Sarah's Sin

by Tami Hoag

  “No, I'm not,” he murmured, rocking gently against the heat of her.

  Matt watched her intently as her eyes drifted shut and her face tightened in concentration. He dipped inside her and withdrew. She caught her breath and sighed.

  He lowered his head and sampled the soft flesh at the side of her throat. Slowly he made his way down her body, lavishing attention on every inch of skin, nuzzling the full underside of her breasts, kissing the tiny mole just above her left hipbone, rubbing his nose across her belly button.

  He pushed the sheet down farther, raising his head to study the downy nest of dark curls that cloaked her femininity when something else entirely caught his attention. Stretch marks. They were faint, but they were unmistakable to a trained eye. Matt traced a finger along the line that angled from her right hip.

  “You had a baby,” he whispered, feeling the most alarming sense of disappointment that it hadn't been his.

  Sarah met his gaze, wondering if the news would make her less desirable to him. “Yes,” she whispered in return. “He died.”

  “Oh, Sarah.” Matt slid up beside her once again and leaned over her, stroking her hair back, his dark eyes full of sympathy. The pain he felt for her was as strong as if the loss had been his too. “I'm sorry. What happened?”

  “Pneumonia. We didn't realize until too late. The doctor said it was just the croup, but then it got worse so quickly….”

  “The doctor?” Matt said, tensing, anger rising up inside him. “Coswell?”

  “Yes.”

  “That man isn't fit to take care of monkeys. He ought to be drummed out of the profession.” He started to say something else, but Sarah lifted a hand and pressed her fingers to his lips.

  “Bitte,” she whispered, begging his understanding with her eyes. “It's in the past. Nothing can bring Peter back. Let's not talk of it now. I don't want to be sad tonight, only happy. Please, Matt. Only happiness. Only good things tonight.”

  “All I want is to make you happy,” Matt said, pushing his anger aside for Sarah's sake. He leaned down and kissed her with such tender ness, it brought a lump to his throat. “I love you.”

  He trailed his lips along the delicate line of her jaw and let his hands set off on another fingertip tour of her body. She moved restlessly beneath him, her skin heating with the flush of desire.

  “Matt?”

  “Hmmm?”

  “What you whispered in my ear before— what did that mean?”

  He raised his head and looked at her, confused for a moment, then it dawned on him—both what he had whispered in the throes of passion and why Sarah hadn't understood what he meant. Of course she wouldn't have the same sexual vocabulary he had, if she had one at all. He smiled and leaned down again to nibble at her earlobe.

  “You remember that incredible explosion that happened afterward?” he said in a voice warm and silky with passion remembered and renewed.

  “Yes.”

  “That's what I wanted to have happen.”

  “Oh.” She caught her breath again and moaned as he lifted her hips and entered her, filling her. It was an incredible sensation, being claimed by him, feeling not only her body but her soul invaded by him. Her mind fogged as he began to move, and she whispered breathlessly, “Do you want it to happen again?

  “Oh, yes, sweetheart,” he answered on a heartfelt groan. “Oh, yes.”

  Matt woke alone. He wasn't particularly surprised, but he was disappointed. He wanted to lie beside Sarah and watch the soft light of dawn fall on her face. He wanted to watch her drift up out of sleep layer by layer until she blinked open those incredible blue eyes. The first thing she would see would be his face and she would smile and they would kiss and he would make love to her. Instead, he had nothing beside him but a rumpled pillow, no sweet lips to kiss, no soft body to ease the throbbing ache of his arousal; just the space where she had slept beside him and the faint scents of sex and perfume.

  He rolled onto his back and cast a slit-eyed glance at the clock on the nightstand. Seven-thirty. Sarah had probably been up for an hour, seeing to her chores. When he breathed deep, he could smell breakfast cooking.

  He wondered how she would react to him today. She had certainly responded to him during the night. Lord, she had exhausted him. Making sweet, thorough love to her twice had drained his depleted energy reserves. He'd slept liked a dead man. He wondered now if she would be shy with him today or if she might be feeling regrets. He hoped not, because he sure as hell wasn't. He might not have felt certain about anything else in his life, but he was sure of one thing—he wasn't going to let Sarah slip away from him. She was his.

