He scanned.
“Someone has their work cut out for them,” he remarked.
Shauna broke down. He was right. The house and the barn were frayed but sound. But the storm cut a straight line of destruction through fences and coops. The storm set her back. If he would even let her stay. She let go a whimper.
“Hey,” said Sam quickly. “I meant me. And the men I am going to hire. Not you. Your working days at least as a farm hand are done. Through.”
Shauna was horrified. “Are you asking us to leave?”
“No, missy. I am not,” he calmly assured. “Promise. Now let me go ahead here in the house and make sure it’s safe.”
Will had the women stand back as he ripped a loose board that dangled from the overhang of the porch. Haya, Shauna and the baby waited as he went in and inspected. He appeared at the door way and invited them in.
“All clear,” he announced.
She hesitated again. Clarity struck her hard. “Wait,” she said sharply.
“What?” he asked tenderly.
“How do I know you are who you say you are? And that the other feller wasn’t just a coward who ran off?” she asked.
He sniffed and thought. “I will think on how I can prove that to you. There’s a daguerreotype of me in this house somewhere. In one of the drawers. Of me and my --” he stopped. “I put it away for a period of mourning. If I can find it, I’ll offer it to you. For now, I reckon you’ll have to trust me. Can you find it in yourself to do that?”
Shauna and Haya quietly moved again. The rail of the porch was loose. Shauna did not rely on it. She had to rely on balance alone climbing the stairs with the baby in her arm. Sam swooped in and took the baby in one arm and offered her a hand. Then he offered Haya a hand until everyone was securely in the house. Shauna took the baby back from him. Her hands grazed his hard, muscled form. Their eyes met and a force flowed between them.
Haya took little Sam and set him down in his bed which was in a bedroom that Shauna and Haya shared. The house had two bedrooms. Shauna moved the bed out of the one so there were two beds in the one room along with the baby’s bed. The baby fussed as he went back to bed. Shauna tended to him. She fed him and changed him and rocked him to sleep.
She was entranced by the rhythm of the rocker and the sweet weight of her little son as he finally went to sleep when she realized in the next room, there was a conversation going on. The cowboy was talking to Haya in her language. In almost a year, it was the first time she had heard the voice of the human being who basically saved her life and her son’s life.
Emotion rushed Shauna’s chest. She put her slumbering son down in his crib and joined the other two out in the front room.
“You speak her language,” Shauna noted.
“Yes,” he said
“Please tell her thank you. Thank you for everything,” said Shauna
Sam translated. Haya nodded. She rose and without another word disappeared into her room.
“What did you tell her?” asked Shauna.
“I said thank you,” shrugged Sam.
“Are you sure?” she asked. “How do you say good night my friend?”
Sam told her. Shauna practiced it a couple of times before going into say it to Haya. Haya replied.
“What did she say?” asked Shauna.
Sam chuckled softly. “Did you hear her? She said exactly what you said. Only a little better.”
Shauna smiled at his teasing.
They were finally alone together. No drama. No distractions, if the chemistry that flowed between them didn’t count.
The cowboy and she stared each other down until they caved to their attraction. He took her mouth and swept it with his hot wet tongue. He kissed her for a good long time before he broke from her.
“I am in need of a bath. Will you walk with me to the stream? I have a proposal I would like to put before you,” he said.
Chapter Four
Sam grabbed the jug and took Shauna’s hand. The light of the setting sun cast a sweet shadow of the two of them walking across the grass. Everything seemed so incredibly fresh now that the storm had blown over. The creek that cut the land about an acre behind the house was swollen. It was rushing pretty strongly.
Sam leaned down and washed his hands and face. He washed the jug off in the rushing water. He uncorked it and took a timid sip.
“Mmm,” he said flirtatiously.
He took a bigger sip and then handed it to her.
Shauna took a small taste. She summoned her courage and took a bigger sip. It was liquid warmth going down. It made her insides as right. Her outsides were relaxing and lazy with the storm-softened air. Sam’s touch, holding her fingers lightly warmed her too. It made her yearn.
Sam kissed her again, passionately but just a taste. He held her jaw delicately in his fingers, his mouth but a breath from hers.
“I hope you know I want you to stay on. You and the baby and Haya,” he whispered. “I know how hard it is as a man to work a place but to come home and see a pair of women do so well and to raise youngin’.”
He stroked her face. Raked his fingers back through her hair. He looked on her adoringly.
“You and the boy already have my name. I’ll marry you proper if you want. We can go somewhere and come back, if you want. But I would be proud if you would be my wife. I would love and care for the boy as though he were my own,” he said.
Shauna felt like the months of ungodly hard times, though graced by sweet moments with her friend and her son, had finally seen a reward. The cowboy was the reward. His wanting to marry her and to ease her burden was her reward. The heat and the arousal his being so near her was her reward. One that she hoped would continue to give.
“Yes,” she said. “I will be your wife. But if things fail, and I will tell you plain, you’re leaving. I am not.”
His grin was wicked. “Agreed.”
