Compromised Hearts (31 page)

“Who is Giorsal?” Skye asked as she sat down, her eyes, so like Wolfe’s, wide with curiosity.

“A friend of Emily’s,” Wolfe answered with a little smirk.

“And who is Emily?”

Smiling along with Thunder at their sister’s growing annoyance, he did not reply, for he could hear Cloud and Emily approaching. That made him smile even more, for he felt sure that the twins were being brought along as well. His sister’s look of total astonishment when the four entered and Cloud’s new family was introduced was all he could have hoped for. A moment later the visitors were forced to adjust to Giorsal and Thornton as well.

Emily was pleased to meet the last members of Cloud’s family, if only because Cloud was so plainly happy to see them. They were also easy to like. Unlike Thunder, Skye clearly needed only one long look to make a decision about her. After that, Emily found herself a fully accepted member of the Ryder family. The evening flew by as they talked, ate dinner, talked and consumed what seemed to be an ocean of wine. Emily was, however, not able to fully enjoy the family
reunion, for she had other things on her mind.

For nearly a week she had been more than ready to renew marital relations with Cloud, but he had made no move to do so. She knew his body was more than interested but, for some reason, he kept it in control despite the subtle hints she tossed his way. Sipping her wine, of which she knew she had had more than enough, she stood behind the settee where Cloud sat and decided that subtlety was not going to work. She slid her arms around Cloud’s neck, kissed his ear, and rested her cheek against his hair.

“Feeling sleepy, Em?” Cloud patted her hand. “Go to bed if you want. I don’t want you getting too tired. Could you get me some wine first?”

Gaping at the back of his head, Emily blindly accepted his glass. She then glared at him before striding over to get the wine bottle. Giorsal, to whom she’d confided her problem, kept her from striding back with it to empty it over Cloud’s head, but only after a somewhat undignified struggle. Emily could sense that everyone but Cloud knew what she was up to and found it amusing, but she did not care.

Turning at the sound of a scuffle, Cloud frowned. “What’s the matter.”

“Couldnae get the bottle open.”

“It was open, Giorsal.”

“Weel, that’s why we were having
trouble.” Giorsal filled up his glass.

Bringing it to Cloud, Emily smiled sweetly at him and then yawned delicately. “I do believe I will go to bed. Coming?”

“Bit early for me. You go on, though.”

“I will. Good-night, all.” She strolled from the room, a puzzled Giorsal dashing after her.

“That wasnae a verra good try,” Giorsal said as she followed Emily into her room.

“I’ve had another idea.” Taking pen and paper from her small writing table drawer, Emily sat down at the small desk in the corner of the room and began to write. “If this does not do the trick I believe I will resort to rape.”

Giorsal giggled. “Oh, aye, I’m sure he’ll fight fierce if ye set upon him.”

“At the moment it would not surprise me if he did. Could you take this to Cloud?”

“Aye.” Giorsal laughed when she saw the dates on the front. “Good night, Em.”

“I hope so,” she muttered.

Still giggling, Giorsal returned to the sitting room and handed the note to Cloud. “From Em.”

Cloud frowned at the date on the front and the largely printed words. Opening the note he started to read, his eyes and mouth opening a little more with every word he read. By the time he reached the end he was all too aware of what Emily was saying. So too did he begin to see that she had been saying it for several days.

“Jesus!” he cried, leaping to his feet and dashing from the room.

Wolfe beat Giorsal to the note Cloud had dropped and agilely avoided her attempts to kick him. “I’ll read it aloud.”

“Shouldn’t it be private?”

“Don’t go prim on us now, Skye. Let’s see now. On the front we have the twins birth date and today’s date and the words two months. That was plainly too subtle for old Cloud. She’s been pointing that out for several days.”

“Are ye going to read it or no?”

“Patience, Giorsal.” Wolfe opened the note. “To my husband (underlined): I have hinted, nudged and winked to no avail. See if you can understand what this means. I am standing in the middle of our bed wearing my wedding ring and a smile.” Wolfe took a moment to quell his laughter enough to continue reading. “I will count to fifty. If you are not up here by then I’m coming to get you—as is. Your wife.” He then joined everyone else in their hearty laughter.

