by Jo Goodman
Except Jane was not entirely comfortable, not with the scent of him on her pillow and between the sheets. Closing her eyes only created disturbing images in her mind of the two of them lying together. Was it truly possible to become so entangled? She could not quite define where she ended and he began; he was that close.
She did feel his heat. She felt his fingertips grazing her throat and following the line of her collarbone. She felt his mouth in the sensitive hollow below her ear. He laid his palm on her shoulder, let it slide down her arm. His thumb made a pass across the delicate underside of her elbow. He cupped her breast. There it was again, the warmth of his hand, the comfort. He was easy with her, easy because it was his way to go slowly and tread lightly.
She thought she might have moaned, but it might have been the sough of the wind passing through the eaves or the sound of the mattress shifting under their weight.
Jane felt her cotton shift sliding against her skin. Her hem was at her calf, her knee; it rose as high as the curve of her hip. Fingers curled around her thigh. They were still at first, but inevitably they began to move. They were gentle in their seeking but always deliberate, insistent. No quarter was given. Jane asked for none.
Those fingers nested between her thighs. They fluttered there like small fledglings. Hungry and hungrier. Their tiny heads bumped as they scrabbled in their seeking. They found nectar and drank deeply. It brought her satisfaction to feed them.
It brought her pleasure. Sharp, intense pleasure. Pleasure that could not be contained by biting her lower lip or digging her heels into the mattress. It rippled through her, a tremor that seemed to begin in the fingers of one hand and ended in the fingertips of the other.
Jane woke with the shudder. At first she thought the movement came from outside herself, the bed, the floor, the walls, but it was only a fleeting notion, one she would have liked to retain but could not because she could not ignore the truth. She was the source of the tremor. She understood that even before she removed her hand from between her thighs.
Jane pushed herself into a sitting position and huddled against the headboard. She pulled the covers up to her hunched shoulders and lowered her chin. The last inklings of pleasure made her shiver. She was afraid to close her eyes, afraid of what might happen if she fell asleep and the unsettling feelings collided.
Jane required an ordered mind, and like the pantry, that required an inventory. She searched for shame and could not find it. Was she truly shameless, then, or was it that she had committed no transgression? Cousin Frances would say it was the former, but knowing that made Jane lean in the other direction.
There was no guilt. It would have been there beside shame the way pepper paired with salt. No shame. No guilt.
Jane was able to locate little more than a modest amount of embarrassment. It was not even enough to make her blush when she reflected on what had happened. If anything, reflection made her breasts ache and her womb contract. She warned herself that she would have to be careful about reflection.
She felt a certain sense of satisfaction. Discovery was like that, and this particular discovery was a revelation.
It was also disturbing. She had been sleeping, and by her reckoning, not for very long. This thing that she had done to herself had happened outside her consciousness. She had been thinking of him, she remembered that, but then she had surrendered to sleep and dreaming, and the dreams made it seem as if he were with her. It had been real, but not real at all, not in the way she wanted it to be.
Finally, Jane found disappointment. It was there, deep and abiding, squeezing her heart more than just a little. Discovery, she knew, was better when it was shared.
• • •
Morgan bumped around in the kitchen until he found where Jane had moved the lamp. The matches at least were in the same drawer he always kept them. He struck one, lit the lamp, and put the glass globe back in place.
Once he could see well enough to keep from banging his foot against a chair or a table leg, Morgan hobbled over to the sink and pumped water into the kettle. Jane had not set a fire in the cookstove to keep the kitchen warm overnight so Morgan had to build one. He started out trying to be quiet, but it did not take long for the dragon to frustrate him, and then he was slamming the dampers and the covers and the firebox door. He swore some, too.
“It would have been better if you had called for me,” said Jane.
Morgan pivoted on his good foot. She was standing in the doorway, sleepy-eyed and tousled, belting her robe in what he could only think of as a Gordian knot. He thought absurdly that it was a shame broadswords had gone out of fashion. A carving knife wouldn’t get through that.
“Did I wake you?” he asked.
She looked around the kitchen and then returned to him. “Unless there is someone else in here making a fuss, I would have to say yes, you woke me. What are you doing?”
“Slaying the dragon.”
Jane sighed. “Sit down, St. George.” She gestured to the kettle. “You want hot water?”
“To start. I want tea to finish.” He reached in the pocket of his pants and showed her the bottle of laudanum. “And some of this. I think you’re right. It works better with tea.” He thought she might want to seize this opportunity to underscore that she was always right, but she didn’t. She merely pointed to a chair, and this time he sat.
He could appreciate Jane’s efficiency as she brought the stove to life. He did not think she wasted a motion, and she knew the precise order of opening and closing the dampers so the fire could breathe. When Jane turned away from the sink after washing her hands, she caught him staring at her. He did not look away, and she did not shy away. Morgan liked that about her.
Jane said, “I would ask you if I had smut on my nose, but you were not staring at my face.”
That made Morgan blink, which he supposed meant that she had just stared him down. “You say unexpected things.”
“Do I?”
“I don’t mind.”
Jane’s eyebrows lifted as she dried her hands. “Good. I doubt I would be able to change if you did.” She looked around. “Where is the tea?”
