Angelfire

by Linda Lael Miller

  “I know,” he said gently, still holding her in that careful way. “Everything’s going to be all right, love. I promise it will.”

  Peony wept wholeheartedly for long minutes, during which Bliss felt like an intruder but could not turn away. Finally, Jamie said hoarsely, “Let’s ’ave a look at this burn.”

  After casting an anxious look in Bliss’s direction, Peony shook her head. “No. I’ve never undressed for you before, Jamie McKenna, and I won’t start now.”

  Bliss, hovering in the doorway, spoke for the first time since she’d told Jamie where to find Peony. “I saw the wound this morning,” she said woodenly, “and I didn’t like the looks of it.”

  Jamie didn’t so much as glance in his wife’s direction. His orders were simple and to the point. “Turn over,” he said to Peony.

  Peony again looked to Bliss, her eyes appealing for understanding. “Look away, then, Jamie,” she murmured. When he did, Peony removed her bed jacket and lay down on her stomach.

  Jamie cursed when he saw the gruesome initials burned into the flesh between Peony’s shoulder blades. “Bring some whiskey and a clean cloth, Bliss,” he said in the next moment, and he might have been a stranger for all the warmth his voice held.

  Bliss hurried to fetch a linen sheet from a cabinet in the upstairs hallway, then found the liquor supply in Jamie’s study and grasped a bottle. When she returned to the downstairs bedroom, Peony was paler than ever and biting her lip, while Jamie stood at the window, every muscle in his body rigid with outrage.

  He turned when he heard Bliss enter the room and gave her a despondent smile. So briefly did it touch his lips that Bliss wasn’t sure she’d really seen it.

  “Not whiskey, Jamie,” Peony whispered. “Please—”

  Jamie didn’t even seem to see Bliss as he took the bottle and sheet from her and approached the bed again. “I’m sorry, love,” he said quietly. “If I could suffer this for you, I would. You know that, don’t you?”

  His words broke Bliss’s heart, as did Peony’s trusting reply. “Yes, Jamie love. I know.”

  Bliss bit her lower lip as she watched Jamie tear away part of the sheet she’d given him and soak it in whiskey. He spoke in a gentle murmur to Peony—Bliss could not make out the words—as he began to clean the infected wound.

  Peony stiffened and screamed into her pillow, but there was never a break in Jamie’s quiet reassurances. Bliss turned and stumbled back along the hallway, into the kitchen, and out the rear door.

  There, in the windswept winter grass, she covered her face with both hands and sobbed out her anguish.

  “’Ere now,” said a low masculine voice behind her, as strong hands turned her so that she could rest her forehead against a chest as broad and steely as Jamie’s. “It can’t be so bleak as all that, now can it, Red?”

  Bliss looked up at Reeve and trembled with grief. He was a man, and Jamie’s brother in the bargain, and he would never understand. She sniffled bravely and dashed at her tears with the back of one hand.

  “It’s time I gathered the eggs,” she said with resolve.

  Reeve bent to place a brotherly kiss on the top of her head. “You’re the best thing that ever ’appened to Jamie, little one. Don’t forget that, no matter what.”

  Bliss nodded and made herself smile, and when she reached the chicken coop, Caesar was up to his old tricks. Apparently, he hadn’t learned his lesson after all.

  Again, Bliss imprisoned him beneath the old washtub, again he railed and squawked and flapped his wings. With a sigh, she found a good-sized rock and gave the metal tub a hard, resounding thump with it.

  Caesar promptly fell silent. In fact, he was so quiet that Bliss lifted the washtub and freed him. He staggered away and minded his own business all the while that Bliss was gathering eggs.

  When she returned to the kitchen, Jamie was there, quite alone, sipping coffee from a mug with a chip in the rim. Bliss’s straight little shoulders stooped a little, under the weight of her discouragement. “Hello,” she said, thinking how stupid and inane that word could sound as she set the egg basket on the counter and reached back to fiddle with her apron ties.

  She felt Jamie’s gaze on her breasts when they were thrust forward by the motion.

  “How are you, Duchess?” he asked softly.

  “As if you cared,” Bliss muttered, and she was immediately remorseful because Peony’s injury was real and it was serious and she hadn’t meant to make light of it by indulging her own jealous feelings.

