His own peak finally subsiding, Jethro’s strokes slowed until his hips stopped moving altogether. Releasing her mouth, slightly bruised from his abandoned kisses, he stared down at her. “You okay, Tidbit? Things got kinda frantic there at the end for us. I didn’t hurt you, did I?”
Orla smiled like the cat that swallowed the canary. “Only at the very first,” she informed him quickly. “I’m just fine now, and I can’t wait to do that all over again,” she shared, sliding her foot up and down the back of his calf suggestively. “Well, with one small adjustment,” she added, combing her fingers lazily through his beard.
Raising one eyebrow, Jethro grinned. “Is that so, my demanding little terror?”
Orla nodded. “Uh huh.”
“Well, don’t keep me in suspense, Tidbit. Tell me more about this small adjustment you wanna make,” Jethro invited, dipping his head to nuzzle the valley between her breasts playfully. “I’d love to know how you’d like me to serve that beautiful body next. You should know that I aim to please, Miss Person soon-to-be McKinnon,” he growled, lowering his head to tickle her neck with his beard.
Giggling, Orla wrapped her arms and legs around him again and whispered in his ear, “How would you feel if I asked to be on top next time?”
Feigning shock, Jethro gawked. “Of my body?” he gasped. “Why, Miss Orla, you’ll offend my delicate sensibilities with bawdy talk like that!”
“Oh, I hardly think that’s likely, you rascal.”
Jethro grinned against her shoulder. “Alright, Tidbit. Next time we love, you can be in any position you like. On top. On your knees. On your side. Whatever you like. It’ll still be lovin’ from the best I’ve ever had.”
Nostrils flaring, Orla’s mouth dropped. “On my knees?” she breathed. “Oh, Jethro, I wanna hear more about that! It sounds so deliciously naughty.”
His laughter bounced off the walls at her enthusiasm. “Oh, Orla…. I’m gonna love spending my life with you, darlin’. I love you, Tidbit,” he declared huskily.
And the next words out of Orla’s mouth were the easiest she’d ever spoken in her life. “I love you, too, Jethro.”
Chapter Twelve
Jethro
Wednesday – A Week Later
In the end, Jethro did manage to marry his love, Orla. On a Wednesday. It just wasn’t on the Wednesday they’d originally anticipated….
~***~
“Jethro McKinnon,” Judge Hayes Collins growled irritably as he shuffled through the front door of the McKinnon home at just past 8 o’clock in the evening just over a week later, “Now, you listen here. I’m gonna tell you the same thing I told your daddy fifteen years ago when he pulled this very same thing on me with Lydia! Kidnapping a justice of the peace is still a federal crime even if you are friends with the man you abduct! And you add insult to injury when you snatch ‘em out of their warm bed in their nightcap and pajamas,” the normally stately man declared as he stood in the foyer of the McKinnon home, clad in his askew night cap, a pair of wrinkled white pajamas that were covered by a long black overcoat, and red galoshes on his feet. Fuming, the elderly man shook his white head. “This is NOT the kinda thing normal folks do, Jethro,” he continued.
“Far as I can tell, it all worked out pretty well for my father, and you know what they say. Like father, like son,” Jethro returned with an unconcerned shrug, following the judge into his house and closing the door on the chilly evening behind him.
“Do you realize, boy, that you just added a whole new level of lowdown to things by doin’ this on Christmas Eve?! You know my grandchildren will be at my house at the crack of dawn to open presents!”
“You don’t understand; I was desperate, Judge,” Jethro replied remorselessly. “And you know what they say about desperate men.”
“No,” the judge replied, shaking his head and shrugging. “I don’t.”
Jethro’s face darkened as he fought for patience. “They make for some ornery fuckers that don’t give a shit if they interrupt a man’s Christmas Eve nap before bed.”
Biting the inside of his cheek when he watched the old man roll his brown eyes at him, Jethro reminded himself that he wanted this man to do him a favor. But damn, didn’t this old geezer understand that being stuck under the same roof with Orla for an entire week without being able to take her to his bed and love her the way he wanted was as close to torture as he ever wanted to get? The last seven days had been horrible, especially since the day after her unfortunate jaunt through a snowstorm (on what was supposed to be their original wedding day). Because what should have been the happiest day in their life, had become his most terrifying when he’d awakened to find his Orla had taken deathly ill in the middle of the night. With a high fever, chills, and sore throat, her first exposure to the harshness of mountain weather had left her shockingly sick.
