Whirlwind Bride

by Debra Cowan

  Susannah laughed softly. “That’s what I said.”

  “That’s not all you said,” Riley murmured dryly.

  “Did she try to whack you again, Riley?” Cora chuckled.

  “Just about.”

  “I did not.” Susannah shook her head, grinning.

  “She was pretty much cussin’ and hollerin’ her lungs out. I figured everybody in town could hear her.”

  “And you were so calm,” she retorted. “He nearly swooned when I told him Cora was gone.”

  Cora and Davis Lee laughed. Even Riley cracked a smile.

  He reached for the baby again. “Let me see her.”

  Davis Lee surrendered the tiny bundle and Riley gently laid her in the cradle. “You don’t look much like your ma yet, Button, but you will.”

  Susannah’s bemused gaze met Cora’s across the room.

  “Button?” Cora mouthed.

  Susannah shrugged, warmed by the caring in his voice.

  “We’ll have to teach her to ride horses,” Davis Lee said.

  “And to fish,” Riley added.

  “And shoot.”

  “Why don’t y’all wait until she can at least walk?” Cora laughed. “Susannah probably has some things she wants to teach her.”

  The brothers grinned. “I guess so,” Riley said.

  He leaned down and stroked a hand over the baby’s head. “She’s even prettier than when she got here.”

  “You’ll have to watch all the fellas around her,” Davis Lee advised Susannah.

  “I will.” Their affection for her daughter touched off a bittersweet pang inside her. Her daughter would grow up loved here, accepted without the stigma of her illegitimacy.

  But Riley’s and Davis Lee’s obvious tenderness for Lorelai reminded Susannah of why she’d originally come to Whirlwind. The father she’d sworn to find for her baby. The father her child now needed more than ever.

  Her gaze moved from Davis Lee to Riley, then swung back to Davis Lee, tracing his strong features. He was a good man, well-respected here, and the sheriff to boot. He was handsome, with a winning way about him. Why, he was everything she could want in a father for Lorelai. In a husband for herself.

  But Davis Lee wasn’t Riley. Her gaze shifted to the big man who’d helped bring her daughter into the world. Riley was who she wanted, who she loved— No! Not loved.

  She’d fancied herself in love with Paul, too, and look where that had gotten her. The youngest, pampered child of a wealthy family, who’d been sheltered and too naive to recognize his worldliness. He’d been different from any other man she’d known, well-traveled, mysterious and charming, and she’d let her heart overrule her head. Now those emotions were gone, shriveled to ashes.

  How could she trust that these feelings she had for Riley wouldn’t disappear the same way? They were friends and would be only friends; he’d made that clear. And Susannah, as much as she struggled against the idea, agreed with him.

  She’d come to Whirlwind to find security, not love. The small, helpless person lying in the cradle next to her bed brought back that fact with a rush. Susannah’s decision wouldn’t be based on who she wanted, but on who would be the perfect father for her baby.

  And the time had come to find him.

  Chapter Thirteen

  His intention not to get any closer to Susannah was shot to hell. He’d never been this close to a woman, never shared anything as wondrous as the birth of a child. Not even with Maddie. Because she hadn’t been around long enough, he reminded himself ruthlessly.

  Remembering how this land had destroyed his wife should’ve helped him keep a clear head about Susannah, but the bond he now had with her made it increasingly difficult to think of her only as a friend.

  Ever since little Lorelai had been born, Riley had been consumed by this savage need to claim Susannah, possess her in every way he could. It frustrated him no end. He knew she was a marrying kind of woman, knew that was why she’d come to Whirlwind, and he wasn’t dancing that dance. Still, it became more difficult to walk away each time he saw her.

  In the six days since the birth of the baby, he’d seen her daily. He’d given up trying to stay away; he wanted to see the new life he’d helped bring into the world. The baby looked different every day.

  His time with the little girl spawned some new hope in him, a warmth he hadn’t known was missing. And helped suppress the raging desire in him to get her mother in a dark place and peel off her clothes. What he felt for Susannah—all he felt for her—was lust. It would pass.

