“Well, that’s a relief,” I muttered to myself. “Something to be thankful for on this day of Thanksgiving. I don’t have to face him.” Not even up two minutes, and already I was lying to myself.
Showered and dressed in a sun dress of blue cotton, I went into the kitchen, donned an apron and began cutting up carrots with my mother. The kitchen was filled with the delicious smell of turkey baking, sweet potatoes lending their aroma to the air, and the scent of pumpkin pie. Elizabeth put down her knife and went to pull the turkey out of the oven to butter it, and scatter almonds on the top of the oven dish of dressing. The rest of the salad ingredients lay spread on the island, peppers, cucumbers and tomatoes, waiting to be cut up. There was green bean casserole and of course, mashed potatoes. “You used to call them ‘smashed’ potatoes,” Elizabeth said.
“Well, that’s what they were, weren’t they?”
Elizabeth cast a look through the dining room door to see that Laura was setting the table with the fine china and good silverware, and was safely out of earshot. “So. When were you going to tell me about the baby you’re carrying? I’m guessing it isn’t Michael’s.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Just a feeling I have about him. I’m thinking Adam let you down and Michael stepped into the breach. Am I right? If I am, you might share that information with your brothers. A lot of their resentment toward Michael comes from the fact that they think Michael got you pregnant.”
I gave a short, ironic laugh. “No one could force Michael to do anything. He may look gentle, but he is very strong-willed. He asked me to marry him but I talked him out of it. I don’t know him well enough”
“You refused him? I wonder why. You say you don’t know him well enough to marry him, but you know him well enough to sleep with him. Would you like to explain that to me, daughter?”
“It wouldn’t be fair to him, Mother. Saddling him with a bride who is already pregnant.”
“But you wouldn’t be all that unhappy to have him as your husband, would you?”
I stopped chopping carrots and turned to my mother. “Don’t you get tired of it?”
“Get tired of what, dear?”
“Always being right.”
“Not when it gives me insight into my children’s behavior. And now you resent Michael for not being as madly in love with you as you are with him.”
“You can stop now, Mom.”
“I saw you sleeping on the couch last night.”
I faced my mother and did my best to fight back the beginning of tears. “I thought he cared for me a little. Last night he told me he loved me as a guardian loves his charge…or something to that effect. I was so upset, I didn’t really pay attention after I got the gist of what he was saying.”
“Dear heart.” Mom came around the breakfast bar and took me in her arms. “Don’t you know by now not to believe anything a man tells you when he’s talking about his feelings? Judge a man by his actions, not by his words. Is he kind to you? Does he step back and let you go through the door ahead of him? Does he give his jacket when you say you are cold? Besides, most men consider the urge to protect a woman a vital part of their love.”
“I don’t need protecting.”
“Don’t you? What about the baby you’re carrying? Won’t that little life need protecting? You intend to do that all by yourself?”
“Yes.”
“I know you’re fully capable of caring for yourself and your little one, but wouldn’t it be a lot easier with Michael to share the burden?”
“Not if I end up hating him.”
Mother smiled. “Michael would be very difficult to hate.”
“I’m up to the task.”
“Now who’s kidding herself? I think Michael is going to need your support. I believe he outdid your brothers this morning. You know how those two hate to have anyone best them at anything, especially if it’s something to do with horses.”
“I can’t recall that ever happening.”
“Exactly,” Mom said. “Now finish tossing that salad and let’s get this Thanksgiving celebration under way. The turkey is done to a golden brown, just the way I like it. I intend to enjoy myself thoroughly. It’s the first time I will have all my children and grandchildren under the same roof in a very long time. You wouldn’t want to spoil that for me, would you, sweetheart?”
“You think I should marry him?”
My mother looked pointedly at my abdomen. “And the sooner the better.”
