High Country Bride (34 page)

Lucy held the lantern high. “All right, now?” she asked, with another smile.

Emmeline nodded, and followed her back inside.

It was the middle of the night, and Emmeline was lying on that reprehensible bed, wearing all her clothes, including her bonnet and shoes, and only half asleep, when a thunderous knock sounded at her door. This time, she knew it wasn’t Lucy who’d come calling.

She bolted out of bed and rushed over to the door, where she had not only put the latch in place but propped the chair back underneath the knob, as Lucy had suggested. Again, she yearned for Becky’s derringer. If she’d had it, she might have fired right through the door, no questions asked.

“Go away!” she called.“I’ve got a gun!”

“I’m not going anywhere!” Rafe yelled back. It
was
his voice, wasn’t it? She wasn’t dreaming? “Dammit, Emmeline, let me in!”

A surge of joyous chagrin brought her wide awake. “It
is
you!” she cried, tossing the chair aside, lifting the latch, flinging open the door with such force that it clattered against the inside wall. She flung herself into his arms. “Thank God you came, Rafe! Thank God!”

He held her away, but not far. His blue eyes, their color discernible even in the deep shadows, searched her face. “You’re
glad
to see me?”

She thought about it. “Yes,” she decided. “Yes, I suppose I am.”

“You’re not going to San Francisco and have my baby alone,” he said.“And that’s final!”

She pulled him into the room. “What are you talking about?” she demanded in a whisper. Now that she was recovering from the shock of finding Rafe outside her door in the middle of the longest and most miserable night she’d ever spent, she was more conscious of listening ears.

Rafe stood with his back to the door. He was wearing work clothes, and he looked as though he’d been dragged behind a horse, at least part of the way. He needed a bath, and a shave, but he still looked as though he ought to have a place on Mount Olympus, he was so handsome. “I was wrong,” he said. “I was wrong about everything, Emmeline. I love you, and I want you to come home with me. Marry me, right and proper.”

She stared at him, her heart picking up speed with every beat. She couldn’t allow herself any false hopes, though—the fall, when reality caught up to her, would be too long and too hard. He thought she was pregnant. That was why he was declaring himself now, after all this time, when he’d never done it before. “You mentioned a child,” she said carefully.“There’s no baby, Rafe.”

“I don’t care,” he said, and he looked so anxious that he had to be speaking the truth. “I don’t care what went on Kansas City, either.”

“Nothing
went on in Kansas City,” she said fiercely.

He gathered her into his arms.“I love you, Emmeline,” he repeated.

She pulled back, her head clearing a little.“What about that new bride you ordered?” she wanted to know.

His grin was boyish.“I’m sure Kade or Jeb will take her off my hands, if she shows up at all,” he said. “Emmeline, did you hear me before? I said I love you.”

She let her forehead rest against his strong shoulder. “And I love you,” she admitted. “Against my better judgment, Rafe McKettrick, I do love you.”

“Then let’s go home, right now, tonight. There’s something I want to show you.”

She laughed up at him, and there were tears of joy gathering in her eyes. “Rafe,” she said reasonably, “we can leave in the morning.”

His grin turned into a blinding smile. “You’ve changed your mind about San Francisco, then?”

“For now, anyway,” she said, with a little shrug and a tilted smile.“The hotel furniture can wait.”

A
S TOWNS WENT
,
Rattlesnake Bend did not have much to recommend it, but it did have a preacher of sorts. It took a dousing with bucket of coldiv>

After he’d been helped to his feet, the reverend patted various pockets until he located what he sought, and brought out a soggy document proclaiming him to be a graduate of a Bible college somewhere down south.

Rafe read it over carefully, with Emmeline peering around his arm all the while, determined not to enter into another bogus marriage.

“Looks all right to me,” Rafe said.

“The reverend preaches a right fiery sermon when he’s sober,” Lucy put in, with enthusiasm. This, apparently, was meant as a recommendation.

“Well, then, we’re in luck,” Rafe said.“The last thing we want right now is a sermon.” He brought a five-dollar gold piece out of his vest pocket—Emmeline’s eyes widened at the sight of it, and so did the reverend’s—and held it between two fingers.“We want to get married.” He paused, glanced uncertainly down at Emmeline. “At least, I do. Do you?”

She nodded, and then frowned a little. “There are a couple of conditions—”

Rafe looked worried, and none too patient. “Emmeline,” he said, “we talked about this most of the night.
What conditions?”
It was true that they’d talked for hours in her seedy waystation room; they’d agreed that they both wanted children as soon as possible, and that there would be no more running away from a fight, for either of them. No lying, either by word or omission, and no secrets.

She took his arm, pulled him aside. Reverend Deever, mustache quavering, watched the retreat of the five-dollar gold piece with longing. “I want to help Becky at the hotel,” she said. “We—well, we want to go into business together.”

Rafe narrowed his eyes. “What
kind
of business?” he demanded.

