Rebecca Hagan Lee - [Borrowed Brides 01] (28 page)

“Just cut the cake.”

“But they might want…” The hostess in Faith and the years of Southern training protested this lack of manners.

“Faith,” Reese began before Joy decided the matter.

“Aunt Tempy!” Joy shouted at the top of her lungs. “Dr. Kevin! Faith is going to cut her birfday cake! Are you coming down? Or do you want us to save you a piece?”

“That settles that,” David interjected, moving to stand beside his mother.

But it didn’t. Joy wasn’t taking any chances. She demanded an answer. “Aunt Tempy! Doctor—”

“We’re right here, lassie.” Kevin spoke from the stairs. “We hear you.”

“The whole ranch heard her,” Sam declared with a fifteen-year-old’s wisdom. “She probably started a cattle stampede.”

“Did not!” Joy argued.

“Did too!” Sam forgot his dignity and argued back.

“Children!” Mary chided.

Sam turned to look at his sister, mortified because she’d called him a child in front of the others. He opened his mouth to protest.

Tempy walked over to Faith who sat, knife poised above the cake. “Faith, darling, we apologize for interrupting your birthday celebration.” She glanced over her shoulder at Kevin. He winked at her. “Why don’t you cut the cake now, before—”

“Before Joy pitches a fit,” Sam muttered.

“Or this happy family occasion turns into a brawl,” David added as Joy stuck her tongue out at Sam.

Sam retaliated by swatting Joy’s bottom.

“Yeah,” Reese muttered ungraciously, glaring at Kevin for spoiling the party and ruining his plans. “Cut the cake.”

Faith did as he asked, first cutting slices for the children. Sarah volunteered to fetch coffee for the adults and milk for the children. She nudged her husband in the ribs, motioning for him to help her.

He shook his head. “Get Mary to help,” he instructed. “I don’t want to miss a minute of this.”

Only the children were oblivious to the tension permeating the room. It was almost as palpable as the creamy, rich icing atop the birthday cake. Faith’s movements as she sliced the cake were jerky and uncertain. Reese seemed to be staring a hole through her as he angrily poured yet another glass of brandy. Faith managed a half-hearted smile as she lifted slices of cake onto plates for the adults.

Sarah and Mary returned carrying trays of fresh coffee and glasses of milk. Sarah placed the first cup of coffee in front of Reese.

He glared at her as she removed his brandy glass and set the cup and saucer in its place.

The silence in the room was deafening as the cake and beverages were passed around. Faith’s gaze raked the room as she looked for some way to start a civilized conversation.

David answered her silent plea, smiling sympathetically. He invited Kevin and Temperance to sit next to Reese. “Why don’t you tell us how you met?”

“Well,” Kevin began, launching into his story. He had emigrated to America from Ireland and unable to hang his doctor’s shingle in the face of extreme anti-Irish prejudice, had found work as a horse trainer on the Hamilton plantation. “Then I met Temperance.” The love echoed in his voice as he said her name. “And I proposed marriage.” Kevin’s handsome face darkened with remembered anger. “But her father wouldn’t hear of his daughter marrying a dirty, Irish, horse trainer. So…”

“We eloped,” Tempy said softly, “to Baltimore. My father tracked us down. He had…had…Kevin…” Her voice cracked as she remembered her father’s cruelty.

She took a sip of her coffee as Kevin resumed their narrative. “He had me beaten unconscious and signed onto a ship bound for England and then to China. I was gone for five years. When I got back to England, I worked passage back to the States. I headed straight for Hamilton’s plantation.” He shrugged. “You know what they say about hardheaded Irishmen. I bearded the lion in his den and got clamped in the Petersburg jail for my efforts. Old Man Hamilton…” He felt Temperance cringe at his side and corrected himself. “Temperance’s
father
told me she’d gone to live with relatives and that the marriage had been annulled.”

“It had.” Temperance announced. “I was sixteen when we eloped. My father had it annulled and sent me to Philadelphia. I stayed there until my sister, Prudence, became ill. She was carrying a child.”

“Me,” Faith interjected.

Tempy smiled at Faith, then continued her story. “I moved in to take care of Pru until she was back on her feet. By that time…”

“I was out of jail, but barred from living in Virginia. Hamilton had powerful friends.” Kevin looked around at his audience. “Maybe I could have done more, but I didn’t relish spending more months in jail.”

“You did everything in your power.” Tempy patted Kevin’s hand, reassuring him.

