Marcus closed her mouth with a brush of his knuckles beneath her chin. He grinned fondly as he kicked away the last of his clothes. He swaggered to the bed and joined her there.
She jerked as his body settled intimately against her thigh. He felt so huge. So hot. So…hard.
“This cannot work between us,” she blurted. “You are much too large. And I…I am untried. Marcus, you’ve made a mistake! You must choose another—”
“Shh,” he murmured, stopping her babbling with a kiss. With soothing strokes of his hands, he cuddled her close, then kissed her once more. “I know what I’m doing.”
“What? What are you doing?” She tried to bolt upright, but his arms held her still. A thin edge of panic gripped her. “I thought I knew what this was about, but perhaps I’ve misunderstood all this time. I’ve been wrong before.”
“Infrequently, I’m sure.”
“Of course. But still—”
“Trust me,” Marcus urged.
When next his hands touched her, Molly knew that she would. She would trust him, because this was the man she loved. And so she bravely offered herself to him.
Her reward was a new level of intimacy…a new pleasure. Marcus stripped away her chemise, leaving her bared for his obvious appreciation. His dark gaze swept over her nakedness, then he pulled her close. To Molly’s relief, their bodies felt right together—even better, she realized, unclothed.
His mouth found her breast, kissed its sensitive tip. Overcome by the enjoyment of it all, Molly grasped his head and held him to her, brazen in her passion. She reveled in pleasure as Marcus kissed his way down her body, then acquiesced when he asked her to open herself to him.
With an expression of wonder, Marcus trailed his gaze upward, from the feminine secrets she’d revealed to her face. He entwined his fingers with hers. He smiled, acknowledging the gift she meant to share with him.
Molly felt her cheeks heat as she blushed. But the love in Marcus’s face was too real to be denied. Made stronger by it, she opened her arms to him. Tonight she would show Marcus that he needn’t doubt her, and he needn’t worry over doing things for her. She would, as best as she was able, actively love him herself.
In that spirit, Molly kissed him when he came to her. But before she’d gotten very far, Marcus gave her a lopsided, loving smile and took control of everything.
Their coming together was tender and magical, revelatory and loving. In Marcus’s arms, Molly discovered what it meant to be a woman in love and felt herself swept away by the care with which Marcus insured her pleasure. Heat rose between them, urging them onward…love surged within them, compelling them to even greater heights.
’Twas more moving than Molly could ever have imagined, to be joined with Marcus that way. He showed her what it meant to be a woman, taught her what bliss could be coaxed from her body. And then, only then, he took his satisfaction as well. He gazed into her eyes as ecstasy shook him, moaned her name as he relaxed against her…stroked her hair tenderly as they lay together afterward, united in that most intimate of ways.
Gradually, awareness of their surroundings returned to her, reminding Molly of the soft linens against her skin, the enormous bedstead they lay upon, the flickering lamplight and faint autumn chill in the bedroom beyond them. Although the chamber held a fireplace, it was unlit.
As though sensing her thoughts, Marcus cuddled her close to keep her warm. He drew the woolen coverlet over them both.
“I will care for you always,” he promised, touching her cheek as he gazed at her in wonder. “You must know that.”
“I will care for you, as well,” Molly told him.
He frowned, appearing to consider it. “Fair enough.”
His concession meant much, given all he’d told her that night. Perhaps they would be able to compromise, Molly thought. They would need to, she knew, if a future between them was to work.
“Then it’s settled. We shall care for each other,” she agreed, heartened by Marcus’s words. “And we shall be married!”
“The sooner the better.”
Molly nodded. “It will be such fun to plan all the baking! The wedding cake, the groom’s cake, petits fours for each place at our reception, sweets for an engagement party. I wonder, do you prefer chocolate, or vanilla? I make an excellent Lady Baltimore cake, as well.”
She paused in the midst of her excited planning, feeling nearly breathless. She gazed at Marcus expectantly.
“I enjoy all your sweets. Make what you wish.”