Sam stepped back and stripped down. He stepped over to a shallow sandy shoal where the rushing water spilled at the bank in a calm pool. He stood with his backside to her and bathed. He looked over his shoulder in invitation.
Shauna stepped over to him somewhat intimidated. Shauna was the only person who had seen her in her altogether. It was dark when she lay with the man who claimed to be Sam Bishop. It was dark now but the moon gave them so much light that they could see plainly.
He reached out for her. “Come to me,” he whispered.
Shauna removed her boots and stepped onto the cool, soft earth with her bare feet. She unfastened her dress and let it fall to the ground so that she was in her bloomers. She walked with a wading step even on the ground, towards him. Shy but willing.
He took hold of her elbow easily.
“You are just about the prettiest woman I think I ever saw,” he said, kissing her head. “How do you get your hair so shiny?”
If her insides could giggle that was what she did. She shivered with a sort of joy at his compliment. She did find her own hair pleasing. It felt with just the right amount of body and went up into a plaited bun nicely. Her father always said she was too plump and that confused Shauna because when she regarded herself in the mirror to check her appearance, she thought she looked just fine. In secret she thought she was an attract woman. It was a conflict for her to disagree with her father.
“You are a hearty woman, Mrs. Bishop,” he said, his voice getting more and more sensual.
He had been the very first person to call her Mrs. Bishop. She had been a married woman, to someone, and it was the first time someone called her missus. His wide warm hand traveled the curves of her body slowly, slyly slipping her undergarments from her. Sam scooped water and dribbled it on her skin. It was a cold but warmed quickly. It was a welcoming feeling.
He grazed her with his soft warm mouth, his arms holding her more urgently, pressing her to him. He was aroused for her. His hardness nudged against her naked skin. Sam encouraged her back, to lay on the powdery sand of the shoal. Shauna spread her legs
around his lean hips to receive him.
He rolled to the side, bringing her with him. He stroked her so gently. He drew his hands down the length of her, pulling the back of her knee up around his hip. He cupped her buttocks, his palm squarely on them. He sneaked his fingers in the crevice of her cheeks, allowing them to explore, until they found the wetness of her center.
Sam plunged his fingers into her. He pressed his thumb at the top of her sex, and wagging it back and forth branching out pleasure throughout her body. Her breathing became labored in a good way. This had not happened with the other Sam Bishop. Her nipples were hard in the night air.
Sam trailed his lips down a line from the center of her breasts, across her belly. He swirled his tongue in her navel. She arched up against him powerfully. A cry escaped her lips and it tumbled down the rushing creek.
Shauna was unspeakably worked up for him. Needed him in a way she never thought possible. He gave her wetness. Heat. And an unearthly desire. Sam reached between them and levered his erection into her. She seized up, tightening up with a jolt of pleasure. He felt so wonderful. He felt right inside of her in the way a week of sleeping with the other man had never been. Laying with Sam was not the mechanical act her prior experience had been.
Chapter Five
It seemed like nature and eternity worked together and gave Shauna instinct. She knew exactly what to do back. Her hands roamed his wondrous form. There wasn’t a speck of fat on him. His was a beautiful sculpture of chiseled muscles. He was spectacular. The elements of western living had not worn him down yet.
Her breasts pressed against his rock hard chest as he held her. She cupped his buttocks and he hers, as they pushed in towards one another. He drew her knee up as high up the side of them as he could, making her very tight against him. She quivered with the new sensation. He made her insides flutter. Shauna panicked some not quite sure what was happening to her.
She pressed her palms against him, she twisted.
“Wow now,” he slowed his pace. He spoke to her gently but pumped into her in a teasing rhythm. “Shhhh, let it come baby.”
“Whh?” she said confused.
He put his lips to her ear and whispered through her hair. “Let it come. I’ll show you. Hold on. It will be okay,” he said.
He pressed between her legs in an endless circular motion as he drove into her. He gripped her thighs, pulling her to him. She took him so deeply. He pulled out and he glided in. Each time he filled her so deeply. Completely. Each time he pushed her further up some invisible climb, to an invisible edge.
Shauna knew it was some place she wanted to go.
She was so possessed by the heat he was giving her, that she was half in and out of a fever. She let her knees fall open. He was above her now. His massive shoulders filling the sky, his gorgeous handsome face beaming down at her. She could not speak or think straight. Just reach for him, stroke him. Touch him. Encourage him to keep doing what he was doing.
Sam leaned down and tweezed her nipple with his teeth. Shauna was still nursing the baby. She worried that something embarrassing might happen. But he assured her. She watched him still the tip of his tongue to the tip of her hard nipple and lick a tiny circle atop it.
The pleasure of watching him do things to her warmed her and gave her a delicious delight. She found herself arching and straining against him. Her hips rocked up against him very like his against hers. The more she moved like that the more her pleasure grew. It was never like this before.
She swiveled her hips like she was chasing something. Something that was building within her.
“That’s a girl,” he said.
Sam could handle her voluptuousness so fine. Shauna felt like a goddess as she lay beneath him. She squirmed and wriggled until she burst in rippling spasms on his hardness. Such sweetness Shauna never thought possible. Sam was merciless as he stroked her core.
