by Alta Hensley
This was everything she had ever wanted… deep down. But could she just marry him as if they didn't have the one major road block getting in the way?
"This isn't about April anymore," he said quietly, once again reading her mind.
"But it is. It will always be."
He shook his head. "No, Elodie. Not anymore. This is about you and me. This is about the life we both deserve to live. I loved your sister so much. You know I did. But that was a long time ago, and we can't keep letting that darkness in our past get in the way of what we have. And I believe we have something really good. Really special."
She nodded in agreement. "I agree. We do."
"Then marry me."
"What will people say?"
Clay ran his fingers through his hair, clearly becoming frustrated. "I don't care what people say. I only care what you say, and that you say yes."
"Can—can I have some time?" she asked, and it was the hardest thing she'd ever had to say. "I just want to recover some more, and see how we get on together when we're doing more than seeing each other occasionally. I just need some time… to think, to accept what could be."
Clay looked disappointed even though he was trying to hide it. "Sure you can. It's a big decision, I know. I don't want you to feel pressured."
Elodie nodded slowly in agreement. She reached for the ring to take it off and give it back to him, but he forestalled her, putting his hand over hers.
"No, you wear it. It looks beautiful on your hand." It made her hand seem that much smaller and more delicate from the sheer size of the rock. "Only give it back to me if your answer is no."
*****
Elodie recovered quickly, considering. She had no choice, really. Clay wouldn't have it any other way. He hovered over her for several weeks after she had gotten out of the hospital, until one day she asked, pointedly, as he tried to convince her to eat another helping of the wonderful dinner he had made, "Don't you have a large ranch to run?"
Clay had grinned. He'd been doing more of that lately, although she didn't know if he was generally feeling better about life, or if she was just around him more so she saw it more often than she had. "Don't you worry about my job, honey. I have a great team working for me. They have it under control." He frowned down at her. "Are you trying to get rid of me already?"
"Yes—if I keep hanging around you, I'm going to end up weighing more than an elephant."
He snorted. "Not likely. A stiff breeze would blow you over, casts and all."
"It would not," she answered indignantly. She could feel herself gaining weight as she lay there.
"Would too—stop arguing with me, or I'll take you over my knee right now."
Elodie gave him a hearty raspberry, secure in the knowledge that he wasn't about to spank her until she was healed.
"You're getting a mite big for your britches there, young lady." His threat gave her a tingle between her legs. She had grown to love the term 'young lady'. There was something so decadent about those two simple words.
"That's what I told you! I am getting too big for my britches! Stop trying to feed me like I was the Third Army, for crying out loud, or I won't fit into any of my clothes, not that you're letting me fit into them anyway..." she complained.
He was pretty much keeping her in bed as much as possible, and that meant she was in her pajamas all of the time. He had let her sit in the living room for a change of pace, but other than that, he didn't let her out of bed much at all.
She'd been graciously allowed into the living room because Joshua had dropped by. He had come by her apartment and found that it had been rented out, then had driven to the only other place he figured she'd end up, and the two men had stood around congratulating themselves on taking care of her, and looking self-satisfied in the extreme.
Elodie had wanted to smack the both of them, but she had refrained. At least she'd gotten Clay to let her decide whether or not she wanted pain pills, or she'd still be sleeping twenty hours a day. Elodie was very wary of the two of them being in the same room together, but apparently they had worked out some sort of uneasy truce, because they both behaved like gentlemen, and when Clay escorted Joshua to the door, she heard him say that he could come back any time he wanted to, and he actually managed to sound like he meant it.
But after a couple weeks of being forcibly bed bound, she put her foot down. Her casted foot, that was, on the carpet, gently, using the quad cane he'd gotten for her to help steady herself. Clay had taken her to the doctor just that morning, and the doctor himself had said that as long as she felt like it, she could—and should—get up and move around, that the concussion had resolved itself, and that once the casts were off, she'd be fine. Clay hovered around her as if she was going to fall at any moment, but she didn't. It felt wonderful to be up and about, although she did tire quickly, and didn't spend too much time up at first.
The restaurant where she'd worked hadn't been able to keep her job open, of course, so Elodie was unemployed and restless. Clay came home from work to find her staring at the television. The housework and cooking were done by women who came in and did exactly that for him. There was nothing for her to do, and he could see that she was going crazy from boredom.
*****
Noticing that Elodie was becoming a bit stir-crazy, he decided it was time to enact his next plan. So, one evening while she was watching a romance movie, he cleaned out one of the spare bedrooms and set up her easel and the meager painting supplies he had brought over from the apartment. The next day, he went out and bought about ten of everything he'd seen she had—different colors of paints, more blank canvases, brushes; everything he and the clerk at the crafts store could think of to outfit a studio for her at home.
The next Monday morning, he prodded her up when he awoke at six thirty, insisting she have breakfast with him before he had to leave and check on the livestock. Grumpily, and still very much asleep, she did, nearly falling face first into her oatmeal. But just before he should have been going to work, he instead helped her up the stairs to the last bedroom on the left—a corner room, with four big windows so she would have all the natural light she could stand.
