Christie (35 page)

"Garrett, are you in there?"

"Damn!" Garrett whispered hoarsely.

Christie had raised herself to a sitting position and was trying to rearrange her tangled hair with her fingers.

"We'd better answer them," she whispered, her breathing still coming rapid and hard.

"I'm afraid you'll have to head them off for me, sweet," smiled Garrett. "The tightness of my breeches leaves no doubt as to what I've been about."

Looking down, Christie blushed furiously as she saw what he meant. Quickly she stood up, gesturing for Garrett to remain behind.

"Hello, Jesse, Clarence," she called, hurrying to the other end of the long row of stalls where they stood. "Are you looking for Garrett? I think he went
outside for a minute looking for something he dropped near the back somewhere. I'm waiting for him, too, so we can all go to find him together, shall we?"

With a smile, she led them out the door.

It was late afternoon when Christie, after nursing Adam, came downstairs. She was hoping to greet Garrett as he returned from the stables where he had spent most of the day going over the new breeding program with Jesse. Her mood was light and flushed with expectation as she remembered their moments in the stable this morning.

She had reached the entry foyer and was about to make her way through the center hall toward the back of the house when she heard voices coming from behind the stairs.

"Katy, what's a fancy woman?" "Millie, hush! You know Grannie told us not to ask about such things!"

"But there's one out front in a grand carriage right now, and I heard Abel tell Clarence she's from Charleston and Mr. Garrett was
staying
with her while he was away!"

"Girls! Come out from under those stairs right now!" Mattie Oliver's voice ordered, and the carrot-topped twins rushed to obey.

Christie stood very still, pondering what she had heard, when the front door opened and in burst a woman Christie had never seen.

"I'm sorry, but I'm tired of waiting until somebody decides to invite me in," said Lucille Baker. "Where's Garrett? I have his—oh!"

I'm his wife," said Christie, looking Lucille
over
carefully.

What she saw was a tall strawberry
blonde of about thirty-five, well, though opulently,
dress
ed in the latest fashion. She had a beautiful face
and
a curvaceous figure, and could have passed for a
much younger woman, but her eyes gave her away.
Their steely gray depths bespoke a hardness Christie
had never seen before in a woman, but they also
revealed a keen intelligence that suggested cunning
more than wisdom. There was a weariness about
their look, too, suggesting things seen and better left
for
gotten.

"May I help you, Mistress—?"

"Baker,
Miss
Lucille Baker," said the woman as she took in every detail of Christie's person. "So you're the one who finally got him," she mused aloud, her voice low and throaty. "I might have known . .-.all peach blossoms and sunshine with a face to make an angel jealous."

The smile didn't reach the gray eyes.

"I hate your
guts!
Nothing personal now,
Mistress Randall,
nothing personal! But you see, I've known your husband for some time—business
and
pleasure—and I rather thought. . . Well, what does it matter what I thought? I've come to return some of his things. He left them at my place when he ran home several weeks ago. Andrew! Bring those bags in here!"

A tall, thin mulatto entered, carrying several bags and trunks, and deposited them in the foyer.

"I don't usually run errands like this in person," continued Lucille, "but in this case, I had to see something for myself."

She turned to leave.

"Give my best regards to your husband, dear. He's one hell of a man and welcome at my place
anytime,
you know. Tell him that, too, if you dare!" She laughed.

Shaken and angry, Christie watched her enter her carriage, nod to the driver, and ride away.

"Oh, ma'am," said Mattie behind her. "You shouldn't have been here talkin' to the likes of her. I told Clarence to send her—ma'am, where are you goin?"

"I—I think I need a breath of air," answered Christie on her way out the door.

As she ran across the front of the house, angry tears began to well up in her eyes, but she fought to keep them down, and as she rounded the corner, heading for the garden at the back, she missed seeing Jesse and Garrett walking up from the stables.

"Christie?" called Garrett.

She stopped for a moment, took one look at him, and then resumed running, but at a faster pace.

"What the devil—?" said Garrett, and then he spotted Mattie's rounded form ambling around the corner of the house.

"Mattie, what's going on here? Why is my wife—?"

"Oh, Mr. Garrett, it was that fancy woman from Charleston. She came to return some—some of your things, sir, and Miz Randall—"

"Lucille? Lucille Baker was here talking to Christie? Oh, damn! Jess, I'll see you later," he called behind him as he took off in Christie's direction.

Garrett found her in the garden, sitting on a swing
he
had
erected for her pleasure just a few days before.
She was not swinging in it now, however. She
sat very
still, her hands on the ropes, looking straight ahead.

He stopped
a
short distance from her beside a great oak tree that spread its branches over the entire garden.

"Christie?" Garrett's voice was soft.

She turned to look at him, but said not a word; yet he saw the hurt in her eyes.

"Christie, I don't know what that woman said to you,
but you've got to believe she means nothing to
me.
Lucille Baker and her kind are all a part of the past
,
and my life no longer requires their association.
Can
you understand that?"

Christie folded her hands in her lap and studied
them
quietly for a moment. "You—you lived with
her
while I was here at Riverlea," she said miserably.

"When I was angry and hurt, and licking my wounds, yes!" he answered. "But even then, the whole time I stayed there, I never once touched one of those women!"

He walked closer until he stood just a few feet in front of the swing.

"Christie, I've touched no other woman since I had your virgin body on the
Marianne
that day—none!"