  As far as Riley was concerned, sharing the birth of a child was nearly as intimate as sharing the marriage bed. And as happy as the occasion had been, it complicated the sense of responsibility he felt for her.

  Still, it was his sense of obligation that drove him into town on Saturday night. He’d promised Cora he would check in on Susannah and the baby while the older woman was in Abilene today and tomorrow.

  Just after dark, he reined his horse in front of Cora’s house as a shadow moved across the front windows. Crying sounded from inside, insistent and hard and aching. Riley dismounted, quickly looping his reins around the porch column.

  Pale yellow lamplight slid around the edges of the calico curtains to dapple the porch. He stepped up to the door and knocked. The baby cried harder. He could hear Susannah murmuring, an edge of desperation in her voice.

  He knocked again, pressing his ear to the door. Lorelai wailed her lungs out. “Susannah? It’s me.”

  The baby cried hard enough to make Riley grimace. He thought he heard Susannah say something, and stepped inside, shutting the door behind him.

  Hell’s bells. His breath whooshed out.

  Susannah was naked. Or close enough. Her white bodice was unbuttoned to the waist, her chemise untied and spread open. She held the baby close to her, but he glimpsed one pale rose nipple and full, creamy breasts.

  Her eyes widened and her mouth dropped open.

  As if Lorelai felt the jolt of heat that jumped from her mother to Riley, the baby took a breath. Instant quiet descended. Riley could hear his blood pounding in his veins. Thought he could hear Susannah’s hammering, too. She was beautiful, perfect. Her breasts spilled out, pale and full and now slightly pink from the blush staining her skin.

  “R-Riley, what are you doing?” She clutched one edge of her chemise, lifting the baby in an effort to cover herself. Lorelai started wailing again, as if Susannah had given a signal.

  “Damnation, I am sorry.” He stood completely frozen, unable to take his eyes off her. Her breasts strained the edges of the linen. He’d never hurt so badly in his life.

  “Well?” she demanded.

  “Well?” he repeated stupidly. This was not good, especially after he’d spent so much time trying not to imagine her naked. The raw desire he’d been fighting erupted in a white-hot flare.

  “Turn around!”

  “Oh.” His feet felt weighted with rocks, but he turned, the baby’s cries finally snapping him back to his senses. “I knocked. I thought you told me to come in.”

  “I couldn’t hear a thing.”

  He wanted to look over his shoulder, but stared straight ahead at the back of the door. She would fit perfectly in his hands. Her skin was just as velvety and pale as the rest of her. Hell.

  “Cora’s not here,” she said nervously. “She had to meet with Banker Dobies.”

  “I know. She asked me to stop by.” He cleared his throat. “What’s wrong with Button?”

  “I don’t know.” Susannah’s voice was strained with frustration. “I’ve tried everything. She doesn’t want to eat. I fixed her a sugar teat. She wasn’t interested. I’ve rubbed her tummy and her back, but it just made her cry harder.”

  “Did you rub her gums?”

  “Cora said to rub her gums when her teeth were coming in. You can turn around now.”

  He did, unable to stem the disappointment he felt when he saw that Susannah’s bodice was completely closed. His fis
ts clenched at his sides. “Maybe it would help.”

  Susannah tried it, but Lorelai turned her head away, squalling just as loudly.

  “I don’t know what to do for her.” Emotion thickened her voice. “Aren’t I supposed to know?”

  “I don’t think you’re supposed to always know,” he said over the baby’s cries. “Want me to try?”

  “Yes.” Her eyes bright with tears, she handed him the infant.

  His knuckles brushed against the pale, creamy breast he’d seen. That he wanted to stroke, to taste. Her eyes went dark and she looked away. Her pulse fluttered rapidly in her throat. She wanted it, too.

  Adrenaline rushed through his body. All he had to do was reach out, skim one finger over that magnolia smooth flesh. “No,” he said hoarsely.

  “The baby,” Susannah said in a choked voice, her blush deepening.

