She took the steps. Briefly he wondered what Cleatus would do if he leapt out of the shadows. Rubal danged sure knew what he would do, given the reverse circumstances.
Molly stomped across the porch floor, heels aclicking. She reached for the screen. Rubal prayed: Get out of here, Cleatus. Now.
The screen door squawked. Rubal moved, gliding across the porch. By the time he felt her arm in his grasp, he heard the wagon roll away.
“What—?”
“Don’t scream, Molly. It’s me…uh, Jubal.”
She relaxed a bit, then jerked to free herself. He held on.
“I want to talk to you.”
“Not tonight.”
“Look at me, Molly. Let me apologize.”
“You already have.” Lord, she was tired. So tired. Again, she tried to free herself, but he was stronger and pulled her around to face him. He took her by both upper arms.
“Not near good enough.”
Moonlight glistened on her hair and sparked off the worry in her eyes. He held her gaze with every ounce of concentration he could muster. He watched her eyes flicker; she tried to look away, but didn’t. His gaze traveled to her lips, prepared to find them swollen and bruised from another man’s kisses. They weren’t, but that one glance was his undoing. Those lips, slightly parted, soft and begging…
“Yes, it was,” she was saying.
“No, it wasn’t. I hurt you. Caused you pain. Those people treated you like dirt. Even the reverend’s prayer was an abomination. And his wife’s prying questions. It was all my fault. I should have listened to you. Shouldn’t have meddled.”
Suddenly he couldn’t resist. Breaking every promise he made himself while waiting for her to return, he pulled her around, pressed her back against the wall of the house and kissed her. When his lips touched hers he felt like his world had suddenly started spinning again.
She tried to stop him. He heard—or was it felt—her mumbled “no” just as his lips opened over hers and his tongue cut off all sound. He kissed her harder than he intended, deeper than he intended, more passionately than he intended.
But he wouldn’t have changed a thing if he could have. Except perhaps to bring her arms around his neck and press her body close to his. For a kiss, though, it rocked him in a most unexpected way.
When he lifted his lips, he half expected her to try to escape, but she didn’t. Instead, she stood stock still, while he traced kisses across her face. Pulse throbbed at her temple to the same cadence as his own, an encouraging sign. He tried to read her expression in the moonlight, but she ducked her head, brushing her face against his neck. He felt moisture—tears?
“Molly, I’m sorry. I barged in here, taking charge, never considering I might be doing more harm than good.”
He felt her breath catch. She held it, then expelled it, blowing it, warm and tantalizing, against his neck. Tentatively releasing one of her arms, he tugged at her chin and finally brought her face to his, revealing two streams of tears sliding down her cheeks. He kissed them, tasting their saltiness, wondering without wanting to, whether Cleatus had kissed this face.
Before he could stop himself he had reclaimed her lips. He kissed her urgently. Desperately. Determined to kiss away all traces of someone else; determined to erase all thoughts of another man from her mind; determined to be the only man in her dreams this night.
Her arms crept up his chest, lingered on his shoulders, like she couldn’t reach any higher. When he could stand it no longer, he released her with all but his lips. Taking her hands, he pulled her arms around his neck.
She settled into place as though she belonged there. He pulled her close, held her tight, molded her to him boldly. Boldly.
Too boldly.
Without warning, she jerked away.
“What…?”
Her breathing came hard. So did his. He reached for her, but she inched, away.
“What is it, Molly? Did I go too fast? Did I…”
In response she only shook her head, again refusing to look at him.
Gently he grasped her by the shoulders and guided her to the swing, where he pushed her down and settled beside her. When she still refused either to look at him or to let him embrace her, he took her hands, holding onto them when she tried to pull away.
“Tell me what’s wrong, Molly. Did I scare you? I didn’t mean to.” He smoothed loose strands of hair back from her face. Briefly he allowed himself to remember it like it had been that night a year ago, long and thick and curling sensuously through his fingers. As though she remembered, too, she pushed his hand away and smoothed her own hair back, tucking it behind her ear. He drew her other hand to his heart.
