Dorothy Garlock - [Wabash River] (27 page)

“Not like I do when I’m . . . tickled.”

Her voice died away and she lifted her face. Her heartbeat had quickened. The rest of her tingled. Her hand, captured between his and his chest, felt the pounding of his heart. She wiggled her hand out from under his and moved it up to the curve of his neck. Her fingers slipped into his hair.

He held her with gentle strength. Reality was fading. It seemed an eternity before his lips slid across her cheek to her mouth. He made a low groaning sound as he began to kiss her soft and sweetly parted lips. His kissed her tenderly, nudging her lips, stroking them. The softness of his mustache was a silky caress on her cheeks. Then, as if he couldn’t get enough of her, he hungrily pressed his mouth to hers and tightened his arms around her.

She wasn’t prepared for the warmth or the strength of his hard, muscular body, the long legs against hers, the enormous arms under and around her.

“You’re a very kissable woman, Addie Tallman,” he said huskily when he lifted his mouth from hers. “You smell and taste like a flower garden.”

His hungry mouth searched and found hers again, and held it with fierce but tender possession. His hand moved down to her buttocks and pressed the seat of her femininity tightly to his thigh.

She wanted to speak, to tell him that she was not a girl but a woman, that she was not afraid of giving herself. She opened her mouth, but it was too late. He covered her parted lips, his tongue darting hotly into her mouth and out again, exploring lips that trembled beneath his demanding kiss. She moaned gently and panted for breath.

“Addie, sweetheart!” he whispered between kisses. He wanted to be closer to her soft body, to hold her against him so tightly that their flesh would become one.
She’s not a
whore,
he told himself sternly.
She’s known you for less than
a week.
“I’m trying to stop.” He gasped. “But you’re so sweet . . . a sweet, soft woman. I want to touch you . . . everywhere.”

“You can.” She pressed herself wantonly against him.

“No.” He fell away from her. “I promised you I’d not force you to accept me.”

Even as he spoke, her hands clutched him closer, her stomach muscles tightened, and her breathing and heartbeat were all mixed up.
Oh, dear heaven!
she thought wildly.
I love him! How did it happen so fast?

She leaned up so that she could peer down into his face.

“If I didn’t want you, you’d know it damn quick,” she said angrily, then dropped her face down to his chest, wadded her fist, and hit him on the shoulder. “See what you’ve done? You’ve made me make a fool out of myself.”

To say that John was stunned would be to put it mildly. He didn’t know that she was crying until he felt her tears on his skin. He tried to lift her face, but she held it tightly to his chest.

“Addie, honey. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I’ve . . . disgusted you,” she said between silent sobs.

“Where in the world did you get such a ridiculous idea?” He pushed the hair from her cheeks with fingers that shook.

There was a long silence. When she spoke, she seemed determined to say the words.

“Because . . . because I was acting like a . . . bitch in heat. That’s why! Nice ladies don’t act like that. Whores do.”

John drew in a deep, shaky breath as his mind grappled with what she was saying.

“Where did you get that idea?” he asked again. “Hellfire, sweetheart. The reason I stopped was because I didn’t want to push myself on you, make you feel obligated to let me love you. I want you to want me as much as I want you.”

“I . . . didn’t want you to stop. But—”

“Honey . . .” He kissed her forehead as if she were a child. “Why were you afraid to let me know that you liked to be kissed, and touched, and made love to? It’s certainly nothing for you to be ashamed of.” Her silence spoke for her. “Did Kirby Hyde tell you that a
lady
lies like a lump of flesh and lets her man satisfy himself on her body?” When Addie remained silent, John felt fierce anger toward the man. “If he told you those things, he was a stupid, ignorant son of a bitch!”

John’s arms closed around her and he held her so close that she could barely breathe. When his fingers raised her chin, she snuggled her cheek against his shoulder. John’s thumbs stroked the wetness beneath her eyes.

“You have such beautiful eyes. I’ve never seen any as beautiful. I don’t like to see them filled with tears. Honey, it’s just as natural for a female to want to mate with her man as it is for a man to feel the urge to mate. A man who has a woman who wants to join her flesh to his, to take pleasure from him as he does from her, is a very lucky man.”