  “Why don't you tell secrets to a pig?” Jacob asked. His eyes sparkled with mischief as he waited for his sister to answer his riddle. He took a big slurp of milk and set the glass back down on the table, nearly overturning it as he reached for a fresh hot muffin from the basket.

  Sarah gave him an indulgent smile as she bent to take a coffee cake out of the oven. What she missed most about not living at home was seeing Jacob every day. She was well aware that in her heart he had taken the place of the son she had lost. The only harm she saw in that was that she was much too attached to him considering their current living arrangements. She looked at him now with his blond hair pressed flat from his hat and a big milk mustache framing his upper lip and felt a surge of warmth inside that had nothing to do with the heat of the oven.

  “I don't know,” she said, coming up behind him and pressing her oven mitts to his cheeks while he looked at her upside down. “Why don't you tell secrets to a pig?”

  “Because pigs are squealers!” he announced and dissolved into triumphant giggles at having stumped his sister.

  Sarah laughed with the sheer pleasure of watching Jacob, then went utterly still as the kitchen door swung back and Matt stepped into the room. After their night together, she was acutely aware of him as a male, even across a room. His gaze captured hers, and everything female in her came to attention. Her breathing grew shallow, her skin tingled. Having lain with him, touched him, felt him pressed against her and within her, she was much more aware of his body—the lean, muscled strength of it, the shape of it. The word handsome had taken on a stronger meaning for her. It was resonant in her mind as she looked at him now dressed casually in faded jeans that hugged his hips and thighs and a wine-colored jersey that emphasized his shoulders. For her, Matt Thorne was the living definition of handsome, and he was hers—at least for a little while.

  The corners of his mouth turned up in a smile, and he went on looking at her as she went again to the stove, but when he spoke, it was to Jacob.

  “What kind of wood is like a king?”

  Jacob chewed his lip and screwed his face in concentration, oblivious to the strong sexual currents humming between the adults in the room. Matt went on staring at Sarah, mouthing I love you. She blushed and glanced away, fussing with her oven mitt, unaccustomed to open declarations of affection. It wasn't the way of her folk to speak their feelings aloud, especially not in the company of others.

  “Oak?” Jacob asked.

  “Nope.” Matt moved slowly across the room, skirting the big harvest table, stalking Sarah like a wolf stalking a deer. She glanced around nervously for an escape route.

  “A pine tree?”

  “Nope.”

  He corralled her up against the big institution-size stove. Sarahs heart was pounding frantically. Her gaze darted from Matt to Jacob, who was scratching his head as he stared at his muffin, still paying them no mind. Matt leaned forward to kiss her, and she turned abruptly so his lips just grazed her cheek.

  Matt frowned, but moved away from her. He took the chair beside Jacobs and reached for a muffin. “Give up?”

  The boy nodded.

  Matt gave him a wink and a grin. “A ruler.”

  Jacob groaned and made a face, wriggling on his chair and hitting himself in the fore head with the heel of his hand, tipping his milk glass once again. Matt caught the
tumbler and set it out of harm's way and tossed a napkin on the milk that had splashed onto the table.

  “No school today again?”

  “Today is Saturday,' Jacob said, sneaking a piece of muffin under the table to Blossom. “Not even the English go to school on Saturday, Matt Thorne.”

  “How's the arm?”

  “Much better. My mother put a milk poultice on it.”

  Pouring himself a cup of coffee, Matt nodded and made doctor noises. Sarah bent across the table to set down a platter of scrambled eggs, her face lowering to within inches of Matt's. He caught her eye and mouthed I want you. She gave a little gasp, her cheeks blooming, her eyes dodging to Jacob again.

  Matt leaned back in his chair and studied her. This wasn't just shyness, this was something else, more like fear. She didn't want Jacob catching on to the fact that they were attracted to each other. That thought hurt. His feelings for her were tender and fragile. The idea that she was ashamed of what she felt for him was like poking a raw nerve with a needle.

  “It still looks pretty terrible,” Jacob said.