She looked at him, an unreadable expression on her face.

"Christie," questioned Garrett softly, "why did you leave me in New York?"

She couldn't meet his eyes and looked away. "I—I said it in my letter. The marriage seemed a mistake. It—it wouldn't have happened if we hadn't run into
Uncle Barnaby, and the thought of being wed to someone who was trapped into marrying me and didn't—" She stopped, unable to say the words.

"Didn't what, love?" asked Garrett, drawing her up out of the swing by both hands. "Didn't love you?" he asked, his voice ever so soft.

Christie bit her lip and refused to look at him, but she nodded her head.

"And what if I told you that the man
didn't
marry you because he felt trapped? What if I told you that, had the woman been anyone but you, he would have walked away from that inn, as cool as
ice
water, leaving the woman to do the explaining? And what if I told you I didn't realize myself at the time, that I was doing it as a means of holding onto you when I feared you would go from me and, unbeknownst even to myself, I had fallen so hopelessly in love with you, the very threat of our parting was unthinkable? Christie-love, little one, I love you! With every breath of my being, I
love you!"

Hot tears tung Christie's eyes as she turned to look at him; incredulous, and hardly daring to hope, she searched his face.

It was there. A look of love so profound, her body shook with her recognition of it.

"Oh, Garrett!" she cried, the tears sliding down her cheeks, "I've loved you for
so long!
Oh, I love you so!"

And she was in his arms as he held her without words, his lips on her hair. The soft fragrance of it caused his head to reel, and his very soul seemed to ache from the sweet, painful joy of this moment.

Slowly, ever so tenderly, he took his hands and

cupped her face to look at her. At his look, Christie felt consumed by a fire and warmth that rocked
her
very being, so full of love were his eyes. Then
their
lips met in a kiss that at once wiped away all the long; lonely months of pain and hurt, communicating only joy, and hope, and love.

At last, he raised his head and, never taking his eyes from her face, lifted her up in his arms and began
to
carry her to the house. As he walked, their eyes remained focused on each other, seeing nothing else. Into the house, he carried her, finding the way by memory rather than sight.

The communication between them was clear: this was completion and fulfillment; this was the end of the dark night; this was dream and reality met, perfect and whole.

When they reached the foyer, they passed Jesse, who had been winding the tall case clock in the corner. At first hearing their approach, the younger brother started to say something, but seeing what was happening, held his tongue and, grinning, watched them go up the stairs.

Once in the master bedroom, Garrett carried his wife to the big bed. There he laid her down and quickly joined her, and as he bent over her, his gaze still on her adoring face, he whispered, "With all my love, Christie."

And moving her hands up behind his dark head, catching her fingers in the hair that curled there, Christie answered, "With all my love, my darling."

Then he began to undress her, slowly, caressing, with his hands and his lips, each silken expanse of her throbbing flesh as he bared it, murmuring her
name and his love for her as he worked. He removed his own clothes quickly while Christie watched, her senses filled with the hard beauty of this man she loved so completely, and then they were joined again, kissing hungrily, caressing feverishly, working to dispel the long months of separation, feeling starved for the sweetness of each other's bodies.

But Garrett took his time with her, working tenderly, yet with growing passion, seeking to arouse and prolong her pleasure as much as possible and using every skill at his command as he drew her nearly to the point of madness. He nibbled at her ears, her throat; he traced his lips again and again over the rounded, paler expanses of her breasts before finally rubbing their taut, hardened peaks. These he then teased until Christie felt she must scream from desire; but at the moment she would have done this, his mouth stopped hers while his hot fingers moved down to the insides of her thighs, caressing, always caressing. Then he stroked the silken triangle above them, causing Christie to arch upward, seeking more; and when he found the soft, wet warmth below, she moaned deeply in her throat and reached for his pulsating flesh to show she was ready.

Garrett growled a response, but still he held back, saying, "Don't rush it, love. . . . We've a lifetime," and then his fingers found the tiny hard core at the center of her longing. Delicately, expertly, he stroked, and when Christie's nails bit into the flesh of his back and she begged him, at last he whispered with a breathless laugh,

"All right, little one, all right—" And he entered, driving deeply into her warmth.

But even now he maintained control, stopping to
raise his head and look into her widened eyes, smiling at her as he savored the sensation, the wonder
of
this intimate moment between them.

"Christielove, Christie, oh, love," he breathed.

For several minutes they remained thus while he continued to kiss and fondle, touching his lips to her eyes, the corners of her mouth, exciting her nipples again to peaked hardness until, finally, Christie began to move unconsciously against him. Only then did he give his own desire full vent, moving in unison with her, at first slowly, then faster, driving harder, deeper, forgetting everything but the feel
of
her beneath him. Once, twice, again, he felt her explode before his own bursting avalanche of love joined hers and they were one as never before, complete in each other's love.

In the aftermath, when at last they could speak, Garrett told her, "Time began for me when I met you, Christie, but in many ways I'll measure all I do, all I think, feel, believe in, by these moments we share now."

Holding her very close still, he traced the smile on her mouth with his fingers as he spoke softly against her hair; Christie rested her hand on his chest, weaving her fingers into the mat of black hair there.

"It's all so very simple, really," she said. "Heaven is being with you and in your arms—hell is being apart from you. Oh, Garrett, tell me I'll never know that hell again. I'd die if I ever lost you or your love!"

Garrett rose up on an elbow and looked at her, his green eyes burning into hers.