by Laura Glenn
Gabriel grabbed her arm and yanked her behind his back, the twitching muscle in his jaw signaling to her that he was definitely pissed off and that she was the cause. “What is your business here, Mr. Clark?”
“Kaitlyn has not told you about that either?” James asked, smugly eyeing Gabriel. “Well, I have come to offer myself as her husband once more. I must admit to having been caught by surprise yesterday when her answer to my proposal was that she was carrying your child but now I am fully prepared to commit myself to her if she will have me.”
Gabriel snarled under his breath and took a menacing step toward James.
Kaitlyn grabbed his cloak and found herself being dragged along behind him. “Gabriel, please,” she pleaded at his back.
He stopped and his back stiffened. “You will have to come though me to get to her, Clark.”
“I see,” James stated, clasping his hands behind his back as sudden nervousness crept back into his eyes. “Since you have an obvious claim to her, I shall step aside. But listen to me well, O’Connor. I will stay in town for as long as you are here. If you have not righted this delicate situation before you return to the front lines, then I will step in. Kaitlyn will come to live with me in Virginia and I will claim your child as my own, raising him as a Protestant.”
“Get off my land,” Gabriel menacingly countered, placing his palm on the pistol in the holster on his hip.
James’ face paled slightly as he bowed his head and peered at Kaitlyn. “Good day, Miss McCann. If you need anything, please do not hesitate to contact me.”
Kaitlyn resisted the urge to nod and smile politely, certain that Gabriel would see the gestures as a betrayal of him. She watched James mount his horse and goad it into a gallop down the road. She hadn’t realized that she was practically holding her breath until she saw James turn toward the east at the end of the driveway.
Gabriel shook off her gasp on his cloak and walked back to his horse. He patted the animal soundly on the neck and began guiding it to the barn.
Kaitlyn stared at him, dumbfounded and uncertain if he expected her to follow him. Several minutes later, Gabriel walked out of the barn and silently strode past her on the way up to the house.
Though she knew she had made a huge blunder in not telling him about the baby, she quickly came to the conclusion that Gabriel was acting like a complete jackass. After all, she was the one who was pregnant. She had been the one living with the secret for months. Here she was in the most confusing and frightening time of her life and he was acting all high and mighty because other people found out before he did.
Her eyes narrowed as she stared at his back, boring holes right through him. A strange, new feeling of courage flooded her body. Her hands clenched and unclenched at her sides as she broke into a brisk walk, determined to follow him inside and tell him off.
He walked into the drawing room and tossed his hat onto the chess table next to the window. Untying his cloak, he glared at her and threw it on top of the hat.
“You told Clark before you even told me?” he demanded, his voice barely restrained.
He hadn’t shouted but this was the first time she had ever heard him raise his voice even slightly. Her arms stiffened at her sides and she lifted her chin defiantly. “You have absolutely no idea of the hell I’ve been through, do you? I’m the one who could barely stand the smell of food and vomited daily for weeks!” she shouted as a surge of energy swiftly coursed through her veins. “I’m the one whose back aches and feet hurt if I’ve been standing for too long! I have felt scared and alone for months and all you can do is stand there and bitch about how I let the news slip to Mr. Clark?”
Gabriel raised his eyebrows but she couldn’t quite tell if it was due to surprise or insult at being shouted at by a woman. Unfortunately, she wasn’t going to find out since at that moment, Mary burst into the room, followed by Eileen.
“My goodness, dear child, whatever is the matter?” Mary crooned with a worried brow. She suddenly stopped and her mouth dropped open as her eyes landed upon her son. She gasped, “Oh, my darling boy!”
Mary quickly crossed the room and threw her arms around Gabriel. Eileen eyed Kaitlyn worriedly and moved to her side, wrapping Kaitlyn’s hand in hers.
