Butterfly Garden (21 page)

Sara freed an arm and finger-combed her husband’s unruly hair at his nape. Lord she liked his face against her breast. “My love,” she whispered.

At the sound of her own words, Sara’s hand stopped moving, as nearly did her heart. Did she?  Did she love Mad Adam Zuckerman?  And if she did, was she foolish enough to think he could love her in return?

No. She sighed. No, she wasn’t that foolish. And, yes, God help her, she loved him. This was the time to admit it, now when it must have pained him mightily to come for her, or no time would be right.

“Adam,” she called softly, surprised at the scratch in her voice. “Adam, how do you feel?”

He raised his head a bit, purring like a score of barn cats after fresh milk. “Nice,” he said. “You feel nice.”

Sara smiled. “No, how do you feel?”

He rubbed his face between her breasts. “Nice,” he said again before taking her nipple into his mouth.

The liquid sensation only he could incite moved from her breasts to her core, where it radiated outward in thrumming spirals, warming her the more.

“Spinster Sara,” Adam said, tasting, laving, teasing the nubbin with fascination. “Fire and ice, hard and soft, strong and gentle. You make me ache. You yell and I ache. You insult and I ache. You are my best dream, sweet Sara, awake or asleep.”

Sara might soar with joy if worry did not fill her. In his right mind, Adam would not say such things. She had never known anyone to burn so with fever. He did not know what he was saying. “Adam, you are burning up.”

“I know,” he said running his hands over her bottom, bringing his face to hers, and pulling her against his arousal.

With a worried chuckle, she pulled away, so she could examine his eyes. Glassy, they were, and unfocused. She put her cheek to his forehead, his heat all but scalding her. “You’re burning up!”

“It’s the fire,” he said. “In my blood. For you.”

“Delirious,” she said. “I knew it. We’ve got to get you out of these blankets and away from the fire.” Unwrapping him was easy, getting his hands off her body was not. Worse, because she wanted them there.

When they were both free of the blankets and Sara was about to help him away from the hearth, Adam lay her back down again in a move she did not expect. Fever or not, bad leg or not, he was strong. And determined.

Then he was there, somehow, covering her, devouring her, branding her, it seemed, with his hands and his mouth.

“Adam,” she said, placing her palms on his face to raise his head and reclaim his attention, before all conscious thought was lost. “Adam, we have to move you from the fire. It is too hot. You are too hot.”

He smiled then, lazy, self-assured, despite the fever in his eyes.

“Adam, the fire—”

“Did you know?” he said, serious, alert, suddenly. “That butterflies need to raise their body temperatures to fly.” His smile became earnest, boyish. “I want to make you fly, my Sara.”

Sara stopped focusing beyond the wonder of his hands on her body, of his lips ... everywhere. Were it not for the fact that she was, indeed, well on her way to flight, she might very well blush. Never had such pressure built inside her, not even that time in their bed. This was hotter, higher. Softer, harder. Wider, narrower. Inside and out.

Her world dissolved, yet it expanded. They were alone in the universe, she and her love, alone and rising, climbing toward, toward….

Adam moved above her and slipped inside her before Sara knew his intent. Shock was quickly replaced by a joy that consumed her. With inborn instinct, Sara Zuckerman arched to pull her husband deeper inside her body, to envelop and welcome him.

As she did, he threw his head back and called her name, then he stilled for one tense, silent moment, wherein neither so much as breathed. Then he came for her and took her mouth, and kissed her in the way of lovers.

With a certainty as old as time and as far back as the first Adam, Sara knew that this Adam, her very own Madman, was the mate God intended for her, in life and through eternity.

As if that knowledge were not enough, he raised his head, his eyes bright and clear as glass. “You are the first and only home I have ever known, Sara Zuckerman. You are my own perfect butterfly.”

Chapter 13

Tears filled Sara’s eyes, joy overflowed her heart, and as her love began to move inside of her, bringing her and himself to a higher plane than she imagined existed, that incredible spiral inside her coiled hotter and tighter.

Adam whispered; he shouted. He moaned; he begged. He beseeched and thanked her ... and the Deity. He rode her hard and he raised her up, till he brought her so high, she thought she might expire. Then he lowered her again, setting her softly to rest, only to raise her up once more.

