"Think so?" she asked, smiling.
"Wait and see."
He let go of her, with obvious reluctance, and moved back under the steering wheel. "Here we go."
They applied for the marriage license, had the blood tests, and then went to round up their families to tell them the news.
Janie's aunt Lydia had gone to Europe over the holidays on an impromptu sightseeing trip, Fred Brewster told them when they gave him the news. “She'll be livid if she misses the wedding," he said worriedly.
"She can be here for the first christening," Leo said with a grin at Janie's blush. "You can bring Hettie with you, and come over to the ranch for supper tomorrow night," he added, amused at Fred's lack of surprise at the announcement. "I've invited my brothers to supper and phoned Barbara to have it catered. I wanted to break the news to all of them at once."
"Hettie won't be surprised," Fred told them, tongue-in-cheek. "But she'll enjoy a night out. We'll be along about six."
"Fine," Leo said, and didn't offer to leave Janie at home. He waited until she changed into a royal-blue pant-suit with a beige top, and carried her with him to the ranch.
He did chores and paperwork with Janie right beside him, although he didn't touch her.
"A man only has so much self-control," he told her with a wistful sigh. "So we'll keep our hands off each other, until the wedding. Fair enough?"
She grinned at him. "Fair enough!"
He took her home after they had supper at a local restaurant. "I'd love to have taken you up to Houston for a night on the town," he said when he walked her to her door. "But not with your face like that." He touched it somberly. "Here in Jacobsville, everybody already knows what happened out at Shea's last night. In Houston, people might think I did this, or allowed it to happen." He bent and kissed the painful bruise. "Nobody will ever hurt you again as long as I live," he swore huskily.
She closed her eyes, savoring the soft touch of his mouth. "Are you sure you want to marry me?" she asked.
"I'm sure. I'll be along about ten-thirty," he added.
She looked up at him, puzzled. "Ten-thirty?"
He nodded. "Church," he said with a wicked grin. "We have to set a good example for the kids."
She laughed, delighted. "Okay."
"See you in the morning, pretty girl," he said, and brushed his mouth lightly over hers before he bounded back down the steps to his car and drove off with a wave of his hand.
Fred was amazed that Leo did take her to church, and then came back to the house with her for a lunch of cold cuts. He and Fred talked cattle while Janie lounged at Leo's side, still astounded at the unexpected turn of events. Fred couldn't be happier about the upcoming nuptials. He was amused that Hettie had the weekend off and didn't know what had happened. She had a shock coming when she arrived later in the day.
Leo took Janie with him when he went home, approving her choice of a silky beige dress and matching high heels, pearls in her ears and around her throat, and her hair long and luxurious down her back.
"Your brothers will be surprised," Janie said worriedly on the way there.
Leo lifted an eyebrow. "After the Cattleman's Ball? Probably not," he said. Then he told her about Corrigan offering to drive him home so that he could pump him for information to report back to the others.
"You were very intoxicated," she recalled, embarrassed when she recalled the fierce argument they'd had.
“I’d just found out that Marilee had lied about you," he confided. "And seeing you with damned Harley didn't help."
"You were jealous," she realized.
"Murderously jealous," he confessed at once. "That only got worse, when you took the job at Shea's." He glanced at her. "I'm not having you work there any longer. I don't care what compromises I have to make to get you to agree."
She smiled to herself. "Oh, I don't mind quitting," she confessed. "I'll have enough to do at the ranch, after we're married, getting settled in."
"Let's try not to talk about that right now, okay?"
She stared at him, worriedly. "Are you getting cold feet?" she asked.
"I'll tell you what I'm getting," he said, turning dark eyes to hers. And he did tell her, bluntly, and starkly. He nodded curtly at her scarlet flush and directed his attention back at the road. "Just for the record, the word 'marriage' reminds me of the words 'wedding night,' and I go nuts."
She whistled softly.
"So let's think about food and coffee and my brothers and try not to start something noticeable," he added in a deep tone. “Because all three of them are going to be looking for obvious signs and they'll laugh the place down if they see any."