Mary placed a big kiss upon Gabriel’s cheek and stood back to look at him. “You look too thin,” she announced with a nod of her head. “We have some scones left over from breakfast. And I have plenty of the raspberry preserves you love so much.”
Gabriel shook his head and turned his gaze back to Kaitlyn. “No thank you, Mother.”
Mary’s eyes darted back and forth between Gabriel and Kaitlyn. “Gabriel—”
“Is Paul around?” he asked.
Mary nodded.
“Send him to Father Murphy,” he said, locking his dark eyes determinedly upon Kaitlyn’s. “Have Paul ask the priest if he can perform a wedding tomorrow.”
The brims of Mary’s eyes glistened with unshed tears. She opened her mouth to speak but then thought better of it and began to walk toward the door.
Kaitlyn’s heart seemed to stop beating for a moment. She began shaking her head and wrung her hand away from Eileen. Under normal circumstances, she would have been surprised and thrilled to receive a marriage proposal from Gabriel. But not like this—not because she was pregnant and he felt like it was something they had to do.
Mary rushed to her side and grabbed her arm, caressing Kaitlyn’s hair in a motherly gesture. “Katie, darling, calm down. This is for the best.”
Kaitlyn shook her head again and stepped back from Mary. She turned her eyes to Gabriel as one, hot tear rolled down her cheek. “No,” she stated emphatically, nearly choking on the word.
“Katie,” Gabriel began, his jaw tensing with determination, “we are going to marry.”
Her stomach churned as exhaustion fell upon her like a steel weight. She shook her head again. “No, we’re not,” she replied with more strength than she felt.
Kaitlyn’s breathing became shallow and the walls felt like they were closing in on her. She had to get out of there. She turned and ran from the room, dashing up the stairs.
She would rather face this pregnancy and life alone than marry a man who didn’t really want her.
Even if that man was Gabriel O’Connor.
Chapter Fourteen
“Katie!” Eileen called, beginning to run after her.
Mary grabbed her arm and shook her head. “Let her go.”
Gabriel sighed heavily and rubbed his forehead. This is not how he had wanted his first meeting with Kaitlyn to play out. It had made him crazy all those months when every day passed without so much as a word from her. Not a moment went by in which he did not think of her, both on the battlefield and off. The memory of her soft, naked flesh pressed up against his haunted his dreams and caused his attention to wane during conversations with other officers. And when he was falling asleep, he could hear her voice calling his name and her laughter floating in his ears.
He had never felt so furious with himself in his entire life as he did when he read his mother’s last letter and learned of Kaitlyn’s condition. His fears had come to life. How could he have lost all of his self-control and put her into this situation?
Unfortunately, he was not able to leave for home immediately due to an impending clash with pro-British Colonial forces. Out of the countless battles and skirmishes he had taken part in over the last four years, he had fought in none so ferociously as he had in that one.
And now the woman was going to pay back his determination and his devotion by refusing to marry him? The thought infuriated him much more than the fact that Kaitlyn did not even tell him he was going to be a father. The moment he felt her stomach, he was struck by how much it had changed since he last touched her and he became consumed with the idea of making her his by law, especially after having found out that James Clark had attempted take her away from him.
“Mama,” Eileen protested loudly, drawing Gabriel out
of his thoughts, “she may be feeling ill again!”
“She is simply upset. This is all quite overwhelming,” Mary patiently explained.
Eileen shook her head, apparently unsatisfied with her mother’s explanation. “Katie has been sick for months and I thought it was because Gabriel was away. But now she is refusing to marry him and I want to know why.”
Gabriel felt a pang of guilt over Kaitlyn’s physical difficulties with carrying his child. He needed to go to her. “Go find Paul, Eileen,” he ordered, hoping to avoid alerting his little sister to the fact that he had gotten Kaitlyn pregnant out of wedlock.
His sister shook her head and crossed her arms in front of her chest, staring up at him with the same rebellious look in her eyes as Kaitlyn had had in hers only moments before. She had obviously been around Kaitlyn for too long, he wryly thought to himself.
