CAROLINE AND THE RAIDER

by Linda Lael Miller

  Guthrie left Caroline’s side only to keep the fire crackling on the bedroom hearth. The rest of the time, he gave her his hands to grip and whispered words of encouragement. Between contractions, when she lay panting for breath, he deliberately made her laugh. When she arched her back and screamed, he cradled her head against his chest and rubbed her rock hard belly with a gentle hand.

  It was dark outside when the doctor arrived, but Caroline could still see the snowflakes, fat and white, through the bay window across the room from the bed. Beyond were the lights of the town, twinkling like stars fallen from the sky.

  The doctor was elderly, his manner reassuringly calm. He rounded the four-poster bed to stand opposite Guthrie and addressed him quietly. “I wonder if I could prevail upon you to boil some water for us, Mr. Hayes. We’ll need it in the next little while.”

  Guthrie, anxious to be of help, nodded, kissed Caroline on the forehead, and left the room.

  Between pains, her body drenched with perspiration, Caroline gave the doctor a faltering smile. “You just wanted to get rid of him,” she accused good-naturedly.

  Dr. Alien chuckled and shrugged out of his jacket. After laying it aside, he undid his cufflinks and rolled up his sleeves. “Husbands aren’t usually much help during examinations,” he conceded. “Besides, the poor fellow looked like he was about to pass out.” Once he’d scrubbed his hands and forearms at the washstand, he came back to the bed and turned back the covers.

  Caroline was caught in the jaws of a fresh pain when he began examining her, and when the spasm subsided, the doctor was smiling. “It won’t be long now, Caroline,” he said. “This little one is in a hurry to be born.”

  Mary came quietly in and emptied the basin, then poured fresh water from the matching pitcher. Dr. Alien washed his hands again, but he didn’t roll down his sleeves.

  Yet another contraction lifted Caroline’s hips off the bed and wrung an animal cry from her, and Guthrie burst in, carrying a bucketful of steaming water.

  “Can’t you do something about the pain?” he demanded impatiently, as though Caroline’s situation were somehow the doctor’s fault.

  Patiently, the physician shook his head. “Nothing to do now but wait,” he said, “though it might be good if Caroline walked around a bit.”

  Before Caroline could protest that she wasn’t going anywhere, Guthrie had her on her feet. He took her out into the hallway, where they paced, together, up and down, up and down. An hour passed, and then Caroline’s agony was so great that she sobbed and said she couldn’t go another step. Guthrie carried her back to the bed, which Mary had stripped of its fancy silk sheets and lacy coverlet and spread with freshly laundered, but old, blankets and flannel sheets.

  The bedding was soft and worn, a comfort to Caroline, like a nest.

  “I think we’re in business,” Dr. Alien mused, after giving Caroline another quick examination. And then he suggested that Guthrie leave the room.

  Mr. Hayes refused in colorful terms and sat sideways on the bed, supporting Caroline’s back as she raised her knees and pushed to deliver their child.

  The process was long and it was arduous, and just when Caroline thought she’d die of the pain and the effort, she felt the child leave her body.

  Laughing with delight, as pleased as if the experience were entirely new to him, Dr. Alien received the child into his hands and deftly cleared its mouth.

  “Mr. and Mrs. Hayes,” he said jovially, placing the squalling infant in the crook of Caroline’s arm, “may I present your son.”

  Dazed, Caroline stared at the baby boy, then at her still-burgeoning belly.

  “It appears that the young man didn’t arrive alone,” the doctor explained, as he cut the cord between Caroline and the first child.

  Mary took the baby from Caroline’s arms to bathe him and bundle him up, and Caroline was caught up in the rigors of bearing yet another little Hayes. Again the violent spasms tore at her body, again she screamed, again she presented her husband with a son. She looked back at Guthrie as the cord was being cut and the first baby was being returned to her arms, and there were tears glistening in his eyes.

  “I love you,” she said.

  He moved to kneel beside the bed and kissed her soundly. “And I love you,” he answered hoarsely. He touched his firstborn son’s fragile little head in a motion of gentleness and wonder.

