That’s the way it had always been with him, spontaneous, natural…without the reserve she’d learned from Jed—from Everett. She and Brock had shared a passion without limits, one that couldn’t be forgotten or dismissed. With him lovemaking had come so very naturally, with heat and abandon and the immeasurable joy of sweet indulgence. She couldn’t forget the unbounded freedom.
Only days ago she’d reminded herself that stability was better than passion. She’d also told herself that being older and more mature had taken away the thrill, but she’d been wrong. This evening had proved that. All he had to do was touch her to make her go up in flames. His parting words about Everett taunted her: He’s not going to make you happy. My God, woman, you’d eat him alive.
Brock had been talking about her physical appetites! Hadn’t he? Mortified, Abby flung herself back on her bed. He may have meant her temperament. She’d thrown some well-deserved, but caustic comments his way; perhaps he didn’t think Everett could hold his own in a battle of wits. But she and Everett never argued.
They never made love, either. Never even came close. Of course not; he was a gentleman. But shouldn’t two people preparing for marriage be eager for the physical aspects of the union? Perhaps Everett tamped down his eagerness for her sake. That’s what she’d been assuring herself all along. He would show more enthusiasm once they were married.
Does your pulse beat faster when he stands this near? Her heart had hammered mercilessly at her ribs at Brock’s mere presence behind her. Does your breath come hard and fast when he touches you? Never. Only when Brock touched her had she ever lost her ability to breathe evenly.
Abby’s breasts tightened at the memory of his enticing words and his fiery touches. What was wrong with her that she physically desired a man she detested? Do his kisses start a fire in your veins that spreads through your whole body? Everett’s kisses had never even set off a spark. Brock’s kisses and his hard-edged lovemaking had always been a torture so sweet she craved more, craved it all. She placed her hands over her breasts and knew the only man she wanted to have touch her was the one she shouldn’t want. She’d already made the mistake of letting her body rule her head where Brock was concerned.
Abby brought trembling fingers to her eyes as if she could hide from the truth. She could not make the same mistakes again. She would marry Everett and she would be content. Frustrated tears wet her fingertips. She knew the textures of Brock’s strong, muscled body, had reveled in the heat of his kisses, knew the sensation of taking him deep inside her and riding out crests of intense pleasure.
Time had not erased her desire for him, for more of what they’d shared during the brief time in which her son had been conceived. The years had primed her ardor, refining it to a new degree. Her humiliation was sharp and complete. And he knew exactly what kind of effect he had on her, had used it to its fullest. He had bluntly pointed out everything that was missing between her and Everett.
At least Everett didn’t make her hate herself for her lack of control. With him she retained command of her senses. She could use the discipline to her advantage. She would never make a fool of herself over her new husband.
It was none of Brock’s business why she was marrying Everett. Whatever they were, her reasons were her own. She’d rationalized that Jonathon needed a man around, that she needed a companion, but if she really wanted to marry him because he didn’t make her lose her head, that was her choice.
But Jonathon’s words to Brock came to undermine her confidence and make her question her choices. Her son had never said anything to her about Everett not liking him…but then, she’d never asked. Brock had asked Jonathon what he was thinking and feeling, and her son had been forthright in sharing his doubts.
Brock had spent the entire afternoon and most of the evening at Jonathon’s side, and he claimed he’d be back tomorrow. Everett, on the other hand, had come to see why Abby wasn’t in church, and now that she thought about it, she couldn’t remember him inquiring about Jonathon’s health. She’d chosen him to be a father to her son, and now she questioned her choice.
Prospective brides always got the jitters, she assured herself. She would never sleep if she allowed her thoughts to run wild and these doubts to assail her, so she fought them down once again and thought about the orders she needed to place, until she fell asleep.
Brock passed Caleb’s study on the way through the silent house. A light could be seen beneath the door, so he tapped softly.
“Come in.”
Brock entered. “Ruth and the boys asleep?”
