Liz Ireland (12 page)

He gasped. Now that Isabel was in town, he supposed there would be no more letters.

What hope would punctuate his days now?

There wouldn’t be any more disappointment, though, when the letters didn’t come. That would be a consolation, a relief.

Relief, he repeated to himself. That had to be what was left when all the excitement was sucked out of him—had to be why he drooped even more than usual as he headed toward home.

“This is quite a switch.”

Ellie’s green eyes stared up at Roy as she accepted the mug of warm milk from him. “What?”

“Me bringing you hot liquids.”

She laughed, and as always, the laughter worked a kind of magic on his system. He steeled himself against the silly grin that wanted to tug at his lips. “I’m perfectly fine, you know. I could easily get up and fetch it myself.”

“That’s what I used to think when I broke my toe and you were pestering me with tea all the time.”

“And was it true?” she asked him.

Suddenly the kitchen seemed unbearably warm. “Maybe,” he answered, his voice dropping a notch. “But if I’d gotten it myself, I wouldn’t have been able to be alone with you so much.”

Ellie blushed to her hair roots, and he turned away, got up and poked at the fire. He didn’t look at her, but he could see her behind him in his mind’s eye, sipping at the milk mug cradled in her two hands, a blanket draped over her thin shoulders, those green eyes staring up at him.

What was she doing here? Was it some madness, some perverse pleasure in seeing him suffer that had brought her here at exactly the worst possible time, during a snow that had covered the road so that he couldn’t possibly send her back?

And where was Uncle Ed? He’d been gone for hours! Why the heck hadn’t he at least waited till tomorrow to go to town, when Ellie would have been feeling better, and he could have dropped her off at the farm for Parker to deal with.

To Roy, it suddenly seemed as if the whole world were conniving against him. In cahoots. Parker, by bringing a woman into his world who he couldn’t have. Ellie, by not leaving him be. Ed, for leaving him with Ellie. Ike…

Well, he didn’t know what Ike had done, but he wasn’t going to let him off the hook just because of that. He was sure there was something.

He punched a red log with the poker and it collapsed in an explosion of brilliant sparks. He stared at the display with a vicarious relief—he felt as though he might explode that way himself if he spent much more time around Ellie. When he turned back around, Ellie was gazing at him.

Why did she look at him that way, with those dewy green eyes of hers? It was almost as if…

Well. He didn’t dare think it, but it was almost as if she loved him.

Ha! That was a perfect bit of wishful thinking.

He gritted his teeth. “I’d better go out to the woodpile, get another log.”

To his dismay, she hopped up, too. “I’ll go with you.”

“Are you out of your cotton-pickin’ mind? Sit down.”

She put her cup down impatiently. “Nonsense. I’ve
been penned up in here all day. I’d like some exercise.”

“Your foolish five-mile trek through the snow wasn’t enough exercise?”

She glared at him now, her hands in fists by her sides. “It wasn’t foolish. I made it, didn’t I?”

“Yes—and now you can’t leave!”

Her cheeks turned a shade redder. “I’m sorry. But if I can’t leave, shouldn’t we make the best of it?”

“The best of it would be you staying put. I don’t want you to die before Uncle Ed gets back.”

She laughed. “Don’t you know? I wouldn’t die for anything now, Roy. I wouldn’t want to give you that satisfaction.”

His lips flattened into a thin line. Is that what she thought? That he would be happy without her? He couldn’t help himself. He blurted out, “If that’s how you think I’d feel, you’re not as smart as I thought you were!”

And then he turned and slammed out of the house, feeling like a damn fool for his outburst.

He might as well have told her that he was burning up inside with love for her and be done with it!

Wouldn’t you know it, the door opened and shut behind him and he heard the light crunch of footsteps coming upon him. He turned, surprising her so that she slipped and almost went flying past him. He grabbed her arm, at once stopping her and holding her upright. She still had that blanket draped around her, only she had draped it over her head, too, like a scarf, so that her green eyes blinked up at him as though through the opening of a red plaid tent.

“Go back inside,” he told her.

