arms around his neck, pulled his head down to hers and pressed her lips on his closed eyelids. He gathered her against him. “I want to touch you,” he murmured. “All over.”
He combed his fingers through her hair, then began smoothing his hand over her naked back and down over her hips. His mouth followed, his tongue hot and searching. His breathing grew ragged.
Cord touched her hesitantly at first, afraid to be too intimate too soon, afraid that in his hunger he might be too rough. When he entered her she cried his name and moved with him until her body stilled and he heard her gasp.
“Eleanor,” he whispered. “I love you. I love you.”
His body convulsed in one star-filled explosion, and tears stung into his eyes. God in heaven, he knew he was never going to be the same after tonight.
For more years than he cared to count, his past mistakes had haunted him. Bad decisions. Bad choices. Bad years in prison paying for them. But ever since he’d laid eyes on the woman beside him he’d felt himself start to come back to life. It was scary. He didn’t really know how to stop drifting and get his life back, and for the past six months he’d been running on instinct. It was scary. At times it felt unreal. Overwhelming.
And tonight...
This beautiful, extraordinary gift would last him for the rest of his life.
After a long while he rolled to one side, taking her with him, and wrapped her tight in his arms. “If I live to be a hundred years old,” he murmured near her ear, “I will never forget this night. Never.”
Chapter Thirty-Three
Cord turned from the stove, where he was frying bacon, to see Danny standing in the kitchen doorway. “Where’s Ma?”
Molly popped up behind him. “Are we gonna have pancakes?”
“No, honey. We’re having scrambled eggs and bacon, all right?”
“Oh, goody! Where’s Mama?”
Cord hesitated. “She’s...still asleep.”
“Is she sick?” Danny asked.
“No, she’s just tired. She was up late last night.”
“How come?”
Cord laid the spatula down and turned to face both children. “Go look outside, Dan. You, too, Molly.”
They streaked into the parlor and barreled through the front door. In half a minute they were back, their eyes big as soup bowls. “Golly gee whiz, Cord, what happened to our barn?”
“It burned down last night, Dan.”
“Where’s Mama Cat and the kitties?” Molly cried.
“How come it burned down?” Danny pursued.
Cord forked over a slice of bacon. “I don’t really know, son. Molly, you want to break some eggs into this dish?” He pointed to the china bowl beside the stove.
Eight eggs splatted into the bowl, and Cord whisked them around with a fork, added some milk and poured the mixture into the skillet. Too late he realized the pan was too hot; scrambled eggs should be cooked slowly.
“Where’s Mama Cat?” Molly repeated.
“Mama Cat is just fine, Molly. I think you’ll find her and all the kittens under the front porch. But how about waiting until you’ve had breakfast before you go find her?”
The girl grabbed three plates from the lowest shelf of the china cabinet and a handful of spoons and forks and spread them out in a haphazard circle. “I’m gonna eat real fast, all right?”
Danny settled himself at the table. “Whooee, wait till the kids at school hear about our barn! Did any of the horses get hurt?”
“All the horses are safe. Saddles, too. And the cow.”
The boy sent him a startlingly adult look. “What started the fire, Cord?”
“I don’t know exactly,” he lied.
“Sure smells smoky outside.”
Cord set the speckleware coffeepot over the heat, porti
oned out the overcooked eggs and bacon slices, and hooked his boot heel on the rung of his chair. While Danny gobbled his breakfast and Molly daintily, but quickly, spooned eggs past her lips, Cord kept his eye on the coffeepot. As soon as he saddled his bay mare for Danny and got the boy off to school, he’d take a cup of coffee up to Eleanor.
The boy slurped down the last of his milk, and Cord made a bacon sandwich and put it and a rosy red apple into his lunchbox. Then he walked outside, caught his horse and laid the saddle onto her back.
When Danny was mounted, Cord slipped the lunch into one pocket of his saddlebag. Then he slipped Eleanor’s revolver from his belt and settled it in a separate pocket. He made sure Danny watched him do it.
“I’m putting this in along with your lunch, Dan.”
