The Blushing Bride

by Judith Stacy

  “Yes, he loves her,” Amanda said. “And Meg loves him, too.”

  “Then why don’t they do something about it?”

  “She’s still married, remember?”

  “Oh, yeah.” Jason sighed thoughtfully, then stretched out his arm along the step behind Amanda’s back. “Seems like a damn shame, if you ask me. Two people in love, but can’t do anything about it.”

  “That’s why my business is so…” Words failed Amanda as Jason leaned closer. He gave off a heat that pulled her toward him.

  Jason closed his arms around her and Amanda let him. He lowered his head until his lips brushed hers. Amanda didn’t resist. He felt warm, comfortable. As if she were…home.

  With a little mewl of surrender, Amanda leaned into his familiar strength. She threaded her arms around his neck and held on while his mouth moved over hers. Leaning her head back seemed like the most natural thing to do. As did parting her lips for him. She welcomed the warmth of his tongue against hers.

  Jason tightened his arms around Amanda and pulled her closer until her breasts brushed his chest. Heat rose in his belly, pumping his blood faster. She tasted sweet…so sweet. He kissed her until tasting wasn’t enough.

  Slowly, he traced his hand down her back and around her waist. Beneath her gown and robe, she wore nothing else, and that realization made his heart race faster. He marveled at the curve of her hip, her fine bones as he lifted his hand to capture her breast.

  She gasped, but didn’t pull away. Instead, she arched against him. Jason squeezed her ever so gently, and stroked his thumb until he felt her breast tighten at his touch. She gasped again, and so did he.

  Jason moaned her name and buried his mouth in the sweet hollow of her throat. He tasted her flesh, felt the rhythm of her pulse beating against his lips. He slid his hand inside her robe and gown, pushing deeper until his fingers spread around her bare breast.

  Desire flamed into passion. He’d never held anything so wonderful in his life. He wanted her. All of her. Now.

  His body throbbed with need. Lifting his head, he saw her eyes closed. Her breath came in quick gasps, hot against his cheek. She was lost in the same desire as he—and all he’d done was kiss her and touch her breast. He knew he could have her. Here. Now.

  Temptation nearly overcame him. But that nagging voice in the back of his head grew from a whisper to a scream. He eased away slightly, letting cool air swirl between them.

  He’d found her sitting on her steps, crying. He wouldn’t take advantage of that. No matter how badly he wanted to.

  A little groan rattled in his chest as he withdrew his hand from her nightgown and pulled the fabric together. Amanda opened her eyes then and gazed up at him. She was a beautiful woman and he wanted her as he’d wanted no other. But not like this.

  Jason pressed his forehead against hers and pecked tiny kisses on her face. She leaned closer and settled her head against his chest. It wasn’t what he really wanted, but he’d take it.

  After a few minutes Jason rose, pulling Amanda up with him. He walked her to her back door and guided her inside. They stood there, the threshold separating them, looking at each other.

  After a few minutes, Jason said, “You never did tell me why you were crying tonight.”

  She touched her forehead, as if trying to recall a distant memory.

  “It was because I decided to give you what you wanted,” Amanda said.

  Jason tensed. If Amanda knew what he really wanted, she’d likely slap his face.

  Then she said, “I decided to leave.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  “But don’t get your hopes up. I changed my mind. I’m staying.”

  Amanda had said those words to him last night, gazing out her back door, while he still tasted her kiss on his lips and his fingers burned with the feel of her breast.

  At the time, Jason had been relieved she wasn’t leaving. Now, striding toward the cookhouse at sunrise, he wasn’t so sure.

  Up ahead stood Amanda, dressed in a pale green dress that hugged her waist and outlined her breasts. One of the breasts he’d held in the palm of his hand last night.

  Without all the trappings of women’s underclothing she usually wore, he’d discovered just how magnificent her breast was. And had been surprised at its fullness.

  The ease with which she’d lost herself in what they were doing last night had surprised him, too. Amanda was a proper lady. Proper ladies didn’t throw their heads back and moan and writhe.

