by Diana Palmer
She didn’t even realize he’d half undressed her. She was too involved in the pleasure he was giving her to care about anything except that she wanted him to have access to her soft, warm skin. She needed the feel of his mouth on her, ached for it, hurt to have it. She arched up against him, moaning when the pleasure became more than she could bear.
Vaguely she was aware that a lot of skin was touching other skin. She felt the warm strength of his body against hers and there didn’t seem to be any fabric separating them anymore. The hair on his long legs brushed her bare ones as he separated them and moved so that he was lying completely against her in an intimacy they’d never shared.
She panicked then, freezing when she felt his aroused body in intimate contact with her own.
His mouth softened on hers, gentled, so tender that she couldn’t resist him. His hands smoothed up and down her body, and he smiled against her lips.
“Easy,” he whispered, lifting his head so that he could see her wet, dazed eyes. His hips moved and she stiffened. “Does that hurt?” he asked softly.
She bit her lower lip. Her hands clenched against his hard arms. “It…yes.”
“You’re embarrassed. Shocked, too.” He brushed his lips against hers as he moved again, tenderly, but even so, the pain was there again and she flinched. His eyes searched hers and the look on his face became strained, passionate, almost grim. “I guess it has to hurt this time,” he said unsteadily, “but it won’t for long.”
She swallowed. “It’s…wrong.”
He shook his head. “We’re going to be married. This is my insurance.”
“In…surance?” She gasped, because he was filling her…
“Yes.” He moved again, and this time she gasped because it was so sweet, and her hips lifted to prolong it. “I’m giving you a baby, Antonia,” he breathed reverently, and even as the words entered her ear, his mouth crushed down over hers and his body moved urgently, and the whole world dissolved in a sweet, hot fire that lifted her like a bird in his arms and slung her headlong up into the sky…
He didn’t look guilty. That was her first thought when his face came into vivid focus above her. He was smiling, and the expression in his black eyes made her want to hit him. She flushed to the very roots of her hair, as much from the intimacy of their position as from her memories of the past few hectic, unbelievably passionate minutes.
“That settles all the arguments you might have against marriage, I trust?” he asked outrageously. He drew a strand of damp blond hair over her nose playfully. “If we’d done this nine years ago, nothing could have come between us. It was sweeter than I dreamed it would be, and believe me, I dreamed a lot in nine years.”
She sighed heavily, searching his black eyes. They were warm and soft now and she waited for the shame and guilt to come, but it didn’t. It was very natural to lie naked in his arms and let him look at her and draw his fingers against her in lazy, intimate caresses.
“No arguments at all?” he asked at her lips, and kissed her gently. “You look worried.”
“I am,” she said honestly. Her wide eyes met his. “I’m midway between periods.”
He smiled slowly. “The best time,” he mused.
“But a baby so soon…!”
His fingers covered her lips and stopped the words. “So late,” he replied. “You’re already twenty-seven.”
“I know, but there’s Maggie,” she said miserably. “She doesn’t like me. She won’t want me there at all…and a baby, Powell! It will be so hard on her.”
“We’ll cross bridges when we come to them,” he said. His eyes slid down her body and back up and desire kindled in their black depths again. His face began to tauten, his caresses became arousing. When she shivered and a soft moan passed between her parted lips, he bent to kiss them with renewed hunger.
“Can you take me again?” he whispered provocatively. “Will it hurt?”
She slid closer to him, feeling the instant response of his body, feeling him shiver as she positioned her body to accept his. She looked into his eyes and caught her breath when he moved down.
He stilled, watching her, his heartbeat shaking them both. He lifted and pushed, watched. Her eyes dilated and he eased down again, harder this time, into complete possession.
She gasped. But her hands were pulling at him, not pushing. He smiled slowly and bent to cover her mouth with his. There had never been a time in his life when he felt more masculine than now, with her soft cries in his ear and her body begging for his. He closed his eyes and gave in to the glory of loving her.
