The Barefoot Bride (14 page)

He had already gone down on one knee and grabbed the washcloth Molly had left on the side of the tub. Grasping Patch by the wrist, he pulled her arm up over her head so he could wash under it. And stared, stunned at what he found.

Hair.

Because he was holding her arm up out of the way, he could see what else she had been hiding in that protective fetal position.

Budding breasts.

Patch's face flushed an agonized red, and she moaned again.

Seth let go of Patch's hand, which she immediately used to hug her knees tight against her breasts. He sat back on his haunches and exhaled a deep breath. “I had no idea, Patch,” he said. “I knew you were becoming a woman. I just—I didn't realize you had … It's nothing to be ashamed of,” he said.

“Please don't talk about it,” she said, mortified.

“Look, Patch, I'm a doctor. I see bodies all the time. I—”

“Pa!” she wailed. “Go awaaaaay!”

Seth didn't know what to do. He wanted to stay and talk to her, but he was all too aware that her father was the last person she
wanted there. “Be sure to wash your hair,” he said, and rose and left the room.

Seth didn't know he was looking for Molly until he saw her with the children and Ethan coming toward him. When he met up with them, he said to Ethan, “Why don't you take Whit and Nessie and show them that spot down by the pond where the frogs congregate and sing?”

Ethan raised a brow in speculation. One look at the taut lines around Seth's eyes and mouth told him there was trouble. “Sure, Seth.” He headed Molly's children toward the pond and said, “You kids have a real treat in store for you.”

Seth started walking beside Molly back in the direction of the house.

Sensing his distress, she asked, “What's wrong?”

Seth stopped under a cottonwood and stared out toward the mountains. He looked for words to explain what had happened that wouldn't make him sound as bad as he felt. “It's Patch,” he said at last. “She wouldn't take her clothes off and get in the tub. That is, she got in the tub with her clothes on. I lost my temper and stripped her down and—”

“And what?”

“She's got breasts!” he blurted.

Molly put her hand before her mouth and coughed so Seth wouldn't see her smile. “That explains her resistance to a bath. She's probably been hiding the fact that she's growing up from you for some time. A bath would have given her away.”

“I acted like a fool and an idiot.”

“None of us is perfect,” Molly said with a teasing smile.

Seth groaned. “What can I do now?”

“Just keep doing the best you can.” She thought for a moment and asked, “Do you think she'll take the bath?”

“She'd better.”

“Then I think the best thing is to leave her alone long enough for her to finish in private. Then you act as though this never happened.”

Seth looked relieved. “I can do that?”

Molly grinned. “I don't see why not. Next time she takes a bath, we can arrange for her to have the privacy a young lady needs. I'll have plenty of time when I take the measurements for her dress to find out if there are other questions Patch needs to ask or have answered.”

Seth felt better, but he couldn't have said why. Nothing had changed. He had still embarrassed his daughter. She still had those
budding breasts. Only somehow, Molly had made everything all right.

But over the next several days, it was clear the battle lines had been drawn. Molly was determined to introduce Patch to the womanly arts; Patch was equally determined to thwart her; Seth was caught in the middle.

To Molly's chagrin, Whit was being equally troublesome to Seth. Seth held his ground; she was caught in the middle.

Molly wasn't sure what she could do to make them a family, but she was determined not to give up or give in.

About a week after their arrival, Molly decided that things were enough under control in the house that she could surprise Seth, Ethan, and Whit with a picnic lunch. She made fried chicken and mashed potatoes and packed it up in a basket. Just before noon, she and Nessie and Patch set out for the stand of pines where the men were working.

When she arrived, Ethan was cutting limbs off a downed tree, but Seth and Whit were nowhere to be seen.

“Where's Seth?”

“He's farther up the mountain, chopping down another tree.”

“Is Whit with him?”

“I suppose so.”

That sounded too uncertain for Molly's peace of mind. She left Nessie and Patch in Ethan's care and went searching for Seth and her son.