For two days, he’d sat beside her bed, bathing her face in cool rags as her fever had surged higher and higher, forcing broth down her scratchy throat, and generally just acting like a lovesick fool if his amused stepmother and brother were to be believed. Personally, he’d thought he’d go mad, especially when Orla’s fever had gotten so high that she’d hallucinated seeing her dead parents in the room with them late on the evening of the second night. His blood had run ice cold when she’d looked at him with fever-bright eyes and sworn that her mother was sitting in the empty chair beside him. At that point, Jethro had wasted no time summoning the town doctor to the house. Two days, one shot of penicillin, and a hundred cool sponge baths later, her fever had broken and Jethro had never rejoiced so hard in his life that his woman was over the worst of her illness.
She’d been weak, pale and more than a little disappointed that they’d been forced to postpone their wedding because of her when Jethro had explained to her that she’d been out of her mind with illness for four days, but he’d promised her that they’d be married just as soon as she was strong enough to stand on her own.
So, this evening - exactly a week to the very day when they were originally supposed to have been wed - Jethro had silently rejoiced when he’d watched his woman manage to walk down the stairs and into the dining room to take the evening meal with him and the rest of his family for the first time in a solid week.
Determined to give Orla a Christmas gift she’d never forget (and simultaneously award himself the biggest and best present in the world), he’d risen from his chair at the head of the table immediately after supper, grabbed his coat and hat, and quickly grabbed a hurried, stolen kiss under the mistletoe from Orla before he’d departed the house. A man on a mission, he refused to accept defeat when he’d arrived at the judge’s small cottage just outside of town and was told by the man’s wife that he was already asleep.
No, Jethro hadn’t let that small detail slow him down at all and had refused to leave the small country home until the woman had finally conceded defeat and awakened the elderly justice of the peace. Jethro probably should have been ashamed of his actions, but he wasn’t. Marrying Orla would be worth any price – even a night or two in the town jail if it came down to it.
Thanks to the judge’s friendship with Jethro’s father, it hadn’t come to that. Oh, threats had been made by the old codger, but after his wife heard the romantic recounting of the story of how Jethro and Orla had come to be engaged, Mrs. Collins had decided to intervene on Jethro’s behalf, informing the good Judge that he had two options to choose from: he could choose to take his rest that cold evening outside with his coon hounds or he could take the half hour it would take to marry his late friend’s eldest son and come home to sleep in his nice, warm bed.
Agitated by Jethro’s presumption and his own wife’s betrayal, Judge Collins had stared silently at both of them for a long minute. But, in the end, the man had taken mercy on him, merely throwing a lethal glare in Jethro’s direction before he’d stomped to the closet and grabbed his coat, putting it on over his pajamas. Evidently, staying in his wife’s good graces was important to the old man
.
One quick drive back to the McKinnon farm brought them to where they stood right now.
“Does your girl even know you’ve done this, boy? Girls dream of the perfect wedding from the moment they understand what the word means. Do you really think rushing the nuptials is the smart thing to do?” the judge asked grouchily.
“No, she doesn’t know what I’m planning, but given the fact that we were supposed to already be joined together in holy matrimony a week ago, I don’t think she’ll mind overly much,” Jethro informed the man gruffly, although the truth was that he had no idea if Orla would be irritated that he’d hijacked a judge to marry them. He only knew that now that she was on the mend, he couldn’t spend one more night without having his gold on her finger. He needed them to be safely wed where no one and nothing could ever come between them.
“Jethro?” Orla called from the sitting room. “Is that you? Where in the world have you been? Your mother and I were getting worried, and we promised Hawk he could open one Christmas present before bed, remember?” she asked, her voice coming closer as he heard her footsteps approaching.
