by Jenny Lykins
“Ahem. Thanks again.” He clucked at the horses and slapped the reins across their backs like he knew what he was doing. As long as he kept them at a walk, they were easier to control. He’d take the horsepower under a shiny metal hood over the real thing any day.
Married! For a thought so foreign to him just days ago, the word swirled in his mind, welcome and exciting. Callen smiled up at him with a look that caused all kinds of acrobatics in disturbing parts of his body.
His wife. He had a wife. He was a husband. And an instant father. Everything he had always avoided now seemed so…trivial.
He couldn’t help but smile. She was his other half – the part that made him complete – and all roads in his life had led back to her. If his and Dan’s father hadn’t walked out on them, if their mother hadn’t died, if he hadn’t had to raise Dan and take that job that had him traveling the country. If he hadn’t taken that wrong turn, seen that sign, gotten curious...
All the roads had led to this moment, and he couldn’t wait to start down the next one, with Callen by his side.
But first things first.
“Do you want to confront Stephen when we get back?”
Some of the light left her eyes. She chewed on her lower lip.
“The sooner the better, I suppose.”
“Who did you say Stephen is?” Dan spoke for the first time. Ty had been so wrapped up in Callen, he’d almost forgotten about Dan. He couldn’t let that happen again.
“He is my brother,” Callen answered. “And he’ll be as opposed to this marriage as he was the first one.” They had explained the situation to Dan on their trip to the minister’s house, but he’d been so overwhelmed and in shock from time traveling, Ty didn’t know how much he’d actually heard.
Dan nodded and settled back on the worn seat of the carriage, saying nothing more, gazing around at the countryside.
The moon hung low in the star-splashed sky when they finally rolled up Windsor’s drive. Ty kept expecting Stephen to catch a glimpse of them and come storming out of the house with a shotgun aimed at Ty’s heart, but only their co-conspirators, Magnolia and Jacob, greeted them when he pulled the horses into the dilapidated carriage house.
“He ain’t home yet, sugar,” Magnolia answered Callen’s unasked question while Jacob and Ty unharnessed the horses. “An’ he ain’t gonna be in no shape to talk to when he get here, if he be in any mood like the last few nights.” She held Callen at arm’s length for a moment, then wrapped her in her thin arms with a hug. “Now you get yourselves to the cottage afore he gets home. I done aired the place out and gots a nice cold supper waitin’ there for you.”
“All right!” Dan showed his first normal reaction since this trip had begun. “I’m so hungry my stomach thinks my throat’s been slit.”
Magnolia hooked Daniel around the waist and pulled him with her toward the big house.
“Oh, I’se got somethin’ special in the kitchen for you, Dan’l.” She walked him out the carriage house door. “And then Jacob done fixed you up a nice bed in his cabin, ’cause that old moldy spare mattress in the cottage ain’t fit fer a dog to sleep on.”
Dan turned around and gave Ty a quick, knowing smirk. “Oh, riiiight,” he said as he and Magnolia disappeared into the darkness.
Jacob led the horses away while Callen and Ty stared at each other, a giggle bubbling from Callen at Dan’s response. Then, as if with one mind, they grabbed each other’s hand and raced toward the overseer’s cottage.
Ten feet from the cottage steps, Ty swept Callen into his arms in a froth of ivory satin, marched across the porch, kicked the door open wide, then side-stepped into the parlor and shouldered the door closed with a definitive slam. The gust of wind blew out candles lighting the intimate table set with food for two.
He looked down at his wife, still held tightly in his arms. Her laughter died, but the smile still glowed in her eyes as he lowered his mouth to hers, turning slowly in a lazy, dancing circle.
Her arms tightened around his neck and her fingers slid into his hair.
“There’s only one thing I’m hungry for,” he whispered against her lips. When she “mmmmed” in agreement, he took to the stairs, holding her sideways, trying not to hit the wall as he continued the kiss. She giggled, holding tighter, deepening the kiss to make his journey more challenging…and interesting.
