by Tina Leonard
“Hurry,” she said, kissing him urgently.
“No,” he said, taking her nipple in his mouth. She moved her hands up his back, closing her eyes against the spiraling sensations overtaking her.
“Hurry,” she repeated. Before something takes you away from me.
“It’s been fourteen years,” he told her, sliding a hand between her legs to tease her into anxious heat. “We don’t have to rush.”
She felt like rushing. She wanted his touch, and more. Magic built within her, screaming for release, and Luke kissed her when she climaxed so that she cried out against his mouth. He moved inside her and caught her gasps of pleasure again, and Pepper thought that was the best it could get—heaven is being in bed with this man. But then she felt more passion building, heating, tensing her body, and this time their climax was a hungry kiss they caught on each other’s lips.
Perfect, Pepper thought as they lay wrapped together in the sheets. Perfect.
She forgot all about the general and his daughters as she basked in the glow of being Luke’s wife.
PEPPER AWAKENED the next morning to Luke nuzzling her, fully ready to repeat the wonder of the previous night.
“Sun’s up,” he whispered against her neck.
“I get it,” she said. “I’ll skip the cliché reply.”
He slid into her and this time the passion was raw and fast and hungry. Pepper caught her breath amid the rising tide of pleasure, shocked that he could get her body ready so fast. She cried out when she came, sending Luke to his own climax before he slumped against her. She loved to feel her power, testing his desire and arousing him to as much pleasure as she could give him. “It’s so good,” she said, and he nipped her neck lightly.
“It gets better from here,” he said. “They say greater intimacy, greater pleasure.”
She rose from the bed, pulling on her robe with a smile. “I always heard familiarity breeds contempt.”
“Exactly what I would expect you to say,” Luke declared giving her bottom a gentle pat as he walked by. “I intend to render that opinion as false.”
The doorbell rang, startling both of them.
“Whoa,” he said, “early for a visit. I’ll get it.”
Since she wasn’t dressed, Pepper appreciated that, and watched Luke leave the room with a smile. She was more than happy to let him prove his theory of intimacy with her, over and over again.
Low voices coming from the living room made her hesitate on her way into the shower. A male visitor. Maybe Zach or Duke? But they would have called, Pepper thought. She sat on the bed to wait.
Five minutes later, Luke returned to their bedroom.
“Ah,” he said, his gaze lighting on her with pleasure. “You haven’t showered yet. That means I get you one more time here—” he tossed her back on the bed to strip off her silky robe “—and once in the shower. It’s a twofer.”
“Wait,” she said, laughing, “who was at the door?”
He kissed her hard, his mouth hungry on hers, his hands roaming over her body with fierce intent. “Luke,” she said, sensing he was keeping something from her, “wait a minute.”
Rolling over, he pulled her on top of him so that she had the choice of a sexual encounter or not, and Pepper surrendered, sliding onto her husband with a gasp of pleasure as his hands closed over her breasts. Intimacy, she thought, comes in all forms and stages.
But something was wrong and she knew it, even as he grasped her buttocks in his hands, squeezing them so that she was tight against him. Mindless and gasping, she fell against his chest. She knew exactly the second his climax hit—only this time, it wasn’t about the powerful pleasure she gave him anymore.
It was about a man trying to forget.
WHEN PEPPER AWAKENED, Luke was gone. It was nearly noon, so she jumped from the bed and called down the stairs to her boys. They had to be starving! Tossing on her robe, she hurried to the kitchen.
On the counter was a note written in Luke’s strong hand:
Thought I’d let you rest. The boys and I have gone to Grandpa’s for remote airplane flying. Luke
“Nice,” Pepper murmured, feeling left out. At least Luke intended to be an involved father.
There was all kinds of work she could do at the clinic. She could catch up on some moving-in details around here. There were any number of things to be done; it was a matter of prioritizing, she told herself, and not getting her feelings hurt.
Her gaze caught the edge of a piece of paper sticking out from under the sofa, where it must have blown. Picking it up, she saw that it was a letter to Luke.
She would never have read anything not addressed to her, except that it was from the general. “Our early morning visitor,” she murmured, her nerves tightening like stretched wire.
Luke, you’re the best at what you do. I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t absolutely necessary. As you know, there are benefits. I know money isn’t an issue for you, but you do have a new family, and the pay is excellent. It might be worth considering this last job. It would mean a lot to me and my daughters. Your old friend, A.
Pepper’s heart seemed to explode into pieces, bits of worry, shards of heartbreak. No wonder he hadn’t wanted to tell her who’d been at the door. She remembered the urgency of his possession of her; she’d thought he was trying to forget something.
He’d wanted her to forget something, and she had. His lovemaking had swept all questions from her mind.
She had always been easy for him, Pepper realized. Always on the edge of falling in love with him. Tears welled in her eyes. “I never really got over him,” she murmured.
That hurt most of all. After all these years, after trying with all her might to be her own woman, she was still crazy for the only man she’d ever loved.
Maybe he wasn’t going. If he wanted to, he would have told her about the general’s request. The thought comforted her, easing her past all the terrifying emotions, the dread of the unknown. She was being silly. Slipping the letter back under the sofa just as she’d found it, Pepper told herself she’d reaped her just reward for reading someone else’s mail.
