by Mallory Rush
Yep. Mariah was a mystery he was itching to unveil.
"Why don't you go find out if that swing's as comfortable as it looks while Dad hauls out the luggage and I get the keys."
"You're sure?" She glanced wistfully at the house. "I can wait for you."
"No you can't." He swatted her playfully on the rump and she gasped, then looked to see if his parents, who were busy unlocking the trunk, had noticed. Sol chuckled heartily. Spitfire kitten or Miss Priss, she could make him laugh. Mariah was a tonic, and the more he drank of her, the more he wanted. Fact was, he was downright crazy about her, and getting crazier by the day. Which he had to be, since he'd decided that wasn't a picture of her she'd sent him and she couldn't lie worth beans.
"Go on, you," he said, and gave her a slight push. "Get outta here and warm those sweet little buns on the swing that's begging you to curl up in it. Of course, knowing just how sweet they are, I'd be tempted to beg too."
"You're depraved." She balanced on tiptoe and kissed him on the cheek. "And I wouldn't have you any other way."
With that, she spun around and all but skipped down the cobblestone walk. Had he not been watching, he expected she would have pirouetted and hopscotched to the picket fence, where she now swung the gate back and forth as if hypnotized by the movement.
"Well? What does your wife think of her new home, Sol?" he heard his mother ask.
"I think you can guess with no more than a look." Sol put his arm around her shoulders as he watched Mariah slowly pivot. Her head fell back and she seemed to be saying something to the towering trees. He'd climbed those same trees as a boy, had imagined he could see exotic countries where life was a great adventure, not pastures filled with more cows than people.
"She's special, son. Under the circumstances, I had my misgivings, but I'm glad to say they weren't warranted. You chose well."
"Mariah's something else, all right. There's still a lot I have to learn about her, but that works both ways and we've got plenty of time to find each other out."
"Take it from me—you never stop learning about the people you love. We all change, and that's part of what keeps a marriage alive." They watched as Mariah walked her fingertips up the curved stone banister, then traced the swirling wood column that supported the porch's ceiling. "Do you love her?"
"Fact is, I think I do. If not, I'm close to it."
"Then you know the most important thing there is to know about her. Whatever those mysteries are that your brain is turning this way and that—such as the fact that she changes the subject whenever her parents get mentioned—they'll all come to light soon enough."
"Don't I guess. But I'm giving her a little time to tell me herself before I start digging around for the truth. For now, it's enough to know that she's of legal marrying age and that dishonesty doesn't set well with her. Whatever her reasons, I'm sure they're justified. And it won't be long before she can't stand keeping them to herself. As it is, I don't expect to end up on the wrong side of a gun, and I need her in my life. Enough that I'm willing to bide my time and put up with some subterfuge—for now, anyway."
LaVerne nodded. "Try to be patient. She loves you."
"So she says. And I believe that's true."
"Then I'll hold my tongue and try not to meddle. I'm your mother, Sol, and so I'm selfish, because I see how much that girl has done for my boy."
"That she has." His gaze settled on his too-young wife. Young and full of a love for life he'd lost but was rediscovering because of her. "I believe her folks really are in Europe, though I doubt they have any idea she's here."
"You're here. After all these years, you've come home. I just wish it hadn't taken a grenade to send you back. I'm sorry for your loss, son, but I'd be a liar to say I'm not happy to have you return, no matter what. This is where you belong. Our heritage is here and I just wish to God you loved this land as much as we do."
"Maybe I will, Ma. I've hurt you and Dad deep, but I'm beginning to think that grenade knocked some sense into my brain. Nothing looks quite the same."
"How's that?" LaVerne asked hopefully.
Sol watched as Mariah settled into the wicker swing and blew him a kiss before stretching her arms out on either side and rocking.
Thrusting his crutches forward, he turned back long enough to smile at his mother. But not just any smile. A smile as content as that of an engorged cow that had just gotten milked.
