McCrory's Lady (51 page)

      
Soon corsets won't fit.
She would have to tell him about the baby. But not now. Not yet. She reached down and began to work on his belt buckle while her tongue laved at the smooth sleek muscles of his chest and shoulders. In moments, they had undressed each other. Maggie made a great production of having him stand nude in the center of the room with the lamplight gilding his big powerful body. She touched the abraded and blistered skin on his back and neck with soft, brushing kisses.

      
“Better than burn ointment. Much better,” he whispered, loving her boldness, so at odds with the ladylike demeanor she always presented to the outside world. When her cool hands pressed his shoulders, guiding him to kneel in the tub, he did as she indicated. “Now you must join me,” he invited, reaching up with his hands to run them lovingly over the creamy curves of her hips.

      
She stepped into the tub and knelt, facing him, a cloth and bar of soap in her hands. He reached out for them. “Allow me?” Maggie handed them to him. Colin dropped the cloth and lathered his hands with the soap. He began to caress her skin, starting with her fingers and moving up her arms to the fine curve of her collarbone. Using more soap, he turned his attention to the ripe fullness of her beckoning breasts. The pink tips turned rosy in the warm water, puckering to hard nubs when he circled them gently with soap-slicked fingertips.

      
“They're heavier, fuller. Life in Arizona must agree with you,” he whispered as he glided a fiery trail down to span the indentation of her waist.

      
“Life as your wife agrees with me,” she murmured as he reached for her buttocks and pulled her closer. She could feel the hard insistence of his arousal, prodding into the slight swell of her belly. “Give me that soap,” she whispered raggedly.

      
Copying his movements, she lathered up her hands and began by sudsing his hair and face, then took the cloth and rinsed when he complained of keeping his eyes closed against the soap. “I want to see what we're doing.”

      
She continued the methodical bathing, rubbing in small, tight circles with the suds until it formed white frothy whorls in his chest hair. When her hands began to bathe his staff, sliding up and down the rigid length, squeezing, then cupping with cunning fingers, he threw back his head and gritted his teeth, breathing a low oath of amazed pleasure.

      
Colin returned the compliment, reaching for the soft reddish curls between her legs and lathering the swollen delicate petals until she cried out his name. In moments, they were covered head to foot with suds, their skin glistening as their bodies glided against each other, reaching, rubbing, caressing. Their breathing had grown fast and rough in counterpart to the slow and delicate way their hands and bodies moved.

      
Finally, with trembling hands Colin reached for one of the tall clay pitchers of rinse water sitting beside the tub and raised it to Maggie's shoulders.

      
“I can't wait any longer,” he said hoarsely, pouring the clean water over her. When the heavy pot was half empty, he turned it on himself, holding it over his head and letting the cool water sluice down his body.

      
Maggie watched the droplets as they slid, letting her splayed fingers follow their course down his chest and over his hard belly until she held his phallus once again in her hands. “I think you're clean enough. Let me tend your...burns,” she whispered, releasing him with an enticing smile.

      
“What burns worst isn't where the fire touched me.” His breathing was ragged as he stepped out of the tub and swept her into his arms.

      
“Colin, we're soaking wet—the sheets—”

      
“They'll dry. We'll burn them up!” He lay her on the bed and followed the invitation she offered, her arms and legs open to embrace him. Feeling her beneath him, her heart beating against his was such sweet, sweet homecoming. He longed to hold her, to cherish her; yet his flesh did burn for her, and he could feel the answering hunger in her arms.

      
“Now, Colin, now.” Her husky voice urged him to take her.

      
He needed no encouragement as he raised above her, looking down into her face as he plunged deep inside her. She raised up to meet him, her blue eyes holding his gold ones. He thrust, she arched. At first it was swift and rough, a wild, joyous affirmation of reunion and reassurance. He had come after her and she had returned to him. Now, the rest of their lives beckoned.

      
As that thought slowly permeated the lusty haze of passion, their caresses gentled, grew slow and languorous again, every thrust and withdrawal exquisite with tenderness. She drew his head down to hers for a drugging kiss. Their lips brushed and tongues darted, tasting, teasing, while their hands explored. Colin supported his weight on his elbows and buried his fingers in her hair, pulling the pins free, massaging her scalp gently.

      
Maggie ran her palms softly over the tender skin on his back, realizing how close she had come to losing him—not only because she had left him, but because he had almost died in that fire with Barker and Stanley. But he had not. Her husband, the father of her child, was alive, here with her, loving her. And suddenly she could not wait. She wanted it all.

      
Colin felt her abrupt shift from tender languor to keen urging. He let go of his steely control, riding her hard and fast, feeling her body answer his with fiery abandon, bucking and shuddering, sobbing out his name as the tremors wracked her.

      
The force of her release sent Maggie spinning as if she had been thrust amid the glittering stars that filled the night sky outside their window. Breathless, she trembled and clung to him, letting her senses flood with indescribable ecstasy as she felt his phallus swell and explode so deep within her he surely must have touched the child they had already created.

      
Colin threw back his head and gave in to glory, the shuddering waves of her tight slick sheath pushing his orgasm to near madness. Never, with any woman, had there been this intensity, this unbearable sweetness at the very apex of passion. He collapsed on top of her, kissing her face and throat softly between gasping breaths, smelling the soft musky essence of her skin that combined sex with lilies of the valley.

      
After they had lain quietly for a while, regaining their composure, returning to earth, he rolled them over, lifting her so she lay on his chest, their legs still entwined. “Don't ever leave me, Maggie. I couldn't live without you. I never knew, until I'd thrown away your love, what a precious gift it was.”

      
She buried her face in the curve of his shoulder and tasted the saltiness of his skin against her lips as she whispered, “I was the one who almost lost you—in that fire. Oh, Colin, if you hadn't escaped...” She shuddered and held him tightly.

