The Barefoot Bride (22 page)

“Come with me,” he said.

“Where?”

“To the stable. You can see the mare you'll be riding tomorrow.”

And make love to me.

Seth didn't say the words, but Molly heard them all the same. Somehow she found herself following him. When they reached the
stable, he lit a lantern and hung it at the head of a stall. A pretty black mare with a white diamond on her forehead stuck her nose out over the half-door and nuzzled Seth's shirt.

“I usually have something for her—a dried apple or a carrot.”

Molly patted the mare's silky nose. “She's beautiful.”

“She's also very gentle.”

/
can be too.

“You don't have to worry about getting thrown,” Seth said.

Molly looked up into Seth's eyes and read his thoughts.

It's all right, Molly. I won't hurt you.

“Would you like to see the hayloft?” he asked.

It's more private up there. We won't have to worry about being interrupted.

“All right,” she said.

Seth took the lantern and climbed up the ladder ahead of her. Molly saw he must have been thinking about this for a while, because in the corner of the loft lay a quilt she had last seen packed away in the top of the wardrobe in Seth's room. He set the lantern down on an empty crate and spread the blanket on a crunchy bed of hay. Then he turned and faced her.

You can still say no. We can stop here and now.

Molly took a step toward him. It was all the response he needed. She was swept up in his arms and pulled into a strong embrace. His mouth found hers, his tongue seeking entrance.

She groaned once in despair—or desire— and parted her lips.

His tongue was gentle but thorough, reaching behind her upper lip for the sensitive flesh there. He searched the ridged roof of her mouth before drawing her tongue into a duel with his and asking—demanding—that she return the favor.

He untied her robe and impatiently pushed it off her shoulders, then stopped and looked at her in the shadowed light of the lantern. Her nipples had peaked beneath the soft flannel gown and were clearly visible. He slowly unbuttoned the gown, kissing his way down, making her flesh catch fire from the warmth of his lips.

“Molly, Molly. I want you so much!” His voice was guttural with need. Urgent. Excited.

Molly caught the fever in his flesh and fed upon it. She reached out a hand and unbuttoned his shirt and shoved it away from his
shoulders. He quickly skinned out of his long john shirt, leaving him naked to the waist. Molly did something she had wanted to do for a long time. She put her hands around him and, leaning her cheek against the wiry hair on his chest, felt with her hands for the scars on his back.

“How did you get these?” she asked.

‘They're gunshot wounds, Molly. Part of my past.”

He didn't let her ask another question, just covered her mouth and took what he needed.

Molly's knees refused to hold her, and as she felt herself falling, Seth caught her and lowered them both to the quilt. His hands caught the hem of Molly's nightgown and slipped up under it, pushing it out of his way as he caressed her calves and the insides of her thighs, coming ever closer to the heat of her, yet not touching. Waiting.

Molly shivered.

Seth took her hand and placed it over the front of his jeans. “Feel that, Molly. That's what you do to me.”

Molly shivered.

“You're cold, sweetheart. Let me warm you.” He mantled her body with his, fitting his hips into the cradle of her thighs, letting her know how much she was wanted.

Molly thrust her hands into Seth's hair and pulled his head down to kiss him. She breathed his name. “Seth.”

She teased his lips, playing a game of taste and touch, but never staying in one place so that he could put his tongue in her mouth and mime the dance of lovers.

Abruptly, Seth grabbed her gown at the neck and edged it down, revealing her breasts but trapping her arms. Slowly, as though he had all the time in the world, he leaned over and kissed one breast, then the other. He caressed her with his mouth, sucking and biting, and then soothing with more kisses.

“Seth,” Molly begged. “I want to touch you.”

He stopped long enough to pull the gown down to free her arms, then pulled it off over her feet. He stopped again to look at her.

Molly felt self-conscious. No man had ever seen her thus. Not even James. She was grateful for the dim light that she hoped would hide the marks left by the children she had borne.

But Seth's eyes saw only perfection. “You're beautiful, Molly.” He laid a hand reverently on her womb and let it trail down to the nest of dark hair between her legs.

Molly started to close her eyes, but Seth said, “Look at me. I want to see what you're feeling.”

So much. She was feeling so much. Molly groaned as Seth slid a finger inside her.

He lay beside her, and his mouth found hers and tasted honey as he gloried in the feel of her mouth on his.

Molly arched toward him, opened to him, felt him put another finger inside her.

She put her hands on his face and ended the kiss. “Seth. Stop. Please.”

He gasped with the effort, but he did. “What's wrong?”

Molly reached down to the buttons on the front of his jeans. “Take off your clothes. So I can touch you.”

Seth's entire body tautened at the thought of her hands on him.

Molly smiled at the haste with which Seth's trousers and long Johns found their way to the bottom of the quilt to join her nightgown. She put a hand on his flat belly and trailed her fingers down the crease between his thigh and the place where his desire for her was abundantly evident. She surrounded him with her hand, surrounded the heat, the softness, and the hardness.

Molly drew him toward her and led him inside.

Seth sighed with pleasure as he pushed deep inside Molly, all the way, until there was none of him that was not a part of her. He felt her heels grasp his buttocks and pull him tight against her. He began to move, slowly, and mimed with his tongue in her mouth what his body did below.

Molly's fingernails made crescents in Seth's flesh as she clutched him and held on, while her spirit soared and her body shuddered with its release.

Seth's face looked more in agony than ecstasy, but his final cry was one of triumph as he spilled his seed in her and made her his wife.

Patch was nearly asleep on her pallet in front of Ethan's fireplace when she heard him moving stealthily through the room. She opened her eyes just a crack and saw in the banked light of the fire that he was dressed in dark clothes. She tried to remember whether the Masked Marauder had ever rescued anyone at night. She didn't think so. But she couldn't take any chances.