  He looked down. Lorelai blinked up at him and stopped crying, tears wetting her face.

  He grinned. “She just wanted to see Riley.”

  The baby opened her mouth and wailed.

  He frowned at Susannah.

  Her hand flattened against her bodice as if to make sure it was completely fastened. “I don’t know what else to do. I’ve walked, I’ve rocked. I even sang.”

  “Well, I won’t torture her with my voice,” he said. “Let me try this.” He bundled her up in a soft blanket hanging over a kitchen chair, trying to shush her sobbing. “Let me have another blanket. I’m going to take her outside.”

  Susannah handed him the soft white covering Cora had made. Riley wrapped the baby tightly, then laid her against his shoulder.

  “We’ll be right out here.”

  Susannah opened the door for him and watched as he walked slowly to the end of the porch, then back, bouncing the little girl gently. Lorelai cried just as hard, her racking cries small and pitiful in the dark prairie night.

  After several measured trips back and forth across the porch, Riley stopped.

  Susannah stepped outside. “Do you think she’s getting sick?”

  “I don’t feel a fever. Let me try something else.” He walked over and unlooped Whip’s reins from the porch column.

  “What are you doing?” she asked sharply. As unlikely as it was, the thought that he might take Lorelai flashed through her mind.

  “Pa said he used to do this with me and Davis Lee. Is it all right if I take her on the horse?”

  No! Susannah bit back her first reaction. She reminded herself that one of the reasons she’d worked so hard with Cora’s mare was so her daughter wouldn’t fear horses the way she did. But Lorelai was so tiny.

  Riley waited next to Whip, who stood as still as a statue. Susannah knew he wouldn’t let anything happen to her baby, and if he felt getting her up there was the least bit dangerous, he wouldn’t have even considered it.

  “All right.”

  “I’ll be careful,” he said, loudly enough to be heard over the baby’s cries. “Here, you hold her while I mount up.”

  Susannah handed the baby to him once Riley was in the saddle.

  “We’re just going to walk around the yard. Maybe this will work.”

  “Maybe.” She had her doubts, but her poor baby was going to make herself ill if they couldn’t stop her crying.

  Susannah gripped the porch column, her nails digging into the weathered wood as she watched the paint gelding step away from the house. The cold night air barely registered.

  Riley held Lorelai against his chest, bent over so that his hat and shoulder protected her from the wind that occasionally swept around the side of the house. He guided Whip with his knees. The horse walked slowly and smoothly around the yard. Before they’d made a complete circle, Lorelai’s sobbing diminished to a whimper. One more sob, than a breath shuddered out of her. A contented sigh.

  Susannah moved to the edge of the porch. Silence. Her baby had stopped crying.

  A smile curved her lips as Riley and the baby passed in front of her. The lamplight from the open doorway caught the grin on his face. The man would think he hung the moon now.

  “Now, look at this,” he whispered.

  “I don’t understand it.”

  “Pa said we liked the rhythm of the motion. It’s soothing. There are still times when I fall asleep in the saddle.”

  Susannah couldn’t imagine being relaxed enough to sleep on a horse, but she loved that her daughter could.

  After another few minutes of riding, Riley halted the horse in front of the porch and handed Lorelai down to her. She cuddled the baby close.

  “Thank you,” she whispered. “I’ll go put her down.”

  He nodded, dismounting and looping the reins around the porch column again. He had no defenses against that baby, he thought with a grin. Or her mother, either. His grin faded as his mind flashed back to the image of her undone chemise, the bare breasts he’d been close enough to touch. And he had wanted to touch. To taste.

  His body hardened and he fought the savage craving that rose inside him like a dark sweetness. He wanted her. There was no getting around that.

  He hesitated in the open doorway, cool March air swirling around him. Now was the time to leave. She and the baby were fine.

  Susannah stepped out of her room, looking away as she moved to the far side of the table. “I appreciate your help.”

  “You’re welcome.” He wanted to kiss her, so badly his lips burned. “I’m glad it worked.”