Her chin darted up defiantly. “I’m going to help you, Roy, whether you want me to or not.”

He sighed. “Fine.” Keeping a firm grip on her
arm, he marched her over to the woodpile between the house and the barn. Once there, she dutifully held out her blanket-draped arms, and he began stacking logs—the smallest ones he could find—onto them.

“Did you really mean what you said just then, Roy?”

He picked out a larger dry log for himself to carry and put it aside. “Mean what?”

“That…you wouldn’t be happy if something bad happened to me.”

“Of course I meant it!” he said gruffly, glad that she couldn’t see his face, which was probably as pink as a baby rash. “I’m not an ogre.”

She smiled up at him, one of those smiles that could melt a glacier. “I know you’re not.”

In fact, if he were a glacier, he would be half a lake already. “I wouldn’t want anything bad to happen to a friend of Parker’s.”

“Is that how you think of me?”

“Isn’t that what you are?” he asked. “Parker’s friend?” The words
Parker’s sweetheart
steadfastly refused to come out of his mouth, though that would have been a much more helpful question to ask.

She seemed to understand, though. “Parker’s friend, yes. Did you think there was anything more?”

His mouth felt dry, and it was all he could do to lift a piece of wood that was practically a twig into her arms. “Of course…what else can I think when you two seem so…companionable.”

Two red stains appeared in her cheeks. “Parker and I seem companionable?” she asked with indignation. “And so we are!”

He frowned. “I don’t see why you should be so angry about it.”

“Because you—” She stopped, taking a deep
breath. “Because you seem to imply there’s something shameful between him and myself.”

“That’s because every time I walk in a room, you two spring apart as if you’ve been kissing.”

“Kissing?” Her mouth dropped open. “We have
never…!
”

“Never?” he asked doubtfully.

“All men aren’t like you, Roy,” she said. “Kissing me one day and then—”

“Then what?” He tilted his head, utterly and hopelessly confused. This was the first time she’d ever mentioned his kiss again, but she seemed to think he’d betrayed her somehow. “What did I do?”

She lifted her head, collecting herself with some effort. When she spoke, it was in a clipped, incensed voice. “Well, if you must know, Sunday morning I saw you.”

“Saw me what?”

“I saw you by the pond with that young woman. Clara Trilby.”

That name—it nearly caused him to drop his log. Instead, he tossed it aside and planted his hands on his hips. “What did you see me doing?”

That proud pointy chin hiked up another imperious notch. “I saw you two embracing.”

A shudder ran through his body—a feeling of pure, unadulterated joy compounded by relief. His Ellie! It was all he could do not to whoop for joy, or do a celebratory jig, or to bend down and toss snow in the air like confetti. Only by reaching down to the depths of his self-control did he manage to stay composed.

“You followed me!” he guessed.

Green eyes widened, and she shook her head frantically. “No, I swear I didn’t. I was just out for a walk….”

He grinned, bouncing jauntily on his boot heels. “Just happened to be out strolling, huh?”

Her frantic head shake turned to a frantic nod.

“And when you saw Clara and me, how long did you stand there ogling us?”

“Not but for a few seconds! I went back to the house immediately, and I foolishly asked Parker who the blond lady who worked at the mercantile was…I didn’t know, you see.”

He frowned. “Know what?”

“What Ike told me later. That Clara Trilby’s name shouldn’t be spoken in your house.”

“Did he tell you why?”

She shook her head mournfully. “I guessed. There was obviously some sort of love triangle between you and your brother and this Trilby woman.”

The very idea made him hoot with laughter.

She looked up sharply. “I don’t see what’s so funny. Does watching a woman’s pain always make you laugh?”

Her
pain.
Her
heartache. The idea that Ellie had been eating her heart out for him while he had been pining for her nearly made him laugh again. But he forced a sober expression, and methodically began taking back the logs he’d just placed in her arms and dropping them to the snowy ground.

Her eyes narrowed in confusion.

“Do you know what desperation drove me into the arms of Clara Trilby, Ellie?”

She shook her head.

