by Maren Smith
* * * *
Breakfast the next morning passed in a blur. Her sisters argued as usual, but Constance wasn't paying attention. She wished she had a pillow. Unfortunately, with everybody there 66
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including Cullen the farm hand, the last thing she wanted to do, even for the sake of her comfort, was to reveal to all and sundry that she'd been spanked the night before. Girls weren't supposed to still be spanked once they'd grown into women. In particular, they weren't supposed to be spanked by their fiances, but Judd didn't seem to recognize that specific rite of passage.
Listening to her sisters' bickering with only half an ear, Constance lost herself in thoughts of the dance and what had happened on that road when she'd left it. Not just the spanking, but the feeling too of being held in his arms afterwards, cradled close to his heart, feeling the deep timbre of his voice all the way down to her soul when he'd whispered, "It's all right, Connie, my girl. It's all right." For the first time in all her life, hearing him say that, Constance had realized that maybe it really would be. Maybe he really did want her. After all, what man in his right mind would try so hard to convince her if he didn't, at least in some small part of him, mean a little of what he said? Her brows pinched together in thought, and she bowed her head almost to her chin.
"Constance!"
Constance jumped, her wide eyes flying up to meet Serenity's.
No longer seated at the table, her sister was standing before her chair, starting back at her with a sad kind of hopelessness in her dark eyes. "My God, are you even listening to me?"
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Constance felt her face flush hot as every eye at the table turned to look at her.
"Serenity, don't," Margo said softly, but her sister, looking close on to tears, paid the older woman no attention.
"You can't wait, can you?" she asked shrilly, incredulously. Not at all sure of the conversation, Constance offered a hesitant, "I'm sorry? What did you say?" Serenity shook her head. "You can't wait to become that man's piece of property! To settle down on his stinking farm like ... like some big, fat cow!"
Buster hit the table with his open hand. "You got no call to go talkin' to her like that!"
But Serenity was beyond listening and Constance sat in wounded silence as the most hateful words spilled out of her sibling's mouth.
"Don't think we haven't seen you looking at that man with those big bovine eyes of yours!" Serenity cried. "I can practically see you chewing your cud with complacency and letting him do with you as he wishes! How can you want that?
How can you stand to grow old in this place? Aren't you bored out of your mind?"
"That's enough!" Cullen snapped at her. He looked from Constance back to Serenity, and his face turned dark with anger.
"You know your future, don't you? Birthing out baby after baby until you're dead!" Serenity sobbed, her shoulders beginning to shake. "Or until you rot, like corn abandoned in the field!"
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"Enough!" both Buster and Cullen roared at once, and Margo quickly covered Constance's hand with her own.
"You don't mean that," she told Serenity, and just as quickly said to Constance, "She doesn't mean it."
"Don't tell me what I mean!" Serenity cried, big fat tears streaking down her face. She and Constance stared at one another, both with wounded eyes. Then, whirling from the table, Serenity ran from the house, slamming the front door. But while her older sister threw herself into the front porch chair, crying loudly, Constance managed to blink back her own tears. Her chest heaved and there was a brittle tightness inside her chest.
"I'm sorry," Cullen said, but Constance couldn't think for what.
"You didn't do anything wrong," she told him, cracking a small and fragile smile. Taking her napkin from her lap, she dropped it on the table next to her half-eaten plate. "I'm, uh
... I'm going to get a start on that laundry in the washhouse."
"Constance," Margo called after her, but Constance pushed the chair back and got up from the table.
The fight was to get out of the room before her tears started to fall, but when she turned for the door, she ran straight into her father's open arms. Buster caught her in a bear hug; tight, unwaveringly strong, paternally reassuring.
"Just because she said it," he growled into her ear, "that don't make it true."
It didn't make it wrong, either, but Constance kept that opinion to herself. She waited until Buster slowly released her from his hug, and then did her best to smile up at him. 69
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"I'm all right," she said. "I'm just going to get a jump on all that laundry."
It was hard to stop her mouth from trembling, and her father's knowing eyes never missed a thing. But this time, Buster only nodded. He only patted her cheek, his hard and weathered hand uncustomarily gentle as he indulged in that paternal caress, and then he let her go.
Constance left the house, half running as she passed her sister without a sideways look. Not that Serenity noticed; she was still crying too hard. As for herself, covering her mouth with her hand, Constance made it halfway across the yard before the first of her ragged sobs began to choke their way out of her chest.
* * * *
A very nice widow lady in town sold Judd every last flower from her garden so he would have something to give to his lady love when he went a-courtin'. It cost him ten dollars that he could ill-afford, but as a result, when he drove his wagon out to the Henry's farm, the back was positively overflowing with roses, irises, all shapes of blossoms in every color of the rainbow. Given his way, he'd shower her with the baby-soft, sweet smelling petals, weave them into her hair, and from the rest make a bouquet so big it would overflow her diningroom table.