“Troublemaker,” he breathed, never taking his mouth from hers. Once in the bedroom, he raised his head with a gasp for breath and stared down at her wicked little grin. He returned that grin, then sent her flying through the air, her eyes wide, her grin turning into a squeal right before she hit the mattress in a burst of petticoats and ivory skirts. He landed beside her before she stopped bouncing, wrapped her in his arms, kissed her breath away, while she turned to him and offered everything she had to give.
He worked at the laces he’d so recently threaded, and she fumbled with his tie, his collar, his buttons, until the edges of his shirt fell open and her palms slid against his bare chest. The heat of her hands exploded in his brain as he sat up, still joined in a kiss, and tore away his coat and shirt. She helped shove aside the clothing, helped drive him mad when her fingers skimmed across his shoulders, down his chest, around to his back.
“No fair,” he groaned, then finally, breathlessly, stilled her hands, gave her a lingering kiss, then turned her around to work at her laces. When the embroidered satin top slid from her arms, he reached around and unbuttoned her corset cover. Slowly, agonizingly, he unhooked the front of her corset, one hook at a time. She sighed deep in her throat, leaned her head back against his shoulder as he nuzzled her neck, freeing the next hook. With the last of the fasteners undone, he slid the garment away, leaned farther around to brush at her lips, then tossed the torturous thing into the small, cold fireplace at the foot of the bed.
“I plan to burn that,” he murmured into her hair. She shivered when he lifted her chemise to splay his hands across her taut abdomen. “Later.”
With a moan, she turned in his arms. Together they loosened the tapes to her skirts and petticoats, the buttons to his trousers. With each passing second, their fingers grew more frantic, until pieces of clothing flew through the air.
And then they lay together as lovers, warm skin against warm skin, bare limbs tangled, exploring hands stoking the fires of want.
Ty forced himself to slow down. He didn’t want this first time to be a frenzied rush. He rolled atop her, molding himself to her curves, turning the ravenous kiss into a long, languid act of worship.
In perfect sync with her, he followed his instincts. The feel of her lips on his skin, her hands exploring his body, created new colors in him that the world had never seen. Her kiss and the sigh that followed rippled through him like a long, low rumble of thunder across a violet-smeared, rain-parched sky. He ached to give back to her all that she gave to him. Sliding his hands up her arms to thread his fingers with hers, he offered up his love to her the only way he knew how.
Callen’s senses reeled, as if she’d swallowed a liquid rainbow and now it swirled through her blood in ribbons of hot, curling colors.
Had it been so long that she’d forgotten this magic? Had Ty learned things he’d not known in his earlier life?
She’d thought five years ago that she had entered Heaven, but Ty now took her to places she’d never been; touched her soul in places she’d never been touched. No longer was he hesitant, unsure. As untried as she.
He cast a spell over her, over them both, and the world revolved around them as, together, they entered the center of the universe. Sparks rose within her, dancing through her blood when he dusted her with kisses, magical, mind-numbing kisses.
Her breath caught in her throat, her heart stilled in her chest. “Oh, Ty,” she whispered, reaching out, reaching for something she hadn’t yet found. And then he led her there, slowly, gently, their fingers twined, their gazes locked, until her world rocked and, as one, they soared to a place that didn’t exist on
this earth.
*******
Ty stared at his wife in the moonlight, slid a long tendril of dark, silky hair from her cheek. He loved the way her skin felt against his, smooth and feminine, warm and soft. Her head lay in the crook of his arm, which had long since lost all feeling. A small price to pay for this vantage point.
He curbed the urge to lean over and kiss the tip of her nose. One kiss, just one, and he would want more. He knew it, but he also knew he’d exhausted them both, and she needed to rest.
She stirred under the onslaught of his gaze. When her lashes lazily opened she looked around, then a grin curved her lips and she turned her eyes to his.
He smiled in silent understanding, no words needed between them. She snuggled closer and lay her head on his chest.
“Oh,” she breathed in awe after a few moments. “Feel.” She took one of his hands and placed it on her throat beneath her ear, then laid the other in the same place on his own neck.
