Enchanted Heart

by Brianna Lee McKenzie

  Marty ducked her head and then shook it with a forlorn expression, saying, “I don’t know if I can handle another miscarriage. And if I have a live son and then I lose him after I’ve fallen in love with him—I would certainly take my sanity.”

  Marty began to cry again, the possible impending tragedy of her child’s future weighing heavy on her heart.

  Caid thrust her to his chest and squeezed her with all the love that he felt in his heart and he promised, “I’m here, my love. We’ll get through anything that happens. I’ll always be here.”

  Marty sniffed against his bare chest, clinging to the muscles in his back while her voice was muffled against his body, she cried, “Don’t leave me, Caid. I need you to get me through this.”

  “Shhhh,” he whispered into her hair as he rocked her in his arms. “I won’t, Sweetheart. I won’t.”

  Then, as he held her, he promised, “When I go to get Sera Dear, you can ride along with me.”

  “Oh, Sera Dear,” she whispered, using his nickname for her niece, when she realized that he had promised Greta that he would retrieve her daughter. “I forgot about dear Seraphina.”

  “You can go with me. It will be like a second trip to paradise,” he said with exuberance in his voice. “We’ll stop at the Enchanted Rock and tell the world that we love each other all over again!”

  She giggled at the thought of reliving that moment in their lives and she pulled her face away to look into his eyes as she declared, “I do love you, Caid McAllister.”

  Caid pulled her back into his arms and hugged her, relaying the emotion in his heart while he breathed, “I do love you, Marty McAllister.”

  He eased her onto the bed until her flowing hair surrounded the pillow beneath her head and he leaned on one elbow as he stared down at her in wonder. Then, he kissed her nose, her cheeks, her forehead and finally her lips.

  This act of physically promising her that they would face any adversity together made Marty realize that unlike her first husband, Caid would help her through any problems that she might have during a pregnancy. She saw the true and fervent love in his concerned face, felt it in his tender touch and the soft kisses that he rained upon her face, which she tipped up to meet his adoring lips with hers. She wrapped her arms around his neck, drawing him into her body as she moaned in pure pleasure at the weight of him above her, “Make love to me, Caid. Make me complete.”

  When he remembered the complications that she had suffered as a result of this very act, he paused, appealing to her with his eyes, asking her to refuse him the God-given right to find pleasure in the body of his willing wife, yet yearning for that very promise with every fiber in his.

  “But we shouldn’t. Not yet. Not until we find a way to prevent your grief,” he groaned as he prepared to make the decision for them both.

  Marty pulled him back into her arms and declared, “I want this, Caid. I need this. I need you.”

  Her urgent words echoed in Caid’s hungry heart. His selfish body needed her as much as she needed him. But, still, he hesitated until she clutched his bicep in her hand with insistent firmness.

  Her eyes told him that she didn’t care anymore. Her voice muttered her desire to fulfill the promise that marriage to this man meant true and honest love, no matter what transpired to cause her sadness as she groaned, “Whatever happens, I know you will be here to see me through it.”

  It was all he could do to keep his hands from tearing her wedding dress from her arched body while he leaned above her, aching to show her just how much he needed her. But he refrained. He held back. He stared at her beauty for long moments while she begged him with her eyes to make love to her. Still, he waited.

  Finally, Marty pulled at his bare shoulders until he was nearly on top of her as she fumbled for the buttons on her wedding gown. Beseeching him for help, she dropped her hands to his waist and began to tug upon the buttons on his breeches. Taking in a lungful of air, Caid moved her hands aside and nodded as if to tell her that he would take over of the necessary task of undressing both of them. Almost relieved, she lay back onto the pillow and watched him with attentive eyes.

  First, he removed his breeches, easing them over slim, sturdy hips, revealing ripples of muscular masses that tensed against the taut, sun-kissed skin of his abdomen. Her pupils dilated at discovering the evidence of his obvious desire while she drew in a breath of anticipation. Raising her hands, inviting him to return to her, Marty whispered ardently, “Love me, Caid! Love me!”

