Home to Caroline

by Adera Orfanelli

  Travis caressed her back, his hands moving with long, sweeping strokes. “It’s okay. I’m here now. The war is over. I’m not going anywhere.”

  She relished being in his arms and slowly her tears subsided, though he hadn’t said he loved her.

  “We can always try again,” she said, thinking of the times they’d loved since his return home. “Or maybe you’re right and we already have.” She closed her eyes and rested her cheek against her husband’s strong chest. It seemed God had given them a second chance. She vowed not to do anything to ruin it.

  “Maybe.” Softness filled his voice. He pulled away long enough to go down on one knee, reminding her of the time earlier this afternoon when he’d knelt before her with desire. He reached for her hands, clutching them to his chest. “My darling Caroline, you were the only thing that I thought about during those long years apart. Your face filled my dreams, and it was for you that I made it out of every battle alive. I fought for my country and my family, but I fought for you, to put an end to this battle once and for all so that we could live in peace. If you’ll have me, a poor Confederate soldier, then I want to stay. I want to make love to you, and I want our love to bring children into this world. Because I know you would be the best mother, just as you’re the best wife.”

  Caroline drew a breath, touched by the depth of his emotion. “I’d hoped and prayed you’d come back to me.” She pressed a kiss to her forehead. “God gave me so many burdens to bear, I prayed every night he’d bring my husband home. Farmer or not, my love, you’re my husband. And I love you.”

  He stood then and embraced her, his hands sliding down to her hips. His big hands splayed across her rear brought her in intimate contact with his body. “You named him after me,” Travis said. “Your father and me.”

  She nodded, her throat too tight to force words. She wondered if he’d even heard her admit her love and if it even mattered to him.

  He stepped away and held out her hand. “Let’s go inside,” he offered, and she willingly accepted. Taking her husband’s hand, seeing his fingers entwined with her own, gave her hope. Maybe, just maybe, her husband had come home to stay.

  Chapter Six

  Travis’s thoughts whirled in his mind as he led his wife into their house. The loss of his son had hit him like a punch to the stomach. A child he’d never known, and for Caroline to have gone through everything all alone. He doubted he could have gotten leave to visit her, and once he’d returned home, doubted he would have wanted to go back to the front lines. To think of all the horrors that he’d seen in battle, and the scariest had probably occurred at home.

  Once inside, he closed the door behind her, then pulled Caroline into his arms. He held her, sliding his hands over her back, simply relishing the fact that he held his wife. Her womanly curves pressed against him, his body filling with desire for this strong and vibrant woman. He swallowed hard.

  “The question isn’t whether I want you, because I do. The question is do you want me to stay?” He pulled back only to help lead her down the hall and to the bedroom.

  “What?” Caroline hurried after him, grabbing his other hand to make him stop.

  He didn’t, not until they stood in the master bedroom, the large sleigh bed with its soft mattress so close they could tumble into it. “It’s true.” He sat down, tugging her into his lap. Her hip nestled against his hardness, and he curved his palm around her other hip to hold her still. “I am a farmer’s son who knows nothing about farming. I never learned a trade. You may not want a man who needs your help in tilling the soil and making this farm run.” He kissed her temple, then smoothed away her hair and kissed a trail down her sharp cheek bone.

  “Do you want to learn?” Her soft question caught him off guard. She turned her face to his and pressed several quick kisses along his lips and jaw. “I’ll teach you.”

  His stomach dropped, humbled by his wife’s love and trust in him. “What if I’m a bad student?” With his free hand he traced her ribs, pausing to brush his thumb against her breast and feel the nipple bead against his palm. “What if I just want to make love with my wife all the time?”

  She gently shoved him back on the bed, scrambling so she could straddle his waist. On top, she nestled intimately against his erect shaft, her breasts confined only by his shirt.

  Travis bunched his hands in the cotton fabric and tugged her shirt free of her trousers. Sliding the fabric up, he made quick work of the buttons, then shoved the sleeves down off her shoulders. He drew a harsh breath at the wanton picture she presented. He reared up enough to slide his fingers through her hair and making the wheat gold strands tumble down her back.

  “I’ll work you so hard that you won’t have the energy for anything but eating and sleeping. That’s the farmer’s way.” She punctuated her words with a twist of her hips.

  Travis groaned. He flipped her beneath him, settling between her thighs with a satisfied sigh. Propping up his weight on his arms, he stared down at her. “Is that a challenge?”

