Forgetting Herself

by Yvonne Jocks

  The feel of her made his whole body light. The music mesmerized him, almost as much as she did

  —enough to ignore their growing audience of shocked faces, the way murmuring voices began to intrude on the waltz.

  “I don't care,” Mariah insisted.

  It hurt, to say it. It hurt, to be the strong one. “You wil .”

  “I'l risk it.” Never had she looked so determined. “I'l risk anything, Stuart. I just can't be without you anymore. Don't ask me to. Please don't—”

  “Whist,” he murmured, leaning his forehead to hers, tightening his grip on her, good sense and consequences be damned. She must not beg. She must never beg, not for something that was

  already hers. His pain eased with his capitulation. “I won't, lass. I wil na ask it.”

  “Please. ..”

  “I canna.” The music stopped, and his feet stopped, but he stood there with his arms around her, his forehead touching hers, his eyes closed and her lavender scent, her presence, keeping him alive. “Marry me, Mariah Garrison. Foolish or nae, dinna let me lose you again. I couldna bear it. I couldna ...”

  In answer, Mariah made a consenting, mewing sound.

  And the world became worth living in again.

  Partly because of that, and because she was now his to protect again, Stuart made himself look up, to see why the music had not started again in the party beyond.

  They were the reason.

  Guests crowded the hal way, eyeing them like wolves edging toward a ewe. Stuart saw Mariah's mother pushing through the crowd, saw that Colonel Wright would reach them first.

  From the other side of the lobby, toward the saloon, Jacob Garrison approached more slowly, even more dangerous.

  Mariah, final y opening her eyes, whispered, “Stuart?”

  He drew her closer against him. Maybe he couldn't keep her from being hurt again. But he wasn't about to give up without trying. Never again. Not without trying until his final breath. And she must never, never think he would.

  So he said, “It wil be al right, lass.” And at Mariah's worshipful smile, he even let himself believe that maybe, just maybe, everything would.

  As long as the ranchers left him alive to marry her, anyhow.

  Stuart said everything would be al right, and Mariah believed him.

  Whatever Papa said to him, after giving just enough orders to frighten the party guests—even the scowling Colonel Wright—back to their bal room, at least they did not come to blows. Not even when it looked very much like it would.

  And it did not keep Stuart from returning to Mariah's side as soon as Papa stalked away to fetch the surrey. Despite how her sisters had crowded around her, their voices unable to penetrate the waltz that stil sang through her, Stuart drew her quickly down onto a horsehair sofa, settled into one across from her.

  “I'l speak to the reverend tomorrow,” he promised, leaning his elbows on his knees. His voice, Mariah would hear anywhere. “We'l marry as soon as we can, likely within the week.”

  “But not because we're afraid of changing our minds?” Even as she asked the question, she prayed it would not snap him out of this wonderful, impulsive plan.

  Stuart had held her again. He'd danced with her—in the hotel lobby!

  And yet... to marry, if he weren't quite sure ...

  “I wil not change my mind,” Stuart assured her, his gaze anchoring her fears as easily as that. "And I'l not ask you to live with my family again. Nor wil I face down your father every time I must speak to you."

  “Mariah,” insisted Audra, low. “People wil talk if you marry right away!”

  Mariah looked at Stuart, and Stuart looked at Mariah—and then they both quickly looked at something, anything else in the polished lobby. There were after al ... ways ...

  “It...” Stuart cleared his throat, sounding as uncomfortable as Mariah, her face burning, felt. “That is, talk wil die down soon enough,” he said.

  When she dared meet his gaze again, his eyes shone with humor—very, very dark.

  When Victoria, watching the road, cal ed, “Papa's here!” Stuart helped Mariah to her feet and kissed her, right in front of her sisters and her mother and everyone. It was a sweet kiss, tender and chaste, but along with his dark eyes, it held a shiver of promise.. ..

  “Wil you be at church on Sunday?” she asked, clinging to his soft, sheep-farmer hands, afraid to say goodbye ever again.

  “I promise,” Stuart assured her.