  That was all he needed to hear. Her eager plea hastened his advance toward her, to grant her wish. His breath came in insistent puffs as his large fingers fumbled with the tiny buttons that separated him from his ultimate aspiration. More than one silk-covered button sailed across the room, causing the giggles that emanated from Marty to hasten the separation of the delicate fabric, revealing nothing but air to protect her modesty. Biting her lip instead of turning red with embarrassment, Marty lowered her chin and raised her eyes to note Caid’s reaction to the fact that she wore no underthings.

  Caid was not in the least bit disturbed by her boldness. The idea that she had worn her wedding gown in front of God’s representative and her family with no foundation garments flew right past him like those hapless buttons. To him, it seemed, she had done it for his pleasure alone, which aroused him all the more.

  A groan of appreciation welled up in his throat as Caid pushed aside the cream-colored fabric to expose the object of his searching desire. When her milky skin was revealed to him, he suddenly stopped to drink in the petal-soft perfection that was her bosom. Cupping one and then the other, he gently, almost tentatively, lowered his head to kiss the valley between those quickly rising mounds. Hot hands branded her bare skin and soft lips rewarmed the surface that quickly cooled when his palms were moved to another site, searching, finding, heating her to her core.

  Stifling a moan, Marty’s hands weaved fingers of urgency through his curls as he felt her press his face toward her scalding skin of her breasts. His head rose to kiss the pink petals of pleasure at their summits and then descended down the path to the region of her ultimate ecstasy. Dancing kisses fluttered across her flat belly, down to her naval, pausing slightly to allow a fleeting tongue to flick the sensitive interior and then continue the journey to the furry forest that was ablaze with ardent expectation.

  Finally rising to cover her insistent body with his, he paused to read the reflection of desire in her half-closed eyes. Then, as if spurred by her persistence when her lower body rose up to meet his, he could not wait an instant longer to fill her with the consuming need to possess all that she offered him.

  Their mutual desire echoed throughout eternity, repeating its remarkable mantra in a resounding affirmation that reverberated off the ramparts of Heaven before it rejoined them in paradise, only to transmit its mesmerizing message once again.

  She was complete, Marty’s inner voice whispered to her as she curled into her husband’s perspiring side. Even if she had conceived a child just a few moments ago, it was worth that nagging trepidation of losing the baby, for this man was the only person that she needed to feel loved and cherished for the rest of her life. And if they had not made a baby, she was willing to, and fully expected to, keep practicing the harmonious benediction which produces one for the rest of her enchanted life.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  But, a few short weeks later, when reality set in and when the actual possibility that she might be pregnant caused her to consider the consequences, she ran to Buck for answers. She was hoping that, if her intuition was correct and she was carrying Caid’s child, he would assure her that it would be safe to travel, at least slowly, to Fort Concho and back. Instead, he shook his head, turning her blissful world upside down.

  “I’m sorry, Marty,” Buck said as he helped her to rise after he’d examined her. “You’ll have to stay in bed for the duration.”

  “But, I wanted to go with Caid to Fort Concho,” she pleaded with the doc
tor in the examination room next to his office, her heart breaking at the thought of her husband leaving her alone and pregnant.

  “You can’t take the chance of losing the baby, Marty. You know that,” he repeated the same speech that he had said the moment that she had come to him with her problem, which for a normal woman, would have been a blessing. “You’ll have to lie still until the baby is born. I’ll have Linda come and live with you.”

  A sudden, yet subtle reminder of the old legend about Comanche women cursing white mothers made her shudder. Reading her expression, Buck patted her shoulder and said, “I thought you didn’t believe in old wives’ tales.”

  “I don’t,” she said, then raised her chin in defiance. “I don’t need anyone to help me. I can take care of myself. I’ll be gentle. I won’t lift anything or do any hard work.”

