But Eleanor was every bit as eager as he was. In the most intimate parts of her body, hundreds of soft, sweet explosions were happening, like bubbles rising from a freshly poured glass of fine wine. She only hoped the taste wouldn’t prove as disappointing as her first and only taste of champagne.
She was no stranger to passion. She’d been married for nearly two years to a healthy young man who had insisted on performing the marriage act once a week after his bath.
But never, not even in those early days, had she felt anything like the urgent demands that had driven her to shamelessly beg a man to make love to her. She didn’t even know why. It weren’t as if she’d ever found any real pleasure in the act, yet she couldn’t deny this mindless, throbbing ache that seemed to encompass her entire body.
She felt her breasts swelling against the palms of his hands as he caressed her there. “Open for me, love,” she heard him whisper, and she opened. Her eyes, her mouth and her thighs, anticipating what was to follow. Hungry for the taste of him, for the devouring kisses she would never have known existed had not this man staggered up her hill, more dead than alive. And far more…
Her limbs moved restlessly. She wanted him there—wanted him where she ached the most. I never knew, she thought wildly, never dreamed it could be this way.
He tugged her arms from her camisole and tossed it aside. When he eased her damp bloomers down around her knees, his hand brushed her bottom and he whispered, “Does it still hurt?”
“Does what still hurt?” The only thing that hurt was this vast emptiness inside her that desperately needed to be filled.
“Bee sting,” he said, amusement leavening the tension in his voice.
“Oh, that old thing.” She kicked her bloomers free of her ankles and twisted until she was facing him, his—his part moving against her belly. She wanted it inside her where the throbbing was almost painful, but didn’t know of a polite way to tell him so.
“Does your place hurt?” Maybe one day she could get up nerve enough to ask how he came by such a strange scar in such a private place.
“Oh, yeah,” he said on a sigh. “But I know a remedy.” Moving between her thighs, he lowered himself carefully, using one hand to guide himself to her opening.
Hurry, hurry, hurry—oh, yes, yes, yesss! Right…there!
But he didn’t move. Didn’t he know what came next? Was he waiting for her to do something? Waiting to see if it fit?
It fit. He slid into her slowly, stretching her like a newly dried glove. My mercy, it fit wonderfully, filling places in her that had never been filled before—places she’d never dreamed existed.
She began to twitch, restless to relieve the ravening hunger.
“Am I hurting you?” he asked.
“No! Yes—just do something!” she all but shrieked.
He did something. He touched her in a place no man, not even Devin, had ever deliberately touched her before. Stroked her there.
She couldn’t breathe. Something was happening to her. Moving slowly, he started to withdraw from her body, and she grabbed him and pulled him back, but the moment she moved her hand from his backside, he withdrew again, hovered, and then thrust into her once more. Withdrew, hovered and thrust again and again, faster and faster. Her fingers bit into his shoulders, then moved over his sleek back to dig into his buttocks.
“Oh, my, oh, my—faster,” she urged, angling her hips so that she could press against him.
It was like riding that damned horse of his, their gaits were so wildly mismatched. Yet the result of this particular ride was so blazingly, gloriously splendid that she could only shout out her release as pleasure swept over her like a tidal wave.
Jed groaned, and then he collapsed. Still joined, he rolled to one side, carrying her with him. His eyes were closed, his face almost the face of a stranger, she thought, staring at him in wonder. All but his tender, sensitive, beautiful mouth.
It took forever for her to recover enough to breathe, much less to speak. Eventually, she was able to blurt out the first words that came to mind. “What happened?”
“What happened?” Jed opened one eye. “I’m surprised you have to ask. Mountains moved, that’s all. The seas parted and we walked through together…that’s all.”
She shook her head. “But what did you do to me? I didn’t notice anything—different. I mean…”
The sound of her voice, softened by a woman’s passion, yet touched by a child’s innocence, was enough to start him to hardening again. Carefully, he eased himself from her body and rolled onto his back to stare up at the darkening sky.