"It looks different from someone else's perspective," he said, then nodded toward his wife. "After years of traveling the globe, I'm finally seeing the world... through Mariah's eyes."
*
After hanging up her last article of clothing in the cedar closet, Mariah turned to see Sol agitatedly finger-drumming on a pine Shaker nightstand. He got up from the filigreed white iron bed and went to stare out a window, its lace curtains dancing in the fragrant breeze.
"What's wrong, Sol?" Laying her cheek against his tense back, she felt the heat of his skin through the crisp cotton shirt. "You're upset about something."
"You're right, Mariah. Something is bothering me." His head fell forward and she heard a snort of frustration that caused her to stiffen. Had she bungled an explanation? Had he noticed that without makeup she looked as young as she was? Her mind spun with incriminating scenarios and she knew a sudden, frantic fear of exposure.
"I wish—" She wished she were ten years older.
More confident in her newly realized persona. Taking a shallow breath, she forced herself to be as brave as she longed to be. "I wish you would tell me what's on your mind."
"You." He shook his head and her stomach twisted. "It bothers me that I couldn't carry you over the threshold."
Relief washed through her. She slumped against his back and possessively fanned her hands over his chest. His heart was a steady throb that coursed through her fingertips and spread through her veins, matching the beat of her pulse.
"I know it's just an outdated ritual," he said. "But it's a thorn in my side all the same, a reminder that I can't do something as simple as carrying my woman in my arms." Sol leaned against the window frame and pressed his hands over hers. "Does that seem trivial to you?"
"Far from it." Not for the first time, she was warmed by his desire for her opinion. What she thought mattered to him, in a way that had nothing to do with intellect and everything to do with soul. "I'm touched that carrying me over the threshold means that much to you. And because it means that much, it's even better than you actually doing it."
The tenseness of his back eased, then he turned and brought her into his arms.
"I don't know how you do it, lady, but you always manage to say what I need to hear." His jaw tightened and he got a very determined look on his face. "I'm going to carry you over that threshold one day. As God is my witness, I will."
"Then I believe it too. The mind is a very powerful tool, and yours seems to be stronger than most. Studies have been done that prove—" Mariah stopped short. She'd been about to quote statistics, cases, miracles, comparisons of standard courses of therapy to little-known practices. A concise documentation of volumes of study that most doctors would have been hard pressed to detail.
The silence lengthened, as did Sol's puzzled gaze. Managing a slight shrug, she said simply, "I learned in college that attitude has a lot to do with healing. So if you're determined to throw away those crutches, there's a much better chance that you will walk with that point of view."
His brow furrowed while he studied her a little longer; the urge to dart out the door was strong, but she managed to give him an encouraging smile instead.
"Why do I get the feeling that you're smart as a whip but you try not to let it show? Surely you're not one of those gals who think men find dimwits more attractive than a woman with a sharp mind, are you?" He speared both hands into her hair and held her head.
Mariah endured his scrutiny, tried to ignore the stunning sensual heat that radiated from his fingers.
"I—I had reason to think be
ing too smart intimidated men." She felt him release her head, only to lay his palms on her throat, then trail a path over her breasts down to her hips, where he began to work up her skirt. "It doesn't bother you if I'm... a fast learner?"
"No. In fact, you'd better learn fast that I think intelligence is sexy as hell. I can't wait to find out what's in that head of yours—motivations, fantasies, secrets. What makes you"—he pulled her flush against him—"tick."
Chapter 8
"Mind if we rest a bit, babe?" Leaning against a fence post, Sol gritted his teeth in an effort to disguise the pain he was battling. "It's a long walk back and I'm—"
"Hurting. Why didn't you say something sooner?" Tracing his jaw, she shook her head. "It's my fault, for getting so caught up with my own pleasure. If I hadn't been so excited to see your land, I would have realized. I'm sorry, Sol. I hate to see you hurt."
"I know that, and don't you dare go blaming yourself. We've been here nearly a week and not once have you asked to go past the barns. You've been patient, and it means a lot to me that you didn't want anyone else to show you around."
