Emmett (11 page)

He had. Guy was much more like his old self, like the boy he'd been before Emmett ever saw Melody in Logan's office. He drew her close and kissed her softly. “All right. I give in.” He eased her across his lap on the
sofa and kissed her more thoroughly, feeling the warmth and tenderness of it right through his body.

“I love you,” she whispered, smiling against his mouth.

“Kiss me…!”

He gathered her up and devoured her until they were both trembling. His mouth slid down to her throat and he held her, shivering. He was afraid. He'd never been so afraid. She possessed him, delighted him, made him whole. He'd lost his father, whom he idolized. His mother had killed herself. Adell had left him. If he lost Melody…!

“Emmett!” she protested gently, because his arms were bruising her.

He lifted his dark head and looked at her. The expression on his face, in his eyes, touched her deeply.

She reached up to press soft, tender kisses against his fearful eyes, his cheeks, his nose, his mouth until she felt him begin to relax. Then she drew back and searched his eyes.

“Emmett, I will never leave you,” she whispered, and put her fingers over his mouth when he tried to speak. “Never,” she repeated, understanding what was bothering him. She put her mouth against his and held on, feeling him shiver as he gathered her against him and kissed her with quiet desperation.

She knew then that he felt something powerful for her, even if he'd never said so. She smoothed his hair and lay quietly in his arms until the brunt of his passion was spent. Then she curled against him, trustingly, and sighed.

He stared over her head toward the door, a little less
horrified than he'd been. How shocking, he thought, to discover so late in life that he'd never known what love was. At least, not until now.

E
mmett wanted to tell Melody what he felt. He wanted to shout it to the world. But he couldn't manage it. He felt choked up with the knowledge. He looked down at her and his heart seemed to swell to the point of bursting.

“You delight me,” he whispered huskily. His hand touched her hair, her cheek. “Oh, God, I'd do anything for you…!”

She drew his mouth down to hers again and kissed him tenderly.

“Coffee's on,” Mrs. Jenson said with a wicked smile as she came into the room with a tray. “I suppose you newlyweds would rather live on kisses than cake, but here it is, anyway. If you need anything else, just call.”

“Thanks, Mrs. Jenson,” Emmett murmured.

Melody shyly climbed off Emmett's lap to sit beside
him on the sofa. “Yes, indeed, it looks delicious!” she said enthusiastically.

“Could you peek out the window occasionally?” Emmett called to Mrs. Jenson. “Just to make sure the kids aren't making shish kebab of any of old man Regan's cattle?”

“Why do you think the curtains aren't drawn?” she asked, tongue-in-cheek. “All the same, they're a nice bunch of kids. They went down to Mark Gary's cabin yesterday with a straggly bunch of old silk flowers they found. His dog got run over in the road and they felt sorry for him. Guy even offered to give him Barney because he was so upset.”

Emmett was touched. He didn't seem to know his own kids at all. “That was nice of them.”

“Yes, it was. They've got a lot of heart.” She twisted her apron. “Of course, there was this one little incident while you were away.”

“Little?” he asked hesitantly.

She shifted. “Well, you know how they feel about that inspector who comes out here—the one who yelled at Barney and made Amy cry? The one everybody in the county hates?”

Emmett's face hardened. “I had words with him about upsetting Amy.”

“You weren't here,” she pointed out. “He made a remark that Guy didn't like about that big Appaloosa stallion of yours that Guy adores. Then he made a couple of remarks about you.”

“What did they do?” Emmett asked with resignation.

“Nothing really vicious…”

“What did they do?” he repeated.

She grimaced. “They put a potato in his tailpipe.”

“Did he take it out?”

She cleared her throat. “He was too busy at the time.”

“Doing what?”

“Trying to get the snake out of his front seat.”

Emmett buried his face in his hands. “Oh, my God!” he wailed. “He'll shut us down for sure!”

“I don't think so.”

There was hope? He lifted his head. “Why?”

“Well, the kids had some food coloring they got out of the cabinet. They sort of colored the snake up before they put it in the cab. I don't like snakes, you know, but it was real pretty. Sort of blue and pink and yellow and green, with polka dots.” She shrugged. “It seems that the gentleman went back to his office and told them he'd been shut up in his car with a blue and pink and yellow and green polka-dotted snake by three midget commandos.” She wiped her hands on her apron. “I hear he's having therapy. There's this new inspector. He's real nice, and he likes snakes. We, uh, didn't let him see Guy's, of course. The food coloring will wear off, eventually.”

Emmett hadn't stopped laughing when she got back to the kitchen.