Eventually they had lunch and went to Barrie’s apartment when she was due home. One look at them told the story, and she hugged Antonia warmly.
“Congratulations. I told you it would work out one day.”
“It worked out, all right,” Antonia said, and then told her friend the real reason why she’d come back to Arizona.
Barrie had to sit down. Her green eyes were wide, her face drawn as she realized the agony her friend had suffered.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” she burst out.
“For the same reason she didn’t tell me,” Powell murmured dryly, holding Antonia’s hand tight in his. “She didn’t want to worry anyone.”
“You idiot!” Barrie muttered. “I’d have made you go back to the doctor.”
“That’s why I didn’t tell you,” Antonia said. “I would have told you eventually, though.”
“Thanks a lot!”
“You’d have done exactly the same thing, maybe worse,” Antonia said, unperturbed, as she grinned at Barrie. “You have to come to the wedding.”
“When is it?”
“Ten in the morning, day after tomorrow, at the county courthouse here,” Powell said with a chuckle. “I have the license, Dr. Claridge did the blood work this morning and we’re going back to Bighorn wearing our rings.”
“I have a spare room,” Barrie offered.
Powell shook his head. “Thanks, but she’s mine now,” he said possessively, searching Antonia’s face with quick, hungry eyes. “I’m not letting her out of my sight.”
“I can understand that,” Barrie agreed. “Well, do you have plans for the evening, or do you want to take in a movie with me? That new period piece is on at the shopping center.”
“That might be fun,” Antonia said, looking up at Powell.
“I like costume dramas,” he seconded. “Suits me.”
Besides, he told Antonia later, when they were briefly alone, she wasn’t going to be in any shape for what he really wanted for another day or so. That being the case, a movie was as good as anything to pass the time. As long as they were together, he added quietly. If she felt like it. He worried about not keeping her still. She ignored that. She could rest when they got back to Bighorn, she informed him.
Antonia clung to his hand during the movie, and that night, she slept in his arms. It was as if the past nine years had never happened. He still hadn’t said anything about love, but she knew that he wanted her. Perhaps in time, love would come. Her real concern was how they were going to cope with Maggie’s resentment, especially if their passion for each other bore fruit. It was too soon for a baby, but Powell’s ardor had been too headlong to allow for precautions, and his hunger for a child with her was all too obvious. He wasn’t thinking about Maggie. He was thinking about all those wasted years and how quickly he could make up for them. But Antonia worried.
The wedding service was very small and sedate and dignified. Antonia wore a cream-colored wool suit to be married in, and a hat with a small veil that covered her face until the justice of the peace pronounced them man and wife. Powell lifted the veil and looked at her face for a long moment before he bent and kissed her. It was like no kiss he’d ever given her before. She looked into his eyes and felt her legs melt under her. She’d never loved him so much.
Barrie had been one of their witnesses and a sheriff’s deputy who was prevailed upon by the justice of the peace was the oth
er. The paperwork was completed, the marriage license handed back with the date and time of the wedding on it. They were married.
The next day they were on the way to Bighorn in Powell’s Mercedes-Benz. He was more tense than he’d been for three days and she knew it was probably because her body was still reeling from its introduction to intimacy. She was better, but any intimacy, even the smallest, brought discomfort. She hated that. Powell had assured her that it was perfectly natural, and that time would take care of the problem, but his hunger for her was in his eyes every time he looked at her. At this stage of their new relationship, she hated denying him what he craved. After all, it was the only thing they did have right now.
“Stop looking so morose,” he taunted when they neared the Wyoming border hours later. “The world won’t end because we can’t enjoy each other in bed again just yet.”
“I was thinking of you, not me,” she said absently.
He didn’t reply. His eyes were straight ahead. “I thought you enjoyed it.”
She glanced at him and realized that she’d unintentionally hurt his ego. “Of course I did,” she said. “But I think it must be more of a need for a man. I mean…”
“Never mind,” he mused, glancing at her. “You remembered what I said, didn’t you—that I can’t go for a long time without a woman? I was talking about years, Antonia, not days.”
