M. Donice Byrd - The Warner Saga (14 page)

“I was?”

“I’ll have to ask Dr. Henry if that’s normal.”

10

Within a few days, she had regained most of her strength and longed to go out for a ride. Nervously, she knocked on Blake’s door almost hoping he was not there. When he answered, she stammered and stuttered but somehow managed to awkwardly ask if he would ride with her. He accepted, suggesting they make a picnic of it.

A half hour later, they rode out of town traveling nearly an hour before they found a beautiful knoll overlooking the Des Moines River. Across the river
, the branches of a large grove of trees waved in the breeze.

Meredith walked through the tall grass picking
the wild daisies and goldenrod while Blake spread the blanket, compressing the grass beneath it. After she collected a handful of flowers, she turned to go back to the blanket and found she could not see it for the thigh-high vegetation. Had the horses not been grazing nearby she might not have located it so quickly. She then realized how private their picnic could be if they wanted it to be. With a sigh, she realized she was the only one who wanted it to be.

Blake reclined on the heavy quilt taken from the bed in his hotel room with his hands behind his head and his legs crossed at his ankles. He basked in the sunshine looking more relaxed and content than she could remember seeing him. He doffed his sack coat, vest and tie, unbuttoning the collar of his shirt and had rolled his sleeves up to his elbows. She smiled. What a wonderful specimen of man, she thought and felt her cheeks warm.

Not wanting to disturb him, she quietly sat down a few feet away and began braiding the flowers into a necklace. He turned onto his side to watch and plucked one of the white daisies from the bunch, broke the stem short and poked it into her hair above her ear. He smiled roguishly at her. Her blush heightened and she cast her eyes down to the chain of flowers she wove.

“I don’t think we could have picked a better day for a picnic,” she said to turn his attention elsewhere. Why did she suddenly feel so shy? “The sun is warm and the breeze is cool and there’s nary a cloud in the sky. If it gets too hot this afternoon, we can put our feet in the river. As long as the ants and mosquitoes leave us alone, we should have a very pleasant outing, I should think.”

Blake looked amused as if he knew her inane prattling was her way of avoiding his attention. He pushed himself to a sitting position, plucking a tall weed from the grass and began chewing the end.

“Yes and fresh air is good for you after being
cooped up in that hotel room for the past few days,” he said in a light teasing tone as he looked out over the river. He was subtly poking fun at her and she knew it.

She set aside the flowers, reached into the basket and retrieve a Bell jar filled with lemonade and two tin cups. Blake took the jar from her when she had trouble loosening the lid.

“Shall we toast?” he asked as he poured it into the cups.

“I wouldn’t know what to toast to.”

They raised their cups. “To new friendships,” he said looking intently into her eyes. She managed to hold his gaze. He tapped his cup against hers then sipped the sweet tangy juice.

“I want to thank you for taking care of me. I know I don’t always act like I’m grateful but I am,” she said looking into her lemonade. Her eyes lifted to meet his. “It
would have been easy for you to abandon me anywhere along the way.”

He dismissed her gratitude with a wave of his hand as if to say it was what any decent human being would do.

“What else do you have in there?”

She fished in the basket and pulled out the remaining contents one at a time.
“A loaf of freshly baked bread. Feel it. It’s still warm. She pulled them out of the oven just as I stepped into the kitchen. Strawberry preserves, honey, a little butter. Here’s a few sausage rolls and inside this cheesecloth… cheese. It’s not exactly a feast but it was the best we could do on such short notice.”

“It’s plenty. Besides, I’m still half-full from those biscuits you baked.”

“You’ll never let me forget, will you?” she laughed.

“Never.”
He shrugged innocently, his grin mischievously crooked.

Meredith had sensed a change in Blake. He was being attentive, even approachable. She liked this side of him.

“Blake, when someone asked me my name, what should I tell them?”

“What do you want to tell them?”

Meredith thought about it a moment as she pulled two plates out of the basket and an assortment of silverware. She lifted one shoulder in a half shrug. “I don’t know. I don’t feel like I’m your wife but I don’t want people to think I’m some doxy traveling with a man.”

When his eyes fell on her face, she tried to cover up her uncertainty with a small smile.

“I noticed you stopped wearing your mother’s wedding ring.”

“My parents loved each other dearly. I feel like I’m tarnishing the ring by wearing it when our marriage is nothing more than a temporary punishment for getting caught.”

Blake chuckled. “Hopefully, temporary.”

Hearing the resignation in his tone, Meredith met his gaze “You know I never intended for this to happen.”