Melody could hardly contain herself. She hoped that the kids never got it in for her!

 

Guy was nervous around his father. He hadn't forgotten the threat about military school, and there was the incident with the snake. He was sure Mrs. Jenson had mentioned it.

Because he was uncertain of his position now that Melody was in residence, he tried to keep out of everyone's way.

That night, an impatient Emmett hustled the kids to bed and turned off the television long before the news was due to come on.

He held out his hand, his eyes quiet and tender as they met Melody's.

“You look impatient, Mr. Deverell,” she said demurely as he tugged her along the hall toward their bedroom.

“Impatient, desperate and a few other things. How I wish these walls were soundproof,” he muttered under his breath. He closed the door and locked it before he turned on the radio by the bed to a country-western station. He looked down at Melody, who was blushing. He drew her against him and bent to brush his mouth sensuously over her own. “We're starving for each other,” he whispered. “I don't want eavesdroppers, and we both get pretty vocal when we let go in bed.”

“Yes.” She shivered as his hands smoothed down her body. “It's been so long—!” Her voice broke.

“Eons.” He lifted her onto the bed and followed her down.

Tenderness still wasn't possible, he thought as the room began to spin around them. Not yet…!

Later, when the anguish of wanting each other was spent, he aroused her again, but tenderly this time. He moved against her in a soft, sweet rhythm that was unlike anything they'd ever done together. All the while, he looked into her eyes and smoothed away her damp hair, kissed her forehead, her nose, her cheeks, her eyes. Until speech was no longer possible, he whispered broken endearments and praise.

When the spiral caught them, her body convulsed violently, despite the slow, gentle rhythm, and she began to sob under the warm crush of his mouth. The rainbow of sensation made her cry out and he was vaguely
aware of the radio drowning out the sound as his muscles corded and his hips arched violently, convulsively, against her.

They were both shaking with reaction when the room came back into focus. She was crying softly, because the force of the ecstasy he'd given her had been devastating.

“I wanted to give you tenderness,” he whispered with exhausted regret. “I wanted it to be soft and slow and gentle and I couldn't…!”

“But it was,” she protested. She lifted up, resting her arm across his damp, throbbing chest as she looked down into his eyes. “Emmett, it was!”

“Not at the last,” he said through his teeth.

“Oh. Then. Well, of course not,” she murmured shyly. She smiled at him wickedly and laughed deep in her throat. “You lose control,” she whispered. “I like to watch you cry out, and know that it's because of me, because of the pleasure you get from my body.”

He touched her face with wonder. “I like to watch you for the same reason. Melody,” he said quietly, “I never watched before. The pleasure I gave never mattered that much before.”

“I'm glad.” She drew her face gently against his, wrapping him up in the sweetness of her adoration. “I'd die for you, Emmett,” she whispered.

He drew her down and enveloped her hungrily. His hands in her hair were unsteady as he used them to turn her head so that he could find her mouth. His lips trembled, too, with the rage of feeling she unleashed in him.

Incredible man, she thought dizzily. So much a man…

She eased her hips over his and coaxed his body
into deep intimacy, pressing soft kisses over his hair-roughened chest as she shifted over him until he groaned. He lay like a pagan sacrifice, and she sat up, feeling the power of her own femininity as he writhed and moaned beneath the slow movement of her hips.

“I love you,” she whispered, increasing the pressure. “I love you, Emmett, I love you!”

His lean hands bit into her hips and he arched, crying out helplessly as she fulfilled him and, in the process, herself. In the back of her mind she was grateful for the radio. If those kids had heard… She moved again and he lost the ability to think at all.

 

Breakfast was uncomfortable for the whole next week.

“You sure must like country-western music a lot, Emmett,” Amy muttered. “But does it have to be so loud?”

“All those wailing cowboys,” Polk said with a shake of his unruly hair.

“Sounds more like rock music than country,” Amy agreed.

Melody's face was scarlet. She didn't dare look at Emmett. The muffled laughter coming from the head of the table was bad enough.

“I'll try to keep the volume down,” Emmett promised dryly. “It helps us sleep.”

“That's right,” Melody agreed.

“Bill Turner wants me to go hunting with him Saturday,” Guy remarked. “We're going after squirrels.”

“No,” Melody said abruptly.

Guy glared at her. “I can go if I want to.”

“No,” she said flatly. “Emmett?”

He glanced at her and frowned. She was giving him
muted signals that he didn't understand. But if she was that vehement about it, there had to be a reason.

“Dad?” Guy asked belligerently.

