A score of feelings tumbled around inside of Emily. The whole time she’d visited with the O’Neills she couldn’t keep her mind off of Slade. Throughout supper the silence between them was obvious. What had her most upset was Slade’s accusation that she had been unfaithful. He hadn’t said it in so many words, but that’s what he’d meant. How could he think that of her?
Something out of the ordinary happened after Slade helped Emily clean up the dishes. He retired to his room. He said he had some reading to do. She felt as if he were punishing her for wanting to keep her life private. Telling herself what Slade Coleburn did was none of her concern, she and Mark made cookies, then watched a family movie on TV.
She was feeding Amanda when Mark asked her, “Can I say good-night to Slade?”
“Maybe you’d better not bother him tonight. I’ll tuck you in as soon as I’m finished feeding your sister.”
Emily was grateful when Amanda fell asleep in her arms and didn’t fuss after Emily laid her in her crib. Taking her time with her son tonight, she read him a story, listened to his prayers, kissed him and tucked him in.
But Mark looked up at her, puzzled. “Are you mad at Slade?”
She’d never lied to him, and she wouldn’t start now. “I was earlier. He said some things I didn’t like. But we’ll work it out. Don’t you worry.”
“I don’t want him to leave yet, Mom.”
“I know you don’t.” And simply for her son’s sake, she said, “I’ll try to convince him to stay until after Thanksgiving anyway.”
Though Mark looked far from satisfied, he nodded and she brushed his dark brown hair across his forehead tenderly, telling him good-night.
When she went downstairs, there was no sign of Slade. She could try to forget about what had happened between them today and go to bed, but she knew she wouldn’t sleep. Her father had always told her, You’ll never get insomnia if you make peace with your day. Unfortunately making peace with her day had to do with making peace with Slade.
But she’d never turned away from a chore simply because it was hard to do. With determination lifting her chin, she hurried down the hall and rapped softly on Slade’s door.
After a few moments, he opened it. Still dressed in the green plaid flannel shirt and jeans he’d changed into after his shower, he looked handsome and virile and thoroughly masculine. Her mouth went dry. But then she realized his lips were almost clamped together and his jaw was set as if daring her to speak to him.
She took the dare. “We should talk.”
“Seems to me that’s what I wanted to do earlier and you didn’t.”
“Slade, I didn’t knock on your door to argue with you.”
After studying her carefully, he stepped closer. “Why did you knock? Sometimes talking takes a bit of arguing. Sometimes talking isn’t very comfortable.”
“All right,” she said with resignation. “I knocked because I want to know what I ever said or did to make you think I could be unfaithful to my husband.”
“Were you?” he asked simply.
All of her good, peaceful intentions exploded into a loud, “No.” Before she could prevent it, tears came to her eyes and she turned away from him and headed down the hall. Maybe she was wrong about making peace with Slade. Maybe she was wrong about asking him to stay through the holidays even for Mark’s sake.
In a few strides he caught up to her, hooked his hand over her arm and tugged her back to his room.
“I’m not going in there with you,” she declared, pulling away from him. “That would prove what you think of me.” In spite of her trying to will them away, tears rolled down her cheeks.
“Emily, I’m afraid you have no idea what I think of you.”
There was something in Slade’s eyes that made her breath catch. She wasn’t sure if he moved or if she did, but suddenly they were standing even closer than before.
His shirt almost brushed against her sweater as he said, “I don’t know much about marriages, but I know they can go bad. And I think Dallas wants to be more than friends with you,” Slade concluded.
“He’s been away, Slade. The last two years or so, we’ve only seen each other around the holidays.”
“Sometimes that’s all it takes…when a man finds what he wants.”
“Dallas doesn’t want me. And I don’t want him. Not that way.”
Slade’s gaze searched her face slowly, from her eyes to her nose, to her mouth, and back up again. “I was jealous, and you’re going to tell me I have no right to be. But you didn’t skitter away from him like you do me.”