  She felt his hands on her shoulders. “I do care, Duchess,” he said.

  Bliss turned in his grasp to look up at him, searching his handsome face for any sign of deception. Her throat was thick with emotion; just standing so close to Jamie made her yearn for him.

  “Hold me, Jamie,” she implored him in a despairing whisper.

  He drew her to him, and she took comfort from the strength of his embrace. After a few moments, though, he drew back, allowing his hands to rest on her waist. “I want you to do something for me, Duchess—with no arguments.”

  Bliss didn’t like the sound of this, but she kept her peace, determined to listen if not obey.

  “When Reeve leaves for Australia at the end of the week, I want you and Peony to go with him.”

  Bliss’s mouth dropped open. Of all the things Jamie might have said, she had never expected that. “Wh-what about you?” she asked finally. “Aren’t you going, too?”

  “Aye,” Jamie answered after a short silence, and there was an angry distance in his eyes that frightened Bliss. “I ’ave business there. But I’ve got some things to tend to before I leave, so I won’t be travelin’ with you.”

  Bliss fought an urge to cling to him; she couldn’t have Jamie thinking that she was weak, and no wife for a man like him. “I’ll wait for you, then,” she said, with a proud lift of her chin.

  Jamie shook his head. “No, Duchess. I want you kept safe, and this is the only way.”

  Bliss lowered her eyes for a moment, struggling to retain her composure. “I’m never safer than when I’m with you,” she said softly.

  “Aye,” Jamie said with a skeptical chuckle that was utterly devoid of amusement. “Were you ’safe’ that day when Dunnigan and ’is men jumped us along the road? If it ’adn’t been for Cutter and Dog, we’d both be dead by now.”

  Boldly, Bliss lifted her hands to the sides of Jamie’s face. “But we aren’t dead, Jamie—that’s the important thing. And I don’t want to be separated from you.”

  Jamie bent his head and gave her a brief, nibbling kiss. “I’ve got to go back to camp for a few days, Duchess,” he said. “When I get ’ome again, will you be ready to give me a proper welcome?”

  Bliss knew that welcome would also be a good-bye, but she nodded and smiled, tears shining in her eyes. “Aye,” she teased, mimicking his brogue. “Twill be a proper welcome indeed, me love!”

  He laughed and wrenched her close, and this time his kiss was thorough, sending heat surging into every part of her body. Heat that burned away Bliss’s doubts and fears like dry grass in the path of a fire.

  As it happened, Jamie changed his plans and returned to the sheep camp only long enough to explain the situation to Cutter. When he got back, he divided most of his time between Peony and Reeve, but Bliss was determined not to mind.

  Five days had passed, during which Peony had largely recovered and Reeve had grown homesick for his wife and family. Bliss had slept beside Jamie every night for the best part of the previous week, aware of every sinewy, rock-hard muscle in his body, desire tightening within her, like a fiery coil. Now, her system had completed its mysterious cycle, and she could wait no longer.

  She found her husband in the barn, in virtually the same spot where he’d nearly run Bliss through with a pitchfork, pitching hay for the horses. Since the day was warm, he’d left his coat in the house and unfastened his shirt to his midriff.

  Bliss had bathed, put on perfume and her favorite spring dres
s, one that Jamie had shown a special preference for. Her curly cinnamon hair had been washed, then brushed and toweled until it was nearly dry, and fastened with combs that Jamie had given her.

  He paused in his work, gave a low whistle, and shoved his decrepit hat to the back of his head when he saw her. The muscles in his bare forearms corded as he shifted the pitchfork handle so that it rested between his hands.

  Bliss was filled with love and the knowledge that she would soon be parted from Jamie. There was a bittersweet ache in her throat when she said, “I need you, Jamie McKenna, and I won’t be put off until you’ve finished your blasted work.”

  Jamie gaped at her for a moment, then laughed and tossed the pitchfork aside. “So it’s that way, is it?” he asked, putting his powerful hands on his hips.

  Bliss drew nearer, sliding her fingers inside his open shirt and delighting in his groan of welcome. “Are my hands cold?” she teased.

  “No,” Jamie answered, his lips moving closer and closer to hers, “but your feet are, as a general rule.”