The pounding of both their hearts beat together in perfect rhythm. He blinked, feeling the pulses beneath his fingertips, waiting for one to speed up or slow down, but both kept time in perfect unison.
“It’s like the words of Mr. Shakespeare.” She raised her head. “Do you know Shakespeare?”
Ty thought back to his days of English Lit, wading through garbage someone had dubbed “classic.” Shakespeare had been one of the few Ty thought actually deserved the title.
“Mmm.” He nodded. “I know Shakespeare.”
She smiled and put her ear to his chest again. “‘Two lovely berries molded on one stem,’” she quoted.
“‘So, with two seeming bodies, but one heart,’” he finished.
She smiled, traced her fingers along his jaw – a gesture he was learning to love. “Would you be offended if I told you something?” she asked, her eyes searching his, glowing hot even in the pale light of the moon.
His brow dipped and he gave his head a tiny shake.
“No, sweetheart. Why would I be offended?”
Her smile turned sensual and she glanced away for a moment.
“I’ve never…” She looked up at him through her lashes. “Five years ago…we had only that one night, but I didn’t…I didn’t feel…”
Ty smiled and ran his finger along her lips. He knew what she was trying to say – or not say.
“Sometimes it takes a while with women.”
Her eyes widened a bit, a hint of hurt flashing in their depths.
“Have all your women…” She studied a corner of the ceiling. “Have you made all your women…feel…”
Ty laughed out loud, then had to pull her to him and hold her tight when she looked even more hurt.
“All one of my women,” he laughed, “and I was too young and cocky to know or care what a woman wanted.”
“One?” She looked at him in disbelief.
“One,” he repeated, amazed that he wasn’t embarrassed to admit this. “Renée and I dated in high school.” He stopped to think of what the equivalent of high school would be for Callen, then shrugged. “We were both eighteen. Anyway, by the time I was twenty-one and almost through college, my mother had died and I had Dan to take care of. He was only five. Then Renée came to me and told me she was pregnant, and started planning a wedding.” He laughed and shook his head. “I gotta tell you, Dan was a handful, even then. Marriage and a new baby was the last thing I needed, or wanted, though she’d been pushing me for years. But we set a date and kept our mouths shut about the pregnancy.” He ran his fingers up and down the warmth of Callen’s arm, remembering his panic. “Then about a week before the wedding, a friend came to me and said he’d gotten wind that Renée wasn’t pregnant at all. That she’d just gotten tired of me dragging my feet.”
Callen’s mouth dropped open.
“What did you do?”
He snorted. “I confronted her.”
“And?”
“And she wasn’t pregnant. Her next period…what do you call it? Monthly? Her next monthly was going to be a convenient miscarriage.” He glanced at Callen. “Oh. Sorry. I forgot I shouldn’t say things like…hey!” He tucked in his chin and looked at her. “You’re my wife now. I can say things like ‘monthly.’ Monthly, monthly, mmfy…”
She’d clamped her hand to his mouth, giggling, blushing so violently he could see the pink in the moonlight.
“You are incorrigible!” she gasped through her laughter.
“Ah amf noff,” he answered through her hand.
“Do you promise not to say embarrassing things if I take my hand away? I want to hear the rest of this story.”
He rolled his eyes and nodded, the mischief in him dying to say something truly shocking, but he behaved himself. He kissed her palm as she lifted it away.
“Do not attempt to distract me,” she said. “What happened then?”
The distraction had already begun. He walked his fingers up her arm to swirl across her collarbone.
“What happened was a huge argument and me calling off a marriage to someone I couldn’t trust.” He turned to her, his hand wandering to more interesting areas. “But that experience made me gun shy for a good long time, and by the time I got over it, I had a job running me ragged and Dan needing my attention. Not the perfect recipe for meeting women.”
“I’m glad,” she said, rolling over a bit to give his wandering hands easier access.
“Glad?” He had to concentrate on what she was supposed to be glad about.