“I left, set up practice in a little town on the Pennsylvania-Maryland border and made inquiries. I knew Hamilton had sent Temperance to Pennsylvania, but I didn’t know where. There wasn’t much call for an Irish doctor. I tended more animals than people until the war. I volunteered as a surgeon, giving my full name Kevin McMurphy O’Malley. My full name wouldn’t fit in the space on the army forms. Some clerk shortened it. I became Dr. Kevin McMurphy to the United States Army and though I tried to correct the error, Kevin McMurphy I stayed.”

Tempy reached over and clasped Faith’s hand. “He hunted for me after the war.”

“I didn’t know to look in Richmond. I didn’t know Temperance’s sisters or their husbands. I went to the plantation,” Kevin explained.

“And, of course, there’s nothing there except the chimneys of the house and part of the orchard,” Temperance finished, reminding Faith of the state of the plantation.

“I believed Temperance was dead.” Kevin’s voice was husky, filled with emotion.

“And I knew something had happened to Kevin. I knew he must be dead or he would have found me, hardheaded Irishman that he was.” She gazed lovingly at the handsome doctor. “We would never have found each other if it hadn’t been for you, my dear.” Tempy patted Faith’s hand. “Or you, Reese.” She smiled at Reese. “Thank you for bringing me here to surprise Faith. Thank you for giving me my…nieces…” She choked over her words. “And my love.”

“What do you plan to do now?” Faith asked.

“Marry him again.” Tempy glowed. “This time for good.”

“Oh,” Faith said.

“Oh, is right.” Kevin added. “And if you’re a very good girl, I might let you up for the wedding.” He winked at Faith. “A matron of honor should stand up for the bride.”

“When’s the happy day?” Reese demanded, already planning how to celebrate the occasion.

“As soon as we can talk to the priest,” Tempy confided. “We’ve already waited long enough.”

“Twenty-five years,” Kevin said. “Twenty-five long, lonely years.”

Duncan Alexander stood up and rapped his fork against his empty coffee cup. “This calls for a wee nip of good Scots whisky.”

“Scots?!” Kevin roared. “For an Irishman’s engagement?”

“Well,” Duncan conceded, laughing, “the boy”—he looked at Reese—“likes brandy, so he might have a bottle of inferior Irish whiskey tucked away somewhere next to that poisonous French brew.”

“Well, are you terribly embarrassed about it?” Temperance asked Faith as they sat stitching on baby clothing on the front porch of the Trail T. “Because, your Aunt Virt is just going to have a conniption when I write her about it.”

“Of course I’m not embarrassed about your marrying Kevin. It’s been nearly three months now. Why worry about what Aunt Virt thinks? She’s two thousand miles away.”

“Faith Elizabeth Collins,” Temperance said, “have you heard a single word I’ve said?” She followed Faith’s gaze to the corral where several of the men, including Reese, were branding the last of the summer calves.

“You asked if I was embarrassed about…” Faith wrinkled her brow in frustration, trying to remember Tempy’s exact words.

“Well, go on,” Tempy prodded. “What did I say?” Tempy smiled a knowing smile. “You can’t tell me because you don’t know. The whole time I was confiding in you, you were busy lusting after Reese.”

Faith blushed to the roots of her ebony hair. “Tempy!”

“Don’t Tempy me. It’s true.” She placed her sewing into her basket and reached over to pat Faith’s hand. “And don’t look so embarrassed. It’s perfectly natural. I lust after Kevin all the time. In fact, I’ve done it so much since we’ve been married that I think”—she lowered her voice to a mysterious whisper—“I might be pregnant.”

“What?” Faith sat up in her chair, giving Temperance her undivided attention. “Are you certain?”

“Not entirely.” Temperance laughed softly. “But I’ll be sure to have the doctor examine me completely after I break the news.”

Faith giggled. “You haven’t told him?”

“I don’t know how to tell him.”

Faith looked at her aunt. Temperance was glowing with health and happiness. She looked years younger than her age, while Faith, glancing down at her own protruding abdomen, felt tired and fat and old. At nearly seven months, she had lost her gracefulness, and she feared, any attraction Reese had felt for her.

She turned back to Tempy. “I’m sure you’ll find a way.”

“Just as I’m certain you’ll find a way to tell Reese.”

“Tell Reese what?” Faith asked, curious as to where Tempy was leading the conversation. “He already knows I’m expecting. It was part of the deal.”

“But he doesn’t know you love him. As I recall, that wasn’t part of the deal.”

“Am I that transparent?” Faith didn’t bother to deny the truth.

“Only to those who know you well,” Tempy assured her. “And I’ve known you since the day you were born.”

