Mittman, Stephanie (40 page)

"They're
fine," he assured her, knowing that her fear for his children stemmed from
the knowledge that bad things did happen and that tragedy, unlike lightning,
could strike twice in the same place. He turned to look at the girls and the
same fear ran through him, despite his ability to rationalize it. "You
heard Miss Annie," he barked at them. "Get your bottoms up by the
seat or I'll come hammer them in place."

The
girls scurried toward the front of the wagon and settled themselves under the
blanket. When they were secure enough for Annie's liking, she nodded at Noah
and he flicked the reins and headed the horse toward the Morrow farm.

***

"I
don't understand you," Noah said, after they had finished their meal and
the girls had settled down on the divan and fallen asleep. "I know you
love those children. I can see it every time you look at them. Yet you stand
there and tell me you're relieved that you're done raising children and you're
looking forward to marrying some man old enough to be your father."

"Miller
is not old enough to be my father, and you don't have to understand me,"
Anne answered. She didn't owe him any explanations. Her plans had been made
long before she even met Mr. Noah Eastman.

"Can
you look at me and tell me you don't love me?" he demanded, his one whole
eyebrow raised in outrage.

"Love
you?" she said. "I don't even know you, hardly."

"I
don't make your pulse beat faster? Your palms don't sweat when I'm around? Your
lips don't itch for me to touch them with my own?"

If
she were naked, he couldn't have made her feel more exposed. She said nothing
and looked at the floor while he closed the gap between them.

"I
know all that," he said, as he lifted her chin and insisted that she look
at him, "because it's how I feel. Only I'm not fighting it. I know I want
to spend the rest of my life going to sleep with my arms around you and waking
up with your hair sweeping across my face."

"Oh,
yes," she said, as haughtily as she could manage. "When roses bloom
in winter I'll be in your bed."

"If
that's what it takes," he said with a smile.

Where
were Bart and Willa? Shouldn't they have gotten home already? How could her
brother leave her alone with a man who talked about taking her to his bed and
lips that itched and who made her nipples harden and her insides knot?

"I'm
marrying Miller Winestock," she said, with a conviction that didn't sound
like pleasure, even to her. "I raised all the children I'm gonna raise and
planted all the furrows I'm gonna plant. I milked enough cows and fed enough
chickens and I don't want to be part of any of it anymore. Not the farm and not
the family." Her chest was rising and falling as though she had run up and
down the stairs a dozen times. "I don't want more children. I've got no more
love for children. I'm out. Done. Used up."

"You
want me to believe you don't love children anymore?" he asked. "The
way you mother my girls? The way you watch after your nieces and nephews?"

"Well,
I didn't do that so good, did I?" Her eyes were flooding and it was hard
to see Noah's face, but his body was clear enough. His hands were on his hips
and his feet were spread in a fighting stance.

"Don't
be a fool. Accidents happen. Tragedy was bound to reach out and grab that child
by the throat. Hell, he tempted fate at every turn."

"He
was a baby," she shouted, "and I loved him!"

The
words rang throughout the kitchen, echoing off the cabinets filled with her
mother's dishes, circling the paintings Cara did that were stuck to the wall.

"Marry
me, Annie. Marry me and have my children and love me until the day we die.
Didn't you learn anything from Samuel's death? We could be gone tomorrow, and
all there'd be left is regret."

"If
I married you all I'd know is regret. I know what I want. I've planned for it
and prayed for it and now it's here just for the taking. You ask me if I didn't
learn anything from Samuel's death. Isn't it there as plain as day for anyone
to see? I learned what I already knew. That loving children hurts."

He
moved in closer to her, so close it was hard to think. "No, Annie,"
he said quietly. How she would miss the sound of her name—
Annie
—as
though it belonged only to him.
"Losing
children hurts, not loving
them."

"You
always lose them," she said, backing away from him until she was smack up
against the wall. "You have to stop loving them because they leave. Sooner
or later they're gone and you're alone."

"Is
that what this is all about?" he asked. There was no place to go to get
away from him. His face was inches from hers. Every word he spoke caressed her
forehead, fluttered her hair. She bent her knees to put a greater distance
between their faces, to be out of range of his lips. "Giving them up when
it's time for them to move on?"

"They're
all gone," she whimpered, her body sliding down the wall as she opened up
her heart to him. "Ethan keeps talking about moving west. Charlie and Risa
have a life, Francie is half a continent away."

"What
about Della? Don't you think she needs you, now more than ever?"

A
sob escaped from Annie's chest as she hit the floor with her bottom. Della
hadn't turned to her, hadn't wanted her comfort. She'd needed Peter. Annie
wasn't her family anymore.

She
simply shook her head at Noah hopelessly.

"Oh,
Annie," he said, slipping down beside her and cradling her in his arms.
"That's what life is all about, but nobody gave you the time to let it
happen for you." He kissed her forehead and left his lips against her as
he spoke. "Maybe there is a plan after all. Maybe God was saving you for
me. Lord knows no one could love you more, need you more. You won't be alone,
Annie, not as long as I'm alive."

"But...
Miller," she said, struggling to keep her sanity. "Miller and I have
an understanding."

"Your
Reverend Miller Winestock is a fool. Diddling and dawdling and keeping you
waiting as though you were some doll gathering dust on a shelf. If you agreed
to marry me, I wouldn't waste one minute telling the whole world just who you
belonged to. And I'd have you at the altar an hour before you even had a chance
to change your mind."

"You're
not being fair," she said. His tongue was tracing the edge of her ear and
she could hardly think. "Miller has his congregation to consider. He is in
the service of the Lord."

