Contract Bridegroom

by Sandra Field

  She couldn’t wait to see the last of this place.

  He was working with a concentrated ferocity, the logs splitting cleanly, the thunk of the ax echoing against the hillside. Every now and then he stopped to fling the slabs of wood in a pile to one side. Tearing her eyes away, she went to get a cup of coffee, adding twice her normal allotment of sugar and cream. Then the door burst open and Jethro came in, one hand wrapped around the other. With a pang of terror she saw bright drops of blood spattering the pine floor. “Jethro…”

  “It’s nothing,” he rasped, “a splinter, that’s all,” and pushed past her.

  She followed him into the downstairs bathroom, where he’d already turned on the cold tap. She said with a calmness she was far from feeling, “That’s not a splinter, it’s a chunk of kindling.”

  The wood chip was jammed into the soft flesh at the base of his thumb. He said tightly, “Have you got any tweezers?”

  She was back in less than a minute. He’d doused his hand with disinfectant; she poured some over the tweezers and said, “Hold still.”

  “I can do it, Celia!”

  “You can’t! Stop arguing,” she flared, and grabbed his hand in hers. But as she bent her head, tugging at the end of the splinter, her touch was very gentle. She heard his sharp indrawn breath as she worked the fragment of wood free. “Sorry,” she muttered, “I know this must hurt.”

  A small sliver was left. Biting her lip, she got it in the tip of the tweezers and edged it from his flesh. Then she dabbed more disinfectant on the wound, feeling his flinch in every nerve of her body. “Phew,” she said raggedly, “I’m glad that’s over. Where do you keep the Band-Aids?”

  “Cupboard over the sink.”

  She taped a couple of them over his torn skin. “That should stop the bleeding,” she said and glanced up at him.

  His big body was entirely too close. Dark hair curled on his chest; she could have reached out and touched the corded muscles of his belly, while his steel-blue eyes seemed to drill their way into her soul. He looked homicidal, she thought with an inward shudder, and backed away from him. “I—I’m going for a walk. If you’re okay. Up the mountain.”

  “Go right ahead,” he rasped.

  “Do you have to make it so obvious you can’t stand the sight of me?”

  “You’re the one who started this, who said no sex.”

  The tang of male sweat tantalized her nostrils; the shadows under his collarbones made her weak at the knees. What if she touched him, running her finger from breastbone to navel? Or reached up and pressed her mouth to his? Would he push her away? Or would he take her in his arms and kiss her as she longed to be kissed?

  Don’t, Celia.

  Stepping backward, she nearly tripped over the bath-mat, blushing with shame that she was so transparent to him, so easily read. “I—I expect I’ll be gone most of the day.”

  “Keep an eye on the weather.”

  “You sound just like my father!”

  “You didn’t marry your father,” Jethro snarled. “You married me—you might want to remember that.”

  How could she forget when every waking moment during this farce of a honeymoon she’d been so acutely aware of Jethro? Right now all she wanted to do was haul him off to the nearest bed and lose herself in him, become part of him as she’d never been part of a man…oh God, Celia thought, get me out of here. Whirling, she ran from the room.

  Grabbing her haversack on the way, she hurried out of the house and up the trail that led to the mountain. And if she stumbled over rocks on the way, it was because her mind was anywhere but on where she was going.

  Celia climbed to the top of the mountain, found the cabin and for an hour sat on its stoop, gazing over the tree-clad hills with their backdrop of heavy gray clouds. She’d come on this honeymoon expecting to spend her time fighting Jethro off. Instead he’d treated her as if she were his sister. Or a distant relative to whom he was required to be polite but nothing more.

  Or else as a woman who didn’t turn him on.

  If it wasn’t so horrible, it would be funny.

  Had he been faking those kisses on top of Gun Hill and on the staircase of her father’s house?

  If he had, then there was nothing she could trust. He’d wanted her, she’d swear to it. So what had happened in the meantime? “You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen,” he’d said, gazing at her in her long white suit. Had that all been an act, for the benefit of Dave and Lindy and her father?

  Had she ever felt so utterly lost, so confused and unhappy?