“Just as I hope you’ll know my baby.” Faith turned to her beloved aunt. “Tempy, I’ve made a terrible mistake. I can’t do it. I can’t give up Reese, my baby, and you. I can’t go back to Richmond alone.”

“I don’t think you’ll have to.” Tempy spoke her thoughts aloud.

Faith turned her attention back to the man in the corral. A calf bawled its displeasure as Reese branded its left hindquarter, singeing the hair, burning the teardrop-shaped mark into the calf’s tender hide. She marveled at the calf’s ability to recover so quickly. Reese had left a similar, if invisible, mark on her, and Faith doubted she would ever recover.

“He doesn’t love me,” she admitted aloud for the first time.

“I think he does,” Tempy told her. “Kevin thinks so, too.”

“He hasn’t touched me since I fainted at his party.” Faith folded the baby gown she’d finished embroidering and set it aside.

“Do you want him to touch you?” Tempy’s clear gray gaze seemed to bore into Faith’s. Her brows were pulled together in a frown.

“Yes,” Faith answered, simply. “I do.”

“Then, my girl, I’m afraid you’ll have to take the first step.”

“What do you mean?”

“He’s probably afraid to touch you.”

“Reese afraid? That’s impossible,” Faith scoffed.

“Not really,” Tempy told her. “Especially after Kevin warned Reese not to touch you.”

“Dr. Kevin did that? When?”

“When he felt you were in danger of losing the baby.”

“Did Kevin tell you that?”

“In a roundabout way,” Tempy said. “I happen to mention Reese seemed to be bad tempered and unapproachable at our wedding. Kevin said it was a pretty common thing for a man who got…you know…whenever he looked at his wife and wasn’t doing anything about it. He’s…” Temperance whispered a word that Faith was sure her aunt had never uttered before. “It’s up to you to do something about it.”

“Did Dr. Kevin say it was all right?” Faith’s eyes began to sparkle in anticipation.

“Yes.” Tempy smiled. “He even told Reese after our wedding, but Reese obviously doesn’t believe him.”

“Or he no longer finds me appealing.” Faith turned to her aunt. “Look at me, Tempy! What man would find this bulk attractive?”

“That man over there who keeps sneaking glances this way.” Tempy nodded in Reese’s direction. “The man who hasn’t yet realized he’s in love with you.”

Faith followed Tempy’s gaze. Reese stood up, wiping the sweat from his face with a red bandanna. He had removed his shirt and the perspiration on his body shimmered in the sunlight. He looked wonderful.

Reese glanced over at the porch. His eyes met Faith’s. Her mouth went dry at the hunger in his deep, chocolate-colored eyes. She swallowed convulsively. Her breasts began to heave up and down in response to her shallow breathing and rapid heartbeat. Tempy was absolutely right. Faith did lust after Reese. And it was time she did something about it.

She smiled at Reese, then very deliberately wet her lips with the tip of her tongue before she turned back to face Tempy.

Reese felt the impact of her tiny gesture across the length of the yard. His heart seemed to slam into his ribs. He shifted his weight from one leg to the other to accommodate the sudden swelling in his groin. He could almost believe she’d done that on purpose. He shook his head. No, not Faith. She was still too much of an innocent. She just didn’t realize the effect she had on him. Even now.

Especially now.

He ached to touch her. He wanted to feel her full breasts and place his hand on her stomach. He wanted to feel his child move within her. To share the miracle. But he didn’t dare. He wasn’t about to risk Faith or the baby. Reese was determined to prove he was not a rutting beast. He could control his desire. He would.

“Reese!” Charlie shouted. “Are you gonna stand there ogling the ladies all day, or are you gonna help brand these beeves?”

Reese jumped at the sound. He had no idea how long he’d been standing in the sun mooning over Faith like a schoolboy. He shrugged, then turned back to Charlie and the bawling calves. “I guess I’m going to help brand these damn cattle.”

“Yeah,” one of the cowhands snickered. “But later on tonight, you can bet he’ll be brandin’ his wife.”

Reese glared at the cowboy, then bent to pick up one of the white-hot branding irons resting in the fire. He shook his head as if to clear it, but the cowboy’s remark stayed with him throughout the rest of the afternoon.

* * *

Doctor Kevin McMurphy drove up to the main house of the Trail T an hour or so before supper to collect his wife. He had spent the day checking the progress of his patients on the neighboring ranches. Temperance had been thrilled at the opportunity to spend an entire day with Faith, but now it was time to head home to the house they occupied outside Cheyenne.