“I don’t skitter away from you,” she murmured.
He arched his brows. “What would you call it?”
This close to him, with her heart thumping erratically and her breath coming faster, she knew she should run rather than skitter. “I’m comfortable when I’m around Dallas. When I’m around you…”
“Yes?” he prompted.
“I feel things I shouldn’t. I just had a baby. I’m a widow. I—”
He slid his hand under her hair. “You’re a woman, Emily. And I’m a man. I was attracted to you the first moment I laid eyes on you, and I told myself I shouldn’t be.”
“But I was pregnant.”
“Yeah, I know, and now you’re not, and nothing’s changed except… I don’t want what I’m feeling to be one-sided. Is it?”
Slade was the most honest man she’d ever met. “No,” she confessed in a whisper.
After her admission, he didn’t bend his head to kiss her, and he didn’t put his arm around her. He just stood there with his hand under her hair, and she remembered what he’d said. He wouldn’t kiss her again until she asked him to. But if she asked him to kiss her, she was afraid of the complications and the consequences. Not only to her, but to Mark. For all their sakes, she backed away from Slade until his hand was by his side.
“Do you want me to leave, Emily?” he asked, giving her a considering look.
“No. I told Mark I’d ask you to stay until after Thanksgiving. I know he’d like it if you’d stay through Christmas.”
“What about you?”
“I’d like you to stay.”
Slade was silent for a few moments. “All right. I’ll stay through Christmas. And maybe we’ll both get used to being around each other.”
To her relief, he took a few steps toward his room. Before going in, he said, “I’ll see you in the morning.”
When he closed his door, Emily breathed a sigh of relief, knowing she’d never get used to Slade Coleburn being in her house, let alone in her life.
After Thanksgiving dinner, Slade leaned back in his chair and smiled at Emily. “Now that was a meal fit for a king.”
“Even though you helped prepare it?” she asked teasingly.
“That made it even better. Right, Mark?” Mark had helped to mix up the dressing and stuff the bird, while Emily had concentrated on making cranberry-orange relish.
Mark nodded. “And the best part is Amanda slept through the whole thing.” But after he said it he glanced at his mother uncertainly.
Ruffling her son’s hair, Emily smiled. “Next year we’ll be feeding her mashed potatoes and trying to keep her out of harm’s way. You might wish she was a baby again once she’s walking.”
Slade could imagine Amanda, her hair longer, her eyes shining like her mom’s as she toddled around the house.
“Speaking of helping.” Emily looked directly at her son. “I have to make pies tomorrow for Saturday’s bake sale. Are you going to lend me a hand?”
“I guess. Are we going to the bazaar?”
“What bazaar?” Slade asked.
“On the Saturday after Thanksgiving every year, our church sponsors a Christmas Bazaar. They have a bake sale, and ranchers’ wives sell things they craft by hand. I usually make about ten pies.”
“Ten pies? You’ve got to be kidding.”
“No. It’s a tradition, Slade.”
“Don’t you think that’s
a little ambitious?”
She shrugged. “I’ll get started and then see how far I get. I have the supplies. It depends on how well Amanda cooperates.”
“I’m sure everyone would understand if you skipped this year.” He didn’t want to see her tiring herself out and doing more than she should be.
But Emily’s determined chin rose a notch. “I told Mavis I would bake pies, and I’m going to bake pies.”
“All right, then I guess I’ll have to help with the rolling pin.” His blue eyes were steady on hers.
“Not if you have other things to do.” Her tone was firm. It was a battle of wills again, and Slade knew he’d better drop the subject for the time being.
They were careful not to touch when they moved around the kitchen, scraping plates, putting away leftovers. It was as if they both knew they were walking a line they shouldn’t cross.
Slade put the milk in the refrigerator, feeling as if he had to say something. “I’ve never celebrated holidays much.”
Emily had started washing the dishes. She glanced at him, and their gazes held for a moment.