  And he was. The weather had grown too cold for him to walk her home—not and talk while he did

  —but after services he drew her into a corner long enough to say, "Reverend Adams wil marry us Thursday afternoon. If... ?"

  “Of course I stil want to!” she insisted. “Don't.. . ?”

  He ducked his head. “Part of me fears it's foolishness,” he admitted, but before she could lose hope, he slanted his intense brown gaze upward and added, “But I'l not listen to it, if it keeps you from me. We'l have trouble, together or apart. I'd leave be together.”

  She hugged to his arm as tightly as was seemly in a house of God. "Your family wil come ... won't they?"

  “Do you want them, then?”

  “Of course! And mine...” She glanced toward the doorway, where Audra was widening her eyes and beckoning Mariah to hurry. Would her family attend? In the few days since the party, Papa had become as unapproachable as during Stuart and Mariah's first engagement.

  “Mine, too,” she said firmly, letting him help her into her coat before she fol owed her sisters out to the family surrey.

  Everything would be al right. It had to be.

  She drew her mother and father into Papa's den to tel them that she and Stuart meant to wed on Thursday, before she told her sisters. It seemed only respectful.

  “Wil you stand up with me, Papa?” she asked as he stared. “To give me away?”

  For a long, stil moment it seemed he would say nothing at al . Final y he spoke. "If you're determined to do this thing,“ said Papa, ”I'l stand with you."

  But he shrugged Mother off his arm and left the room.

  The moment when Mariah most worried that perhaps, just perhaps, things would not be al right, was when she stood on her father's arm at the back of the church, waiting for the reverend to beckon her forward. Hurried as they'd been, readying her to set up housekeeping in her own home, she'd hired no music, nor had she or her sisters managed decorations.

  The church looked so dark and empty! Mr. and Mrs. MacCal um stood to one side, al nine of their remaining children—even Douglas—with them. Mariah's mother stood to the other side of the aisle, and with Thaddeas, Mariah's five sisters, Uncle Benj and his wife and son, they almost equaled the count of the MacCal ums.

  Nobody else had come. And the folks who were there disapproved. Was this truly the best way to start her new life?

  Papa said, “You've not said vows yet, Mariah Lynn. Say the word; I'l take you home.”

  But the word home confirmed it for her.

  “Thank you, Papa,” she whispered back, kissing his whiskered cheek—then glanced up front, to where Stuart waited for her. “I love you. But I am going home.”

  Someone began to play piano music, and even before Mariah looked, she recognized the wel -

  practiced piece. Evangeline Taylor had attended her wedding, too. The minister nodded, and Papa eased Mariah forward, holding to her hand only a moment too long before he al owed her to step to Stuart's side. Then Stuart had her hand in his, instead—

  And everything was going to be al right after al . With Stuart beside her in his go-to-meeting suit, his solid, familiar presence calming her nerves even as it sped her pulse, everything was going to be fine.

  Everything.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Reverend Adams asked, “Who gives this girl to be wed?”

  For a long silent moment, Stuart expected the worst. Then Jacob Garrison rasped, “I do.”

  Mariah, already clutching Stuart's hand so hard that
his fingers felt numb, gentled her grip in relief.

  Not, Stuart thought, that she would ever admit fearing her father's refusal.

  After that, the wedding went by without difficulty.

  So that everybody could get home before nightfal , the reverend kept the service brief. Stuart vowed himself publicly to Mariah. Mariah vowed herself publicly to Stuart. Before God, their families, and their minister, he slid the gold ring he'd bought that afternoon onto her fourth finger, making her his wife, til death do they part. Mariah Lynn MacCal um.

  Despite al his concerns, the seeds of hope she'd planted in his life, four long years ago, had sprouted into reality—for better or for worse.

  Her mother had pul ed him aside before the wedding and told him that she'd paid for meals and a room at the Inn tonight, "so you both have an evening to get used to this. It's not charity, it's a wedding gift, and it's not for you, it's for Marian. If she decides she wants her mother, better she decides it in town than out on your homestead."