  He’d only touched her. Briefly. With just his fingertips. If he did more, Amanda would—

  Heat, want and desire converged behind the fly of Jason’s trousers, slowing his steps. Annoyed, he cursed himself. He’d been this way most of the night.

  Amanda wasn’t the only one nearly out of control.

  But he was the one who had a lumber camp to run. He joined the stream of men heading for the cookhouse, determined to focus his thought on business and not Amanda. Or her breasts.

  That proved more difficult than he thought as he walked into the cookhouse past Amanda, who was smiling and nodding to the loggers. His gaze honed in on her bosom. The right one. The one he’d held. What did the left one feel like?

  Jason growled under his breath and gritted his teeth as his condition worsened.

  “Mr. Kruger?”

  He heard Amanda’s voice above the chatter of his men and glanced over at her, looking at her face this time. If she was embarrassed at seeing him this morning, after what had happened at her cabin last night, Amanda gave no indication. Except that she seemed to be looking at the top button on his shirt instead of his face.

  Jason made his way through the crowd of loggers to where Amanda stood. He didn’t get too close.

  “I’d like to begin the etiquette instruction this morning,” Amanda said. “Would it be too disruptive to pull two of the tables together so all the husbands can sit together?”

  Jason turned and saw that the table Amanda had sat at yesterday already had sixteen men squeezed onto the benches meant for ten.

  “No more disruptive than having another fight break out,” he said.

  Amanda kept out of the way as Jason had the men move the two tables together and arrange the benches around three sides. She wished she could avoid him altogether today. Things done in the dark took on a whole different meaning in the light of day. She didn’t know what to do, what to say to him. How should a lady react upon seeing the gentleman whom she’d allowed to caress her breast the night before?

  The quivering in her stomach started again. She’d lain awake most of the night thinking about it, then awakened this morning remembering.

  She should have been ashamed by her unseemly behavior. The way she’d carried on—like a strumpet.

  But she wasn’t embarrassed and she didn’t feel like a strumpet at all. Last night, with Jason, had felt right. Which just added to her confusion.

  Amanda watched Jason as he fetched the straight-backed chair from the corner and situated it at the head of the now double-sized table. He didn’t appear to be any different for their encounter. Except that he seemed to keep glancing at her left breast.

  Amanda dismissed it as her imagination as she lowered herself into the chair.

  The loggers clattered onto the benches and dived for the plates of sausages, bacon, flapjacks, eggs and biscuits on the table.

  “Hold up!” Jason said, as he took a seat at the end of the table opposite Amanda. “You’re going to learn some manners this morning.”

  The men looked none too happy at the prospect, but stopped reaching for the food and sat still.

  “Good morning, gentlemen,” Amanda said, smiling. “We’ll make this as painless as possible. I know you’re all hungry and need to get off to work. So we’ll start with something simple this morning, and improve your skills with each meal. Is that agreeable with everyone?”

  They fidgeted on the benches, eyeing the food.

  “First of all, your napkin belongs in
your lap. Not in your collar.” Amanda made a show of unfolding her napkin and placing it on her lap.

  “And unless you’re cutting meat,” Amanda said, “the hand you are not eating with belongs in your lap.”

  This instruction caused some confusion among the loggers as they shifted knives and forks and awkwardly placed their hands in their laps.

  “You’re doing fine,” Amanda said, and smiled with encouragement. “Remember that eating should be silent. No slurping or gulping.”

  The men began eating their breakfast but looked uncomfortable. Amanda expected them to end up with indigestion before breakfast was concluded.

  She tried to start a conversation, but the loggers’ attention was taken up trying to hold their napkins on their laps and keeping their hands where they belonged, so she gave up.

  “I’ll be at Mr. Kruger’s office to take the next five applications as soon as you’re finished,” Amanda said, and rose from the table.

  Jason got to his feet. “Stand up,” he barked, and the loggers scrambled to their feet, nodding politely at Amanda. She couldn’t help noting they all looked relieved when she left. And really, she was a little relieved herself.

