Springwater Seasons

by Linda Lael Miller

  Pres unbuttoned his cuffs, rolled his sleeves loosely, midway up his forearms. His manner was cool, but his eyes were hot as branding irons. Where Burke had been a mere boy, and a selfish one, at that, Pres was a man, in every sense of the word, and the very grace of his movements bespoke tenderness, power, and skill.

  “You’re sure?” he prompted quietly. “We can still go back and have Jacob tear up the papers, but once we’ve been—” he actually stumbled, just there, and reddened a little, “once we’ve been intimate, Mrs. Parrish, it’s for life.”

  It was a gallant offer; he was giving her the chance to change her mind, with no apparent repercussions. She shook her head, began to unbutton the bodice of her dress.

  He sat down on the edge of the mattress and, very gently, put her hands aside to take up the task himself. She trembled, sitting there, feeling every pass of his fingers, no matter how light, watching the subtle changes in his face as he unveiled her that first time. It was all so new, so fresh, so poignant.

  Her breasts were bared; their tips tightened in response to the coolness of the air and, conversely, to the heat of Pres’s gaze. He weighed her tenderly in the palms of his hands, chafed the already-taut nipples with the pads of his thumbs. “Lovely,” he breathed. A slight, sleepy smile crooked his mouth at one corner and twinkled in his eyes. “Oh, Savannah, you do make me believe in good things again. A Grecian statue awash in moonlight couldn’t be more beautiful than you are.”

  She was stricken with a sort of quiet joy; such words, coming from this man who was usually straightforward to the point of poor manners, were beyond precious. Tears prickled her eyes. “You’ve got poetry in you, Dr. Parrish,” she whispered, and shivered with pleasure because he was still plying her, still preparing her for the inevitable conquest. “I would never have guessed.”

  The smile crooked again. “I’m full of surprises,” he said, and then he bent his head and began kissing and nibbling his way down her neck, across the length of her collarbone and, finally, along the rounded swell of her upper breast. When he boldly took her nipple, she gasped; the sensation was like waltzing amid flames of pleasure.

  Gently, he pressed her back onto the pillows, and somehow managed to divest her of most of her clothes while still feasting at first on one nipple, then the other. Savannah, stripped of all but her garters, stockings, and velvet slippers, moaned and arched her back.

  “Ummm,” Pres murmured. “Be patient, Mrs. Parrish. These things should take time.”

  “I don’t want it to take time,” Savannah gasped. “I want you now.”

  He chuckled. The windows were fogged, and the soft rain whispered over their heads. “So that’s the way of it, is it? For shame.” He moved down her rib cage to kiss a light circle around her navel; his breath radiated through her like sunlight on a hot day. She was perspiring when he finally sat up, and very short of breath. Everything inside her seemed knotted into a single straining ache. “Where is your patience? Where is your virtue?” he teased.

  “To hell with my virtue,” Savannah whimpered and, locking her hands behind his neck, she drew him down for her kiss. “To hell with yours, for that matter,” she added, barely able to speak, when it was over.

  The tide had turned, to her delight; she could see that Pres was losing control, that the kiss had robbed him of that damnable cool efficiency of his. He groaned, muttered an imprecation and got rid of his own clothes so quickly that some magician might have cast a spell to melt them away.

  Savannah was still wearing her stockings and garters, though she had managed to kick off the slippers. Pres lay between her legs—he seemed bigger, heavier, and harder, now that he was naked—and drew up her knees with his hands, to make her more accessible.

  “Savannah—?”

  She laid an index finger to his lips. “Yes, Pres,” she said, answering the incomplete question. “Oh, God, yes.”

  He hesitated only a moment, then arranged himself and entered her in one forceful thrust of his hips. Pleasure surged into her with him, interwoven with a brief, fierce pain, pleasure so intense that it forced out all other sensation, and Savannah cried out in jubilation and despair, surrender and challenge.

  He withdrew, delved again, and the sensation was even keener that time, for both of them. His face was set for a grim and primitive struggle, as old as mankind, his powerful arms held the upper part of his body suspended above Savannah’s breasts and belly, above her heart.