Addie kept her eyes tightly closed. They lay quietly, as Addie felt the thump of his heart against her palm. When she spoke, words that she had no intention of saying just flowed out on a sob.

“I . . . don’t know what’s wrong with me. I think I . . . love you.”

John caught his breath. “Sweetheart! I had hoped you would . . . someday.”

“But it’s too soon!”

“It happens like that sometimes. I may have fallen in love with you when I saw you that day in the store. Something drew me out to your farm.”

“You can’t—”

“Can’t love you? Why not?”

“Because I’m . . . plain. And I’ve got three children.”

“Addie, my love, you’re far from plain. I’ve never met a woman who made me feel as you do, or who I wanted to be with . . . all the time. And those children are just an added bonus.”

He hugged her so hard that she began to believe it could be true. She lifted her face to his. Their lips came together. Hers were soft, while his were hard and insistent. Her reaction to the kiss was instantaneous. Her lips parted, her whole body shivered, and her arm crept up and around his neck. Naked heat built in both of them. He breathed the fragrance of her skin, her hair, felt himself flame and harden. His arms and legs began to quiver.

His hands moved down her body. The nightdress was unbuttoned and swept away without her being quite aware of it. She returned his kisses with innocent hunger. The long, hard rod pressed to her belly thrilled her. The rough, seeking touch of his callused fingers, stroking her from her nape to her shoulder to cup her breast in his huge hand, sent delicious shivers throughout her melting flesh. His mouth was hard yet wonderfully warm and sweet. A joyful desire burned within her. She closed her eyes in ecstasy.

“Touch me, too, sweetheart,” he whispered softly, placing her hand palm down on his abdomen.

The need for him blazed through her body and mind. She stroked him from his throat down over his shoulder to his lean rib cage, flat belly, and taut buttocks. His breathing came fast and irregular as her soft hand glided over his flesh. His whispered words were muffled as he kissed her lips and his tongue probed at the corner of her mouth. He held her breast in his hand as he lowered his head to nuzzle it and take the nipple into his mouth.

It was all so sweet, so much better than she had ever imagined it could be. He was unhurried, gentle, his stroking hands and warm mouth sending waves of awakening pleasure up and down her spine. She arched against him, tugging at his powerful body as his hands slid under her, lifting her to him. She opened her thighs and welcomed him. He slid into her, filling her. There was a frenzied singing in her blood, and it grew with such rapidity that words beat against her brain: “I love you . . . I love you . . .”

She heard his smothered groans as if they came from a long way to reach her ears; and then the pleasure rose to intolerable heights, and she was conscious of nothing but her own sensations. She clung to him as an intense tide of feeling washed over her.

“Addie, sweetheart, I’ve—”

What he was about to say was never said. He began to move within her in a fevered rhythm, each breath a soft, stirring gasp.

Soaring, they held on to each other fiercely, as they ascended into ecstasy.

“Oh, Lord!” he cried, clutching her against him.

Addie’s heart raced, her mind whirled. Her arms and body were deliciously full of him. John’s head had dropped to her shoulder, and she delighted in the weight of his body on hers. Love for him filled her heart. She was sharing his pleasure, and he was right—there was no shame in it, just joy.

John turned on his side, bringing her with him, wrapping his powerful arms around her, pulling her thigh up over his so that they could stay united. The swift honesty with which she had given herself overwhelmed him. He had no words to tell her what her sharing of this sweet intimacy meant to him.

“Sweetheart, will you like this part of our married life? Lord, my heart is racing like a runaway mule. I wanted you to—feel what I did.”

“It was grand. I felt as if I went out of my body for a little while. Is that what you wanted me to feel? I didn’t know it could be so pleasant.”

“Always tell me how you feel. If a time comes and you’re not in the mood to do this, you only have to tell me. I can wait.”

His hand moved down to her hips and pressed her soft down tightly to his groin. The part of him inside her swelled and hardened again. He hesitated for a moment, a long moment to see if she would pull away. Then with a quick intake of breath and a hungry, eager, forward motion of his hips, he moved in that slow, ecstatic rhythm of love.