Caleb nodded from his seat behind his desk. “I had some papers to go over before tomorrow, and never had a chance during the day.”
“Am I disturbing you?”
“Yes, thank goodness. Sit down.” He got up and opened a cupboard, removing two glasses and a bottle of aged bourbon. After pouring a splash into each glass, he handed one to Brock and seated himself across from him near the glowing fireplace. “How’s Jonathon?”
“He’s better. Abby said her friend Laine treated his cough.” He took a drink and continued, “Is the girl credible?”
“She has quite a following of believers,” Caleb assured him. “The Chinese have healers like the Cheyenne. Ruth has the touch herself, you know. Let her know and she’d be glad to check on him.”
Brock nodded. “He seems to be all right. Abby said he had a slight fever, but it’s gone now. I’m going to go back tomorrow and stay with him.”
Caleb swirled the amber liquid around in the bottom of his glass before speaking. “You’re making things hard on Abby, you know.”
“Are we going to have a heart-to-heart talk now?”
“Maybe. Abby made a life for herself,” his brother said. “She’s done the best she could raising a child alone and running a business.”
“You sound just like her.”
Caleb was silent for a long minute, and Brock thought of the situation his brother had been in when he had left nearly eight years ago. Caleb had married the woman he’d gotten with child, even though Marie had tricked him into bed. And he’d stuck it out, as miserable as he’d been. Brock, on the other hand, hadn’t bothered to find out if he’d fathered a child or not.
“I don’t want to see either one of them hurt,” Caleb said at last.
“I’m not going to hurt them.”
“Not deliberately. I don’t want you to get hurt, either.”
Brock nodded. “I know.”
“What are you going to do?”
Brock finished his drink. “I’m going to look out for the boy. That’s my responsibility. You understand responsibility.” Zeke had been the outcome of that loveless union, but Caleb loved him with all his heart.
“At the expense of Abby’s happiness?” Caleb asked, raising one brow.
“What do you want me to do? Pretend like I don’t know? Deny that Jonathon is my son? I can’t do that.”
“I know that.”
“Then what?”
“Then you’re going to have to make it right.”
“That’s sounds about as easy as putting out a forest fire with a mouthful of spit.”
“Family is family.”
Brock stood and paced in front of the fire. “Even if she didn’t hate the sight of me, I don’t know that I’d want to marry the woman, if that’s what you’re thinking. She’s as prickly as they come.”
“You must have gotten past those prickles at one time.”
“That was a long time ago. Things were different then.”
“How?”
Brock shrugged.
“You loved her then?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think so.”
“She loved you?”
Brock had never thought about Abby in terms of love, so he wasn’t prepared for Caleb’s provoking questions. Love had never had anything to do with what he and Abby had done together….
He didn’t like to think about his life back then. He didn’t like to remember the chao
tic feelings and his unhappy home life and how restless he’d been and how drinking and gambling and fighting had become a purging of the anger and frustration. He wasn’t proud of those times. And Abby had been part of them. A big part. But love?
“She seems like a woman who would have to love a man she gave herself to,” Caleb said.
“What about Jed Watson?” Brock asked roughly. “Did she love him, too, then?”
“This country’s hard on women,” Caleb replied. “Sometimes they do what they have to do. I knew Irvin Franklin, and he was a good man, but a hard one. If he found out about Abby’s condition, he wouldn’t have given her a choice. I always figured he’d dragged her into town and watched until the ring was on her finger. Jed had admired Abby for some time, but he wasn’t the kind of man to court a younger woman without some encouragement. Irvin knew his interest and used it to marry off his wayward daughter.”
Which was exactly the way Abby had told him it had happened. If Brock accepted all that, if he believed for a moment that Abby had once loved him, then he had to accept responsibility—no, blame—for leaving her in that predicament.
“I don’t know much about love,” Brock muttered uncomfortably to his brother.