He would never leave the boys.
The thought should have helped. But it didn’t, because she wanted to know he’d stay because of her. Yet Pepper had always known Luke was a man who didn’t stay in one place.
Even though he’d promised he would.
Chapter Sixteen
Luke wanted to talk to his father about the general’s proposal. In the past, he would have immediately agreed for the sake of adventure. Now he had adventure enough with a new wife and family.
“But there’s some duty to consider,” he told his father, who nodded.
“There’s all kinds of duty,” his dad said. Bill smiled as he watched his grandsons flying the remote control planes. “Family duty. Duty to country.”
“I wouldn’t hesitate if it wasn’t the general.” Luke had spent a lot of time with the man’s family. In many ways, the general had been a surrogate father. The girls were the sisters he’d never had.
The part that really hung him up was that he knew the request for protection was real. The general wouldn’t have asked otherwise.
“Men work,” his father reminded him. “And they travel. Even ladies work and travel these days. It’s nothing to get upset about. Were you planning on never working again?”
“I don’t need to right now. But I do need to be a father and a husband,” Luke said. “I have a lot of years to make up for.”
“Guess that’s your answer,” Bill said.
But it wasn’t and they both knew it.
“What’d Pepper say about it?”
“I didn’t tell her. Yet.” Had the request come before they’d made love, Luke knew he would have gone. All he and Pepper had had at that point was a marital agreement, a best-face-forward arrangement. For the boys.
Now they had a full-blown relationship as far as he was concerned. Pepper might have different ideas about that, but he inten
ded to make sure she understood that lovemaking and intimacy were the hallmarks of a real marriage.
“You won’t want secrets between you,” his father advised, and Luke nodded.
“I agree. It just caught me completely by surprise.”
Toby and Josh landed their planes, then inspected them carefully.
“It’s our first summer together,” Luke said wistfully. “I never thought I’d have kids of my own.”
“They really are special boys. I sure do feel lucky.” His father grinned again. “And it’s not too late for more.”
Luke blinked. He hadn’t thought about that. He hadn’t even asked Pepper if she was on the pill. Since she was a doctor, he’d assumed she would take care of birth control.
His father laughed at the expression on Luke’s face. “Wouldn’t bother me a bit to have a grandbaby to hold. It’d about make my life complete.”
Mine, too. But what would Pepper think about that? “Jeez,” he said, feeling a grin spread across his face, “I never thought about that.” He did think about getting inside her body every chance he got; he fantasized twenty times a day about hearing her cry his name with pleasure.
Oh, boy. I’m falling in love.
The unexpected knowledge thrilled him. And Pepper? She was the one who would hold back in their relationship. That would be normal, considering he’d left her before without a goodbye. She’d raised two kids on her own without involving him.
“You might think about it,” his father said mildly. “I’m sure you’d like to be a more active participant this time around.”
Active and involved. “This is true,” Luke said. “Dad, can you watch the boys for a while? I need to talk to my wife.”
His father nodded. “No need to ask twice. Leave them here for the night, if you want to. Me and the boys’ll get cheeseburgers. Heck, I’ll even take ’em over to the saloon and show them off to the fellows.”
“And the ladies?”
“Maybe,” his father said with a huge wink.
LUKE DROVE UP and parked in the garage of the house he now called home. It felt good. He’d never thought about owning a home and was surprised by how good it felt. A home, a wife, children. This was greater than anything he’d ever foreseen in his future.
Going inside the house, he felt pleasure wash over him when he saw Pepper cooking in the kitchen. “Dinner?”
She nodded. “Hope you feel like baked chicken and rice. Some steamed broccoli on the side and a chocolate cake for dessert.”
“Man.” He kissed the back of her neck as she stood stirring something at the stove. “How did I get so fortunate?”
“Who says you did?”
“I say so.” He turned her around to kiss her tenderly on the lips. “I know I did.”
She gazed up into his eyes, searching for something, he realized. “Something on your mind besides dinner?”
“No. Where are my boys?” She turned back to her cooking.
“With Dad. I think they’re going to swing by the saloon later and bother Dad’s new friends.”
“No bother.” Pepper smiled, and he wanted to touch the wisps trailing along her neck from the upswept hair she’d carelessly pulled up with a clip. “Pansy and Helen called and said they’d tried a new recipe for red velvet cake. They wanted to know if there were any takers.”
“There are always takers. Did they say how the Man Catch went?”
Pepper put a lid on one pot, shaking seasonings into another. “Very well. Apparently, there were men and fish caught, and none have been thrown back yet.”
“Except ours,” Luke said with a proud grin.
“Yes, but that’s a secret we’re keeping.”
She still wasn’t looking his way, and Luke began to pick up some warning signs of troubled waters ahead. She was acting nonchalant and disengaged. Her posture was somewhat stiff. Whatever was going on, she wasn’t going to talk about it.
He might as well head into those waters. Eventually, the honeymoon would be over, and they were going to have to discuss real life. They couldn’t keep tiptoeing around everything that was uncomfortable about their lives.
