Jessica didn’t protest the familiar form of address; in fact, she rather liked it. She wondered if she’d ever be able to admit, outside her own heart and mind, that she loved this man. That she never wanted to be with anybody but him, in spite of everything.
He leaned his head down then and kissed her, softly at first, and then with a heat that made parts of her ache. When the tip of his tongue brushed lightly across her lips, she opened to him, and the sensations that followed left her speechless.
“Jessie,” he said, when it was over, and she was still trying to recover her equilibrium. “I love you. I know I must sound like a damn fool, saying a thing like that when we’ve only been acquainted a few days—and spent most of that time arguing—but it’s true.”
She stared at him. Maybe it was shock that made her think she’d heard him say he loved her. Maybe it was the cold, or she was coming down with some sort of fever.
“Jessie,” he prompted.
“Did you actually say—?”
“I said I love you,” he told her clearly.
Tears filled her eyes. She’d almost given up hope of hearing those words, certainly had never expected to hear them from this particular man, but he’d said them all right, and apparently, he meant them. “I—I love you, too,” she said, and just those simple, hesitant words took all the bravery she could summon up. Far more than surviving the storm had required, or traveling west alone, or taking on the raising of twins and the publication of the Gazette.
“Marry me,” he said.
She swallowed. This proposal was distinctly different from the last one, which had been a mockery. “I have the babies to think of, and the newspaper. And then there are Michael’s debts.”
“We’ll raise the babies together,” he said. “With a few of our own, of course. As for the rest, we’ll work it out.”
She shook her head. “No,” she said. “We have to come to an understanding right now. I know Michael owed money to a lot of other people, not just in Springwater, but in Choteau, too. I won’t let you take on my brother’s debts, Gage, if that’s what you’re planning on doing. And if I’m going to reimburse the people he borrowed from, I have to make the newspaper pay.”
“But you’ll marry me? If I agree to your terms, I mean?”
She felt reckless and wild, as though she were careening down a snowy mountainside on a runaway toboggan, and she’d never been happier. “Yes,” she said, and he kissed her again.
*
Come morning, the world was still and the sun shone on miles of snow with a blinding brightness. Jessica and Gage had slept in each other’s arms through the night, but both of them had been fully dressed, their clothes having dried, and they had not gone beyond the kissing stage. Jessica might have given in, had he tried to persuade her, for he had awakened things within her that were as elemental as weather, but he’d said they ought to wait until Jacob had said the proper words over them, and she’d agreed.
Both of them had suffered for the sacrifice.
“Shut the door,” Gage grumbled, when he awakened and saw Jessica standing on the threshold, one hand shading her eyes, gazing out on the landscape in a state of pure wonder.
Just as she was doing so, they heard a shout from somewhere in the near distance, and Gage nearly knocked her over getting outside.
“Over here!” he yelled, cupping his hands to his mouth.
Snow slid off the roof with an angry, scraping roar, loosed by the sound, and the little shack wobbled, but held. Jessica peered around Gage’s broad shoulder, still bundled in his coat, and saw two men come over the nearest drift, wearing snowshoes. Each of them carried another pair strapped to his back.
“I told you they’d find us,” Gage said.
Jessica raised her eyes heavenward and offered another silent prayer. Thank you.
The men were Trey Hargreaves and Landry Kildare, and they’d brought food as well as blankets and extra snowshoes. When they produced cold biscuits and jerked venison from their packs, both Gage and Jessica ate ravenously.
The trek back to Springwater was long and difficult, and there were times when Jessica thought for sure she would drop to her knees in the hard-crusted snow, never to rise again, but her pride kept her going. If the men could prevail against the elements, so could she. After all, they were all made of the same stuff—blood, bones, breath, and flesh—it was just arranged a little differently in her case.
All during the long journey, she waited for Gage to mention that he and Jessica meant to be married, but the conversation revolved around other things. Jack Arthur had gotten to the stagecoach station safely, though he’d nearly lost some toes and fingers in the effort, and he’d been the one to suggest that they look for Gage and Jessica at the cabin. Jacob had known the prospector who’d settled the place, and everyone had agreed that if indeed the two had found sanction from the weather, that had to be where they were.