“Melody said no,” Emmett replied. “Eat your eggs.”

“She's not my mother!” Guy burst out. “She can't tell me what to do!”

“She's my wife, and the hell she can't tell you what to do! This is her house now, just as much as it's mine and Amy's and Polk's and yours!”

Guy got up from the table. “I hate her!” he raged. He turned and ran out of the house. He'd wanted to go hunting more than anything in the world. It would have been the first time he'd ever shot a rifle, ever hunted anything. He'd been sure Emmett would let him go, and now that interfering woman was telling him he couldn't and Emmett took her side against his! He hated her! He ran off into the small wooded glade past the barn and stayed there for the rest of the afternoon, refusing to budge even when Amy and Polk came to find him.

“Why didn't you want him to go?” Emmett asked Melody after Guy and the other two had gone. “Is it the thought of shooting a squirrel that bothers you?”

“It's the thought of Bill shooting him,” she replied worriedly. “Emmett, the weekend before we married, Bill was out beyond the barn with a .22 rifle shooting wildly all around the place. He wasn't even aiming at anything. I yelled at him when one of the bullets whizzed past me and he stopped.”

“Why didn't you tell me?” he demanded.

“He begged me not to. He said you might fire him.” She looked up at him. “He promised he wouldn't do it again, and he hasn't, but he's careless and haphaz
ard. Would you really trust Guy's life to somebody like that?”

“No, certainly not. I'll talk to Guy later.”

“Thanks.” She grimaced. “I guess I'm public enemy number one again,” she said miserably.

“He'll understand when I explain it. All the same,” he said with a glowering look, “he's not going to talk to you like that.”

“Look at you bristle.” She sighed, resting her chin on her hands. “A conceited woman would think you're head over heels in love with me.”

He stared at her levelly. “I am head over heels in love with you,” he said matter-of-factly.

Her breath stopped in her throat as she met the soft sensuality of his eyes and got lost in their green depths. “You what?” she faltered.

“I love you,” he repeated. “Adore you. Worship the ground you walk on.” He grinned. “We could go into the bedroom and I could tell you some more. But it's broad daylight and the radio's unplugged. And Mrs. Jenson won't confuse wailing with country music,” he added, tongue-in-cheek.

She blushed, laughing. “Well, you do your share of that, too. It isn't all me!”

“I know,” he said shamelessly. He sighed warmly and smiled at her. “I like just looking at you with your clothes off. Being able to make love to you is a bonus.”

“I used to think I was oversized and plain before you came along,” she murmured.

“Not anymore, I'll wager,” he murmured, staring pointedly at her breasts. “If you're oversized, long live big girls.”

She laughed. “Emmett!”

He grimaced. “I have to go to work. I don't want to,”
he added, when he got up and paused to kiss her on his way out. “But I don't get paid for kissing you.”

“Pity,” she whispered. “When you do it so well!”

He chuckled. “So do you.”

“Emmett?”

He paused. “Hmm?”

“I love you, too,” she said solemnly.

He smiled. “You tell me that with your body, every time we love each other.” He traced a line down her straight nose. “I was telling you, the same way, but you didn't realize it, did you?”

She shook her head. Her eyes blazed with feeling. “I could walk on a cloud…”

“So could I.” He bent and kissed her very softly. “One day, when the sharp edge wears off the hunger, maybe I'll be able to make love to you as tenderly as I want to in my heart,” he whispered. “Right now, I can't tone down the desire I feel for you. If I have any regret, it's that.”

“Have I complained?” she asked softly. “I want you just as badly, Emmett. It will keep.” She smiled. She beamed. “I didn't know you loved me!”

“Well, you do, now.” He pulled his hat low over his eyes. “Don't let it go to your head just because I walk into fence posts staring at you like a love-struck boy.”

She put her hand over her heart, one of his favorite postures, and grinned back at him. “Would I do that?”

His green eyes glittered with mischief. “We'd better find a rock station to listen to tonight,” he murmured dryly.

She laughed with pure delight as he winked and went out the door. She had the world, she thought. She had
the whole world. Emmett loved her! Everything was going to be perfect now.

 

The euphoria lasted until suppertime, when she went to feed Alistair. And she couldn't find him.

She looked through the house, in all his favorite places, but he wasn't anywhere to be seen. It was cold outside and threatening rain. Surely he wouldn't have gone out voluntarily! He hated the outdoors. He hated getting wet even more.

Then she remembered that Guy had been angry with her. The last time he'd been angry with her, he'd let Alistair out, and she almost hadn't got him back. But the boy wouldn't be that cruel again, would he?