The Reluctant Bride

by Leigh Greenwood

  “What prompted you to ask that question now?” she asked.

  “What Ethel said.”

  “Sit down. This is not a short answer.”

  “It would be for me.”

  She started to say that men were less complicated than women but decided that wasn’t true. She wanted a husband and a family, she wanted to be respected, and she wanted nothing to do with killing. Nothing complicated about that. She still hadn’t unraveled Russ. She waited for him to be seated on the chair. She tied her robe securely and settled on the bed.

  “I’ve been going over our situation for the last several days, trying to decide whether I could marry you. I believe you respect me and trust in my honesty.”

  “I always have.”

  “I believe you’re not feuding with Stocker, that you want to put the past behind you and forget what can’t be changed, but Stocker can’t. I’m not sure I can face the specter of my husband or sons being killed.”

  “We could move away.”

  “I’d never ask you to do that. Besides, I’m not sure but I think I’d be ashamed of myself for running away. I’m not a coward.”

  “If I’d ever doubted that, I wouldn’t have after today.”

  “People shouldn’t be forced to run from bullies, but I’m not sure I can live with senseless killing. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you agree?”

  “In principle, but that valley is mine and I’ll fight to keep it.”

  “I always knew you would.”

  They sat silently staring at each other for a moment.

  “You haven’t answered my question,” Russ said.

  “I haven’t because I wanted you to understand why my answer might not lead to the results you want.”

  “Does that mean…”

  “I love you. There are times I think I’ve loved you from the very first.”

  Russ came out of the chair as though shot from a cannon. Before Tanzy had time to protest or open her arms in welcome, she was buried in a crushing embrace as he kissed her face in wild abandon. It was futile to attempt to remind Russ that she hadn’t made up her mind about marrying him. Any word that escaped her mouth would have been swallowed by his. He had captured her mouth as though he intended never to let go. His kisses were hard, filled with the desperation of a man who’d waited a lifetime to hear those words, a man who believed he’d never hear them and had schooled himself to live without them, a man who saw her love as his only hope of redemption and meant to cling to it with every ounce of strength he could muster.

  Knowing she hadn’t yet committed herself to him, Tanzy tried to restrain her response. She failed. It was time she accepted that she loved Russ, that she wanted to marry him, that she wanted to be his wife and bear his children. Their problems would have to be faced some time in the future, but for the moment the future could be put aside. It should be put aside. They were in love. They should celebrate that love.

  Tanzy had never guessed how wonderful it would feel to be in the arms of the man she loved, the man who loved her with such intensity. It was like being wrapped in a warmth that reached beyond the physical to embrace the spiritual, to heal her soul. Wrapped in love’s embrace, all things were possible. Without it, much of life lost its meaning.

  “I was afraid you’d never say those words,” Russ said:

  “Do you love me?” Tanzy asked.

  “You know I do.”

  “Why haven’t you told me?”

  “I was afraid to do anything that might scare you away.”

  “A woman is never scared away by a man’s saying he loves her.”

  “I didn’t know what to do. Loving has never been good for me or my family.”

  “Not for me, either. And I’m not sure—”

  “Don’t talk. Let’s just think about now. For once, let tomorrow wait until tomorrow.”

  He held her close, his arms meeting behind her back, her breasts pressed hard against his chest, his cheek resting on the top of her head. It seemed he was content just to stand there, to drink in the feeling of her in his arms, to let her nearness to his heart drench his parched soul with life-giving love.

  “I’ve never held a woman like this,” he murmured. “I never thought I’d want to.” After a few moments he said, “I don’t think I ever want to stop.”

  The power she had to make this man’s life happy or to crush his soul terrified her. She wanted with all her heart to marry him, to make him as happy as possible, but she feared she might not be able to do that. Could she accept his love now, knowing she might have to reject it in the future?

  Could she ignore her love? Could she ignore her happiness? Should she deny them both the comfort of accepting their love even if it could only be for a short while? Could she accept his plea to think only of tonight, to let tomorrow wait until tomorrow?

  Yes. Life didn’t offer many perfect moments. This might be the only one she’d get. Resolving to immerse herself in the here and now, she slipped her arms around Russ. Her fingers splayed across his strong back. She wasn’t used to feeling small or weak, but his size and strength dwarfed her own. She felt engulfed in his embrace, surrounded by his strength, warmed by his heat.

  “You can’t leave me,” Russ said, “not when it’s taken me so long to find you.”

  “I don’t want to leave you.”

  “Say you love me.”

  “I love you.”

  “Say it again.”

  “Is it so important?”

  “It is when you’ve never heard it from the lips of someone you love.”

  “I love you,” Tanzy said, letting her heart form the sounds and give emphasis to the words. “No matter what happens, I always will.”

  His arms tightened around her. His kissed her hair over and over again. She heard a sob of relief. It was faint and it was singular, but it was the sound of a dam giving way, the dam that had held back Russ’s emotions for most of his life, the dam behind which he hid until drawn out against his will.

  “Many people love you,” Tanzy said. “Many more will in years to come. You’ll never have to depend on the love of one person.”

