by Jodi Thomas
The kiss continued. She moved with pleasure and felt his body react to each of her shifts. At first, she thought he was controlling her, holding her, but when she pressed against him, she knew the control was hers, not his.
Her arms slid around his neck as her longing to be close met his. She held on tightly as his fingers slowly moved along her back and over her hips. He was erasing all the loneliness she’d silently borne with the years of no one holding her. He was soothing the little girl in her who wanted to be held and drawing out the woman with the warming passion of each stroke.
He broke the kiss and rolled onto his back, pulling her with him. He took deep breaths, holding her to him tightly as though she might evaporate like an image in a cloud. Then, he cupped her face and kissed her so tenderly a tear formed in her eye.
“Do you have any idea what we are doing?” he asked in a voice so low she barely heard him.
“No,” she answered honestly. She’d listened to a few of the rough stories the men had bragged about when they’d told of mounting women. None were anything like this. They’d laughed of riding women until they made them scream and of taking all they wanted. They’d never talked of kissing, or holding, or of feeling a heart beat against their own. Whatever they’d done couldn’t be the same as this.
“What am I doing?” she whispered as her hand moved beneath his shirt to touch flesh.
His sharp intake of breath told her of his reaction. He kissed her as his hands grew bolder along her body. The material couldn’t bar the warmth of his touch.
Finally, he rolled her gently to her side but didn’t move away. She could see his outline in the darkness. She could feel the warmth of him only an inch away, hear the long intakes of his breath, taste the remains of his kiss on her lips.
“Dear God, Nick, you’re making it difficult.” He combed her hair away from her face with his fingers. “You can’t imagine how deeply I want you.”
Nichole was growing confused. She wasn’t sure how to answer the question. If she said yes did it mean she understood what he was talking about? If she said no, would he think her a fool? She knew of fighting, and riding, and of weapons. She knew nothing of this, except that he felt good by her side and his hands made her feel alive all over.
“I know I want you to kiss me again,” she whispered. “I’m not a child, Adam.”
He kissed her cheek, then seemed unable to resist moving lower to her throat. His words fanned her skin. “You’re not a woman. You’ve never had a chance to be. It would be unfair of me to—”
She rolled toward him, moving against his side, letting him know she was all female.
Adam took the advance fully, without retreat. She felt his body jerk slightly as her body met his. Without a word, she raised her mouth and silenced any protest. For a second, he hesitated, then accepted her gift.
She wanted him to understand just how fully a woman she was and he’d taken the lesson without complaint.
Dawn crept across the room from the open window as Nichole felt Adam touching her as no one had ever dared. His fingers moved over her clothes as though no material separated them. She was a part of him and he needed to explore. He wanted to know every inch of her.
When she broke the kiss and leaned back her head to breathe, he tasted her neck while his hands cupped her breasts. The fabric did little to mask his bold touch or the heat he stirred with his gentle grip. He closed his fingers around the fullness of her breasts and lowered his mouth to hers. When her lips parted in the sudden wave of pleasure and surprise overwhelming her, his kiss deepened and his grip tightened slightly sending pure delight through her.
Several thuds registered before Nichole’s trained senses realized someone was coming up the stairs. The heavy footfalls could belong to only one man.
“Wolf!” she whispered as she shoved away from Adam.
Adam raised his head to listen, then reacted as if she’d yelled fire at the top of her voice. He rolled from the bed and began buttoning his shirt.
“What is it?” she asked as he dressed. “What do we do?”
“Wolf’s going to kill me!” he answered. “And I don’t blame him.”
“Nonsense.” Nichole almost laughed. “Why would he kill you?” Adam wasn’t making sense. Wolf wouldn’t kill him for kissing her. She’d done that before.
“For what I was thinking of doing.” Adam moved to the window. “For what I was about to do,” he whispered as she followed him. “For what I was doing.” He straddled the sill. “All seem just cause for murder.”
“Nick!” Wolf called from the landing. “Which room you in?”
Adam leaned forward and kissed her lightly on the lips. “Trust me. If he catches me in here, I’m a dead man.”
Without another word, Adam slipped out the window. A shingle clattered to the porch below as he moved away.
“Nick!” Wolf bellowed as he opened the door.
She took a step and lifted her gun belt from the post. “I’m almost ready,” she mumbled, hoping she sounded sleepy.
“We’re burning daylight.” He glanced around the little room. “Don’t get lazy just because you got to sleep in a bed last night.”
“I’m ready.” Nichole left the room ahead of him praying her face would have time to cool before he got a good look at her.
Adam followed the shingle to the porch, dropping within inches of where Wes sat rolling a cigarette.
Wes jerked, spilling the tobacco across his legs and dumped the pack of papers in the mud. “Damn!” he swore.
Adam straightened and tried to act calm. “Sorry. I didn’t know you were there.”
Wes dusted the tobacco from his pants. “I didn’t realize I was standing in a damned crossroads.” He met his brother’s stare.
Adam was too old to explain anything. “You’re up early,” he said, trying to sound casual and knowing he was making no sense.
“You’re dropping down a little early yourself, Doc.”