"Then
let Miller revere the Lord," he said quietly, taking her face in his hands
and studying it like some fancy sculpture in a museum, "and let me revere
you."

She
didn't fight him as he took her in his arms. He kissed the path of tears on one
cheek and then the other while his hands rubbed her back the way her mother had
when she was a little girl, a lifetime ago.

"Let
me take care of you," he said, as if she were still that small girl.
"Let me keep you safe and loved." His lips, which were dusting kisses
on her eyelids and her cheeks, sought out her mouth.

Soft
and warm they pressed against her own. And she found herself pressing back,
leaning eagerly into the curve of his body, letting him gather her into his
lap, his lips never leaving her own.

He
tasted of apple cider, smelled of smoke. He must have worn this coat when he
saved Paulie Mitchell and then never aired it out. A man like Noah Eastman
needed a woman to tell him to do a thing like that.

"Hold
me," he said, and she found her arms go around his neck as naturally as if
they'd made the trip a hundred times before. But his sigh spoke of never before
having felt her warmth.

He
pulled his lips from hers and read her eyes, eyes that she knew shouldn't be
saying what undoubtedly they said:
Touch me. Don't let me go. Never let me
go.
He leaned his forehead against her lips and let her kiss him until
kissing his face wasn't nearly enough.

She
tipped her head back, trying to catch her breath, trying to control the warmth
that was filling her chest to bursting, making her breasts strain against her
blouse. If she thought she could calm herself that way, Noah's lips against her
throat convinced her otherwise.

"I
knew you would taste like this," he said, his breath dancing on the wet
skin of her neck and making her shiver. "Like honey. Sweet and silky. So
exciting and yet so familiar."

One
of his hands was playing with her collar while the other rode up and down her
side, getting closer and closer to the soft mounds that were aching for his
touch. She felt her neckline loosen and gulped for air. As she drew the breath
in, his palm found her breast and cupped it gently, one finger making contact
with her nipple.

"Oh!"
she said, her breathing rapid, her lips so dry she had to lick them.

"Oh!"
he said, shifting her on his lap and making her aware that what was happening
between them was not just exciting to her.

"Noah,
we can't," she began, but his head dipped and his mouth closed around the
very tip of her breast, wetting the fabric of her dress. He heated her with his
breath, and though she told her body to pull away, shouted in her head to run
from him as fast as she could, she thrust herself toward him and let him open
the buttons of her shirtwaist in the middle of her kitchen floor.

"You
are as beautiful as I imagined," he said.

Embarrassed,
she tried to cover herself, but his hands stilled her. She looked away, unable
to face him, but let him see what no man had ever seen before.

"Please,"
he begged, his voice ragged and his breathing uneven. "Let me look at you.
I've dreamed of this, day and night, since the first time I saw you. It sounds
awful, but I couldn't help it. I can't help it."

He
buried his head against her chest, inhaling the smell of her, kissing and
sucking and gently easing her down onto the hard wood floor, cradling her head
in his palm.

Her
body was limp in his hands, despite the tension she felt inside. It was as if
she had no power over her movements, no ability to control so much as her
tongue. She let his hands roam over her, let him find the flare of her hips,
the smallness of her waist. God help her, she even let him trace over her belly
and cup the mound that lay below.

He
moaned against her, more pain than pleasure, it seemed. And then he grasped her
skirts and gathered the fullness in his hand, raising the fabric higher and
higher until she could feel the cold air crawl between the top of her boots and
the bottom of her drawers.

"No,"
she said, finally coming to her senses when she felt Noah's hand edge its way
beneath her skirts. "No, please."

He
stopped at once. His hand stilled for a moment and then he withdrew it and
carefully righted her skirts so that from the waist down she was a proper lady
again. Breath after breath, each one calmer than the one before, he lay next to
her without speaking, without touching, while she fastened the buttons on her
blouse and tried to put herself together.

"I
know I'm not what you wanted, Annie. I never set out to ruin your plans. But
you must see, must know, that we belong together."

He
tipped her chin so that she had no choice but to look into his eyes, eyes that
begged her to tell him that she saw what he wanted her to see.

There
were lights in town that would glow with the flip of a switch. There were
telephones just doors away, and doctors and dentists and so many grocers she
would have to choose where to buy her produce instead of needing to grow and
can it. The ladies of Van Wert, the ones that mattered, would welcome her into
their circle as the wife of the most respected man in town.

But
her skin still tingled and she hadn't felt as safe in anyone's arms since her
mother had died after giving birth to Francie. Francie, who was on her way home
to help bury poor Samuel and do what she could for Della. Francie, the last of
Annie's little chicks and the hardest to kick out of the nest. Harder even than
Ethan, her special joy, who'd already begun to pull away from her as he became
a man.

Noah
rose and held out his hand. "I'm asking you to give up a lot," he
admitted. "But I'm promising I'll never let you regret it."

She
could hear Bart and Willa come into the parlor, their low voices carrying into
the kitchen and reminding Annie that yet another of her siblings now had a life
of his own.

Noah
plucked a shawl from the peg on the wall and wrapped it around her.

"Annie,
I—"

She
shook her head to silence him and called out to Willa and Bart, "We're in
the kitchen." The kettle was next to the sink and she shook it, found it
full of water, and placed it on the stove.

"I
love you, Annie Morrow," Noah whispered as he stood too close behind her.
"Will you think about that?"

She
turned and nodded, then with difficulty she pulled her eyes from his and smiled
at Willa as she pushed through the kitchen door. "Della all right when you
left?" she asked.