Emmeline supposed he could be forgiven for asking such a question, given past history, but she was a bit incensed, all the same. “The
hotel
business,” she huffed, folding her arms.

“I’m looking for a wife, here, Emmeline,” Rafe said carefully, “not somebody who passes through every once in a while, like a circuit preacher.”

Emmeline linked her arm through his, shook her head, and looked up at him. “I promise,” she said sweetly, “not to lapse in my wifely duties. That’s going to have to be good enough.”

“Suppose I refuse?”

“The wedding’s off,” Emmeline said. She spoke lightly, but her heart had come to a lurching stop in her chest.

He stared down at her for a long moment, his expression unreadable, and then laughed. “All right,” he said. “We’re bound to butt heads a few times, but we’ll figure something out.”

“Good,” she said. And then she stood on tiptoe to kiss his cheek. The concessions he’d made were enormous ones for him; proof to Emmeline that he truly loved her.

“Thank you, Rafe.”

He gestured toward the bleary-eyed Reverend Deever, still pining visibly for e-dollar gold piece. “Shall we get ourselves hitched?” he asked.“This time, for real?”

“This time, for real,” Emmeline agreed.“And forever.”

“It isn’t going to be easy, you know,” Rafe warned. “We’re both going to make lots of mistakes.”

She smiled. “Are you trying to back out on me, Rafe McKettrick?”

He kissed her nose.“Not me,” he said.

They both turned to Reverend Deever then, and the man repeated his search-and-pat process until he came up with a small black book. Wetting his finger on the tip of his tongue, he turned delicate pages until he found his place. Then he cleared his throat and began.

“Dearly beloved…”

Emmeline could see the new house across the creek just as clearly as if it had already been built. Riding sidesaddle in front of Rafe, she lifted her feet slightly as Chief splashed into the water to make the crossing. The sweet grass whispered in a soft summer breeze as they climbed the low bank on the opposite side.

Once there, Rafe swung a leg over Chief’s neck, and jumped nimbly to the ground, turning immediately to lift Emmeline down after him. Her body brushed his as he set her on her feet, and she was, for a few delicious moments, pinned between him and the horse.

“Our house will stand right here, Mrs. McKettrick,”he said, in a low rumble. They’d been making love almost nonstop since their return from Rattlesnake Bend by wagon, and Emmeline was ready, to her private consternation, to go back to their bed right that minute. They had the main house to themselves, a rare event, since Kade and Angus were on the range with the rest of the cowboys, and Concepcion had gone to visit an ailing neighbor.

Emmeline smiled mischievously, but a memory touched her heart, soft as the brush of a tiny wing, and sadness flickered inside her. “Are you planning to burn this one down, as well,
Mr.
McKettrick?”

He tried to look stern, and failed resoundingly, since he was already grinning. There was a glint of tenderness in his eyes. “Before I answer that, maybe you’d better tell me if you’ve got any more secrets tucked away.”

She laughed. “None at all,” she said, resting her hands on his chest. It was, she thought, too bad they were in full sight of the house and barn on the other side of the creek. She wouldn’t have minded making love right there in the grass, with the water singing its busy summer song nearby, but there were always ranch hands around.

“I love you,” he said. He looked so solemn that she stood on tiptoe to kiss him.

“And I love you,” she replied. She frowned, straightening his collar.

“But you still plan to be in town quite a bit, helping Becky get the hotel to where it’s turning a profit.”

She caressed his cheek.“And that’s not all,” she said.

“No?” he asked, arching an eyebrow.

“No,” she replied. “I want us to go to San Francisco on that buying trip—together. It can be a sort of honeymoon. And I want a real wedding, too, the kind that makes a person feel married,ne with all our friends and family right there to help celebrate.”

He leered at her, used the fact that the horse was blocking the view of anyone who might be looking on from across the creek as an opportunity to take one of her breasts in his hand. “Actually,” he said, “I feel pretty married right now. But I’ll agree to your demands.”

She moaned involuntarily as he chafed a calico-covered nipple with the side of his thumb. “Oh, Rafe,” she whispered.

He chuckled and continued his nefarious work, bending his head, nibbling at her neck. “Yes?” The word was throaty, an intimate caress in its own right.

“We can’t—not here—and I want to so much!”

He laughed, cocked a thumb over his shoulder. “How about back there, then? Behind those trees?”

She looked past his shoulder, assessing the stand of oak trees a hundred yards away. “I don’t know,” she said, feeling shy.“It might not be private enough.”

He took her hand, led her away from the horse and toward the trees.“Let’s find out,” he said.

She scrambled to keep up with his long strides. “Rafe—” she protested, but without significant conviction.

The trees grew in a nearly perfect circle, and the center was like a little valley, tucked away under a canopy of green, chattering leaves. Emmeline looked back and saw only grass, rocks, and the faint sparkle of the creek. They might have been alone, the two of them, in a new Garden of Eden.

Rafe kissed Emmeline thoroughly now, his hands on her hips, and both of them dropped to their knees on the soft ground. This, Emmeline knew, would be the time, the magical time when they would conceive a child together.

