by Carol Arens
Could she ever recall seeing that happiness on Bowie’s face before? She could not.
“Annie, you remember Merritt?” Bowie said.
Merritt’s eyes flashed a green twinkle and she opened her arms wide.
Leanna stepped into her hug. Already, she loved the woman who had put the joy in her brother’s heart. Maybe she ought to have sought Merritt out as soon as she’d discovered her engagement to Bowie, but there was always the chance she might have shamed her by doing so.
If the strength of Merritt’s embrace was anything to go by, she didn’t give a whit what decent folks might think.
Chance wasn’t here, neither were Quin and Addie K., and she was sorry for that. Time and distance could not be helped, though.
And Ellie’s absence? She was sorry for that, too. It stung even though she knew what consequences Ellie would have faced had she defied her mother.
In her way, Ellie was as dominated by her mother as the red-light ladies were by Preston and the Fitzgerald boys. Sadly, she had more power to help the doves than she did her own friend.
With the good wishes finished, Cleve whispered in her ear, his breath moist and warm against her upswept hair. “What do you say we eat Dorothy’s meal, quick-like, give the boys their cake and then go upstairs, Mrs. Holden?”
“Dorothy’s prepared a feast, so we’ll have to linger awhile, but I’ll admit—” she turned to face him, speaking low “—it’s not food I’m hungry for.”
Cleve laughed. The suggestive rumble fluttered her heart, but lower it did things that made her want to skip the meal and run up the stairs two at a time.
The house was as quiet as Leanna’s held breath.
After the feasting and the many toasts to a long marriage and a dozen baby Holdens, the company, Cabe and Melvin among them, had gone to spend the night at the saloon, which was closed because it was Sunday.
Leanna sat on her bed. Cleve stood in front of her, his masculinity a contrast to the flowered frilliness of her bedroom. He gazed down at her with a look that, while not precisely love, held a good deal of simmering, seductive affection.
He unbuttoned his coat and set it on the bed behind her.
“I’m going to kiss you, Mrs. Holden.” He removed his tie, then his shirt and laid them on top of the jacket. “Everywhere.”
He began with her fingertips. Kneeling in front of her, he nibbled them one by one.
Now would be time to warn him that she was untouched.
Then again, it might be better to wait until after she discovered what the next place to be kissed would be.
Oh, the cleft of her elbow—how lovely.
The next instant wasn’t the moment to admit her secret because his lips nuzzled the curve between her neck and her shoulder, and really, she’d like to feel that a moment longer before she spoke up.
His teeth nipped her earlobe at the same time he reached behind her to flick open the pearl buttons on the back of her wedding gown.
Air, heavy with heat and humidity, clung to her arms when he drew the gown away from her body. Fabric shifted and whispered, fluttering forward onto her lap. She lifted up to allow him to slide the garment to the floor. His fingers caressed a sultry path from hips, to calves, to ankles.
She nearly opened her mouth to reveal her secret but there was a chance that he would hate her desperately after she did. Her groom was entitled to the experienced, provocative woman he thought he’d married, not a quivering virgin, even if the virgin was not quivering with fear but instead with anticipation of what was coming next.
He pulled hairpins from the stylish mound of loops and whorls piled on top of her head.
“I’ve wondered what this would feel like.” He drew the loose strands through his fingers, gathered the tresses to one side and smoothed them over her breast. Her nipple puckered against peekaboo lace and the hot palm of his hand.
It was nearly too late to make her confession now. She might as well wait until…
“Oh…mmm.” The only thing her sigh confessed was that when his big hands circled her breasts, squeezed and caressed them though a veil of lace, she felt like a drowsy bee circling a honey pot.
This was the moment in time to reveal the truth. In another second he would taste the honey in her pot. He would discover the truth of her unsullied condition on his own and he might despise her.
To her dismay, her tongue and everything else had become too languid to move. He tugged on her camisole, exposing her breasts to the stuffy air and to his perusal.