“See what that kiss did to me, Molly?” She flinched at the rapid cadence. He placed his other hand over her own heart. “You felt it, too.”
She sat strangely still, neither denying what he said, nor agreeing. She stared steadily into the blackness beyond his right shoulder.
Bewildered, his patience began to ebb. “There’s nothing wrong with those feelings, Molly. If you haven’t felt them before, then you should think long and hard about marrying Cleatus.”
Her head jerked up. In the darkness surrounding the swing he couldn’t see her face, but he felt her tense. “I’ve felt them before.” She pulled her hand away from his heart and clasped it with the other one in her lap. He could tell she was shaking; when he tried to gather her to him, she scooted farther away.
“The ladies in Apple Springs are right,” she whispered. “I’m as bad as they say.”
“Don’t talk like that.”
“You don’t know, Jubal. You don’t know about me. Yes, I felt something when you kissed me. I felt light-headed and dizzy, like I was flying to the moon or some fool thing. I got all twittery inside and my heart raced, just like yours did. But then you knew that would happen. You knew what you were doing all along, didn’t you?”
“Molly, danged if I intended…”
“To make me a wanton, like the ladies claim? Well, don’t worry, you didn’t. I was already like that.”
“Molly, don’t talk nonsense.” He reached for her, but she jumped from the swing.
“I was. Now I find I still am. I felt this same way once before.” Pausing, he heard her draw a shaky breath. “You Jarretts are good at turning decent women into wantons.”
He couldn’t see the tears in her eyes, but he heard them in her voice. When she continued, he wished with all his might that he could stop her words. For he knew, as surely as he knew that honeysuckle smelled sweet, what she would say.
“The only other time I ever felt like…like this…was with your brother.” She spun toward the door, reaching the screen before he caught her and brought her up against the wall again. This time, however, instead of kissing her, he just stared at her angry, hurt, disillusioned face.
“Let me go.”
“Not until I explain a few facts of life.”
“You’re not my father, either,” she mimicked Lindy.
“God, Molly, I don’t want to be your father. You don’t understand—”
“I understand too well.”
“You don’t understand anything,” he retorted with more bitterness than he intended. “You’ve taken something that happened to you a long time ago, something good—wonderful, even—and let these Bible-thumping old busybodies convince you it was evil. Well, it wasn’t.”
“I’m to take your word? Give you what you want, and let you go on your merry way, leaving me here alone—and empty and hopeless.”
Using as much strength as it took, which was more than he’d bargained for, Rubal pulled her to his chest. He cradled her as before, except this time he was careful to hold his tortured body at a distance.
“Do you want to tell me what…uh, what Rubal did?”
She pursed her lips.
His voice softened. “I’ll listen. I may not like what I hear, but I’ll listen. In fact, I can draw you a rough outline from the way you greeted me yest
erday.”
Silence.
“He rode in here some time back, for one reason or another, and the two of you hit it off. I don’t doubt it. You’re a beautiful woman, Molly. If Rubal was half as attracted to you as I am, he was smitten, I’ll tell you for sure. But then he left you. I don’t know what reason he gave, but I’ll bet I can supply the right one. You scared hell out of him. Men are like that the first time they feel themselves falling. They see their freedom flying out one window, and like as not they hightail it out the other.”
She stood deathly still, quieter now. She even allowed him to guide her back to the swing. He could tell she was thinking about what he said. This was the time, he thought. The time to tell her the truth.
“Molly, I’ve got something to tell you. Some explaining to do—”
“Save your breath, Jubal. Nothing you can say will make me forgive him. Nothing. I’ll hate him until the day I die. So save your breath.”
Rubal slumped back against the swing, causing it to rock. Molly caught her feet against the floor, stopping the movement. He figured she would jump up and run off, but she didn’t.
At least, she’d stopped his confession in time. Now he had to reload and wait for another shot at confessing his wicked deed.