  When Jason left the cookhouse after breakfast and went into his office, he thought he’d find Amanda there ready to take orders for her brides. Instead he found Ethan, and something he wasn’t expecting.

  “What the…?” Jason mumbled as he closed the door behind him.

  Ethan, seated at his desk with his feet propped on the corner, grinned. “Nice, huh?”

  Jason planted his fists at his waist and glared at the work area he’d put together for Amanda. Now, the sawhorses and rough planks were covered by a pink linen cloth. In the center stood a glass jar with a yellow scarf tied around it and filled with wildflowers.

  “Amanda did that, didn’t she?” Jason said.

  “Well, it sure as hell wasn’t me.”

  “How am I supposed to work with this in here?” Jason asked.

  “Same way as me.” Ethan reared back in the chair and cupped his hands behind his head. “Just sit back and enjoy it.”

  “This is supposed to be a lumber camp,” Jason said. “Whoever heard of a pink tablecloth in a lumber camp?”

  “You’re the one who moved her in here,” Ethan pointed out. “What did you expect would happen?”

  Jason plopped into his desk chair. “So all of a sudden you’re an expert on women?”

  “Just stating a fact,” Ethan said.

  “Like with Meg McGee?”

  Ethan pulled his feet from the corner of the desk. They hit the floor with a thud.

  “What about Meg?” he asked, growing serious.

  “Why didn’t you tell me you had designs on her?” Jason asked.

  Ethan fiddled with a pencil on his desk and shrugged without answering.

  “She’s a married woman,” Jason said.

  Ethan looked up at him then. “Her husband’s been gone nearly a year.”

  “That doesn’t mean she’s not married.”

  “I know.” Ethan sighed heavily.

  “Have you told her how you feel?”

  Ethan shook his head. “Didn’t seem like the right time.”

  “If you decide to make your move, let me know,” Jason said. “We’ll track down that bastard who deserted her and do whatever we have to do. You just say the word.”

  Ethan nodded thoughtfully and rose from his chair. “I’d better get to the mill. You going up the mountain today?”

  “Yes, I’m going,” Jason said. He needed to go. He needed a hard day’s work in the timber to get his mind off Miss Amanda Pierce.

  The door swung open just then and Amanda walked in, reminding Jason of exactly what he’d been trying not to think about since last night. Her breasts. Only now he wasn’t sure which one occupied his thoughts the most. The right one, which he’d touched, or the left one, which he had yet to sample. Either way, both were there, hugged by her dress, in all their glory, bringing on the same reaction in him. Jason was glad he was already seated.

  “Good morning,” Amanda said briskly as she straightened her work area and laid out her pencils and papers.

  “Morning,” Ethan said as he headed for the door. “I’m on my way up to the mill.”

  “Be safe,” Amanda called as he walked out the door.

  Jason struggled to keep his mind on the dormitory plans he pulled out of his desk drawer as Amanda sat down and took orders from five more prospective husbands. It wasn’t easy. Not with her looking so fresh and smelling so sweet. It was all he could do to stay in his chair.

  Grateful that the last interview was completed for the morning, Jason locked her fees up in his safe and headed up the mountain as quickly as he could.

  Striding up the skid road into the high timber with his logging crew, Jason breathed in the fresh air. His body was wound tight. He needed a day of work. A day with his men. A day away from Amanda and all thoughts of women, brides and breasts.

  He didn’t get much of a respite. Where the men usually talked about the job, told tall tales and fishing stories, today they talked about the brides that were coming. They talked about Amanda. About their etiquette lesson this morning. Their upcoming dance lessons. The get-acquainted social. Three of the men realized they all wanted bride number nine in the catalog and a fight nearly broke out.

  At noon, Jason hiked back to the cookhouse with his men feeling as grouchy as when he left. To his relief, Amanda wasn’t there for another etiquette lesson. He thought he could eat his meal in peace until half the men at the husbands’ table accused the other half of eating like pigs and ignoring Amanda’s instructions. This time a fight did break out.

