Sweet Annie

by Cheryl St. John

  The horse nickered as though he'd understood, and Annie smiled to herself.

  Luke fastened the stall door behind him. “Want to walk or shall I carry you?"

  "I'll walk."

  She stood and he took her hand, leading her past the stalls, telling her which horses were his, which he boarded. He tucked her hand into the crook of his arm and against the solid warmth of his body. They turned a corner and entered a large room with a waist-high brick fireplace that took up the outside wall.

  "This is the forge." He showed her his tools: ham­mers, tongs, punches and chisels. He pointed out the double-chambered bellows above the forge. Two sizes of anvils had been mounted to tree trunks of a height he could easily reach to work. Right now the chilly room smelled of coals, and she could only imagine how hot it would be when the fire was blazing enough to shape and beat iron.

  "I heard the sound of the hammers building this place, and sometimes on a clear day I can hear the ring of the hammer on the iron. Now when I hear it, I'll picture you here. You'll seem closer."

  He gave her a gentle smile and touched one finger to her cheek before continuing on.

  Another room was completely filled with tack, and the scent of leather and oil permeated her nostrils.

  "Why so many different harnesses and bits?" she asked after he told her what each was.

  “All horses are unique and work differently. Some like one kind of bit, some another. You don't want your animal to obey because of pain, so you make sure the bit fits his mouth."

  "Oh." She turned back and he was standing so close that she stepped into his arms. She wrapped her arms around his waist more because of her pleasure to be with him than for balance.

  He ran his thumb down her spine to her waistband and back up, and Annie experienced a stunning rush of excitement. Being alone with a man and any phys­ical contact was strictly forbidden according to the way she and every other girl she knew had been raised. If she'd been severely warned about flirtation and flat­tery, how much more taboo was this?

  But she just couldn't see this beautiful thing they shared as wrong.

  He lowered his head and her heart fluttered in re­sponse. She raised her lips and met his warm damp mouth with a soft exhale and a tiny sound of pleasure.

  The kiss mounted and swelled, and he nipped the corner of her lips, dragged his mouth to her chin, then to her neck.

  Annie let her head fall back and enjoyed the plea­surable sensations his mouth created on her sensitive skin. Deep inside, tiny bursts of warmth flooded her heart and chugged through her veins.

  “I like you in the daytime, Annie, when the sunlight is bright on your hair, making it look like fire and fool's gold. Your lashes are so light and your skin is as fine as a baby's, so fair and so delicate."

  Just those words made her breasts feel hard and achy. Her breath caught in her throat.

  "But I like you in the dark, too, when I have to rely on my nose and my hands and the sound of your voice and your sighs. In the dark it seems like we're the only two people in the world."

  She let her eyelids close and imagined being alone with no distractions, no parents, no one waiting to cor­rect her or stop her from being herself. "I wish we were."

  He hugged her tightly, and she buried her cheek against his chest and the erratic pounding of his heart.

  "Where do you live?" she asked. "You haven't shown me yet."

  "It's not much to see."

  "I want to see anyway."

  "Okay." He took one of her hands and the lantern and led her through a narrow corridor, then held open a door for her to pass inside.

  Annie limped into the long, narrow room. The space held a small woodstove, a chest of drawers, a normal-size bed, a stack of crates atop which sat folded tow­eling and a pail for water. Pegs in one wall held coats and overalls and hats she'd never seen him wear.

  Another stack of crates held books and a few per­sonal items. A worn braided rug covered the plank floor.

  "I told you it wasn't much."

  She glanced around the austere space. "It's not bad."

  "It's only temporary until I build a house."

  "I said it's not bad."

  "It's not what you're used to."

  She glanced up at him. "I've never had to pay for anything myself."

  An uncomfortable silence stretched between them. Annie's tired legs wobbled, and she made her way to the edge of his bed and sat. "I had an abysmal day."

  Luke sat the lantern on the chest of drawers. "What happened?''