When she saw Seth, she just stopped and stared. He had taken off his shirt, and dappled sunlight danced on the muscle and sinew in his shoulders and back. A trickle of sweat started down the crease in his back and eventually dampened the cloth at his waist. The sculpted beauty was marred by two large scars, one on his right shoulder and one on his lower back, just above the waist of his pants. She watched in awe as he lifted the heavy ax gracefully over his head. The echoing sound of the ax hitting wood brought her to her senses. She realized Whit wasn't with him.

There were reasons why her son might have left here momentarily. There was no reason to panic, so she didn't.

“Hello,” she called.

When Seth turned, she caught her breath. He was truly a magnificent man. A smile flashed white in his tanned face. She smiled back and asked, “Where's Whit?”

Seth leaned against his ax and mopped his forehead with a red kerchief that had been
hanging out of his back pocket. “Don't know,” he admitted. “He decided he was tired, so he quit. He left here a while ago.”

“Where was he going?”

“He didn't say.”

Molly's heart began to pound. “You just let him leave?” She looked out at the dark expanse of jack pine and juniper, evergreens and leafy birch trees. “Why aren't you out looking for him?”

“He knows where I am,” Seth said.

“But he may be lost. There are Indians out there, and wild animals and—”

Seth drew an arm-waving Molly into his embrace and held her there. “Molly,” he said, trying to cut her off.

“—and buffalo and mountain lions and—”

“Molly.”

“—and desperados and—”

Seth shut her up with his mouth. She had kept her distance from him ever since that night a week ago on the front porch. He had watched her, and wanted her, every moment of every day. But there had never been a time when their children were not around. Now that he had her in his arms, he took full advantage of whatever moments of privacy they might have.

He pulled her up snug against him, fitting
himself in the cradle of her thighs. He could feel her breasts against his chest through the thin cotton material of her dress. He grunted his disapproval when he discovered her waist was corseted. One hand held her head so she couldn't escape his kisses, and he plundered her mouth, taking what he needed.

Molly was overwhelmed by the astonishing heat of his passion. Hands that had come up to push him away, roamed his sweat-slick shoulders instead, feeling the muscle beneath smooth skin. When his tongue slid along the edge of her lips and she opened her mouth to protest, he thrust inside. He compelled a response from her, and her body gave what her heart would have withheld.

His mouth left hers to seek the flesh of her neck. She gasped at the curl of desire she felt as he sucked on tender skin. She hid her face against the muscle at his shoulder and accidentally tasted the salt on his skin. As his ardor increased, so did hers, and when he nipped her shoulder, she bit him back. And discovered it was pleasure, not pain she had caused.

With some sixth sense necessary to the frontier, Seth realized they were being watched. He abruptly pushed Molly behind him to protect her.

Molly gasped when she saw the look on her son's face.

Whit turned and ran. She started to go after him, but Seth stopped her.

“Let him go.”

“I have to talk to him!”

“What can you say that he doesn't already know?” Seth asked.

Molly stood apart from Seth, refusing to let him draw her back into his arms. “I don't know,” she said. “But for him to see us …”

Seth's lips flattened. “What he saw was a husband kissing his wife. There's nothing wrong with that.”

But they both knew there had been more to it than that. It had not been a matter of simple kisses. There had been raw, explosive passion between them. And James Gallagher had been dead for less than a year.

“I brought a picnic,” Molly said. “I'll leave it for you and Ethan … and Whit. I'm feeling tired all of a sudden. I don't think I'll stay to eat with you.”

She turned and ran. Molly was breathless when she got back to the spot where Ethan was working. She grabbed Nessie and, with a quick excuse about the little girl's nap time approaching, headed back to the house.

Molly lay down on Patch's bed with Nessie
and read her daughter a fairy tale—one with a happy ending. As the little girl drifted off to sleep, Molly tried to make some sense of her confused emotions.

She couldn't deny her attraction to Seth. It would be foolish to try. Molly simply didn't understand how it was possible to feel so passionate in another man's arms when she was still grieving for James. Only, when she was in Seth's arms, she didn't think about James. Something magic happened. And the only face she saw, the only man she wanted, was Seth. She needed time to understand her feelings. But she was very much afraid Seth wasn't going to give it to her.

When Molly woke up, Nessie was gone. Something else had taken her place.