“Oh, but you must have a say! And we’ll have a wedding dinner of all the dishes you enjoy the most, and I’ll wear my nicest dress—you haven’t seen it yet, fortunately—and I’ll enlist Grace and Sarah to help me write invitations to all our friends!”
Molly sat upright, feeling so filled with happiness she could hardly stand it. Considering the sensation, she stopped. She gave Marcus a puzzled look.
“I do believe you’ve changed me somehow. I feel quite as though I could fly.” She hadn’t expected that.
He smiled. “I could fly as well. So long as you were by my side.”
“Ooh. Oh, Marcus.” Giddily Molly flopped downward onto the bed again. She turned her head to look at him. “I love you so very much.”
“I love you. Even more.”
“Then everything will be wonderful from here on, won’t it?”
“Yes.” He drew her into his arms, kissing the top of her head as he hugged her close. A sigh escaped him. For an instant, Molly wondered at it. But all Marcus did was give her a squeeze, one that meant he never intended to let her go.
“I think it will,” he told her. “I hope…it will.”
Chapter Sixteen
The next day, the Sabbath, flew by for Marcus in a happy blur. He attended church services with Molly and her family, stood beside her in a pew as they sang hymns together. He joined the Crabtrees for another Grahamite meal afterward, choking down several slices of hearty Graham flour bread and a stew he’d swear had been brewed of pine bark, acorns and assorted weeds. He played billiards with Adam, discussed presidential gossip with Fiona, listened to Sarah read poetry aloud and debated the temperance movement with Grace.
All the while, Molly stayed by his side. She held his hand, smiled at him, welcomed his words and his laughter. Unlikely as it had once seemed, it felt to Marcus as though they belonged together. Forever.
It was good, he thought, to be so welcomed into a family. If only he could have brought his own parents and sisters to the territory, he felt sure they and the Crabtrees would have fit together remarkably. But the Copelands liked their new life too well to leave it now. Marcus decided he’d have to take Molly on a rail journey eastward to visit them. Perhaps for a wedding trip…
The planning for that wedding proceeded apace, begun in Molly’s busy head and encouraged by her mother and sisters. To a woman, they were atwitter. Truthfully, though, Marcus enjoyed seeing Molly so excited. Her eyes shone, her cheeks glowed…her very being seemed filled to the brim with vigor and plans and chatter. He took to kissing her at unexpected moments, just to witness the blush on her cheeks and to be ambushed with nuptial-related decisions.
He’d never forget the look on Molly’s face when he’d suggested saying their vows over ale at Jack Murphy’s saloon. Keeping a sober expression while doing so had been passing difficult, but he’d done it. Despite the wallop he’d endured for his troubles, it had been worth it to see her searching for a tactful way to extinguish his idea.
“Perhaps we’ll serve ale after the ceremony?” Molly had suggested, and he’d loved her even more for being willing to try to see things the way she thought he wanted them.
The coming week passed as Sunday had, with planning and chattering and decisions to be made right and left. Between doing so, Marcus and Molly met privately whenever they could. He still found it hard to believe she would soon be his.
The members of the Morrow Creek Men’s Club, however, found the news of Marcus’s engagement
not nearly so difficult to accept. To a man, they thought Marcus beaten. Brought to heel beneath the matchmaker’s scheming, they said with frowns of disgust. Knuckled under by the matchmaker’s plan to have every last free man in the town—in the territory!—locked up in wedding shackles before the frost even lifted. They shook their heads when they saw him, grumbled about “another good man gone bad.”
But Marcus did not care; nor did he reveal what he suspected of the matchmaker’s identity. Of a certain, the handwriting sample in Molly’s ledger had matched the script in Jack Murphy’s purloined note, but did that really prove anything? When he had time, Marcus promised himself, he would meet again with Jack and with Daniel McCabe, and they would form their conclusions about the matchmaker’s identity. But for now…it could wait.
It could wait until after he’d made Molly his own.
His days at the lumber mill drifted past, with Marcus hardly able to concentrate on timber yields and bookkeeping and railway shipments. His men elbowed each other knowingly when he passed. Smith even remarked that Marcus looked “cheerful as a june bug dipped in whiskey.” But Marcus didn’t care. Molly would be his, they would be happy together, and all would be well.
