Promises Linger (Promise Series) (52 page)

Elizabeth glared at him as he laid her on the smooth white sheets. “You lied to me!”

“No, I didn’t.” He eased her head onto the pillow. Her face was as pale as the sheets. “Could you heat some water so I can clean her up?” he asked Millicent without taking his eyes off Elizabeth, who winced and closed her eyes. No doubt screaming at him wasn’t helping her headache much.

“I’ll do it right away,” Millicent answered, heading for the door. “Give a holler when you get her stripped down and settled. It’ll be ready.”

“Thanks.” He breathed a sigh of relief for her tact. He didn’t need an audience right now, no matter how caring. He needed a moment to get himself together. Maybe then, his hands would stop shaking. Maybe then, he could stop seeing, over and over in his mind, the image of her falling under the roar of gunfire. Maybe then, he could accept she was alive.

He stared at her as she lay, eyes closed, on the bed. The blood on her skin was obscene. He traced the thin path of dark red as it angled behind her ear and down her neck. With his thumb, he rubbed at the smudge. He lingered over the task, not stopping until the smear was gone. He wished he could erase her injuries and all the events preceding them just as easily. Gently nudging her hair away from her wound, he studied it. Nausea churned. One inch lower and she would have been dead.

“I didn’t lie to you, Elizabeth,” he said, knowing she was waiting for him to respond to her accusation. “You looked a fright when Doyle had that gun to your head. You looked a fright when bullets started flying and I couldn’t get to you before his gun went off. You looked damned frightening when you hit the ground and I didn’t know if you were dead or alive.” He rested his forehead against hers and confessed, “But, darlin’, when you were sitting in the dirt, sputtering nonsense about your appearance, you were the most beautiful sight these eyes have ever seen.”

Her hand slid around the base of his neck and she sighed contentedly against his mouth. “You love me.”

“More than anything,” he admitted, shifting so his mouth could mate with hers.

“More than apple pie?” she asked.

The chuckle came from nowhere, catching him by surprise. “Yeah,” he drawled softly. “More than apple pie.”

She rubbed her nose against his. “I’m glad because I love you so much, I’ve been jealous.”

“Of pies?”

“It’s shameful,” she admitted in a voice that said she couldn’t care less. “But I begrudge them your attention.” She ducked her head, and admitted shyly, “You ogle them with such passion.”

He slid his lips to the side of her neck. The swirls of her ear beckoned. “Next time we make love, keep your eyes open,” he whispered, kissing his way from her ear to her cheek. “You’ll see what I feel for apple pie is nothing compared to what I feel for you.”

She shuddered and then groaned.

“Your head?” he asked.

“I’m sorry. I’m not up to playing right now.”

Guilt hammered him anew. First, he got her shot, and now, he was rutting on her rather than getting her settled to recuperate. “Hell, I’m the one who’s sorry. I’m a little shook up right now and not thinking straight.”

She caught his hand as he pulled back. “I love you.”

If the words hadn’t held him spellbound, the fierceness with which she said them would have. There was no doubt she was serious. When Elizabeth did something, she went whole hog.

“You sure you want to be saying that?” he asked. “As husbands go, I’m not doing much to polish my image. First, I get you shot, and then I can’t even follow Doctor’s orders.”

“You did not get me shot.”

“I should have seen it coming.”

“And I should have had enough sense not to stand next to a man I suspected of attempted murder.”

“You shouldn’t have been there in the first place.” He started unbuttoning her dress. “As soon as I get this dress off you, we’re going to have a talk about your obedience.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about. I followed your orders perfectly.”

He paused and looked into her eyes. The smile he didn’t see on her face rested lightly in their green depths. “Uh-huh.”

He eased her up to slide the dress down her back. He broke into a sweat as he worked it off her right shoulder. To distract her from the pain he was likely causing, he asked, “How do you figure that?”

“You told me that, if I continued to deal with Aaron, I ought to pack protection against snake bite.” She shrugged her left shoulder. “I just transferred your advice to Jimmy, then Brent.”

“And that little pea-shooter was the best protection you could come up with?” He finally managed to get her right arm free.

She smiled and played with the hair at the nape of his neck. “It was the only one that fit in my reticule.” She tugged and he looked up. Straight into her love-soft smile. “You can breathe, Asa. You’re not hurting me.”

He shook his head and admitted wryly, “I don’t know if I’m ever going to breathe steady again after this afternoon.”

“You’d better.”

“How so?”

“Because I want you there when our babies are born.”

She wanted babies with him. The thought made him smile. Sure enough, their kids would be terrors. He pictured a toddler with his mother’s red hair playing at her feet as she sat on the porch. He pictured her belly round with another child. He imagined her face and saw it soft with contentment. He couldn’t wait. He put his hand on her belly, cupping it low where his child would someday rest. He looked up and realized he didn’t have to wait to see the contentment.

“I promise to do my best, darlin’,” he drawled.

“You’ll do fine, Asa.”

Guilt ate at him. There was something they had to get straight between them. “Sometimes I think you’re looking for a hero and, darlin’, I sure fall short of that mark.”

She cupped his cheek in her hand. “Who needs a hero?” She lifted her left shoulder in a dismissing shrug. “All they’re good for is swooping in sporadically and whaling on the bad guys.”

On the pretext of sliding her dress off, he avoided her eyes. God, he wanted to be a hero for her. He wanted to move mountains. He wanted to wrap her in cotton-wool. He wanted to stand between her and all comers. He wanted it so badly, it gnawed at his gut like poison. “I’m not ever going to be a hero, Elizabeth.”

She pulled his gaze to hers with a tug on the hair on the back of his neck. “I don’t need a hero, Asa. I can handle bad guys on my own.” Her good hand smoothed his eyebrows. “What I do need is someone who makes me laugh. Who likes me. Someone who’s gentle and loving. Someone who sets me free and laughs with delight when I fly.” She stroked her hand down his face until her thumb rested on his lips. With three fiercely spoken words, she made mincemeat of his uncertainty. “I need you.”

He kissed her then, wildly, trying to express without words how much she meant to him, because there simply weren’t any. She was everything—past, present, future, hope and promise—all rolled into one. She took his kiss and all the emotion he poured into it and gave it back tenfold.

It wasn’t enough. She gasped for breath and he let her go, raining kisses on her cheeks, eyes and nose. She slid her leg over his, turning half on her side. He helped her ease her injured arm into a comfortable position against his chest. As her head settled into the hollow of his shoulder, he whispered, “I love you.” He couldn’t seem to say it enough.

“I love you, too.”

She nuzzled her nose into his shoulder. Her eyelashes tickled his skin as she blinked. Her hand fumbled for his at his side. She squeezed it tightly and said, “Welcome home, Asa.”

He remembered his prayer that day he lay broken and bleeding in the alley. Just a hurt kid, aching for a home. He remembered his desperate prayer to belong. He remembered the promise he’d made and received. He bent and kissed the top of Elizabeth’s head. He squeezed her arm gently with his fingers, looked up at the ceiling and blinked rapidly.

It was funny how promises lingered. Now, not only did he belong, but he was loved, from the soles of his feet to the top of his head, by a woman who didn’t have an infant’s grasp of what it meant to do anything by half measures. He was home at last and there seemed to be only one thing to say.

“Thank you.”