Jubal couldn’t help but notice Maggie’s happy, bright eyes when she opened the door to admit him. A warm feeling of contentment spread itself around like soft butter in his middle. He was almost getting used to that warmth, even though it was one he’d never felt before he’d met Maggie Bright. As sometimes happened when he hadn’t seen her for a while, a flash of something akin to memory flitted through his brain. He couldn’t grab hold of it, but it had something to do with angels and light. He shook his head and guessed he’d never figure that one out.
“You’re looking mighty pretty tonight, Mrs. Bright.”
Maggie flushed right up.
“Thank you, Mr. Green. So are you.”
Jubal grinned and Maggie got flustered. “I mean, you’re not pretty. You look—you look very handsome.”
“Thank you.” Jubal’s smile broadened and he crooked his elbow at her.
Maggie reached for his proffered elbow and then got even more flustered when she realized she’d forgot something. She whirled around, leaving Jubal’s smile to crinkle up some around the edges while she dashed over to the dresser in the room and snatched up her hat.
It was her very best one. She had ordered its bare skeleton out of a catalog and decorated it herself with flowers she’d made from scraps of material and then stiffened with starch and quilting. She tied the ribbons under her chin, then scooped up Annie and rejoined Jubal at the door.
“I almost forgot my hat,” she said unnecessarily.
Jubal didn’t quite know what to say, so he opted for, “It’s a pretty hat.”
He felt very good when Maggie beamed at him. Then she tucked her gloved hand in his elbow and he led her and Annie downstairs to the restaurant.
Jubal had dined in relatively good restaurants, by Texas standards at least, with his mother and sister-in-law, but he’d never taken a lady out to eat like this before. He had a vague notion that this was courting behavior, but he didn’t care to examine that notion closely. He could, after all, have had food taken to Maggie’s room if he’d wanted to. But he was deriving a great deal of enjoyment out of watching her react to all the new things to which he was introducing her.
He had a rebellious thought that there were one or two other new things he’d like to teach her, too, but he tried to tuck that thought away behind his nobler motives. It popped out again, however, at odd times during their meal.
“I’m nervous as a cat,” Maggie whispered in his ear when Jubal waltzed her over the threshold of the restaurant.
She clutched tightly at his arm, and Jubal suppressed the urge to pat her hand. He had made reservations, and the host led them to their table with a stiff-backed, pompous air that made Maggie’s eyes go wide.
Jubal had also thought to make arrangements for Annie, and when the host swept a hand at a chair equipped with a cushioned bolster, Maggie didn’t know what to do.
“Here, let me,” said Jubal. He preempted the baby from her mother’s arms and set her carefully down on the seat.
“There you go, Annie. You’ve got your own little chair now.” He grinned at Annie and patted her cheek, and she smiled back at him.
Maggie would have thanked him, but she realized all at once that the host was holding out a chair and looking at her imperiously. She quickly sat down.
“Thank you,” she breathed.
Jubal watched her gazing about the restaurant and felt himself go all smiley inside. He peered around and decided the interior of the restaurant reminded him very much of a whorehouse he’d visited in San Antonio once, but he didn’t tell Maggie that.
“I declare, Mr. Green, this is the prettiest place I’ve ever been in.”
Maggie felt very rustic and ignorant in the grand restaurant. The walls were covered with striped, crimson wallpaper, flocked to perfection. The same thick crimson carpet that graced the lobby hushed against the floor in here, and each table was adorned with a squat, cranberry-colored, crystal lamp, in which a real beeswax candle burned. There was no nasty, heavy tallow smell to mar the ambiance in this room.
A waiter appeared and Jubal ordered a bottle of wine. He hadn’t intended to do that, but Maggie’s pleasure had suddenly become very important to him. And she was enjoying this new experience so much that he wanted to do everything he could to make the evening special for her.
Maggie’s reaction to his generous gesture was everything he could have hoped for.
“Why, Mr. Green, I’ve never tasted wine in my whole life. This is such a—such a—such an exciting day.”