“Who does?” Caleb asked. “But I learned that you never really get your first love out of your system no matter how hard you try. Maybe there’s something you need to admit to yourself.”
“The voice of experience speaking?”
“Something like that. The important thing is that you’re back now. And that you want to do the right thing.”
Brock wished him a good night and carried a lamp to his room. The right thing had been a lot clearer when he was upholding the law or protecting someone’s property. It was when the edges of right and wrong had blurred that he’d decided to cash in his chips while he was ahead and find his way home.
The right thing here was to take responsibility for the child he had fathered. He was sure of it. But how did he go about that when the child’s mother wanted him to leave them alone? Caleb’s disturbing talk about love had him thinking in directions he didn’t want to go. Love was something stifling and manipulating, and he didn’t want any part of it.
He’d asked Abby if she loved Everett. He’d wondered if she loved the man. If she’d loved her husband. Why would he care if he didn’t place significance on it? Love wasn’t scorching kisses and satiating sex.
Brock removed his holsters, rolled the belt and tucked it within reach beneath his bed. After undressing, he blew out the lamp and stretched out upon the mattress.
Thinking about the way he’d wanted to take care of Jonathon, the way he’d wished he could hold him, hug him, he decided that was probably more like love. That odd, tight feeling he got in his chest when he looked at the boy. He would do anything to protect his child. Brock thought back, assured of how carefully he’d burned his past and covered his tracks before returning.
Yes, he loved Jonathon. No weakness in admitting that.
He relaxed. It had been a long time since he’d spent more than a few nights in one room, since he’d taken off his guns and lain down without a revolver under his pillow. If he hadn’t been absolutely certain he was not leading trouble to this place, he’d never have come back. The last thing he would ever do was bring danger to his brother’s home, to the son he hadn’t known about…to Abby.
But that man calling himself Linc Manley might have brought a problem to Whitehorn by not denying that he was Jack Spade. Jack Spade’s reputation drew unsavory men like dung drew flies. Brock had to find out what the man was doing. He owed it to the people he loved.
Abby woke late with a splitting headache. She made herself a powder and drank it before padding back across frigid floors to her room with a pitcher of warm water.
The sound of horses and a wagon outside drew her to the window, where she peered down at the bulging delivery wagon. Tom Meeks and his sons had arrived with a load of supplies from Butte, where the railroad passed, and she would bet a warm bed that Sam was still at home with his wife, as he had been every morning of late. He was a conscientious husband, she gave him that.
Hammering up the window with the heel of her hand, she called into the freezing air, her breath puffing out in white clouds, “I’ll be down in just a minute, Mr. Meeks!” then slammed the window shut and shivered.
She should have had the potbellied stove glowing and coffee made for the man.
A knock sounded on her outside door, and she cursed under her breath. “Of all the… Just a minute!”
She pulled her chemise and drawers on over her cold skin and leaned into her wardrobe for a skirt.
“It’s cold in here,” a familiar male voice said from the other room. How had Brock gotten in? She’d locked that door last night.
“Mama din’t make the fire yet,” her son replied. Jonathon was up.
“What’s she doin’?”
“Dunno. I heard her yellin’ a minute ago.”
“Who’s she yelling at now?” he asked, and his boots pounded along the floorboards of the hall. “You got someone in there, Abby?”
“Stay out of here!” she sputtered, snatching the first shirtwaist blouse that her fingers located. “I was calling down to the delivery man is all. I got up late.”
Too late. The curtains were parted by a large hand and Brock took a step into the room.
Chapter Seven
His gaze fell across her breasts beneath the thin cotton chemise, and to her horror, Abby felt the peaks tighten. His heated gaze darkened knowingly. She clutched her skirt over her scantily clad body and glared. “It’s cold in here is all. How dare you walk into my home and into my bedroom without so much as a knock?”
A reckless grin creased his handsome features, and he said lightly, “I knocked. Jonathon let me in.” He glanced at the door frame. “And there doesn’t seem to be anywhere to knock here.”