Seated at the table, surrounded by ten people in the Rutledge family, as well as Althea and Jeremy, Michael felt that if he had searched the world, he could not have picked a more wonderful family to spend Thanksgiving with. Jake said the grace and then several people spoke at once, Elizabeth urging Jake to start the potatoes around, Laura telling him he should pass to the left not the right and Veronica and Victoria, Lynn’s four year old twins, asking their mother for the biscuits. David, Jake and Lynne’s six year old son sat at Jake’s left and was already digging into his sweet potatoes. Dorian sat on one side of Michael and Leslie on the other to act as a buffer between Michael and her brother, Gabe. Althea and Natalie Cameron, Leslie’s friend, sat next to Elizabeth at the foot near the kitchen. Jake was, of course, at the head and Laura and Jeremy on the other side of the table to help with the twins.
They were all nicely eating when Victoria, or Vicky as everyone called her stared at Michael, pointed her spoon at him and said. “Why do you have an angel’s glow around you?”
“It’s just the light coming in the window behind him,” I said quickly.
Vicky shook her head of black curls. “No. I saw a picture in a book Mommy read me. It had angels in it. Just like him.”
“Well, you see, Miss Vicky, when I eat food that is this wonderful, I sort of glow.”
The adults laughed, but the child was not to be distracted. “Aunt Leslie and Mommy and Daddy are eating the same food and they don’t glow.”
“Vicky, that’s enough,” Lynne said, using her stern mother voice.
“But I want to know why…”
Michael put his finger to his lips. “Do as your mother asks, Vicky and I’ll tell you the secret later.”
As a conversation stopper, it was a winner. Lynne was the first to jump into the silence. “Mother, this dressing is so good. I need to get your recipe.”
“Like you’re going to stay home and cook a meal,” Jake said, but his smile showed he was teasing his wife.
“Well, you try running a theater and looking after three children and see how much cooking you get done,” Lynne said, challenging her husband.
Dorian cast a speculative look at Jake. “I hear Michael tamed that black stallion you’ve been working with for a couple of months.”
“It’s possible our future brother-in-law reaped the benefits of my work.”
“I doubt that very much.” Dorian went on teasing his older brother. “Maybe Michael is just the better horseman.”
“Oh, give it a rest, Dee, will you?” This from Gabe.
Elizabeth guided the conversation into smoother waters, telling Natalie how glad she was that Natalie could come down from New York and spend Thanksgiving with them. Natalie blushed a bit as she always seemed to do when the attention turned to her. “I was very glad to be asked. I couldn’t believe it when Leslie told me she was coming home and she’d love to see me. The other good thing is that it’s nice for Anne and Justin to have time alone with their children and not always having me hanging about.”
“I should think they’d be glad to have you ‘hanging about’,” Dorian said, leaning back in his chair and gazing at her. “I’m sure you’re a big help with their boy.”
“He can be a bit of a rascal. He likes to play hide and seek with his Granny. I think Anne worries that he’s going to wear her out. Granny Amelia says she loves it.” Natalie cast a shy glance at Dorian. “But it’s kind of you to say that.”
At the end of the meal, Jake stood up. “I know
you’re all eager to get out there and play our traditional football game. Gabe, you go ahead and help man the teams. I need to speak to Michael.”
“Of course.” Michael rose from his chair to follow Jake into the den.
Inside the room, filled with light from the huge floor to ceiling window at one end and books on shelves around the room, Michael felt unsure of whether to stand or sit. He’d been half expecting Jake to take him aside for a private discussion. He was only surprised Jake had waited this long.
Jake leaned against the front of his desk and met Michael’s easy gaze with his own searing one. “All right. Let’s cut the crap. I want to know exactly who you are.”
“I’m Michael O’Malley from Ireland.”
“Like hell you are. There’s nothing on the internet about you, no family, no name, no birth certificate.”
“And yet I am here, standing in front of you.”
“What am I supposed to make of that?”
“That I have no presence on the internet, but that I still exist as a person?”
“There’s something off about you.”