Molly stared wide-eyed at the snake on the pillow beside her and forced herself not to scream. She wouldn't give Patch the satisfaction. The rest of Patch's menagerie, once she had become acquainted with them, had all turned out to be harmless. Surely her snake —what was its name?—wasn't poisonous. Molly looked at the head to see whether it formed the triangle Seth had warned her meant a snake was venomous. It didn't look deadly. But better safe than sorry. She would just lie still. Patch would soon tire of waiting
for her terrified reaction and come and collect her pet.

Only Seth showed up first.

“Don't move/’ he said.

His caution surprised Molly. Was he afraid of snakes in general? Or just this particular snake? He crossed slowly to the window and pushed it all the way open. She lay perfectly still as he reached for the broom standing in the corner. He slipped the wooden handle under the dark brown snake, which opened its mouth, revealing sharp fangs in a huge white expanse. In one continuous movement, Seth flipped the snake off the pillow and out the window, where it slithered away.

Seth pulled Molly up into a hard embrace. “Are you all right? You weren't bitten?”

“No. I—I thought it belonged to Patch.”

Seth laughed shakily and hugged her tighter. “Oh no, my dear little tenderfoot. That was a cottonmouth.”

“Venomous?”

“Very.”

“How did it get in here?”

Seth nodded his head toward the open window. “Most likely through the window. Mostly the cottonmouths stay down by the water, but we're close enough that they sometimes
wind their way up to the house looking for frogs. You have to be careful.”

Molly began to shiver, a delayed reaction to the danger she'd been in.

Seth felt her reaction and rubbed her back to calm her. “You're all right. There's nothing to be afraid of now.”

Molly shuddered. At one point, she had actually considered picking up the snake and confronting Patch with it. Imagine the child's reaction if she had! Molly laughed. It was her first genuine laugh for a long, long time. But really, enough was enough.

Misunderstanding Molly's hysterical laugh, Seth murmured soothing words of comfort. “Take it easy, sweetheart. You're fine. I won't let anyone, or anything hurt you. Relax, Molly. Relax, little darling, I—”

“What did you call me?”

Seth's stream of words was halted by the touch of her fingertips on his lips.

“Sweetheart? Darling?”

“Little darling,” Molly said. “You called me little darling. James used to call me that.”

Seth stiffened and started to release her.

“Please don't let go,” Molly said. “I—I'm still feeling a little scared, if you want to know the truth.”

Seth's arms closed around her again. He
put one hand under her hair to rub her nape. Her head eased forward to give him greater access, and her cheek rested against the chambray shirt he had donned.

“What are we going to do about our children?” she murmured.

“I don't know,” Seth said. I'm doing everything I can think of to make it easier for Whit, but he doesn't seem to want to cooperate.”

Molly stiffened at his criticism of her son. “He's only ten. You can't expect him to be able to do such hard work.”

“Out here, a boy learns to do a man's job in a hurry, or he doesn't survive.”

Molly's head came up. “Well, he's not a man, he's a boy,” she protested.

“You expect a lot from Patch, and she's just a little girl,” Seth said.

“She's twelve!”

“She's a kid.”

“She's a—” Molly cut herself off.

Seth grimaced and stood. Neither of them felt very loverlike at the moment. “I only came by to say I have to make a trip into town to get some window glass tomorrow, and to invite you to come along. I thought maybe you'd like to get some curtain material or something.”

Molly opened her mouth to continue the discussion—all right, argument—they'd been having about their children, then shut it again. It was a long ride into Fort Benton. She would have plenty of time, and privacy, to talk with Seth about his daughter—and her son. “I would very much like to go,” she said.

“Fine. You might want to ask Ethan to keep an eye on Nessie.”

That evening at supper, Seth announced that he and Molly would be driving in to Fort Benton the following day.

“Can I come, too, Pa?” Patch asked.

Molly's heart sank. If Patch came, they wouldn't have a chance to have that heart to heart talk. To her surprise, Seth said, “I'm taking the buckboard so I can get supplies. There won't be room for you.”

“I can sit up front with you,” Patch said.

“Molly's sitting up front.”