"We can recite multiplication tables together," she agreed.
He glanced at her with narrow eyes. "Great idea," he replied sarcastically. "That reminds me of rabbits, and guess what rabbits remind me of?"
"I know the Gettysburg Address by heart," she countered. "I'll teach it to you."
"That will put me to sleep."
"I'll make biscuits for supper."
He sat up straight. "Biscuits? For supper? To go with Barbara's nice barbecue, potato salad and apple pie. Now that's an idea that just makes my mouth water! And here I am poking along!" He pushed down on the accelerator. "Honey, you just said the magic word!"
She chuckled to herself. Marriage, she thought, was going to be a real adventure.
Chapter Eleven
Not only did Corrigan, Rey, and Cag show up for supper with their wives, Dorie, Meredith and Tess, but Simon and Tira came all the way from Austin on a chartered jet. Janie had just taken off her apron after producing a large pan of biscuits, adding them to the deliciously spread table that Barbara and her assistant had arranged before they left.
All four couples arrived together, the others having picked up Simon and Tira at the Jacobsville airport on the way.
Leo and Janie met them at the door. Leo looked unprepared.
"All of you?" he exclaimed.
Simon shrugged. "I didn't believe them," he said, pointing at the other three brothers. "I had to come see for myself."
"We didn't believe him, either," Rey agreed, pointing at Leo.
They all looked at Janie, who moved closer to Leo and blushed.
“If she's pregnant, you're dead,'' Cag told Leo pointedly when he saw the look on Janie's face. He leaned closer before Leo could recover enough to protest. "Have you been beating her?"
"She is most certainly not pregnant!" Leo said, offended. "And you four ought to know that I have never hit a woman in my life!"
"But he hit the guy who did this to me," Janie said with pride, smiling up at him as she curled her fingers into his big ones.
"Not very effectively, I'm afraid," Leo confessed.
"That's just because the guy had a black belt," Janie said, defending Leo. "Nobody but our assistant police chief had the experience to bring him down."
"Yes, I know Grier," Simon said solemnly. "He's something of a legend in law enforcement circles, even in Austin."
"He has alien artifacts in his filing cabinet, and he was a government assassin," Janie volunteered with a straight face.
Everybody stared at her.
"He was kidding!" Leo chuckled.
She grinned at him. He wrinkled his nose at her. They exchanged looks that made the others suddenly observant. All at once, they became serious.
"We can do wedding invitations if we e-mail them tonight," Cag said offhand. He pulled a list from his pocket. "This is a list of the people we need to invite."
"I can get the symphony orchestra to play," Rey said, nodding. "I've got their conductor's home phone number in my pocket computer." He pulled it out
"We can buy the gown online and have it overnighted here from Neiman-Marcus in Dallas," Corrigan volunteered. "All we need is her dress size. What are you, a size ten?"
Janie balked visibly, but nodded. "Here comes her father," Dorie said enthusiastically, noting the new arrival.
“I’ll e-mail the announcement to the newspaper," Tess said. "They have a Tuesday edition, we can just make it. We'll need a photo."
There was a flash. Tira changed the setting on her digital camera. "How's this?" She asked, showing it to Tess and Meredith.
"Great!" Meredith said. "We can use Leo's computer to download it and e-mail it straight to the paper, so they'll have it first thing tomorrow. We can e-mail it to the local television station as well. Come on!"
"Wait for me! I'll write the announcement," Dorie called to Corrigan, following along behind the women.
"Hey!" Janie exclaimed.
"What?" Tira asked, hesitating. "Oh, yes, the reception. It can be held here. But the cake! We need a caterer!"
"Cag can call the caterer," Simon volunteered his brother.
"It's my wedding!" Janie protested.
"Of course it is, dear," Tira said soothingly. "Let's go, girls."
The women vanished into Leo's study. The men went into a huddle. Janie's father and Hettie came in the open door, looking shell-shocked.
