“Mmm,” he hummed, drawing his fiancée closer for a thorough kiss.
“I’m still in the room, you know,” Charles grumbled.
Laughing, Daniel let her go. “Ah, it’s good to be alive and in love. You should give it a try, Charles.”
18
Meredith held a ribbon-tied bouquet of wildflowers against her midriff. Dressed in her Edwardian walking suit and wearing a new bonnet, she stood just outside the small log church. Not exactly the ensemble she’d imagined wearing for her wedding day, but she didn’t mind. The morning couldn’t be any more perfect. A cloudless, brilliant blue sky provided a marvelous canopy for their wedding, and the air had hit that sweet spot where a body was warm but not uncomfortably so.
The only fly in her soup bowl of happiness was that her family wasn’t here to see her marry the man she loved. Okay, maybe there were two flies. She might never see her mom, dad, sisters and extended family again, and that put a permanent ache in her heart. She frowned as a third fly took a nosedive into her metaphorical soup.
For all her family knew, she’d been stranded in the past against her will—which was true—and they’d be determined to bring her home. Her family would ask for help from Boann and Alpin, and the Tuatha dé Danann were unpredictable. The possibility existed one or the other would come for her, snatch first and ask questions later.
The strains of a fiddle began, and Meredith’s heart and stomach flipped in tandem. Prudence Klein, who’d agreed to be her attendant, leaned close.
“It’s time, Meredith. If you aren’t certain, this is your last chance to back out,” she admonished.
“I’m certain,” she said, lifting her chin and throwing back her shoulders. She loved Daniel with all her heart. The fact that he’d acknowledged her twenty-first century upbringing and views, and that he was willing to enter into an equal partnership in marriage and in business, had melted all her doubts. He was the only man for her, and the one thing she’d never doubt was their love.
“All right then.” Prudence stepped over the threshold and preceded Meredith down the aisle. Meredith followed, her gaze drawn to Daniel. He and Charles wore suits recently purchased at the mercantile and hurriedly altered to fit, and both of them had visited the one barber in town. By nineteenth-century standards, they were both attractive, well-groomed men. But as far as Meredith was concerned, her bridegroom was the most handsome man ever to exist in the history of humankind.
Daniel’s eyes never left hers, and he practically glowed with pride and happiness. Her breath caught as she walked down the aisle. The pews were filled with the folks of Garretsville, and the congregation, and their avid gazes were riveted to her. A feeling of rightness settled over her, and she smiled at her beloved.
Meredith took her place beside Daniel, and the pastor began speaking in a strong baritone that reverberated through the church to the rafters. “We are gathered here today before God and witnesses to celebrate the vows of marriage between Meredith Ann MacCarthy and Daniel James Cavanaugh.”
Everything went by in a blur after that. Daniel held her shaking hands in his as they both repeated the vows the minister required them to say. The love of her life slipped a gold band onto her finger, and she slipped one onto his, and … they were married. He was hers. For as long as she lived, she’d never forget the expression of joy on his face as he leaned in to kiss her.
“Meredith Cavanaugh,” he whispered as he drew her close. “I will love and cherish you until the end of my days, and that’s—”
“A fact?” she said, smiling through the sheen of tears in her eyes. “Daniel Cavanaugh, I will love and cherish you until the end of my days, and that too is a fact.”
Daniel kissed her tenderly, reverently. She wrapped her arms around his waist, closed her eyes and just … held him for a moment. This elicited cheers from their guests, and the pastor introduced them as husband and wife. Then came the signing of the church registry and their marriage certificates. Their copy would go into the strongbox at the bank tomorrow, but for now, her husband carefully folded the document and tucked it into the pocket inside his coat.
Meredith couldn’t stop smiling. It was official. She was married to an incredible, beautiful man, a man she’d come to know when he’d been a ghost. “You can’t make this stuff up,” she whispered to herself.
“What’s that, love?”
“I’ll tell you when we’re alone.”
“All right. Are you ready to go home then, Mrs. Cavanaugh?” Daniel asked, offering her his arm.
