by Carole Howey
He held up his hands and hoped she could not see them shaking.
"You can belt me one if I touch anything you don't want me to touch."
She blushed berry red. He could tell, even in the poor light. He would have grinned, but his heart was pounding too hard.
"Fine."
She pressed her mouth shut like the seam on a tight pair of trousers and closed her eyes.
Flynn laughed. Missy opened her eyes at once, glaring murderously.
"I'm sorry; I couldn't help it," he told her, still chuckling. "You looked as if you'd just eaten a persimmon. Where'd you get the idea that you were supposed to do that to your face?"
"Well, what should I do?" she demanded crossly, wedging her fists at her hips. "You're supposed to be the teacher! Why don't you tell me, if you're so all-fired"
"You're right, you're right," he conceded. "I should have been more specific. Here. Just" He pulled her hands away from her hips gently. They were ice cold and shaking. He placed her arms at her sides, electing not to comment. "There. Now" With the tips of his fingers, he tilted her chin up slightly until her head was at the perfect angle for him to easily lower his lips onto hers. "Just" He realized with a swallow that she was looking into his eyes across a very narrow gulf. Her gray eyes were warm and fluid as quicksilver. He had been this near to her only a few other times, he recalled, and two of those times she'd fainted, either in shock or pain. He wondered if she'd faint now, and if she did, what sensation would be the cause of it.
He did not take his fingers from her chin. Instead he found himself stroking the smooth flesh with the pads of his fingers in small, circular motions.
"Oh," Missy murmured, as if she'd just had a remarkable revelation, or possibly a moving religious experience. Her tongue advanced from between her lips and retreated again quickly, leaving a fresh moistness behind that Flynn found himself aching to taste. Her trapped gaze made him feel as if he were the one in the snare.
On a soft breath, "What now?"
He shook his head slightly, drawing her full, warm, lush figure close in his arms.
"Nothing," he whispered. "Except"
Nothing except roses and honey and fresh straw and Missy. And the feel of her gentle, untried mouth achingly soft and warm under his. And the bittersweet taste of her innocent longing on his tongue.
Joy and terror blended with the new and entirely unexpected feelings that Missy experienced at the first gentle touch of Flynn's mouth on hers. He tasted, to her amazement, like salt, as if he'd been crying, but also like something sweet and delicious. Something oddly familiar, yet something she'd never known before. She moved her tongue along the corner of his mouth to find more of that peculiar but exquisite delight. She found that she wanted to give the flavor a name, or perhaps it was that she knew its name but could not quite recall it. It was suddenly the most important thing in the world, and in order to accomplish it, she needed to sample more.
Her tongue seemed to tell Flynn what she wanted, for he then gave to her, in cautious, maddening little sips, tiny, fleeting bits of that essence as if he were jealously hoarding it. But she found that she wanted it too badly to be denied by a stingy nature.
"More," she heard herself murmur against his mouth, too enthralled by the wonder of it all to be embarrassed by her forward request.
He gave it. And she began to take.
Sweet, heavenly God. Flynn groaned inwardly as Missy's soft warmth melted against him. Her first kiss, and already she was teaching him things he'd never dreamed! He'd taken her for the motherly type; it had not previously occurred to him that the very fact of motherhood required a fiercely passionate nature. And discovering this, he had not thought that being the one to awaken that aspect of the deceptively complicated Missy Cannon would yield such thrilling results.
For she was deep. And thrilling. She slid her hands up the front of his shirt as if she were marking him with some invisible, bewitching brand, making him hers without asking his permission. He willingly gave his silent assent, aware that he would have given far more than that for the pleasure of exploring her kiss and whatever else, spiritual or physical, she would care to share with him.
He hoped it would be everything.
When her hands found his hair, she made a small, whimpering sound in her throat that made him want to devour her. Afraid of the power of the emotion she elicited from him, he dragged his mouth from hers and sought her ear instead.
"Good God, Missy, what have we done?" he whispered, for his voice, like his good sense, was in tatters. Her first answer was a series of shallow, shuddering breaths against his neck that set his blood thrumming. Her next response made things even worse.
"It’s all right, Flynn," she assured him on a panting breath. "Really. Just hold me for another moment. Don't say another word. I understand. I won't ask for anything more than this. Ever."
What the hell was she saying?
He pulled back just far enough to look into her eyes. She put her hands on his shoulders firmly, but it was impossible to tell whether she meant to keep him from pulling her close again or to prevent him from retreating further. As he had no intention of doing the latter, the thought that she might mean to do the former both hurt and bewildered him. Her eyes were closed; they told him nothing. But her mouth, berry red and still swollen with his kiss, trembled. He brushed it again with his own because it seemed a shame not to.
"Flynn, don't." Her request was simple and devastating.
"What?" A spear of ice spiked him. He prayed he hadn't heard her correctly. "What do you mean?"
Her fingers tightened on his shoulders like claws. Madeleine, he recalled vaguely, had held him once thus. But Madeleine, shrewd and calculating, had meant to mark him and hold him to her for life. Missy, he knew instinctively, meant to do quite the opposite. She ducked her head, unwilling or unable to meet his gaze.