It went without saying, of course, that if they hadn’t gotten in out of the cold, they would surely have perished within a few hours.
Their reception in Springwater raised Jessica’s flagging spirits a little—had she only imagined Gage telling her he loved her, proposing marriage, holding her throughout the night in an innocent embrace that had, all the same, left her branded as his, forever and ever?
June-bug McCaffrey threw a blanket around Jessica the instant she stepped over the threshold of the Springwater station, guided her to a chair next to the fire, tsk-tsking all the while, and thrust a cup of hot lemon juice and honey, laced with something a bit stronger, into her hands. She went right on fussing and fetching, murmuring prayers of gratitude, sounding as distractedly joyous as a mother hen who has just rounded up a pair of stray chicks.
Gage was welcomed, too, of course, but in a different way. Jacob brought out his special cider, and he and the other men sat around one of the long trestle tables, listening as the wanderer recounted his harrowing adventures. Jessica listened carefully with one ear, and there was not a word about the plans they had made together.
Had he forgotten? Changed his mind?
“I’d best get home,” she said finally, when she felt she could trust her legs to carry her as far as the newspaper office. She made to lift herself out of that comfortable chair, “Cornucopia’s been looking after the babies all this time—”
“Never you mind,” June-bug said, and pressed her right back down onto the worn calico cushion. “Word’s been sent to Cornucopia—Toby went right away. As for the babies, why, little Emma Hargreaves has been helping her tend them, and she knows what she’s doin’, too, what with those little’uns of Trey and Rachel’s.”
Jessica settled back with a sigh and accepted another cup of June-bug’s wonderful medicinal concoction. Her eyelids felt heavy, and it seemed that every muscle in her body had gone limp all of a sudden. She realized she couldn’t have walked even as far as the newspaper office; she was simply too tired.
She drifted off after that, and someone carried her to a bed—a blessedly soft, warm, clean bed. She was vaguely aware of Dr. Parrish leaning over her, his stethoscope dangling from around his neck.
“Am I sick?” she asked, unsure even as she uttered the words whether she was speaking aloud or simply thinking the question.
He smiled. “Just tired,” he said. He sounded real, but he could be part of a dream.
Perhaps she was still in that freezing cabin after all, perhaps this delicious comfort, this cosseting warmth, was really a prelude to death. She’d read that it happened just this way. “Gage?”
“He’s all right, too,” Dr. Parrish assured her. “Get some rest.”
She slipped beneath the surface of consciousness then, unable to stay afloat any longer, even if that meant she would never awaken.
When she opened her eyes again, the room was full of light, dazzling, snow-bounced light. And Gage was sitting on the edge of her narrow bed, grinning down at her. She blinked.
“I never thought I’d end up with a
lazy wife,” he said.
She blinked again. “Wife?”
“Jacob’s agreed to marry us today,” he went on, still smiling. “If you’re still willing.”
A great, jubilant shout of joy swelled within her, but she managed to contain it, and sat bolt upright instead. “What about the newspaper? The babies?”
He laughed. “We’ve talked about the newspaper and the babies, remember? We’ll adopt the twins, and you can run the Gazette as long as it suits you. Just print a few favorable articles about the mayor now and then, if you don’t mind.”
Her mind was racing, but even at top speed, it couldn’t catch up with her runaway heart. “But there’s so much we don’t know about each other, you and I—”
He kissed her forehead. “We’ve got a lifetime to learn,” he replied. “What’s your answer, Jessie? Yes or no?”
She stared at him for a long while. “Yes,” she said finally. As if there had ever been any doubt, from the first moment she’d laid eyes on him.
*
Jacob performed the ceremony that afternoon, in the little white church with the bell tower, and despite the deep, hard-crusted snow that stretched, glittering, for miles in every direction, the pews were packed with delighted guests. June-bug sang a wedding song of her own composition, high and sweet, and the women wept with joy throughout the whole service.