For a minute, Jubal was afraid she’d cry, but she didn’t, and he breathed a soft sigh of relief.
“Well, Mrs. Bright, I figured you might enjoy having a real night out.”
He thought it was a little lame, but he couldn’t think of anything better to say. Maggie was neither a stuffy matron nor a brazen light skirt, both of which types he’d had a good deal of experience with. Maggie was a sweet, pretty lady who’d had a hard life with no frills, and she’d saved his life. That was worth a bottle of wine, at the very least.
“Thank you very much,” she breathed.
Jubal felt his insides suddenly go all soft at Maggie’s gratitude. Then he caught the warm glow in her eyes, and the unruly male part of him went all hard. He hoped he’d be able to get through this evening without doing something rash. He hadn’t had a woman for a really long time. For not quite that long a time, he had considered the possibility of relieving his instincts on a prostitute with something close to revulsion. It was becoming almost painfully obvious to Jubal that he wanted Maggie Bright.
He studied her face in the soft light of the candle as it flickered in its little round globe on the table. The red accents in the room created a pink glow that did wonderful things to Maggie’s vivid features. Her cheeks weren’t so thin as when he’d first met her, Jubal noted, and she didn’t have those circles under her eyes. He felt good about that.
“You look really pretty tonight, Mrs. Bright,” he said tenderly.
Maggie looked at him quickly. He had already told her that once, up in her room, but the way he said it now was different somehow. The words were gentler, softer. They caressed her and sent a little river of warm feelings flowing through her insides. His eyes looked deep and mysterious to her.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
She didn’t look down as she usually did when she felt shy around him. Instead, she stared into his beautiful green eyes and, for the first time since Annie’s birth, wished her baby elsewhere. She wanted to be alone with Jubal Green, and that surprised the socks off of her.
He’s nothing like Kenny, she thought.
Kenny had been sweet and soft and maybe even a little bit dumb. There didn’t seem to be a sweet, soft, dumb bone in Jubal’s body. He was hard and sharp and cranky. And he’d already made her feel things that she’d never even imagined she could feel. As she peered into his eyes, she wondered what else he could make her feel, and her cheeks went hot. She knew she was blushing, but she still couldn’t drop her eyes.
Jubal saw the slow blush creep into Maggie’s cheeks, and he felt his erection give a tremendous jerk.
Oh, Lord, he thought. His resolve not to do anything rash began to wobble.
The waiter brought the wine and took their orders. Maggie became adorably confused when asked what she wanted to eat. She finally begged Jubal to order for her, so he did. Annie was being a very good girl. She was usually a very good girl, Jubal realized. Maggie was a very good mother.
As the evening advanced, a spell begin to weave its web around Jubal, and he didn’t even notice until it was too late. The magic started with his undisciplined sex, which didn’t surprise him much. But it grew and spread from there, upward, until it had spun little tendrils that were sneaking into his very soul, and they disturbed him more than he could ever remember being disturbed before.
Maggie forgot to be nervous after a little while, and her candid, unspoiled charm sent those whispery little magic tendrils creeping c
loser and closer to Jubal’s heart until he couldn’t have stopped them if he’d tried. Then, before he even knew what was happening to him, he was caught. He realized that for him to get free again would require more effort than it was in him to give. Not only that, but he didn’t even want to. He shook his head in amazement. He’d not only gone soft; he’d gone completely daft. He loved her.
Jubal was never quite certain whether he groaned out loud or not when the truth hit him, because Maggie was paying attention to Annie at that particular moment.
Annie was yawning when their enchanted meal ended. Jubal carried her up the stairs to Maggie’s room. Maggie held his arm tightly. She felt secure when she was holding onto him.
“Thank you so much, Mr. Green. I think that was the nicest evening I’ve ever had in my life,” she admitted in a whisper-soft voice as she unlocked the door.
“I’m glad.”
Maggie turned to take Annie from him, but Jubal walked the now-sleeping baby into the room. There was only the one bed in the room, so he laid the little girl down there.
“I think I’ll just take her shoes and dress off. She can sleep in her chemise,” Maggie decided as she looked tenderly at her baby.