“Cleve, I—” she managed.
“So do I, love, so do I.”
Poor Cleve, he didn’t; he only thought he did. She yanked the sheer fabric up. It didn’t do much to hide her chest from his increasingly intimate stare.
“But, Cleve, it’s raining.”
Even though she would have sworn it to be impossible, she stood, hurried across the room and down the stairs.
A good drenching ought to shake the words out of her, or at least give her more time to consider them.
No matter what words she used, Cleve might leave her. When a man married a mother, the last thing he expected on his wedding night was a lying virgin.
Chapter Nine
Cleve dashed outside. Rain sheeted off the back porch roof. It pounded the ground. The welcome scent of wet earth made the temperature seem to dip.
Halfway across the yard, Leanna stood with her arms outstretched and her face tipped toward the sky. Just like the trees and the grass, she soaked up water. So did her camisole and her bloomers.
Cleve stepped out into the rain. Water ran down his bare chest and for the first time in days he was able to take a gulp of cool air.
He was a goat, a worm…a hypocrite of the worst kind. While Leanna was moments from revealing the secret of her virginity, he had determined that he might never admit his secret to her. If he did, it might damn him in her eyes.
He didn’t want to be damned in her eyes. He wanted to look into them and see… Hell, he didn’t know quite what it was he wanted to see, but it wasn’t disfavor.
He watched his bride dance about the yard, probably not realizing that her underclothes had become translucent. It was a lucky thing that the nearest neighbor was a fair distance away and that visibility was impaired by the deluge.
Standing several feet away from Leanna doing her happy rain dance, he crossed his arms and smiled. The storm did only good things to his visibility.
He did know, after all, what he wanted to see in his bride’s eyes—lust, burning blue-hot.
Her appreciation of the rain was infectious. He lifted his face. Cool, watery fingers washed over his eyes and nose; it soaked his hair.
New life had begun today. His, Leanna’s and Cabe’s—the promise of it was as fresh as the downpour.
Leanna would never be sorry she had married him; he’d make damn sure of that.
It wouldn’t hurt a soul to keep his and Cabe’s former relationship buried. Beginning today, he was no longer his uncle, but his father.
He lowered his head and opened his eyes. His bride stood motionless, staring at him with a big, doelike gaze.
Curly hair, raven-black with water sluicing over it, looped down her back. Sheer lace clung to her breasts; it kissed her where he longed to. Soggy embroidered roses circled her nipples with an invitation for him to pluck the pebbled bouquet.
“You are lovely, Leanna.” The tightness in his throat choked his words.
The bloomers’ gauzy shadow curved her backside; it stroked the slope of belly and hip.
She resembled a porcelain doll, luminous, with water glistening on every luscious swell and dip. And there, at the junction of her thighs was a curling, dripping nest of ebony hair that made his blood slide from his heart downward.
Wet grass tickled in between his bare toes when he closed the distance between them. He slid his hand around the back of her neck. “Come back upstairs.”
He pressed her to him, lifting her so that they were hea
rtbeat to heartbeat.
He kissed her and tasted cool water on her mouth.
She melted against him, like a flame dancing in the storm and defying it.
Without warning, she shoved against his chest, slid down and took a long step backward. “There’s something I have to tell you.”
He grabbed her hand and pulled her back. “Not now.”
“But, Cleve, it’s important.” She tried to wriggle out of his grip so he kissed her again.
For an instant she allowed it, but in the end, she turned her head. “I’ve kept a secret from you.... I didn’t give birth to Cabe.”
Here was the conversation he’d sought since he first set foot in Cahill Crossing, but at this instant, it was the last thing he wanted to hear.
“I know I should have told you sooner. I wanted to, but I had to know I could trust you and…” Moisture misted her eyes. “The fact is I do and now I’m sorry I didn’t—”
“That’s not important right now,” he heard his voice whisper, quite shocked that it was true. “Tonight, not a damn thing exists but you and me and that bed upstairs.”