He hoped.
By the time another Sabbath rolled around, Marcus found himself ready to have things settled between him and Molly. Their wedding date was set for the Saturday morn eleven days hence, but that didn’t stop Marcus from trying to hasten the process.
“Let’s elope,” he suggested, sitting with her on the Crabtrees’ front porch in the twilight that Sunday. “We can be off to the train depot and on our way to a wedding trip by this time tomorrow.”
Molly smiled. “If you think to avoid wearing that fancy wedding suit my mama’s stitching for you, you’d better think again,” she said placidly. “She’d be heartbroken! Especially after having embroidered all that elegant stitchery on the shirt collar and cuffs for you.”
“I hadn’t even thought of that suit.” He did now, and pulled at his collar in uncomfortable remembrance of his last, hurried fitting. “I only want to make you mine.”
Before everything falls apart. Before you discover what I’ve done. He needed to settle things between them, Marcus knew, feeling an urgency he couldn’t quite hide. Before it was too late. If he went to his lumber mill early tomorrow, spoke with Smith about ending the delectables payments to his men…
“And I want to be yours.” Molly looped her arm at his elbow and hugged him close to her. “Especially while you’re in that, er, magnificent suit.”
“Humph. Are you laughing?” he demanded.
Vigorously she shook her head, lips pressed tight together.
“You’re turning suspiciously purple,” he observed.
She burst into guffaws. “All right, all right. So Mama’s suit is a little much,” Molly agreed. “She means well.”
“So did the matchmaker, when she suggested those gals give away ugly neckties, rifle cozies and matching kerchiefs and aprons with embroidery on them,” Marcus grumbled. “That meddlesome woman has a distinct fondness for hideous stitching projects.”
“I have a distinct fondness for you,” Molly purred…then she tilted her head, closed her eyes and beckoned him nearer beneath the starlight. “I’m also wondering if you might, perhaps…kiss me tonight?”
Marcus could not refuse. Being with Molly was too precious to him. So it wasn’t until later that he began wondering, himself. However pleasurable kissing Molly had been, he couldn’t help but harbor a few lingering suspicions. Had she been distracting him from their talk of the matchmaker?
Was it possible that Molly was not, in fact, the matchmaker—and Fiona Crabtree was? Fiona Crabtree, who had a fondness for both outlandish sewing and meddlesome matchmaking?
Marcus didn’t know. And his curiosity about it was dampened the following morning, when Molly visited his lumber mill shortly after the break of dawn…and the disaster he’d feared finally struck.
She was going to get her Chautauqua booth.
Filled with excitement at the thought, Molly lifted her skirts and raced down the rutted road to Marcus’s lumber mill, intent on telling him her good news.
She’d finally done it!
Sarah had shared the committee’s final decision with her that very morning over breakfast. It seemed the committee members had been impressed with Molly’s improved baking skills, her sister had told her. And Marcus’s patronage of her bakeshop had helped a great deal, too. As a respectable businessman, his willingness to take a chance on Molly’s skills had carried her Chautauqua application to the top of the pile.
He would be so proud of her, Molly knew. Of everyone in her life, Marcus was the one who most encouraged her business aspirations. He was the one who most understood her, who most believed in her. It was only fitting that he should hear this happy news first thing this morning.
As she approached his lumber mill, Molly pictured Marcus’s delighted expression upon hearing of her triumph. She imagined him twirling her in his arms for a celebratory embrace, and almost sighed aloud. She loved him so. There was no one she would rather share this news with than the man who had helped make it happen, through his faith in her alone.
With rapid footsteps, Molly crossed the yard. By now she recognized most of the lumbermen. She waved at the few who greeted her, too intent on her mission to stop and chat. This news would not wait. She blinked as she left behind the bright sunshine to step into the lumber mill’s interior, then gained her bearings and headed toward Marcus’s office.
Before she’d quite reached the partly opened door at the end of the hallway, Marcus’s voice carried from within the small room.