“The thought of you and Parker together.”

Her brows furrowed in disbelief.

“You see, Clara is in love with Parker, but sweet, patient Parker is too darn stubborn and proud to forgive her for an argument they had almost a year ago. I was foolish enough to think that if I threw them
together, love would blossom again, and I would have you to myself.”

Her mouth gaped open, and though he eased her burden by picking the last of her logs out of her grasp, she looked as if she were going to collapse. He grabbed her arms, half because he couldn’t wait to hold her, half because, like an old building that was about to topple over, she looked like she needed reinforcing.

“Are you saying you don’t love Clara?”

Roy smiled “Not only do I not love her, I can honestly say that Clara Trilby is probably the last woman on earth I would even consider loving. Do you understand? If she were Eve and I were Adam, human life would have slammed to a dead stop back in Eden.”

Ellie let out a laugh, then shook her head. “But when I saw you—”

“She was upset that Parker didn’t show up for the rendezvous.” He pulled Ellie close. “She was crying on my shoulder. That’s what you saw. And if you had stayed another minute, you would have seen us gladly parting ways.”

She smiled up at him, and tentatively put her hands on his chest. Though there was a blanket and his coat between them, her touch seared him as it might have if she had been touching his naked skin. “You braved the elements with a woman you disliked on my account?”

She made it sound as if he were unbearably noble, when the thoughts running through his head were anything but. His instincts were to head back inside and make love to Ellie before Uncle Ed came home.

Yet when he looked into those green trusting pools that were Ellie’s eyes, he found himself feeling confused, as if all the ways he’d related to women in the
past no longer applied. This was no floozy from the Lalapalooza. Eleanor Fitzsimmons was a real lady. There could be no fooling around now.

The strangest thing was, he didn’t want to fool around.

He lifted his hands to her cheeks and stared into her beautiful face until he feared his heart might burst. “Oh, Ellie, how could I help loving you?”

Her red lips parted, and she blinked back moisture from her eyes. “I love you too, Roy. So much!”

Lady or no lady, he wanted to kiss her like there was no tomorrow. He brought his mouth down on hers with barely restrained hunger. He didn’t want this kiss to end like their last, with her fleeing in confusion. In his mind, confusion was a thing of the past. For now, there was just him and Ellie and a long future stretching before them.

As she clung to him, parted her lips to him, a transformation overtook him. All his life he’d fought against the idea of falling in love. But why? Ellie’s lips, her warmth, her sweetness were a miracle to him. He suddenly felt free—free from the loneliness that had been eating at him for years, free from a sadness that had embittered him and made him believe that no woman could be trusted with something so frail as affection.

Ellie’s hands tucked around his neck and he groaned at the prickling sensation that shot through his body as she pressed against him. Heat built in his loins, making him ache for her.

He pulled back, feeling as if he were gasping for air.

Her closed lids opened and she looked at him as if slightly dazed. “Don’t stop, Roy.”

Lord knows, he didn’t want to.

He stood torn with indecision for a moment, then scooped her into his arms in one movement. When
he looked into her face, her expression was a sweet confusion of desire and love and maybe a little nervousness. Not far from the same confusion going on inside him.

“I’ve got to get you inside and warm,” he said.

“I’m not cold.” Her grin held more than a trace of mischievousness. “Anymore.”

His breath came out in a ragged, throaty sigh, and he closed his eyes against the tortured wanting building inside him. He’d never known he could want a woman so much.

Yet he wanted to wait. He had to wait. This was Ellie.

This was the first and last woman he would ever love.

H
appiness, real happiness, only happened in books. That’s what Ellie had believed until the moment Roy told her that he wasn’t in love with Clara Trilby. She was still so amazed, so overwhelmed, so flooded with joy that she could barely think. She hadn’t even been aware of how unhappy she’d been until the opposite emotion had taken hold of her.

As he strode toward the house with her in his arms, Roy looked like a man possessed—possessed with desire. Her pulse raced as the delicious possibilities before them took hold in her imagination. Shameful thoughts!

But were they really so shameful when the man loved her?