“Oh.”
He chuckled softly. “You little green girl. You’re just as you were at eighteen.”
“Not anymore.”
“Well, not quite.” He reached out his hand and she put hers into it, feeling its comforting strength. “We’re on our way, honey,” he said gently, and it was the first time that he’d used an endearment to address her. “It will be all right. Don’t worry.”
“What about Maggie?” she asked.
His face hardened. “Let me worry about Maggie.”
Antonia didn’t say anything else. But she had a bad feeling that they were going to have trouble in that quarter.
They stopped by her father’s house first, for a tearful reunion. Then they dropped the bombshell.
“Married?” Ben burst out. “Without even telling me, or asking if I wanted to be there?”
“It was my idea,” Powell confessed, drawing Antonia close to his side. “I didn’t give her much choice.”
Ben glared at him, but only for a minute. He couldn’t forget that Powell had been more than willing to take on responsibility for Antonia when he thought she was dying. That took courage, and something more.
“Well, you’re both old enough to know what you’re doing,” he said grudgingly, and he smiled at his daughter, who was looking insecure. “And if I get grandkids out of this, I’ll shut up.”
“You’ll have grandchildren,” she promised shyly. “Including a ready-made one to start with.”
Powell frowned slightly. She meant Maggie.
Antonia looked up at him with a quiet smile. “Speaking of whom, we’d better go, hadn’t we?”
He nodded. He shook hands with Ben. “I’ll take care of her,” he promised.
Ben didn’t say anything for a minute. But then he smiled. “Yes. I know you will.”
Powell drove them to his home, palatial and elegant, sitting on a rise overlooking the distant mountains. There were several trees around the house and long, rolling hills beyond where purebred cattle grazed. In the old days, the house had been a little shack with a leaking roof and a porch that sagged.
“What a long way you’ve come, Powell,” she said.
He didn’t look at her as he swung the car around to the side of the house and pressed the button that opened the garage.
The door went up. He drove in and closed the door behind them. Even the garage was spacious and clean.
He helped Antonia out. “I’ll come back for your bags in a few minutes. You remember Ida Bates, don’t you? She keeps house for me.”
“Ida?” She smiled. “She was one of my mother’s friends. They sang together in the choir at church.”
“Ida still does.”
They went in through the kitchen. Ida Bates, heavyset and harassed, turned to stare at Antonia with a question in her eyes.
“We were married in Tucson,” Powell announced. “Meet the new lady of the house.”
Ida dropped the spoon in the peas she was stirring and rushed to embrace Antonia with genuine affection. “I can’t tell you how happy I am for you! What a surprise!”
“It was to us, too,” Antonia murmured with a shy glance at her new husband, who smiled back warmly.
Ida let her go and cast a worried look at Powell. “She’s up in her room,” she said slowly. “Hasn’t come out all day. Won’t eat a bite.”
Antonia felt somehow responsible for the child’s torment. Powell noticed that, and his jaw tautened. He took Antonia’s hand.
“We’ll go up and give her the news.”
“Don’t expect much,” Ida muttered.
The door to Maggie’s room was closed. Powell didn’t even knock. He opened it and drew Antonia in with him.
Maggie was sitting on the floor looking at a book. Her hair was dirty and straggly and the clothes she was wearing looked as if they’d been slept in.
She looked at Antonia with real fear and scrambled to her feet, backing until she could hold on to the bedpost.
“What’s the matter with you?” Powell demanded coldly.
“Is she…real?” she asked, wide-eyed.
“Of course I’m real,” Antonia said quietly.
“Oh.” Maggie relaxed her grip on the bedpost. “Are you…real sick?”
“She doesn’t have what we thought,” Powell said without preamble. “It was a mistake. She has something else, but she’s going to be all right.”
Maggie relaxed a little, but not much.
“We’re married,” Powell added bluntly.
