Elaine Coffman - [MacKinnon 04] (26 page)

“I don’t think anyone would ever
wonder
about
anything we did,” Adrian said, his voice laced with amusement. “Anyone who
would have his brother pick him a wife and marry her by proxy would have
already given them plenty to talk about.”

It suddenly occurred to Maggie how that must have looked to
the men around camp, and just how much teasing Adrian must have taken because
of it. He had to have been embarrassed by all the joking these men were so fond
of—and knowing these men as well as she did, she knew it was probably quite a
bit, and quite funny. A slow, creeping smile came out of nowhere to match the
bubble of amusement that seemed to have popped inside her.

“You wouldn’t laugh at a man simply because he made a fool
of himself, would you?”

“Aye, I ken I would, if the man was you.”

“Laugh all you like,” he said, while watching her try
unsuccessfully to keep a straight face, “but it wasn’t funny at the time.”

“No, I’m sure it wasna.”

“You should have seen the way the men looked at me the
morning I told them—over breakfast—that my brother had picked me out a wife and
married her for me. I never knew so many forks could hit the table at the same
time.”

“You surprised them, that’s all.”

“And perked up their interest a bit, too, I think. If I had
one, I must have had fifteen men ask me if I found you in a catalog.”

“What did you tell them?”

“I asked them what kind of fool they thought would order a
wife out of a catalog.”

“And?”

“And John Schurtz said, ‘A smarter one than would let his
brother pick one out for him.’”

Maggie couldn’t hold back the burst of laughter. “Well, I
ken he was right.”

“Exactly, and that’s why I felt like such an ass. All I
could do was laugh with them.”

A wellspring of admiration flooded her heart. Anyone who
could laugh at himself, in spite of great embarrassment—well, that showed
promise. All the obstacles between them seemed to disappear, and he was simply
a commanding, powerful man who had married her and offered her a new life.
Unaware, at first, of what was happening between them, of the current of desire
that leaped like a static charge from one to the other, she stared up into his
handsome face, mesmerized by those laughing blue eyes, while her mind relayed
the message to her that this man was, really and truly, her husband.

He must have realized it about the same time she did, for
the next instant, she heard him whisper her name. “Maggie,” he said hoarsely,
and then he was standing beside the bed, taking her into his arms. She melted,
beautifully tender and warm, against him.

The next thing she knew, he was pulling her to her feet,
smothering her face with kisses as he ran his hands over her body. Then,
without her even knowing he had done so, he pulled the ribbon on her gown,
opening the neck, wider and wider, until it fell over her shoulders and down to
the floor to lie in a shimmering pool of cream silk.

Chills covered her, but they weren’t from the cool air, but
from the heat in his eyes. She moved to step out of the gown lying on the
floor, and he must have thought she was going to pick the gown up. “Leave it. I
want to see you,” he said. “Don’t cover yourself.”

“I wasna,” she said, stepping away from the gown.

Leaning away from her, Adrian reached for the lamp, turning
it up until her body seemed to glow. Maggie’s heart pounded and her breath was
coming in short, panting gasps. His hand came out, and he placed it with the palm
flat against the place where her heart beat so wildly between her breasts.
“Your breathing is off. Are you nervous?”

“No.”

“Are you certain? Your heart is pounding. I can feel it.”

“Aye, it is, but I canna say it is from nerves.”

“What then?”

“You. The way you look at me.”

His eyes traveled over her slowly, his fingers tracing the
slow-fading welts left from the bones of her corset. He placed his hands around
her waist, his thumbs almost touching. Then he dropped them lower, his thumbs
gliding over the sensitive hollow beneath the bones of her hips. She shivered.
“You have a beautiful body, Maggie,” he said, taking her in his arms and
kissing her.

When she looked up at him, he was smiling. It was an honest
smile, the kind she thought he might smile when no one was looking. There was a
softness, a gentleness, to it that made him look younger, almost boyish. Gone
was the customary cynicism, the hardness, the man who went to such lengths to
hide what he was feeling. If she didn’t know he loved another woman, she would
have sworn what she saw in his eyes was love.