  The afternoon on the mountain wasn’t any better. Jason sought Buck Johansen and found him in the shade of a stand of towering Douglas fir.

  “Yep,” Buck said. “The men have been at each other’s throats. They’re afraid something will happen and Miss Pierce won’t be able to bring her brides up here.”

  Buck went on. “Better get those women up here quick. And somebody better decide who’s getting bride number nine.”

  “Hell….” Jason mumbled.

  “It’s just going to get worse as the time gets closer,” Buck predicted. “Knowing they’ll be bedding down with wives, tempers will get shorter. And the men who aren’t getting wives? What kind of shape do you think they’ll be in?”

  Jason looked at Buck and knew he was right. He was already antsy and short-tempered himself, just from having Amanda around. Amanda and her full, ripe breasts.

  Pulling off his hat, Jason wiped the sweat from his forehead and mumbled a curse under his breath. To be so intrigued by a woman’s breasts was loco. Just plain crazy. He’d been working and sweating all day and still that was all he could think about.

  Jason plopped his hat on his head and decided it was high time he did something about it. Amanda wasn’t likely to let him touch her breasts again, but there were plenty of other breasts he could fondle. And lots of other things he could do, too. Things he needed to do before he exploded.

  He was going down to Beaumont to spend the day—hell, maybe two days—rolling around with a pretty whore in the town. Come tomorrow morning, Jason was leaving his mountain.

  Chapter Fourteen

  “Come on. Hurry up. Let’s go,” Jason said, pulling his brother off the bench in the cookhouse.

  “What’s the rush?” Ethan asked, shoving a last bite of flapjacks in his mouth. “Why are you in such a damn hurry to get to Beaumont?”

  “Supplies,” Jason said, striding past his men still eating their breakfast.

  “Beaumont’s not going anywhere,” Ethan said, hurrying to catch up. “Those supplies will be there when we get there.”

  “Looks like it might storm.” Jason waved his hand toward the western horizon as they walked out of the cookhouse. “Don’t want to get caught in the rain.”

  “Since when?”

  “Will you just c
ome on?”

  Jason had thought of nothing but this trip to Beaumont since yesterday afternoon. He’d left Buck Johansen in charge of the men with explicit instructions. He’d had Ethan put Rory Connor in charge of the sawmill. And above all, he’d stayed away from Amanda—and her breasts.

  That had been no easy task. Especially since around midnight it had occurred to him how isolated her cabin was. Located farthest up the hillside, he could come and go as he pleased and nobody would see him. He could stay as long as he wanted, too. All night, even, if Amanda would let him.

  But he didn’t need that now. He was going to Beaumont. He had a wallet full of cash, and when they got to town he would tell Ethan how he intended for the Kruger brothers to spend the day—his treat.

  As they approached the freight wagon waiting outside his office, Jason’s steps slowed. He caught a glimpse of lace and pale blue on the other side of the wagon.

  No.

  Jason rounded the wagon and found Amanda, Meg and Todd waiting there.

  “What’s going on?” he demanded.

  Both the women looked at each other and smiled.

  “We’re going shopping in Beaumont,” Amanda said.

  Meg giggled. “We saw that Shady had the wagon hitched and ready, so we thought, why not?”

  Ethan beamed. “Great.”

  “No!” Jason shouted. “You can’t go.”

  “Why not?” Amanda asked.

  “Yeah,” Ethan said. “Why not?”

  “Because Shady’s not going,” Jason told him. “Ethan and I are taking the wagon.”

  Todd pulled on his mother’s arm. “Ma, I don’t want to go.”

  Amanda peered into the wagon. “Why can’t we go, too? There’s plenty of room.”

  “We’ve got business to take care of,” Jason said, and tried to make it sound important.

  “I have business, too.” Amanda held up her leather satchel. “All the bride orders are complete. I have to send them off.”

  “I’ll do that.” Jason grabbed for the satchel.

  Amanda pulled it away. “I’d rather do it myself. Besides, I have things to purchase.”

  “Ma, can’t I stay here?” Todd asked. “I don’t want to go shopping.”