A Bride Before Dawn

by Sandra Steffen

  “You’re sure?”

  She nodded. She thought he might question this further. Obviously he trusted her. She knew they would have to talk about this, and soon.

  He tossed the packet over his shoulder, and came to her, thigh to thigh, belly to belly, breast to chest, his lips on hers. And the time for talking and for coherent thought came to an end.

  She lost track of who touched whom, of who was on top, and of where he left off and she began as he took her breast in his big hand, and slowly, reverently almost, lowered his mouth to her soft flesh. His other hand wandered to her belly, and slipped beneath the lace edge of her panties. After he’d drawn them down her legs and slowly eased on top of her, and brought his mouth to hers, she only knew that whatever happened from this moment on really was the beginning of something brand-new.

  Chapter Ten

  Noah was sprawled on his back, his pillow mysteriously missing from the bed, a corner of the sheet all that covered him. His head rested on one arm while the other arm dangled off the side of the bed, his fingers grazing the floor. Beside him, Lacey lay on her stomach, her face turned toward him.

  Night had fallen and the storm had moved on, leaving behind only a steady rain. The power must have come back on. He could feel the cool air blasting from the vent, but he hadn’t turned on a lamp in here. In the black-pearl darkness, he could barely tell that Lacey’s eyes were closed.

  “I might never move again,” he said. He was that relaxed, that spent, that satisfied. Especially that.

  She made a sound deep in her throat that meant ditto.

  It was no wonder they were both practically comatose, though. Three hours of sex did that to a person. Make that three hours of Lacey.

  Soft and supple where he was hard and solid, she was thinner than he remembered, but wilder and lustier, and somehow freer with her passion. The first time they’d made love tonight, he’d taken his time, drawing every last sigh out of her until she’d cried out for release.

  The next time she’d set the pace, and what a pace it was. When the sheets got tangled, they’d kicked them off. Thunder had rumbled and lightning had flickered, but the storm was nothing compared to the crescendo they created with every kiss and touch and sigh and moan. He’d used his hands and his mouth and every inch of his body to show her how he felt, and she’d shown him her feelings in countless ways, too.

  All day he’d planned to seduce her, but even he couldn’t have planned that last time. He’d been feeling pretty damn satisfied as he’d gathered up their damp shirts and jeans and carried them down to the dryer in the basement. He hadn’t bothered getting dressed, and she hadn’t heard him pad back up the stairs barefoot. He’d found her on her knees on the floor, looking under the bed for her other sandal. Even in the semidarkness, one glimpse of that delectable backside of hers was all it had taken. He’d had to have her again. When it was over they were both seeing stars.

  Step three was off to a great start. Spent and sated and half-asleep now, he really might never move again.

  “I’m starving,” she said sleepily.

  He made a grizzly bear sort of reply.

  “Are you?” she asked.

  “Now that you mention it. What are you hungry for?”

  “A cheeseburger and fries and a hot-fudge sundae.”

  He chuckled because she’d obviously given it some thought. She’d always had a hearty appetite. Although half the time he didn’t know where she put it, he liked that about her. In fact, he couldn’t think of anything he didn’t like about her.

  Resigning himself to the fact that he had to move sooner or later anyway, he swung his feet off the bed. “Your clothes are probably dry by now.”

  “What time is it?” She sat up, too.

  “A little before ten.”

  She caught him looking at her breasts from the light spilling from the hallway. Pointing to the door, she said, “Food, I need food. And The Hill closes at eleven on Sundays.”

  He scooped up the foil packet he’d opened but hadn’t used, and tossed it in the wastebasket on his way out the door. She’d assured him that he didn’t need it. Women knew their cycles, but the truth was he wouldn’t have minded if he’d gotten her pregnant tonight. It had been surprising enough when he’d experienced those brief twinges that night when Joey first arrived. He’d almost been disappointed Joey wasn’t his son. This was a complete change of heart. He wondered what Lacey would say if she knew. It wasn’t something he could just blurt out. So instead, he said, “I’ll be right back with your clothes.”