“Pantry. I hadn’t gotten that far.”
“What possessed you to get this far?” Shaking her head, Jane went to the pantry and brought back the canister. “Did you say something? Because I did not hear you.”
“I thought maybe it was one of those rhetorical questions.”
“If you truly thought that, you would not sound hopeful.”
Resigned, Morgan blew out a breath. She had him there. “I couldn’t sleep, and I couldn’t see the point of waking you because of it. I know how to fend for myself.”
“Yes, I am sure. All evidence to the contrary, I do not doubt it.”
Morgan’s mouth took on a sardonic twist. “You enjoyed saying that, didn’t you?”
“Perhaps a little.” Jane finished preparing the tea ball and set it in the pot. “I am sorry that you were injured, and I know that if I were not here you would manage on your own, but since I am here, I wish you would allow me to be useful to you.”
“You are asleep on your feet, Jane.”
“On two feet.” Her gaze moved to his leg that was stretched out and away from the table. “You should put that up.”
Morgan yanked one of the empty chairs closer and set his bandaged foot on the seat. “Satisfied?”
“I have annoyed you. I’m sorry. I will go.”
It was impossible for Morgan to reach Jane as she turned to leave, but he put out an arm anyway. “No,” he said. “Don’t.” When she paused but did not look at him, he added, “Please.”
She nodded faintly and sat.
“The truth is,” Morgan said, “I tend to forget about the pain when I’m around you.”
“If there is a compliment there, I am not finding it. If you are less attentive to your pain when I am around, it is because I annoy you.”
“You make it difficult for me to figure out if the right thing to
do here is argue with you or let it be.” He observed the corners of her mouth edging upward, although she seemed to be trying hard to have it otherwise.
Jane said, “That certainly is a conundrum.”
A chuckle vibrated in Morgan’s throat. He knuckled the underside of his chin as he studied her from across the table. She was so tired that her eyelids were barely raised to half-mast, and the thick fan of her dark lashes almost obscured the color of her eyes. Her mouth was narrowly parted. The separation between her lips was like an invitation. Once again, the vision of him hobbling awkwardly and painfully toward her forced him to reject it.
“It’s rude to stare,” she said. “And you’ve done it twice.”
Morgan could have told her that he had done it a lot more than twice, but he supposed she was only referring to this brief encounter in the kitchen. “I’ll beg your pardon if you like, but it will probably happen again. I don’t mean anything by it.”
Jane averted her eyes. “No,” she said softly. “Of course you don’t.”
Morgan could not see her hands. He wondered if she was twisting them in her lap under the table. He did not understand the shift in her mood, the sudden avoidance. She usually met him head-on. It seemed out of character for her to turn away.
It was a relief to Morgan when the kettle started to jump. He did not have to say anything, and it gave Jane something to do. He made sure she did not surprise him in the act of watching her while the tea steeped and she set out cups. She poured and added a dollop of honey to her cup. He added three drops of laudanum to his.
Jane sat. “It occurs to me that I have crossed a line. Several times, in fact.”
“How’s that?”
“Being your wife and acting as if I’m your mother.”
“I wouldn’t know. I’ve never had a wife.”
“But you’ve had a mother.”
Morgan did not correct her assumption. It was true to a point. He blew on his tea before he drank.
Jane went on. “You railed some this afternoon about not needing to be coddled. I think I understand it better now.”
“What does that mean? You’ll nag me instead of nipping at my heels? And don’t ask me which is being my wife and which is acting like the mother. I sure as hell don’t know.”
Jane stirred her tea. Her mien was thoughtful.
Morgan said, “You could probably ask Mrs. Sterling. She would know which side of the fence is which. She’s been both.”
“Maybe I’ll do that.” The smile she turned on him was a shade regretful. “And maybe the problem will take care of itself if I stop nagging and nipping altogether.”
“Seems a mite excessive.” He thought Jane might be hiding a smile behind her teacup. What he could see of her brightening eyes led him to believe that could be the case. “I don’t think you should change your ways on my account. Besides, you don’t exactly flinch when I rail at you anyway. More or less, it rolls off your back like water off a duck. I wasn’t convinced you were paying attention.”
“I pay attention.”
“I know that now. And you’re a worrier, too, thinking over things the way you do long after they should be tucked away. I didn’t realize that.”
“Now you do. It is remarkable that laudanum and lack of sleep have not deprived you of your faculties. Would you like a pencil? Some paper? Perhaps you will find it helpful to make a list of my shortcomings while I am here to assist you.”
Morgan grinned so widely that he would not have blamed Jane if she had thrown her teacup at his head. She looked as if she were tempted. He put up his hands and prepared to duck in the event she gave in to the urge. It fascinated him how curiosity got the better of her temper. In moments she had completely reined it in and was regarding him with a puzzled expression, not an angry one.
“What is it you found amusing in that?” she asked. “I was serious.”
“That was entirely evident.”
“Well?”
“It’s your tone. It’s real tidy. Your mouth is so full of sauce it should choke you, but it doesn’t on account of you’re so tidy.”