“I love holidays,” she murmured. “Especially Christmas. The world just seems a softer place then. People are more giving, less selfish. I can’t donate much to our church, but I can bake pies for the sale. They use the proceeds to help members of the congregation who need it.”
Emily’s life was so foreign to Slade—the way she was connected to everybody and everything. “I don’t know much about traditions,” he said quietly.
“If you stay through Christmas, Mark and I’ll show you a few.” Her expression was teasing but mostly sincere. Yet she used the word “if.” It was as if she expected him to pack up his belongings and leave any day.
“I’ll be here through Christmas,” he told her again.
Later, at the kitchen table with a notepad, his checkbook and the addresses of major newspapers from Chicago to Los Angeles, Slade stamped one envelope after another, trying not to get his hopes up. There was a slim chance the ads would produce his brother, but only a slim chance. When he’d gone into Billings to the house where the birth and death certificates had been sent, a middle-aged woman had opened the door. He’d inquired about the previous owners, but she couldn’t give him any information, just that she thought they’d moved to Colorado. Concentrating on sending more ads to Colorado newspapers than anywhere else, he sealed the last envelope and placed it on the pile.
Emily was sitting in the living room with Mark, and Slade could hear Amanda fussing. When he looked up at the clock above the kitchen sink, he saw it was past Mark’s bedtime. The boy had seemed more settled again, happier, since Emily had made sure she was giving him more attention. Still, not being the only child had to be hard.
As Slade went into the living room, he could see Mark was trying to watch a football game above all the ruckus. Going over to Emily, he offered, “Why don’t you let me take her while you put Mark to bed?”
Emily looked up at him, her eyes wide with surprise. “You’ve never even held her before.”
“That’s true, but I don’t imagine there’s a whole lot to it. It can’t be any worse than holding onto a squirming piglet.”
Emily’s laugh floated free into the room. “I guess not, but it could be noisier.”
He shrugged. “Then again, maybe she’ll settle down for me. Come on, hand her over.”
Emily’s expression was skeptical and more than a little worried.
“I’ll be careful,” he assured her. “I’ve watched you showing Mark how to hold her. I know I have to keep her head supported.”
“He can do it, Mom. Slade’s good at everything.”
Slade chuckled. “I don’t know about that.”
Amanda was fussing again, halfhearted crying that Slade supposed was from her wanting to make her presence known, or wanting to keep her mom’s attention. He held out his arms and Emily carefully placed Amanda in the crook of his elbow.
Taking the baby, blanket and all, he gazed down at her and tickled her under the chin. “Okay, little lady, we’re just going to walk and talk and rock until your mom comes back. I promise I won’t drop you.”
Emily shook her head and rolled her eyes, as Amanda looked up at Slade and was suddenly very quiet.
“She must like your voice,” Emily said softly.
“Then I’ll just keep talkin’.”
After Emily and Mark went upstairs, Slade walked Amanda around the room, talking to her as if she were Mark’s age. He couldn’t understand why folks cooed and mumbled funny things to babies as if they came from another planet. Finally he ended up at the window, pointing to the moon and showing Amanda how the stars formed pictures in the sky. He was so involved in telling the baby about the Big Dipper and the sportsman with the bright star in his belt, that he wasn’t aware of Emily coming downstairs again until she was practically standing at his elbow.
“So you’re an expert on the night sky,” she said with a smile.
“Not an expert. When I was a kid I got hold of a book about stars, the moon and the sun. At the home, nothing really belonged to any of us. I mean we didn’t have toys or books of our own usually. But one of my teachers gave me that book because she said she thought I had potential. I wasn’t exactly sure what that meant, but it seemed important, so I kept the book under my pillow and each night when everybody else was sleeping, I took it out and looked at it along with the sky.”
Together he and Emily stared up at the moon through the frosted window.
Finally she said, “I’ll take Amanda upstairs now.”
“Do you want some warm milk before you turn in?”
“Sure. And help yourself to another piece of pie.”