A delightful shiver ran through her as she looked into Roy’s hungry eyes.

In response, he warmed her neck with a kiss. “I’ll get you out of this cold.”

Could he possibly think she was responding to the weather? She nearly laughed, but happened to gaze into those eyes again—blue eyes regarding her as a man dying of starvation might eye a sumptuous feast. Roy looked as if he could devour her whole.

He kicked the door open, causing another shiver to run through her. Was he mad? Was she? More importantly, was she about to be treated to a night of passion right out of Byron?

To her surprise—and not a little disappointment—Roy passed up the door to Ed’s bedroom. He also marched gallantly past the sofa and directed them straight downstairs to the kitchen and deposited her lovingly into a cane-backed chair, taking care to tuck her blanket around her. He disappeared into the pantry and returned seconds later with a pie, which he placed in front of her, followed by a plate and a fork.

She blinked up at him, uncertain.

He sliced off a wedge and plunked it down on her plate.

After expecting a ravishing, pie was a letdown. “But I’m not hungry,” she protested. In that moment, she’d felt as if she could have lived on air and Roy’s smile.

Except that he wasn’t smiling now. When he spoke—the first words since declaring his love—his voice was practically a growl. “Now that I’ve got you, I don’t want you to expire from hunger.”

“I’m not going to—”

Before she could finish, he jumped up and ran outside, moving as if he had buggy springs in his heels. He was back in nothing flat, with those logs they’d abandoned in favor of a kiss. He dumped one on the fire now, poked it into flames, then returned to the table.

“Why aren’t you eating?” he demanded.

She laughed. “Roy, I can’t eat. You fed me all afternoon.”

He looked at her as if she were mad. “Can’t eat? I could eat three of these.” And as if to prove it, he pulled the pie pan toward him and began to stab at
his uncle’s creation as if he hadn’t had a bite in months.

And she could have happily watched him eat till the end of time. Gazing into Roy’s handsome face would be pleasure enough for a lifetime—as long as he was gazing lovingly back at her, as he was now. Hungry though he claimed to be, she didn’t think he’d spared a glance for what he was eating.

“Are you still mad at me for coming here, Roy?”

He barked out a laugh. “As far as I’m concerned, it was the best mistake you ever made.”

No, that had been coming to Nebraska. A sense of well-being the likes of which she hadn’t known since the days when she was living with her father came over her. Maybe because it had been that long since there was another person in the world who loved her. Tears filled her eyes.

Roy dropped his fork and reached across the table to grab her hand. “What’s wrong, Ellie?”

His voice was so low, soothing, and utterly tender that she was nearly undone. She wasn’t prone to weeping—hated it, in fact—but she felt a tear spill unbidden down her cheek.

Ridiculous, really, to cry when she was so happy. “That’s another thing I thought happened only in books.”

Not having been privy to her thoughts, Roy frowned. “What?”

“Crying from happiness.”

A slow, gentle smile tugged his lips, and he pulled her into his lap as easily as you please. Though, to be honest, she didn’t require much coaxing. She nestled her head against his shoulder, still amazed, and a little unsure, that it was her right to do so. That he was hers.

“What was the other thing?”

She looked into his handsome face and felt a heat stir deep inside her. “Love.”

A deep flame flared in his blue eyes. “I guess I need to read more. I never knew anyone could feel like this, even in fiction.”

She smiled. “I could give you some titles.”

A dark eyebrow arched sensually. “That might take a little time. Why don’t you just act out some of the best parts for me…you know, a little demonstration of all this love you’ve been reading about.”

Her gaze took in his full lips before gliding back up to his eyes. Was he asking her to kiss him? A flush swept from the roots of her hair right down to the toes of her stockings. In her condition, she couldn’t exactly be labelled an innocent, but in her limited experience, the man had always initiated the kissing. She hesitated a moment, floundering in her own desire and shyness. Then, detecting a challenge in his eye, she bent down and touched her lips to his.