“Was that husband of yours a eunuch?”
“Devin? Of course not, but…” She toyed idly with one of the dark curls surrounding his flat brown nipples.
“But you’ve never felt, uh—that way before?”
Refusing to meet his eyes, she shook her head.
“Then he was a selfish fool. Eleanor, what just happened was only what’s supposed to happen.” But had never happened to him before, never to that degree. “Release comes easy for a man, but with a woman…”
With a woman…what? Women were as different as clouds in the sky. As pebbles in a creek. Sure, there were basic similarities, but no two women were alike, even among the professional ladies who were the only kind he’d known well enough to compare.
Except for Vera, but that had been different. They’d both been inexperienced. Come to think of it, she’d been the one to take the initiative. She’d showed him things—taught him things she claimed she’d read about in a book. He’d never even wondered where she’d found such a book.
“Sweetheart, women are as entitled as men are to their pleasure, didn’t he tell you that? Didn’t he show you?”
“Devin didn’t talk much, not once we were married.”
Didn’t talk much? Married to this precious woman, he hadn’t even bothered to talk to her, much less to give her her pleasure? God, the man deserved to be flayed alive, if he hadn’t already blown himself up.
Her hand moved tentatively down his middle, following the trail of dark hair. If she followed it to its source, he wouldn’t count on their getting any sleep tonight.
“Yes, but how does it work? I mean, I’ve studied the physical sciences, but nothing was ever mentioned about…well, about you know what.”
“Can’t say much for that school of yours.” Amused, he placed a hand over her breast, feeling the nipple swell and harden to nestle against his palm. “You mean this?”
She caught her breath. “Something like that,” she gasped.
He sat up and propped himself on one elbow, leaning over to move his hand down to her mound. “Or this?” he said, and touched her in a way that brought a moan to her lips.
And then he knelt over her, his beard brushing her inner thighs. “Or this?” he whispered just before his mouth covered her woman’s place.
She bucked like a wild thing. With one arm over her thighs, he held her still. Bringing her to pleasure was almost enough to drive him over the edge, but this time was for her. He had little enough to offer her, but this he could do.
“Jed, you’ve got to—ah…to stop! I can’t stand it!” Her voice was as thin as if it had been strained through three layers of silk.
She shuddered and cried out, her voice cascading over him like music, like motes of sunlight filtering through the darkest forest. And then she fell apart in his arms.
Not until she lay boneless and panting did it occur to him that the act had pleasured him as much as it had her, if in a different way. He felt hope simmering inside him like a bubbling spring.
Waiting for her to speak, he marveled at what he’d discovered, both in himself and in her. For a widow, his sweet Eleanor was as innocent as a day-old chick. She might be an educated lady from the big city, but there were some things worth knowing that even an uneducated bastard with a brand on his ass could teach her.
Some things this bastard would delight in teaching her, but first he had t
o convince her to throw in her lot with his, for better or worse, and pray that the worst didn’t happen.
Starting over, he mused…was it possible?
“We’ll have to get an early start tomorrow,” he said guiltily, knowing that George was waiting for him no more than a hard day’s ride away. Alone, he’d have been there by now, gone on to Asheville, reclaimed his money from the bank and shoved it in Stanfield’s ugly face.
In the presence of witnesses, in case the sunovabitch tried to deny it.
“Then we’d better get some sleep,” she said, staring at his erection.
He should have been embarrassed. Or proud. Hell, he didn’t know how he ought to feel with a woman like Eleanor, he only knew he wanted to go on feeling it, whatever it was, for the rest of his life.
Only he couldn’t afford to think about that now.
“With that bee sting on your behind,” he said the next morning, “you might be uncomfortable riding.”
“It’s your turn to ride. I rode yesterday.”
Yesterday the trail had been relatively easy. “Tell you what, why don’t you start out and see how it goes? I can make it easier for you if you don’t mind using your clothes for a saddle.”