“Nichole’s leaving.” Adam tucked his shirt in. “I wanted to say good-bye.” He thought about how he’d been saying hello only a minute ago.
“I know. I helped Wolf saddle their horses.” Wes shoved the bag of tobacco back in his shirt pocket. “Been thinking of giving up smoking anyway.”
As he spoke, Wolf and Nichole tiptoed out of the house.
“Babes are sleeping!” Wolf yelled in what he thought was a whisper. “Daniel’s passed out on his bed.” He glanced at Wes. “You’ll say good-bye to them for us?”
Wes nodded.
Wolf turned to Adam. “And thanks, Doc, for saving my Nick’s life. I was sorry I couldn’t find you to kill you that day, but now I’m glad I didn’t. Like Nick said, you’re a fine man even if you did somehow end up on the wrong side.”
Adam didn’t know what to say. He felt sure Wolf would never utter such a thing if he knew that only a few heartbeats ago Adam had been holding Nichole’s breast in his hand.
They moved toward the horses. Wes talked with Wolf, giving him a few directions that would make the way back faster.
Adam had a moment alone with Nichole. He moved behind her and placed his hands around her waist to help her up.
“I don’t need any help.” She laughed.
“I know,” he whispered without removing his hands. “Do you have to go so soon?” His pride wouldn’t allow him to say more.
“We’ve got trouble back home, and I need to stand with Wolf and the others.” She had her duty and they both understood.
“About what happened—” Adam began.
She placed her gloved fingers over his lips. “No,” she whispered. “Not a word.”
If he said he was sorry, it would be worse than a bullet to her heart. If he begged her to stay, they’d both regret it. He belonged here, not with her. She might not know much, but she knew he had turned to h
er in grief and she’d be a fool if she tried to make it more.
Gripping the saddle horn, she pulled herself up. His hand slid from her waist to her boot, but he didn’t try to stop her.
“Until we meet again.” He offered his hand.
“We’ll never meet again,” she answered, knowing she had to cut the wound clean if it would ever heal. “You’ll be married soon with your life full helping Daniel raise the twins, and I’ll be a world away.”
“Let’s ride.” Wolf kicked his horse.
Nichole covered Adam’s hand as it rested on her leg. “I’ll never forget you.” She smiled and nudged her mount, already dancing to follow.
She was out of hearing distance before Adam answered, “Nor I you.”
EIGHT
ADAM WATCHED NICHOLE and her brother ride away with the feel of her next to him still thick in his mind. Had he really kissed her so completely? He told himself he was an honorable man who was engaged to be married to another, but at this moment, he didn’t feel very honorable or very engaged. All he knew was that if they’d had more time, he would have made love to her with a passion he’d never felt toward another or even dreamed he might feel. The logic that had always ruled his mind had somehow been sidestepped this morning.
Wes broke the silence. “Want some coffee before I ride into town with you?”
Adam looked at his brother and raised an eyebrow. “How’d you know I was going to town this morning?”
Moving toward the kitchen, Wes winked. “After the way you looked at Nick, I figure you’ll be having a few words with Bergette.”
“I plan to, but not because of Nichole. Bergette and I have grown apart these past years. The woman I spent the war planning a future for wasn’t waiting for me as I thought. I think I knew it within minutes after I saw her, but I didn’t want to admit it to myself. It’s obvious we could never marry, and the time to tell her is now. She needs a groom for her wedding, not a husband in her life.”
Wes opened the screen door. “Then you’ll find Nichole?” he asked.
“No.” Adam took a deep breath. “We’ll never see one another again. We’ve said our good-byes.” Neither of them had spoken of a future. They both knew it would be impossible. All he wanted was to be a doctor and adventure still ran thick in her blood.
Wes looked like he didn’t believe Adam’s words, but he didn’t question him. Adam considered himself a man who set his life by order and logic. Nichole and he were simply two people who met once and touched one another’s lives . . . he would be a fool to think it was more.
An hour later, Adam was wishing he’d let Wolf shoot him at dawn. At least then he would have silence. Bergette’s screams were starting to make his eyes cross.
To say the princess had taken the news of their broken engagement dramatically was an understatement. She’d cried, pouted, and finally attacked with a vengeance. When she ordered Charles to throw him out, Adam almost ran from the room. When he glanced back, he wondered how he could have thought her so beautiful.
Adam didn’t take a deep breath until he rode within sight of the farmhouse. The loss of the woman he’d thought Bergette was weighed on his heart. The woman he remembered had somehow died while he’d been away, and the replacement was a shallow second to the Bergette he’d kept in his dreams for years. He felt he’d lost someone dearly loved, not to death, but to change.
As he unsaddled his mount, Adam realized he didn’t want to stay here and face the rumors she’d start. In one of her ravings, she’d sworn that no person in town would ever seek his medical advice when they learned of how cruelly he’d broken her heart. He wasn’t sure he could bear to live here and see the shell of a woman he’d held so dearly in his dreams.
Adam moved toward the house. The sun was setting and he realized he hadn’t eaten today. This day had passed in emotions not in hours, leaving him spent and weary.
“’Evening.” Wes fell into step. “You still engaged, little brother?”
“Is the offer to travel to Texas still on?”