  Jethro had wanted her. He had. But he didn’t want her now.

  As if a boulder had dropped from the sky, a new thought tumbled into her mind. He’d spent the three days before the wedding in New York.

  Celia hugged her knees to her chest, her nails digging into her thighs, her heart a chunk of ice as big as a split log. Maybe Jethro had a woman in Manhattan. Of course. Why hadn’t she thought of that before? He’d wanted her, Celia, out of sexual deprivation. It was that simple. He’d spent heaven knows how long on Starspray before the wreck, then he’d been in Collings Cove and then on to Washington.

  Last week he’d spent three days with a woman in New York. He had an absolute right to do that, after all. He’d asked Celia not to have an affair for the duration of three months, but she’d disdained to ask the same of him. She’d been too proud. Too fastidious. Too stupid.

  I hate her, thought Celia. I hate her guts. What a fool I’ve been. First I offer sixty thousand dollars to a man richer than my wildest imaginings, and then I say no sex to a man with a mistress. How he must have laughed at me!

  I hate him, too. How am I going to survive this farce of a marriage?

  A big raindrop splashed on her forehead. Keep an eye on the weather, Jethro had said, and she’d rushed out of the house without her rain-jacket because she couldn’t stand being so close to him without touching him, kissing him, stroking the taut lines of his bare shoulders….

  Lightning flickered over the distant hills, thunder growled and then the skies opened, rain so thick she could scarcely see the trail. She could shelter in the cabin. Or she could go back to the lodge. Back to Jethro.

  She had to go back. No choice. She’d never backed down from anyone or anything yet, and she wasn’t going to start with Jethro Lathem. Thrusting her arms through the straps of her haversack, Celia set off down the trail and two hours later pulled open the back door of the lodge.

  Jethro was waiting for her. “You little idiot,” he exploded. “Don’t you know better than to be on the side of a mountain in a thunderstorm?”

  Her shirt was clinging to her breasts, her jeans to her thighs, and her hair was plastered to her face. She’d never looked or felt worse. And she was in no mood to be conciliatory. “We’re not all perfect like you,” she retorted. “Am I still the most beautiful woman you’ve ever seen?”

  “Are you still planning to divorce me when it suits you?”

  “I’ll divorce you when my father’s gone….” The words replayed themselves in her head, and in sudden despair she cried, “I can’t stand this, I just can’t bear it— I’m sorry, I should never have opened my mouth. Jethro, I’m cold, I’ve got to have a shower.”

  She bent to unlace her sodden boots. But her fingers wouldn’t work and with an impatient exclamation Jethro knelt to undo them for her. The light fell on his thick, dark curls and his broad shoulders; she felt as though her heart was breaking. Then he stood up, his eyes boring into hers, and for moment filled with a wild, incredulous joy she thought he was going to take her in his arms. But then he stepped back, his shoulders a rigid line, and said with ice-cold exactitude, “I’ll get supper while you’re in the shower. It’s past time for this ridiculous honeymoon to be over.”

  Once the honeymoon’s over, you can go back to your woman in New York.

  She’d thought the words. Not said them. Celia stumbled past him and went upstairs to get dry clothes.

  An exten
sive low pressure system with more thunderstorms delayed their flights the next day; so it was nearly midnight when Celia and Jethro arrived back at Fernleigh. Jethro went straight to the rooms where he’d been staying before the wedding; Celia, dazed with tiredness, fell into her own bed and was asleep in minutes.

  The next morning she dressed carefully in a becoming apple-green dress, leaving her hair loose as a distraction from her face, and applying makeup to hide the marks of exhaustion and unhappiness. Then she went in search of her father. He was in the breakfast room, reading the paper. “Ah, there you are, Celia,” he said. “Jethro’s beaten both of us to it—he’s gone out for a run. How are you, dear?”

  A simple enough endearment, yet it made her voice wobble. “Fine,” she said.

  He gave her a keen look. “Good honeymoon?”

  If she disregarded the minor detail of no sex. Wishing those last two words had never been invented, Celia said airily, “Lovely. You look better, Dad…there’s color in your cheeks and you look more rested.”