As soon as he was gone, she dressed quickly and followed after him, riding bareback with a halter she'd grabbed at the corral because she thought he would get too far ahead of her if she stopped to saddle her horse. After an hour of following him, Patch still hadn't figured out where Ethan could possibly be going. Patch looked on that as a positive sign that he must be the Masked Marauder. Why else would he be wandering around in the dark?

He changed direction again, and this time
Patch saw in the distance the soft yellow glow where Fort Benton was situated. He continued on through town, beyond the last warehouse on the levee to a wooden barnlike building. Patch pulled her horse to a stop in the shadows and watched nervously as Ethan went inside the darkened building. A few moments later, he came out leading a large, coal-black horse on a halter and carrying a small saddle roll. He mounted again and, leading the black, rode back the way he had come.

Patch slipped into a nearby alley and stared with eyes rounded big as saucers as he rode past her.

Ethan really was the Masked Marauder!

She wondered why he kept the big black in town, where it might be found. Although the townspeople would hardly think to look for the Masked Marauder's horse right under their noses. At least, they hadn't so far.

Patch wanted to confront Ethan with what she knew and beg him to allow her to go along on his next adventure. But if Ethan wouldn't let her go swimming in the pond after dark, he would hardly be likely to take her along when there was real danger. She didn't dare let him know she had found out his secret.

Although he took a circuitous route, Ethan ended up right back at the ranch. Patch followed him to a copse of pine not far from his cabin, where a lean-to stood. She had never even known it was there! When he took the horse and the saddle roll inside, she turned and left, racing for the corral to return her horse before he returned and discovered it missing.

She headed back to his cabin on foot, stripped off her clothes, lay down with her back to the door, and covered herself with the quilt. A few minutes later, she heard the door squeak as Ethan pushed it open. She marveled at how quietly he made his way across the room.

To her surprise, he made a detour over to her. She held her breath, then realized that was sure to give her away. She forced herself to take slow, deep, even breaths as Ethan knelt beside her and pulled the covers up over her shoulders. He brushed aside her bangs, his hands gentle, his touch slow and easy, so as not to disturb her sleep.

Patch nearly died when she felt the touch of his lips on her forehead. She fought to keep from opening her eyes to look at him. Whyever had he done such a thing? Fortunately for her thudding heart, a moment
later he stood and walked away. Patch wondered if he had ever done anything like that before. She didn't understand what she was feeling, but it upset her to think that Ethan felt free to just kiss her like she was some baby or something.

She couldn't confront him about it without revealing she was wide awake—a fact for which she had no easy explanation. Patch lay there and fumed about it for a while, until she decided what he'd done wasn't so terrible and maybe best forgotten. Except she didn't really want to forget it. In fact, she was probably going to remember it for the rest of her life.

Patch fell asleep thinking about the best way of saving the Masked Marauder from the ambush that Drake Bassett and Pike Har-desty were planning for him. All she really knew was that the ambush was supposed to happen on the butte west of town where the two men had set up a whiskey-selling operation. She wondered whether she at least ought to let that information slip to Ethan. She decided to sleep on it and make her decision in the morning.

Only when she woke up in the morning, Ethan was gone. And so was the big black stallion.

Patch realized she couldn't take the chance that Ethan might slip away like that sometime and end up getting ambushed. So when he returned, she immediately confronted him.

“I know you're the Masked Marauder, Ethan.”

His eyes never blinked. He never moved at all. “What makes you think that, Patch?”

“Don't try to pretend. I saw you go to town last night and get your black stallion. I saw the saddle roll—which probably has your mask inside. The reason I'm telling you I know is—”

“You're wrong about the stallion, Patch. Your pa is paying for the use of that black for stud. That's where I was this morning. I took him up to service the mares in the box canyon.”

“What about the saddle roll?” Patch queried.

“Just some tack for the stallion.”

“Tell me the truth, Ethan. It's important. Are you the Masked Marauder?”

“You'll have to look elsewhere for a hero, Patch. I'm not the man you're searching for.” He turned and walked away.

Patch had been so sure it was Ethan that the letdown was tremendous. Now she was
no closer to knowing who the Masked Marauder was than anybody else in town. But she had information that was vitally important for the Masked Marauder to know. What on earth was she supposed to do now?

Molly was worried about Patch. Seth's daughter had been wandering around all morning with a hangdog expression. Right now she was sitting at the kitchen table with an uneaten sandwich from lunch in front of her, turning her glass of buttermilk in circles on the tablecloth. Nessie was down for her nap, and Whit was putting the finishing touches on his room with Seth. Ethan had gone scouting for more wild horses that could be captured and sold to the army.

“Is there anything you'd like to talk about?” Molly asked.

Patch shook her head no.

“Do you want to go outside for a while?”

Patch shrugged. “I guess so.” She rose and scuffed her way out the door.

Molly decided Patch's distraction was probably due to the fact that she would be moving back into her own bedroom tonight. When she did, Nessie would still be there. It was going to be an adjustment for Seth's daughter to share her room with somebody
else. If Molly could have arranged things differently, she would have. But Seth had said it wasn't practical to build a fourth bedroom for Nessie when the two girls could easily share. Molly could sympathize with Patch because she had a difficult situation of her own to face this evening.

Last night, after she and Seth had made love, they had lain for a long while in each other's arms. At first, Molly had felt content. Making love to Seth had felt right and good, and it had been more than just a little wonderful. But soon she had begun to think of all the things Seth hadn't told her about himself … and to wonder.