“I am.” She looped her arm through his.
A few of the women from town had volunteered to help organize the wedding feast. Plank tables and makeshift benches had been set up in front of their cabin. They’d bought a few smoked hams from the butcher, and everyone who wished to join them had offered to bring something to share. Thanks to Prudence, they also had a two tiered wedding cake.
She and Daniel left the church as best wishes and congratulations rained down on them in the front yard. Their recently repaired wagon had been decorated with wild flower garlands, and the two mules were harnessed and ready to go. It would be just the two of them since Charles had arranged a ride with their newly hired foreman, so he and Ben could discuss business.
After Meredith threw her bouquet toward the few single women in Garretsville, Daniel helped her up to the buckboard, and they were on their way.
“Will you tell me now what you whispered, love?” Daniel asked, glancing around them. “No one will be able to hear us.”
“Truth is often stranger than fiction.” She moved closer to his side. “I whispered that you can’t make this stuff up. I was thinking about how we met and where we are today.” She flashed him a wry grin. “A ghost, a ghost whisperer and one of the Tuatha dé Danann walked into a bar one day.” She sighed. “It sounds like the beginning of a bad joke, yet that day proved to be a turning point in both our lives.”
“Indeed.” He cocked a brow. “I’m alive because of that turning point.”
“Exactly.” She smiled. “Did I tell you I never intended to volunteer in Garretsville over my summer break from teaching? I needed a paying job, but my aunt talked me into sending in the application. I did, even though I never expected to be chosen. Aunt Beth said I’d been called by the spirit world to help the ghosts here, and to ignore the summons would be a grave mistake.” Meredith glanced at him. “Did you summon me, Daniel?”
He canted his head to peer at her. “If I did, it was unconsciously done. I yearned to be free of the shackles that held me earthbound. Perhaps my soul reached out to yours, somehow recognizing you were the only one who could help me.”
Daniel lifted her hand and brushed his lips across her knuckles. “Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine longing to be free would lead me to the woman of my dreams.” His Adam’s apple bobbed a few times. “Nor could I have imagined a way existed to restore my life to me. My heart can scarcely contain this monumental and all-consuming love I have for you.”
Never in a million years could she have imagined falling in love with a ghost whose life she’d end up saving either. Yet, here she was, living in the very era she’d studied, married to the man whose life she’d saved. “You do have a way with words,” she whispered.
“And a fair talent for lovemaking as well, aye?” He waggled his brows at her.
She laughed. “Aye,” she teased.
“While your thoughts have been taking a philosophical turn, all I’ve been able to think about is our wedding night,” he admitted.
“I’ve been thinking of that as well.” She leaned against him. “It’s mid-afternoon now. How long do you think our reception will last?”
“Until the sun begins to set and all the food is gone. Folks will want to leave while there’s still a bit of light to travel home by I’d imagine.”
Meredith frowned. “That long?”
Daniel waved as the Kleins climbed into their wagon and departed for town. The last rays of daylight
streaked the western horizon with crimson, and the moon had already risen. “I thought they’d never leave,” he said. As grateful as he was to those who’d stayed to help clean up, he was even more grateful to see them on their way.
“Me too.” She sighed. “Ours was a lovely reception. I only wish I could’ve taken a few pictures,” Meredith said as the wagon disappeared around a bend. “At least we’ll have the photograph taken by the barber. Good thing there’s an amateur photographer in town.”
“We have the pictures Charles took with your wee phone box.” He put his arm around his wife’s curvy waist and turned her toward the cabin.
“A lot of good that will do us,” she huffed. “My phone’s battery isn’t going to last forever. Even with the wi-fi, Bluetooth and cellular turned off, it can’t last forever.” She frowned.
He’d had one thing and one thing only on his mind all afternoon, and it had nothing to do with the mysteries of future technologies. “Come, love. Let us retire to the privacy of our bedroom. This being our wedding night and all, I’ve important work to undertake, and I wish to do the occasion justice.