“Mr. Rutledge…”
“Jake. Call me Jake, for God’s sake. You make me feel like I’m a hundred years old.”
“All right, then, Jake. Here are the facts about me that you need to know. First of all, I will care for and watch over your sister so that no harm comes to her. Secondly I have no criminal record, nor have I ever done anything against your laws. Thirdly, I own an antique store, which if handled properly, will give both Leslie and me a good living, enough to support Leslie and the child she carries.”
“That’s another thing. How can you be so dang calm about the fact that Leslie is carrying another man’s child?”
“If you had seen the man’s mother and how she spoke to Leslie, you would understand how all my protective instincts came to fore. I’m sure you would have felt the same. You would have done anything you could to protect Leslie from further exposure to that man or his rather poisonous mother.”
“Poisonous, eh?” For the first time since they had entered Jake’s study, Michael felt an easing in Jake’s animosity toward him. He had judged Jake to be a man with a strong protective instinct for his family and he’d been right.
“If you hurt Leslie in any way, I want you to understand you’ll have me to deal with.”
“I understand. I would expect no less of you. I have a sister and I feel exactly toward her as you do toward Leslie.”
“You have a sister? Then why isn’t she here?”
“She’s…in Europe at the moment. Deep in a project she can’t leave.”
“Well, that’s the first bit of personal information I’ve been able to pry out of you.”
And it will be the last. “Was there anything else you wanted to discuss with me?”
Leslie’s knock on the door saved him. “Jake, you’ve given Michael the third degree long enough.” I took hold of Michael’s arm and guided him out of Jake’s sanctuary.
“I just thought I’d come and rescue you. Even though you don’t deserve it.”
“Leslie.”
“Yes?”
“Come upstairs with me and let me make up to you for whatever I said that hurt you.”
“Whatever you said? You said that you loved me like…like a guardian angel.”
“Is that so bad?” Before I realized what he was going to do, he lifted me into his arms and carried me up the stairs.
“Well, no, I guess not.”
He carried me into our bedroom, kicked the door shut with his foot and laid me down on the bed with his sweet, hard body covering me. I had to admit I liked him like this, more forceful, more demanding. “You are so difficult to figure out, Michael. One minute you’re gentle as a lamb and the next, you’re taking me down in bed and looking like a man with ravishment on his mind.”
He manacled my wrists with his hands. He held me just enough so that I knew I’d have to struggle to get loose. I didn’t want to get loose. He covered my body, his out-of-this world blue eyes telling me he meant to enjoy every moment of having me at his mercy. “Is that not what women like, a little mystery with their romance?”
He looked down into her brown eyes and knew that he would give his life to keep her safe. The emotion was like a tidal wave, hitting him with the full force of an ocean in a violent storm. Somehow he would convince her to marry him. To hide his face from her lest she see what he was feeling, he buried his nose in her neck and said, “You smell like Thanksgiving. I think I detect a bit of dressing right behind your ear,” he sent his tongue out to lap along her lobe, catching it in his teeth and tugging gently on it, sending shivers down her throat and arm, “a bit of cranberry sauce here,” he licked the hollow of her throat, “and here,” he pulled her dress aside and her bra along with it to expose her breast, “a bit of pumpkin pie.” He feasted on her nipple and made her wish he’d taken more time to undress her. He unfastened her front clasp on her bra and brought the straps of dress and sleeve down to capture her in them and make her helpless while he licked and teased with mouth and hands.
My lower body began to sting and burn and ache for him, for his hands to be there, for his mouth to be there. “Michael, please.”
“Please what, Leslie?”
“Please undress me. Let me…I need you to…”
“Not just yet, love. I need you a little more…desperate.”
I lifted my body off the bed as much as I could, trapped in my clothes as I was. “Let me put my arms around you, please, Michael.”
He went on endlessly taking her nipple into his mouth. He sucked and teased with his tongue and then rubbed his palm on her wet tip while he licked and teased the other.