She tilted her head back, gazing up at blue shards of sky, framed in oak leaves, as Rafe buried his face in her neck, at the same time unfastening the buttons of her shirtwaist, opening the camisole beneath. She gave herself up to pleasure, and to complete happiness, as he weighed her bare breasts in his hands, preparing them for his enjoyment, and for hers.

She whimpered softly as he lowered her into the delicious grass, prickly against her back, which was naked except for the thin cloth of the camisole, and plunged her fingers into his hair, guiding him to her. As he suckled, first at one breast, and then at the other, he lifted her skirts, and gave a small chuckle of delighted surprise when he realized she wasn’t wearing any pantaloons.

“Mrs. McKettrick,” he demanded, trying for a dour expression,“where are your britches?”

She laughed, though her flesh was hot and her nipples were hard and she needed Rafe’s full and concentrated attentions in the worst way. “I got tired of always having to take them off, put them on, and take them off again. So I just left them behind when I got dressed this morning.”

“Wench,” he said, grinning, and went back to what he’d been doing.

Rafe was not a man to be hurried, no matter how urgent the pleas she uttered, and he had roused every part of Emmeline’s body and soul to a dangerous pitch before he finally parted her legs, opened his trousers, and pushed inside of her in a single, sky-splitting thrust.

She cried out, clutching at his bac, his shoulders, his hips, by turns, wanting to drag him deeper inside her, and then still deeper. When she raised her head to nip at his earlobe, he lost control, at long last, and began to move in earnest.

They strained together, flesh slick with perspiration, breaths shallow, hearts thrumming like horses’ hooves in the heat of a desperate race. They reached the arch of their passion at the same time, clinging as their bodies flexed in violent response, one to the other.

Then they fell to the ground, still joined, both of them gasping, and waited for the world, thrown off its axis, to right itself. When it did, Rafe was the first to recover. He fixed his own clothes, and then Emmeline’s, before hauling her to her feet.

“Do we look presentable?” she asked, still befogged with the echoes of all she and Rafe had just done together.

He laughed, plucked a blade of grass from her hair, which was surely disheveled, since Rafe had been running his hands through it.“We look,” he said, glancing down at his rumpled shirt and trousers, “as if we’ve been making love on the ground.”

“Oh, Lord,” Emmeline fussed, trying to straighten her hair.

Rafe stopped her, drawing her back into his arms, and kissing her soundly. Things were already stirring inside her again when he drew back. “You’re especially beautiful at this moment,” he teased, “in a wanton sort of way.”

She swatted at him. “You’d better get to work on that house,” she informed him, touching her abdomen with one hand. “I want this child we just conceived to be born in a proper bed.”

His blue eyes widened, and the full impact of the love she bore him bludgeoned him from within, the way it so often did. “You really think there’s a baby?” he whispered, sounding awed.

“I’d bet anything,” she told him, and slipped her arms around his neck.

Emmeline wore Georgia McKettrick’s simple ivory wedding dress, altered to fit her, and a veil Becky had ordered all the way from Boston, the day she and Rafe were formally married. It was September, the leaves were just beginning to fall from the oak trees that had sheltered them while they made love, not just that once, but many times, within their circle. The house, though not completely finished, was fit to live in, and furnished with a bed, a shiny copper bathtub, and a kitchen table. The rest of the rooms would stand empty for a while, pending their honeymoon trip to California in the spring, but neither of them minded that. They had all they needed.

The ceremony, performed by the circuit preacher, a somber-looking man dressed all in black, took place in the afternoon, with the sparkling creek for a backdrop. Angus and Concepcion were there, of course, as were Becky and John, and the enigmatic Holt, now mended good as new. The staff from the hotel attended, including Sister Mandy and Clive, an unlikely pair for a celebration if ever there was one. Kade was best man, handsome in his Sunday suit, but Jeb didn’t show up, even though the word had been put out weeks before that it was time he made his way home and let bygones be bygones.

If the informal invitation had reached him, he’d chosen to stay away, and Emmeline knew that everyone was disappointed, most especially Angus. He hadn’t said anything to her, but Concepcion had confided that he walked the floor most nights, worrying that something had happened to his youngest son and blaming himself. He’d lost weight, and he spent an inordinate amount of time up on the hill, at Georgia’s gravesite.

After the wedding, there was a reception at the main house, complete with cake and punch and a special surprise arranged by Becky and John. They’d sent for a photographer, and he’d come all the way from Tucson to take pictures of the bride and groom and all the guests. While they were celebrating, everybody talking at once, he’d gone out to his wagon to turn the plates into tintypes, by means of some mysterious chemical magic.

Kade, his back especially straight, his countenance solemn, approached Emmeline while Rafe was being congratulated by all the cowboys, who took special delight in the cake and punch and other refreshments. “May I kiss the bride?” he asked quietly.

She smiled.“Of course,” she said.