  So as the families left the church—Stuart's almost silent, Mariah's hugging and kissing her as if they would never see her again—at least Stuart had someplace other than his claim to take her.

  That relieved him more than a little.

  Whatever would happen tonight, no matter how shamefully often he'd dreamed of it, scared him some. He could only imagine how Mariah might feel. It eased him considerably to know that if he frightened or, God forbid, hurt her, she had somewhere to run. It would not be the first time a bride reacted that way....

  Though he had to wonder if Mariah's family would ease her back to him, like Prissy White's family had her husband—or if they'd just shoot him and have done with it.

  Once the new Mr. and Mrs. MacCal um reached their room, and Stuart put down the valises he'd refused to let the bel hop take, he also appreciated that their first night as man and wife would not be in a sheep-wagon ... no matter how sturdy a sheep-wagon it was. Even if he did fear taking a step in so elegant a chamber as this.

  Not that his fine new wife didn't deserve it. And more.

  Dark green carpet covered the floor to every corner of its mahogany-paneled wal s A huge wardrobe stood against one wal ; a carved, mirrored bureau against another. A dressing screen blocked off one corner, and two delicate chairs sat near the gabled window, on either side of a tiny, equal y delicate table. “We have steam heat,” explained the bel hop, who had insisted on showing them the room even without bags to carry. "The lights are electric, and you operate them over here.“ He switched the lamps off, then back on, just once. ”And the, ahem, necessary rooms are at the end of the hal way, one for the lady and one for the gentleman."

  While Mariah hurried to the window to explore their third-floor view, the bel hop nodded meaningfully at Stuart. He then grasped a handle that jutted incongruously from the center of the large wardrobe, then tugged it down just far enough to reveal that, instead of a place for clothes, he'd somehow hidden a bed in there. It embarrassed Stuart that, until that moment, he hadn't noticed the absence of the most significant piece....

  That is, the reason they were ...

  He nodded curt thanks to the bel hop, who said, "You folks enjoy your stay, and come down to supper anytime before nine o'clock."

  Then he left. Stuart and Mariah were alone together, and for perhaps the first time, they had permission to be. Married. From now on, they needed nobody's permission but each other's for anything they meant to do together. The very notion of it felt as implausible to Stuart as just standing in this room did, much less watching Mariah— his wife—looking out at Sheridan.

  But here he stood. And there she was.

  He tried not to think of the bed behind the wardrobe.

  When Mariah said, “Look, you can see the church!” he even came to stand careful y beside her, tried to admire the view himself. It was indeed fine....

  But not as fine as the view beside him. Somehow she'd made her hair fal into those neat ringlet curls down the back of her neck again. Against the cold from the window, her body beside him felt warm, and she smel ed like spring flowers.

  “My family stayed here once,” she told him, “when a blizzard blew up during a party. But we stayed on the second floor. The view wasn't as nice—once the snow stopped, I mean.”

  He wondered if she knew where they hid the bed, then. He wondered what kind of fine places she'd stayed in Europe. But when she turned to smile up at him, so pretty it about hurt his eyes, al he could think to say was, “Folks eat at nine o'clock at night?”

  “We don't have to ... I mean, do we?” She bit her lip, as if uncertain how much control he had over her, now that he was ...

  They were ...

  “You're hungry?” he asked, unsure of the same thing.

  “I was so busy getting ready for the wedding, I didn't eat too much today,” she confessed.

  Surely he could at least manage to escort her down to dinner without embarrassing either of them

  —especial y since her mother had already paid for it.

  He'd managed to buy the gold ring that glittered from the warm, soft hand Mariah laid in his, though. He would buy everything else for her now, too. Surely that would be enough.

  “We'l have our dinner now, then,” he suggested. “Like normal folks.”

  “Normal married folks,” she reminded him, smiling perhaps too brightly.

  As if he could forget that little miracle!

  Mariah enjoyed her dinner, even if she and Stuart didn't say much. She enjoyed riding back up in the elevator on his arm, too. Mr. and Mrs. Stuart MacCal um.