“The general came by this morning,” Luke began, and when Pepper turned to look at him, he figured he’d found the source of her annoyance.
“Oh?” she said softly.
“He wants me to do a little work for him.” Luke glanced around for the letter he’d been given, but couldn’t locate it.
“If you’re looking for a letter, it blew under the sofa,” Pepper said, “and I’m not proud to say I already read it.”
“Ah.” At least she was honest. Now he knew why she seemed troubled. “I planned to show it to you.”
“Why didn’t you?”
He shrugged. “I needed to take it in first. Had to think about it.”
“So if you’re telling me about it now you must have decided to accept.”
He checked her eyes for signs of anger and saw none. Was that a good sign? “I’m considering it. Unless you object.”
“No.” She shook her head. “I don’t.”
“You don’t know what I’d be agreeing to.”
She nodded. “We didn’t know anything we were agreeing to about each other when we got married.”
That was true, but enigmatic. Luke couldn’t read her and it worried him.
“I’ll be very busy with the clinic. There’ll be calls on the nights and weekends. I’m sure you’ll find that inconvenient at times,” she said. “It’s sort of the nature of our respective careers.”
He bit the inside of his cheek. “This isn’t going to be my career, any longer. It’s a last favor for a man who’s been like a father to me.”
She accepted that. “I married you not knowing much about you. You don’t know much about me, especially regarding the years we were apart. I always thought the hardest part of dating was the beginning. People spend the first two or three dates filling each other in and catching them up about who they are, like fast-forwarding the past. It bores me.”
Luke stared at Pepper. She didn’t strike him as the kind of woman who liked mystery in men; he was pretty certain she was more the type who would make judicious, thoughtful decisions about the men she allowed around her sons. “Pepper, I didn’t use a condom yesterday. Or today,” he said.
“I know.” She lifted a pot from the stove, setting it down on a cast-iron trivet. “We didn’t discuss it ahead of time.”
Damn it. He couldn’t ask her; he already knew the answer. She wasn’t on the pill. They were heading down the same blind path as before, a pattern unbroken by the years they’d spent apart.
“I know what you’re thinking,” she said. “If I was worried about unprotected sex, this time I could easily get my hands on a morning-after pill.”
He looked at her.
“But I wouldn’t,” she said. “And if you go away again, and I’m pregnant, it will be high irony, but nothing I can’t survive.”
There was a lot being said and a lot that wasn’t, but as Luke looked at his bride, she began chopping pecans, as if they’d never said I do.
As if they were just two people existing inside a house.
PEPPER WENT TO THE CLINIC on Monday. She’d slept restlessly last night, but the problem was no longer frustrated sexual desire. Luke had slept on his side of the bed, as he had in the beginning of their marriage; she’d slept on hers. They never once reached for each other.
It wasn’t not knowing each other, or marrying for a goal rather than love, that stole her sleep. She wanted to blame it on outside influences: the general for his request, her jealousy of his beautiful daughters—anything that might explain the sudden rift in the joy she and Luke had begun to experience.
Pansy and Helen came inside the clinic bearing cookies and a large coffeemaker. “Every good doctor’s office has a couple of these machines,” Pansy said, “only we’re going to use this to make tea.”
Pepper smiled. “And the patients who are supposed to be fa
sting before their blood tests?”
“They can drink it afterward,” Helen said reasonably. “Take pity on your patients, Pepper. They need something to look forward to.”
The ladies draped a lace cloth over a table and busily set up their treats. “Any wedding bells yet, from the Man Catch?” Pepper asked.
Helen shook her head. “But there may be some potential suitors. We’ll see.” She looked at Pepper. “So how is married life, anyway? Soon you’ll be the authority and can counsel any new brides we might have.”
“Not me,” she said quickly. “I diagnose general health. Not romantic health.”
Pansy nodded. “Romantic health can be hard to gauge.”
Pepper didn’t say anything.
“Luke’s dad came into the saloon last night with the boys,” Helen told her. “He mentioned that Luke might have a new job.”
The Tulips grapevine was moving at its customary pace. Pepper tried to smile. “Isn’t it wonderful?”
“Is it?” Pansy looked at her. “Bill didn’t necessarily seem to think so.”
“I don’t know.” Pepper picked up one of the lemoniced cookies Pansy had laid out, not really wanting it but feeling fidgety. “We didn’t discuss it much.”
They gazed at her curiously. Pepper couldn’t look away, because she didn’t want them to think anything was wrong, but she couldn’t meet their eyes, either, because something was wrong and it hurt. The pain was something she couldn’t diagnose. “I don’t exactly know what to do,” she admitted.
“Can we help?” Pansy asked gently.
Pepper shook her head. “I wish you could.”
They hugged her, the three of them a circle of friendship Pepper had always treasured. “I’m better with medicine than marriage, I guess.”
“Well, you’ve heard love stinks,” Helen said. “And I guess sometimes it’s confusing at the very least.”
“Fortunately, you have some basic material to work with,” Pansy pointed out. “Luke’s a good dad. He’s a good husband. But there are always bound to be a few bumps.”