“But, Cleve! I’m a virgin.”
He swept her up in his arms, feeling the slick slide of soaked lace against his skin.
“Not for long.”
“But, Cleve,” Leanna whispered when her husband lay her down on her…their…bed and covered her with himself. “Don’t you care that I lied to you?”
He paused with his fingers tangled in the waistband of her bloomers.
“What you did is keep a secret.” He rolled off her to lie beside her, his belly to her hip. He pulled the drawstring from her drawers, leaving the lace slack and gaping. He stroked her belly. “We all have them.”
“But don’t you want to—” his fingers circled downward; one of them dipped into her feminine spot, still circling “—to… I can’t think when you do that.”
“Good, you aren’t supposed to.” With his free hand he cupped her breast, then rolled her nipple between his fingers. “We’ll think later. Right now, it’s about you and me and carnal knowledge.”
“I believe that I could become fond of carnal knowledge.” She didn’t think about doing it, but she moved her hips, seeking deeper pleasure.
Cleve made a sound deep in his chest, something like a lion’s purr and her name.
She wasn’t finished speaking. She wanted to assure him that this closeness would be enough to base a marriage on, for now at least, but her thoughts fled. Existence narrowed to Cleve Holden, the scent of him, the sound of his breath in her ear and the seduction of his circling finger urging her to lay her heart at his feet.
The only word she knew in that moment was Cleve. Moaned and not spoken.
Lightning flashed outside, spearing the room with shattered light. Lightning flashed inside her, shattering her with pleasure, then leaving her pulsing in its ebb.
Wind hit the side of the house and blew rain through the open window into the room. It pattered on the rug where Cleve stood, stepping out of his trousers. He slipped off his drawers.
Thunder tumbled across the roof. Water drops pebbled over her groom’s skin. They hung like tiny diamonds on his chest and the muscled lines of his belly. Her husband was a wonderful sight, lean and hard everywhere…absolutely everywhere.
Crawling over her on the bed, his knees brushed the inside of her thighs, nudging them. One part of him that was hard was also heavy. It grazed her mound, stiff and fever-hot. She gasped at what that sensation did to her, what it made her want to do.
Virgin or not, she knew to splay her thighs for him, her husband.
When he filled her, stretched her, passion sweltered white-hot; it intoxicated. He moved within her and she answered him. When he shattered, she shattered.
She came to herself with his weight sprawled across her and her name on his lips, his breath stirring her hair.
As of this moment, she was Leanna Holden in name and deed. Even more, she was Leanna Holden in her heart.
She loved Cleve, and for now, the joining of their bodies would be enough.
It would not be enough forever, but for now, she would be content to be taught the art of carnal knowledge.
Leanna slept with her head on his chest, her bare shoulder half-covered by her hair. He stroked the dark strands between his fingers, smoothing the curls, then letting them spring back into place.
He tugged her in close with both arms to better feel the rise and fall of her breathing.
Even now, after the night they had spent, he could scarcely believe she was his.
They had made love all through the wee hours. Sometimes he took her as wildly as the storm still pounding the house. Other times he took her sweetly and tenderly, but in the end, she was the one to have taken him. Each and every time she sighed or gasped his name she staked her claim deeper in his heart.
If the choice were his, he would hold this moment, just the two of them warm and sated while the storm blustered against the closed window. Life wasn’t in the habit of waiting, though. Dawn would bring things that needed facing.
Many of them wonderful. His nephew was now his to raise, his wife his to…to care for deeply.
One thing was not wonderful. He kept a secret that he regretted keeping. It was as risky as four of a kind in a cheater’s hand with the fifth already on the table.
He’d told Leanna that love could grow. But so fast? He didn’t think so. What he felt in this moment had to be the result of admiration and lust, tinder to flint, spreading like wildfire.