Addie’s mouth was as eager as his. She invaded his mouth with the tip of her tongue. A small sound of pleasure came from deep in his throat at the sweet entry. As she met his thrust, a flame was rekindled in her belly. The flickering fire went on and on. The widening circle of pleasure was so profound that it sucked her into a swirling eddy where she thought she would drown. She sobbed his name as together they let go and moved into another world.

Drained, Addie turned toward him when he fell away from her. She reflected with wonder at what had happened. She couldn’t get over the tempest of fiery emotion that he had aroused in her or how sweetly he had doused that fire.

His heart was quieter now, his breathing slower. She lay cocooned in his arms, her arm twined around his neck as his hands stroked her back and buttocks, and wondered if she had ever been happier in her life. She had meant to give this strong, wonderful man comfort in payment for what he had done for her. It had turned out so differently from what she expected.

She had found heaven.

*  19  *

J
ohn and Addie met the Dutchman at daylight to take possession of the prairie schooner he had built to serve as a traveling home for himself, his wife, and six children. It was forty-two inches wide, fourteen feet long, and designed with a chuck box extending three feet across the back end. A lid, which was as large as the front of the box, was hinged to the bottom. It was designed to be raised to close the box, and when it was let down, it became a table.

The box was equipped with all the cooking utensils a family needed: an iron pot big enough to hold two gallons of water and with two bail handles so that it could be hung over a campfire; an iron skillet for frying; a Dutch oven with heavy iron lid for baking; and a coffeepot. There was a space to hold eating utensils and staples, even a built-in salt box.

On top of the three-foot-high sides of the wagon, boards were nailed crosswise. These crossboards began behind the wagon seat and extended back six feet. A mattress rested on them. John explained that this was called an overjet. Beneath the overjet was room for another mattress. Attached to the wagon bed on all sides, rolled up and tied, was heavy canvas. This canvas could be let down and staked to make a snug tent beneath the wagon.

Four bows arched over the wagon, covered by a huge sheet of heavy duck from the front to the back with enough left over to draw together at the end.

On the outside of the wagon were shelves for a water keg, a water bucket, kerosene lantern, ax, scrub board, laundry tub, and other necessities.

Yesterday’s purchases from Poole’s store had already been brought to the wagon, as had supplies from a list Bill Wassall had given John.

Addie’s eyes were bright with excitement as she looked over the wagon. She came back to stand close to John. He introduced her to the Dutchman and she told him how sorry she was that he had lost his wife.

After the Dutchman left, John grabbed Addie’s hand and pulled it into the crook of his arm.

“Do you like it?”

“It’s grand. But, oh, that poor man. You can see that he put his heart into that wagon.”

“We gave him a good price. He can take his family back to where he has friends and relatives and have enough left over to give him a start. Do you know what I like the best about the outfit?”

“The chuck box?”

“I didn’t even notice that.” John grinned. “I like it because at night I’ll have you all to myself. The family can sleep in the wagon, you and I under it. With the sides let down, we’ll have our own tent.”

Addie’s cheeks turned rosy. She shuttered her eyes until he wiggled her chin with his thumb and forefinger. Then her eyes, shining violet pools, smiled up at him.

On the way to Lupe’s for breakfast, they stopped at the corral so that Addie could say goodbye to the two faithful animals who had been a part of her life for so long. She rubbed their noses and patted their necks.

“What will the liveryman do with them?” she asked.

“Someone will come along who’ll want good old horses for light duties. They’ll be all right.”

“ ’Bye, Betsy. ’Bye, Martha.” Addie turned away quickly and walked with John to the eatery.

Lupe was as boisterous this morning as she had been the night before.

“Yi, yi, yi. My eyes is lovin’ what I’m seein’. Johnny, ya look like a fox a-comin’ outta a chicken house.”

“You look good too, Lupe.” He grinned at the little woman. “How about some tortillas and eggs?”

“Tortillas and eggs for the lovers,” she teased, disappearing into the kitchen. She returned with a platter of food and placed it in front of them. “Eat,” she commanded. “I go to feed my babies.”

“My wife is a sheep lover too, Lupe.”