Clay threw open the door as if he was showing her into a hotel suite or something. Elodie hobbled in and looked around, wide-eyed. "Clay! Oh my God, this is gorgeous! I can't believe it! A studio! Thank you!"
"You're welcome! I'm glad you like it. I wasn't sure exactly what to get, but I got a ton of it."
Elodie was busy picking her way through things. "I can see that."
"I wanted to give you something to do, and you paint so beautifully..."
"Thank you."
"You need something to keep you off the streets now that you're feeling better."
Elodie shook her head. "I need to get a job as soon as I get these awful things off."
Clay intended to disabuse her of that notion, but he wasn't willing to fight that fight quite yet. He reached out and caught her on her way past him, pulling her against him and dropping a fierce, passionate kiss on her mouth that had them both panting. "I want you to promise that you won't tire yourself out."
"I won't."
"Good. I didn't know if you'd want a television in here or not, but if you do, it's a simple matter to run the cable up here."
Elodie shook her head. "Thank you so much, Clay. This is a wonderful gift."
"You're welcome, my love." He checked his watch. "I'd better get going. I promised to meet the foreman about supplies."
She reached up as best she could and hugged him tight. "Have a good day."
"I will. Don't tire yourself out!"
Elodie rolled her eyes. "Yes, sir."
Clay patted her bottom familiarly as he left. "That's more like it."
He left with her heartfelt snort ringing in his ears.
Chapter 17
Elodie wandered down to the mailbox after spending the morning painting. It was a wonderful indulgence, and she felt better than she had in a long time doing
it. She sorted through the mail, stacking the envelopes into his and hers piles, until she came upon a bill from the hospital.
Although she really didn't want to open it, she did. Here it was, she thought, the enormous bill she wasn't ever going to be able to begin to pay off. But when she looked at it, it listed everything they had done for her—on about ten pages—but where the total was, it said in big red letters, "paid in full".
How could it possibly have been—
Clay.
Clay had paid her hospital bill. She knew it as surely as she knew his name. At first, she was flooded with a raging anger such as she had never felt before. How dare he? He'd gotten so damned high handed with her, just because they had slept together that one time. She'd been so banged up that even lately, though she'd rapidly been getting better, he hadn't touched her that way. Probably for fear that he'd hurt her.
But he had paid her bill and moved her out of her apartment, proposed to her, and set her up in his house, with a studio and everything, as if she belonged there. Unfortunately, Elodie wasn't so sure she did.
She hoped she did, but her memories of April pervaded this place, and she wasn't sure there was anything either of them could do to change that. And she didn't want to make too much of a fuss, or he was likely to go and sell the ranch or something crazy along those lines, just so she would feel more comfortable.
Yes, Clay would do anything for her. He loved her, and she desperately loved him. So why? Why did she fight the love so much? Was it just because of April, or was she using April as an excuse? Could it be that April was a convenient excuse to protect her, to protect her heart?
Elodie took a deep breath. She was scared. She was scared of being happy. Scared of allowing the pain, the fear, and her misery to go away. It was all she knew. It had been her only companion for so long. But now… happiness stood in the distance, and all she had to do was have the courage to reach for it.
*****
When he got home that night, she was up in his room, in bed. Clay raced upstairs because she wasn't there to greet him once he got in the door, terrified that something had happened. He burst into the room as if the devil himself was after him.
"Elodie! Are you okay? Are you all right? Did you fall?"
She threw back the covers and came to him, not as fluidly as she could have in the past, but she made it. And, except for the casts, and his ring, she was stark naked. Elodie reached up to his neck as best she could with her broken arm, then showed him the ring deliberately, before wrapping that arm around his neck. "I got the mail today."
His eyebrow went up. What did that have to do with anything? "Uh, that's good." He started to carefully guide the both of them to the bed. He had become instantly aroused as soon as he saw her rise from the bed in all her gloriousness, but he wanted her someplace safe where he could examine her. Maybe she'd had too many pain pills...
"There was a bill—or rather, not a bill—from the hospital."
He went rigid in her arms, and not in a good way. "Oh." He had a fairly good idea what that bill had said.
"Yes. You paid my bill, didn't you, Clay?"
They had made it to the edge of the bed, where he laid her down gently then joined her on his own side, sidling up close to her and drawing her back into his arms. There was no sense in denying it. She didn't seem to be too mad about it, anyway. She obviously knew. "Yes, I did."
Elodie swallowed, barely choking out, "Thank you."
"You're welcome." He hugged her tight, having learned how to do it without hurting her, but touching her like this, when she was naked and vulnerable, was just about killing him. He literally throbbed with the need to be inside her, but he didn't want to hurt her.
"Clay?" She was struggling, and it seemed she could barely speak through the tears.
"Yes, Elodie?"
"My answer is... yes."
"Yes?" He looked her in the eyes, knowing exactly what she meant, but wanting to hear her say it.
"Yes, I will marry you."
He wanted to swing her around the bedroom by her waist. He wanted to fly under his own power. His heart burst painfully in his chest, again and again with each beat.