“This is not your concern,” he stated, lowering his voice in a menacing tone.
“She is going to find out,” Mary interrupted. “We may as well tell her.”
He shook his head, appalled that his mother would think such a thing. “It would be improper for her to know about this.”
“And just what do you think would have happened if you had not come home?” Mary asked, impatiently crossing her arms in front of her chest. “The baby would have had to come some time.”
Eileen gasped, her mouth dropping open in shock.
“Besides,” Mary continued with a look of resignation, “it was only a matter of time before she recognized the fact that your father and I married only six months before you were born.”
Gabriel shook his head in defeat and began walking out of the room. “Go find Paul, Eileen,” he ordered over his shoulder.
“Do you really think it is a good idea to force her, Gabriel?” Mary called to him. “She is such a delicate creature, especially now.”
He paused as his irritation began to slowly pass away. His mother’s obvious affection for Kaitlyn warmed his heart and softened the edge of his anger. However, he now knew that Kaitlyn’s strange idea of pride was what prevented her from writing to him and what now kept her from agreeing to marry him. He should have pushed for the correspondence and now he was going to push for this wedding.
And he was not going to take “no” for an answer.
“Find Paul,” he ordered as he walked out into the hallway.
He felt a tugging at his sleeve and looked behind him to find Eileen looking up at him imploringly. “Gabriel, please do not be angry with her for not writing,” she pleaded. “Katie has never believed that you felt any affection toward her.”
Gabriel clenched his jaw tightly, careful to keep the surprise and disbelief he felt from showing on his face. Was the woman completely mad? He had asked his mother and sister about her several times a month during their separation. He gave his home to her as her own and told her that he would come back to her when they parted five months ago. Hell, he had even given her money. What more did the woman want?
“Does the wedding have to take place tomorrow?” Mary asked, taking a stance beside Eileen. “If you could wait, we would be able to plan a proper celebration and it would give the poor girl a chance to become acquainted with the idea. Besides, you know that the banns need to be read for the next three Sundays.”
He shook his head impatiently, determined to end the barrage of questions and comments about the situation he now found himself in with Kaitlyn. “If you wish to plan a celebration, then plan one but I will not change my mind about marrying Katie tomorrow. Father Murphy will recommend to the bishop that a special dispensation be granted in this case.”
He turned away from his mother and sister and jogged up the stairs, immediately guessing that Kaitlyn had gone to her room. The wooden floors squeaked beneath his boots as he strode down the hallway and attempted to guess which of the bedrooms was hers.
Gabriel’s finely tuned sense of hearing detected a slight sniffle behind the door to his right and he raised his fist, knocking determinedly upon the heavy oak surface. “Katie!”
“Go to hell!” she replied, her voice muffled.
He cocked one eyebrow over her choice in words and turned the knob. She had forgotten to lock the door. One corner of his mouth curved up into a satisfied grin as he pushed open it and found Kaitlyn on the bed with her back turned toward him.
Gabriel closed the door behind him and locked it. “Are you going to turn and look at me, Katie?” All of his irritation and anger at her silence all of these months began to melt away, replaced with a renewed sense of serenity.
“Did you not hear me the first time?” she asked.
He chuckled lowly and removed his coat, tossing it onto the chair next to the fireplace. “Yes, I did hear you,” he replied, smiling as he sat down on the bed next to her. “I find it difficult to believe that the mother of my child could have such a mouth on her.”
He reached out and touched her waist, gazing languidly up and down her tempting form. Already he could feel his cock springing to life in her presence. He groaned and slid his hand to her hip, lightly caressing it as he leaned down and placed a kiss upon her hair.
Kaitlyn inhaled sharply, acutely aware of the abrupt change in Gabriel’s demeanor. Every muscle in her body seemed to tense at once as his palm grazed over the sensitive flesh of her buttocks. His touch sent her pulse to racing and she felt as though she had awakened from a long, deep sleep, alive and refreshed.