"Never mind them," Leo said, drawing Janie to meet her parent and her housekeeper. "They're taking care of the arrangements," he added, waving his hand in the general direction of his brothers and sisters-in-law. "Apparently, it's going to be a big wedding, with a formal gown and caterers and newspaper coverage." He grinned. "You can come, of course."
Janie hit him. "We were going to have a nice, quiet little wedding!"
"You go tell them what you want, honey," he told Janie. "Just don't expect them to listen."
Hettie started giggling. Janie glared at her.
"You don't remember, do you?" the housekeeper asked Janie. "Leo helped them do the same thing to Dorie, and Tira, and Tess, and even Meredith. It's payback time. They're getting even."
"I'm afraid so," Leo told Janie with a smug grin. "But look at the bright side, you can just sit back and relax and not have to worry about a single detail."
"But, my dress..." she protested.
He patted her on the shoulder. "They have wonderful taste," he assured her.
Fred was grinning from ear to ear. He never would have believed one man could move so fast, but he'd seen the way Leo looked at Janie just the morning before. It was no surprise to him that a wedding was forthcoming. He knew a man who was head over heels when he saw one.
By the end of the evening, Janie had approved the wedding gown, provided the statistics and details of her family background and education, and climbed into the car with Leo to let him take her home.
"The rings will be ready Tuesday, they promised," he told her at her father's door. He smiled tenderly. "You'll be a beautiful bride."
"I can't believe it," she said softly, searching his lean face.
He drew her close. "Wednesday night, you'll believe it," he said huskily, and bent to kiss her with obvious restraint. "Now, good night!"
He walked to the car. She drifted inside, wrapped in dreams.
It was a honey of a society wedding. For something so hastily concocted, especially with Christmas approaching, it went off perfectly. Even the rings were ready on time, the dress arrived by special overnight delivery, the blood tests and marriage license were promptly produced, the minister engaged, press coverage assured, the caterer on time—nothing, absolutely nothing, went wrong.
Janie stood beside Leo at the Hart ranch at a makeshift arch latticed with pink and white roses while they spoke their vows. Janie had a veil, because Leo had insisted. And after the last words of the marriage ceremony were spoken, he lifted the veil from Janie's soft eyes and looked at her with smoldering possession. He bent and kissed her tenderly, his lips barely brushing hers. She had a yellowing bruise on one cheek and she was careful to keep that side away from the camera, but Leo didn't seem to notice the blemish.
"You are the most beautiful bride who ever spoke her vows," he whispered as he kissed her. "And I will cherish you until they lay me down in the dark!"
She reached up and kissed him back, triggering a burst of enthusiastic ardor that he was only able to curb belatedly. He drew away from her, smiling sheepishly at their audience, caught her hand, and led her back to the house through a shower of rice.
The brothers were on the job even then. The press was delicately prompted to leave after the cake and punch were consumed, the symphony orchestra was coaxed to load their instruments. The guests were delicately led to the door and thanked. Then the brothers carried their wives away in a flurry of good wishes and, at last, the newlyweds were alone, in their own home.
Leo looked at Janie with eyes that made her heart race. "Alone," he whispered, approaching her slowly, "at last."
He bent and lifted her, tenderly, and carried her down the hall to the bedroom. He locked the door. He took the phone off the hook. He closed the curtains. He came back to her, where she stood, a little apprehensive, just inside the closed door.
"I'm not going to hurt you," he said softly. "You're a priceless treasure. I'm going to be slow, and tender, and I'm going to give you all the time you need. Don't be afraid of me."
"I'm not, really," she said huskily, watching him divest her of the veil and the hairpins that held her elaborate coiffure in place with sprigs of lily of the valley. "But you want me so much," she tried to explain. "What if I can't satisfy you?"
He laughed. "You underestimate yourself."
"Are you sure?"
He turned her around so that he could undo the delicate hooks and snaps of her gown. "I'm sure."