Unfortunately, all of his grand plans for loverly maritalminded courtship were suddenly forgotten the instant he drove his wagon around the last corner in the road, bringing the Henry household into view. He caught his first sight of 70
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Constance, sitting on an old tree stump chopping-block, a basket of wet laundry on the ground in front of her feet, with more of the same spread out on clotheslines that shielded her from the house. While white sheets and under petticoats waved in the gentle breeze around her, Constance buried her face in her apron and her drooped shoulders spasmed in a telltale way.
She was crying.
Judd drove the horses towards her, pulling to a stop in front of the clotheslines and jumped down out of the wagon. Ducking wet laundry, his brow beetling in concern, he dropped to one knee before her and took her hands in his.
"What's happened? Constance, what's wrong?"
"Nothing." Constance ducked her head, trying to block his view of her face with her hands. And failing that, when he gently forced down her hands and cupped her chin to bring her gaze to his, she turned her face away. She sniffed and gasped, trying to pull herself together. "I'm all right. I just ... I need a minute ... please ... by myself."
"If it's enough to make you cry, sweetheart, then it's not
'nothing'." He caressed the tears from her face. "Come on, honey, talk to me."
Constance shook her head, but he won't let her turn away from him. "No, really." She sniffled and scrubbed at her eyes with the backs of both hands. "It's just that ... it's just me being too sensitive. That's all."
"About what?"
"About something Serenity said." Constance's eyes darkened. "But really," she sniffled, wiping her eyes with the 71
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hem of her apron one last time. "I know she didn't mean them. She's just not very happy right now, and she took her frustrations out on me."
"Because you are happy?" Judd asked, fishing
for a smile as he ducked down to keep a hold on her suddenly shy gaze.
"Because thoughts of me are causing that happiness?" Her cheeks turned a bright pink and she lost some of her sadness to a smile. "Maybe," she hedged, casting him a sidelong look. Almost grudgingly, she held up her fingers a scant inch apart and softly admitted, "Maybe just a little bit." Judd let out a whoop and picked Constance up, off the stump and off the ground, loving the way she grabbed onto his shoulders, her eyes wide with shock and even a smidgen of pleasure, as he whirled her around in a tight circle. He didn't set her down, but sat on the stump, holding her in his lap instead. "Sweet heart, you make me happy, too. In fact, if you'd only say you'll marry me, you'd make me the happiest man in the whole blamed territory!"
But Constance missed her cue. She was too busy wincing to say much of anything at all. The instant he dropped her down on his lap, she tried to shift to lessen the pressure on her tender bottom. Darting one hand behind her, she made a face as she ruefully rubbed her backside through her skirt.
"Ouch! Oooh, that still hurts!" She peeled her eyes open long enough to give him a highly disgruntled frowned. "I don't know if I want to marry the sort of man who does this to me." He kissed her, ducking in so fast to steal a taste from her pouting lips that she didn't even have a chance to back away.
"Only a man who doesn't care about the woman he's fixin' to 72
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marry would let her get away with saying the things you were saying last night. I'm sorry it hurts, but it was what you were needing, and I wouldn't hold myself as even half a man if I didn't give you everything you needed. Even when they're unpleasant."
Constance blinked at him twice, reaching up slowly to touch her mouth. "Oh," was all she said, in a soft and distracted voice. Her gaze drifted down to his lips and he saw the tip of her little, pink tongue slipping out to moisten her own.
"You know," he smiled, his arms slipping around her to pull her that much closer. "I do believe I'm of a mind to kiss you again, my lovely Miss Constance Henry." She instantly dropped her hand to her lap, twisting her fingers in the folds of her apron and waiting as if with bated breath for him to make good on just such a promise. She even lifted her chin a little, her moistened lips parting in anticipation of it.
Chuckling, Judd cupped her face. His first kiss was Eskimo style, the soft and ever so gentle brush of his nose across the tip of her own. "Marry me," he murmured. Constance raised her mouth, enticing him for a kiss, but somehow Judd managed to resist, pulling away by the merest inch.
"Marry me," he said again. He brushed his lips across her cheek, kissing away the last salty drop of a lingering tear.
"Say it, Connie, my girl. Say you'll marry me." She made the softest sound way back in her throat, turning her head, stubbornly seeking his mouth. But if in 73
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nothing else, at least in stubbornness they were well matched. He evaded again.
"Say it," he insisted.
"Yes," Constance whispered, bringing her hands up to cup the back of his neck. The touch of her fingers in his hair was delightful, and the taste of her warm mouth as he let himself be 'captured' was heavensent. There was no finer feeling than that of Constance melting in his embrace. His whole body responded to it, drinking in her small whimpering cries like a man ravaged by thirst.
This was the wrong place for this, he knew, but his hand drifted down from her shoulder to cup her full breast anyway. He squeezed, molding it into his palm, for a moment both startled and ecstatic to discover she wasn't wearing a corset. God bless laundry day.
"You are so beautiful," he murmured against her mouth. The stiffened little bud of her nipple pressed into his palm as he gently squeezed again. "Beautiful and mine. All mine." To slip inside her shirt and feel her body, bare skin to skin, would have been so very, very easy, but again Judd pulled together the tattered shreds of his self restraint and stopped.