“We will marry tomorrow,” he whispered into her hair.
She automatically shook her head again, pulling herself out of the sensual cobwebs his mere presence always seemed to spin around her mind. She quickly scooted away from him and pushed herself from the bed, resolved to put at least a few feet of distance between them so she could think clearly.
She walked to the desk and placed her palms flat on top, leaning forward slightly to take the brunt of her accumulating weight off her feet. She could hear the mattress rustle beneath Gabriel as he moved.
She closed her eyes briefly and took a deep breath, preparing her senses for the assault she knew was coming. She had to stay focused and make the insane man listen to reason. They simply couldn’t get married—it was unfair to both of them. She didn’t want him to feel forced into making a life-long commitment to her that he wasn’t ready to make. Plus, she deserved a man who actually wanted to be her husband. Her heart ached at the thought of losing Gabriel to another woman and she was convinced that she could never feel the same way about any other man. However, she simply could not marry him just because she was pregnant.
He grabbed her arms from behind and squeezed them gently. “You will marry me,” he hoarsely stated as if she had no choice in the matter.
Kaitlyn shook her head, feeling tears stinging at her eyes once again. “I don’t want a husband.”
She felt his body stiffen for a brief moment before he pressed himself up against her. She exhaled shakily, her skin tingling from the sudden full-body contact. Already he was erect, his cock prodding insistently at her lower back. She closed her eyes and hung her head, unconsciously pushing her ass against him as a slow burn began making its way through her pussy.
“But I want a wife,” Gabriel replied, gliding his hands over her back and around to her chest. He began rubbing her breasts through her bodice in slow, agonizing circles.
“You do?” Her voice was nearly breathless as her nipples immediately stiffened, straining against her clothing. Tiny currents of pleasure shot through her breasts and directly to her clit. She bit her lower lip to keep from moaning out loud.
It had been too long. Her entire body ached for his touch. In the dark of the night she would often recall details of how skilled he was at bringing her to the peak of orgasm, causing her to lose all sense of time and existence. Even now, as she was fighting to remain lucid enough to have a serious discussion about a life-changing decision, she was having a difficult time not thinking about just how much she needed Gabriel to touch her, to bring her
to fulfillment, to fuck her.
“Though it pains me that you do not wish to marry me, I will not leave here without your submission,” he stated emphatically, his breath as uneven as her heartbeat in her chest. “We will be man and wife. One day you will understand that it could have been no other way.”
The man actually sounded like he wanted this. Kaitlyn fought desperately to maintain an ounce of objectivity, convinced that she must somehow be hearing his words differently from how he meant them.
“You’re only saying this because I’m pregnant,” she accused, attempting to rip his hands away from her chest.
He gripped her breasts tightly and clasped her closer to him, the tops of her thighs digging into the edge of the desk. She frantically clawed at his fingers, feeling the beginnings of sobs building within her chest.
“You are my woman.” His voice hardened brutally. “I wanted to make you my wife before I got you with child. Now I come home to make good on that promise to myself and what do I find? Another man attempting to take you away from me and you refusing me.”
Kaitlyn halted her struggles at the anguish she heard in his voice. Her chest rose and fell heavily against his hands.
“Is it Clark?” he bitterly demanded.
She quickly shook her head, surprising herself by doubting her so-called common sense. Had she been right all along? Did Gabriel actually care about her?
And was it enough to ease her mind into consenting to the marriage even if he did not declare himself to be in love with her? Was she willing to risk her pride and hope that he would eventually utter those three little words she longed to hear from him?
He grabbed her hair and gently yanked her head back, forcing her to look him in the eye. “You swore to me that I would be the only man you would think about.”
“You are,” Kaitlyn whispered as exhaustion swept through her. She no longer had the strength to fight both her emotions toward Gabriel and her desperate physical desires.