Her bravery was richly rewarded. Roy’s mouth yielded to hers, giving her a heady sensation of power, as if Hera had finally triumphed over Zeus. She wrapped her arms around him, snuggling close, all the while testing how bold she could be with his lips, which tasted deliciously of apple and sugar. When his mouth opened and his tongue teased hers, she felt her spine turn noodly, and tilted her mouth instinctively against his, seeking more of this awesome pleasure.

The chair beneath them squeaked as he shifted her slightly, and in that moment she could feel the swelling of his manhood against her thigh. She sucked in a ragged breath at the evidence of his desire for her. Experience told her that men were unable to check desire when it reached this point…no matter whether they were in a linen closet or a cane-backed chair.
Given the desire thrumming through her veins, she would be little able to resist such a temptation.

Roy pressed her to him and her body arched instinctively in response. She had about as much resistance in her as water cascading over a fall. Her hips moved provocatively against the firmness of him, the heat swirling inside her making her feel as if she were about to reel out of control.

He groaned, then put his hands on her hips, anchoring them.

She glanced questioningly into his eyes, which were hooded and dark beneath heavy lids. She felt dizzy and confused by his stopping her. Had she gone too far? Been too bold?

He swallowed. “Those must be some books you’ve been reading,” he rasped.

Before she could decide whether the best response would be to laugh or to beg him not to put a halt to this delicious new kitchen activity, bootsteps sounded on the porch and she sprang out of his lap.

Ed shuffled into the kitchen, his face drawn. He looked beyond tired. Of course he’d driven to town and back through the snow, but something about the difference in the man she’d met this afternoon and the one she was looking at now made Ellie frown. His bleary eyes first took in his nephew then her with a look that made her wonder if he knew exactly what had been transpiring in his beloved kitchen.

“Looks like you feel better,” he said to Ellie. “In fact, your cheeks are glowing with health.”

They glowed even more after his observation. For a moment Ellie considered what Ed might have found going on in his kitchen if he’d come in ten minutes later! “I feel fine. Thank you for all your help, Mr. McMillan. I don’t know why I fainted earlier….”

“A woman in your condition has to eat,” he observed.

His was one of the few direct references made to her pregnancy since she’d arrived, and it threw her. Her mouth dropped open, her face felt as if it were on fire, and there was no earthly way her eyes could meet Roy’s.

Her baby. In his words of love, Roy hadn’t mentioned the fact that she was now two.

Could he love another man’s child?

Roy changed the subject. “How was your trip to Paradise, Uncle Ed?”

Ed reached down to pick up the pie pan off the table. He busied himself with cleaning up. “Oh, the same as always.”

In the silence that ensued, Ellie wondered how soon she could slip away and be by herself. She picked up her uneaten piece of pie and followed Ed to the pantry.

Roy tagged after them. “You sure did leave in a hurry. I could have helped you load the wagon if I’d known you were going to town today.”

Ed laughed nervously. “I could tell you had your hands full with your patient.”

Ellie blushed. Had he left the house to give them time alone?

But surely he couldn’t have known how they felt about each other before they’d even realized it themselves! Why, when she’d first arrived this afternoon, Roy’s bearish manner toward her had nearly driven her to walk back to the farm.

“Still, you hadn’t mentioned leaving,” Roy insisted.

Ed frowned, and looked slightly disoriented.

“Is something wrong?” Roy asked.

His uncle shook his head. “It’s just a feeling I can’t shake.”

Roy looked alarmed. “What feeling? Aren’t you well?”

“When I came through that door and saw you two sitting at the table, it reminded me of something.”

“What?” Roy asked.

“Gettysburg.”

Roy and Ellie exchanged glances. She gathered from the worried look on Roy’s face that the war was not a subject Ed usually chose to dwell on. And why would seeing her and Roy in the kitchen together, their faces flushed from kissing, remind a man of a battlefield?

Ed hitched his baggy trousers and shook his head mournfully. “Isn’t it strange, Roy? I made it through some of the worst battles a man could imagine, yet I never knew till today just what a coward I am.”

