Sweetwater Seduction (2 page)

The day Eden arrived in Sweetwater, she had looked down into the lush green valley in which the small town was situated and felt her stomach tighten in recognition.

In the distance, beneath a towering cottonwood, a woman sat on a patchwork quilt holding a baby to her breast, while a man pushed a small boy on a wooden swing that hung from the same tree.

Several white frame houses boasted picket fences around the yards in front, and neat-rowed gardens out back. There were sod structures with dogs lolling in the dirt and long johns hanging on lines strung between oleander bushes. There was even a two-story stone mansion, with a manicured front lawn and a pale pink—yes, pink—gazebo out back.

Heart pounding with excitement, she had eyed the Powder River running like a blue crayon line down the center of the valley, surveyed the dark green pines overlooking the town from above, viewed the plowed fields that interrupted the miles and miles of grassy plains stretching as far as the eye could see, and thought:
This is it.
She couldn't explain her feelings, she only knew her heart had found a home.

Although Miss Devlin had stopped drifting once she reached Sweetwater, she had still avoided the usual courtship rituals. For her there had been no picnicking under the watchful eyes of the congregation at a church social. No stolen kisses on the porch swing. Not even a long, lazy stroll arm-in-arm along the river on a flower-scented summer evening. So Hadley had a good point. How could she possibly know how these two young lovers felt?

Miss Devlin swallowed over the unexpected lump in her throat. “Perhaps I should have said instead that I
sympathize
with your feelings, Hadley. It doesn't change my opinion about how you should act. I'm convinced your discretion is critical to keeping the peace,” she finished with a hard-won smile.

Bliss looked up at Hadley with worried eyes. “Miss Devlin is right, Hadley. If Pa found out about us there's no telling what he'd do. I'd just die if the two of you got into a fight or . . . or worse. Maybe we should—”

“No! I won't stop seeing you, Bliss.” Hadley clutched Bliss's hand and gazed down into her luminous eyes. “I need you. I love you. I can't give you up!”

“I love you, too, Hadley!” Bliss turned to Miss Devlin and pleaded, “What can we do?”

Faced with those impassioned speeches, Miss Devlin felt her heart go out to the young couple. She was more determined than ever to find a way to end this horrendous war, which was being waged without visible battle lines. “Try to be patient a little longer,” Miss Devlin urged. “I'll be meeting with the Sweetwater Halloween Dance Commit this afternoon, which includes both your mothers. Maybe we can find a way to make things right again.”

Hadley's voice was bitter when he said, “If the damned nesters hadn't fenced all the water holes none of this would have happened.”

“It isn't all our fault,” Bliss cried. “What about the ranchers cutting fences? My father lost nearly his entire wheat crop.”

The young lovers looked at each other and acknowledged there was wrong on both sides. But what could they do? They were helpless pawns in an increasingly vicious game of wills.

“Right now, I think you should go eat your lunches,” Miss Devlin said. “And remember what I said.”

“We will, Miss Devlin,” Bliss said.

“All right, Miss Devlin,” Hadley muttered as he reluctantly separated his hand from Bliss's.

Miss Devlin spent the afternoon watching the hopeless look in Bliss's eyes, and the longing in Hadley's, with growing concern. Eden was intimately familiar with the classics, and she saw all the signs in their budding romance of a modern-day
Romeo and Juliet
. She was not about to stand around and watch a similar tragedy occur. When she got Regina Westbrook and Persia Davis in here this afternoon, she was going to give them both a good piece of her mind!

The children's departure from school that day was followed closely by the arrival of their mothers. Since she was still nursing, Amity Carson brought her six-month-old daughter, Edna, along. She made an insulting point of joining Persia Davis and Mabel Ives on the opposite side of the schoolroom from Regina Westbrook, Claire Falkner, and Lynette Wyatt. The barely veiled hostility between ranchers' wives and nesters' wives had Miss Devlin clenching her teeth in an attempt to keep her self-control.

“Welcome, ladies,” she began. “I'm glad you could all be here this afternoon. We have a lot of planning to do to make the traditional Sweetwater Halloween Dance a success. First, there's something I think we need to discuss. Namely—”

At that point baby Edna burst into a long, loud wail.

“If you nesters insist on breeding children like rabbits,” Regina muttered under her breath, “the least you can do is keep them equally quiet.”

While Amity unbuttoned her dress to nurse the crying child, Persia jumped to her defense. “Better breeding like rabbits than looking like cows.”

Regina rose to her feet, the fringe on her capelike black dolman quivering. She had always been sensitive about her large bosom, and Persia knew it. “How dare you!”

“The same way you do!”

Regina struck a militant pose as a torrent of voices join and Regina in reviling one another.

“Ladies! Ladies!” Miss Devlin's schoolteacher voice stood her in good stead, and the group fell silent. Eden took a deep breath, fighting for calm. “This isn't accomplishing anything.”

“No, you're right,” Regina agreed. “We're leaving.” She turned like a queen surveying her court and bobbed her head farewell, nearly unseating the complicated black hat on her upswept snow-white hair. With dutiful obedience, Claire Falkner and Lynette Wyatt rose and followed her imperious exit out the door.

“Button yourself up!” Persia snapped at a startled Amity. “We're leaving too.” Like an empress in her own right, despite her well-worn calico dress and scuffed black boots, Persia pulled her woolen shawl more tightly around her shoulders and led Amity Carson and Mabel Ives out of the schoolroom past the gape-mouthed teacher.

Miss Devlin stared in bemused wonder at the barren schoolroom. Not a woman given to swearing (it was beneath her intelligence), she resorted to a satisfyingly guttural “Oooooh!”