He ended up padding one of the pillow slips with flat folded clothing and tying it on with the last of the clothesline. McGee tried to take a chunk out of his rear end while he was tightening the rope cinch, but other than that, the horse had been on his best behavior. Probably knew that the sooner they got to the end of the trail, the sooner he’d find himself knee-deep in pasture grass with his muzzle buried in a bucketful of oats. McGee wasn’t dumb, he was just ornery.
“Up you go,” he said, hoisting Eleanor onto the makeshift saddle. “Sorry, no stirrups.” He’d made loops but they hung too low to do any good and he wasn’t about to redo the entire mess. McGee’s patience extended only so far. As did his own.
The first several miles were easy enough. Carrying the other sack—the lumpy one filled with the ruined dictionary, her shoes, the boiler and cups, the fish trap and enough kindling to get a fire started in case it rained again, he led the horse along a fairly well-traveled track that wound its way up and over Dark Ridge, the last ridge before they reached Stanfield country.
According to George’s last message, Stanfield now owned everything in the valley except for the Dulah farm. As the only man in the area with money to spare in these lean times, the old pirate offered loans to anyone in need, demanding an exorbitant amount of interest. When they couldn’t pay up, he took over their property.
Just thinking about the decent families that had been ruined by Stanfield’s cutthroat tactics over the years was enough to make his blood boil. So he concentrated on paying off George’s debt, instead. Not until that was done could he afford to think about his own needs.
They had been traveling less than five hours since they’d set out. It felt more like five days. The sun was already settling behind the distant mountains. They hadn’t talked much, not even when they’d broken briefly so that she could stretch, drink from the creek and duck behind the bushes. Hanging on had taken most of her energy, as they’d traveled faster than usual. Eleanor had sensed a renewed urgency the closer they’d come to Jed’s valley. Instead of walking, he’d jogged along at a slow run, leading McGee, whose gait was indescribable. She made a silent vow that once this journey ended, if it ever did, she would nail her boots to the ground before she climbed up on top of another horse.
Somewhere over to the right lay Henderson. Jed had pointed it out, explaining that his valley lay approximately halfway between there and Asheville. Perhaps she could find work in either of those cities once she’d had time to rest up and get her clothes back in order. Jed might even visit her there after she got settled and he did whatever he had to do for his brother.
She was increasingly nervous about meeting his family. What on earth would they think of her, looking like a scarecrow, having spent several nights alone with a man not her husband. A man she had come to love with all her heart, who had never said a word to indicate that he loved her back.
There was nothing she could do to make him love her. As for the way she looked after days on the trail, she would try to think of herself as a pioneer woman and hope that once she explained, they would allow her to stay for a few days.
“I smell smoke,” she announced, lifting her face and sniffing.
“Farms on the other side of the ridge. Might be burning off some land.”
“Could we stop?”
“Depends,” he said without looking back.
“On what? Tell me they’re not like the Millers.”
“The ones I remember were decent folks, but they’re mostly gone now. Besides, things change.” Jed paused, scratched his jaw through the thick black beard and waited for her to come alongside. “Eleanor, I haven’t been back in these parts for eight years. I can’t swear to what we’re going to find once we get there, but I can pretty much guarantee it’ll be better than what you left behind. If it’s not…”
He left it hanging. If George had turned bitter like their father—if he’d filled up the house with young’uns so there wasn’t a corner to spare—if the woman he’d married, whom Jed hadn’t seen since they were all children, turned out to be hardhearted enough to judge by appearances, then he would take Eleanor with him to Asheville and settle her there, get his money from the bank, and once he finished his business with Stanfield he would join her there.
It would mean the rest of his plans would have to wait, but if he’d learned one thing over the past eight years it was patience.
Actually, he had learned a lot, but in the long run it was patience that had stood him in the best stead, whether it be gambling, dealing with wily businessmen who took him for a witless rube, or taking revenge.
