“Me too,” Tessie chimed in. “I’m a whole lot happy, Emmie. We’re really a family, aren’t we?” she chirped, already far removed from the near tragedy that had threatened their lives.
“Yes, we’re a family,” she agreed. “At least we’re the beginning of a family,” she amended with a smile. “Just the beginning, Tessie.”
Epilogue
“Should we tell Oswald Hooper?” The question was spoken into the darkness, and Matt frowned.
“I thought you were sleepin’ already,” he said accusingly. “You need your rest. Besides, unless old Oswald is blinder’n a bat, he probably knows already.”
“If you don’t quit picking at me, I’m going to change my mind about this,” she threatened. “I’ve been resting every afternoon and eating everything Maria pokes at me. I’ll sleep when I please, thank you!”
“Damn, you’re a spitfire these days, Emmaline Gerrity!” He turned to her and scooped her against him, his hands tender as he arranged her to his satisfaction. She wiggled against him, and he groaned.
“Now, cut that out, Em,” he told her. “I’m doin’ my best to take care of you here, and you just won’t let me.”
“I have a real need to be taken care of tonight,” she told him soberly, snuggling closer.
His hand swept up beneath her gown and rested with a possessive gesture against the roundness of her belly. “Are you sure it won’t hurt him?” he asked. “‘Course, I can be real careful. In fact, I can probably think of something new that will—”
“Matt! I’m fine. The doctor said that this baby is about as safe as he’s ever going to be in his life, right now. He told me that it would be a good two months before he’s born, and—”
“He? He? Emmaline?” he asked hopefully.
“I thought you wanted a boy,” she reminded him.
“Yeah, I guess,” he agreed. His hand moved against her swollen flesh, and he grinned in the darkness as a small limb poked into his palm. “Feels like a boy’s foot to me,” he said solemnly.
She giggled and nestled against him suggestively.
“Tell you what,” he said, lifting her gown higher and easing her from its confines. “I’ll look things over, and little Sam and me’ll take a vote.”
“A vote?”
“Yeah, we’ll decide just how to go about this tonight. And just you wait till I tell you a new idea I thought of today while I was gettin’ your stud into the breeding pen.”
“Gerrity, will you behave?”
His mouth was seeking, his hands were urging, and his voice was husky with the need he carried with him like a second skin. “I’m tryin’, Em. I guess there’s just no hope for me, is there?” he said sighing against the tender flesh of her breast.
“Umm...not much, Gerrity,” she agreed. “But I’ll keep you, anyway.”
* * * * *
ISBN: 978-1-4592-8356-5
Gerrity’s Bride
Copyright © 1995 by Carolyn Davidson
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