“Where’s Charles?” his dear wife asked as she slid her arm around him.
“He has not yet recovered his strength fully, and the ride to and from town took a toll. Charles has retired for the evening, and I’m certain he’s fast asleep.” Daniel led Meredith up the steps to the porch.
“I’m not surprised,” she said. “It’s only been three weeks since he was shot.”
“Aye. This being July tenth, it is three weeks exactly since that fateful day. I want you to know I’m not the kind of husband who will forget our anniversary.” Daniel opened the cabin door and ushered his bride inside.
“I won’t forget either,” she said taking his hand in hers. His wife led him toward the stairs to their bedroom. “The only thing bothering me right now are all these clothes between us.”
He’d already grown hard in anticipation, and her words set off a pleasurable surge of heat. Once he’d closed the door behind them, Daniel drew her into his arms. “Be gentle with me, wife, for I am a virgin.” She laughed, and need pulsed straight to his groin.
“A technicality since we’ve done everything except that last bit, but sure, I’ll be gentle with you,” she teased again. “I don’t believe losing your virginity will cause you any pain though.” She tugged his shirt from his trousers and began unbuttoning.
“Really? Let me disabuse you of the notion, for I am currently in considerable pain from wanting you—a throbbing ache to be precise.” He kissed her, and as it always did, his desire for her took flight. Her lips parted for him, and he accepted the invitation. The next few moments were spent in a flurry of disrobing, while trying not to break the kiss. His breathing came fast and hard as his arousal reached a feverish pitch.
Naked at last, he stepped back and allowed his gaze to roam over her. “You are my ideal of feminine perfection, Meredith Cavanaugh. I’m a very lucky man. His eyes snagged on the dusky pink of her areolas and the slightly darker buds of her nipples. He reached out and traced a finger around one, and it tightened at his touch. He smiled. “I love the way your body responds to me.”
“Mmm-hm.” She brushed her knuckles low over his belly, and his cock bobbed and grew even harder. “Ditto,” she said, a knowing, sexy expression suffusing her features.
Daniel scooped her into his arms and carried her to their bed. Laying her down gently, he continued his perusal for a few moments. She lay stretched out on the bed, naked, like an offering for him and only him. Mine.
He swallowed hard as primitive emotions rushed to the fore. Waves of possessiveness and the imperative to protect overtook him. She would bear his children, becoming the center of his world. Daniel lowered himself to the bed and stretched out beside her. Slowly he stroked her, fascinated by the contrast of his work-hardened and weathered hand against the silky softness of her fair skin.
Meredith ran a palm over his chest. “Kiss me, Daniel,” she whispered. “Make love to me.”
A growl broke free from deep in his throat, and it was all he could do to keep from rolling her beneath him and taking her right then and there. This was their wedding night, and he wanted to savor the experience, make it last. It took a great deal of will to restrain himself from acting on his impulses. Her pleasure came first, thereby heightening his own.
Daniel nipped at her lower lip and cupped one of her breasts, a perfect fit for his palm. The breathy sigh she expelled against his mouth sent his blood racing. He kissed her deeply. Their breath mingled, and he closed his eyes, reveling in the sensations coursing through his entire being.
As he ran a thumb over her hardened nipple, he kissed his way down her neck and across her collar bone. “Thank the heavens you have two of these,” he said, raising his head to study her beautiful breasts. “One to taste, and one to touch.”
Meredith made a sound, half laugh, half snort. “I’m sure that’s why there are two.”
“Mmm.” He took a nipple into his mouth, teasing the bud with nips and licks before sucking it into his mouth. She tasted clean, sweet, and his lovely wife made the most enticing little sounds and began to writhe at his touch.
Her hands roamed over him, stroking and caressing him into a frenzy as she worked her way down to his cock. Taking hold, she squeezed and ran her thumb over the head. His hips bucked uncontrollably against her. She slid her hand down from the head to fondle his testicles, and he feared losing control. He concentrated on the different methods of mining, of mucking out the mules’ stall, but it was no use.