  Rustling the papers, Ellis said absently, “The doc’s put me on some new drug.”

  “Dr. Kenniston? A new drug? What is it?”

  “Oh, some polysyllabic name,” Ellis said vaguely. “The specialists recommended it. What are your plans for the day?”

  “Are the effects long-term?” she demanded.

  “Don’t fuss, Celia…. I wouldn’t have told you if I’d thought you’d get your hopes up. By the way, I want you to go to the attic for me, there’s a trunk of old photos of your mother up there. I’ve got the key here somewhere.”

  “A whole trunkful?” she said, distracted.

  “Why don’t you go through them? Bring some down with you, and I’ll see what I can tell you about them.”

  “Oh Dad, I’d love that,” she said, and took the small metal key from him.

  “But have some breakfast first.”

  As she ate grapefruit and toast, she managed by a judicious blend of fact and fiction to paint a glowing portrait of the lodge and her honeymoon. Luckily, Jethro didn’t come back to hear any of it. Then she kissed her father on the cheek. “I won’t be long.”

  “Take your time.”

  She ran upstairs, down the hall and up the back stairs that wound their way to the attic. She’d always loved the attic as a child: it was a place of escape and fantasy, where the adults didn’t bother her. Although carpeted and clean, it was full of shadows, the air warm with secrets.

  It only took a few minutes to locate the trunk; the key turned sweetly in the lock and she opened the lid. Right on top lay a shawl of faded carmine silk; her fingers trembling, she lifted it out. It still smelled of perfume. Her mother’s perfume, she thought with an ache in her throat, and remembered that evening so long ago when she’d seen her mother in her father’s embrace, red silk round her mother’s shoulders.

  Biting her lip, Celia laid the shawl on the carpet. Then she took out some old yearbooks of her parents’, searching until she found their pictures. And finally she picked up several bundles of photos and letters. Sitting back on the carmine shawl, she started going through them.

  Fifteen minutes later, she was gazing at a drawing she’d done when she was four years old. Her mother had labelled it and on the back had written, “Celia’s such a joy to me, so full of life and chatter and laughter. I love her dearly.”

  Helplessly, Celia began to weep, tears dripping down the front of her dress and onto the drawing. Then a floorboard creaked behind her and with a strange sense of presentiment she heard Jethro speak. “Celia…what’s the matter? Don’t cry, I hate to see you cry.”

  As he stooped beside her, she looked full at him. He couldn’t be faking the concern in his face, he couldn’t. She fell into his arms very naturally, because isn’t that where she’d craved to be ever since she’d met him? Her tears soaking into the front of his shirt, she sobbed, “My m-mother really loved me, Jethro, it says so on that piece of paper. I wish she hadn’t died so I could have gotten to know her better.”

  He settled himself more comfortably, pulling her into his lap and stroking her shoulders as she wept, pressing a handkerchief into her fingers as she gradually quietened. She blew her nose and scrubbed at her eyes, smiling at him unsteadily. “I must look a fright.”

  Jethro’s answer was to pull her closer. His head plummeted to hers; he sealed her lips with his own in a kiss that Celia welcomed with all her heart and never wanted to end. She forgot about everything but Jethro: the taut bands of his arms around her body; the scent of his skin, so well known to her; the heat of his mouth on hers, the thrust of his tongue, his deep groan of pleasure as she opened to him, her own tongue playing with his.

  Then he was easing her down onto the carpet, his body covering her, his mouth trailing the length of her throat to kiss the pulse at its base. Her body arched to meet him, her hands clutching his shoulders and pulling him closer, her every move revealing how much she wanted him. He kissed her again, a hungry kiss full of intensity, and muttered against her lips, “We should go downstairs. A bed would be more comfortable….”

  She couldn’t bear for the spell to be shattered. “No,” she whispered, “I want to make love to you here, Jethro.”

  For a moment his head reared up, his eyes intent on her flushed face. “Say that again.”