  Lacey waited until Noah left the room to make a run for the bathroom. As she was closing the door, she saw that he was walking away from her toward the top of the stairs.

  Lacey knew that confident swagger, that attitude. She was tempted to call him back to her all over again. Hungry or not, she would have enjoyed making love again. But Noah went downstairs and she closed the bathroom door and began to freshen up. After all, they didn’t have to make up for lost time or try to fit a week’s worth of memories into one night. They were starting anew, and this was just the beginning.

  She’d never felt so full of hope and enthusiasm for tomorrow and the day after that. The future really was wide-open.

  Like so many big, rambling old houses, the upstairs bathroom had been installed long after the house had been built. Once a closet, it contained a narrow shower, a toilet and an old-fashioned pedestal sink. There was a mirrored medicine cabinet over the sink and another mirror on the back of the door.

  She stood at the sink, looking at her reflection. Her hair was a mess. Since there was no saving her smudged mascara, she scrubbed her face clean. She found a hairbrush in an old cabinet and an old tube of Madeline’s lip gloss and mascara. After applying a little of both, she glanced over her shoulder at the mirror on the door. She started to turn away. Only to stop.

  For the past six months, she’d stayed away from full-length mirrors, preferring not to dwell on what was below her waist. Tonight, she took a long look at her entire reflection. What she saw was a twenty-eight-year-old woman with dark hair and blue eyes, pouty lips and full breasts. There was a whisker burn on her neck and a heart-shaped birthmark above her waist. Two scars crisscrossed her belly below it. The lines had faded from red to pink in the past six months. A year from now they would lighten to the color of her skin.

  She’d forgotten about them while she and Noah had been making love. That second time she would have been hard-pressed to remember her name if asked. As it turned out, it had been too dark to see them, after all. When the time was right she would tell Noah about her ruptured appendix and the internal scarring that had resulted from the subsequent infection. She would tell him that the likelihood that she would conceive a child was somewhere between slim and none. She wasn’t pretending that she wasn’t still sad about it. There might always be a sensitive little spot where that wish for a baby of her own had been, but her incisions weren’t the only things that were fading. Hope and happiness were magnificent healers. Still, she couldn’t help reflecting on the irony of it all, for the reason she’d broken things off with Noah two-and-a-half years ago was because she’d wanted children and he didn’t. Fate had stepped in. Now a future with or without children was no longer an issue between her and Noah.

  Placing a hand on her belly, she waited for the anguish and searing disappointment. Perhaps it was the lingering effects of euphoria following all that amazing sex, but she felt the first stirring of acceptance.

  She donned her bra and panties. Hearing him moving around his bedroom, she peeked out and discovered her dry clothes right outside the bathroom door. Her shirt and jeans were slightly warm from the dryer. Still wearing that beatific smile, she left the washroom. Noah had called tonight step three.

  Step three had only just begun.

  The founding fathers of Orchard Hill had been a pragmatic group of loosely connected men whose families had originally emigrated from Scotland. It was said that they’d wasted nothing. Ev
en middle names were an extravagance to them, and were rarely bestowed. It wasn’t surprising that the town had been laid out just as pragmatically, the streets named for numbers and trees and a president or two. It stood to reason that they’d called the path through the very center of the grid Division Street. Intersecting streets fell away to the Chestnut River in the west and to the orchards in the east. It was only fitting that businesses lined either side of the wide avenue. Also fitting was the name of the town’s oldest restaurant, which happened to sit on the highest elevation in town.

  After all these years, people didn’t frequent The Hill because it was aptly named. They came here because the food was always good and the gossip even better.

  Decorated in early Americana diner style, the restaurant had been surprisingly crowded when Lacey and Noah arrived at a little after ten. Now, fifteen minutes before closing time, only a handful of customers remained. That didn’t detract from the hometown ambiance. It did, however, make the sound of the trio whooping it up in a booth near the back audible in every corner of the room.