“I dinna—”

“Shhhh,” he said, placing his fingertips over her mouth,
then drawing her close, he kissed her forehead, each of her eyes. Then moving
lower, he placed kisses along her throat, dropping down to kiss a fiery trail
along the line of her shoulders. She shuddered, sucking in her breath when he
began to kiss her thoroughly, and with such attention to detail, as though he
could take the rest of his life to finish. She found herself wishing he would.
He might be a man of few words, but his actions spoke volumes. She had no idea
a kiss could be so agonizingly slow—or so well placed. Methodically he moved
from her shoulders to her breasts, taking her into his mouth.

Maggie groaned and leaned her head back, wanting him with a
desperation that consumed her. Her mind racing, she didn’t, at first, realize
he had picked her up until he stood her on the footstool in front of the chair.
He was kissing her belly now, and her hands curled in his hair from the
exquisite pleasure of it. There had to be another word for what he was doing,
for
lovemaking
seemed far, far too tame. Adrian wasn’t making love to
her, he was…what? Frustration mounted, until it came to her at last. Adrian
didn’t love, he worshiped, and her whole body tingled at the thought.

Over and over, he kissed her, his hands touching, caressing,
all the places his lips missed—and there weren’t many. She almost smiled at the
thought. How like Adrian to be so thorough. He kissed her as if he would never
tire of it, first her thighs, then her knees, her calves, the tops of her feet.

“That’s about it,” she said in a breathless way, and heard
his chuckle.

“Oh no,” he said, “we’ve just begun.”

“Good.”

He chuckled again, and she felt her stomach knot in response.

“This isna fair,” she said. “I’m naked as the day I was
born, and you still have all your clothes on. You have me at your advantage.”

“You have no idea how long I’ve wanted just that,” he said
softly.

His hands came up to her waist to hold her as he buried his
face between her legs.

“Holy Mother of God,” she said, her breath sucking in
sharply. “Adrian…please…”

“Don’t talk,” he said, then did something with his mouth
that made her dig her nails into his shoulders.

“Please. No more. Make love to me. Now.”

“I’m not finished.”

“You will be when I…get…my hands on you.”

“They’re on me now.”

“Aye, but they’re busy holding me up.”

He stopped talking, and she felt the reason why. “You’re
driving me insane,” she said, feeling a trail of sweat trickle down, between
her breasts. “How much further can you go with this?”

He didn’t answer.

“Adrian, for the…love…of God,” she cried, then felt her body
shatter like fragile glass before she collapsed, feeling his arms come around
her.

“I’ll get even with you,” she said weakly as he carried her
back and placed her on the bed.

“That,” he said, “is my dearest wish.” He began removing his
clothes.

Maggie stretched like a sleepy cat, gasping when she felt
his bare skin cover her own. “Adrian,” she whispered.

“Slowly, love, slowly. I know what you need.”

“Aye, but it may not be what I want,” she said, wishing he
would go faster.

He groaned and entered her.

Maggie did not speak after that. She couldn’t, for Adrian
began making the longest, slowest thrusts, and she could only follow the urging
of her body to begin moving with him. Her hands on his buttocks, she could feel
the flex of solid muscle, the curve of his flanks. How perfectly his body fit
against hers, as if they were made from the beginning for this purpose, this
joining, and perhaps they were.

All thought left her, for at that moment, her body
convulsed, Adrian following her a second later. For a long time they lay
together, neither of them moving. At last Adrian rolled to one side, pulling
the blanket over both of them, and taking Maggie into his arms, they slept.

When Adrian awoke some time later, Maggie was looking at
him. “Couldn’t you sleep?” he asked.

“I could, but I’d rather look at you.”

“Why?”

“Because I like looking at you. You’re a handsome man,
Adrian. Any woman would be a fool not to look at you all she could.”

“I’m not interested in what
any
woman does, Maggie.
Only you.”

She watched him for a long time, then she glanced away. “You
confuse me.”

“I confuse myself.” His hand came out to stroke the
baby-soft skin on the inside of her arm. “I’m not very good at expressing
myself, Maggie. I feel the words here,” he said, putting his hand over his
heart, “but it’s hard for me to get the feeling from there to here.” He touched
his lips.