  She told him about the ham and the incident with Will and the ball and the tea. He pulled an upended nail keg from a corner and perched atop it in front of her.

  "Sometimes I feel like I'm swimming upstream and all the other fish are going the other direction. I'm the only one fighting the current and it's a losing battle. The other fish all say, 'Why don't you turn around and go the way we're going?' and I wonder that myself sometimes.

  "But I'll die. I'll just die if I have to wither away in that chair and be treated like an invalid for the rest of my life." Her mother's words pierced her again. "Do you know what she said? Her first words were 'What if someone had seen you?' As if that were the worst thing that could happen. As if I'm so gauche and ugly that she's ashamed of me."

  Luke lifted her hands and pressed his lips to their backs. "I can't believe she's ashamed of you," he denied. "She loves you, and she's protective."

  "It's more than that. It's as though I'm a pretty pet when I stay in my chair, but if I look awkward she's embarrassed."

  "I think you're beautiful just the way you are."

  She smiled into his eyes, still disbelieving he saw her the way he claimed. But she even felt pretty when she was with him. "I did discover that I have an ally in Diana, however. I'd suspected all along, but today confirmed it."

  "Well then, somethin' good did happen today."

  "And tonight," she said softly. "Something real good is happening tonight."

  He smiled that devastating smile that carved slashes in his cheeks.

  Annie pulled a hand from his easy grasp to reach up and tentatively stroke one long dimple with her fingertips. His skin was surprisingly smooth and warm. She drew the caress across his lips and he kissed her fingers in passing.

  Her stomach fluttered crazily.

  She touched his eyebrows next, so black, and yet they, too, were remarkably soft.

  He circled her wrists and brought her palms to his cheeks to frame his face, and her skin felt cool against the divine heat of his. His ebony lashes swept down and his eyes closed.

  He was beautiful, with strong sharply angled lines to his face, a soft sensuous mouth, hair and brows as black as midnight, his chin and jaw molded in clean lines. She could look at him forever. She could touch him forever. Her throat tightened with the sweet ache of emotion she felt toward this forbidden man.

  What was it she felt? Gratitude? Of course. Friend­ship? Not really, not compared to what she felt toward Charmaine or Diana. These feelings were more in­tense ... more consuming... more—physical.

  Was this lust or love or a combination?

  All she knew was that she couldn't get close enough, couldn't spend enough time in his company, couldn't draw enough pleasure from their touches and kisses to satisfy this wild greedy hunger she had for him.

  "Come closer," she begged softly.

  His eyelids rose and he slid from the keg to kneel on the braided rug at her feet. She turned her knees to one side to allow him to lean in close and he released her wrists to circle her waist.

  She felt his mouth move over hers as much in her hands as against her lips. His jaw moved as he angled his head and parted his lips against hers.

  His tongue dipped out to taste her, hot and satiny textured. Hesitantly she parted her lips and his next sweep brushed his tongue against hers.

  The erotic contact reached to her very core. Thread­ing her hands into his silky hair, she held him fast, returned his kiss, relish
ed each thrust and foray and bewildering jolt of sensation.

  His hands, bracketing her waist, rubbed up and down her ribs through the fabric of her dress and un-derthings. The heat melded right through the fabric to her flesh. His thumbs brushed the undersides of her breasts, and her heart hammered double-time.

  She must have taken over someone else's body, someone beautiful and healthy and desirable for him to want her like this. Someone else must be occupying her mind for her to have cast caution and upbringing aside to engage in fleshly pleasures. Because she sure wasn't Annie, not the hesitant, self-conscious girl she'd been only a few months ago.

  His attentions lent her boldness and confidence, and combined with the reactions of her body, she felt com­pletely new—completely whole. She'd done things the way her parents expected her to for as long as she could bear. No matter how dangerous this was, she wanted it. She wanted Luke.

  She pulled her mouth away and rested her forehead against his. "This was the longest week of my life."