If the day came that he fell in love with his wife, he would be vulnerable in a way that he had never been before. He’d seen the results of love gone wrong. Hadn’t that ultimately killed his little sister?
If Leanna ever discovered that he was Cabe’s uncle she wouldn’t forgive him and he wouldn’t blame her. When a woman married a protector, she didn’t want a goat and a worm. When she inevitably left him, he might recover from caring deeply, but not from loving her with a full heart.
The wedding night had been perfect. He’d chase the dawn away with his bare fists if he could, but it was on its way along with the return of the people who lived in this house.
The very last thing he wanted right now was to know how his sister had died, but some things had to be faced.
“Leanna,” he whispered in her ear. Her lips tickled his shoulder when she smiled. “Wake up, love.”
She stretched both arms over her head and blinked her eyes. One perfectly mounded, well-tended breast peeped out from under the blanket.
“Um.” She sighed. “Please don’t say it’s morning already.”
“Not quite.” He sat up and leaned back against the headboard. Hell, he didn’t want to do this. “I’d like to hear the story of how you became an untouched mother.”
Leanna sighed. She sat up and propped a pillow between her back and the headboard. She handed one to him, then drew the blanket to her chin.
“If you aren’t Cabe’s mama, who is?” he asked with all the innocence he could fabricate.
Here was the beginning of deceptions. He would listen to the story of Arden’s tragic end, nodding and holding back emotion as though his sister had been a stranger.
“Don’t hate me, Cleve.” She glanced up sideways at him and made him feel worse than a low-down worm.
“I suppose you had good reasons for taking the boy.”
“His mother gave him to me.”
He’d figured as much, but he needed to hear the story and all the while put on the face of a common, concerned stranger.
“Since I’m Cabe’s papa now, I ought to know what happened.”
“I’m glad you are his papa.” She squeezed his hand under the covers.
He was glad to be raising the boy, more than he could let on.
“I met Arden Honeybee—that’s his mama’s name—in Deadwood.”
He had so many questions that he could not ask. Did she ever speak of her brother? That one haunted him.
>
“Honeybee went in place of her last name. So many of the women were too ashamed to reveal their family name—Arden was one of those.”
“Poor thing,” he said casually. “I wonder if she had a family.”
“I asked her. She said she didn’t, but she’d have said that, regardless.”
Apparently, his bride didn’t notice how pain had turned him rigid beside her. She went on with the story without hesitation.
“I don’t want you to think badly of Arden, Cleve. She was a good and decent woman before society turned against her.”
“If she’d had family, they might have helped her.”
“Most wouldn’t. Arden came to Deadwood hoping to find honest work, but that’s not an easy thing for a woman, even a healthy one. Poor Arden was far from healthy.”
“That’s sad.” He would have helped her; he wanted to shout it but couldn’t.
“Tragic is what…and so very sad. There was a time when Arden had been happy and in love, looking forward to getting married, even.”
“Did she say what happened?”
Leanna nodded. “The fellow was a beast. He used her and left her.”
“You said one time that he didn’t know that he had fathered a child.”
“It doesn’t make him less of a beast.”
“It makes him more of one. He should have been certain before he went on his way. You ought to tell me who he is.”
“Not more than I ought to keep my promise to my dying friend.”
Her words brought a picture to his mind that was too hard to take sitting down. He got up and walked naked to the window, staring at the rain-streaked windowpane without seeing it.
“Maybe we shouldn’t open the saloon today,” he mumbled, just to have something to say. “The storm keeps getting worse.”
“Maybe… Come back to bed, Cleve, you look chilled.”
He was, but not the way she thought. She lifted her arms and he returned to the bed.
“Then what happened?” He settled beside her.
“Arden serviced the men at the saloon where I dealt cards. It wasn’t the most awful place she could have worked, but she grew sicker as time went on. Not many men take to a sick whore, especially one whose belly is swollen.”