  Lacey didn’t remember the last time she’d laughed so much, or loved so much, or eaten so much, for that matter, and all in the same day. She and Noah had been tucking away the last of their burgers and fries with loads of ketchup when a large man with a shaved head stopped at their table.

  Noah was completely nonplussed by the man’s unexpected appearance. Ever since he’d climbed out of bed that last time, he’d been so cool, calm and collected that she doubted anything could ruffle his feathers. She was a little surprised when he introduced the man as Sam Lafferty, the P.I. Marsh and Reed had hired, but she wasn’t surprised that he and Noah were friends.

  Noah had friends everywhere.

  Lacey liked the private investigator almost immediately. He’d told Noah about a call he’d gotten from Marsh regarding some woman named Houdini. Lacey and Noah had told him what they’d discovered. Before he followed a lead on a waitress in Texas, he wanted to get as detailed a description as possible. He was going to pay the Sullivans a visit. Marsh and Reed were due home in an hour, and Sam had decided to kill a little time at The Hill.

  The P.I. was a giant and might have seemed intimidating, with his muscular arms, shaved head and pierced ear, but he’d been genuinely pleased to be invited to sit with them. He was either a fast healer or tough as nails, because she didn’t see any evidence of the boot he’d taken in his face a few days ago.

  From what she could gather, the life of a P.I. was solitary and messy. Sam sure wasn’t lacking in entertaining stories. Most of them began with the same three words.

  “There I was, minding my own business, and in walked an old mark who was supposed to be in jail.”

  Or “There I was with a doughnut in one hand and a pair of binoculars in the other.”

  Or “There I was, staring down the wrong end of a Smith & Wesson.”

  She didn’t know how he’d had time to finish his hot-fudge sundae with all the talking he’d done. If half of what he said was true, he was lucky to be alive.

  Noah’s sundae was gone now, too. Free, his right hand found its way beneath the table to her knee. He squeezed her leg gently, and moved up a few inches. Heat bloomed in places not directly connected to her knee.

  She kept her eyes on her parfait glass, anticipation melting her insides as if she were made of ice cream, too. On the other side of the booth, Sam launched into another tale.

  “There I was,” he said in his booming voice, “handcuffed to a headboard in my birthday suit, when in walked my date’s old flame. It was a real mood breaker, let me tell you. A jealous ex-lover is more dangerous than a roomful of rattlesnakes.”

  “How did you manage to get out of that one?” Lacey couldn’t help asking.

  “Sometime I’ll have to show you the trophy headboard—” Sam began.

  “Hanging on his wall,” Noah said.

  They’d spoken in unison, and shook their heads the same way. Looking from one to the other, it occurred to Lacey that this was a side of Noah she didn’t know anything about.

  “How did you two meet?” she asked.

  Her question launched another “There I was” story that had Lacey laughing all over again. It didn’t bother her that Sam Lafferty was one part bluster and the rest Irish bull. She liked him.

  She liked men, even the dangerous ones. She would be forever grateful to the women who’d taught her about the facts of life and how to hold her head high and how a knee placed just so could render a man defenseless, but it was one very special man who’d taught her compassion.

  It was a well-known fact that her mom had been gone by the time Harlan Bell bought a run-down bar on Division Street. A lot of people thought her father had been too lenient with Lacey when she was growing up. She’d even overheard a few say he had no business raising a daughter when he spent most of his time pouring drinks for deadbeats and losers downstairs. But those people—her well-meaning teachers, mostly—hadn’t seen the way her father had taken care of his family before they’d moved from Ohio to Orchard Hill.

  They could think what they wanted, but they hadn’t awakened in the middle of the night to the croon of her dad’s deep voice in the next room when her mom was in too much pain to sleep. Night after night, day after day, through doctor visits and disappointments, he’d held Lacey and her mom up, and he’d gotten them all through it. So, yes, Lacey liked men, especially men like her father, a-little-rough-around-the-edges types with bawdy stories and honorable souls. If she had to venture a guess, she would say that Sam Lafferty was one of those.