“Molly?”
She didn’t answer, but kept her eyes trained on the floor.
“Sit back, Molly, I want to talk to you.”
Silence.
“Sit back. I promise not to touch you.”
He studied the curve of her back. His fingers itched to go against his latest promise, to run his hand up her spine, to massage her shoulders, to rub her neck. Danged if she deserved the raw deal the world had given her, starting with himself.
Finally she eased back. The swing rocked easily. Rubal kept it going with a bootheel to the floor.
“Molly, what you felt for…for Rubal wasn’t wrong.”
She didn’t speak.
“Have you ever felt that way with Cleatus?”
Silence.
“Has Cleatus ever kissed you the way I did?”
He heard her gasp. Sitting up, he curled himself around in front of her. “Look at me, Molly. This is important. You don’t understand what’s happening.”
“I understand perfectly well.”
“Then you don’t understand what it means.”
He heard her sniffle. Desperate, he searched for some way to reach her. When he touched her hair, she flinched.
“Just your hair, Molly.”
She sat in stoic silence, while he pulled strands of hair from behind her ear, rubbing his fingers along the length, then back, then out again, feeling himself want her in spite of her reticence, in spite of his own better judgment. Her hair was long, and he lifted a strand to his face, ran it between his lips, felt his body react.
“Has Cleatus ever kissed your hair, Molly?”
Imperceptibly she shook her head. He couldn’t see her eyes here in the darkness, but he envisioned them brimming with tears. He wanted to kiss them, to taste their saltiness, to dry her eyes. Instead, he moved his hand to her shoulder.
“You promised.”
“I know.” Slowly, ever so gently, he ran a finger along her neck, tracing the outline of her properly high collar. Finally his fingers found the vein at the base of her neck, felt her pulse race. He trailed his fingers lightly down her chest, expecting her to object at any moment, prepared to stop if she did.
But she didn’t. When his hand rested over her heart, he was hard-pressed not to fill it with her breast, but he resisted. He kept his touch light, pretending to concentrate on her heartbeat.
Her breathing deepened. Keeping his hand still became a chore. Although she held herself stiff beneath his touch, he could tell by her erratic breathing that she was affected.
“Has Cleatus ever made your heart beat like this, Molly?”
He felt her intake of breath. Finally she whispered, “No.” He heard the desperation in her voice, knew his case was as good as hopeless; yet the fact that Cleatus hadn’t excited her, gave him a small glimmer, a small measure of hope.
“But Rubal did?” he asked quietly.
He felt, rather than saw, her head nod.
“And I did?”
She gasped, expanding her chest, filling his palm with her breast.
“You see,” she responded in dismal tones, “that proves it. I didn’t consider myself wanton after…after Rubal…But tonight…To feel that way with two different men…”
He pulled her resisting to his chest. He could tell her the truth right this minute and relieve her pain.
He could tell her the truth and lose her for all time.
Selfishness won out, under the guise of what he considered best for both of them.
“Molly, that doesn’t make sense. Think about your mother. Her heart must have raced for two men.”
By the way Molly rubbed her head against his chest, he knew she probably had never considered her mother and carnal passion in the same sentence.
“Well, let’s hope it did,” he continued. “She would have missed a lot if it hadn’t. Your father died when she was still a young woman and she married your stepfather. Don’t you think kissing him affected her?”
Again, he sensed that he’d broached a topic Molly had been too good a girl to ever consider. He drew her back, ran kisses lightly across her face. “I believe she did, else she couldn’t have produced a daughter capable of feeling such passion.”
She stiffened.
“There you go again. Thinking like those old busybodies in the Apple Springs Ladies’ Aid Society. You’re good, Molly. So good. And I’m sorry…more sorry than I can ever say, for the hurt Rubal brought you.”
She didn’t answer, and he kissed her lightly again. “But I’m glad I’m here tonight. Very, very glad.”
She sat deathly still in his embrace. He wondered what she was thinking, was afraid to ask.