Smiling as Orla rounded the corner into the foyer, he wondered if he’d ever get used to that little flutter in his gut that he got every time he saw her enter a room. “Hey, Tidbit. I had an errand to run.”
Hearing the judge clear his throat beside him, Jethro turned to look at the older man, grinning when he said, “Okay, Jethro. I think I get the hurry now. She’s beautiful,” the judge murmured appreciatively.
Orla’s eyes widened in surprise as she spotted their unexpected guest. “Oh! You brought company!” she said brightly, hurrying forward with her hand extended. “Hello! Merry Christmas Eve!” she greeted the stranger. “Won’t you come in?” she invited.
The old Judge smiled. “Merry Christmas to you, ma’am,” he greeted Orla with a warm, genuine grin. “You must be the lovely Miss Pearson. I’ve heard a lot about you, young lady.”
“Oh, please call me Orla,” she replied in a friendly tone. Quickly glancing toward Jethro uncertainly, Orla’s wide smile faltered for a second. “Uh, you’ve heard of me? Do I want to know what you’ve been tellin’ this poor man, Jethro?”
“Only the very best things, Orla. I’m Judge Hayes Collins, but you can call me Hay. I was an old friend of Jethro’s daddy,” the judge spoke before Jethro could get himself in trouble.
“Oh, how nice,” Orla returned with a pretty smile. “So, you’re a family friend then.”
“Yes, indeed! Why, I even married Big Pete and Miss Lydia nigh on fifteen years ago now, and it seems this one, here, wants to follow in his daddy’s footsteps,” the judge went on as he nodded toward where Jethro stood, tall and proud. “He showed up on my doorstep tonight just this side of desperate for my help, and he just couldn’t talk about anything else but you. I gotta say, I never thought I’d see this boy so ready to slip the matrimonial noose around his neck.”
“Really?” Orla breathed, looking from the judge to Jethro.
“Oh, yes. It seems that this love-struck fool was in a right hurry to rustle up a Justice of the Peace to make things nice and legal for both of you. Personally, after seein’ you though, I think you can do a whole lot better on the marital market than hooking your apple cart to this old grump’s, don’t you?” the old man asked just to needle Jethro. Shooting the scowling would-be groom a sly grin, he went on, “In fact, I have a single son that’s just a year or two older than you. I’d be happy to introduce you…”
“Alright, that’s more than enough, Judge Collins,” Jethro growled, grabbing Orla’s hand and pulling her into her side. “Orla’s happy right where she is. Your son can just go out and make his own match.”
“You mean like you did?” Orla asked slyly, offering Jethro an amused sidelong look.
Ignoring her taunt, Jethro lowered his head to look at his almost-bride. “Now, don’t you start, too. Havin’ one smartass in the room is more’n enough. And since we observe the laws of age before beauty, the judge beat you to the race.”
Orla laughed and leaned into Jethro’s side. “I was only teasin’,” she murmured, staring up at him with sparkling eyes as the judge chuckled. “You know I have to give you a hard time.”
Bending to her ear, Jethro growled, “I’d like you to make something else hard tonight, too, so how ‘bout you cooperate with me so that I can get us hitched? Hmmm?”
Orla giggled, but nodded, nonetheless.
“Well, I reckon it looks like my poor son will just be outta luck then, since it looks to me like you don’t mind bein’ spoken for by our old Jethro, Orla.
“Well, there’s no debatin’ that Jethro is gonna be a handful of a husband, but at least he’ll be my handful, sir.”
“That so?” the elderly man asked, looking to a blushing Orla. “So, you’re as anxious to wed to him as he is to you, are you?”
“Oh, yes, sir!” Orla nodded eagerly, clutching Jethro’s hand as her eyes grew more excited. “Is it possible we could be married this evening?” she questioned hopefully. “Oh, that would just be the best Christmas present ever, Judge!”
Judge Collins grinned and exchanged a knowing look with Jethro. “Honey, I think it’s entirely possible that Jethro fully intends to hold me hostage until I pronounce you as man and wife. In fact, it’s why I’m here… to make you an official McKinnon if that’s what you want.”
“I want that more than I want my next breath, Judge,” Orla breathed, her gaze soft as she turned to Jethro.