“Of course. I am as much to blame as you are. Even if you’d slept with half the town, we would have been forced to wed when they caught us. The fact you hadn’t been with anyone really doesn’t factor into it.” Blake said sawing off two thick slice of warm bread from the loaf and putting one on each of their plates. “It was easier to blame you. I’m sorry. That wasn’t well done of me.”

“You don’t need to apologize,” she said with a wide smile. “I knew you were upset. Trust me, every mean thing you said was worth it to see you puke on Reverend Michelson’s shoes.”

Blake groaned then laughed. “The man is a colossal prig.”

Meredith watched as he stuck a knife in a jelly jar filled with butter and slathered it on his bread. She pulled a piece of crust off her bread and put it in her mouth.

“Warner,” he said. “You should tell everyone your name is Meredith Warner. Even after the divorce, you should keep my name – tell your aunt and uncle you’re a widow. You don’t want to have to explain all this to your next husband. Just tell him your first husband was killed in the war.”

She paused in her chewing. He wanted her to keep his name? That really surprised her. She studied his
handsome face wondering if she should assign any significance to it. Wouldn’t it be nice if he wanted her to keep his name because it kept them connected? “I’ll think about it.”

“Will you be ready to continue our trip tomorrow?” he asked slicing a piece of cheese from the wedge and handing it to her.

When their hands touched, her heart suddenly raced. But it always did when he was near.

“Dr. Henry seems to think I’m ready and I do feel better.”

He sipped his lemonade as he looked thoughtfully at her. “Do you feel better? You look a little peaked.”

“I’m feeling a bit tired.”

He put his hand gently on her forehead to see if she was feverish although she had not run a fever with her injury. “I didn’t mean to tax you on your first outing. Let me take you back to the hotel so you can rest. Are you able to ride? Should I ride double with you?”

“I’m sure that won’t be necessary.”

“I don’t want our trip delayed further because you’ve taken another tumble off your horse. I really must insist.”

After repacking the basket and tying it to Wunner’s saddle, they mounted Viper and began their ride back to town. She could feel his breath tickling the tiny hairs on the nape of her neck, his chest pressing against her back and his hand on her stomach as he held her tightly to keep her from falling should the need arise.

Still over a mile from the city, she began feeling overwhelmingly exhausted and dizzy and knew she couldn’t make it back. She asked if they could stop so she could rest. Finding a shady area, they reined the horse and Blake dismounted. She swung her leg over the saddle horn and he lifted her down by the waist sandwiching her between the horse and his chest. He stood so close, she had to strain her neck to see his face.

Meredith looked into the depth of his eyes. The blue blazed with smoldering passion as his head lowered. She lifted her face meeting his lips with her own soft, pliant ones. Her tongue brushed his lips tasting the hint of lemons clinging to them. As his tongue met hers, desire spread from her lips to her core and on to her toes.

She threaded her hand through his hair drawing him down. The kiss deepened as he hauled her up against the length of his hard masculine body. Her head was swimming, her knees weak, the same dizziness that prompted their stop was engulfing her. Her knees buckled and everything went black.

11

Blake Warner didn’t know if he should be amused or concerned when he found himself holding Meredith’s limp form in his arms. He had barely been aware she stopped kissing him and thought she was pulling away. When he began to release her, he realized his arms were the only thing keeping her from sliding to the ground.

Several minutes passed before Meredith awoke. She lay on the ground, her head resting on the quilt they had picnicked on. As she sought to get her bearings, her eyes fell on Blake’s seated form as he roguishly smiled down at her.

“What happened?”

“You’ve forgotten so soon, my treasure? You wound me.” He stroked her cheek lightly.

Blushing to the roots, the whole incident flooded back to her, including her unbridled response. “You kissed me.”

The amazement in her voice made him chuckle. “You kissed me back as I recall. Then you paid me the ultimate complement of fainting in my arms. It’s not an accomplishment many men can boast of.” Ignoring the heightened color in her cheeks, he continued. “Do you faint when all men kiss you or just when it’s my lips doing the kissing? Remember my pride when you answer.”

Meredith pushed herself up into a sitting position but would not meet his gaze. “I would never answer a question like that.”

“Indeed?” His tongue darted between his teeth to moisten his lips, unconsciously, giving clue to the direction of his thoughts, had she only seen it. He leaned forward, cupping her chin in his hand and turned her face towards his. She peeked at him through her demurely lowered lashes but would not look him fully in the eye until he tilted her chin up slightly. “Then I shall have to find out for myself if it was an isolated incident.”

Before she could protest
, his mouth slanted across hers in a passionate embrace. Wondrous feelings in the pit of her stomach began to stir. His hand dropped from her face to encircle her, pulling her closer until she sat across his lap.

“Answer me,” he said against her lips.