  Caroline was exhausted and, though the pain echoed in her body, she felt transported. Emotionally, her state was much the same as it was when Guthrie was making love to her and the pleasure became almost too keen to bear.

  Mary laid the other bundle beside Caroline, then she and the doctor went out, leaving the Hayes family alone.

  Reverently, Guthrie picked up a tiny hand and kissed it, his eyes still shimmering with emotion. “How can I thank you for a gift like this?” he whispered, gazing into Caroline’s face as if he’d never seen anything more beautiful.

  “You can give me a dozen more,” Caroline replied, and now her own eyes overflowed. “Oh, Guthrie, I’ve never felt so close to you. It’s as though our spirits have mated, just as our bodies have.”

  “I felt it, too,” he whispered. And then he took the babies, one by one, and carefully placed them in the beautiful wooden cradle he’d built and carved himself. That done, he came to the bed and stretched out on top of Caroline’s covers, taking her gently into his arms, his hand lightly fondling one of her breasts and making the obedient nipple bud against his fingers.

  Caroline trembled and then sighed as her very soul seemed to join with Guthrie’s, producing a release far more poignant than anything she’d ever felt physically.

  Late the next day, Caroline’s milk came in, and Guthrie watched, rapt, as she fed one son and then the other.

  “What are we going to name them?” he asked.

  Caroline smiled, stroking her second-horn’s head. He suckled as greedily as his father did, but her eyes were on the other baby, lying sated in the cradle. “That’s Guthrie Hayes II,” she announced. “And this,” she paused to kiss the tiny downy head, “this is Robert—Robert Edward Lee, for the general his daddy served so bravely.”

  Once again, there were tears in Guthrie’s eyes, and he went to stoke the fire until he’d recovered himself.

  February was snowy and cold, but the babies thrived, and when March came, Caroline left them with Mary, bundled up in her warmest cloak, and drove to the mine. Finding Guthrie in the small frame office building, alone, she went to him and took his hand.

  She placed her lips close to his ear and spoke softly. “I have need of my husband.” Then, hardly giving him time to respond, she led him to the door and handed him his coat and hat.

  He looked as nervous as a boy, but he was eager, too. After all, long weeks had passed since he and Caroline had lain together, and his body was surely as hungry as her own.

  Reaching their house, they went up the stairs together, ignoring Mary, who called out cheerfully that there’d been a letter for Mrs. Hayes.

  Behind the closed door of their room, Caroline stripped away Guthrie’s coat and hat, tossing them aside, then pushed down his suspenders and pulled his shirt out of his trousers. When she opened the shirt and spread her fingers over his chest, she felt his nipples grow hard against her palms and reveled in his groan of need.

  Some new bond had formed between them with the birth of their children, and Caroline felt a sweet agony of joy as she knelt before her husband in front of the fire and slowly undid his belt buckle, then the buttons of his trousers.

  His manhood jutted out, proud and ready, and he moaned as Caroline eased his pants down around his thighs and took him boldly into her mouth. His fingers delved into her hair, and gruff incoherencies tumbled from his lips as she pleasured him.

  “Let me take you,” he pleaded raggedly, when she knew he would not be able to withstand the attentions of her lips and tongue much longer.

  But Caroline’s love for Guthrie had reached a new dimension
, and she could not let him go. She squeezed his taut buttocks in her hands and held him captive until he’d given everything.

  He dropped to the hearth rug, bringing Caroline with him, and she knew his vengeance would be protracted because she had appeased him so well. Their clothes seemed to fade away, and then Guthrie was caressing the full breasts that fed his babies.

  “So beautiful,” he rasped, but Caroline felt embarrassed because a droplet of milk came from her nipple.

  Guthrie touched his tongue to her, teasing her with it, then taking suckle when the nipple grew rosy and hard. With his hand, he found Caroline’s secret garden and invaded it, claiming the quivering treasure hidden there for his own.

  She whimpered as he rolled her between his fingers, all the while alternately kissing her nipple, licking it, and scraping it with his teeth.