"It was wrong of me to suggest this," he heard her say in a subdued but steady voice.
He started to remind her that she had not suggested it, he had. She silenced him with a slow shake of her head.
"I told you once that I loved you, and you told me I mustn't," she said so quietly that his heart stopped to hear her. "I should have listened. Allyn used to tell me
I had more common sense than was good for me; I guess for once I didn't use it."
"Missy"
"No, let me finish. I thought I could make you let me in, make you share with me whatever terrible thing it is that makes you keep everyone at a distance, especially when you said back in May that you could easily love me. I tried to forget that at first, but I found I couldn't. I was so sure that 'could' meant 'do.' And I was so damned sure that 'do' meant that sooner or later you'd have to break down and admit it, and to let me share whatever blackness has you in its hold. I even let Bill start coming around here to try to make you jealous so you'd admit to loving me. I'm sorry for that; it was a wicked, manipulating thing for me to have done, and it wasn't fair to you or to him. I guess I'll have to marry him now when he asks"
"Like hell, you will!"
Missy looked up at last, her features a startled scowl. "I'm not finished!"
"Yes, you are," Flynn said firmly, taking hold of her arms. "I can't make any damned sense out of what you're trying to say anyway."
"I'm trying to tell you that you needn't feel responsible for me being in love with you, you wretched, overbearing lummox!" Her face was red and her gray eyes flashed like moonlit silver.
"That's good. That's very good." He slid his hands down her arms until he found her fingers. "Because I'm holding you entirely responsible for the fact that I've completely lost my head over you, Missy Cannon, and the only way you'll ever have Bill Boland will be as my widow."
Missy's eyes grew wide, then quickly narrowed again.
"I'll not have your pity, Flynn Muldaur, or your ridicule!'' She tried to yank away from him, but he held her fast.
"And I'll not have your pride nor your temper about this, Melissa Can
non!" Damn, she could make his blood boil with rage and with passion, and sometimes even both at once. What a woman!
"How dare you!"
Flynn chuckled. "Oh, you're good at that," he lauded her, relishing the look of fiery outrage on her pretty face. "I especially like it when you puff up your bosom at me like some dowager pigeon, and that pretty lower lip of yours puckers itself like a drawstring sack. Makes me want to kiss it again" He tried to, and she surprised him by wrenching her hand free from his and slapping his face. Hard.
"What the" The room spun a little and he staggered back a good two feet. She sure packed a wallop.
"I don't know what game you're playing, Mr. Muldaur," she growled at him in a seething, feral rage. "But I believe I've already proven that I don't need any help making a fool of myself, thank you. I do a journeyman's job of it on my own. I may not ever have been kissed before tonight, but I know something about love, perhaps even more than you. I know that kissing and passion are only a part of it. And I also know that secrets, especially ones so ugly they can't be shared with even one person, have no place in it. I think you'd better leave now. This” she gestured with a wave at the quiet, laboring horse in the straw” is nothing I haven't dealt with before. I can handle whatever happens with Miss Mabel all by myself until Mi gets back, and I suddenly find your company undesirable. So go."
Flynn, stunned, could only stare at her. Was this the same woman who'd melted in his arms moments ago? The same one who'd welcomed his kiss and had kissed him back as he'd never expected? The sting on his cheek was nothing when compared to the gripping cramp in his gut. In a single breath, she told him she loved him and that she wanted nothing further to do with him. After having kissed him like that . . . What the hell was he supposed to do now?
He had no idea how much time passed before he was able to form a response for her.
"I'm not going anywhere." He managed, to his relief, to sound gruff and annoyed despite his hurt. "I guess we both sort of got carried away by one simple little kiss." His heart hammered a loud protest at that, as if it were calling him a liar; the kiss had been neither simple nor little, and it was a stretch for him to pretend otherwise. ''But there's no need to compound the foolishness. I've seen foaling mares in this shape before, and I know when push comes to shove, four hands are almost always better than two. So let's both be sensible and forget all about this." In a pig's eye, he thought. "I'm sorry." He wasn't, and he thought he'd choke on the words, but he swallowed hard instead. Missy, as he'd hoped, met his gaze with a look of grudging consent.
He knelt beside her in the straw again, and he did not allow the faint scent of her to distract him from a new, bold plan.
Chapter Seventeen
"It's a breach."
Missy finally uttered the thought she'd feared to give voice to all night. The pale, eerie dawn filtering into the stable made the light from the three lanterns seem old and yellow like a daguerreotype. Two faces, Flynn's and Micah's, looked up at her from the front end of the struggling, failing mare. Micah had been talking to Miss Mabel right along in an effort to soothe her, and he didn't have much voice left. Trying to keep the mare calm, both men looked as tired and dejected as Missy felt. She was in Miss Mabel's birth canal up to her elbows and she was covered with blood, urine, mucus, and the smell of death.