When Roy walked into the kitchen the next morning, the place was in utter chaos. At least the usual apple madness wasn’t under way, but there was now paper everywhere—on tables, on the floor, spilling out of cabinets.

Roy froze in the back door in amazement, till a strong wind blew in, sending a tornado of loose paper flurrying around the room.

Ed glanced up. Roy hadn’t even seen him in all the clutter, but now he spotted his uncle kneeling by a cabinet in the corner of the room.

“Mornin’, Roy!” He greeted him casually, as though nothing was amiss. “Shut the door and come on in and have some breakfast.” He picked up a sheet of paper lining one of the little drawers in the cabinet, then tossed it aside. “Sleep okay?”

Roy sloshed through the sea of papers to the table,
where a fresh loaf of apple quick bread awaited the knife. “Fine.”

He’d found bedding down in a barn much easier to take knowing that the woman he loved slept snugly inside. Ed had slept on the little sofa in the parlor upstairs, but from the looks of things, he hadn’t slept much. A man had to get up early to create this much disorder.

“Coffee’s on the stove,” Ed said, “and help yourself to an apple.”

Roy hunted down a coffee cup amid the debris, hoping that a few swigs of the strong stuff would give him enough mental sharpness to begin to fathom what was going on here. Last night his uncle had been mumbling about the war. This morning the kitchen looked like the scene of a pitched battle. Even after downing a whole cup of lukewarm inky coffee, he couldn’t figure it all out.

“Uncle Ed…?” He cleared his throat. “Is something wrong?”

Ed, still kneeling and inspecting another piece of paper that had been lining a cabinet, glanced up with startled eyes. “Beg pardon?”

“I said, is there something wrong?”

“’Course not. Why?”

Roy gestured vaguely around at all the disarray. “I just wondered if there was a reason for all this…paper.”

Ed looked around the kitchen and parlor as if he hadn’t noticed anything out of the ordinary till just now. “Oh!” He chuckled. “Yes, I see. A little cluttered, isn’t it?”

“A
little?
”

“Well, you see,” his uncle replied, “I thought I’d buy myself a new suit.”

That, apparently, was his explanation. He turned
away from Roy and began sifting through papers on the ground again.

“What does this paper have to do with buying a new suit?”

“Oh, well, a few years ago I was spring cleaning and I went through the house lining all the shelves with a Montgomery Ward catalog. So now…” he tossed the paper in his hand aside “—now I’m trying to find the page with the men’s clothes on it.”

“Good heavens!”

Ed nodded. “I know…it’s turned into quite a project. I’m afraid it might be in the bedroom.” He looked at Roy worriedly. “Do you think Ellie will be up soon?”

He obviously couldn’t wait to start ransacking another room.

“If you’re so set on having a suit, why don’t you go see if Trilby’s has one ready-made?”

Ed shook his head. “I don’t want to do that. That Cora Trilby would have it all over town before I’d even handed her the money for it.”

“Well good grief, who cares if you’re buying some new clothes? You’re entitled to, I guess.” An idea occurred to Roy. “Or how about asking my mother?”

His uncle’s face went slack with horror.

“Why not?” Roy surprised himself by recommending his mother, but today he was feeling generous. In fact, he was beginning to wonder if he weren’t a changed man. “She’s a seamstress, and I’m sure she could use the work.”

“I could never…” Ed’s words trailed off as he rifled through the papers with more fury than ever before.

“For that matter,” Roy said, feeling a little uncomfortable seeing his uncle in such a state, “I don’t see
what’s so wrong with your old suit. You looked fine in it last night.”

Which seemed strange, now that he thought about it. Did Ed always dress up to take his apples to the mercantile?

“Fine, you say?” Ed barked out a laugh. “It makes me look like an old snake who needs to shed his skin!”

Just then, Ellie appeared on the stairway, and seeing her nearly took Roy’s breath away. For a moment he forgot about his uncle and catalogs and suits and simply focused on Ellie. She was so beautiful. And she loved him. He’d stayed up half the night marvelling at that fact. Every time he’d attempted to nod off to sleep, her face would swim in his mind’s eye, causing his heart to soar.