  Matt dragged his attention away from Sarah and back to her brother. “Still looks gross, huh?”

  “I am not supposed to use that word. I got into trouble with it from my pop.”

  “You did? Gee, pal, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to get you in trouble.”

  “I know.” Jacob nodded. He took a big bite out of his muffin and blueberry juice oozed down his chin.

  “Still friends?” Matt asked, raising his brows.

  The boy grinned, revealing a fresh gap in his smile where another baby tooth had disappeared. “Ya, sure.”

  “Great.” He caught Sarah's gaze as she settled into the chair across from him and held it meaningfully for a moment. “What about you, Sarah? Are we still friends?”

  “Of course,” she answered just quickly enough to bring a guilty flush to her cheeks.

  She wanted to go to him and hug him and rub a finger over the worry line that appeared between his eyebrows, but she couldn't with Jacob sitting there. All the boy would have to do would be to mention in passing that he had seen his sister kiss the English doctor, and a cloudburst of trouble would come raining down on their heads.

  She gave Matt a look of apology, glanced at Jacob, then stared down at her empty plate.

  The kitchen door swung back and Lisbeth Parker sailed in wearing a lavishly fringed western blouse and a gallon of perftime. She wore her sunglasses again, undoubtedly hiding the aftereffects of the brandy she'd put away the night before. “Am I late for breakfast? I certainly hope I didn't keep y'all waitin'.”

  “No, Mrs. Parker.” Sarah said, popping out of her chair like a jack-in-the-box, glad for a reason to dodge Matt's steady, condemning gaze. “We serve breakfast here until ten. If you'll have a seat in the dining room, I will bring you your meal.”

  “Oh, pooh.” Lisbeth waved a dainty bejew-eled hand. “Ill just sit right down here. I enjoy company while I eat.”

  “Mr. Parker won't be coming down?”

  “No, no, I'm the early bird in the family. Tim is liable to sleep till noon. I wouldn't be surprised if we didn't see him at all today.”

  “Me neither,” Matt mumbled into his coffee cup. Sarah smacked him with a hot pad as she moved around the table.

  Mrs. Parkers gaze fastened on Jacob, and she made a little squeal of surprise. “Well, who have we here? Are you a little Amish boy? Well, aren't you just as cute as a bug!”

  Jacob gave her a long look of open amazement, his gaze following the swinging fringe hanging from the precipice of her enormous bust upward to her sunglasses and her tower of auburn hair. “You have really big … hair.”

  Matt and Sarah released pent-up breaths as Jacob's final word came out.

  “Jacob, manners,” Sarah hissed between her teeth.

  Luckily Mrs. Parker took his comment as a compliment and flashed her beauty queen smile all around. “Why thank you, honey. Aren't you sweet!”

  “Did you sleep well, Mrs. Parker?” Matt asked, spreading butter on a hot muffin.

  “Like a log. I declare, I wouldn't have heard a bomb go off!”

  “Sarah will be glad to hear that, won't you, Sarah?” He glanced up at her as she settled in her chair once again, perversely enjoying the dark look she sent him. He was being childish, but he didn't care. “Mrs. Parker says she didn't hear a thing last night. How about Mr. Parker?”'

  “Slept like the dead.”

  “I spent half the night tossing and turning myself. How about you, Sarah?”

  She picked up a carafe and thrust it at him. “More coffee, Dr. Thome?”

  “No, thanks. It keeps me up. It's just one of the things that can keep me up at night.”

  “You suffer from insomnia, Dr. Thorne?” Mrs. Parker asked as she trimmed the crusts from her toast and piled them beside her plate like tiny cord wood.

  “Oh, I wouldn't call it insomnia, no. Would you, Sarah?”

  Sarah sent him a fuming glare. “Jacob, why don't you and I go gather the eggs together?”

  Jacob was halfway to the door as he answered. “I can't. I have to get home to help. We are stuffing the mattresses today. It's a big job.”