“How come?”
“Just for general protection. You know how to fire it now, so I figured you might need it someday.”
“Yeah?” Danny frowned. “Why would I?”
Cord didn’t answer. “It’s loaded. Don’t show it to anyone.”
“Oh. Right.”
He caught the boy’s eye. “Do I have your word on that?”
“Yeah, Cord, I promise.”
Cord patted the mare’s neck. “You break my trust and I’ll thrash you so hard you won’t sit down for a month. Got it?”
“Got it.”
He slapped the animal’s rump, the horse jolted forward and he stood watching the boy canter off with a tight feeling in his throat. When he turned back to the house he found Molly down on her hands and knees about to crawl under the porch. Oh, boy, Eleanor would sure scream about that! No telling what the girl would find under there besides kittens. He should have put a pinafore on her, or at least an apron.
“Molly, let me look so you won’t get dirty.” He bent and scraped his arm in a semicircle, and three orange kittens tumbled out, followed by Mama Cat.
Before he could stand up, Molly flung her arms around his neck. “You’re all dirty now, Cord. Bet you’re sorry.”
“Nope,” he said quietly. “Not by a long shot.”
Back in the kitchen he gathered up the breakfast dishes, dunked them into the pan of hot soapy water and filled up a cup of coffee for Eleanor. She ought to be awake by now.
Or maybe not. When he considered why not, he felt hot all over.
* * *
The tap on her bedroom door was so tentative she thought it must be Molly or Danny. When Cord stepped inside she blinked.
“Where are the children?”
“Danny’s on his way to school. Molly’s on the front porch, playing with the kittens.” He sat on the edge of the bed and handed her the cup and saucer. “No sugar and lots of cream, right?”
She smiled up at him. “This morning I wouldn’t notice. Or care.”
He leaned forward and pressed his lips against her hair.
“Did Danny take a lunch?”
“Yep. Bacon sandwich and an apple.”
Cord had an odd look on his face, but she didn’t want to ask.
“Is there any bacon left?”
“You hungry?”
She nodded. “I am absolutely ravenous this morning!”
“Eleanor...”
“Yes, I know,” she said. “I’ll have to tear down the rest of the barn before I can rebuild it, won’t I? The prospect makes me sick to my stomach.”
“No, I wasn’t thinking about that.”
“About what, then? About last night?” She knew her cheeks were getting red, but she didn’t care.
He gave a quiet laugh. “You know you just turned the color of ripe raspberries? Makes me—” he grinned “—damn hungry.”
The look in his eyes made her want to slide down and pull the sheet over her head.
“Don’t know what to say, huh?” he said quietly.
She shook her head. The truth was she did not know what to say, or do, or even think. Yesterday she’d been sane, sensible Eleanor Malloy. Today...well, she didn’t know about today.
Or tomorrow.
“You don’t suppose the children heard us last night, do you?”
He laughed. “No. They slept through the fire, didn’t they? Let’s get back to a real problem.”
“Only two things are certain, Cord. The barn will have to be rebuilt and I am absolutely starving!”
“Eleanor, rebuilding your barn isn’t the real problem.”
“What? What is the real problem?”
“We’ll talk about it later.” He lifted the cup away and set the saucer on the nightstand, tossed her discarded nightgown at her and waited while she slipped it over her head and buttoned it up to her chin. Then he walked her downstairs to the kitchen and sat her down at the table. When he set a plate of eggs and toast in front of her she looked up.
“No bacon?”
He chuckled. “I put it all in Danny’s sandwich.” He poured her another cup of coffee and pushed the cream pitcher toward her. She ate steadily while he washed and dried the dishes, then poured himself a mug of coffee and sat down across from her.
“We need to talk.”
“Oh, Cord, I don’t want to talk. I want to sit here with my coffee and pretend that my barn is still standing. Of course, with you frowning at me across the table, there’s not much chance of that, is there?”
“I can’t blame you for wanting to go back twenty-four hours and pretend it never happened, but—”
“But?”
