Only My Love (57 page)

Authors: Jo Goodman

BOOK: Only My Love

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Her mouth was flattened in that serious line he knew so well. There was a small vertical crease between her feathered brows. Her spectacles rested on the tip of her nose and when the nub of her pencil grew too dull for writing more, she unhesitatingly reached in her hair for the one behind her ear. He smiled. There was only one left.

Standing at the rear of the lecture hall, leaning comfortably against the wall beneath a temperance banner, Ethan had to imagine the color of her eyes. It was not difficult. He was holding his daughter in his arms and Madison's eyes were the exact dark emerald of her mother's. He shifted Madison in his arms and looked away from her puckered, rosebud mouth back to the grave, solemn set of Michael's.

She looked up suddenly, as if she could feel his eyes on her, and she smiled then, the brilliant, radiant smile that he could feel squeeze his heart. It knocked a beat out of rhythm. His smoke-colored eyes held hers a moment longer and he could have sworn she flushed. And he had only been
thinking
about what he'd like to do with her starched white blouse and her stiff black skirt.

"She doesn't know the half of it," he whispered to Madison. His deep, whiskey-smooth voice carried to the row of women seated nearest him. Three heads turned simultaneously and shushed him sternly. He started to explain he wasn't referring to Elizabeth Cady Stanton, the lecturer. Several other heads turned. In the end Ethan retreated behind a guilty, apologetic look, and raised Madison in his arms, offering his first born up to the cause. The women were not amused by his mocking sacrifice.

"What was all that fussing around you?" Michael asked on the way back to the St. Mark. She held Madison now and tucked the baby's bonnet more closely around her head. The open carriage created a little stir in the humid air as they rode away from Washington Square. "I didn't know you were going to create a scene."

His look of remorse did not convince Michael any more than it had her suffragette sisters. He sighed, sliding an arm around her. "I don't think I made many friends at your rally tonight." He told her what happened.

"Oh, Ethan," she said, shaking her head. "Did you? Did you really hold her up like that?"

"I didn't know what else to do," he said, a little more seriously than not. "I thought they were going to attack me."

Michael burst out laughing. Madison blinked widely at her mother then quieted as Michael snuggled against Ethan. "What did you think of Mrs. Stanton? She's a powerful speaker, isn't she? And the way she talks about a woman's right to challenge men as a
duty,
well, it—"

"It gave me chills," he said.

She heard the double-edge meaning in his tone, just as he intended she should. "Have your fun, Mr. Stone, because I know I'm going to enjoy challenging you."

He grinned and laid his cheek against her hair.

Madison was sleeping soundly by the time they returned to their suite. Michael laid the infant in her crib. The study was still filled with books but in addition to the desk there was a crib and among the crumbled papers and sheafs of notes and pencils, there were also diapers, tins of cornstarch, and tiny booties and bonnets.

Ethan came up behind Michael and watched Madison over her shoulder. "Do you think she'll sleep through the night?" He helped Michael with her coat and laid it over a chair. "Or don't you dare make a prediction?"

"I don't dare," she said, turning as his arms came around her. "She'll do what she wants. She always does."

For a moment, looking at her, feeling the strength of her spirit in his arms, Ethan found it difficult to swallow. "I wonder where she gets that?" His voice was husky.

Michael raised her face and searched his. "I love you so much."

He simply held her, not taking the miracle of having her for granted.

"Don't blame yourself," she said quietly. Her fingers curled around the lapels of his dark gray jacket. "You did nothing wrong."

He wasn't surprised that she had read his thoughts. "I left you. I could have lost you. I'll never forgive myself for letting you face Houston alone."

"You didn't know. You couldn't have known what would happen."

It didn't make it easier to accept. When he had arrived at the suite Michael had been ten minutes into her first contractions and Houston dead just as long. Ten minutes. He could have been there to stop his wife from killing a man and nearly losing her own life by giving premature birth. He
should
have been there.