“March yourself back to the kitchen and wait for me. Make yourself useful and start a fire.”
“Yes, ma’am.” The curtain fell back into place, her heart resumed its pace and his retreating footsteps matched the heavy beat.
She scrambled into her clothing and took a clean apron from a drawer, dropping her hairbrush into its folds to use later when she had a few minutes.
Her awkward fingers fumbled over her stockings, but finally she got her shoes buttoned, and hurried out. “I have to get down to open the front door,” she told Brock, and kissed Jonathon on the way past. She picked up a loaf of bread she’d wrapped in a towel. “I’ll be back in a little while.”
“Okay, Mama. Mithter Brock and me’ll find our own breakfatht.”
She turned back, chagrined that she hadn’t seen to Jonathon’s morning meal.
Brock waved her on. “Don’t worry about us. We’ll do just fine.”
Abby hurried down to let Mr. Meeks and his strapping young sons into the store. Apologizing all the while, she started a fire and put on a pot of coffee. She sliced the boys bread and watched them slather it with apple butter and enjoy the treat.
“One of these days your boy will be eating like that,” Tom Meeks said with a laugh. “I don’t know where they put it all. Their mama fed us before we left.”
“They’re growing boys,” Abby said.
“That’s for sure. Can’t keep ’em in coats and boots. But they earn their way. They’re good, hardworking boys.”
His sons proved him right by carrying in kegs and crates and spools without any seeming effort. Abby directed them where to stack items and, as she always did, paid them for the work. Having the Meeks boys unload and stack saved her and Sam a lot of hard work and muscle strain. “I’ve been saving a job for you!” she called.
Tom Jr. hurried to do her bidding, hoisting a cast-iron stove and carrying it to a new position. Abby marveled at his youthful strength and swept up the dust that had gathered beneath the stove.
When they were gone and her early customers had paid and loaded, she took the hairbru
sh from her pocket and loosened her disheveled hair, brushing it out and replaiting the heavy length. A few minutes later, Sam arrived. He threw off his fur-lined cap. “It’s going to be any day now,” he told Abby. “She hasn’t slept much the last few nights.”
Abby didn’t want to tell him she’d been too uncomfortable to sleep well for nearly a month at the end before Jonathon was born. Haley Kincaid, Jesse’s wife, had visited Sam’s wife a few days ago, and she, too, thought that Mary had a few weeks left. Haley had worked for a doctor before coming to Whitehorn, so she was accepted as the local expert on birthing babies. “I’m sure it will be very soon,” Abby agreed.
Sam took his wraps to the back room and returned.
“I’m going up to check on Jonathon,” she told him.
“He’s not at school?”
“No, he wasn’t feeling well. He’s better, but I thought he needed another day of rest.”
“Abby, is he alone? I’m so sorry I was late again today.”
She held up a hand. “No, no, don’t worry. You need to be with Mary. I want you to be with her. Jonathon—isn’t alone.”
“Good.” He picked up a wooden toolbox and carried it toward the front of the store. “Who’s with him? Daisy?”
“You going to fix that door?” she asked, ignoring the question.
“Yep.”
She hurried toward the back, leaving him to his work.
The remains of breakfast sat atop the stove and table, the scent of flapjacks lingering in the warm air. Brock’s guns hung beside the door, she noted with grim appreciation.
She heard no sounds, so she walked curiously toward Jonathon’s room. His bed was neatly made and his horses stood in a row on the night table, but no one occupied the room. Alarmed, she turned and hurried down the hall, glancing into her own room, and noting with amazement that her bed had been made, too.
Upon entering the sitting room, she brought her hand to her heart. There, a never anticipated, heart-stopping sight met her gaze. Brock lay stretched along the divan, his fair head on a brocade pillow, one booted foot hanging off the end, the other grounded securely on the carpeted floor. One hand lay on his gently rising and falling chest. The other arm was wrapped protectively around her sleeping son.
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