Trey and Rachel Hargreaves served cake and coffee in their decorous parlor when the ceremony was over, and at twilight, when the bride and groom finally took their leave, fat flakes of snow were swirling lazily down from a gray and low-bellied sky.
When Gage swept Jessica up in his arms, right there at the Hargreaves’s front gate, a rousing cheer was raised by the wedding guests, gathered shivering on the porch to wave and call out good wishes. He looked down at her and frowned thoughtfully.
“What’s the matter?” Jessica asked, still a little afraid he might change his mind about marriage. About her.
“You don’t mind, do you? That I sold the house, I mean? I’d rather have one we planned together, but—”
Jessica thought her heart would burst; the love she felt for this man was so strong that it brought tears to her eyes and caused her breath to catch. “No,” she said, because she was too stricken with happiness to embellish her words. “I don’t mind. I just want to be with you.”
He kissed her, right there in the middle of the street.
Cornucopia had taken the babies to the store before the wedding, and the tiny apartment over the newspaper office was empty. A note left on the kitchen table said they weren’t to worry; the twins were being properly spoiled.
“That woman in San Francisco,” she said, “do you still care for her?” It was the first time she’d dared ask, even though the possibility had been pulsing in her mind ever since Cornucopia had told her what she knew of Gage’s past. While she’d related the whole story of her experience with Mr. Covington while they were stranded in the cabin, he had said little or nothing about his own past.
He smiled, still holding her. Her skirt trailed on the floor, and her hair, like his, was full of snow. He sat down, without releasing her, in the rocking chair facing the empty fireplace. “No,” he said. “That’s been over for a long time, Jessie. Besides, she’s married to my brother.”
She searched his face. “But you’re estranged from them, aren’t you? Your grandfather, your half-brother?”
He sighed. “Small towns,” he said.
She flicked at a stray lock of his dark hair with the backs of her fingers. “Make things right with them, Gage,” she urged softly. “Whatever happened, they’re your family.”
“You’re my family,” he said, kissing those same fingers. “You and the twins.”
“You know what I mean,” she insisted.
Once again, he sighed. “All right,” he said. “I’ll write to them. Extend the olive branch. But if they don’t respond, there isn’t much I can do about it.”
She smiled, pleased. “What happened?”
“Could we talk about this later?” he was fiddling with her hair, watching her mouth as though it fascinated him.
“No,” she replied.
He tilted his head back and closed his eyes. When he spoke, he seemed to be addressing the ceiling. “My grandfather told me that my father was dead, and I believed him. Hell, why wouldn’t I? My mother remarried, had Luke. Then I found out that he’d lied—they all had. My grandfather had forced my father—his own son—out of the business, out of all our lives. Luke knew the truth, and he never told me. By the time I found out, it was too late.”
“Your father really had died by that time?”
He nodded.
“And the woman?”
“She married Luke—my half-brother. As far as I know, they’ve been happy together.”
Jessica was silent a long time. Then she laid her face against his cheek. “I’m sorry,” she said.
He hooked a finger under her chin and made her look at him. “Can we start the honeymoon now?”
She blushed, then nodded, and he carried her toward the bedroom and the bed where she had expected to sleep alone for the rest of her natural life.
“It’s not a very fancy place to spend a wedding night,” she observed, a little ruefully. They were at the threshold of their room now, moving inexorably toward a fate that made Jessica’s breath catch. He paused, looked into her eyes.
“It’ll do just fine,” he said. “Springwater’s changed me, Jessie. I’m not the same man I was when I came here.” He laid her gently on the bed and began to undress her, starting by unlacing her shoes and tugging them off. He caressed her ankles for a while, all the while talking in a low, melodious voice, describing the things he wanted to make her feel in minute detail. Finally, he unfastened her garters, rolled down her stockings, stroked her bare legs.
Jessica felt as though she were coming down with a fever. Tendrils of her hair were already clinging to her temples and her nape, and she couldn’t seem to get her breath. The sweet, cold silence of the snow falling outside did nothing to cool her blood.