She let him strip her down to her lacy camisole, white stockings and lacy white garter belt, her eyes feeding on the delighted expression that claimed his lean face.
"Beautiful," he said huskily. "I love you in white lace."
"You're not bad in a morning coat," she teased, liking the vested gray ceremonial rig he was wearing.
"How am I without it?" he teased.
"Let's find out." She unbuttoned his coat and then the vest under it. He obligingly stripped them off for her, along with his tie, and left the shirt buttons to her hands. "You've got cuff links," she murmured, trying to release them.
"I'll do it." He moved to the chest of drawers and put his cuff links in a small box, along with his pocket change and keys. He paused to remove his shirt and slacks, shoes and socks before he came back to her, in silky gray boxer shorts like the ones he'd worn the night they were almost intimate.
"You are...magnificent," she whispered, running her hands over his chest.
"You have no idea how magnificent, yet." He un-snapped the shorts and let them fall, coaxing her eyes to him. He shivered at the expression on her face, because he was far more potent than he'd been the one time she'd looked at him like this.
While she was gaping, he unfastened the camisole with a delicate flick of his fingers and unhooked the garter belt. He stripped the whole of it down her slender body and tipped her back onto the bed while he pulled the stockings off with the remainder of her clothing.
He pulled back the cover and tossed the pillows off to the side before he arranged her on the crisp white sheets and stood over her, vibrating with desire, his eyes eating her nude body, from her taut nipples to the visible trembling of her long, parted legs.
She watched him come down to her with faint apprehension that suddenly vanished when he pressed his open mouth down, hard, right on her soft belly.
He'd never touched her like that, and in the next few feverish minutes, she went from shock to greater shock as he displayed his knowledge of women.
"No, you can't, you can't!" she sobbed, but he was, he did, he had!
She arched up toward his mouth with tears of tortured ecstasy raining down her cheeks in a firestorm of sensation, sobbing as the pleasure stretched her tight as a rope under the warm, expert motions of his lips.
She gasped as the wave began to hit her. Her eyes opened, and his face was there, his body suddenly right over hers, his hips thrusting down. She felt him, and then looked and saw
him, even as she felt the small stabbing pain of his invasion. The sight of what was happening numbed the pain, and then it was gone all together as he shifted roughly, dragging his hips against hers as he enforced his possession of her innocence.
Her nails bit into his long back as he moved on her, insisting, demanding. His face, above her, was strained, intent.
"Am I hurting you?" he ground out.
"N...no!" she gasped, lifting toward him, her eyes wide, shocked, fascinated.
He looked down, lifting himself so that he could watch
her body absorb him. "Look," he coaxed through his teeth. "Look, Janie. Look at us."
She glanced down and her breath caught at the intimate sight that met her eyes. She gasped.
"And we've barely begun," he breathed, shifting suddenly, fiercely, against her.
She sobbed, shivering.
He did it again, watching her face, assessing her reaction. "I can feel you, all around me, like a soft, warm glove," he whispered, his lips compressing as pleasure shot through him with every deepening motion of his hips. "Take me, baby. Take me inside you. Take all of me. Make me scream, baby," he murmured.
She was out of her mind with the pleasure he was giving her. She writhed under him, arching her hips, pushing against him, watching his face. She shifted and he groaned harshly. She laughed, through her own torment, and suddenly cried out as the pleasure became more and more unbearable. Her hands went between them, in a fever of desire.
"Yes," he moaned as he felt her trembling touch. "Yes. Oh...God...baby...do it, do it! Do it!"
She was going to die. She opened her eyes and looked at him, feeling her body pulse as he shortened and deepened his movements, watching her with his mouth compressed, his eyes feverish.
"Do it...harder," she choked.
He groaned in anguish and his hips ground into hers suddenly, his hands catching her wrists and slamming them over her head as he moved fiercely above her, his eyes holding hers prisoner as his body enforced its possession violently.
She felt her body strain to accommodate him and in the last few mad seconds, she wondered if she would be able to...
Books By Diana Palmer Page 323