Jubal watched Maggie with hungry eyes. He keep glancing at the door that separated his room from hers and wished he had a glib tongue and a way with women. He was just about dying to feel Maggie in his arms, but he wasn’t about to grab her and scare her to death. She didn’t deserve that. She was poor as a church mouse and unsophisticated as her own baby daughter, but she was the greatest lady Jubal had ever met and he wasn’t about to ravish her.
She must miss that part of her life, he thought, in spite of his noble resolve. Hell, she’s young and healthy.
Still, he held back. After all, Maggie was a marrying kind of woman and, until this second, marriage had never even occurred to him. He was watching very carefully when Maggie finished getting Annie tucked into the big bed. She folded her daughter’s little dress up into a tidy square and laid it on top of the shabby carpet bag that held their clothes. She put Annie’s tiny shoes there, too. Jubal noted they were scuffed and old-looking. They looked suspiciously as though maybe Mrs. Phillips had given Maggie a pair of the twins’ cast-offs. His heart made a little lurch and he wished he had thought to pick up some kids’ clothes in Garza’s today.
When Maggie was through with seeing to her baby, she stood and looked up at Jubal with eyes that nearly glowed with happiness. She held her hands clutched together in front of her and appeared endearingly shy. Jubal knew she was going to thank him again, and he wished she wouldn’t.
Hell, he thought, I should thank her. He couldn’t remember an evening giving him so much pleasure before.
“Mr. Green, I—”
Jubal interrupted her.
“Don’t thank me, Mrs. Bright. I enjoyed it. I’m glad you had a good time.”
Maggie’s soft smile almost sent Jubal over the edge.
“Oh, I had a wonderful time, Mr. Green,” she whispered.
Then she reached up, put her hands on Jubal’s shoulders and gave him a very quick, light kiss on the lips. She blushed furiously after that.
It took all the restraint at Jubal’s command to say, “Thank you, Mrs. Bright,” with barely a tremor in his voice and to turn to the door separating their rooms, unlock it, and walk inside.
Maggie watched him enter his room and shut the door, and was assailed by a huge throb of regret. She wanted to run after him, to beg him to please not go yet, to please kiss her again like he had on the banks of Turkey Creek. Maggie had never been kissed like that before. She put her fingers to her mouth and remembered the feel of him, hot and hard and insistent.
She sighed deeply.
“I must really miss Kenny,” she mused. Then she gave herself a mental shake and told herself to quit lying. “It’s not so much that I miss Kenny. It’s that I want Jubal Green.”
It surprised her when she finally admitted the truth to herself. She hadn’t even enjoyed that part of her marriage very much. Kenny was a sweetheart, and he loved her to distraction, but he had been a rather clumsy lover.
“Lover,” Maggie murmured to herself as she slowly shed her best dress. The word held such a world of mixed connotations to her.
She wondered if she were a wicked, fallen woman to want a man who wasn’t her husband. She sighed. “I guess I am,” she whispered. “Wicked, fallen, and disloyal. Poor Kenny.”
As she brushed out her hair sadly, she wished she had a stronger character. “My aunt was absolutely right about me,” she murmured unhappily.
She stripped to her chemise. It was her prettiest one, and she had worn it in honor of the evening. It was made of simple muslin, but she had embroidered the yolk herself, with delicate pink flowers. She smoothed the fabric over her body, closed her eyes, and thought with longing about how Jubal’s hands would feel doing that. After she put on her one and only bed wrapper, she stepped hesitantly to the door. She stood there for what seemed like hours, her heart slamming against her ribs.
Maybe he wouldn’t mind just talking to me for a little while, she thought.
Maggie could barely hear her own timid tap at his door. As soon as she tapped, she prayed that Jubal wouldn’t hear it at all.
Jubal had already shed his shirt and shoes. He still wore his trousers, and had been poised on the other side of the door with his hand raised, trying to work up enough courage to knock. As soon as he heard Maggie’s timid rap, he opened the door. When he saw her standing there, clutching the neck of her wrapper, her honey hair tumbling around her shoulders, and her big blue eyes looking up at him, frightened and uncertain, he drew in a huge breath and knew that he’d just been sucker-punched.