“Only you,” she panted breathlessly as he pressed his lips hungrily to hers cutting off anything else she might have said.

He let his hands search out the curves and contours of her body. When he palmed her soft breast
, she inhaled sharply and pushed at his chest. The break was so sudden, she nearly fell back. For a long moment her gray eyes stared out from her pale face at him. She raised her hand to her lips and pink colored her white cheeks.

“I think I misunderstood why you wanted me to use your name. You want to pretend we’re married with all that goes with it,” she murmured in a small stumbling voice. “I think it would be best if we remained on our original terms.”

“You didn’t misunderstand anything.”

Her anger flared. “How dare you!” she bit out as
she fought her tangle of skirts to stand up. “Until now, you have more or less been a gentleman. I had no reason to believe you would suddenly become a scoundrel. I should’ve realized your change of heart today was baseborn. I wonder now why you’d even want to bother with the divorce. Wouldn’t it be easier just to dump me on my relatives and we could go on with our lives as if we never met.”

“No,” he said firmly. “We
will
divorce if it’s possible. I don’t want to worry about having you turn up on my doorstep years from now telling me you’ve changed your mind about not being married to me.”

“How astute you are,” she said tersely. “The idea of you showing up on my doorstep in the future makes me shudder. Of course we will divorce.”

He made no attempt to apologize. “I don’t like loose ends.”

“I don’t like horses’ rear ends.”

To her astonishment he began laughing. “If we met under different circumstances, I think I would have genuinely liked you.”

She stood with her hands on her hips and shot daggers at him. “I wish I could say the same.”

She turned on her heel and strode to her horse. She released his horse from where it was tied to Viper’s saddle and took up Viper’s reins and began walking toward town.

What was the matter with her?
she wondered as a lump rose in her throat. She didn’t even like Blake Warner, not really. He was arrogant and…rich. She couldn’t think of anything else but that was enough. His good looks blinded her to his true, questionable nature.

When she heard his horse approaching, she mentally cringed and refused to turn her head or
acknowledge him in any way. Her stride was as purposeful as ever.

“Meredith?” When she didn’t answer, he dismounted to walk beside her. “I had no ulterior motive when I suggested you keep my name.”

Her sideways glance clearly said she didn’t believe him. “And I suppose that kiss was just a peck between friends?”

He took ahold of her arm to stop her and turned her to face him but she pulled her arm free of his grasp and kept walking. A moment later, he stood in front of her blocking her path, forcing her to stop. She glared at him, arms akimbo. His eyes gleamed with something akin to misc
hief. “That was no casual peck, treasure, but it wasn’t the premeditated act of debauchery you accused me of either.” When she tried to step around him, he wouldn’t let her pass so she swiftly ducked under Viper’s belly to walk on the horse’s other side.

Blake looped his reins around Viper’s saddle horn and waited for the horses to pass before he went around. A crooked grin graced his face as he saw the way Meredith practically trotted to get away from him. In a few long strides, he moved in front of her again, walking backwards and making a nuisance of himself. “It won’t work, Meredith. My legs are longer than yours.” She
stopped dead in her tracks making his eyes glint with mirth. “You know you’re beautiful when you’re angry,” he vexed. Of course, technically she was beautiful all the time.

“Then I won’t be angry anymore,” she said sweetly and flashed an insincere smile at him. “I w
ouldn’t want to do anything you might take as encouragement – especially since you don’t seem to need any.”

“Oh, come now,” he protested. “You act as if I’m a despoiler of young innocents.”

She speared him with a look of pure disbelief. How could he say that when he knew he had been her first? But even as she thought it, she knew that he had been unaware she was chaste. Meredith sighed and let his comment pass without debate.

A half smile crossed his countenance. “After our first kiss, I knew you were not as unschooled as you would have me now believe. You have been kissed before and more, I suspect. Don’t try to deny it.”

She opened her mouth and then shut it. What good would it do to deny it? She put her hands on her hips and looked at him straight in the eye. “I admit it. You were right all along. For years now, I have waited by the road for unwary strangers to pass so I could carelessly trample them with my horse. And I have never fainted when any of the other hundreds kissed me. Only your kiss has the distinction of repulsing me into a dead faint!”

Her taunt only widened his grin. “Be careful… I might have to punish you for that remark with another of
my repulsive kisses.”

She raised her chin, not to accept his kiss but in defiance.

“Ah, but that’s how I fell into your bad graces and I intend to redeem myself.”

“Good luck.”

His shoulders lifted in a casual shrug as he moved to walk beside her. “I had no base motives.” His head cocked to one side as he looked at her. “The kiss was completely unplanned.”