  “Let go, Pres,” she pleaded. “Please, please—let go-”

  It was all unleashed then, all the loneliness, all the yearning, all the sorrow and pain that belonged to both of them. The joy came too, at long, long last, even more fierce than the storm of emotions that had cleared the way for it. They moved together with a force made of desperation, a holy, healing thing created out of both their minds, both their bodies, both their spirits.

  Release overtook them simultaneously, and only after they had exhausted themselves to achieve it; Savannah was consumed by hers, calling out his name as a series of sharp tremors shook her, from the inside out. When she could breathe and see again, she looked up into Pres’s face, watched as he moved in the last throes of his own climax.

  Finally, he fell beside her, gasping, their bodies still joined. Savannah stroked his damp hair, let her fingers delve deep into it. “I love you,” she said; the confession had simply escaped her, unplanned.

  He lifted his head, searched her eyes. “You do?”

  She waited a moment, her teeth buried in her lower lip, then nodded. No sense in denying it now. She’d told the truth, to herself and to him, but she wished she hadn’t. Very possibly, she’d spoiled everything.

  He kissed her lightly, tenderly, on the mouth. “I’ve never been in love before,” he said, at long last. “Oh, there have been women, of course. Plenty of them. But nobody I cared about, until you. Even so, I feel something for you, Savannah, something deep, something that will last. Maybe it’s love, I don’t know. But whatever it is, it’s good.”

  She blinked away tears, happy ones. “That’s enough for now, isn’t it?”

  He chuckled and ran a lazy hand up her belly to cup her left breast and play with the peak. “I guess that depends on whether you’re talking about the feeling, or all the things I want to do to you in and out of this bed.”

  Savannah slipped her arms around his neck. “Why, Doctor. I do believe you’re something of a rascal.”

  “As far as you’re concerned,” he said, hardening within her, exciting her anew, seeking the same breast with his mouth, now that his hand had mapped the way, “I’m the devil. And this time, wife, we’re taking it slowly. After all, we’ve got all night.”

  Soon, she was writhing and pleading and bucking beneath his fingers and his lips again, but he took her at his leisure, and he was a long, long time at it.

  They were entwined, both of them deeply asleep, when, sometime in the depths of the night, a loud pounding sound awakened them.

  “Doc!” Trey shouted, from the other side of the door. “Doc, wake up! Quick!” More hammering. “Damn it, wake up!”

  “I’m on my way!” Pres yelled back, already out of bed and scrambling into his clothes, from the sounds of it, without benefit of a lamp. He’d probably had a lot of practice, Savannah concluded, in sleepy shock, getting dressed in the dark, rushing to answer some urgent summons. “Hold your horses!”

  Savannah sat up, blinking, and moved across the mattress to reach for matches and fumble with the globe on the lantern. By that time, Pres was already in the front room, technically his office, opening the door. His tones were low, even, calming. Trey, for his part, sounded frantic. Although she strained to hear what was happening, she couldn’t quite make out the words.

  She arose—she was a doctor’s wife now, after all, even if she’d only been one for a few hours—and hastily donned a practical calico dress. She was still wearing her garters and stockings, she noticed, with a slight blush, and quickly found her slippers, on
e on one side of the room, one on the other.

  Pres had shrugged into his coat and grabbed his battered medical bag by the time Savannah joined him and Trey in the front room. “What is it?” she asked, thinking Rachel must be ill, or Emma. Trey’s face was the color of dried clay.

  “It’s Jacob.” Pres flung the words to her, over one shoulder, as he went out. “From the symptoms, it sounds as if his heart might be failing.”

  With that shattering news, he was gone, Trey following close behind him.

  Savannah gripped the back of one of the packing-crate chairs, stunned. Jacob? He’d always seemed impervious, and though she’d only known him and June-bug for a short time, both of them meant a great deal to her. They were more than friends, they were family, almost like parents. She yanked her cloak down from its peg by the wall and dashed into the night after her husband.