  Bliss giggled, but her amusement caught in her throat when Jamie’s mouth claimed hers in a kiss that stole her breath away and electrified all her senses. Her hands were trapped inside his shirt, while his molded her neatly to him.

  For all that he could so easily dominate Bliss, Jamie was breathless when he broke that kiss to grind out, “God in ’eaven, Duchess, show a man some mercy. It’s the bright light of day and we aren’t alone—”

  Bliss rested one index finger lightly on his lips. “We are, though. Peony is asleep and Reeve is in the study with his feet up on your desk, reading a book.” She swept Jamie’s hat from his head and flung it away, then buried her fingers in his hair. “Resist if you can,” she added in a saucy whisper, with a little wriggle that made him moan like a man in agony and then kiss her as if that were the only antidote for his pain.

  “Up there,” he rasped, long, delicious minutes later, pointing toward the loft. When Bliss hesitated mischievously, he added a hoarse, “Please?”

  She laughed and started up the ladder, and when she reached the top, Jamie gave her a pinch that sent her rolling in the sweet-scented, scratchy hay. He was poised over her in a move so quick that the battle was lost before it had even begun, catching her wrists together in one hand and holding them high over her head.

  It was Bliss who moaned now as she felt the power of Jamie’s manhood pressing against her thigh. He kissed her with a fierce, primitive hunger, and his light, deft fingers were unfastening the buttons of her dress all the while. He made short work of the camisole beneath and then, still stretching her arms as far above her head as he could without hurting her, he eased downward to enjoy the warm, plump breasts that awaited him so eagerly.

  Bliss closed her eyes and bit down on her lower lip in sheer ecstasy as he drank his fill at her throbbing nipples. By the time he lifted her skirts and drew down her drawers, she was aching to be filled with him.

  But Jamie had other ideas. He placed her legs over his shoulders and, supporting the small of her back in his strong, callused hands, burrowed past the silken barrier to satisfy another craving.

  Bliss was blinded by the dazzling sensations that were overwhelming her. A soft, whimpering cry came from her throat as Jamie took his pleasure, now with a pirate’s gluttony, now with delicate nibbles that made her clutch at the straw with frantic hands. He was caressing her ever so gently with his tongue when a grinding release caught her small body and shook it, like a great beast shaking its captured prey.

  She lay dazed in the straw when it was over, the back of one hand resting against her mouth as she struggled to breathe normally. Jamie stretched out beside her, his hand making gentle circles beneath the folds of her skirt and petticoat on the quivering flesh of her stomach. Her breasts were still bared to the spring air, and their peaks contracted as Jamie assessed them with new appetite.

  “Ummmm,” he said, and his breath was warm against the nipple he’d chosen.

  Arching her back, Bliss closed her eyes and rested her fingers lightly in Jamie’s hair. As he suckled, she purred in tranquil rapture.

  After a delectable interval, Bliss began to feel a new heat in her loins, and she could only imagine what Jamie was feeling. She wanted to raise him to the same fierce level of need and response that she had reached.

  She unfastened his belt buckle and the buttons of his trousers, and freed him to caresses that set him to trembling. He drew in a harsh, rasping breath when she tested him in a tentative way, groaned when she became greedy. Jamie submitted as long as he could bear before taking Bliss by the waist and setting her astride him. His eyes, full of passion and challenge, never broke contact with hers as she slowly, proudly admitted him to her body.

  Never before had Jamie allowed Bliss to set the pace and tone of their lovemaking for so long, but that day he did. She saw the muscles in his throat move convulsively as she subjected him to sweet torment by rising and falling, rising and falling upon his manhood. She rode his magnificence as though it were a mythical winged steed.

  Somewhere high in the clouds, however, Bliss lost her way and was blinded by the mists that surrounded her. Resting her hands on Jamie’s shoulders, she flung back her head and cried out as elation found her and sent her spiraling into an exploding sun. Jamie followed close behind, feasting feverishly on her breast even as his powerful hips were stilled in a final, savage spasm of release.

  Bliss rested her head against Jamie’s shoulder, long minutes later, while he set her camisole and dress to rights with slow, soothing motions of his hands. Only when she had been taken care of did he attend to his own clothes.