  Sarah felt a twinge of resentment as he disappeared out the back door, the pockets of his trousers bulging with muffins. It was followed closely by guilt. She had no right to demand Jacob's time; he was needed at home. Besides that, she should have been ashamed for wanting to use him for her own purposes. Both feelings, however, took a backseat to the need to get away from Matt. Mouthing words of love one minute and making suggestive remarks the next, he had her off balance again.

  She pushed her chair back from the table. “Will you be needing anything else, Mrs. Parker?”

  “No, no, honey. You go on with your little jobs,” the woman said distractedly as she picked blueberries out of a muffin and made a smiley face with them on her place of scrambled eggs.

  “Dr. Thorne will keep you company, then.”

  Sarah didn't even glance at Matt as she made her exit. She wanted to get out into the fresh air where she could think. In the com foiling dark of night she hadn't given much thought as to how she would deal with Matt during the day. In the comforting dark of night she could be anything she wanted to be. With the rising of the sun came the sure fact that she was nothing but an Amish woman. How else was she supposed to behave? She knew nothing of taking a lover; in truth, knew little about physical intimacy. She had experienced more in one night with Matt than she had in all the time she'd been married to Samuel.

  He seemed hurt that she hadn't been openly affectionate with him in the kitchen, but that kind of behavior was foreign to her. Even if Jacob hadn't been there as a set of eyes and ears for Isaac, Sarah didn't know if she could have done it. Their loving was a very private, very personal thing to her; she didn't want to share it with anyone who happened to be looking their way. What passed between them would be a secret because that was the way it had to be and that was the way she wanted it. When he left, she would keep that secret locked in her heart, taking it out at special times to appreciate like a treasure.

  “Can I help?”

  She looked up sharply, freezing in the motion of snatching an egg from beneath a dozing red hen. Matt stood in the doorway, blocking out much of the morning light. “No,” she said, returning to her task. “Seems you can only hurt,'

  “Well, you would know all about that, wouldn't you, Sarah?” He made no move to enter the henhouse, but turned and leaned his back against the doorjamb and crossed his arms over his chest. Blossom settled herself on his feet and stared at the chickens. The chickens watched the basset hound, making low sounds in their throats.

  Sarah moved from roost to roost, plucking the eggs out of the straw beds with a stealth and speed bred from long experience. She piled them carefully in a basket slung over her left forearm. She didn't know what to say to Matt. If she told him she was holding back because she didn't want other people to know abo
ut them, he would be hurt. If she told him she was holding something back because she knew in the end he would leave, he might just end it now, and she didn't want that. What she wanted was for the world to recede as it did every time he kissed her. What she wanted was to be transported to a different place and time where loving him wouldn't be difficult or dangerous or doomed to disappointment.

  “Don't you regret it,” he said tightly, turning to block her path as she neared the door. He dislodged the dog from his feet and planted himself squarely, filling the frame of the doorway like a gunslinger come to duel. “Don't you regret what we did last night, Sarah. It was beautiful and special. Don't you dare regret it.”

  “I don't regret making love with you,” she whispered, staring down at her feet.

  “What then? I spend the night making love with you, and in the morning you treat me like a leper. What conclusion am I supposed to draw from that?”

  Sarah sighed, still not looking at him. What was she supposed to say? What was she supposed to feel? The answers to those questions were so much clearer when the adventure existed only within the safety of her imagination. The bliss of it was not clouded by issues then; there was no tomorrow to be wary of.

  “I just don't know what you want from me,” she murmured.

  Matt watched her fight with her own inner questions, her straight brows pulling together above closed eyes, and a current of love and desire surged through him, making eveiything else unimportant.

  “This,” he said, coming forward and tilting her chin up. “This is what I want.”

  He settled his mouth over hers slowly and softly, cupping her face in his hands. The taste of him was heaven. The heat of his mouth and his body against hers seared away the cloud of doubt that had been hanging over her. Sarah responded to him without hesitation, letting him bend her back over his arm as he deepened the kiss. Arched against his solid body, she was oblivious to everything but the warmth that welled and glowed inside her. She wished with all her heart that they could just stay this way, out it wasn't to last. It wasn't to last more than a minute or so, because that was when all hell broke loose inside the chicken house.