  She didn’t call out to him to wait; she knew he couldn’t match his pace to hers, and wouldn’t, not in an emergency. He was a shadow up ahead, sprinting through the darkness toward the station, Trey right beside him. The Hargreaves’ house, too, was spilling light from every shiny new window.

  “No,” Savannah prayed, in an anxious murmur, as she ran after the two men, noticing only when she slipped and nearly fell that it was still raining, that the ground was blanketed in mud. “Please, God. Don’t take Jacob. June-bug needs him—we all need him—please—”

  June-bug was up, of course, when Savannah burst into the station, silver-threaded brown hair trailing down her back. She looked like a young girl in her white flannel nightdress and wrapper, but every year of her life showed in her deep blue eyes. Seeing Savannah, she held out both arms, asking for comfort and, at the same time, offering it.

  Savannah embraced her hard. “How is he?” she asked, a moment later.

  “I don’t know,” June-bug said distractedly. She started to walk toward the back, where she and Jacob slept, then stopped and took a few steps in the direction of the stove.

  “Sit down,” Savannah said gently. “I’ll make you some tea.”

  June-bug took a seat in one of the rocking chairs facing the hearth—the very place where Savannah and Pres had been married such a short time before—and stared blindly into the fire. “What would I do, without my Jacob?” she whispered.

  Savannah was making the tea when she became aware of young Toby; he was crouched in the space between the stove and the pantry wall, his knees drawn up to his chest, his head down. He was the personification of despair, and when he looked up at Savannah, her heart turned over.

  “He’s strong,” she said. It was all she had to offer at the moment, all he would accept from her, she expected. Otherwise, she might have taken him into her arms right then, like any frightened child in need of comforting.

  Toby simply nodded and rested his head on his knees again.

  Savannah brewed tea, poured it, brought a cup to June-bug, and a cup for herself. Neither of them touched the concoction; sometimes it was the ritual that was needed, rather than the tea itself, and that was one of those occasions.

  The chair squeaked as June-bug rocked slowly back and forth, still gazing into the fire. “We was getting ready for bed,” she said, lapsing deeper into the hill-country vernacular of her youth than usual, no doubt because of her distress. “Jacob jest put a hand to his chest and said, ‘Why, June-bug, I don’t believe I feel the way I ought.’ That was all. He turned real white and laid down on the bed and shut his eyes to sleep, but I could see he was in terrible pain. Jest terrible. And it got worse and worse, until finally I woke up Toby and sent him to fetch Trey.” She looked at Savannah, blinked quickly and swallowed. “I reckon I forgot we have a doctor at Springwater now, I was so wrought up.”

  Savannah reached across to pat June-bug’s arm. “Do you want to go in and sit with him?”

  “He told me I’d be in the way, that I should give the doc room enough to get close and take a look at him.” June-bug’s eyes were suddenly brilliant with tears, and she laid a hand to her bosom, fingers splayed, as though willing her heart to beat for Jacob, as well as for her. “I’ll tell you what I think—I think Jacob don’t want me lookin’ on when he dies. Old fool. He’s got a vain streak in him, you know, even if he does have a way with the Word of God.”

  Savannah wanted to weep along with her friend, but this wasn’t the time. Pres was in the McCaffreys’ room with Jacob, doing everything he could, and she had a great deal of confidence in his abilities as a physician. Everyone at Springwater did, for he’d proven himself, treating his cowboy patients and dealing amiably with crotchety old settlers like Granny Johnson. For now, Savannah thought it wiser to keep her own emotions in check, insofar as possible, and provide support for June-bug.

  “If anybody can save him, Pres can,” she said softly.

  June-bug nodded. “Doc and the Lord. That’s who we’ve got to count on now. Doc and the Lord and Jacob himself, of course.”

  It seemed as if hours had passed before Pres finally came out of the sickroom, Trey still trailing him like a worried shadow, but it was probably not more than thirty minutes or so. He pulled his stethoscope from his neck and tossed it into his bag, and his eyes were bleak as his gaze strayed first to Savannah, as if seeking courage, then moved on to June-bug.