“Damn it, Smith! I’m telling you, something has got to be done about this. If anyone else finds out about it—”
“There’s no call for anybody to find out a thing,” Smith said calmly. “’Sides, you ain’t heard what I been telling you. The men don’t want your money anymore.”
In the hallway, Molly paused. If Marcus was conducting business with his foreman, she didn’t want to interrupt. Quietly she began edging away. He’d probably only be a few minutes, and then she could—
“They won’t even buy Molly’s baked goods with my money anymore?” Marcus asked, disbelief and aggravation in his voice. “Hell, Smith! Her sweets aren’t that bad.”
At the sound of her own name, Molly stopped. Frozen in place, she felt her heart begin to beat faster. Why were they talking about her? And her baked goods?
“I know, boss. They ain’t that bad anymore,” Mr. Smith agreed. “I had one of them cinnamon buns o’ hers just a few days ago. It was a sight better than them doorstops she used to bring in here.”
“She has improved,” Marcus agreed in a calmer voice.
Molly cringed. She wanted to sink into the mill hallway behind her, to creep away and hear no more of this. But something held her there. She had to know what this was about.
“So why the hell won’t the men take my money?” Marcus demanded. “If they stop buying from Molly just because they have to pay their own coin, I’ll—”
“It’s not that, boss,” Mr. Smith interrupted. “I been telling ya”’
He went on talking, but Molly couldn’t listen anymore. The truth crashed around her, laid out in plain talk that she couldn’t deny. Marcus had been paying his men to buy her baked goods, all along.
He’d never believed in her. Had never believed she could make a success of her bakery on her own. Had never wanted to help her.
Instead, he’d made a fool of her. He’d paraded her in front of his men—had allowed them to build a sales stall for her!—just as though she might succeed. He’d talked about her talent, had even repaired her bakeshop…but all the while, he’d been forcing his men to buy “doorstops” from her.
Humiliation washed over her. She hadn’t made a success of her bakery—Marcus had. She hadn’t won her much-coveted booth at the Chautauqua—Marcus had. She hadn’t found someone who believ
ed in her— Marcus had. He’d found someone gullible enough, foolhardy enough, to believe his lies.
He’d found Molly. Silly Molly Crabtree, the joke of Morrow Creek.
Well, now she’d be more of a joke than ever, Molly realized. When word of Marcus’s charade got out, there’d be no end to the pitying glances and the gossip. She’d been worried that Sarah would make herself a fool over Daniel McCabe, or that Grace would cause a ruckus by feuding with Jack Murphy, but the person Molly should have been worrying about was herself. Just as her sisters had expected, she’d proved to be the most foolish of all.
You haven’t the experience or the critical nature to recognize when you’re being led astray, Grace had told her all those weeks ago, while warning her to be wary of Marcus. Be careful, Sarah had urged. But Molly had impetuously ignored them both. She had only herself to blame for this.
“You have to listen to me, boss,” Mr. Smith said.
“No. I’ve heard enough.” Marcus’s voice was firm. Decisive. “I’ll talk to the men myself.”
A chair scraped. Marcus’s heavy footfalls sounded. He was coming this way! She had to leave before he saw her there. The only thing worse than hearing this news would be seeing the pity on Marcus’s face when he realized she knew the truth.
Molly whirled to run. Her reticule smacked into a nearby doorjamb, its beaded length wrenched from her wrist. She heard it plop to the floor but couldn’t take the time to fetch it. There was a creak as Marcus’s office door swung open. Glancing back once, she glimpsed his shocked expression as he saw her.
His face paled. “Molly!”
She couldn’t stop. She hurried onward, too tightly laced for a full run. Darting around a surprised-looking mill hand, she dared another glance over her shoulder.
Marcus had retrieved her reticule from the floor. Holding it in his hands, he started after her.
No. He couldn’t follow her. She couldn’t stand it. He could not love her as he’d claimed, Molly realized sadly. No man who could deceive her so could also love her as he’d professed to. Miserably, half-blinded by tears, she rushed forward.
Lisa Plumley - [Crabtree 01] Page 21