Even though he heard the sudden burst of laughter, it did not affect Cloud. He burst into the room he shared with Emily, shut the door and leaned against it. For a moment he could not believe his eyes for Emily was just as she had said she would be. Her luxurious hair provided some covering, however, which made her look all the more seductive.

“You forgot to mention the blush,” he rasped as he started to shed his clothes, an
action he had begun on his way to their room.

“It wasn’t there until you walked in. Oh, my, you did that quickly,” she breathed as, now naked, he strode to the bed.

“Started on my way up the stairs.” He tumbled her down onto the bed.

“How very efficient of you.”

“Are you sure you’re ready?”

“I have been ready for days.”

“I’ve been real slow,” he said in slight wonder.

“Very slow.” Her words came out as a soft gasp as his touch began to work its magic on her.

“I’m afraid I can’t be very slow this time. It’s been too damned long.”

“It certainly has and who asked you to be slow?”

For just a moment he struggled for control, but their hunger for each other was too strong. He grew fierce in his love-making, only to have that fierceness met and equaled by Emily. She clung to him eagerly as he drove into her with the force of starvation, both of them trying to touch as much of each other as possible even as they raced toward completion, finding it as one with a blinding intensity, their cries of release blending.

It was a long time before Cloud recovered enough to ease the intimacy of their embrace and slip beneath the covers, tugging them up
over Emily. He held her close, savoring the sense of repletion she gave him. It had been too long since he had enjoyed the sweetness of her body, and he was not at all surprised to feel his own already recovering its interest. He suspected it would be a long, loving-filled night.

“Would you really have come down naked to get me?”

“Good Lord, no. I was just gambling on your thinking I might.”

“Thought so.”

“Yet you came.”

“I came to see you standing naked with just a smile and a wedding ring.” He smiled when she blushed. “Have I thanked you for the twins lately?” He began to smooth his hands over her slender back.

“Mmmm. With the same regularity that you threaten to throttle Giorsal.”

He laughed softly. “They’ll most like be grown with families of their own before I start to get over the surprise of them.” He slowly moved his hands down her back until he cupped her gently rounded bottom in them. “You’re not very good at subtlety.”

“No. It doesn’t seem to be my forte.”

Turning so that she lay beneath him, he smiled at her. “So why not just ask outright?”

“Ask outright?” She stared at him in slight shock. “I could never.” “No?” He touched his lips to the swell of
her breast, then curled his tongue around the tauntening nub, lathing it gently.

“Ah, no. Too bold.” She briefly lost the power of speech as he drew the aching tip of her breast into his mouth.

She was able to do no more than moan her pleasure as he feasted upon her breasts. She tried to reach the juncture of his thighs with her hands but he kept himself just out of her reach. Emily had to content herself with burying her hands in his thick, glossy hair or smoothing them over his shoulders as he began to place soft warm kisses in a line down her midriff.

Her legs grew heavy, falling open as he stroked them from thigh to ankle and back again. He smoothed kisses over the insides of her thighs, skillfully using his tongue to soothe the pleasurable sting of the occasional gentle nip he gave her. Very soon she ached for the touch of his hand, for the delight of his stroking fingers, but he kept his hands upon her legs, never venturing between them.

“I’m going to make you ask me, Emily. I want to hear you say, Cloud make love to me, please.”

“I can’t.” He kept her hovering over desire’s abyss until she finally cried, “Cloud, make love to me, please.”

“I didn’t think you’d ever ask,” he gasped as he fiercely possessed her.

“Thank you.” She clung to him as he drove
into her and knew she was not the only one who had reached the limit of endurance.

“No need to be so polite.”

“Shut up, Cloud.” She tugged his mouth down to hers.

He did. More or less.

“
A
re you certain it’s all right, Skye?”

“Very certain,” Skye replied as she urged Emily into the wagon. “Cameron’s very good with babies, and you deserve a trip to town. You’ve been stuck out here for months. You need time to do your own shopping, perhaps even buy something frivolous, a little present for yourself for being so good.”

“And she’s been very good,” drawled Cloud as he climbed up into the driver’s seat.