His clear blue eyes held hers with a don’t-you-dare-look-away expression in them, and he added some pressed-together lips to his frown.
“Cord, I would never want to go back twenty-four hours and pretend it didn’t happen.”
“By ‘it’ you mean...?”
Her cup clicked onto the saucer. “Of course I do. Do you imagine that a woman ever wants to forget something like that?”
“Not your barn on fire, huh?”
She shut her eyes. “Well, that, too. It was Tom, wasn’t it?”
Cord hesitated. “Yeah, I think so.”
“But why? Just for revenge?”
“Who knows? I wouldn’t put anything past the man. Maybe he thought if he got rid of the barn he could sleep in the house. With you.”
“Oh, Cord, I no longer know what to do about Tom, or you, or anything.”
“Seems to me it’s obvious, Eleanor. You have to rebuild your barn.”
“Oh. But the thought of hiring men to work on it means—” she wrinkled her nose “—more Sundays with lemonade and cookies on the porch.”
“You don’t have to hire any men. I’ll rebuild it. I don’t drink much lemonade.”
“But you’ll be leaving! It’s the end of the apple season and you’re going to California.”
He lifted her hand from around her coffee cup and folded his own around it. “I’m not leaving. I sure don’t know what you’re gonna do with a hired hand who’s in love with you and a husband who’s not, but one thing is certain, you do need a barn, and I can build one.”
A small groan escaped her. “I feel caught smack-dab between a thundercloud and a lightning bolt.”
“Eleanor, there’s something else I want you to know. Working here on the farm as your hired man has given me a sense of purpose, a way to put my old life behind me and start believing that no matter what’s happened in the past, life can be good.”
“Lately I’ve felt so mixed-up and frightened I can’t think straight. Do you really believe that, Cord? That life can be good?”
“I do believe that. You need my protection. You need me. That’s sure as hell giving me something worth living for.”
He released her hand and stood up. “Get dressed. You and Molly and I are going into town.”
“What for?” she
said suspiciously.
“We’re gonna buy some lumber at the sawmill and some lemon drops for Molly at Ness’s mercantile. And then I’m gonna stop in and have a talk with Sheriff Rivera.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
Three days later Cord went into town alone. In all the months he’d been buying supplies at the mercantile, Cord had never seen Carl Ness look so interested in anything.
“I hear Miss Eleanor’s barn burned down,” the store owner said. “That why she wants a derringer?”
“Nope. She found a rattlesnake under the porch one day and ’bout screamed her head off ’til I killed it.” He’d bet Eleanor had never screamed her head off about anything in her entire life, but where Carl Ness was concerned, a lie was better than the truth.
Carl nodded knowingly. “Women are like that. About the barn, Cord. You gotta be real careful with them kerosene lanterns, the barn bein’ full of dry straw and everything. I bet Miss Eleanor’s plenty het up ’bout you bein’ so careless.”
Cord coughed. “She’s het up, all right. Things haven’t been the same since that night.” He tried to hide his smile.
“Ya know, her last hired man, ol’ man Isaiah, quit on her sudden-like. I’d sure hate to see you go before she gets a new barn.”
“Me, too,” Cord said shortly. “Carl, add a box of cartridges and a bagful of lemon drops, too.”
“Say, how’s old Tom Malloy gettin’ along on the farm? Heard the apple harvest was the best yet.”
Cord let out a long breath. This week the mercantile storefront was painted an eye-blinking lime green; maybe that was why Carl was so talkative this morning. “Haven’t seen much of Tom lately.”
Carl grinned in an unfriendly way. “I reckon you’ve been too busy rebuildin’ Miss Eleanor’s barn.”
“Yeah. Been plenty busy.” Eleanor and Danny were helping him rebuild the barn. Tom had been conspicuously absent. But if Carl thought Eleanor’s husband was spending his time out at the farm, it was obvious Tom wasn’t spending much time in town. The sheriff said he hadn’t seen Malloy, either. Made Cord wonder where he was. It also made him uneasy.
The Hired Man Page 23