She watched, unable to speak, as he shed his coat, undid his string tie, worked the buttons of his fine white shirt. A tantalizing view of his chest greeted her eyes; she tried not to stare and could not help herself. He was more than handsome, more than magnificent, and he was hers.
“Jessie,” he said, his voice hoarse. They were both bare of every garment and constraint, lying face to face beneath the fine quilt that had simply been there when the coverlet was drawn back. “You trust me, don’t you? Never to hurt you, I mean?”
She swallowed and nodded. After what they’d been through together, she would have trusted him with her soul as well as her body.
He ran a hand down her shoulder and arm, brought it to rest on her hip, and left a trail of small, invisible sparks arching off her flesh. “I’ll be as gentle as I can,” he promised, “but sometimes—just the first time—if you want me to stop—”
She laid an index finger to his mouth. “I want you to start, Gage. And don’t stop until I’m yours and you’re mine.”
He kissed her again then, gently at first, then with growing hunger. It was quite different, that kiss, from its predecessors—lying naked together in their marriage bed changed everything.
Over the long, languorous interlude to follow, Gage introduced Jessica to a variety of simple but soul-searing pleasures, exploring the planes and curves and hollows of her body, her spirit, and her mind, and sharing those same parts of himself. Long before they actually joined themselves together physically, they had formed a mystical bond that even death could not sever.
At long last, Gage raised himself over her—she was pleading by then, half delirious with wanting—and he looked into her eyes with such tenderness that she was sure her heart must have cracked within her like an eggshell, made forever strong by its weakness.
“Say yes, Jessie,” he said. “Please, say yes.”
She couldn’t ge
t a word past her constricted throat, so she merely nodded again, and he was inside her, in a long, unbroken stroke, filling her, exalting her, setting her ablaze. There was a suggestion of pain, but that was soon lost in a maelstrom of rising need; they flung themselves together, apart, together, faster and faster.
Then, in the space of a heartbeat, the universe splintered into glittering pieces, licked with flame, and showered down around them, bits of shattered sky, stars, and memories of stars. They were everything and nothing at all. They were themselves, and each other, and wholly separate. But some part of them, Jessica knew, even in those breathless moments when she was sure she could not survive such ecstasy, would always be one being, always live at the heights.
As they slept entwined, snowflakes pirouetted past the windows and blanketed the earth in a mantle of glorious white.
More to treasure from
Linda Lael Miller
ANGELFIRE
BANNER O’BRIEN
CAROLINE AND THE RAIDER
CORBIN’S FANCY
DANIEL’S BRIDE
DESIRE AND DESTINY
EMMA AND THE OUTLAW
FLETCHER’S WOMAN
KNIGHTS
LAURALEE
THE LEGACY
LILY AND THE MAJOR
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TWO BROTHERS: THE LAWMAN AND THE GUNSLINGER
MEMORY’S EMBRACE
MOON FIRE
MY DARLING MELISSA
MY OUTLAW
ONE WISH
PIRATES
PRINCESS ANNIE
SPRINGWATER
A SPRINGWATER CHRISTMAS
SPRINGWATER SEASONS: RACHEL, SAVANNAH, MIRANDA, JESSICA
TAMING CHARLOTTE
THE VOW
WANTON ANGEL
WILLOW
THE WOMEN OF PRIMROSE CREEK:
BRIDGET, CHRISTY, SKYE, MEGAN, YANKEE WIFE
LINDA LAEL MILLER is the beloved bestselling author of more than thirty novels; there are more than twelve million copies of her books in print. Most recently, she has won critical acclaim for her novel Courting Susannah, her latest New York Times bestseller One Wish, and her marvelous tales of life and love in the fictional towns of Springwater, Montana (Springwater, A Springwater Christmas, and the bestselling miniseries Springwater Seasons), and Primrose Creek, Nevada (Bridget, Christy, Skye, and Megan). Ms. Miller resides in the Scottsdale, Arizona, area.
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