She rolled toward him. “Oh, Adrian, that’s not true. Your
letters…they were beautiful, written with such expression, such tenderness,
such emotion.”

“I can write what I feel, Maggie. I can put it on paper. I
just can’t say it.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. Maybe it’s because I’ve kept so many things
bottled up inside for so long. I feel like I’ve lost the ability to
communicate. I feel one thing, but I seem always to show something else. I
haven’t meant to hurt you, Maggie, but that seems to be what I do best.”

“But you can learn again if you try. It always lightens your
burdens to talk about it.”

“I wouldn’t know. I’ve never had anyone I could talk to.”

“So you kept your feelings, your emotions, to yourself?”

“I suppose I did. It’s understandable, I suppose. What man
in his right mind would go baring his soul to four brothers? Can you imagine
the teasing I would have taken if they had known what I was feeling?”

Maggie looked at him, her hand coming out to cup his cheek.
“What are you feeling now?”

“Like I have a lot of things I should tell you…things I
want
to tell you, but I don’t know how.”

“You dinna know how?” she asked. “Or are you afraid?”

He stared at the ceiling, his hands coming up to fold behind
his head. “Maybe I am afraid. I don’t know.”

“I think you are. I won’t laugh at you, Adrian, and I won’t
throw your feelings back in your face. Why is it so hard for you to trust?”

“Because trust hurts,” he said, squeezing his eyes closed.

“And that is why you hold yourself back.”

“I learned a long time ago that if you trust in yourself, no
one else can betray you.”

“You feel those you’ve loved have betrayed you?”

“Yes,” he said, almost shouting. “Yes. Yes. Yes. And it’s
true. You want to know why?”

She nodded.

“Because
every
person I have ever been close to,
everyone
I’ve ever loved, has either died or turned away from me. My parents died and
left me an orphan, my brothers scattered…”

“But Alex came out here with you.”

“And left, taking…”

“Taking Katherine with him,” she said. “Another rejection.”

“It doesn’t matter now. After a while, you get used to it.
Better a quiet death than a public humiliation. My heart seems to gain its
strength by being wounded.”

Adrian wasn’t at breakfast the next morning, and he didn’t
come home for dinner that night. Maggie spent the morning alone, taking Israel
for a long walk along the beach, sitting for a long time on the point, staring
out across the water, thinking about last night.
One fire burns out
another’s burning; One pain is lessened by another’s anguish.
How true the
words of
Romeo and Juliet
now rang, for in truth, Adrian’s anguish had
all but extinguished the memory of her own pain. He suffered, and she suffered
with him. How strange it was that she had always thought laughter was so easy
to share, but pain was something private to be shared alone.

She stood, calling Israel, and walked back to the house. Her
step was lighter, the look on her face a bit brighter. Adrian hadn’t gone so
far as to say he loved her, but he had opened his heart to her, and that had a
brightness all its own.

She spent the afternoon in the house, adding the finishing
touches to a painting she was doing, one of Adrian and Israel: a large canvas
with Adrian in a relaxed pose, his features softened and gazing out over the
Pacific, his hand resting on Israel’s yellow head.

Maggie dabbed her brush in yellow ocher and blended it with
a little sienna brown, pausing before stroking the darker color along Israel’s
muzzle, thinking that this was the only time she had ever seen Israel
still—unless, of course, he was asleep.

Finishing touches were always tedious and time-consuming,
but it was a good way to spend a lazy afternoon. Long shadows of late afternoon
streaked across the floor when she began to clean her brushes in turpentine.

A door suddenly slammed down the hallway and she could hear
shouting, peppered with a few well-placed curses. Maggie quickly put the
painting and her supplies away, then hurried as she heard all manner of
stomping and grunting coming from the vicinity of the kitchen.

She stepped inside in time to see Adrian and Big John
dragging in a large, burlap-covered carcass. Over at the sink, Molly was
dwarfed by a mountain of salmon. Stopping in the middle of the room, she looked
from Adrian to Molly, then back to Adrian.