  "Once when I couldn't sleep for thinking of you, I walked over to your house in the middle of the night and watched the windows."

  "You did?"

  He nodded and her head bobbed against his. She smiled a foolishly giddy smile. "My room is down­stairs on the east corner. Next time you'll know."

  "You think there'll be a next time?" he asked, his lazy stroking through her dress keeping her nerves at a fevered pitch.

  "Do you?" she countered.

  "I hope not. I can't afford to lose sleep and I def­initely can't afford to have your neighbors call the sheriff on me."

  Finally, she reached for his hands, placed them firmly over her breasts and leaned into him. She closed her eyes and absorbed the sensations. One summer when a temporary librarian had taken over for Mrs. Krenshaw, she and Charmaine had read the books they weren't allowed to check out. They'd found the anat­omy books highly informative, and the fiction fasci­nating, though the romantic parts regarding physical details between men and women had been sketchy.

  They hadn't been able to imagine how two people performed such acts with a straight face. Now she knew. She knew the pleasure and the heat, and she welcomed learning more, experiencing more.

  Luke rose and guided her down upon the rough wool blanket that covered his bed. She went willingly, wrapping her arms around his shoulders. This kiss was a wet fusion of lips and breath, and it was new in that he lay with his body molded along the side of hers, chest to breast, belly to hip, thigh to thigh, hard to soft, his head and shoulders above her in the golden lamplight.

  She loved the feel of his muscled body pressed against her, the scrape of his chin on her neck, the pressure of his hand, molding and shaping her breast through layers of fabric. He pressed his cheek to hers and she found his velvety earlobe with her lips...her tongue.

  He lifted a thigh over hers, shifting his weight, urg­ing her down into the mattress with firm gentleness. "Does this hurt you anywhere?"

  "Oh, no," came her hoarse encouraging reply.

  Their mouths fused, tongues and lips sleek and seeking. Annie rocked up against him, pressing as close as she could. His body stilled, then he ended the kiss with a series of plucks across her jaw.

  Luke moved his weight to the side and drew her into the fold of his arm, stroking her shoulder, her hair, her cheek. Annie lay with her head against his chest and listened to the rhythmic beat of his thudding heart as it slowed. She'd never dreamed of anything so good, of anyone so—alive. Alive and warm and ex­citing and real. Those were only a few of the words that described this man she wanted, this man she loved.

  A cat meowed somewhere in the darkened depths of the stable. "Luke, I lo—"

  He pressed his fingers against her lips. "It'll only make it worse if we say it."

  She pulled his hand away and tipped her head to look at him. “We?'' she asked hopefully.

  "Even if your family didn't hate me, I couldn't of­fer to marry you, Annie," he said, regret tingeing his words with roughness she knew he didn't intend. "I couldn't bring you here to live. I have to have a house first."

  "It wouldn't matter to me," she said. "I would live anywhere with you."

  "It would matter to me. And to your family. And to the people of Copper Creek. I have to do better than this for you."

  She shifted and turned to her side, raising her head to see his face. "You talked about building a house."

  “In the future. I spent every dime I ever earned and saved to build this livery. It's barely started to make money."

  "The waiting is so hard," she said.

  He curled a springy tendril of her hair around his forefinger. "You're not tellin' me anything I don't know."

  "Well, why do we have to wait for a house? I'd have all I'd ever need right here."

  "There isn't even a real stove."

  "I can barely cook anyway."

  He chuckled, but then sobered. "Annie, babies come when people get married. We couldn't bring a baby to this place."

  Warmth seeped through her belly and her limbs at those astonishing words. Tears burned behind her eyes at the miraculous thought of having her own baby. She laid her forehead on his chest. "You're so sensible and so wise and...and I can't believe you want me. I've always thought no one would want me—that I couldn't have a life like other people. Now I believe I can."

  She raised her head and met his glistening black eyes. "I believe you can, too," he said. "I believe you can do anything you want to."