  “Guthrie,” she pleaded, as her bottom rose off the rug, seeking closer contact with his hand, “I need you so much—I can’t bear it—”

  He moved downward, kissing her belly as he went, and then placed himself between her legs. Draping her knees over his sturdy shoulders, he looked down the slope of her silky white body and smiled a cocky smile. “You’re about to start needing me a whole lot more,” he warned huskily. And then he burrowed through and took her brazenly into his mouth.

  Caroline gave a low cry and flung her arms back over her head, and Guthrie’s hands came smoothly over her hips and her rib cage to lock possessively on her breasts. She dug her heels into his back and arched as he gave her a merciless teasing with his tongue.

  Her head moved from side to side on the rug and her flesh shimmered in the firelight as the pleasure heightened to savage proportions. “The whole town—will hear—” Caroline gasped out, as her body surged to meet the tender ecstasy Guthrie was bringing her to. Her legs locked behind him as the first spasm loomed over her like an emotional tidal wave. “I’m going to—oh, God, Guthrie—I’m coming …”

  He was relentless, making her give up the last quivering response, the last sweet sigh, the last husky groan, before lowering her to the rug. She had hoped to rest, but Guthrie was intent on arousing her again, and he was damnably skillful at it.

  Lifting one of her legs from his shoulder, he kissed the tender skin behind her knee, then her calf, then her ankle and her instep. He repeated the whole process with her other leg, then lay beside her and idly toyed with a nipple while tasting her earlobe.

  “It’s going to be very good to be back inside your body, Mrs. Hayes,” he told her, in a raspy whisper, and a shiver of joyful anticipation went through Caroline.

  “It’s going to be very good to have you there, Mr. Hayes,” she responded, running her hand down his belly until she found his shaft. He was already hard as a tamarack log, and Caroline loved the feel of him flexing between her palm and curved fingers.

  Presently, he moved over her, resting his weight on his elbows and forearms, and lowered his mouth to hers.

  His kiss was in itself a possession so bittersweet, so powerful, that Caroline felt swept up in its force, like a leaf tossing on a swollen river. When Guthrie glided into her in a powerful thrust, she lifted her hips in welcome.

  He broke the kiss with a gasp and, raising himself up on his palms, eased out of her, and then in again. His hooded green eyes cast a spell even as they held Caroline’s brown ones captive. With excruciating slowness, he claimed her again.

  His very control was Caroline’s undoing. Her body leaped toward him, seemed to explode around him, and Caroline was dazed by the flash. She locked her legs around him and cried out, long and low, aware only of him and his complete and utter dominion.

  When she lay still at last, weeping because it seemed her very soul had been taken out of her and then put back in again, she had the joy of watching him mount the pinnacle.

  A ragged, soblike sound came from his chest as he delved into her, and Caroline gripped his buttocks and squeezed, as if to force him to give the last drop of his essence. His eyes glazed over and he panted for breath and still his body buckled against hers, giving and giving.

  “Caroline,” he pleaded. “Oh, God, Caroline …”

  Finally, his powerful frame went still, and he collapsed beside her, his head on her breast. She stroked his back and his hair until he’d caught his breath, and as soon as he had, he claimed a nipple and the whole fiery rite began all over again.

  The letter was resting on Caroline’s plate when she came down to dinner two hours later, cheeks flushed, eyes bright, hair a scented ebony cloud around her face.

  She frowned when she saw the postmark, seeing that the message had been written very recently. Although the handwriting was unfamiliar, the return address wasn’t: The stiff white envelope had been mailed from Fox Chapel, Pennsylvania.

  Caroline’s smile faded as she awkwardly ripped open the envelope. Had something happened to Lily? Had she at last gotten a clue to her sister’s whereabouts only to lose her again?

  “She’s gone to Chicago!” Caroline cried, when she’d read the entire letter. She waved it at Guthrie. “This is from a Mrs. Joss Halliday, and she says Lily’s gone to Chicago to search for us—Emma and me!”

  Guthrie grinned and reached for the biscuit platter. “Then I guess we’d better head east, Mrs. Hayes. It seems to me that if you got a letter and a bank draft from your mother, your sisters probably did, too. We’ll start by paying a call on the mysterious Kathleen.”