  “You know it’s not going to be that simple, Marty,” Buck said with a caring yet admonishing smile. “Just look at Greta. She’s already spending most of her days in bed because of sporadic bleeding and she didn’t do anything at all to cause it.”

  “I don’t care if I lose this one,” Marty argued. “We’ll still have more chances for children.”

  “And what if this one is viable?” Buck asked sternly. “What if this child is the only one out of all of your future pregnancies that would have had a chance to live a full and healthy life? Are you going to throw it away just to be near the man you love? And what does Caid have to say about it?”

  She bit her lip and mumbled, “I haven’t told him yet. He’s leaving tomorrow and I can’t bear to break the news to him.”

  “Because he’ll tell you the same thing I’ve been telling you,” Buck said. “Go to bed!”

  Narrowing her eyes at him, she knew that he was right, that Caid would insist on her lying in bed for nine miserable months. And at least one of those months would be filled with loneliness for him when he left her to go to Fort Concho or to Ben Ficklin, the new town where Elsa and her family had settled by then.

  “I know you’re right,” she conceded with a sigh of remorse. “I’ll tell him tonight.”

  “And I’ll have Linda pack her things and go with you,” Buck said.

  “But doesn’t Greta need her?” Marty argued, worrying about her sister’s condition, which was now her own delicate condition.

  “That’s my job,” he proudly announced, his face filled with the joy of fatherhood and seeing his wife through childbirth. “I’ll take good care of your sister. Don’t worry about a thing except keeping your baby alive.”

  “I won’t,” she lied, for she would worry about her sister and the fact that her own husband was making the trip across the mountains alone. True, she told herself as she left Buck to go upstairs to visit Greta, Caid knew this country like he knew the back of his hand. But, there was always danger lurking around the bend and he had already been attacked by Indians, even though they had not meant to hurt him. The next time, he may not be as lucky.

  Marty walked upstairs and knocked quietly upon the wooden door to the room where Greta lay, hoping that she had not awoken her sister. When she heard her cheerful voice call to her from inside, she eased the door open and poked her head in with a beaming smile on her face while she asked, “Are you sleeping?”

  “Who can sleep with this mountain on my belly?” Greta quipped as she lovingly caressed her abdomen.

  “My, you are getting quite large!” Marty said while she walked toward the bed and took her sister’s hand into hers.

  “Broad as a barn and heavy as a house,” Greta said as she shifted her weight in the bed. “I’ll be glad when this baby makes its appearance.”

  “It won’t be long now,” Marty reminded her, to which she received a nod of agreement.

  She watched Greta wince in pain and push on her belly just below her ribcage and complain, “The sooner the better! I think this one is half mustang with all this kicking.”

  “Buck is the father,” Marty replied, laughing.

  “Yes, the baby will probably be as tall as my husband and possibly as bulky” Greta mused as she patted the mound in front of her.

  “Does Buck have the nursery finished?” Marty asked, leaning over to lay a hand on the rolling belly beneath Greta’s hand.

  “Yes, I saw it yesterday. It is beautiful!” her sister answered with a light in her eyes. “But it is predominantly pink!”

  They both giggled before Marty said, “Buck is certain it will be a girl! That is all he talks about. ‘My baby girl this and my baby girl that!’ Saying how he will buy her a pony and build her a tiny castle in the back yard beside the stream.”

  “He’ll be a wonderful father, I’m sure,” Greta said dreamily.

  Marty nodded and blurted out the news without thinking, “So will Caid, when he gets back.”

  Greta leaned forward in the bed and whispered, “You’re having a baby?”

  Tears welled up in Marty’s eyes while she nodded, not able to speak of it any more for fear that it might jinx her happy announcement. She placed a hand on her flat belly and a tear slipped onto the top of her hand.

  “Are you afraid that you might lose this one too?”

