His Brother's Wife (8 page)

But the voice of reason
pushed all those superficial reasons away and sanity crept back in.
She wasn't worth the heartache. No woman was.

Hardening his heart, he
pushed his desire for her away, forcing himself to be less than
civil with her. “Don’t presume to know me, Ms. Kingston. Just
because I didn’t speak to you doesn’t mean anything is wrong.” He
looked over his shoulder, his gaze locking with her own. “Did you
ever stop to think maybe I have nothing to say to you? This isn’t
Boston and the world doesn’t revolve around you regardless of what
you may think.”

He felt like an ass the
moment the words were out of his mouth. The look on her face was
his undoing. It took everything in him not to apologize.

Turning to the desk, he
ignored her.

When she walked away
without a word, her steps heavy on the stairs behind him, he closed
his eyes and sighed. As awful as he felt he now knew an effective
way to keep her at arms length. Just insult her. She’d put the
distance between them that he needed whether he wanted it or
not.

Chapter Eight

The house was quiet. The
clock on the mantel read a quarter till ten and no one had stirred
for hours now. Grace entered the kitchen and lit the lamp on the
table before crossing to the back door and opening it. The tub
she’d seen out on the porch the previous week looked plenty big
enough for bathing and with days worth of sweat and grime coating
her skin, washing from the pitcher and bowl in her room wouldn’t be
enough.

She struggled with the
large round tub as she pulled it into the house, trying to be quiet
in the process. Jesse wouldn’t be awakened by the noise up on the
second floor but she wasn’t sure about Rafe. He slept in the little
room off the kitchen but she had no clue if he was a sound sleeper
or would any sort of noise awaken him?

Glancing to his door, she
listened for any noise. After hearing none, she set the tub in
front of the stove and spent the next five minutes scooping hot
water from the stoves reservoir into the tub then added cold water
from the buckets under the sink to cool it a bit.

Placing her soap, clean
nightgown, and towel on a chair, she stripped off her dress, her
chemise and bloomers before stepping into the water. It was just
big enough for her to sit down in and she sighed as the water
engulfed her body. It was pure heaven.

She washed away the grime
and sweat, soaked her hair and lathered it, rinsing away the suds
and leaned back when she was finished.

The past week seemed to
have sped by in a blur. She was tired and felt three times her age.
She found a new appreciation for all those servants her father had
kept in their home.

Grace never thought about
the things they’d done to see to their comfort but she did now. The
cooking alone was a chore, cleaning the mess up afterwards,
thankfully, had been taken up by Jesse and Rafe. They were adamant
on cleaning up when she cooked and she tried harder to please them
for that reason alone.

Cleaning the dirt and
grime from their house and seeing they were fed a hot meal seemed
like so little a thing but watching them eat as if they'd never
tasted better thrilled her to no end. It was a daunting and
grueling job taking care of them. One she wasn’t accustomed to but
she'd see it done if it killed her.

She hadn't made the
decision to move across the country on a whim, after all. She knew
it would be different, difficult even, but being needed for once in
her life made it all worth while. And she was needed. She saw it
every time she looked at Jesse. Regardless of him sending away for
a wife, what the boy needed was the loving attention only a mother
could provide and she was determined to give it to him.

It was obvious there
hadn’t been a woman in this house for some time. Jesse had said his
mother had died years ago and she couldn’t imagine any other woman
wanting to be inside the house as she’d found it, which eased one
of her fears. Rafe didn’t have a woman friend. Not one he brought
home, anyway.

She sighed as she thought
of him. She wasn’t sure why she still found him attractive. He was
surly most of the time, that is if he even bothered to speak to her
to begin with. He said nothing of the meals she cooked for him,
nothing as to the state of the house, and didn't even look at her
most days. If she had to guess, she'd say he didn't think much of
her at all, which was odd.

Her life in Boston had
been full of suitors. Men of every age showered her with attention
as they tried to woo her and she'd flirted and complimented them as
she'd been taught to do. None of those things would work on Rafe.
He didn't seem like the type of man who would be swayed by a pretty
woman, regardless of how she acted toward him.

She'd spent days giving
him her best smiles, trying to show him without words how much
seeing him thrilled her and….nothing. The man barely glanced her
way. When he bothered speaking to her, it was curt replies, disdain
dripping from his words to make her think the sight of her angered
him. She was at a loss as to what to do.

The day she met him, his
gaze had lingered on her breasts as he took a slow perusal of her
body. Desire had stained his eyes with heat. The way he’d looked at
her at the stagecoach station had said it all. He’d wanted her. It
may not have been the forever kind of want but he was attracted to
her, just as she was to him.

So why was he so aloof?
Did he have a woman friend after all? Was there a widow somewhere
in Willow Creek who knew what it felt like to have his strong hands
caressing her flesh? She shivered just thinking about
it.

The water had cooled
enough that her shivers weren’t caused by thoughts of Rafe alone
and Grace stood, goose bumps pimpling her skin as the cool air hit
her wet flesh. When she reached for her towel, the back door flew
open. She gasped, turned to see Rafe standing there staring at her
and scrambled for her towel. “Turn around,” she yelled as loudly as
she dared. He raised an eyebrow at her before doing as
asked.

“The kitchen isn’t the
best place for bathing.” He shut the door, removing his coat and
hat, placing them on the pegs in the wall. “Unless you know you
won’t be disturbed.”