She sought calm by doing all the menial jobs that fell to her at the end of each school day. Once the blackboard was erased, she rearranged the benches behind the four rows of wooden desks, and checked to make sure the fire in the stove that heated the schoolroom was banked for the night. Finally, Miss Devlin took the broom from the corner and briskly swept the floor. She discovered a stray pencil and, pursing her lips at its well-chewed condition, set it back on Henry Westbrook's desk.

When Miss Devlin was done, she looked out over the pristine schoolroom and realized she hadn't found the calm she had sought. She gathered up the papers that needed grading and left, carefully closing the door behind her.

She headed off down the short, narrow dirt path that led to the home that had been built for the school's teacher. Eden loved the tiny white gingerbread-trimmed house, which was only a brisk ten-minute walk from the north end of town.

As she strolled homeward, a frown of concentration formed on her plain face. This wrangling had to be stopped. Nipped in the bud. Ended. But how? Lord have mercy. How?

Like all boys his age living in such an untamed country, Hadley Westbrook had responsibilities beyond his schooling that had to be tended to every day. But it was with growing reluctance that he forced himself to leave Bliss to take care of his chores. He stood with his arms around her, hidden by the copse of lodgepole pines that marked the divergent paths that led in one direction to the elegant two-story stone Westbrook mansion, and in the other to the dog-trot plank structure Big Ben Davis had built for his small family.

“I have to go, Bliss,” Hadley said, leaning down to kiss her gently on the lips.

Bliss clung to him and when he tried to remove her arms from around his neck said, “I don't want you to leave, Hadley. Stay

“You know if I don't pick up those supplies in town before dark, my father will have my head. I've got to go.” He hugged her again and touched his lips to hers for what he told himself would be the last time before he got on with his chores. But young love being what it is, it was long moments later before he came to his senses. He was breathing hard, Bliss's dress was unbuttoned, and his sun-browned hands cupped her bare white breasts.

He jerked his hands away and stepped back. “Lord, Bliss! I don't know how I let myself get carried away like that. It's just that touching you is so sweet . . .”

He was afraid when she turned away that she might think he blamed her somehow for what had happened. But he was the one who couldn't seem to control himself. He was afraid to touch her even now, for fear he would get carried away again. The little whimpers he heard as she struggled to repair her clothing made his stomach clench.

“Bliss, I'm sorry. I'm sorry.” His voice was ragged as he stepped up behind her and encircled her with his arms, grasping her hands to stop her frantic efforts to button her dress. “It's just that I love you so much. I . . . I don't want to lose control like I did before and . . .”

He hadn't meant for things to go so far that time. The tears streaking Bliss's pale face afterwards—even though she had said she wanted it as much as he did, and she didn't mind that they hadn't waited until they were married—well, he couldn't handle seeing her look like that again.

His fear that she was upset by his fervent lovemaking was soothed when she turned around and he saw the way she was looking at him, with her blue eyes soft and loving and dewy. He had to struggle not to drag her back into his arms.

“You're not the only one wanting,” she admitted, her voice low and trembly. “I feel the same way. When you touch me I . . . I forget myself. I don't want you ever to stop!”

He pulled her into his arms after all and hugged her tight, his throat working as he tried to tell her how much it meant to hear what she was saying. But the words got stuck there, so he just felt them and hoped she would understand without his saying them back.

Bliss kept her head tucked into his shoulder so he couldn't see her face when she confessed, “I know it's supposed to be wrong to want you like this.”

Hadley's arms tightened around her.

“But how can it be wrong when it feels so right?” she finished in an aching whisper.

Hadley didn't have an answer for her. He felt the same way. But he was stunned by what she said next.

“Let's run away, Hadley.”

Hadley took Bliss by the shoulders and forced her to step back to face him. He looked deep into he blue eyes and said soberly, “I don't want to run away, Bliss. I want to stay here in Sweetwater and get married and raise our kids. My father's ranch will be mine someday. I already love the Solid Diamond like it was my own.”

“Your father is never going to let us get married, Hadley. Neither is mine. You know it and I know it.”

Hadley pulled Bliss back into his embrace, rocking her back and forth as he reassured her, “We'll be married, Bliss. When the time is right I'll talk to your father and mine and they'll see reason.”

“When will that be?”

“Soon,” Hadley promised. He pushed her away from him again and with a rueful smile finished buttoning up her dress. “It's time for you to get home and me to get on with my chores.”

“Will you be coming to see me tonight, Hadley?” she asked, stepping toward him.

Hadley felt himself getting hard again just looking at her. He wasn't sure if it was the trusting look in her eyes or the soft brush of her belly against his that made up his mind for him, but there was no way he could deny her.

He made up his mind then and there that he wasn't going to let himself lose control again. She deserved better from him. He would share the touching caresses they both wanted, and kiss her silly in the bargain, but that was as far as it would go until they were married. If he was man enough to want her, he had to be man enough to do what was best for her without thinking about himself.

“All right, Bliss,” he agreed. “I'll come an hour after dark. Meet me in the usual place?”

Bliss smiled and Hadley felt his heart begin to pound. “I'll be there, Hadley. I love you.” With that, she turned and ran down the footpath leading to her home.

Hadley mounted his horse and raced toward the Solid Diamond to get the freight wagon he needed to pick up supplies in town. An hour later he was whistling as he pulled the team to a stop in front of the general store in Sweetwater. He saw Big Ben Davis the instant he entered the store. Bliss's father would have been hard to miss.