  Again, Marty nodded. Words could not find their way to her lips and she bit her fist in anguish. Instantly, Greta was out of the bed and wrapping her arms around her sister, trying desperately to console her.

  “Oh, my dear Marty. I do remember the heartaches that you had to endure over and over and over. I don’t know how you lived through it. I certainly could not.”

  “You could. And you would,” Marty disagreed, but in her heart, she knew that Greta had spoken the truth. “At least you have had Buck to help you through this pregnancy.”

  Just at that moment, Greta realized that Caid had promised to go to get her daughter and she said, “I can wait until the baby is born and then Buck can go and get Seraphina.”

  “I wouldn’t hear of it and neither will Caid,” Marty said sternly before she sniffed back the tears and uttered as if her heartache was of no consequence. “No, he’s going tomorrow and I’ll stay home—in bed.”

  “I suppose there’s no talking you or him out of it,” Greta said, sitting on the side of the bed and stifling a scream from the pain in her side where the baby had kicked.

  Marty noticed the grimace on her sister’s face and pushed her back into bed, reprimanding her, “There’s not. Now you get back into bed and rest.”

  Greta agreed with a nod while she allowed her sister to tuck her back beneath the blankets, but she told Marty, “You should get into bed yourself.”

  “I will,” Marty assured her as she bent to kiss Greta’s forehead. Then her eyes welled up again when she realized that bed rest meant that she would not see her niece or nephew until months after it is born. She leaned down to kiss the mound that held the child safely in its mother’s womb and whispered, “I love you Baby Buck!”

  When she returned downstairs, Buck looked up at her over his spectacles while he sat at his desk and asked before she reached for the front doorknob, “What if I told the boys to go with Caid? Would that make you feel better about him going without you?”

  Her face lit up with both surprise and relief as she breathed, “Yes! Thank you, Buck!”

  She left him knowing that Caid would at least have someone riding with him. With Rising Sun and Hunts-with-a-knife along, he would be safe, at least from other Indians. The two young men and Linda Blue Sky rode with her from Fredericksburg to her little farm outside of town. Her heart fluttered with both anticipation and trepidation at telling Caid the wonderful yet worrisome news as her buggy rounded the bend and then onto the long lane toward home.

  He saw her nervous smile when he raised his head from the corral where he had been cleaning the hooves of his red stallion in readiness for the ride across the mountains to Fort Concho. He dropped the chestnut leg and rose to his full height with a questioning expression on his face. Removing the leather gloves from his hands, he stuffed them into hi
s back pocket and sauntered toward the buggy to query as to the reason for the three Comanche visitors.

  “What do we have here?” he asked them as he nodded to the braves and the woman who sat beside Marty in the buggy, and then he looked at his wife for an answer.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Marty waited for him to help her down to the ground before she cleared her throat and whispered, “I have news.”

  From the look on her face, he could discern that it must not be good news, so he allowed her to walk toward the porch while he helped Linda out of the buggy. Sunny and Hunter dismounted and began to unload some traveling bags, inciting more questions in Caid’s already spinning mind. He walked with them to join Marty on the porch, where she whirled around and stepped inside the house without a word.

  “Linda,” Marty said quietly as she waved her hand toward the tiny room off the kitchen that she had been using as a pantry. “We’ll set you up with a bedroom in there. I’ll have the boys bring in some hay and we’ll stuff you a mattress in the morning.”

  “No need,” the Comanche woman said with a confident smile. “I have my own bed.” She raised her hand toward the bundle that Caid carried and he handed it to her, still wondering what on earth was going on.

  Linda looked around the house, and satisfied with the work that she and Marty had done with cleaning and stocking it with the necessary supplies to make it a home; she scurried into her little room, followed by the two young men who carried the rest of her things. Their native tongue was heard by the two left in the kitchen who sat at the wooden table in silence for a few moments while Marty gathered the courage to tell her husband what had been plaguing her mind and her heart.