"I'm glad I waited." Mariah made a sweeping gesture that encompassed the surrounding area, and he felt a sense of oneness with her and this place in which his roots ran deep. As always, those roots tugged at him. But what had once felt like tentacles tangling around his feet now seemed more and more a welcome caress.
"It's so beautiful here," she said with awe. "There's something uncomplicated and honest and rich about this land. How lucky you were to grow up with it. And how lucky I am to share it." Her face was impassioned, her whispered words fierce. "Thank you, Sol. Thank you."
"Wrong, Mariah. It's me who's thanking you." He caught her hand and focused on the wedding band, shutting out his pain by shuffling through frame-by-frame images of Mariah during their walk.
Her floppy straw hat caught by the wind and somersaulting over a thick pasture of grass. Grass that he'd never realized was so lush and vibrantly green until she'd chased through it, peasant skirt flying, tangling about her legs as she laughed up at the sky. And why hadn't he noticed how sweet the wildflowers smelled until she'd tickled one under his nose, or that dandelions were more than a nuisance? They were floating dreams, she'd said, blowing them from her lips.
And the cows. Those bovine grass munchers he'd never considered more than dumb udders to be milked were suddenly pets that needed naming according to their dispositions. He saw her hesitantly touching their short, coarse hair, then stroking the damn creatures as if they were sleek pussycats. Her quick jerk as one took some hay from her hand, her giggles as she grew bolder and they were eating out of her hand.
Feeling the stabs of pain abate, Sol leaned his crutches against the fence. When one fell, he automatically stooped to retrieve it. A sharp curse exploded from his lips as he remained bent at the knee.
"I'll get it." Mariah crouched down and retrieved the crutch, a simple feat that for now was impossible for him. While Sol swallowed equal measures of frustration and ache, she fixed him with a level stare.
"I live with you, Sol. I wake up in the night and hear you cursing while you pace the porch. When I come out, you paste on a smile that looks like a grimace before you tell me to go back to sleep because you've got insomnia. If it was insomnia, you'd be drinking warm milk instead of taking a swig from a flask. You're in pain almost constantly, and you won't take anything other than a few nips to deal with it. Why not?"
"Because that's my decision," he snapped, immediately regretting his tone. Wincing, he straightened and softened his voice. "I don't need pills, Mariah. I need your company, your support."
"You need them all, Sol. Enduring pain doesn't make you more of a man, just as taking something for it doesn't make you less of one."
"Maybe. Maybe not. The point is, the pain gives me something to fight. One of us is going to win, and I don't lose easy."
He touched his eye patch, hating the loss it covered yet determined to accept it as a fact of life.
"I know you don't lose easy, Sol. For that reason, I can't help but wonder why you didn't accept a glass eye in exchange for what was rightfully yours."
"Because it's fake. I was tempted, believe me, to look as good as I could, in the hope that you'd want to keep me. But I decided that whether or not you stayed should be based on who I truly am, not a glamorized version."
He could almost see the wheels turning in her pretty little head, and knew she debated whether he was sending her an underlying message.
"I stayed, and still you keep your patch, which is perfectly fine. But to refuse some help for the pain? What do you have to prove, besides the fact that you can best it?"
"This time, Mariah, try to see through my eye. A glass one is artificial, so I shun it for a patch. The pills are just as artificial. I am who I am, so I don't want either. Depending on false securities is as much of a crutch as these pieces of wood I resent leaning on."
"I disagree. If you hurt, you hurt. Time helps; believe me, I know."
"And how would you know that?"
She did it again! Got that shuttered look on her face and glanced away. He knew it as surely as he breathed—Mariah had some medical know-how that went beyond college and that she didn't want to spill. He couldn't figure it. She looked too young to even have a college degree, much less a professional opinion.
"I... well, I was in an accident once. Nothing as severe as what you've gone through, but enough that I needed medication until I could deal with my injury alone."