  "Well, I want to marry you," she declared.

  He pulled her up for a sweet lingering kiss. "I want that, too. Let's be patient a while longer."

  "They're not going to change their minds," she warned him. "I've been fighting their constraints my entire life."

  "I know," he said, threading his fingers through hers, palm to palm. "But we have to wait, so let's hope that somethin' changes in the meantime."

  Change didn't seem likely to her, but she guessed she could hope if he could.

  "I'd better take you home," he said a short time later. “We both need our sleep. If your parents woke up, we'd both be in more trouble than we can deal with. We took a big chance tonight."

  "I know. But I wish I didn't have to leave."

  He stood and pulled her to her feet with a pained expression. "Let's go."

  "We can do this again," she suggested.

  "We have to be careful," he replied. "I don't want to give them fuel for their hatred."

  "They don't hate you, really."

  "They'd rather see me hit by a train than living in the same town," he disagreed. "It's cooled off out there, you'd better wear my coat for the ride home." He lifted a wool jacket down from a peg and held it out. Annie slipped her arms into the engulfing garment that carried his scent.

  He saddled a different mount for the short ride home, helped Annie atop the horse's back from a bar­rel near the door, and led him outside. He climbed up behind her and she leaned back against him.

  Luke buried his nose in her hair, inhaled her sweet fragrance, and wished their time together didn't have to be only a stolen hour here and there.

  He walked the horse along the shadowy black streets, taking as long as he could to reach the lane where the stately Sweetwater house stood. He never traveled this way that he didn't remember the day they'd met and think of the vivacious girl who had captured his admiration and interest.

  Annie still possessed that same zest for life, the same youthful spontaneity and deep appreciation for things most people took for granted.

  "It's torture not being together," she told him after he'd lifted her down and helped her into her chair.

  "How well I know," he agreed.

  "I'm so happy," she whispered, and he knelt in front of her to kiss her one last time. "Nothing has ever made me as happy as being with you. Not in my whole life."

  "Then I'm a very lucky man." He took her hand from his cheek and pressed it against his heart. "You're in here," he told her. "I'm taking you w
ith me."

  "It's a good place to be," she said, closing her eyes in the moonlight. "Safe. Warm. Loving."

  He kissed her lips. "Remember that."

  When she opened her eyes, tears glistened. "I will."

  "Shall I push you closer to the house?"

  "Just a little."

  He stepped behind her chair and propelled it toward the Sweetwater home.

  "That's far enough," she said and handed him his coat.

  "Remember," he said into her ear from behind, then turned and loped back to his horse. From his van­tage point, he watched through the trees and she rolled herself up the ramp to the porch. Several minutes later, the light in the window she'd indicated came on, and after a brief moment, was extinguished.

  Shrugging into the coat that now smelled faintly of lilacs, Luke hauled himself up onto the gelding's back and with the command of his heels, rode away.

  He turned the animal's head away from town and bent low over his neck, urging him to run. He rode with abandon, the instructions to the horse automatic, because his mind was anywhere but on the ride.

  Leaving the road, he skirted the edge of a lake, pounded along a trail above a canyon, and continued on. They had taken a foolish risk tonight. What if someone had seen them—what if her parents had missed her and been waiting? What if they sent her away to keep her from him?

  That had always been his fear, and now the fear of separation was greater. Would the fact that she was an adult keep them from sending her off? Perhaps they would have missed her as much as he would've, and that's why they'd never done it. He didn't want to take her from them. He just wanted to love her.

  Because he did love her. As much as he directed his mind to steer from that thinking, the fact was in­evitable. Indisputable. He loved her. He wanted her. He needed her. Annie. His sweet Annie.

  He had reined in the horse and now walked him around the edge of the lake to which he'd somehow returned. His blood still pounded hot and thick in his veins. Even after the wind had seared his face and nostrils he could smell her on his hands and his clothes and see her face in the star-studded sky.