  The P.I. dropped a five spot on the table and slid from the booth. “Want me to tell Marsh and Reed not to wait up?”

  “That’s not the kind of thing you say in front of a lady, Sam,” Noah answered.

  “I don’t doubt that Lacey is a hell of a lady. I’m just saying it’s been ten minutes since I’ve seen your hand.”

  Once again, Lacey laughed out loud. Sam Lafferty hadn’t earned the reputation as one of the best P.I.s in the state by being unobservant. When Noah lifted his hand, Lacey’s came up with it, her fingers laced with his.

  “You’ve been holding her hand? You’ve got it bad, pal.” Shaking his head, Sam ambled out of the restaurant. Lacey and Noah sauntered to the front counter to pay for their meals.

  “How was everything?” the tired waitress asked.

  “Wonderful,” Lacey replied. “Everything is wonderful.”

  The other woman put the money Noah handed her in the drawer and counted out his change. “Yes,” she said, “I can see that.”

  Rosy Sirrine was tall and had sturdy hips and steady hands. As much a fixture in Orchard Hill as the sculpture on the town square, her ethnicity was a mystery. Nobody could remember a time when she hadn’t been head waitress here, yet there was no gray in her black braid.

  She reminded Lacey of an old nursery rhyme about a wise old owl. The more she saw, the less she spoke, the less she spoke, the more she heard, or something to that effect. “What are you doing working the late shift?” Lacey asked.

  “Dora went down to the courthouse today and got married. She up and quit without any notice,” Rosy said drolly. “I was planning to call you tomorrow. Are you still looking for a job?”

  Lacey was aware of Noah beside her, but she kept her eyes on Rosy. “I’ve picked up a temporary position, but I don’t know how long it’ll last. What hours would you need me?”

  “What hours could you give me?”

  “I have a temporary job, but I could work evenings for now.”

  “That would be a great help,” Rosy said.

  Try as she might, Lacey couldn’t help asking, “Who did Dora marry?”

  Dora Peterson had worked here almost as long as Rosy. She had her hair washed, curled, coifed and shellacked every week at the Do-Da Salon around the corner, and batted her fake eyelashes at every man who walked through the door.

  “Henry finally found somebody to accept his proposal,”
Rosy replied.

  “Henry Brewbaker?” Noah quipped.

  Lacey remembered when the old sweetheart had proposed to her.

  “It was only a matter of time before somebody saw the opportunity and took it.” Rosy pressed her lips together as if she’d put a tick-a-lock on them.

  “Are you upset that you’ve lost your best waitress?” Lacey asked.

  Rosy made a sound through her pursed lips.

  And Noah said, “Rosy would never stand in the way of true love, Lace. It’s a pity, though, if she’s lost her best customer.”

  Rosy smiled, proving that not even she was immune to Noah’s charm. After a little more discussion regarding her hours, it was decided that Lacey would hold both jobs for the time being, thereby giving Marsh and Reed time to hire a replacement and perhaps a permanent nanny. She would begin here tomorrow night at six.

  Noah took Lacey’s hand again as they left the restaurant. He held her door, then walked around to the driver’s side of Reed’s Mustang, which he’d borrowed for the occasion because his truck was still at the airfield.

  It would have been just as fast to walk to her apartment, but she enjoyed the short drive. It was as if every one of her senses was heightened. The radio hummed and the car purred and the late-night air felt blessedly cool after the rain. It was all somehow sweeter because of the man at her side.

  Noah walked her to her door, but he waited to kiss her until they were both inside. All of a sudden she was in his arms again, and he was kissing her as if it had been months since he’d worked his magic on her lips.

  She was coming to expect that every kiss would sweep her off her feet. This one didn’t disappoint. Wet, wild and possessive, it left her breathless and opening her mouth for more.

  Her head tipped back, need uncurling all over again. She glided her hands around his waist, catching in the folds of his cotton shirt along the way. He pressed his body to hers, seeking what she was seeking. And then, with Herculean strength of will, he tore his mouth from hers.