“That I…” – she moaned – “won’t have shared you with countless other women.”
“Oh, no, sweetheart.” His mouth followed the trail his hands took. “I’m a one woman man.” Her stomach jerked against his lips. “Always have been. Always will be.”
He circled her waist then, to pull her to him, when the sound of a horse on the drive stopped them both.
“Stephen.” Callen whispered as if her brother might hear her, dread filling her voice.
Ty rolled off the bed, stepping across a floor littered with clothing. Callen followed close behind with the sheet wrapped around her. He had to smile at such modesty, considering what they’d just shared.
Stephen’s horse meandered up the drive, its head bobbing, its rider slumped and weaving, barely managing to maintain his seat. When the mount stopped in front of the house, Stephen fell sideways to hit the ground with a dull thud. A string of slurred curses filled the air as he staggered to his feet, trying to dust himself off with his hat. He missed his mark more often than he hit it.
Jacob came out the front door and calmly straightened Stephen’s clothing, then took the reins and led the horse toward the stable. Callen’s brother tripped twice on his way up the steps, bursting forth with more curses, then he finally lurched through the door and out of sight.
“Dan!” The thought of his little brother possibly running into a drunken, irate Stephen had Ty rummaging through a mound of petticoats, looking for his trousers. Callen stopped him with a hand on his arm, pulling him back toward the bed.
“Daniel is safe with Jacob, and Magnolia will see to it that Stephen is safely put to bed.” She tugged on his arm. “Talking to him tonight will serve no purpose.” She climbed back on the bed, then let the sheet drop ever so slightly. “Now,” she said in a voice that exploded little fireballs in Ty’s chest, “where were you?”
He slid back onto the bed and dragged the sheet away until it slithered to the floor. A muffled slam of a door in the big house made him glance up for a moment.
“That’s going to be one heck of a hangover Stevie boy’s going to have in the morning,” Ty predicted. A smile tugged at his lips. An early morning visit to announce their marriage might be more fun than he’d even anticipated.
“Let’s see…” he said, turning his attention back to his brand new wife. He trailed a finger down the indentation in the center of her abdomen. “I think,” he said, his lips meeting warm, silky skin, “I left off right about here.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN<
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Ty and Callen entered the house through the kitchen, having first checked on Dan, finding, with no surprise to Ty, that the boy still slept soundly in Jacob’s tiny cabin. Going, then, in search of Stephen, they found him in the darkened dining room, sipping at his coffee and wincing with each tiny movement.
Callen hovered in the doorway while Ty strolled into the room, waiting for the moment when his new brother-in-law looked up.
He never did.
“I told you, I want no breakfast,” Stephen said as if it hurt to speak. “Just leave me be.”
“Hey, sorry, man,” Ty announced in a loud, clear, obnoxiously cheerful voice. Stephen’s head jerked up just as Ty whisked back the heavy draperies on the window facing east. “Geez, it’s dark in here. How can you see to find your cream and sugar?”
Stephen recoiled like a vampire facing the morning sun.
“You!” he bellowed, then flinched, his arms shielding his eyes, his face screwed up in pain. “What have you done with my sister?”
Ty gave him a long-suffering look, then nodded toward the doorway.
“Umm… I think that would be her.”
Squeezing his temples with thumb and forefinger now, his enraged face half-covered, Stephen’s gaze followed Ty’s.
“So, you have come to your senses,” he said, peering at Callen through half-closed eyes. He set his coffee cup on the saucer and even cringed at the quiet clink. “If you are appropriately contrite,” – he pressed his temples again – “you might possibly persuade Evan to take you back.”
That did it! Ty marched across the room, pulling the papers from the inside of his coat with an uncharacteristically dramatic flair.
“Oh, she came to her senses.” He unfolded the documents with a maximum of paper rustling, then slammed them with as loud a smack as he could manage onto the table in front of his brand new brother-in-law. “Read ‘em and weep, bro,” he said with more satisfaction than he’d ever dreamed possible. “And there’s not a damn thing you can do about it.”