The hours waiting in the sitting room while she delivered their daughter in the bedroom had seemed endless. Dr. Turner saw to Michael; Rennie sat with Ethan. Jarret Sullivan saw that Houston's body was removed and made Dee's arrest that same night. The most difficult thing for Ethan to believe was that it happened eight weeks ago. It could have been last night, the feelings were so raw, the fear still so palpable.

Michael's eyes held his. "You keep forgetting that you
did
save my life. And Madison's. Ethan, neither of us would have survived Dee's poisoning attempt. If you hadn't been here, hadn't come for me in the first place, I would have died. Don't dwell on what you could have done, but what you did. I do. It means everything to me."

His look was uncertain, skeptical.

"Give me fifty years, Ethan, and I'll prove it to you."

He laughed then, pulled her close and hugged her. "Tell me what Dr. Turner said today."

"Aaah, you do remember. When you didn't ask me earlier I wondered."

"Remember?" He led her away from the baby's crib, through the sitting room and into the bedroom. "Of course I remembered. It's what got me into trouble with those ladies at the rally. I was thinking about you." His fingers began to undo the buttons on her crisp white blouse. Her skin was warm and pale beneath. The curve of her breasts were higher than the cut of her corset. His fingers stilled. "Scott did say yes, didn't he?"

She was too selfish to tease him by making him wait. She was as eager as he, perhaps more. He'd only asked about her visit to the doctor. She'd known the answer since early afternoon. "Yes," she said. "He told me I'm fine."

He bent his head, rested his forehead against hers. "Then there's only one thing I need to know."

"Hmm?"

"How do I get you out of this skirt?"

It wasn't all that difficult, but she enjoyed helping him, enjoyed the touch of his hands on her skin. His fingers were gentle on the slope of breasts, at the hollow of her throat, and threaded in her hair. His mouth was tender, reverent, and adoring. His self-denial was maddening. She attacked him, pushing him back on the bed, rolling with him, grappling and laughing, loving the feel of the length of him against her, the contrast of their bodies, the planes and curves, the way they fit, the way they moved together, the way the rhythm of their loving thrummed through their flesh.

She could feel the need in him, the wanting, and it was the same in her. It made her open to him, accept his thrust, accept the heat of him inside and hold him close. She wrapped her legs around his flanks and clutched his hard, broad shoulders. His mouth slid across her face, touching her cheeks, her mouth, her closed eyes. He said her name, called her Michael in that deep, whiskey voice of his, gritty and smooth at the same time, and she knew she was loved.

Michael's head rested in the crook of Ethan's shoulder. She stroked his flat belly. Their clothes were scattered on the floor, over the rocker and lay at the foot of the bed. "It's nice to be hasty sometimes, isn't it?"

"Sometimes it's the only way to be."

She nodded, pressing her satisfied smile against his skin, then kissed him lightly. "We're so blessed, Ethan."

"I know."

Michael settled against him again, a small frown pulling the corners of her mouth down as she considered her good fortune.

"Second thoughts?" he asked when she was quiet for so long.

"What? Oh, no, I was thinking of Rennie. She'll never know this happiness if she marries Hollis Banks. Do you think Jarret... no, that would be absurd."

"Absurd," he said. "Jarret's God knows where by now. He's sure to have collected the bounty on Dee. That means he's free to follow someone else's trail."

"He could have had the bounty on Houston. I didn't want it."

"It was better donated to the suffragettes. Not the cause Jarret would have chosen, perhaps, but he wouldn't have minded."

"Well, he does have ten thousand from Jay Mac for stopping Rennie's wedding."

"Maybe he does," Ethan said enigmatically. Ethan wouldn't have put it past his friend to pay off Hollis Banks with the money from Jay Mac. Jarret's sense of business invariably lost to his sense of the absurd.

Michael was suspicious of his tone. "What do you mean?"

"Nothing."

She pinched him lightly. "You're not telling me something."

He grabbed her hand. "There are lots of things I haven't told you. But then what would we talk about on the train ride back to Denver?"

"Talk?" She slid her body over his, her breasts flush to his chest. Michael kissed him full on the mouth. "I have a better way for us to pass the time."

His laughter was cut short as Michael abandoned herself to the moment.

She was the only woman he could have loved.

The End