There was no mistaking the innuendo behind Cloud’s words and Emily blushed. She wondered if she would ever get used to the way Cloud so openly referred to the
intimacies they shared. Although she had accepted the fact that she could thoroughly
enjoy such intimacies without guilt or shame, speaking of them, even obliquely, was another matter. She gave Cloud a cross look when he briefly grinned at her.

“He just does it to see you get flustered,” Skye said after swatting her brother.

“I know.” Emily grimaced as Cloud started the wagon moving and James, driving the second wagon, moved in behind them. “No matter how I try, I consistently oblige the rogue.”

“Well, one of these days you’ll find that only his most outrageous remarks make you do it.”

“That is one of the things that worries me the most. As I get more accustomed, he will get more outrageous.”

Emily joined with Skye in laughing softly. As Skye began trading quips with Cloud and Thunder, who rode in front next to Cloud, Emily relaxed in the camaraderie of the family she was now a part of.

Glancing back at Harper, who rode with James and Wolfe, she had to smile. He was arguing with Giorsal again. Although she was concerned about her brother and knew he would soon move on seeking a new direction in his life, she was happy for him. He was content, even though he faced the prospect of starting from scratch. She could only pray that, while building that new life, Harper did not get involved with another Dorothy.

The wagons stopped before the mercantile
store, and as Cloud helped her down, he said, “Go and be frivolous, but not too frivolous. After we get what we need, the men and I will probably stop in at the saloon for a drink.”

“Rosie will be delighted.”

“She will be at that, and I’ll be sure to tell her how fine I think marriage and fatherhood are.” He briefly kissed her, then strode off with the other men.

“He sure is a muckle bonnnie laddie.”

Smiling at Giorsal, Emily nodded. “I certainly think so.”

“We can see that,” drawled Skye as the three of them entered the store.

“Not too blatantly, I hope. Cloud is puffed up enough as it is.”

Laughing, Skye nodded. “Too many easy women hurling themselves at him didn’t help.” She winked at Emily. “Neither did getting himself a fine, pretty Boston lady for a wife. Makes these folk sit up and take notice.”

“And that matters?”

Pausing by a table laden with bolts of material, Skye replied, “Well, Cloud would never have looked for or wed a woman just for that, but he isn’t above enjoying the result when it all works out that way. He hasn’t had an easy time here.”

“I hadn’t noticed Cloud having much difficulty being accepted. Of course, I haven’t been here long and have spent most of that time out at the ranch. Why should he have trouble?”

“Because he’s got Indian blood. You did know that, didn’t you?”

“Yes—and now that I recall, Dorothy did make a few disparaging remarks about it, but Dorothy is a cat.”

“She wasn’t saying anything many another wouldn’t say in that case. If Cloud had tried to wed one of their womanfolk, you would’ve seen it, seen that hate. Harper’s just too good a man to feel it. The Indian blood’s thinned and we don’t know near anything about being Indian, but that doesn’t matter to folk. I’d like to say you won’t see it, but you probably will. And, so will your children,” she said softly. “I started to prepare my children for it the minute they could understand what I was saying to them.”

Emily nodded, acknowledging that as a good idea. “Have you no curiosity about that part of your heritage?”

“A lot. I think I will probably make a pilgrimage to my grandmother’s people some day. It’s all a part of me, after all. A choice had to be made though, a choice between peoples, and my kin chose white.” She shrugged. “It might’ve been different had my grandmother lived longer, but my pa was raised white by his father, married a white, and raised us that way. I’m not ashamed of my Indian blood, and I won’t let my children be, but the way of the Cherokee hasn’t been my family’s way for two generations. Can’t start now.”

Skye frowned as she noticed a woman
enter the store. “From the descriptions I’ve heard, I think that’s Dorothy.”

Looking in the direction Skye nodded, Emily sighed. “It is, and she’s seen me.”

When Dorothy confronted her, Emily found it very hard to be civil. She politely introduced Skye and Giorsal. Despite Dorothy’s clear intention to be conciliatory, the woman could not fully hide her disdain for Emily’s companions. It annoyed Emily, but she was determined to hold her temper. Curiosity also held her. She could not think of anything Dorothy could have to say to her, yet she knew instinctively that this was no chance meeting.