“I’m not stupid. You think because I slept with you once that I’m lacking in morals. Maybe if I had such a blatant disregard for decorum once, perhaps your attention towards me hasn’t been directed in the right pursuits.”

“It was just a kiss,” he protested with a sigh.

“This time.
What about the next time?”

“Next time?
Who says I’m ever going to kiss you again?” he asked in a serious tone that didn’t reflect the humor in his eyes. “Had I known you’d turn into such a harpy fishwife, I wouldn’t have kissed you in the first place.”

“I hope you’ve learned your lesson, then.” She looked away so he couldn’t see the smile that threatened her stern expression.

“I don’t know. I’m pretty thickheaded.”

“So I’ve noticed.”

They continued their walk toward town in silence for a few minutes until Blake asked, “Are you afraid you’ll fall off your horse again?”

There was a momentary pause in her step. “No.”

“Then why are you walking back to town?”

With a wide sweeping motion she indicated the grassy plains surrounding them. “Do you see anything for me to step on so I can get my foot in the stirrup?”

“You’d rather walk all the way back to the hotel than asked me for a leg up?” he asked incredulously.

Color rose in her cheeks and Blake noticed a slight quickening in her step. “I wasn’t speaking to you at the time.”

He repressed his chuckle knowing it could only undermine what little headway he had made thus far. “May I offer my assistance, madam?” She acquiesced with a nod, knowing unless she really wanted to walk the remainder of the way, she had to swallow her pride. “Are you willing to pay the price?”

She eyed him warily. “I’m afraid I’m further in debt to you than I can afford.”

“It’s not steep.”

12

The man knows no limits – his nerve no bounds.
Of this Meredith was certain. Dinner. The man wanted her to join him out on the town to prove he could be a gentleman. She had agreed – what choice did she have?

Meredith paced the floor of her hotel room, too agitated to rest as she knew she should. “Wear something nice,” he said as if she’d wear Cinderella’s tattered rags. Maybe she would. That would be a lesson to him.

As Meredith took a step closer to her valise, a knock came at the door. “Oh, what now,” she mumbled aloud. “Planning on picking out my dress for me?”

She flung the door open intent on berating him only to find herself face to face with Rick Henry.

“Dr. Henry! This is a surprise.”

“Good afternoon, Miss Vande Linde.”

She took a step back allowing him into the room. As he passed, she noticed Blake was standing behind the doctor, a large parcel in his hand, a black frock coat over his arm and a top hat in his other hand. With a smug grin, she tried to close the door before he could enter but he easily pushed his way in and crossed the room to the adjoining door where he rid himself of the hat and coat.

“This is not a shortcut to your room, Blake.”

She made a face at his back and turned back to the doctor.

“To what do I owe this pleasure, doctor?”

“I understand you fainted.”

She turned an exasperated glare on Blake who stood in the doorframe holding the paper-wrapped
parcel. “Bragging?” then turned back to the doctor before he could answer. “It was nothing. I just overdid it.”

“I’m sure that’s all it was, however, no sense in taking chances. Let’s have a look at you if for no other reason than alleviating Mr. Warner’s concern,” Dr. Henry said reaching for her wrist and his watch simultaneously.

Knowing it was useless to argue, Meredith stood motionless shooting daggers at Blake with her eyes, as the doctor took her pulse. As a slow grin appeared on Blake’s face, the doctor noted a gradual increase in his patient’s pulse, suddenly racing when Blake winked at her.

Trying not to grin himself, Rick Henry released her arm and went to his bag for his stethoscope.

“What were you doing when you fainted?” he asked pulling the instrument from the bag. He set one end against her chest and put his ear against the other end. Getting no response, he was about to repeat his question when he noticed the heightened color in her cheeks. She was looking directly at Warner who mockingly had one eyebrow raised as if taunting her to answer.

“I-I was….”

“We had been out riding,” Blake interrupted suddenly.  “She had been feeling tired so we stopped. It was just after we dismounted that she fainted.”

The doctor hesitated suspecting he was not hearing the complete truth. The blush on her cheek and the gratitude that flashed in her eyes persuaded him not to pursue the matter.

He cleared his throat. “Please, unfasten the top buttons of your blouse.”

Meredith glanced momentarily between the two men, then turning her back to Blake, complied with the
doctor’s instruction.

While listening to her heart, Rick Henry lifted his eyes and met the scowling countenance of Blake Warner over her shoulder. The dark look hadn’t surprised him. He had yet to understand their relationship. What he first thought was an affair, appeared later like a platonic friendship but now he wasn’t sure even that was correct.

When he finished listening to her heart, he asked her if she’d experienced any more dizziness, nausea or headaches. He checked her pupils and asked her about her vision. Her answers seemed to satisfy him.