  Caroline pressed her heels into his buttocks, and he grinned. She wouldn’t be throwing him out quite yet. Cupping his cheeks, she drew his lips down to hers. “Do you want it to be?”

  “Whatever will keep me right here and in your arms.” He closed the space between them, kissing her with all the pent-up passion in his body. His tongue found the seam of her lips, sliding across them, parting them to delve inside. Not wanting to crush her with his weight, he rolled to the side, taking her with him. Cupping the back of her head, he held her while he plundered her mouth.

  Caroline wrapped one leg around his hips, her heel pressing him closer to her. Her slender fingers tugged and toyed at his shirt, working the buttons free, until his shirt opened to reveal his bare chest. She curled her fingers into the mat of hair, stroking it with tiny appreciative sounds.

  He tasted salty liquid on his lips. Pulling away, he watched a tear trickle over her cheek. He wiped it away. “Don’t cry,” he soothed.

  “They’re happy tears. I never thought you’d stay,” she said between sobs. She trailed her fingers over his chest, flattening her palm against his heart. “I thought—” She shook her head and sniffed. “It doesn’t matter. You’re staying. That’s the important thing.” She brought her lips to his once more, and in her kiss he sensed her love, her passion, and he sensed their future.

  “I’m the youngest of seven kids. I think it would be nice if I had you all to myself for a while. I love you, my darling wife.” Travis drew her on top of him, sliding his hands down beneath the waist band of her trousers to cup her bare bottom. He drew her against him, loving the way she wriggled so he could unbutton them and slide the fabric down her hips. He proceeded to make love to her, showing her with touch and kisses how much he cared, how much he thanked God for coming back to his little slice of heaven. He’d come home to his wife. And maybe, tomorrow, she’d teach him how to farm.

  About the Author

  Adera wrote erotic science fiction romance previously. Although historical romances have been Adera’s guilty pleasure for many years, it took her a while to summon her courage to write one. Now that she has, she’s discovered that men in the past are just as sexy as men from the future and plans to play at both ends of the space-time continuum. This is her first, but definitely not her last, historical romance.

  Website: www.aderaorfanelli.net

  Twitter: www.twitter.com/aderaorfanelli

  Facebook: www.facebook.com/aderaorfanelli

  A hunted woman, a forbidden love…and time ticking down on an ancient curse.

  The Angel and the Warrior

  © 2014 Karen Kay

  The Lost Clan, Book 1

  Eighteen years ago, Swift Hawk was sent to the earthly realm to try to break an enchantment that curses his clan to a half-life in the mists. As his allotted time runs short, a vision gives him a glimpse of his last chance to free his
people. A delicate young woman with translucent white skin and star-like hair.

  He never thought his sacred vision would possess the tongue of a shrew.

  Angelia Honeywell and her brother Julian fled Mississippi amid a hail of rotten tomatoes and flying bullets. She only fired back in self-defense, but now they are on the run as their father pleads their case to the governor.

  With Julian trying to pass himself off as a wagon train scout, Angel knows they need help. When the handsome, black-eyed Swift Hawk agrees to save their skins, she can’t help but be drawn to his compelling gaze. But as they come together in a blaze of desire, the dark shadows of the curse descend, threatening to divide them forever.

  Warning: May cause nights of unbridled passion with the one you love.

  Enjoy the following excerpt for The Angel and the Warrior:

  He stared at her, and in his eyes, Angelia thought she saw a spark of…laughter? “After all, what trouble could there be, since a man and his wife are often seen alone together?”

  Angelia wasn’t certain she had heard Swift Hawk correctly. “What was that again?”

  He shrugged. “What?”

  “What you just said.”

  He gave her a perfectly innocent look and repeated, “Your brother is over by that ridge, trying to discover who trails him.”

  “No, not that—that other thing.”

  “You mean about my wife and I being alone?”

  “That’s it. That’s the one. Your wife? You have a wife?” she asked, feeling more than a little confused.

  He said, “Certainly I have a wife.”

  She sent him a sideways scowl. “I don’t believe you. Where is this person?”

  He grinned. “Right here beside me.”

  “Wait a minute. How can I be your wife?”

  “Very easily, I think.”

  Angelia sat for a moment, dazed. How could this be? On one hand, she was cheered that Swift Hawk was, indeed, very much interested in her. On the other hand, she realized she should have been worrying less and practicing more of exactly what she should say to this man.

  Was this what he’d meant when he’d said they belonged to one another? Marriage?