“Michael, if you don’t let me out of my clothes, I’m going to scream blue bloody murder, and that will bring my mother and my three brawny brothers running up here.”
He let me up immediately and helped with the buttons until I was completely naked. I went at him with a fury, ripping buttons loose and unzipping and snatching off his pants, shoes and socks.
“Now,” I said. “No more teasing. Now. You on top of me, inside me. This instant.”
He did as he was told. Sighing, I lay still for a moment, savoring the feeling of his fullness inside me. How could this man I knew almost nothing about, who had tamed a horse in a few minutes, and my whole family almost as quickly, how could he make me feel so complete, so utterly alive? I lifted my hand to his dark hair and said, “Who do you get your dark hair from, your mother or your father?”
“Hard to tell. They both had dark hair.”
“Will I ever get to meet them?”
“They are both in heaven, Leslie.” He began to move, watching her as if her every expression would tell him where to go, how deep to go, when and how high to raise her hips up to receive the full length of him.
In the throes of sexual ecstasy, I managed to say, “I’m sorry about your parents, Michael.”
“Don’t be. It’s where they belong.”
I thought that an odd thing for him to say, but the sharp and utterly encompassing sensations his movements gave me made it hard to think of anything but my deep fall into the complete eroticism of being possessed by Michael until every cell of my being belonged to him.
In a voice so soft she couldn’t hear him, he murmured, “You will marry me, Leslie.
Chapter Eleven
Dorian found Natalie out in the stable, slim and delicate looking in her dress, her sandals nearly buried in the straw. He thanked heaven that straw had been cleaned just today. She had a slender hand on Misty’s nose and Misty looked as if she were enjoying it as much as Natalie was. “You are such a beauty.” Natalie crooned to the palomino filly, putting her face close to Misty’s and of course, Misty, being the sweetheart she was, gave Leslie one kiss, then two, then three. It was the first time in his life Dorian had ever been jealous of a horse.
“She likes you.” Dorian stepped out of the darkness and into the l
ight of the stable. All Natalie’s senses went on immediate alert. In deference to her, he pulled off the black hat he’d worn low over his brow and brought it down to his thigh, bringing Natalie’s attention to his long, lean legs. He was dressed in what Natalie supposed was his finest for the Thanksgiving celebration, a paisley shirt in colors of red and gray, newly pressed jeans and highly polished black boots. He held an apple in his hand and Natalie couldn’t help but notice how finely boned his fingers were. His hands were more like that of a violin player’s than a cowboy’s. Something stirred low in her abdomen and she found herself wondering what it would be like to have those hands clasp hers. Even while she thought it, he extended his hand to offer her the apple. “Would you like to feed it to her?”
Natalie held out her hand and Dorian placed the apple in it, his fingers touching hers for a brief second. How warm they were in comparison to her chilly fingertips.
“Are you cold?” It seemed impossible that she could have such icy fingers on this warm Florida day.
“No. It’s a…condition I have.”
“Cold hands, warm heart?” He smiled at her. She wished he wouldn’t do that. Whenever he smiled at her, strange things happened in the region of her heart. In self-defense, she turned away and gave the apple to Misty, holding it on her palm until Misty chewed enough to take the whole apple in her mouth.
Dorian, watching her give her whole attention to the horse, her hair falling down over her cheek, felt a stir of emotion rise inside him he thought long dead. He stepped closer, thinking he would die if he couldn’t touch her in some way. He let his fingers rest on her face for a brief second and then he brushed back a tendril of her hair, his eyes catching and holding hers.
She wanted to step forward and let those beautiful fingers touch her mouth, her nose, her ear. But she couldn’t. She must stop this now before it was too late. “Cold hands, cancer remission.”
She thought she’d see what she usually saw on peoples’ faces when she told them the truth, shock, horror, distaste. Instead she saw…compassion. “But you are well, now.”
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