Burying his face against her neck, Daniel reached between them and traced his fingers over her sex, touching the nub of her pleasure gently. Her hips came up off the bed, and he dipped a finger into her slick heat. He pressed against her there with the pad of his thumb, rubbing in a circular motion against her clit.
She moaned and grabbed onto his shoulders with both hands as if she needed to be moored. He inserted two fingers and increased the pressure and the pace of his ministrations until her entire body tensed and she begged him not to stop. Her thighs closed tightly over his hand as she came apart in his arms. She shuddered and sighed, and then she went slack.
He drew her close, rolled her beneath him and kissed her forehead, her cheeks, and finally her luscious mouth. She opened her thighs to him, and he slid his hands beneath her fine derrière, tilting her hips up enough that he could nudge his cock against her opening. He entered only enough that the head was inside her. “Ahhh.”
She groaned and rocked upward, and with his next thrust, he went a little farther. “Feels … so damn … good,” he rasped as he withdrew and slowly went in a little deeper.
“Yeah? Well you’re torturing me,” his dear wife scolded.
“I want to make it last,” he said as he withdrew again.
“Daniel, we have all night and the rest of our lives together. I want you now.”
He stilled, raised himself and stared down at his love. Brushing the damp hair from her forehead, he kissed her. Tenderness, and love mixed with desire took hold as he buried himself as deeply inside her as he possibly could, thrusting over and over until he went mindless and nothing existed beyond the pleasure engulfing him. Meredith met his pace, tilting her hips to take him deeper and tightening her inner muscles around his cock as he withdrew.
A coil tightened within him with each thrust until he lost control, and his hips rocked erratically. “Meredith,” he called out as his climax took him in a cataclysmic burst of pulsing bliss. As the last shudder racked through him, he collapsed in a boneless heap beside her, the aftereffects still sending throbbing pulses through him.
“I am a lucky, lucky man,” he croaked out as a euphoric languor spread through his entire body. “I love you, Meredith, but I’ll tell you true. The word hardly does justice to what I feel for you.” His eyelids were so heavy, he could barely keep his eyes open, and he yawned.
“I love you too, Daniel, and I know wh
at you mean.” She rose from the bed and crossed the room to the ewer and bowl kept on the dresser.
He watched as she washed her intimate bits. Ordinarily, the sight would stir him again, but all he could do in that moment was appreciate her beauty. “Will you bring me a flannel, love? I’m not sure I can even walk at present.”
She grinned at him over her shoulder. “That good?”
“Aye.” He grinned like a drunk sailor. “Did our lovemaking feel different to you?”
“Do you mean because we actually had intercourse?” She blinked at him.
“Nay, though I have a very deep appreciation for that difference.” He sighed. “Tonight felt different to me, more intimate and …” He cast about for the right words. “Perhaps it’s because we’re married now, and I have this great sense of relief about that. What I feel is like finally coming home after being lost in the woods for a very long time. It’s as if something inside me has opened, giving way to a new kind of bond, the lasting kind. It’s the certainty I have that I can count on you through thick and thin.” He frowned. “Does that make sense?”
She returned to their bed and handed him a damp square of flannel before taking her place beside him again and arranging the covers so they could slip beneath them. “Daniel, you always make perfect sense to me. I truly believe you should consider writing poetry or at least a memoir.”
“Hmph. Beginning with my decades as a ghost?” He cleaned himself quickly and tossed the flannel across the room. It landed in the bowl with a slosh. Turning onto his side, he gathered Meredith into his arms so her sweet backside nestled against his groin. He wrapped himself around her and closed his eyes. “I had hoped to demonstrate my affection for you at least once more, sweet wife, but even as I say the words, sleep is taking me.”
“It has been an eventful day, and I can’t keep my eyes open either.” She burrowed closer, pulled the covers over their shoulders and placed her hand on his forearm where it circled her waist. “Good night.”
Summoned in Time: A magical, ghostly, time travel romance... (The MacCarthy Sisters Book 3) Page 25