When Emily returned to the living room, an empty dish with only a few crumbs sat on the coffee table beside a mug of coffee. Her warm milk was just a few inches away from it. But Slade was standing at the window again, looking out, totally engrossed as if he saw more than the dark landscape. Only one dim light glowed near the stairs, but Slade’s profile was distinct in the shadows, and she couldn’t even guess at what he was thinking. He didn’t move a muscle as she came toward him and she wondered if he’d heard her.
But then he said, “Today was special to me, Emily. More than you could ever know.”
“It was special for us, too,” she admitted, realizing it was so.
He faced her then with an intense look that should have scared her, but it didn’t. It filled her with excitement instead.
“Am I still a stranger to you?” he asked. “Do you want me to keep my distance?”
She knew keeping her distance was safer. She knew labeling Slade a stranger was less complicated. But she couldn’t lie to herself or to him. “You’re not a stranger anymore. But I’m not sure what I want. My life’s changed so in the past year.”
“I think you do know what you want. At least for right now. And right now is all we ever have, Emily.”
She’d lived day-to-day with Pete because she couldn’t expect more. “Don’t you have dreams?” she asked.
Without hesitating, Slade shook his head. “What’s the point of thinking about something that might never be? I’d rather take what I have in hand and enjoy it as much as I can.”
They were standing so close, surrounded by a night intimacy that reached from the dark sky into where they stood. The silence was almost loud, broken only by a creak of the house as cold wrapped around it.
“What do you want, Emily?” Slade prodded.
His male essence called to her and she knew exactly what she wanted at this moment, but she didn’t know if she dared have it. She didn’t know if she had the courage to ask for it, because that’s what Slade expected her to do. That’s what he’d told her she must do if she wanted to feel his lips again.
“I…” She stopped.
“What?” he asked again in a deep husky murmur that she guessed was supposed to be reassuring.
“Will you…” Her voice caught.
<
br /> “Will I what?” he urged.
“Will you…kiss me?” The last two words came out in an embarrassed rush but that apparently didn’t matter to Slade. His arms enfolded her and as he pressed her against him, he looked down at her, searching her face.
“What’s wrong?” she whispered, thinking hell certainly must have frozen over because she’d never done anything so bold in her entire life.
“I never thought you’d ask.”
Then with a slow bend of his head, his hot, firm lips touched hers. His tongue traced her upper lip, and she felt her legs go weak. He was holding her, but she wrapped her arms around his neck to make sure she didn’t fall. Yet when she felt the hair at his nape, breathed in his scent, and gave herself up to the sheer pleasure, she felt as if she was falling into a deep whirlpool and would never come out again. His tongue was sensually wet, sensually rough, and so teasing. He left no surface of her lips untouched, untasted, uncoaxed. And when he slipped it between her lips, she thought she’d die from the sheer longing of wanting him there.
She didn’t know herself as she hung on and expectantly waited for whatever he did next. Slade’s expertise was obvious as he touched the tip of her tongue with his, teased her a little, then stroked her. She couldn’t feel the floor under her feet and she realized he’d lifted her to his level so he could angle his mouth and kiss deeper. Everything swirled away except for the moment and Slade and the way he was making her feel. It wasn’t only the pleasure… During her marriage, she’d lost the deep yearning for mating. Now she felt it with Slade. He made her feel beautiful, womanly, desired. Yet they couldn’t do anything else for weeks and—
Anything else? What was she thinking of? She had to set an example for her children. She had to stick to the values she’d always believed in. Besides, in a few weeks, Slade could be gone. He’d as much as said he didn’t believe in dreams or the future.
With that thought pounding in her head, her hand slipped to his shoulders and she pushed away. He was still holding her up, gazing at her, the silver desire in his eyes, almost as seductive as his kiss. But she couldn’t be seduced. She couldn’t forget for a minute that he wasn’t a man who stayed in one place.
Just the Man She Needed Page 7