  “I’d trade them all, now and forever, for you.”

  He lowered his mouth to hers. His kisses had turned gentle, caressing, soothing. The fear that she would somehow disappear, that he would lose what he wanted so desperately, seemed to have left him. She could almost hear him sigh with relief, feel the relaxation of the muscles that had held his body rigid and fearful.

  She raised her hands to his face, relishing the roughness of his weathered skin, the strength of his jaw, the angular bones that formed the planes and curves of his face. She wanted her hands to memorize him, to absorb him, to know him as intimately as her eyes. She wanted to know all of him, bone and sinew, heart and soul. She wanted to claim him, possess him, chain him to her heart forever.

  But most of all she wanted to free him from the prison he’d created for himself. She wanted him to believe he was loved, would always be loved, that he couldn’t do anything that would stop her from loving him.

  After the years he’d spent convincing himself otherwise, it wouldn’t be easy.

  “I should go,” he said.

  “Do you want to?”

  “No.”

  “Then hold me. I need to know you love me as much as you want to know I love you.”

  After her mother’s death, she’d felt as unloved and alone as he did. No one hated her or tried to drive her away, but no one understood the pain of her loss or cared what she felt. While people in St. Louis were kinder in some ways than those in Kentucky, they were more condemning. No one looked at her just as a person. She was always a woman whose employment had called her morals and character into question.

  Love was almost as new to her as it was to him.

  She loved the feel of his hands on her back, her shoulders, her arms. Their size filled her with a sense of his strength, his rough-hewn
character, which didn’t twist or break, which had weathered the storms of misfortune without losing the innate goodness so few people seemed able to see. She wondered what it was about the people of Boulder Gap that caused them to allow themselves to be driven to align themselves against a man whose nature and character caused the desperate and disenfranchised to bind themselves to him.

  Maybe it was fear of his goodness as much as it was fear of Stocker’s wickedness. Regardless of the reason, she made up her mind to protect him in the future. If she became his wife—and she couldn’t imagine she wouldn’t marry him—she would make the townspeople see what fools they’d been.

  The feel of his lips on her bare shoulders sent shudders of pure pleasure arcing through Tanzy’s body. His lips were warm, soft, and moist, and burned her skin with the heat that was radiating from his body. She felt herself lean closer to him, press herself more firmly against him. She couldn’t touch him enough, get enough contact with his body. She wanted to touch him all over at once.

  She untied the belt to her robe and allowed it to fall to the floor. She wanted to be closer to him. She rubbed her hands over his chest, gradually loosening the buttons on his shirt. His hand closed over hers.

  “Are you sure?”

  She answered by loosening the next button with her other hand.

  “I love you,” Russ said.

  “I know.”

  “I don’t want to do anything that would hurt you.”

  “I feel the same way.”

  He kissed her deeply, his tongue delving into her mouth, his hands cradling her throat. She slipped her hands inside his shirt to feel the soft hair that covered his chest. Her searching fingers encountered his nipple. She was surprised to find it hard and raised. She was even more surprised at his reaction to her touch. He started so abruptly, he broke their kiss. Delighted and curious at her discovery, she rubbed her fingers gently over his nipples, each passage drawing soft moans and tremors that shook his whole body. He took her hand in his grasp.

  “You’re driving me crazy,” he moaned in her ear.

  She smiled with the knowledge that she had such power over him. “Take off your shirt or I’ll keep torturing you.”

  His smile was warm but filled with a hunger that was almost brutal in its intensity. “I hope you don’t think that’s a threat.”

  She supposed a respectable woman shouldn’t think such things, but his chest was magnificent. Soft brown hair covered his upper chest before narrowing into a trail that sank to his navel. Corded muscles rippled across his chest and created ridges of muscle down his firm abdomen. She let her hands wander over him, marveling at the combination of softness and strength, of heat and firm muscle. If Ethel had ever chanced to see him without his shirt, it didn’t surprise Tanzy that she had fallen hopelessly in love with Russ.

  Russ kissed the side of her neck, pushed the straps of her nightgown off her shoulders to allow him to place kisses in the hollow of her shoulder. He continued down her arm until his kisses had forced the straps off her body and her gown pooled at her feet. He laced his hands on her back and with gentle pressure brought her toward him until her bare breasts touched his heated skin.

  A deep sigh escaped him. “You feel better than I ever imagined.”

  “You, too. I never realized my family was cursed with such puny men.”

  “That’s because Mother Nature used up all her resources on the women.”

  “You have me at a disadvantage,” she said.

  “How?”

  She lowered her hands down his side, over his belt, and down the sides of his thighs, then over his behind. “Too much of you is hidden from me.” She reached around and began to unbuckle his belt. “I don’t think that’s fair.”

  He sucked in his breath when her hand brushed his arousal.

  “You’d better let me do that,” he said. He picked her up and carried her over to the bed, laid her down, and gazed at her in wonder. “I could spend the rest of my life just looking at you.”

  “Only if you allow me to look at you.”