  Her flush deepened. “I want to make love to you here,” she repeated, and knew the words for the truth. There wasn’t another woman in Jethro’s life, there couldn’t be. He wouldn’t be so hungry for her, so intent on pleasing her if she weren’t the only one…. She drew his face down, kissing the hard line of his jaw, the hollows under his cheekbones, before moving back to his mouth. Tracing his lower lip with her tongue, she murmured, “You taste good.”

  He gave an exultant laugh, letting the weight of his hips rest on her and thrusting with his body so that she felt all of his hardness. Desire was like a flower blossoming in her belly, like fire racing through her limbs; she thrust back, watching his face change, feeling him fumble with the buttons on her dress. Then he was lifting her so he could ease the dress over her head.

  Suddenly shy, she saw him encompass the curves of her body in one burning glance. As he hauled his shirt off, throwing it to one side, she reached up and ran her fingers from the tautness of his throat down the hard muscles of his chest, tugging at his body hair, her face intent on its task. Her breasts moved gently in their lacy bra; with a muffled groan, Jethro dropped his head to her cleavage, nuzzling her ivory skin. She clasped him to her, her eyes shut, her whole being focused on the sheer sensuality of his exploration.

  Her bra joined her dress and his shirt on the carpet. The expression on his face as he stroked her breast to its tip made her feel both her power as a woman and an incredible humility. Not knowing quite how to deal with this, she muttered, “Your belt’s digging into me.”

  “Can’t have that,” he said huskily, and quickly stripped off the rest of his clothes. His body was beautiful to her, its smooth planes and strong, muscular curves; for a moment she gazed at him in pure delight. He said in a strange voice, “What’s the matter, Celia? You’ve seen a naked man before.”

  Darryl. A shadow crossed her face. She didn’t want to think about Darryl, not now, not when she was in Jethro’s arms. Jethro said edgily, “I’m sorry—I shouldn’t have reminded you.”

  “You’re not like Darryl,” Celia said confidently, and twined her legs with his, kissing him with all the passion he unleashed in her simply by being there.

  He was dropping a series of little kisses on her cheeks and her throat. “I want you to enjoy this, Celia.”

  She laughed, the dark brown of her irises illumined by tiny sparks. “Enjoy? I adore what you’re doing to me!”

  For a moment he looked up, smiling at her with none of the barriers behind which he so often hid himself. “You do, huh? But I’ve scarcely started.”

  “I also adore the way those little lines around your eyes crinkle up when you smile,” she
said rashly.

  He laughed, his eyes very blue. “You’re very good for my self-esteem,” he said. Then, not hurrying, he moved down her body to her breasts, taking first one nipple, then the other in his mouth, tugging at her flesh with exquisite gentleness, until she wondered if she could die with pleasure. “Oh,” she said in a voice of discovery. “Oh, Jethro, again, please.”

  Knowing she was venturing into new territory, territory far riskier, but also far more exciting, than her first solo flight, she stroked his face, learning through her fingertips the contours of his jaw and cheekbones, the softness of his hair. Then he took her hand in his and guided it lower, down his chest to his belly, then lower still. As she touched for the first time the silken hardness that was his essence, she was overwhelmed by a confusion of shyness and desire, a desire stronger than she could have imagined possible. She said faintly, “Jethro…”

  He kissed her again, fiercely and possessively, as though claiming her for his own. She clasped him by the hips, learning the solidity of bone and the ripple of muscle, intoxicated by his closeness and her new freedom to explore it. With a breathless laugh she moved her hips against his, her awkwardness, had she but known it, a message in itself. But she was too absorbed in sensations utterly new to her to notice the brief perplexity in his eyes, his smallest of hesitations.

  His body hair rasped her skin. She rubbed her cheek into the hollow under his collarbone, closing her eyes to savor the warmth of his skin, then moving her lips to his nipple; his gasp of pleasure filled her with pride and triumph.

  As if her action had freed him from restraint, Jethro fell on top of her, spreading her hair like a glowing fan on the carmine shawl. They kissed and touched, hunger matching hunger, passion igniting still greater passion. Then Jethro found the crevice of her thighs, his fingers seeking out all her secret heat and wetness, until she was panting and writhing beneath him, moaning his name over and over again. Swiftly he slid into her.