An hour earlier Miss Mabel's water had broken, and the gush had been dark with blood and other fluids that presaged a failed pregnancy. Missy had hoped until that moment that Sheik's offspring might somehow hold on,
but with such a presentation she knew her hope was in vain.
Micah went pale at her pronouncement.
"She's mighty weak," was his panting observation. "I don't think she'll walk for a turnin'."
Missy's heart hit bottom.
"We've lost the foal; damn it, I can't lose her, too," she said through her teeth, longing but unable to brush the sudden tears from her eyes. Of the four mares she'd purchased in Louisville, Miss Mabel had been the most promising as a dam for Sheik. Now that promise would have to wait for another time. Assuming, of course, that the mare survived this ordeal. Missy felt around the tight space inside the mare, praying for a miracle, not sure what form that miracle might take under the circumstances.
Her miracle, such as it was, was granted.
"No, she isn't breach," she muttered as she probed the dead, underdeveloped fetus with careful fingers. "She's contracted. Feels like easy, Mabel, it's only mefeels like . . . Lord, I don't know what."
Once before, Missy had brought a contracted, premature foal into the world. It was not an event she recalled with any particular enthusiasm: the foal, near enough to term to have survived otherwise, had been malformed beyond being recognizable as an equine animal. A monster. The mare had lived, but only because Missy had literally removed the dead foal from her, piece by gruesome piece.
Missy shuddered against another powerful contraction. She felt as if her arms would break under the pressure, but the dead fetus inside scarcely budged. It was a stalemate. There was no choice left to her.
"Here, let me try." Flynn was beside her suddenly. She spared him a glance and noticed the lines of care and fatigue beneath his blue eyes. He had no gaze to spare for her, only for the travailing horse. Missy silently blessed him for that.
"I've done this before," she told him woodenly. "And I'm in here now. Miss Mabel knows me. Trusts me. It's better that I . . . do this." She could not bring herself to be more specific than that, although she had the feeling Flynn understood precisely what she intended.
"No, Missy." He was gentle but firm. "I can't allow it. You're exhausted. You're upset. There's no need for you to put yourself through any more"
Miss Mabel contracted again with a distressed whinny. Missy felt the mare's body tighten against her aching arms and she squeezed her eyes shut.
"Flynn"
His chest was firm against her back and he held her shoulders tightly.
"I'm with you, sweetheart," he whispered. "Hold on."
She took comfort in the strength surrounding her, very glad, suddenly, for Flynn's presence. She could not think of another person she would want near her in such an hour of crisis, not even Bill Boland, as experienced as he was. It just seemed right, somehow, for Flynn to be with her.
The contraction ebbed. Missy drew a shuddering breath. She wished the ordeal were over, but she knew it had scarcely begun. Flynn was on one knee in the straw before her, his hands on Miss Mabel's flanks. The lantern was on the wall right behind his head; it hurt her eyes to look up at him.
"Damn the mare and the foal!" he whispered harshly, his handsome features gathered in a scowl. "You're worn to a thread. Get out of there now and let me finish this!"
How lovely it would have been to yield to his command, she thought, closing her eyes. The stall reeked, her body ached with weariness, and she was covered with the fluids of a travailing animal. It was one of those rare moments when she regretted being a breeder and a trainer, when she wished she led a simple life in service or as the wife of a man who shielded her from life's harsher realities.
"Look at her, Flynn," Missy breathed, resting her cheek for a moment against Miss Mabel's wet rump. "She's small; too small for you to do any good. She's scared. She's in desperate, desperate trouble. She"
"She needs you," Flynn finished for her with a heavy, resigned sigh. "All right. I'll help. Just tell me what to do."
Another fruitless contraction. Missy wanted to weep with the pain, and with the heavy burden of sorrow in her heart.
"Pray," she gasped. "For both of us."
Missy closed her eyes and prayed herself as she took hold of the unborn foal's slippery back leg. It wasn't really a foal's leg, she told herself, biting down hard on her lip. It was little more than a stump about the size of her forearm, with none of the joints one might expect in the rear limb of an equine mammal. Contracted, she told herself as she pulled it away from the hip joint. Deformed. Dead. Like the bramble she cleared away fr
om her garden in the springtime.
The leg was soft, and gave little more resistance than rending a wing from a freshly killed chicken. Missy tried to think of that as she pulled the bloody, detached limb from the laboring mare's distended vulva. Flynn took the obscene thing from her hands and quickly shoved it in a burlap sack. She watched it disappear into the black mouth of the bag, wanting to be sick.
"Do you want me to take over?" Flynn put his hand on her arm. Her sleeve was rolled up nearly to her shoulder and her arm was as bloody as if she'd severed her own artery. His hand was stained red as well, she noticed, gazing with fascination at the long, strong fingers at her elbow.
"No." She shook her head. "This is my job. I'll finish it."
She met his gaze just long enough to see him shake his head once and offer a sad, fleeting smile.
"You're a damn stubborn lady," he declared softly, and she was warmed by the tenderness in his voice. "Anybody ever tell you that?"