  She wasn’t sure whether he’d said it aloud, or whether his gentleness had told her, but Bliss knew that Jamie loved her. In that time, and that place, at least, he belonged exclusively to her.

  She smoothed his rumpled hair with her fingers, smiling through a mist of tears. “It was the smartest thing I ever did, Jamie McKenna, falling asleep in your barn that night.”

  “I’d ’ave gladly shared me bed,” he teased, and his eyes danced as he watched her picking straw from her hair.

  He stood when Bliss did, and preceded her down the ladder, retrieving his hat and his pitchfork and then standing there grinning at her while she plucked at the straw that seemed to cover her from head to foot.

  “How do I look?” she asked, craning her neck to try and peer over her own shoulder.

  “Like you’ve just been tumbled in a hayloft,” Jamie answered, without hesitation, and then he went back to his work, whistling in a carefree fashion as he wielded the pitchfork.

  As Bliss stood there watching Jamie, it came home to her that she would be forced to leave him soon, and that whatever he meant to do in her absence was dangerous. A shiver touched her spine, and made her tremble.

  She might never see him again after she and Peony and Reeve sailed away from Auckland.

  “Do you love me, Jamie McKenna?” she demanded, her eyes burning suspiciously.

  He stopped pitching hay to look at her squarely. “No worries there, Duchess. Didn’t I just surrender me virtue, without so much as a fight?”

  Bliss took a step nearer, her hands clasped together. “Don’t tease me, Jamie,” she said. “I’m serious.”

  He dispensed with the pitchfork and walked toward her, cupping her face in his hands. “And so am I,” he said gruffly. He gave her a little shake. “Are you listenin’ now, Duchess? I love you!”

  Bliss put her arms around his neck and held on. “Let me stay with you, Jamie—please!”

  He shook his head and set her away, just as she’d feared.

  “No. And that’s the end of it, Duchess. I’ve done all the explainin’ I’m goin’ to do.”

  Bliss drew a deep breath, let it out again. It was true that Jamie had made his position clear over the past few days. He intended to look for Increase Pipher, his old enemy, after she’d sailed for Australia with Reeve and Peony. When he’d resolved th
e matter once and for all, he would come for her. “There’s no reasoning with you, Jamie McKenna,” she complained.

  “You’re right,” he replied stubbornly, and when Bliss left the barn, he was pitching hay again.

  Peony was in the kitchen brewing tea when Bliss reached the house. She smiled and said, “Hello, Mrs. McKenna.”

  “Hello,” Bliss sighed, sinking into a chair.

  “My goodness,” commented Peony. “Don’t we just look like desolation itself?” She reached out and, with a frown, picked a bit of straw from Bliss’s hair.

  Bliss blushed and averted her eyes, and Peony laughed.

  “Don’t be so hard on yourself, love,” she said good-naturedly. “The man’s your husband, after all.”

  Bliss’s gaze was level as she looked at Peony. “I don’t want to share him. Ever.”

  Peony shrugged and poured tea for both herself and Bliss before answering. “I don’t imagine you’ll have to, if you look after his needs. Jamie’s not a man to wander from bed to bed.”

  “You seem to know him awfully well,” Bliss dared to say.

  “I do,” Peony replied blithely. “Perhaps better than anyone else in the world does.” She paused, probably for effect, then went on to say, “Jamie loves you, Bliss, with his whole heart and soul, and he’d never betray you. Not unless you betrayed him first, that is.

  “Let me just give you a little warning, though. If you ever hurt that man, I’ll see you pay for it if it’s the last thing I ever do.”

  Bliss’s eyes widened and, for once, she had no ready answer.

  The next morning, early, Jamie left the warmth of their bed and began getting into his clothes.

  “It can’t be time already,” Bliss said with despair, longing to slide down under the covers and hide there until Jamie forgot that he’d ever wanted to send her to Australia.

  “Sorry, Duchess. Today’s the day.” Jamie’s voice was hoarse.

  “I don’t want to go!” Bliss wailed. “Why won’t you listen to me?”

  Jamie sighed. “I’ve listened to you until me ears are ringin’. Get out of bed, Duchess. The train leaves in a couple of hours.”