  Russ sat down to remove his boots and socks. Then he stood to remove his pants. Tanzy had had too many brothers not to be acquainted with the male anatomy, but this was the first time she realized all men were not created equal. Mother Nature had been more than generous when she created Russ Tibbolt. He was almost frightening in his perfection. The mattress sagged under his weight when he lay down on the bed next to her. He slid his arm under her and drew her close.

  “You don’t know how often I’ve lain awake at night unable to sleep because I was imagining what it would be like to lie next to you,” Russ said.

  “I did that, too,” Tanzy said. She put her hand in the middle of his chest and rubbed lightly. “You don’t know how hard it is for a woman to be around you and not think of things she shouldn’t.”

  “You have my permission to think anything you want.”

  “Do I have your permission to do anything I want?”

  “You always did.”

  “Why did you jump when I did this?” Tanzy said as she gently rubbed his nipple. His body seemed to shudder.

  “Because nearly every nerve in my body seemed to explode like lightning striking a pine tree, setting the resin afire.” He reached over to cup her breast with his hand, gently massaging her nipple with his thumb. “Does this feel like that for you?”

  “More like all my bones are melting,” Tanzy said, her voice unsteady from the after shocks of his touch. “Your hand is so hot it’s burning my skin.”

  He pulled away. She grabbed his hand and replaced it. “I didn’t say I disliked it.”

  He leaned up on his elbow and cupped her other breast.

  The sensations coming alive in her were causing her to feel giddy, as if she were no longer in control of her body, as if she were incapable of resisting what was happening to her. But she didn’t want to resist. She wanted a lot more.

  She reached up to pull his head down between her breasts. The feel of him nestled against her was wonderful. She couldn’t get enough of it. She ran her fingers through his thick hair, holding him tightly against her, reveling in the seductive warmth flowing through her limbs and filling them with a delicious ache. That ache was intensified tenfold when she felt the warm, moist roughness of Russ’s tongue on her nipple. She practically rose out of the bed, her back arched to force him against her harder, to make the feeling even more intense.

  She got a reprieve when Russ’s mouth deserted her nipples to plant kisses on her shoulders and along her arms, but the sensations came barreling back when he kissed her belly. The sensitive nerve endings telegraphed frantic messages of erotic delight to her brain and begged for still more.

  Tanzy took Russ’s face in her hands and pulled him up to where she could kiss him, to where she could give him some idea of the pleasure he was causing her. Her attention was almost immediately distracted because he lay atop her, his erection pressed hard against her abdomen. Her gasp caused him to break the kiss and roll off her.

  “I didn’t mean to crush you,” he said.

  “You didn’t.” She turned on her side and pulled him close. She slid her hand down his body until it came to a stop between his legs. “This took me by surprise.”

  “Surely you knew it would happen,” he said, his voice husky with desire.

  “It still surprised me.”

  He slid his hand along her side, down between her legs, and into her moist heat. “Your body wasn’t surprised.”

  Tanzy sucked in her breath, felt unable to let it go. It felt like a huge balloon inside her was held captive by the tension caused by Russ’s invasion of her most intimate place. She felt his hand moving and the balloon grew even bigger, until she thought she would burst. Then he touched a spot that sent lightning strikes sizzling through her body. The bottled-up air exploded from her body in one huge whoosh, leaving her shuddering with an ache so pleasurable she never wanted it to end.

  “Don’t be frightened. I wo
n’t hurt you,” Russ said.

  “I’m not frightened.”

  “Then please let go.”

  Startled, she realized she was gripping his arousal so hard it had to be painful. She released him and ran her fingers through his hair, felt his ribs and corded muscles through his warm skin. She couldn’t concentrate because of what he was doing to her. He had turned on his side so he could take her mouth in hot, demanding kisses while he continued to probe inside her, seeking and finding the spot that reduced her to helplessness, rubbing and teasing until her body threatened to explode.

  She tried to protest, but his kisses swallowed her breath, and he increased the tempo of his assault. Her body tried to escape his torture but couldn’t get enough of it. The intensity of the feelings inside her continued to grow until her limbs grew rigid and her body rose off the bed. Then, just as suddenly, she felt moisture flow from her and she collapsed onto the bedspread, quivering with pleasure again.

  She had barely recovered her breath when Russ rose above her and she felt him begin to enter her. For a moment she was certain she wouldn’t be able to contain him, but he moved slowly, sinking a little deeper each time, allowing her to become accustomed to his size. She worried she might still fail until he gave a sigh and entered her fully.

  He paused only a moment before he began to move within her. At first Tanzy was conscious only of being stretched to sheath him, but that feeling was quickly supplanted by the rebuilding of the fire that had only moments ago singed her mind and soul. She began to move with him, rising to meet him, falling away in preparation for meeting him once more. As the tension within her grew, she tried to force him deeper and deeper within her to quench the fires burning out of control. She threw her arms around his neck and kissed him with all the passion she could muster, but that only made her need more insistent. She never would have believed such delicious agony could exist, that she would pray for it to end and in the next breath pray it would never stop.