She was going to marry him! She said yes!
He settled for kissing the life out of her, and growling, "Thank you. You brought me back to life."
"We brought each other." Elodie snuggled as close to him as she could get.
They cuddled quietly together for a minute, and then Clay said in a soft voice, "I talked to someone a day or so ago who wants to see your paintings."
She went stiff in his arms. "Excuse me?"
"He's someone who might want you to have a show at his gallery in San Antonio."
"A show?"
Clay laughed. "You sound like a parrot. Yes, a show. And I want you to show him all of your paintings—even the one of me."
"I'm not going to let him show that one," she said adamantly.
"No, but I think it—and the one of April—are your best, and you should show him your best work."
*****
Elodie was surprised that the idea of a showing didn't seem that scary—she knew Clay would be by her side. "Well..."
"In case you hadn't noticed, I'm not giving you much of a choice."
"I've noticed that a lot about you," she responded wryly.
Clay hugged her close, then tipped her face back so that he could see her eyes. "I love you. Everything I do is because of that. I don't love lightly."
"I love you, too. I feel like I can't say it enough—I have been holding it inside for so long…" Elodie sighed.
"Yeah—I'd like to talk to you about that..."
She wanted to run and hide, but there was no way she could get away from him when he was holding her so close, and she was also hindered by her casts which, thankfully, were scheduled to come off within the next week. So she wasn't going anywhere.
"How long have you loved me?" he asked.
Elodie squirmed and wiggled as much as she could, but Clay held her fast. "I don't want to tell you," she whispered, not looking at him.
"Why not?" He made his voice as soft as it could be.
"Because—because I would never dishonor April."
His eyebrow rose. "That long?" He watched Elodie nod slowly. "Well, you never did dishonor April in any way. We never knew. I figured you didn't like me very much, frankly, but April always just said that you're shy and quiet and to give you time to warm up to me. But you never did."
Elodie couldn't think of anything appropriate to say, so she didn't say a word.
"My God, you have loved me for so long—I can't believe it. When I saw that portrait... it's incredible. The emotion you put into it. It's like looking at something tremendously intimate. I want to look away, but then it's me. You painted me like that."
"I have never loved anyone else." There. She had said it. It was like having a boulder moved off her heart.
Clay looked like she had pulled a gun on him. "Never?"
"Never." Another painful swallow, but if this was Confession 101, and he really did love her, then she needed to get it all out. "I have loved you since that night when April first introduced you to the family. I knew then that you were the only man for me."
"And what if April had never… if she hadn't—"
Elodie shrugged awkwardly. "Then I would have died loving you, but never having had you. You were not mine to love."
Clay kissed Elodie everywhere he could find skin. He licked his way down her neck across her collarbone. He even kissed her cast, then licked each of the fingers that protruded from it. He suckled each deep pink nipple while his hands gently drifted down her sides. He followed the line of her body with his mouth, carefully spreading her thighs, arranging her casted leg to one side so that it was relatively comfortable. Then he licked and kissed his way up her nude leg, from the sole of her foot, up the inside of her calf to the inside of her thigh, where he lingered for a while. She moved against him, her hips raising, s
eeking the warm hardness of him.
He positioned himself between her legs, looking up at her. Elodie's eyes were slits, her chest rising and falling with her panting breath. Clay took two of his fingers and pressed them against her already weeping slit, pushing just slightly.
Elodie groaned as those insistent fingers found their way inside her, tugging and stretching her open, not hurting at all, but making every nerve ending on their way riot as he deliberately rubbed against them. And when he leaned forward and pressed his mouth over her pleasure center, she nearly screamed.
Elodie wanted to arch and grind herself against him, but she physically couldn't do it. Instead, she would be subjected to his timetable.
And he was going to take it slow.
Very slow.
Clay kept his fingers inside her, rocking them back and forth slowly while his mouth claimed all of the area he could, sensitizing it with his tongue. Finally, his lips settled back where she'd been crying for them to be, and Elodie nearly went off like a rocket, but he didn't stay there, mouthing her lovingly, long enough for her to get to where she wanted to be.
He was deliberately teasing her, and it was driving her crazy. "Clay, please!"
"Please what, my love?"
Elodie knew she was blushing bright red already just because of where he was. She'd never—well, rarely—pictured him between her legs, taking her in his mouth as he was. "Stay put! Please, I need to—"
"To what, Elodie?" He grinned evilly up at her.
"You know!" She was much too old-school to be able to say it. She just couldn't.
His head dipped again and she felt the ache of her unfulfilled need double, until she thought she would either die, or orgasm, one or the other.
"I know what, darling? Tell me what you want, and I just might give it to you."
She growled in exasperation. That nasty man was going to make her say it out loud. "I-I want to come. Please. I need to. I have to!"
"Your wish is my command, milady," he replied, and set about his wonderful task.
Those two fingers thrust into her sharply, in a demanding, forceful rhythm, as his tongue coaxed her little bud out of its hood, never letting up, never relenting, until she felt a thousand suns burst within her and began to buck and writhe fervently, despite her limitations.