“I see,” she said slowly.
He nodded. “I guess if I were making a list of the things that aren’t among your shortcomings, I’d put ‘real tidy with her words’ on that one.”
Jane pressed her lips together.
Morgan asked, “Are you doing that with your mouth because you don’t want to laugh or because you don’t know what to say?” He shook his head. “No, don’t answer that. I’ll come to it eventually.”
“I’m sure you will,” she said on the back of a sigh. She finished her tea, rose, and moved her cup and saucer to the sink. “I am going back to bed. I know you do not need help, but do you want it?”
“You go on. I’m going to sleep in one of the chairs in the front room. I’ll keep my foot up.” He thought she seemed on the verge of objecting but caught herself. She nodded once and turned to leave.
“Jane?”
She paused, looked at him over her shoulder. “Yes?”
“Pain wasn’t the only reason I couldn’t sleep.”
“There’s something else?”
“The pillow. The sheets. They smell like you now.”
Morgan figured those words would be enough to keep her away from him for the rest of the night no matter what she heard. What surprised him was how deeply they made her flush.
• • •
Max and Jessop rode out early the next morning. Jem left for town with Jane’s list soon after that. Jake had chores to do in the barn. He came out once to present Morgan with a crutch he had fashioned from some scrap wood. It was sturdy and functional and about as comfortable under Morgan’s arm as the splinter in Jem’s ass, but Morgan thanked Jake and fashioned a pad for it out of a worn huckaback towel that Jane gave him. After that, he got around well enough to harness Sophie and lead her into the corral. He thought the crutch might bother her, but it was more like she thought they were on equal footing.
Jane avoided looking out any window that presented a view of the corral. She had her hands full keeping the water warm in the copper boiler so she could wash sheets. She stripped the beds as much for her peace of mind as for Morgan’s. They smell like you now. He would not be able to say that tonight, and she would not be able to think it.
Jane did not spend much time preparing the afternoon meal with only three of them present to enjoy it, but in anticipation that the others would be back by supper, she braised beef and served it with carrots and mushroom gravy. The biscuits were what drew everyone’s attention when she set the basket on the table. They were so warm, puffs of steam rose from the flaky centers each time one was split.
Jem smeared his biscuit half with butter, looked as if he meant to shove the entire piece in his mouth, but in the end took a surprisingly dainty bite. “What?” he asked when everyone stared at him. “A man can savor a thing, can’t he?”
“Sure,” said Jake, shrugging. “Nothin’ wrong with that.”
“That’s what I thought.” Jem set his biscuit on the edge of his plate and patted down his pockets. “Here you go, boss. I brought this back special for you.” He reached across Jessop to hand Morgan a cobalt blue bottle.
“What is it?” Morgan said. He wiped his hands on his napkin and took it.
“Go on,” said Jem. “Read the label. It’s good for about every kind of thing.”
Morgan read, first to himself and then aloud, “Dr. Ellis Wanamaker’s Miracle Liniment and Medicinal Rub. With the healing extracts of aloe and willow bark.” He stopped reading and cocked an eyebrow at Jem. “Looks like it has about every kind of thing in it. Oil of petroleum. Alcohol. Sodium chloride. Tar ex—”
Max said, “That sodium chloride. That’s salt, isn’t it?”
“Fancy salt,” Jem said. “That’s why they call it that.”
No one corrected him.
Morgan went on. “Tar extract. Camphor. Black cohosh. Poke root. And here, look at this. Lemon zest
. He has brass, I’ll give him that, to list the ingredients. There aren’t many who will do that. It makes me wonder what he isn’t revealing.” He started to pull on the cork stopper.
“Please don’t open it at the table,” Jane said quickly. “It cannot possibly smell good.”
“Oh, it doesn’t,” said Jem. “That’s the first sure sign that there are a couple or three things in there that will work. There’s no such thing as medicine that’s good for you that doesn’t smell like it’s gonna kill before it cures.” He looked at his brothers for confirmation. “Remember that plaster Ma used to slap on our chests?”
That memory set them back a dozen years. They had to agree he was right. “It’s probably safe enough to use on the outside,” said Jake.
“That’s why it’s called a liniment,” Jem said. “You don’t drink it.”
Morgan set the bottle to one side and picked up his fork. “Did you buy this directly from Wanamaker or was Mr. Burnside selling it in his drugstore?”
“From the doctor himself.”
“I see.” Morgan looked at Jane. “Did he tell you he was a snake oil salesman when you met him on the train?”
She shook her head. “No. He introduced himself as a doctor. I took him at his word. I thought he had equipment in his valise, not samples. It is possible that he is a doctor, you know.”
“Uh-huh.”
Jane laughed. “All right. I do not believe it either. Not now. Thank goodness you did not insist on asking him for help when I did not feel well. There is no telling what he might have done.”
“She’s right, boss,” said Jem. “Wanamaker’s smooth with the ladies. I watched it myself. Renee only gave him the time when he asked for it, if you know what I mean, but Cil Ross kept circling. So did Marianna Garvin. That’s the milliner’s daughter. The one who’s not married to the undertaker. She kept comin’ around like—”