  “I don’t know where she lives!” Caroline wailed. “I threw away her letter—”

  “And I went back to get it after you were through having my sons. It’s in the top right-hand drawer of my desk.”

  Her supper forgotten, Caroline jumped out of her chair and bent to kiss the top of her husband’s head. “You’re an angel, Guthrie Hayes!” she cried.

  He chuckled. “That isn’t what you were saying an hour ago, when I arranged you on the side of the bed and—”

  “Guthrie!” Caroline interrupted, her cheeks flaming. But already she was hoping he’d put her through her paces again, once the evening was over and they’d retired to their room. She pretended indignation when he swatted her bottom just before she walked away.

  She found the letter where he said it would be and read it until she could have recited every word, from the date to the closing sentiments.

  The next morning, Guthrie put his foreman in charge of the mining operation and the Hayes family boarded an eastbound train, bringing Mary along to help tend the babies. Caroline’s hopes were high, and even though she tried to bridle them, in an effort to avoid disappointment, they kept flying away from her.

  For five days they traveled, spending their nights in cubicles hardly bigger than a closet. Caroline could barely stand the suspense and the enforced containment of her energies.

  When they reached Chicago, she would not even wait until they’d booked a hotel room. She insisted on summoning a carriage, and Guthrie watched her with a smile in his eyes as she fed their sons, first one and then the other, while the coach rattled toward the address Kathleen had given in her letter. Mary kept her face discreetly averted, and it was no secret that she didn’t entirely approve of Mr. and Mrs. Hayes and the frank way they dealt with such matters.

  Caroline was leaning halfway out the window when they arrived at their destination, and she saw another carriage waiting in front. Her own had barely stopped before she was out the door and hurrying along the sidewalk toward the gate.

  Guthrie didn’t follow, though Caroline knew he would be there to lend strength and support, whatever happened.

  She was in the middle of the walk when she heard the piano and the two voices inside the house, blending in perfect harmony. Tears filled her eyes and a sob surged into her throat as she made out the dear, familiar words …

  Three flowers bloomed in the meadow,

  Heads bent in sweet repose,

  The daisy, the lily, and the rose …

  Dashing away her tears with the back of one gloved ha
nd, Caroline wrenched open the front door without bothering to knock and followed the continuing notes of the song through an arched doorway.

  There she found Lily, lithe and blond and unbearably beautiful, her face wet. And at the piano sat Emma, with her glorious copper-penny hair and her wonderful dark blue eyes.

  Just as the chorus started, Caroline added her voice to the song, and both Lily and Emma turned to stare, their faces alight with amazement and wonder.

  “Caroline!” the two younger sisters chorused, looking at her as if they couldn’t quite believe she was there. And then, for the first time in fourteen years, Lily and Caroline and Emma embraced, all of them sobbing for joy.

  “Where have you been?” Lily demanded, when they’d all calmed down a little, looking from Emma to Caroline.

  “Oh, it’s a very long story,” Caroline sniffled, beaming, kissing Emma’s cheek and then Lily’s, wondering how it was possible to contain the happiness she felt, the completion. Arms around her sisters’ trim waists, she guided them to a long sofa nearby, where they all sat, oblivious of the rest of the world.

  “I was told you’d been kidnapped by an awful man with a drunken dog!” Lily cried, brown eyes wide.

  Caroline laughed. “I’ve married the man and reformed the dog,” she said, and then she gave a brief version of what had happened to her in the years since they’d been parted. She finished by announcing the recent birth of her twins.

  Lily sat between Emma and Caroline, holding one of their hands in each of her own. “And you, Emma? Where have you been all these years?”

  Emma smiled and delicately dried her eyes with a lace-trimmed handkerchief. “I fell in love with an outlaw,” she said. “We have a lovely home in New Orleans now, and a brand new baby girl, named for the two of you.”

  Lily gave a cry of delight; Caroline recalled that simple things had always pleased her youngest sister. She brought a locket from beneath her bodice and showed a small likeness of her infant sons.