His eyes snapped open at her touch.
"I've made you something to eat," she said quietly, giving him a moment to realize where he was.
He straightened in the chair and looked at the tray before him. "I must have nodded off," he acknowledged with a vague half-smile.
"You must have," she agreed as she settled herself on the far side of the table.
He tucked into the food as if he hadn't eaten in days, and while he demolished the helpings of beef and bread and beans, Ardith sharpened her pencil and turned her sketchbook to a crisp, new page. She'd drawn portraits of each of the children, Buck and Myra and the hands, but she hadn't caught Baird's likeness yet. Her news could wait until she had.
For a moment she simply stared at him. The rhythm of her breathing slowed. A flush of concentration mounted in her cheeks. She compressed her lips and scrawled a few tentative lines across the page.
With the flick of her wrist she caught the shape of him, the angle of his shoulders and the tilt of his head. With firmer strokes she delineated the breadth of his brow, the shape of his nose, the high, broad slant of those sculpted cheekbones.
She shaded the underside of his jaw, bringing the turning into sharp relief.
"Don't you need me to sit still for this?" he asked her.
The sound of his voice startled her. "You haven't time for me to do a proper sitting, and I'm determined to make sketches of everyone before I leave. I hope when we reach Cheyenne we can find a photographer to take all our pictures."
He turned his attention to the peaches and gingerbread. "I've been thinking about asking Durban to help us drive the herd to Cheyenne. He's been keeping up with the hands as if we were paying him. What do you think?"
Ardith lifted her pencil from the page as she considered it. She wondered if Baird knew the chance he was taking by suggesting this. Durban might just as well choose not to go, and she wondered how Baird would take it if he did.
"Buck and I will be there to keep an eye on him, and the hands will, too," he went on. "And with poor Matt gone, we could use the help."
"I think it would do Durban a world of good to go with you," Ardith answered carefully.
"You don't think I'd be expecting too much of him?"
She could see the uncertainty in his face. The hoping and the wishing and the dreading.
"I think you should ask a good deal more."
"He might refuse," Baird hedged.
"Maybe because you expect him to."
Baird was convinced he deserved his son's censure, but Ardith had begun to realize how much a part Ariel had played in causing the rift between them. Now if only Durban would give his father a chance, and Baird would stop blaming himself...
With a huff of frustration, Ardith spilled a new filigree of lines across the page. Baird's likeness was there. She had to capture the humanity.
And Baird seemed vastly human tonight. He made her want to soothe the creases of weariness and worry that wove across his brow, but she drew them instead. She shaded vulnerability into the corners of that sensual mouth instead, delineated the v of frustration that gathered between his eyes, instead.
She sensed an angry desolation about him. He wasn't going to have enough steers to meet his obligations in Cheyenne. He didn't have to tell her, Ardith knew, and she ached for what that shortfall was doing to him.
Baird shifted in his chair and reached for his mug of tea. "When you showed me the portrait you made of Cass Jalbert, I saw so much more to her than when I looked at her myself. It makes me wonder what I'll see when I look at the picture you're making of me."
She heard the fear in his voice and didn't know how to reassure him. Seeing beyond the subject was an instinctive thing, part perception, part emotion, and part magic.
"What is it you want to see?" she asked him instead.
Baird thought for a moment. "A far better man than I was when I came here. One who accepts responsibility and is aware of someone besides himself. A man who has ambitions of his own."
He held her gaze with his. "I never believed that people could change," he said, his voice low, "but I think I have."
Ardith knew her heart was in her eyes. "You have changed," she told him, "and I'm so proud of the man you are becoming."
He retreated a little, sipping his tea. "You're implying I'm not finished yet."
Ardith's pencil danced, clarifying and refining. "I don't think anyone is ever finished. I think we are always in the process of becoming someone else."
"Are you, Ardith?" he asked her.
"Of course I am. Things happened today that changed me," she answered, wondering if he would detect the irony in her tone. "And tomorrow I may turn into someone else entirely."
She'd spent most of the afternoon thinking how she would tell Baird about Gavin's proposal, and she knew she would never have a better opportunity. But the words wouldn't come.
It wasn't as if Baird was going to object to her marrying Gavin. It wasn't as if he was going to offer her an alternative. Yet no matter how she tried, she couldn't seem to force the news of the proposal up her throat.
She lowered her gaze to the portrait to hide her confusion, and realized she was pleased with what she'd done. She scrawled "A. E. Merritt" at the bottom of the page and came to her feet.
"Do you want to see the drawing?"
Now that the moment was upon him, Baird seemed reluctant. "You haven't shown me with cloven hooves and a pitchfork, have you?"
She held out the sketchbook, inviting him, challenging him to have a look.
His hand wavered a little as he reached for the pad of paper. He studied the drawing for a very long time. "Is this how you see me?" he asked her, looking up at where she'd come to stand beside his chair.
She could see the emotions gather at the backs of his eyes, dark and intense and disbelieving. She was suddenly afraid she'd hurt him.
"Don't—don't you like it?"
"You've made me look like some knight errant riding off to do battle against all odds."