      
“I owe my life to our future son-in-law. Judging from the way Eden was looking at him—and he was looking back—maybe I'd better see they're married as soon as possible,” he added.

      
“That might be a wise idea,” she replied, already knowing that Eden and Wolf were lovers. Working up her courage, she decided this was the moment to tell him about their baby. “You might become a grandfather almost as soon as you're going to become a father again.” Maggie could feel him grow very still, his body tensing. She forced herself to meet his eyes.

      
Colin searched her face and saw the look of radiant hope on it combined with wary hesitation.
She's afraid of my reaction.
He reached up and tucked a wayward curl behind her ear. “You're certain?”

      
“I couldn't believe it, but Dr. Torres convinced me.”

      
“I thought you couldn't have any more children.” He tried to keep the fear out of his voice.

      
“It's a miracle, Colin.”
Please say you want this child, my love.
“I was positive that I was barren after my daughter died...but now I realize...perhaps it took love.” She swallowed hard and laid her face on his chest again. “I had always felt so dirty, so defiled...I hated it. The instant a customer would leave, I'd rush to scrub myself, trying to wash away my unbearable guilt.”

      
He stroked her hair falling in dark splendor across her back. “And with me you never did that. You held my seed inside you, wanting this.” His hand paused in its softly caressing pattern on her back. “Was this child part of the reason you were leaving?”

      
“I wouldn't hold you that way. I wanted you to love me—to want me for your wife without being forced any more than I had already forced you. That last day in the hotel room I knew you desired me and you hated yourself for it. Then, when I thought you were being blackmailed because of me, I couldn't bear it. I—”

      
“Shh...Maggie, don't, don't,” he crooned, feeling the pain in her voice. “I've wronged you so many times. Can you forgive me?”

      
“You know I have. I love you so much, nothing else matters.”
Except that you want this child.

      
“l couldn't bear to lose you, Maggie,” he blurted out, holding her in a crushing grip. “I felt guilty when Elizabeth died—but I didn't love her the way I love you!”

      
“I'm going to be fine. I'm not like Elizabeth, Colin. I'm strong and healthy and I want this baby—I want all the babies you can give me.”

      
The impassioned plea in her voice tore at his heart. “Oh, Maggie, I want to believe, but I don't deserve this happiness.”

      
“Then...then it
is
happiness—you do want another child? A son to run Crown Verde?”

      
”A child created from our love—yes, my darling, I want it and I don't give a damn if it's a son or a daughter, just that it's ours and that you'll be safe.”

      
She smiled down at him, glowing with joy now. “I think your old friend Aaron Torres is a pretty fair doctor. He's already assured me I'm as healthy as can be and should have no trouble—except for my morning indisposition.” She frowned, realizing that her dreadful penchant for upchucking in the mornings would no doubt worry him.

      
“What indisposition?” he asked, already growing tense.

      
“Just a perfectly normal symptom of breeding women that quickly passes. In fact, it's how the doctor discovered my condition back at the reservation.” She chuckled, rubbing small circles on his chest with her palms. “I tend to lose my breakfast—but after I've been up an hour or two I can eat my weight. You already commented on how I've filled out.” She could feel his hands roaming over the curves of her derriere, then moving to cup her swollen breasts.

      
“I should’ve recognized the changes, I suppose...” He did not want to say that his first wife had been so prim and shy he had never seen her body unclothed after she became pregnant and sent him from her bed. Then, a disturbing thought indeed flashed into his mind. “Maggie...should we—that is, should I—”

      
“Don't you dare even think it,” she interrupted fiercely. “Making love never harmed a baby, but
not
making love would definitely harm this mother.”

      
“Are you certain?” he asked, suspicious, yet at the same time relieved, for he knew he could not leave her bed.

      
“Yes. I've seen lots of pregnant women over the years in my former business. And, as an extra precaution to reassure you, I asked Dr. Torres.”

      
He raised one eyebrow sardonically. “That must've been a very interesting conversation the two of you had.”

      
“Very. I swore him to secrecy about the baby until I could find the right time to tell you myself.” She looked into his eyes. “This is the right time, isn't it, Colin?”

      
“From the day I first saw you in Sonora, everything has been right. I'm only sorry it took me so long to realize it...but maybe there is a way to show you just how right everything is...”

      
Her joyous laughter blended with his as he rolled up, pinning her beneath him. Then he lowered his mouth to hers and began kissing her as she drew him deeply into her embrace.

Epilogue

Spring, 1881, Crown Verde

      
“By all the saints, if that dog doesn't stop his barkin', I’ll be takin' the mister's shotgun to him,” Eileen whispered to Riefe Cates as the Presbyterian minister struggled to make his sonorous voice carry over Rufus's loud protests at being excluded from the solemn festivities held on the front porch of the ranch house.

      
“I baptize thee Ian Scott McCrory…” The tall, distinguished Reverend Osborne looked every inch a curate as he read the words from the prayer book while the assembly beamed on in witness.

      
Colin stood beside his wife, who proudly held their month-old son. Little Ian gurgled placidly, not in the least upset by a few drops of cool water on his head of thick brown hair.

      
The proud parents were flanked by the motley assembly whose varied religious backgrounds had given the minister pause when he had been summoned from Prescott to the big ranch to christen the newest member of the McCrory family. Dr. Aaron Torres, a Jew, stood beside Esmeralda Phibbs, a Unitarian, flanked by Eileen O’Banyon, a devout Roman Catholic, and Riefe Cates, who had made it clear he was unchurched and planned to stay that way.

      
McCrory's daughter and her husband had been married in his church, but somehow Reverend Osborne suspected that the dangerous-looking half-breed probably still prayed to some bloodthirsty Apache war gods.