  “He’s alive,” he said. “But it’s bad. Even if he lasts the night and gets through the next few days, he’s got a long road ahead of him.”

  Savannah wanted to go to her husband, put her arms around him, share her strength as he had shared his, but at this point it wouldn’t be a favor. She stood beside June-bug’s chair, with a hand on her friend’s shoulder, and regarded him in silence.

  Pres sighed and rubbed the back of his neck with one hand. “You’d best get some rest,” he said to June-bug. “There’s no point in exhausting yourself.”

  June-bug squared her shoulders and raised her chin. “Women have been sittin’ up, keepin’ vigils, for longer than God’s Aunt Bessie can remember. I didn’t get to watch over my boys before they was taken, but I will surely sit beside my husband and hold his hand.”

  A lump formed in Savannah’s throat; she swallowed hard and reminded herself not to cry for Jacob, for June-bug, for their lost sons, and for the grieving families of all the other sons and brothers and fathers who would never come marching home, even though the war was long ended.

  “I need to stay here for the rest of the night, Savannah,” Pres said. “Trey will walk you back home.”

  She shook her head and spoke at last. “I’m not leaving,” she said. “I’m a doctor’s wife, remember?”

  The shadow of a smile touched his mouth, that mouth that had wreaked such havoc with her senses only a few hours before, in their bed. She wanted Pres, suddenly, not in the passionate, playful way of the wedding night just past, but in a primal manner that had more to do with the affirmation of life itself. She knew he felt the same way, that when they were alone again, however long the interim might be, they would make love in a ferocious, elemental celebration of heartbeats and sunrises, wildflowers and the smells of baking bread and hot coffee, and a multitude of other blessings, small and large.

  June-bug rose a little shakily from her chair; Savannah was ready to catch her if need be, but Jacob’s wife was the most stalwart of women, despite her diminutive size, and she would not fall. “I’ve got to go to him,” she said.

  Savannah merely nodded.

  “The children—they’ll be frightened,” June-bug fretted, raising a slightly tremulous hand to her mouth. “Poor little Toby, why he thinks the sun surely rises and sets in Jacob McCaffrey.”

  “I’ll look after both of them,” Savannah said quietly. “You just concentrate on Jacob and yourself.”

  June-bug nodded, and her eyes glittered with fresh tears. “Thank you,” she said, and then she turned and went in to sit with her husband.

  Pres’s look held admiration. “Yes,” he affirmed, to Savannah, before following June-bug into the corridor at the ba
ck. “Thank you.”

  Trey lingered, looking torn, as well as exhausted and worried.

  “Go home, Trey,” Savannah said. “Rachel and Emma are probably waiting for word, and there’s nothing more you can do here.”

  “You’ll send someone, if we’re needed?”

  “Yes,” she promised. “I’ll come myself.”

  That satisfied Trey, evidently, for he left, and after a few minutes, Savannah went to the window and saw the lights in the mail-order house go out one by one.

  After a little interval spent gathering her thoughts, she turned and walked briskly over to the stove. The boy was still sitting where she’d last seen him, huddled against the wall, the picture of abject misery.

  “Toby,” she said firmly.

  He looked up at her, blue eyes filled with injury and defiance. He would grow to be a handsome man, she thought, of the rakish variety. He did not speak.

  “How old are you?”

  “Eleven,” he answered, after a long time. He was small for his age; no doubt that was one of the many reasons why he behaved like such a cocky little rooster when he felt threatened.

  “Not so very old, then,” she said. “Come out of there.” She extended a hand and waited.

  Amazingly, he took the offered hand and rose, mostly under his own power, but with a little tug from Savannah. In a very matter-of-fact way, she led the child to the hearth, sat down in June-bug’s rocking chair, and took him onto her lap. He tried briefly to pull away, then sagged against her in relieved defeat, and she held him, careful to avoid making him feel restricted.

  “You love Jacob very much, don’t you?” she said, into his fair, straight hair.

  He nodded, his head propped beneath her chin. She felt the wetness of tears through the bodice of her dress, but of course did not mention them.