Grace stepped out of the
tub, grabbed her gown and threw it on, the back of it soaking
through as it was pulled down over her wet hair. “I thought
everyone was asleep.”

“I normally would be but
Jesse didn’t finish his chores so I had to do them.” He turned his
head a fraction, his eyes averted. “Can I turn around
now?”

The heat Grace felt
burning her cheeks intensified at the tiny smile on his face.
“Yes.”

He turned, his gaze
finding, and lingering, on her breasts. Those tingles she’d felt
earlier when thinking of him returned with a vengeance as she
looked down. Her wet skin made the material of her gown
transparent. He could see clean through it.

She raised the towel to
her chest before lifting her chin a notch. “Do you
mind?”

His gaze returned to her
face as his smile widened. “Not at all. Feel free to get naked in
my kitchen anytime you like.”

Grace scowled at him
before reaching for her discarded clothes and dragging them to her.
“You are a pig, Rafe Samuels.” She turned on her heel and ran from
the room, climbed the steps as quick as she dared in the dark, and
shut her bedroom door hard enough to wake Jesse. She grimaced at
the sound and hoped he wasn't a light sleeper.

Her thoughts went back to
Rafe, to the look on his face when he walked in to catch her
standing naked in his kitchen, and she couldn't explain why the
humiliation she should have felt wasn't there. Instead, heat pooled
between her legs, her breasts ached as if Rafe was still looking,
as if he were touching her, and she closed her eyes, imagining him
doing just that.

A small moan crawled up
her throat and hissed out past her lips. She raised both hands,
cupping her breasts in her palms and tried to get the phantom
sensation of his imagined hands to go away. It didn't work. He was
still there, his gaze burning a trail over her flesh as surely as
if he was in the room with her. Opening her eyes, she caught sight
of herself in the mirror. Her face was flushed, her hands still
cupping her breasts while her hair hung in clumps over her
shoulders.

She lowered her arms, saw
her body through the gown as Rafe had, and swallowed the lump
forming in her throat. She hadn't mistaken the heat in his eyes
this time. He'd wanted her, had looked at her with desire shining
in his eyes and her blood sang in her veins in response.

Maybe something had
changed. Maybe he realized there was no since fighting the
attraction she knew was there and maybe, just maybe, he'd
acknowledge it now.

If she were lucky, her
marital situation would resolve itself in the form of a marriage
proposal from a man who clearly was old enough. A man she had no
problem saying yes to. A man she already had a hard time not
thinking about. The response her body had to him seeing her naked
said it all. She wanted him, wanted him touching her.

Now she just had to wait
for him to admit he wanted her back.

* * * *

Hearing her bedroom door
shut, Rafe’s gaze raked the room. Water stood on the floor and the
instant his gaze lit on that big metal tub, his body started aching
at the memory of walking in and seeing her standing there in all
her naked glory. Lord, but she was the finest looking woman he’d
ever seen. Her breasts were high, her nipples like two small
cherries against her creamy skin. Her waist was tiny, her hips
flared and the thatch of gold curls he’d seen at the apex of her
thighs caused his cock to pulse in remembrance.

He sighed before crossing
the room and grabbing the tub, pulling it across the room and
dragging it outside and dumping it. He hung it back up, shut and
latched the door behind him before grabbing a few towels to mop and
dry up the water left on the floor.

When everything was clean,
Rafe started for his room but stopped when he noticed Grace’s soap
still sitting on the chair. He lifted it, inhaled its scent and was
reminded of her. Roses. This is the fragrance lingering on her
skin.

He carried the bar to his
room, laid it on the dresser before stripping off his own clothes.
The tub of water he’d just dumped would have been the best option
for cleaning himself. He wished he would have thought of it before
pouring the water out.

He washed from the pitcher
and bowl in his room, lathered, rinsed, and felt halfway human
again by the time he was finished. He turned away from the water
bowl, Grace’s soap still on his dresser. He lifted it, inhaled its
scent again, her image filling his mind's eye.

If he lived to be a
hundred, he'd never forget the way she looked when he'd walked
through the back door. The shock on her face, the way the moonlight
caught the water droplets on her skin and made them sparkle like
small jewels dotting her flesh. He laid the soap down and ran a
hand through his hair and sighed.

What the hell was he
supposed to do about her?

He crawled into bed, the
answer to his pondered question unanswered.

His plan to annoy her so
she'd avoid him worked to a certain degree and he wondered if
seeing her naked hadn't done more for him than his curt manner.
Surely she would be furious with him for walking in on her—most
women would be—and he hoped avoiding him would be a priority for
her.

As much as he wanted the
distance, a small part of him dreaded it just the same. Some tiny
fraction of his soul sought her out, searched for her through the
windows during the day when he walked past the house and on the
rare occasions he spotted her, his pulse raced and he smiled for no
damn reason.

Seeing her standing there
with water glistening on her naked flesh would fuel his dreams for
weeks to come. Even if she never spoke to him again, he’d have that
memory. A memory of a woman, for once, he wasn’t loathed to
remember.

He closed his eyes,
Grace's image filling his mind and he let her linger instead of
pushing her away. He forgot all the heartache he'd suffered and
imaged her as the only one. That he was fourteen again and it was
Grace who caught his attention, not Maggie. He imagined her smiling
at him, ignoring the fact he wasn't the only boy in town who liked
her. And instead of her telling him she was sorry, that she loved
someone else, she stayed by his side instead.