“I guess that answers my question.” Wes sighed. “But you’ll have to get in line. Danny boy told me a few minutes ago that he’s going also.”
“He found someone to take care of the twins for a while?”
Wes laughed. “Of course, little brother. He found Willow to be wet nurse and two fools named McLain to act as nursemaids. We’re all going to Texas.”
Three months later, just outside a little settlement known as Fort Worth, Adam looked at his older brother and wondered how they’d made it. He’d thought the war had been hard on them. Fighting the rebs was nothing compared to hauling newborns a thousand miles by train, boat, and wagon.
He’d spent many a night in the saddle with one of the tiny girls sleeping in the fold of his arm. Though Willow had done her best, the brothers all learned to do what was necessary. Daniel loved the caretaking, forgetting his grief only when the babies needed him. Adam also enjoyed the role, finding it fascinating to watch them grow. But Wes grumbled every mile. He’d announced more than once that he’d rather roll through a corral of manure than have another drop of baby spit-up soak through to his shoulder.
Finally, they left Daniel and the girls at a settlement called Parker’s Fort near Dallas. Wes lectured Daniel on caring for the twins, though there were several mothers in the small village willing to offer advice.
Adam had heard Daniel talk of the colony named after John Parker and dedicated to religion and Bible study. The folks might look meek, but their settlement had survived thirty years of hardship. With the agreement that Daniel would act as blacksmith, they provided him with a small house and supplies to last through the winter. The community seemed exactly what a young father with twin babies needed: an extended family.
This might be the very place Daniel could find peace, Adam thought. The girl, Willow, smiled more the farther they got from her home. They were a week out before she stopped asking if they were going to send her back to her pa.
The McLains had boarded up the farmhouse on the first of August along with all the memories and left for Texas. Deep within Adam he knew they would never be back. From this point on, like for many of the men from the North and South, Texas would be called home. For Wes and Daniel, it seemed a calling, but Adam was only drifting, more leaving one place than going somewhere else.
Now to the best of his calculation it was the first of November. Adam crossed his leg over the saddle horn and leaned back, looking at the dusty little huddle of shacks that had once been a fort. “What do you think of Fort Worth?”
Wes lit a thin cigar and took his time answering. “I heard this place was never more than a single company post.” He stood on his stirrups. The leather he wore creaked with his movements. “Lucky thing Texas wasn’t used much as a battlefield during the war. I’d hate to think of this state looking any sorrier. They should let the Indians have it.”
“I heard back at the stage station a band of fifteen warriors attacked two men not far from here a month ago. Maybe the Indians will have it yet. They killed one man named Wright. The other, Smith, made it back to a settlement north of here called Denton before he died.”
“Great, another thing to keep a lookout for. I might as well give up sleep while I’m here making my fortune and trying to keep my hair.”
Adam laughed. “It’s not all that bad as long as we’re moving fast and well armed. The Butterfield Stage makes it well past Fort Worth without being raided often. If the stage is running regular, how bad could the state be?”
“Are you joking? Besides the Indians, every other man in Texas looks like he’s practicing snarling for a picture on a wanted poster. The land, from treetop to soil, is a rainbow of dull brown. And the women, the women are so homely I’m surprised their offspring will take to the breast.”
Wes glanced from side to side and whispered as if someone might overhear
them. “Hell, the friendliest thing I’ve seen is a rattler waving his tail at me. Everyone hates us. Some because we’re Yankees, some because it seems their natural disposition.”
“Still, there’s the cows,” Adam offered.
Wes moved his horse toward the sunset and the town he’d been trying to reach for months. “I’ll give you that. This place is longhorn-rich, but they’re wild. It won’t be like rounding up the milk cows back home. Going to take some work to be wealthy by summer.”
“It won’t be easy.”
Wes agreed. “Nope. If it was, too many fools besides me would be trying it. Come on along, little brother. I want to make town by sundown. I need a meal, a bottle, and a pretty woman.”
Kicking his horse ahead, Adam added, “I thought you said there were no pretty women in Texas.”
Wes joined in the race. “In that case,” he shouted, “I’ll need two bottles to drink her pretty.”
An hour later, Wes’s opinion of Texas had changed. He’d downed a pound of steak and half a bottle of whiskey and managed to rent a room with a real bed.
While Wes struck up a conversation about cattle with men wearing leather and spurs, Adam walked out to the street.
The lodging they’d found was on the edge of town, with mostly remains of what must have been fort building running behind it.
Wes had been right. Texas hadn’t been much of what they’d hoped for. It was wilder, more unsettled than they’d thought. But the people seemed friendly enough if given half a chance. They didn’t offer a quick smile, but they didn’t turn away from questions. The whole state seemed made up of loners. Adam figured none of the McLains were looking for what they left back home.
He walked along the planked boards of what passed as sidewalks in front of the stores. This little frontier post had become the county seat in its less than twenty years of existence. Wes would find his dream here in Texas. He’d organize men and had some already waiting for him further south near Austin, and by spring, they’d be ready to head cattle north to market. There was talk of a half-Scotsman, half-Cherokee scout named Jesse Chisholm being willing to cut a trace all the way to Kansas.