  She wouldn’t meet his gaze. “That’s a trick I’ll remember. I guess I’ll have to learn to ride horses now. Can’t expect you to run over here every time she cries like that.”

  “I’ll come anytime you want.” Hell, he wished he didn’t want it so badly. “You gonna be all right here by yourself tonight? ’Cuz I can sleep in the barn.”

  “I think we’ll be fine.”

  He wanted her to look at him. The need to apologize again was strong, even though his walking in on her that way had been unintentional. “I’m sorry. For…what happened earlier.”

  “I know it was an accident.”

  Even in the dancing lamplight, he could see her flush again. “I should’ve waited until I knew you heard me.”

  She chewed at her lip, trying for a nonchalant smile. “Well, there’s no redoing it, so I can forget it if you can.”

  Forget it? Maybe in a hundred years. “Sure.”

  “Good.” She looked uncertain and nervous.

  Something had passed between them, something hot and jolting and purely physical that Riley knew wouldn’t go away. Something that shifted the invisible line between them. Something he had to put behind him. He knew that would be like spitting into a high wind.

  How was she supposed to forget about him when he looked at her as if he had to have her or die?

  Susannah hadn’t thought she could ever feel such searing desire again, especially before a man even touched her, but Riley set off a low-burning flame inside her that melted her bones to wax.

  She wanted him, but she knew he’d never change his mind about her. How could anything good come of them being together?

  He wanted her, too. She’d seen it in his eyes, in the blazing intensity of his gaze on her body. But she had an obligation to her baby to find the best father she could. She and Riley both knew that wasn’t him.

  She had to forget about him and the wanton feelings he triggered inside her. Feelings she’d sworn she would never surrender to again.

  Desire had sawed a hole through Riley’s gut since he’d walked in on Susannah bared to the waist last night.

  The sight of her luscious breasts had unleashed something inside him, and now he couldn’t corral it. He’d been trying to put her out of his mind, but the image of her stayed stubbornly rooted in his head, even as he took a seat in church the next morning.

  Just after the sermon began, he slipped into the back pew. Several rows ahead, he saw Susannah’s blond ringlets tamed into a loose chignon. She sat between Cora and Davis Lee. Riley had never know
n his brother to arrive much earlier than he did. Fighting the brisk March wind had cost Whip a little speed, so he had been late.

  His gaze rested on her and so did his mind. The hymns didn’t penetrate the very unchristian thoughts he was having about the woman who had somehow gotten under his skin.

  He tried to direct his attention to Reverend Scoggins’s message, but he was too aware of Susannah. Her hair looked like silk piled on her head, a stray tendril teasing her neck. A wedge of satiny skin showed above the collar of her light green dress.

  A baby fussed and Riley recognized the sound as coming from Lorelai. Susannah lifted the child to her shoulder and gently jiggled her. The little girl quieted back to sleep.

  Telling himself Susannah didn’t belong in Whirlwind had done nothing to douse the wildfire she’d lit inside him last night. In fact, he didn’t care anymore whether she belonged here or not. What he had to worry about was getting this craving for her under control.

  He could not get her out of his mind, whether he was awake or asleep.

  Church passed in a blur, and he was surprised when the service was dismissed.

  He stepped out into the aisle and saw Davis Lee bend his head to speak to Susannah, stepping aside so she could move to the aisle, also. Several women and young girls crowded around her, admiring the baby. Riley started toward them, wanting to see Lorelai.

  The knot of chattering women held fast no matter how he tried to get through, so he moved next to his brother.

  Davis Lee grinned. “She’s mighty pretty, isn’t she?”

  “Yes, she is.”

  “She’s a little thing. I don’t think I realized just how little.”

  Riley frowned at the way his brother’s voice had dropped admiringly. They both had held Lorelai just a day after her birth. Why wouldn’t he know how small she was?

  “And she really has a way with that baby.”

  Riley looked sharply at his brother. “Are you talking about Susannah?”

  “Yes.” Davis Lee glanced at him. “Who are you talking about?”

  “You’re admiring Susannah?”