"And what might that injury have been?"
She hesitated, biting her bottom lip. A lip he'd like to bite himself, suck into his mouth, and ravage until she surrendered her secrets.
"A dislocated shoulder. A—a broken leg, too."
The little liar. Did she actually think he'd fallen off the turnip truck yesterday? Mariah was as transparent as plastic wrap, and because she was so obviously unschooled in the art of deception, he granted her a reprieve—after making her squirm a full minute with a narrow-eyed stare.
"You know, Mariah, honesty's a big thing with me. Because of that, I'm going to tell you another reason I flushed those painkillers." It wasn't easy to disclose his masculine insecurities, but maybe, just maybe, she'd confess if he did. "Until I laid eyes—or rather, eye—on you, I had reason to doubt if I could get it up."
Her startled gasp at his bluntness coaxed an inner smile in Sol. Mariah had been sheltered, and expanding her education had become a rejuvenating kick for him.
"You heard right. That damn grenade took more than just a good chunk of my leg. It took my self-confidence, my goals, and my sex drive right along with it. Embarrassing as it was, I asked the doctors—you know, smart people who know a lot about medicine—if I'd had my baby-making gears stripped in the accident. Why no, they said, it could be the medicine."
Mariah turned a funny color before slumping against the fence. Whether it was his innuendo about her medical background, or his frankness, or both, he wasn't sure. But whatever it was, he liked getting under her skin since she'd dug beneath his.
"I had no idea," she finally said in a breathy voice. "Especially since you were so—well, I mean..." She swallowed hard. "You've certainly proven that you're not im-impotent."
"You've got that right, babe. In fact, I'm suddenly feeling randier than hell." He moved against her and softly commanded, "Turn around, Mariah. I want you to latch on to that fence and hold it as tight as you hold me inside."
Sol was amazed that she could be all wide eyes and hand-covered breasts now when they'd tangled like animals in heat the night before. Her surprise and modesty only intensified the arousal that was shouting down the pain, and increased his fixation on this walking contradiction of a wife.
"Why the fence?"
"I think that's apparent, love." He lingered over the endearment, a word that had never held so much meaning for him before. He was in love, and falling harder by the minute, but that was a declaration he didn't take lightl
y, and until he was certain the endearment would have to make do. "The reason you're grabbing that wood is so I can reassure myself I did the right thing when I flushed those pills and that what we shared on our honeymoon was no fluke."
"Sol, you're—"
"Hot for you. Crazy about you. Now I want to make you a little crazy too."
"But we're in an open pasture," she protested.
"So what?"
"So what? Someone could find us!"
"We're in the middle of nowhere and you're worried about being discreet? The way you act sometimes makes me wonder how you were raised." When she looked away, Sol caught her chin and forced her to face him. His patience was wearing a little thin; he was getting few answers. "Didn't your parents ever go to their bedroom and shut the door in the middle of the day?"
"Of course not!" Mariah sniffed, her nose tilting up regally as she came to her parents' defense. "But just because they're reserved doesn't mean they aren't fond of each other."
"Fond of each other? People are fond of their pets, their cousins, maybe even a favorite pair of old shoes. But who the hell wants to be 'fond' of someone they fight with, make love to, and stay up all night with when they've got a sick child? Mariah, if 'fond' ever describes what we feel for each other, I'll be real worried about our marriage."
Several emotions flashed across her face, and he craved to get into that head of hers. In fact, it downright galled him that she kept things locked away he couldn't get at, when he'd let her into places in himself no one had ever been.
"What are you thinking?" he demanded.
"About us, what brought us together. I'm thinking about the changing of the seasons."
"What do seasons have to do with us?"
"Everything. The Bible says there's a time, a season, for every purpose under heaven." Slowly, deliberately, she placed a hand on the fence. "What you said about fondness is true. While it's enough for my parents, it's not half enough for me, for us. And it certainly doesn't describe what I'm feeling now."