  Truly, final y, til -death-do-they-part married!

  Elevators usual y made her nervous, but not with Stuart, solid and steady, beside her. Stuart could manage anything. Not only had he married her, he'd even lived long enough for a wedding night.

  Surely if Papa were going to kil Stuart, he would do it before ...

  Rather, while Mariah was stil ...

  Such improper thoughts made her blush. When they got back to their room and found that

  someone had pulled the Murphy bed down from the wal in their absence, she blushed warmer yet. She almost wished she did not know what would happen next. She loved Stuart, of course; more than she perhaps had a right to. She enjoyed kissing and holding him. But oh ...

  There it sat. A beautiful y made bed, half fil ing the room that they, she and Stuart, were sharing.

  Together. And before the night was done ...

  Mariah hoped she liked being married as much as she did kissing.

  “I suppose we should ... sit.” Stuart glanced toward the chairs by the window. “And talk.”

  He was a solid young man from a respectable family, sheep farmers or not. His mother had raised a good, clean son. So Mariah obeyed her husband by sitting.

  But she deliberately sat on the end of the bed, just to show herself that it didn't scare her. After al , she did so love kissing....

  When she peeked up, Stuart was staring at her—and his brown eyes had gotten darker.

  “Sometimes, at my house, we sing,” she told him quickly. “After dinner, I mean. Or we draw, or write letters. Papa will read the paper. But—we're each other's family now, aren't we?”

  Stuart nodded. Then, taking a deep breath, he sat down beside Mariah, facing her slightly.

  On the bed.

  He even took her hand in his, which made her feel less . .. taut. But they sat very close. “Yes,” he said. “You're my wife now. And I'm your husband. Family.”

  Being wife and husband seemed a great deal weightier when he said it sitting on a bed—and it had already seemed weighty.

  “Sometimes we read out of a story paper,” she added. "We've been reading a story about a match girl who thinks she's orphaned, and—mind you, we've only read the first two installments—but it's very good...."

  Stuart slipped his thick arm slowly around her, so that she could lean back if she wanted. Had there ever been a time when she'd not wanted to b
e in Stuart's arms?

  So why was she sitting so stiffly?

  “I dinna subscribe to a paper,” he confessed. The touch of brogue in his voice, more than anything, hinted that he too was thinking of more than the little match girl.

  “I'm sure—” When Mariah looked up at him, the movement natural y tucked her up against his side. Her ... bodice ... even brushed up against him, and she suddenly felt warm in her nice wedding-day dress, and confused, and impatient... and perhaps a little scared, at that. But Stuart was the best person to be with when she felt scared, now.

  “—my family will lend me theirs, once they're finished,” she assured him, leaning a little more surely into the curve of his arm, trying to breathe normal y despite a strange, inner trembling. But was it so strange? She'd felt this way kissing him, once or twice. “If you don't mind me borrowing.”

  She meant to be happy with what he could provide her, after all . Borrowing luxuries from home—

  rather, from her family—hardly helped do that.

  Stuart said, “That's fine.”

  His eyes looked almost black. He let go of her hand and wrapped his other arm around her as well , so very big ... so very hers. He leaned closer, took a shy, sweet kiss off her lips.

  The next kiss was bolder, the next more brazen yet. Mariah could not tel whose mouth opened first, who caught the other's lips with gently teasing teeth, whose tongue began to explore deeper, clumsy and needy and overwhelming. They sought and granted pleasure in unison and, unlike even during their trysts under the Kissing Bridge, they need not stop.

  They weren't under a bridge, after all , but on a bed. And they were married.

  She spread her hands behind his neck, filled her palms with his thick hair, his muscular shoulders, the ridge of his ribs under his shirt. He traced her spine, cupped her waist—and as he continued to kiss her, until her lips tingled and her breath rasped in her throat, one big hand slid scandalously further, onto her bottom ...

  And it stayed there!

  Mariah, already flushed with the freedom of kissing Stuart all she wanted for once—for always—

  decided she liked the surprised jolt that hummed through her, liked that he could now touch her ...