Maggie didn’t react at all. Her blue eyes lifted to Antonia and she didn’t smile.
“Antonia is going to live with us,” Powell continued. “I’ll expect you to make her feel welcome here.”
Maggie knew that. Antonia would certainly be welcome, as Maggie never had been. She looked at her father with an expression that made Antonia want to cry. Powell never even noticed the anguish in it.
Pick her up, she wanted to tell him. Hold her. Tell her you still love her, that it won’t make any difference that you’ve remarried. But he didn’t do that. He stared at the child with an austerity that made terrible sense of what he’d said to Antonia. He didn’t know if Maggie was his, and he resented her. The child certainly knew it. His attitude all but shouted it.
“I’ll have to stay in bed for a while, Maggie,” Antonia said. “It would be nice if you’d read to me sometimes,” she added, nodding toward the book on the floor.
“You going to be my teacher, too?” Maggie asked.
“No,” Powell said firmly, looking straight at Antonia. “She’s going to have enough to do getting well.”
Antonia smiled ruefully. It looked as if she was going to have a war on her hands if she tried to take that teaching job back.
“But you and I are still going to see Mrs. Jameson,” he told his daughter. “Don’t think you’re going to slide out of that.”
Maggie lifted her chin and looked at him. “I already done it.”
“What?” he demanded.
“I told Mrs. Jameson,” she said, glaring up at him. “I told her I lied about Miss Hayes. I told her I was sorry.”
Powell was impressed. “You went to see her all by yourself?” he asked.
She nodded, a curt little jerk of her head. “I’m sorry,” she said gruffly to Antonia.
“It was a brave thing to do,” Antonia remarked. “Were you scared?”
Maggie didn’t answer. She just shrugged.
“Don’t leave that book lying there,” Powell instructed, nodding toward it on the carpet. “And take a bath and change those clothes.”
“Yes, Daddy,” s
he said dully.
Antonia watched her put the book away, and wished that she could do something, say something, interfere enough that she could wipe that look from Maggie’s little face.
Powell tugged her out of the room before she could say anything else. She went, but she was determined that she was going to do something about this situation.
Antonia and Maggie had not started out on the right foot, because of what had happened in the past. But now Antonia wanted to try with this child. Now that she saw the truth in Powell’s early words—that Maggie had paid a high price. That price had been love.
Maggie might not like her, but the child needed a champion in this household; and Antonia was going to be her champion.
Chapter Ten
When they were in the master bedroom where Powell slept, Antonia went close to him.
“Don’t you ever hug her?” she asked softly. “Or kiss her, and tell her you’re glad to see her?”
He stiffened. “Maggie isn’t the sort of child who wants affection from adults.”
His attitude shocked Antonia. “Powell, you don’t really believe that, do you?” she asked, aghast.
The way she was looking at him made him uncomfortable. “I don’t know if she’s mine.” He bit off the words defensively.
“Would it matter so much?” she persisted. “Powell, she’s lived in your house since she was born. You’ve been responsible for her. You’ve watched her grow. Surely you feel something for her!”
He caught her by the waist and pulled her to him. “I want a child with you,” he said quietly. “I promise you, it will be loved and wanted. It will never lack for affection.”
She touched his lean cheek. “I know that. I’ll love it, too. But Maggie needs us as well. You can’t turn your back on her.”
His eyebrows went up. “I’ve always fulfilled my responsibilities as far as Maggie is concerned. I’ve never wanted to see her hurt. But we’ve never had a good relationship. And she isn’t going to accept you. She’s probably already plotting ways to get rid of you.”
“Maybe I know her better than you think,” she replied. She smiled. “I’m going to love you until you’re sick of it,” she whispered, going close to him. “Love will spill out of every nook and cranny, it will fill you up. You’ll love Maggie because I’ll make you love her.” She drew his head down and nibbled at his firm mouth until it parted, until he groaned and dragged her into his arms, to kiss her hungrily, like a man demented.