“That’s okay,” he whispered when she failed to respond. “Take your time; make up your mind. Till you do, I’ll think you’re glad I’m here, too.”
When she pulled away, he released her.
She rose and crossed the porch. Spotlighted by the moon, she reached for the screen. He heard it squawk, watched her disappear into the house. And all the while his heart hammered. He’d done her wrong.
More wrong than he had ever dreamed. He had done her wrong, brought her uncountable pain. She actually seemed to love Rubal Jarrett, yet undeniably, she hated him, too. And that was the hitch. How would he ever own up to being himself?
One thing he knew for certain, he couldn’t ride away from Apple Springs until he righted the wrong he’d done her.
Chapter Six
Molly tossed and turned all night. Like a June bug on a hot summer day, her thoughts jumped from one worry to another—from Rubal to Jubal to Cleatus to the Ladies’ Aid Society to Reverend Callicott and his snitty wife. And back to Jubal.
As tired as she had been after her encounter with Cleatus, she couldn’t sleep. But she had no doubt that Jubal Jarrett was snoring the hours away. She should go in there right now and kick him out. Right now in the middle of the night. She should never have allowed him to stay in the first place.
He was as meddlesome as any busybody in this town, yet deep inside she wanted to believe him. The reasons he gave for his brother’s hasty departure made sense. They didn’t excuse Rubal, nor exonerate him in her books, but for the first time in a year, she realized that Rubal might have had a reason, other than rejecting her, for leaving so abruptly.
Yes, part of her wanted to believe Jubal—especially his claim that it was natural, rather than wanton, to feel passion for two different men.
But another, practical, part of her screamed a warning: Wasn’t he counting on her believing him…and jumping into bed with him?
She wondered about her mother. Had she felt such giddy, tingly sensations for her father? And for her stepfather, too? What Jubal said made sense, yet she couldn
’t visualize her mother succumbing to wild passion, much less craving it as Molly herself sometimes did.
Tossing to her stomach, she buried her face in her pillow and tried in vain to shut out the image of her mother and father, of her mother and Mr. Blake, when actually it was herself and Rubal she still saw…still felt. His hands, his lips, his hard body pressed against hers. The feather mattress her grandfather had sent all the way to New York for, suddenly became a cushion of straw. She turned over, lay on her back, inhaled the fragrance of sweet-smelling hay, clutched the pillow to her breast, felt Rubal’s hands there; his lips, hot and wet, on her throat. Below the roll of clothing that had separated their bodies, she felt his legs between hers. She felt his hand caress her with forbidden intimacy in private parts of her body, move inside her—inside where no one had ever touched before…or since. She felt the measure, the hardness, the heat of his arousal against her. She felt him enter her, felt her hips lift, arch, felt the stinging pain, the surge of passion, the fiery, spiraling sensations, the urgency for this excruciating yet wonderful adventure to go on and on…forever and forever.
And forever…
Suddenly her brain betrayed her. She was no longer in the barn beneath a panting Rubal Jarrett, but in the forest, standing in Cleatus’s arms. She felt his arousal against her belly.
She knew what Cleatus wanted—the same thing she had given Rubal. That Cleatus might one day have the right, by marriage, to touch her so intimately, to enter her with such passion, came as a sobering blow.
But hadn’t he claimed to want children? Children of their own? Their own. That meant—In the dark privacy of her bed, Molly crossed her legs, gripping them tightly together, blocking so much as the image of performing such intimacies with Cleatus Farrington.
Was Jubal right? Had her mother experienced passion with both her husbands? Pray God, she had. Else Molly and each of the other children would have been conceived in a bed of anxiety and dread.
Morning dawned early, with the provocative questions Jubal Jarrett aroused in her brain still unresolved. She braided her hair and coiled the braids atop her head, then dressed in a fresh, if faded, calico, and went downstairs, considering how best to get her life back in order.
Secret Surrender--Jarrett Family Sagas--Book Four Page 10