  Aloud, she said, “Swift Hawk, have I missed something? I don’t remember a marriage ceremony between us.”

  Swift Hawk frowned. “You do not remember? And yet recalling those moments we spent together is forever here.” He pointed to his head, and then to his heart.

  “Moments? What are you talking about?”

  “You do not remember.” He tsk-tsked.

  Angelia grimaced, placing a hand on her forehead, as if to ease the spinning sensation. “There must be something here I don’t understand, because I don’t recall a thing.”

  “Ah, then I should refresh your memory. But…surely you do not wish me to do this…” he made a mock glance around him, “…where others might overhear us, or see us.”

  “Swift Hawk, please. Be serious.”

  “I am.”

  She shook her head. “Have you gone crazy?”

  “Perhaps, for my wife treats me as though I am nothing more to her than a…” he drew his brows together, looking for all the world as if he were in deep thought, “…friend.”

  “You are a friend.”

  “Haa’he, that I am…plus more. Now, I have something else to tell you, and for a moment, I would ask that we forget all this, switch our duties and I will be a teacher and you will be my pupil.”

  “Why?” she asked, still feeling bewildered and having difficulty following his line of thought.

  “Because I have a problem in mathematics for you.”

  “Swift Hawk, please, we are not doing our lessons now. We are having a discussion about…about…”

  Swift Hawk shrugged. “All right. If you do not wish to hear this problem, I will not bore you with it.”

  Angelia blew out her breath. “Very well. Tell me.”

  “No, I do not wish to disturb you with it…at least not now.”

  She sighed heavily. “I’m sorry, all right? I… It’s only that you’ve said some things that have…surprised me, things I don’t understand, and frankly, you’re speaking about a subject that must be discussed by us in greater detail. But by all means, let me hear this problem that you have with mathematics first.”

  He ignored the sarcasm in her voice and gave her a look that could have been innocent, but it wasn’t. Before she could decide what he was up to, he said, “Tell me, what is the result when you add a man, a woman, and a morning spent together in each other’s arms?”

  “Shh. Swift Hawk. What are you doing? Say that quietly.”

  “Very well.” Lowering his voice, he whispered, “What do you get when you add—”

  “I heard you the first time. Swift Hawk, really, it…it…wasn’t like that… It was…” She stopped, for she seemed incapable of uttering another word.

  Now was the time. Now she should tell him.

  Angelia opened her mouth to speak, took a deep breath, then held it. How in the name of good heaven could she begin?

  She shut her mouth, thinking, summoning her nerve to say what must be said.

  Swift Hawk leaned in toward her. “Ah, I can see that you understand. Now you must observe that all of these things, added together, equals a marriage, does it not?”

  “No, it—” Angelia shook her head, exhaling sharply. “It does not equal marriage. There was no ceremony.” She said every word distinctively. “But let’s not quibble. Not now. Not here, where we might be overhead. Besides, we forget that Julian might be in trouble. Now, if you would be so kind as to lead me to my brother, I would be much beholden.”

  “How beholden?”

  Angelia rolled her eyes. “Please, will you take me to him?”

  “Yes, my wife,” said Swift Hawk seriously, though she could have sworn that a corner of his mouth lifted upward in a smile. “Truly, my wife, I will do anything you say.”

  “Please, if you must say that, say it softly.”

  “Very well.” Leaning up onto his elbows, Swift Hawk spoke quietly, for her ears alone, “Yes, my wife. I am yours to command, my wife.”

  Angelia raised an eyebrow. “You are mine to command?”

  “It is so.”

  “Good. Then I command you not to speak to me of this again.”

  Smiling, Swift Hawk inclined his head. “Very well. I will show you instead how eager I am to please you.” He held out a hand toward her.

  Angelia rolled away. “Swift Hawk!” she uttered sharply, under her breath. “Stop this at once. Just…just take me to my brother.”

  “Yes, my wife. Anything you say, my wife…”

  eBooks are not transferable.

  They cannot be sold, shared or given away as it is an infringement on the copyright of this work.

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.

  Samhain Publishing, Ltd.

  11821 Mason Montgomery Road Suite 4B

  Cincinnati OH 45249

  Home to Caroline

  Copyright © 2015 by Adera Orfanelli

  ISBN: 978-1-61922-506-0

  Edited by Jessica Corra

  Cover by Erin Dameron-Hill

  All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  First Samhain Publishing, Ltd. electronic publication: February 2015

  www.samhainpublishing.com

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