“Mr. Green, I—”
Maggie hadn’t been sure what she was going to say, and she didn’t get the chance to find out.
Jubal muttered, “Ah, hell, Maggie,” pulled her into his arms, and covered her mouth with his before she could utter another word.
Maggie only had time to gasp in pleasure before her arms wrapped around Jubal’s shoulders and she found herself kissing him back.
Kenny hadn’t been much of a kisser Maggie realized, as Jubal taught her things to do with her mouth and did things with his that she’d never experienced. As he had done by the river, he tasted her lips with his tongue, and this time Maggie didn’t even hesitate to open her mouth. She wanted to feel what he’d done before. Jubal obliged her.
He was almost wild. He’d never felt himself to be so near to losing control; he’d wanted to do this for so damned long.
His breath was ragged when he said, “Oh, God, Maggie, I want you so bad.”
Maggie couldn’t believe it was her own voice that answered him. “I want you, too, Jubal,” came out of her throat husky and strained.
She knew ladies didn’t say things like that. She would have been terribly embarrassed if she had the time to think about it. But she didn’t.
Jubal didn’t seem to mind, though. With a low growl, he picked her right up off the floor and marched her over to his bed. He laid her down almost reverently and joined her there immediately. Then he took her face in his two hands and kissed her deeply, sweetly, drinking her as he had earlier drunk the restaurant’s fine wine. She tasted better.
Gently, gently, he untied the neck of her wrapper and eased it back from her shoulders.
“Lord God, Maggie, I’ve dreamed of this,” he whispered. “You’ve felt my body. I’ve been thinking about yours for months now. Let me feel you like you felt me. Please?” His voice was ragged and pleading.
“Oh, yes, please,” she whispered. “Please feel me, Jubal. Please.”
Jubal groaned and slid the wrapper off of her body and threw it toward the foot of the bed. It slithered off and landed on the floor, but neither he nor Maggie noticed. Her skin felt like the finest silk under his callused palms.
At the first touch of his hands on her bare skin, Maggie went all over goose bumps. When
he cupped her breast and stroked his hard thumb across her puckered nipple, she pressed into his palm with a whimper of desire.
“Oh, God, Maggie,” he groaned.
Her breasts weren’t big, but they were a perfect handful, and her nipples were hard as ripe cherries. He was sure he was going to die if he couldn’t taste them soon.
“Please, Maggie, please let me take this off you.” Jubal lifted the hem of her chemise to show her what he meant.
Kenny had never asked her to remove everything. Maggie was sure this was improper, but she didn’t care about propriety right now. What Jubal was suggesting sounded incredibly good to her. She had a vision of her tender, sensitive breasts pressed against his broad, hairy chest, and she immediately agreed.
“Oh, yes,” she whispered. “Please.”
Jubal slid Maggie’s chemise up her legs and over her head, using the experience to maximum effect. His warm hands and lips caressed their way up her silky thighs and across her smooth abdomen and up over the twin globes of her breasts, following the fabric they pushed up and loving her every inch of the way. By the time he pulled the gown over her head, Maggie was completely at his mercy.
“Oh, Lord,” she sighed. “I never felt like this before.”
Her words were music to Jubal’s ears. He was really tired of hearing her constantly refer to her dead husband. He wanted her to think only of him right now. He kissed her again, hard, while he quickly unbuttoned his trousers and shed them. Then he began to trail kisses down her slender, satin throat.
When his tongue flicked her rock-hard nipple, Maggie thought she was going to die. When his hand slid down to the silky triangle between her thighs, she wasn’t sure what she was supposed to do, because Kenny had never done that, either, but her body responded for her so it didn’t matter. She nearly screamed with pleasure when Jubal’s skillful fingers slid into her slippery sheath and found the center of her building need.
“Oh, my Lord,” she whispered in ecstatic agony.
One Bright Morning Page 23