She heard the accusation in his tone and looked down at the sketchbook again. She had drawn him as he was, more kind than inconsiderate, more caring than insensitive, more noble than contemptible. Less of a rakehell, and so much more of a man. She had portrayed both his vulnerability and his strength, the paradox she'd found in him. The things that drew her to him, and to the man he was becoming a little more each day.
"It's the way I see you."
She looked down into his face and realized he was afraid to believe in the good and strength and nobility she saw in him, though she could tell how desperately he wanted to. She wished she could convince him of his own worth, but that was something he had to discover for himself. Something he had to recognize in his children's eyes. Something he had to acknowledge in the deference the cowboys paid him. Something he had to allow himself to believe in.
All Ardith could offer was understanding, encouragement, and tenderness. She gave him that, reaching out to touch his cheek, trailing her fingertips along his jaw. She left a dark smudge in her wake, a comma-shaped curl of carbon that tracked from the corner of his eye to the corner of his lips.
In dismay she rummaged in her pocket for a handkerchief. "I'm afraid I've put a mark on you," she apologized.
Baird caught her wrist and held her still. "What you've done is put your mark on me."
Ardith stood there staring down at him, barely able to breathe. He had left his mark on her, too, once so long ago. Because of him her life had changed. Because of him she had discovered the best and the worst about herself. Because of him she'd realized what she wanted her life to become.
She wanted him to mark her again. Now. Tonight. Because of what this time with him had meant to her. Not taking time to consider the consequences, Ardith bent her head and kissed him.
She could tell she'd taken him by surprise. He stiffened a little then raised his chin, opening his mouth beneath hers.
A wave of awareness moved between them.
>
Was it meant to be like this? Ardith wondered as spangles of delight glimmered through her. Was she supposed to like the taste of him so much, the sweet peachy spice that clung to him? Was she supposed to want to cup his face in her hands and hold him to her mouth? Did he like kissing her as much as she liked kissing him?
But then she thought he must, because his hands came around her waist. His fingers splayed, his thumbs brushing along the front of her blouse. The contact spread warmth up her ribs and along the underside of her breasts. It was a potent sensation, one she was already enjoying far too much.
Yet she braced her hands on the arms of his chair and leaned over him. He made an appreciative sound down deep in his throat, and she shivered at her own boldness.
The kiss gathered intensity.
He opened his mouth, inviting her to taste the soft inner margins of his lips. She did the same and felt the brush of his tongue against her. He made a languorous exploration, laving the bow of her mouth, slicking the wide, sensitive curve of her bottom lip. He slipped past her teeth to brush the tip of her tongue with his. It was a singular sensation, one that seemed to ripple to far more intimate places.
She bent nearer, discovering just how ripe and yielding that sensual mouth could be, how warm and enticing. Their tongues slid sinuously together.
He squeezed her waist, his hands riding upward along her corset stays, compressing her ribs, making it hard for her to get her breath. His hands rose higher until his thumbs traced the lower border of her breasts. Beneath her clothes her nipples tightened, the whisper-soft lawn of her chemise abrading them.
"Baird," she whispered against his mouth. "Oh, Baird."
She'd tried so hard to sate herself with drawing him, with detailing every turning and every hollow of his beautiful face, but drawing wasn't enough. Now she'd traced those lines on living flesh, she'd kissed his mouth. She'd sliced her fingers through the crisp, damp waves of his night-black hair, and still she wanted more.
She wanted him to make love to her.
She raised her head and looked down into his face. She could see the high flush of color beneath his sun-browned skin, hear the heightened tempo of his breathing.
"I want you to leave your mark on me," she whispered.
"What?"
"I want you to leave your mark on me." She wondered if she had the courage to say the rest of it, to tell him what she felt, what she wanted. She'd refused him that night on the porch, that night when her loss hadn't seemed so great, when their parting hadn't seemed so imminent. Or final.
She took a shaky breath. "I want you to make love to me."
His face went still. His eyes sought hers, his pupils wide with wariness.
"I want us to have tonight. I want you to touch me and hold me and show me all the things I've never had the chance to learn."
"Ardith, are you sure?" There was incredulity in his tone, and confusion—and eagerness. The wariness that had been in his eyes became concern. "What you're asking me isn't something to be undertaken lightly, Ardith, and I've hurt you so much already."
"Will you hurt me again?"
"No, of course not. Not if I can help it," he amended. "But making love with someone touches you, awakens your emotions. It makes you vulnerable in a very particular way—"
"Are you afraid of that?"
He hesitated before he answered her, and whatever stock he took of his own emotions surprised him. She could see it in his eyes. "No, I'm not afraid. It's too late to be afraid."
She wondered what he meant, but knew this was no time for questions. "I'm not afraid, either."
She straightened and held out her hand in invitation. He rose and took it, binding her fingers in his own. He let her lead him to her bedchamber, and he closed the door behind them.
She lit the lamp, but kept the wick turned low so that shadows softened the contours of the room. She stood at the foot of the bed, waiting. Now that they were here together she was not sure of what should happen next.
He went to her and cupped her face, searching her eyes for any hint of uncertainty. But Ardith was not uncertain. She wanted him, wanted this. For almost half her life she'd wanted it.