The smell of smoke grew stronger as they neared the top of the Dark Ridge. Foggy Valley was bordered by Dark Ridge on the southeast side, Notch Ridge on the northwest. By the time they stopped for a break, Jed was seriously starting to worry. The Dulah land was mostly cleared now, nothing left to burn off. Nothing except the tool shed, the feed barn, the cattle barn and the house. Surely not even Stanfield would stoop to burning a man out, not when everyone would know who to blame.
But according to George, there was no one left to know now that the Scotts and the Gillikins had left, much less to cast blame. No one left but George and his family.
Don’t borrow trouble, Jed warned himself. Could be a brushfire anywhere between here and Tennessee. Wind could carry smoke hundreds of miles. Someone on the far side of Notch Ridge could be clearing new fields, not realizing what the location of the new rail line would mean.
On the other hand, it might be that George’s wife would welcome Eleanor with open arms. They would just have to wait and see. “How’d you like a nice fat trout for dinner?” he asked, warily eyeing the thickening sky. It was probably low-hanging clouds that was making the smoke look so thick, he told himself, trying to disregard the pungent smell of burning wood.
“There’s fish in the stream?” Leaning forward, Eleanor rubbed her bottom. Not a word of complaint had passed her lips, but the past few hours couldn’t have been easy on her, especially after this morning. They’d pushed hard all day. He’d been hoping to get home before dark.
“Used to be. I came this way with an old trapper once when I was just a kid. He took four nice ones and had ’em dressed in less time than it took me to get a fire going.”
She didn’t have to ask how he was going to catch fish without the proper equipment. He had showed her how his mother’s people wove traps they called weirs using only vines, staking them down and then driving the fish into the open end.
Instead, she slid off McGee and led him to a place in reach of both grass and water, and tied him off, warning him what would happen if he tried to kick or bite her. “See how he minds me?” she said, rubbing the circulation back into her sore nether regions.
“Likes the sound of
your voice. I don’t know if you know it, but he’s been on his best behavior ever since we left, afraid if he acts up we’ll send him back to that nest of vipers.” Grinning, Jed set the weir aside and hunted for a switch to use to swarp the fish into his trap while Eleanor found a good place and arranged the kindling in a pyramid over a handful of dry grass.
They shared three small trout and settled for cold water to drink. Seated on the ground, they spoke little, content to fill the emptiness brought on by lean rations and physical exertion. Bread would have helped. Fish slipped down too easy.
Neither of them referred to what had happened the night before. Jed knew that sooner or later they would have to talk about it. He had a case to make that wasn’t going to be easy, him being who he was and Eleanor being who she was.
Trouble was, that wasn’t all he had to do, and the closer he came to home, the more urgent the feeling that he needed to be there.
“Does your brother have any children? You never said.” Daintily, Eleanor spat a fish bone onto the ground. Even wearing dirty clothes and eating with her fingers, she had the air of a duchess.
“Three, last I heard, with another one on the way. I’ve been away a long time, though, and we haven’t exactly kept in close touch.”
“With your own brother? For shame.”
Keeping in touch was hard to do when one brother could barely read. When one of them stayed on the farm he’d inherited, working eighteen hours a day while the other one moved around, spending his nights gambling and his days in various libraries trying to make up for his educational inadequacies. Especially when the process was slowed by having to resort to the dictionary every few lines. He’d gotten better over the years, but it wasn’t enough. Not nearly enough. He had nearly wept when Eleanor had decided to leave all her books behind. Not that they could have carried them, but some day, some way, he would make it up to her, he vowed silently.
“Whenever I planned to be in a place for a while, I’d wire George and he’d write in care of general delivery.” He didn’t say whether or not he’d written back. Didn’t consider it necessary. The folks at the telegraph offices were good at wording messages and eventually, someone would ride over to the valley and deliver his replies.
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