Sara caught and matched his rhythm as Adam began to speak words of love, though the word love itself was never used. When he told her she’d touched his soul, Sara allowed her deepest secret, that she loved him, to burst from her lips.

Adam shouted in exaltation, though his response, if any, died on the lips he pressed to hers. She didn’t care. This was Adam. Her Adam. And he was taking her, loving her in the way God intended them to love. And she was grateful, and happy and soaring gloriously.

The stars rushed them, coming fast and furious, sparkling, despite a climb that had been slow and intense, and beyond-belief wonderful.

They arrived in a blinding flash, touched wonder and encompassed it for one long, thrumming beat, then they floated toward earth once more.

* * * * *

Sara had been gone for twenty four hours. Jordan shook his head with worry and urged his carriage horses faster.

Roman told him that Lena had left Emma with the children and driven to his house, the next farm over, at mid-morning, a whole bloody day after Sara had left for a birthing. Lena, Roman said, had been no-longer able to sit still and wait, even though that’s what Adam had ordered her to do the evening before, as he set off to find Sara, himself.

Roman listened to Lena’s tale, sent her back to Adam’s house, and set out immediately to get Jordan. He cursed. His life among the Amish could bear a great deal of improvement. He was merely a man, an English man, who some of the Amish foolishly believed could fix anything, while most were certain he could fix nothing.

When he arrived at the Zuckerman house, Jordan listened to Lena tell him about Sara and Adam, and Jordan told her she had done the right thing by going to Roman, though Jordan did not think she believed him.

Adam’s sister, beautiful, ethereal like a fairy princess with invisible wings, waited as if for him to speak directly to her. But not one intelligent word came to mind, which went to show how foolish he was, where she was concerned. “Good morning, Emma,” he said, damning himself for an idiot, and stepping near enough to smell springtime and touch stardust. He took her hand, inordinately pleased that she seemed to want his touch as much as he wanted to touch her. “I’ll bring Sara home; don’t you worry.”

Lord, and didn’t she nod as if she believed him. Really believed him. Considering the number of women who put their trust in his skill every day, he wondered why this woman’s humbled him beyond understanding.

Uncomfortable with the odd sensation and the undefined reason for it, Jordan turned back to Roman who had just come inside. “Hope you brought your biggest buggy, Roman, so there’ll be room in the back, in case….”

Roman gave an affirmative nod to Jordan’s unfinished sentence, deepening the worry on Lena’s face.

“Lena, can you come with us,” Jordan asked. “Having a woman there for Sara would be—”

Emma tugged hard on his arm and pulled him around to face her. No doubt about it; she wanted him to pay attention as she pointed to herself, panic and some deeper need in her eyes.

“You want to come instead of your mother?”

Emma nodded, the movement of her head almost comical in its determination and speed. Charming brat. “Adam will be there, too, aren’t you afraid of Adam?”

She shook her head as if that was absurd. No wonder Sara got that impression. Emma’s answer made Jordan wonder if she thought Adam was someone else. “The man who lives here, Sara’s husband,” he said, watching her look turn haunted. “He will be with Sara. That Adam is your brother.”

That certainly gave Emma pause, but stubbornness rose to negate worry. She nodded once, decisively, and went for her cape and bonnet. Then she went to the wide-eyed silent children and kissed each head in turn, Lizzie, Katie, Pris, then she snuggled her face into the baby’s belly, a laugh gurgling in them both at the same time. The nagging puzzle of the silent, seductive girl arrested Jordan once more. Why her inability, or should he say, her refusal, to talk?

Though Emma’s look proclaimed her worry over her missing brother and sister-in-law, she all but danced out the door, her step was so light.

Jordan took Lena’s fretting hands to still them. “I guess it’s settled.” He shrugged. “Emma is coming with us.” That made Lena smile as he intended, but the smile faded quickly.

“They will be fine. I promise,” Jordan said. “Freshen their bed and warm some bricks. Heat some water too, in case ... they need to bathe.

For surgery, he thought. In case either of them was badly hurt. If they had found shelter, that was. If they had not ... no surgery would be necessary. Jordan chased the thought away with optimism and hope, a leaf he had, some time ago, taken from Sara’s book of life.