“Sam?” she gasped, not knowing quite exactly what was happening.
“Oh yes,” he responded as though what was happening was as sweet for him as it was for her.
Shauna watched as his eyes fluttered, his head tilted upward. The more she rocked against him. The more they both liked it. If she fanned her legs just so, that made the pleasure more intense. She thought she would come undone but she moved as much as she could to keep the sugared clutching going. She didn’t quite understand them but she knew that she wanted to them to continued.
Each spasmodic grip of her core against his hardness was a new bliss. A wondrous sensation that rippled through her entire insides and pushed out her head down to her toes.
Shauna cried out with groans that came from deep within her. They were plaintiff, powerful cries that slowly got quieter.
Chapter Six
Shauna and Sam spent hours by the shore. They strolled back to the house well after midnight. She realized that they could not sleep together in the bed in the room she shared with Haya and little Sam. She was exhausted but she didn’t want to part from him. She spread some winter linens on the floor of the empty bedroom.
“My goodness,” he said with a wink. “I think after I get our place in order I think my first chore might be to make us a proper bed.”
He pulled her into the crook of his arm and kissed her forehead.
“I can go sleep in the haystack if you like. If you want to go crawl into your bed with Haya and the baby I would more than understand. I would miss you something fierce but I would understand,” he said softly.
“I don’t think I would sleep without you,” she said.
He smiled sweetly. “I think you would manage. You look awful sleepy. We have critters to feed in not too long a time.”
“You’ll probably be more comfortably in the barn,” she conceded.
“Oh no ma’am,” he said decisively. “I will be most comfortable with you. But I am only thinking of you. You have our babe to tend to tomorrow. I want you to be prime.”
Our babe. Shauna was startled. It was a lovely sentiment but a bit too much too soon. She decided to kiss him goodnight and to crawl under covers in what had been her own bed until now. Sam went off to the barn to sleep the rest of the night.
He and Haya let Shauna sleep in. She did her best to rise on time but they encouraged her to rest. Haya got breakfast for Sam and herself and the baby. Shauna felt like a dance hall girl sitting at the breakfast table so late in the morning.
She was at the table sipping coffee when Sam burst in with smiles and such a pleasant disposition. She blushed from head to toe. She could feel her face color above her coffee cup.
“Morning,” he said in a teasing, playful tone. “Or should I say almost noon to you.”
He kissed the top of her head.
“I heard you were up so I thought I would have a cup of coffee with you. Do you mind if I join you?” he asked.
“I would love it,” she said with an involuntary smile.
She smiled from ear to ear. She was a little too bashful to look at him. She was up and pouring a cup of coffee. She handed it to him and scuttled to a chair beside him.
“Now tell me something,” he continued in his mischievous tone. “How can a woman so brave as to take on a farm in a land strange to her be too timid to look her loving husband in the eye?”
Sam made her blush all over again.
“Oh my goodness,” he said. “There you go again. You better stop that. Someone is going to mistake you for a rose. On second thought, please don’t. It’s adorable.”
Sam leaned over and kissed her hair again. He looked around to see that they were alone. He touched his forefinger under her chin and lifted it up. He brushed his lips to her. Shauna wondered how a cowboy who spent most of his time out in the elements could have lips as soft as a babe’s skin.
He parted her lips, slipping his hot, wet tongue into her mouth, possessing it completely. She was definitely his, thought Shauna. She had no idea where this man came from so suddenly into her life but she accepted him.
S
he dared touch his face as well, contribute and encourage his affection, and reciprocate.
“Mmm,” he said. “Sweet woman. I thought I would come in and help you rearrange some of the furniture before I get back out to mending some of destruction from the store.”
And with that, Sam sipped the last of his coffee. He sauntered into Shauna’s bedroom and removed the bedding from the frame. He maneuvered the frame through the door way and put it back into the unused room from which it came. Shauna was right behind him with the bedding to make the bed up.
“Haya can still sleep in with the baby,” said Sam.
Chapter Seven
He took her hand.
“I expect we will need to get you a wedding ring of some kind,” he said.
The man who said he was Sam Bishop made an excuse as to why he had no ring for Shauna. She rationalized that with all the work she had to do, she didn’t have a need for a ring. And she said so now.
“I am content without one,” she said. “I have too many chores to concern myself with and jewelry would just get in the way.”
He gripped her firmly. Not painfully but enough to get her attention.
“I want everyone to know you are spoken for,” he said. “I want everyone to know we are married.”
His sentiment warmed her but the truth was they had not said vows. Not before God. She had said them with another man who claimed the same name. If she were to marry now, with a babe and all, the effect on their reputation, spare as their social life was, would be devastating.
She must have had a look on her face.
“What is it, Mrs. Bishop?” he asked.
“It’s just that we haven’t said our vows,” she said in a very quiet voice.
“Mm,” he said. “I reckon we ought to fix that. Where abouts did you marry before?” he asked.
Romance: My Stepbrother's Plaything Page 38