“Don’t say that!” Jethro hissed, his hand clenching around hers as he thought back to those dark hours when she’d been so awfully ill. “I feel like I almost lost you this week with that damn fever… it’s too soon for you to go sayin’ shit like that, Orla.”
Shooting him an apologetic look, Orla rose on her toes to brush a kiss against his trimmed beard. “I’m sorry.”
Laughing again at the googly-eyed pair in front of him, Judge Collins shook his head. “This is not a side of Jethro I ever thought I’d live long enough to see. Your daddy would be proud of the man you’ve become, son. Damn proud.”
Glancing up at the older man, Jethro offered him a respectful nod. “Thank you, Sir.” Looking back to Orla, he suggested, “Why don’t you go upstairs and get changed into the dress you’d like to get married in and I’ll go tell Mother McKinnon and Hawk what the plan is. We’ll meet back in the living room in front of the fireplace when you’re ready, okay?” he asked, gently stroking her still pale cheek.
“I don’t need another dress,” Orla denied, looking down at the simple checkered dress she wore. “All I need is my groom. The rest is just details.”
Jethro’s eyes glittered as he realized once again how lucky he was that this woman had fallen into his lap. She had no airs about her, no superficialities. She was a hundred percent real. It was like she’d been destined only for him. “Love you, Tidbit,” he declared huskily.
“Love you, too, Farmer Man,” she whispered, tightening her fingers around his hand.
“Good. Then, let’s go make an honest woman out of you,” he grinned, pulling her toward the sitting room where his mother and brother waited.
~~~***~~~~
Half an hour later, Orla stared in wonder at the ring finger of her left hand and the two bands now circling it. “Jethro,” she breathed, still staring at her new jewelry with a teary gaze as Lydia and the judge quietly conversed in the corner and Hawk played in the floor with the toy cars Santa had left as an early present. “I’m speechless. I was expecting a slim gold band. Maybe. Certainly nothing as gorgeous as this,” she said, biting her lip as she looked up at him with her whole heart in her eyes.
“The set belonged to my maternal grandmother. I’ve been saving them for years. Never thought I’d ever have use for them. And then… well… there you were. An unexpected gift I never imagined I’d receive.”
“Yeah?” Orla whispered as she leaned against him in front of the fireplace.
“Oh, y
eah,” he confirmed quietly. Resting his hands on the curve of her hips as he stood over her, Jethro looked into Orla’s clear, happy eyes. “You sure you don’t have any regrets? I know that this probably isn’t the wedding you always imagined having, but, honest to God, I think I’d have gone insane if I waited one more day to tack the McKinnon name to the end of yours.”
“A wedding is a single moment stolen out of time, Jethro. I love you, and in the long run, it’s the kind of marriage we make together that truly matters, Jethro. Yesterday is gone, but I want all the tomorrows you have left.”
Cupping her cheeks in his hands, Jethro lowered his head. “I love you, too, Tidbit. And all those tomorrows that you want from me? They’re all yours, Orla. Every single one. I honestly can’t imagine spending them with anyone else,” he shared huskily, lowering his lips to hers.
“Oh, yuck!” Hawk declared with a grimace. “Momma, they’re doin’ it again!” the boy complained, rolling his trademark blue McKinnon eyes heavenward. “Jeez, Jethro, she’s pretty and all, but you’re gonna suck her lips off at the rate you’re going!”
Jethro laughed against Orla’s mouth, lifting his head long enough to glare at his brother. “When you meet a pretty enough girl, you’ll wanna kiss her all the time, too, kid,” he informed his brother as he held Orla to him with one arm.
“Oh, I already did,” Hawk returned from his position on the floor in front of the Christmas tree.
“You did?” Orla asked brightly. “Tell us about her.”
“Oh, her name is Harriet. I’m a few years older than her, but she’s real sweet. I’ve decided that one day when I’m old enough, I’m gonna marry her just like Jethro married you. We’re gonna live here on the farm and have four little girls that are all as pretty as you,” he informed them proudly.
“Those sound like some mighty fine plans to me,” Orla smiled.
Wed by Wednesday (Passion in Paradise #4.5) Page 15