As if he were convinced, he lowered his head and kissed her. He held her to his mouth, sipping her in a way that made her lips tingle and her breath catch. She curled her hands around his waist, drawing him against her.
He fluttered kisses over her face, brushing her cheek, the corner of her eye, her temples, and her brow. He bit her earlobe, sending shivers bursting through her.
He kissed the pale, vulnerable column of her throat. As her head fell back, he tightened his arms around her, holding her fast as a swirl of delight took hold of her. He nibbled lower until the high, starched collar of her riding blouse barred his way.
He settled her on her feet and raised his hands to the narrow black ribbon that threaded beneath the collar of her blouse. With a single motion he demolished the bow and sought the buttons down the front of her shirt. As he slipped them from their holes, his hands brushed warm against her.
When the crisp, tucked fabric was open to the waist, he kissed from the hollow at the base of her throat to the top of her chemise. The sensation of his mouth against that newly exposed flesh was shocking enough to make Ardith gasp.
He freed her cuffs and slipped the garment down her arms. "You're blushing, Ardith," he whispered.
"I know," she whispered back. "You make me want to blush for what I'm thinking, for what else I want you to do to me."
He gave a shaky laugh and draped a necklace of kisses around her throat. He lingered over a small sensitive spot in the hollow of her collarbone and paused at the apex of her shoulder. He nuzzled her nape, breathing against her skin in a way that sent shivers shooting the length of her back.
He worked his way through the layers of her clothes until she stood before him clad only in her lawn chemise. He looked down at her and smiled.
"I think I've been wanting to do this forever," he whispered. He began to strip the heavy tortoiseshell hairpins from her hair, letting them spatter onto the carpet of clothes beneath their feet and clatter onto the floor.
As he dropped them—three pins, four—Ardith felt her topknot slide. She shivered a little at the feel of his hands in her hair, at the unexpected intimacy of his touch. More pins fell—five pins, six.
The loops of her tightly bound hair unfurled across her shoulders and spilled down her back. They tumbled to her waist in a straight brown fall. Hers was thick, heavy hair, and it should have veiled her body from his view. Instead she felt more naked than before, as if she'd forfeited the last of her protection.
No man but a husband saw a woman with her hair hanging down, no man but a lover was granted this ultimate intimacy. By simply standing here in such disarray, she'd as much as told him that she loved him.
He must have seen the turmoil in her eyes because he paused, the last hairpin still in his hand. "Are you having second thoughts?"
Was she?
"No." She wanted this night with Baird, knowing she'd never have another.
He bent his head and kissed her. Gently, sweetly, with slow wondrous tenderness. He kissed her without touching her anywhere else, kissed her without tangling his hands in her hair, though she sensed how much he wanted to. Kissed her as if they could stand here all night luxuriating in the simmering pleasure of his mouth on hers. She was loose-limbed and trembling when he was done.
"Good," he said, as if he knew very well what his kisses had done to her. "Take off your boots and stockings and get into bed."
She did as he had bidden her then folded back the well-washed quilt that passed for a coverlet and tugged open the rough cotton sheets. She climbed between them.
He hung his gunbelt over the foot of the bed and took off his boots. "Have you ever seen a naked man before?"
Ardith flushed again. "They won't let women in anatomy classes at art schools in Boston," she told him, watching mesmerized as he made quick work
of the buttons down the front of his blue-striped shirt. "I—I've drawn from castings, though, and viewed a good deal of Classical sculpture."
But none of the castings she'd drawn or the sculpture she'd seen had prepared her for the long, lean lines of Baird Northcross' body. His wide shoulders tapered toward his waist in a series of strong, angular planes. He had narrow hips and long, well-muscled legs. His flanks were hard with years of riding, and when he turned to blow out the lamp, she took careful note of the shape of his backside.
She wanted to remember every line of him, every flare and every hollow. His hair-roughened belly and chest, the broad v of his back, and the taut, ropy way his muscles moved beneath his skin. She wanted to draw him like this so she'd never forget, and knew she wouldn't have the chance.
Then the room went dark, and he came to her as a shadow gliding through the moonlight. When he reached the edge of the bed, she raised the covers in a silent invitation.
As he climbed in, the mattress dipped in his direction. When Ardith moved as if to scramble away, he pulled her against him.
"Ardith, love." The endearment melted through her like butter syrup. "I want to be close to you tonight, closer than any man has ever been. Is that all right?"
He was being kind to her, patient and considerate. Her eyes stung with tears and not trusting her voice, she nodded her consent.
"We're going to start with kissing." He sounded tender and instructive.
"I—I like kissing," she whispered back.
"I know you do." He proceeded to remind her just how much she liked it. He started with small, soft kisses that drizzled like a summer shower over her forehead and cheeks, her throat and chest. He lingered over her lips, teasing her breathless with slow, gentle nibbles. He took her more deeply, making it the most natural thing in the world for her to kiss him back. He sought her tongue, stroking and darting away, teasing her just enough to make her chase him.
Kissing standing up was wonderful, but kissing lying down was better. Two people could get closer lying down. She liked the weight of him against her, the breadth of him that made even a woman of her generous proportions feel delicate and treasured.
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