"You're mine," he said again. "And I'll have you soon enough. But not when your rifle-toting father and your two innocent sisters are less than a hundred yards away. The first time I make love to you, sweetheart, I want to make it last all night."
Constance shivered on his lap, sucking her bottom lip between her teeth and biting gently down as if to savor the touch of his kiss.
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Judd stroked her back, then patted her hip. "Finish your laundry. I've got flowers in the back of my wagon to give you, but I suppose I ought to say my hello's to your father before he comes out wondering why I'm not following proper courting procedures."
He kissed her on the tip of the nose, then patted her hip again and Constance stood up. He kept his hand against the small of her back until he was sure she had her balance back. He couldn't resist, though, giving her another quick peck on the cheek as he brushed back through the hanging laundry and headed for the house.
Halfway across the lawn, however, as his eyes settled on Serenity standing nose to nose with the Henry field hand on the front porch, his good mood faded beneath a rising tide of irritation and anger. His step quickened until by the time he neared the porch, he was all but marching. He was still a good ten feet away when they noticed his approach and stopped arguing long enough to face him. Serenity took one look at his face and backed up a step, folding her arms across her chest and looking guiltily away. At the last minute, as Judd set his foot on the bottommost step, Cullen put himself between them.
He held up one hand. "That's enough," he told Judd, his stance as protective as any Judd had ever seen.
"You're right," Judd replied. "That is enough. This is also the last—and I do mean the very last—time that you, Serenity, ever make my Connie girl cry." He held up a warning finger just as the front door opened and Buster and 75
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Margo spilled out onto the front porch. "Believe me, the very last time without consequences."
"It will be," Cullen told him soberly, words that sounded almost like a promise, and Serenity's head snapped around to glare at the back of Cullen's head, her eyes as stormy as the ocean seas.
"Mr. Faris," Margo said, with a small laugh meant to disarm the tense situation. "To what do we owe the pleasure?"
"Constance has just agreed to be my wife." While everyone's jaw dropped and Margo jumped up and down excitedly, clapping and squealing, he reached for his wallet and handed Buster twenty of his hard-earned dollars. "Take her to town. I want her wedding dress to be the finest in the history of this town. Spare no expense. If you need more money, just tell me. But when my wife looks back on her wedding day, I want her to know without a doubt that she was the most beautiful woman there."
Grinning, Margo clasped her hands beneath her chin. "She will be. Oh, I promise she will."
Judd gave Serenity one last warning look, intercepted by the protective Cullen, who remained between them. And then he turned and walked away from the house to spend the rest of the morning with the woman who'd just agreed to be his wife.
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CHAPTER FIVE
Buster lay on his side, cramped in his own bed. He couldn't move and he was too hot to sleep. Three little mini furnaces were curled up against him on all sides. Every time he tried to shift away, they gravitated back to him. And what was worse, they were floppers.
As if on cue, Serenity rolled over to face him. Her small arm draped limply across his neck, her grubby hand dangling not two inches from his nose and her bony little knee jabbing into his back. If she was trying to belatedly worm her way into his endearments, it was too late. He already knew her for the devil-child she was.
Now, the little blonde baby was another matter. She had curled into his chest, so close that he could feel the soft mov
ements of her lips as she sucked her thumb. No, he didn't mind her so much. At least she was quiet. Still, sandwiched between the three of them, it was a very long and exhausting night, and by the time the sun began to peak in through his bedroom window, Buster had made up his mind.
"I'm going to make them their own bed," he told Margo when she arrived to fix breakfast for the three girls. Margo gasped with pleasure. "Oh, that's a wonderful idea, Buster! I've seen the wonderful work you've done. You made this table, too, didn't you?"
Buster preened and his chest swelled with pride. He tried not to, but her praise made him blush. "I did." 77
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"This is beautiful." In the middle of setting the table, she paused to run her hands over the surface dark cherry wood.
"I'm sure anything you build for them will be lovely beyond words!"
After that kind of praise, that was a guarantee she could have taken to the bank. Buster filled his tin cup with coffee and promptly excused himself to the barn, where he went straight to work. By noon, when Margo brought him his lunch and a tall glass of lemonade, he had the wood cut to the right lengths, a general idea of what he wanted the bed to look like, and was just starting to carve out the first leg. She sat on a bale of straw while he ate, chatting non-stop about everything from the weather, to local gossip, to what the girls had been doing that morning. Buster sat on a bale next to her, simply chewing his food and watching her. She was absolutely beautiful. Her round face was all but glowing in the sunlight that filtered in through cracks in the wood slats of the barn. Dust specks danced in the air around her, particularly when she leaned backwards, laughing merrily as she recounted some mischief pulled by Serenity. He couldn't for the life of him say what that mischief was. In all honesty, he hadn't been listening. He was too caught up in admiring her to pay attention.
* * * *
"Oh look at this!" Margo held up a bolt of pristine white fabric, dotted with alternating yellow and blue blossoms of leafy stems of green. "The blue is the same color as your eyes, and the yellow matches your hair." 78