Outside, he found Emma on the driver’s seat of Roman’s family buggy. Like a queen, she sat, head high and stubbornly set, as if to say, ‘Enough talk. I am ready.’

Jordan got in the back and Roman climbed up to drive, but Emma screeched when she saw him and shoved him with all her might.

Off the seat and into the snow, Roman flew, and on his duff, he landed, up to his neck in snow.

Jordan laughed and jumped down to help him up. “Sorry old man. I’ll just take the reins, then, shall I?” Jordan wasn’t sure why he thought Emma would allow it, but it had to do with the look she’d bestowed upon him in the house.

After a few miles, it began to rain, and Jordan became aware of Emma watching him. Worry, he saw in her look, and a need to be reassured. Lord, he’d never seen a woman who could say so much while saying nothing.

“Sara will be fine,” he said, knowing which of the Zuckermans she was concerned about. “She will.”

He could see she hadn’t decided whether to believe his groundless reassurance or not, so he sighed and turned back to the road. Smart girl.

The rain did much to melt the snow, high as it had been, except for where it had drifted. That was the thing about spring blizzards. They could be lions one minute, lambs the next.

Jordan held the reins one-handed as he felt for his medical bag on the seat between them, just to reassure himself that everything he needed was there. He had just encountered it, when he felt Emma slip her hand into his.

From her look, he saw that she had decided to place her faith in him. Heady stuff that, blind faith. Jordan wasn’t certain he was up to it. If she knew him better, she wouldn’t even consider it.

* * * * *

When they found Lena’s yellow buggy, missing its horse, the tightness in Jordan’s gut got worse. That the horse was gone might be cause for hope, however, and he said so.

Roman grunted noncommittally, but Emma beamed.

They found the lean-to sheltering Lena’s horse less than a quarter mile away. The chimney of the hovel beside it emitted a thin spiral of smoke. Roman was down and running before Jordan could stop the buggy.

When Jordan stepped inside the crude cabin and saw the entwined couple, Roman frozen in shock beside them, Jordan thought they were both dead for sure and had to bite back a cry of denial.

Up close, thank God, he saw that they were both breathing—barely—and he was able to reassure Roman, and Emma standing behind him, her hand to her throat, her face white.

Before Jordan could unwrap the embracing couple, he asked Emma to go and feed her mother’s horse, to which suggestion she nodded and complied. Then he told Roman to go and make sure she was all right.

As Jordan had suspected, Adam and Sara were both naked beneath their layers of blankets. Their clothes must have been sodden. One of them had been very smart; problem was, he could not tell who had saved whom. They were both very ill.

One of Sara’s lungs was full of fluid, though her fever was nowhere near as dangerously high as Adam’s. The man’s thigh was so infected, Jordan fully expected to have to take the leg. The next few days would tell.

He covered Sara with blankets again after listening to her lungs. Emma could dress her while he and Roman carried Adam out.

He poured brandy on Adam’s wound, wringing a scream from his throat, and put his stiff, dry shirt back on him. There would be no getting pants over that thigh, so Jordan removed his greatcoat and wrapped Adam in that, before he wrapped him in a dry blanket.

“Roman, Emma,” Jordan shouted. “Come and help me.”

Roman came. “Emma has been standing still as stone ever since she heard Adam yell.”

Jordan swore and went out to her, and she relaxed visibly when she saw him. “Adam is sick, sleeping, Emma. No reason to be afraid, but Sara needs you.”

Just like that, Emma ran inside. “Get Sara dressed for me, will you,” Jordan asked following her in, “after Roman and I take your brother out to the buggy?”

Emma nodded, stepped forward, saw Adam, and stepped back. She did not bend to her task until he and Roman moved Adam from Sara’s side.

Jordan went back in twice to check on Emma before she finally finished dressing and re-wrapping Sara. The third time, he found the girl kneeling beside her unconscious sister-in-law, stroking her cheek, crooning reassuringly, in her own throaty way.

Emma sat in the back with Sara’s head in her lap on the ride home, and she watched Adam as though she would defend Sara against him.

Witnessing that, a compelling need was born in Jordan, to see inside the silent girl’s head. Who did she think Adam’s face belonged to and why could she not equate it with the brother she’d obviously loved?  Why was she afraid of men, but not afraid of him, a stranger?