The Bride of Willow Creek

by Maggie Osborne

  But Sam was right. He was very, very good at kissing.

  So good that the party lost focus and all Angie could think about was the man by her side. They toured the rest of the hotel but afterward all she could remember was the light from the chandeliers sliding through Sam’s hair. She could scarcely recall what they dined on at the midnight supper, but she remembered Sam’s sure hands on the silverware. She remembered the shape of his lips and the way he couldn’t seem to look away from her. It was as if she and Sam inhabited a private space that excluded all others. The musicians played for them alone, the midnight banquet was only for them. The spell wasn’t broken until dessert appeared before them.

  “Stop,” Angie said, returning to reality with a jolt. “Sam, don’t eat that.”

  Puzzled, he glanced down at his fork hovering above a wedge of fudge cake. “Why not?”

  “Daisy.”

  “Daisy?”

  “We promised we’d bring her cake if cake was served.” But how would they get it home?

  “We promised?”

  Angie leaned to his ear and cupped a hand around her mouth. “We have to steal our napkins.” Sam drew back to stare at her, but she pulled him close again. “Wrap your piece of cake in your napkin for Lucy. I’ll wrap mine for Daisy.”

  “Angelina. Exactly how much champagne have you drunk?”

  “A lot,” she said after considering the question. She gazed into his eyes and decided she had never seen a bluer blue. “I’ll be your lookout.” The dining room was crowded with chattering guests, but she didn’t think anyone was watching them. “Quick. Put your plate in your lap and wrap the cake in your napkin. I’ll do mine now, too.”

  Sam glanced around the room, then sighed and put his cake plate in his lap. But that was as far as he went. Angie had to wrap both pieces of cake and hide them in her bag. She put their empty plates back on the table and reached for her champagne glass.

  “So far, so good.”

  “Maybe you’ve had enough champagne.”

  “Now then. See the favors?” Before each place setting was a three-inch-tall sculpture of the hotel’s facade, molded out of colored sugar. “We need four of those. Our two and two more.”

  “Angie . . .”

  “For Molly, Tilly, Abby, and Dorothy.” She gave him a conspiratorial wink and leaned into his ear again. “We’ll each have to steal our neighbor’s favor.”

  “And then what? We steal the silver and a plate or two?”

  “Just the cake and the favors. When Mrs. Finn is talking to her husband, snatch her favor. Or wait. Maybe all we have to do is ask.” To test the idea, she turned to the man on her right and tapped his arm with her fan. When he shifted to look at her, she gave him a dazzling dimpled smile. “I’d like to have your favor please. The little sugar hotel front? I need it, so please give it to me.”

  The man blinked, then his eyebrows lifted and he glanced beyond her at Sam. But he gave Angie his favor. She thanked him then turned her back and added the favor to the two in her bulging bag. “You see?” Now she gave Sam the dazzling dimpled smile.

  He stared, then laughed and pushed back from the table. “My dear Mrs. Holland, I think it’s time we got you home and away from waiters pouring champagne.”

  “No, no. Not yet.” Distress widened her eyes. “We need one more favor!”

  Sam opened his hand below the table level and smiled.

  “You got it! Excellent.” She tucked the fourth favor into her bag then let him help her to her feet. “We must find our host and hostess and thank them for a lovely evening.”

  Sam cupped her elbow and led her to the cloakroom off the lobby. “We’ll send a note.” He dropped her evening cape over her shoulders. “I’m glad I didn’t keep the carriage. Walking home in the fresh air will do us both good.”

  Before they left, Angie took a last admiring look at the hotel lobby. “It’s truly magnificent! I don’t want to forget a single detail.”

  Sam studied her shining eyes and flushed cheeks. Tonight she had been incandescent, luminous. Radiant with happiness, she’d drawn every eye. Even trying her best to appear formally serene and dignified, Angie projected a charming exuberance. She couldn’t stay still. She clapped her gloves together when something pleased or amazed her. She tapped her foot to the music and her shoulders swayed slightly. Her dimples flashed and winked.

  Taking her arm, he led her outside and assisted her with the steep climb to Carr Street, listening as she asked if he had seen this or overheard that. Did he think the flower vases were Chinese porcelain as someone had said? Was it true there was a penthouse suite on the top floor? What color, exactly, were the marble tiles in the lobby, and how many musicians had been on the ballroom dais?

  She threw out her arms and spun in a circle while he opened the front door. “Oh Sam! It was a wonderful evening!”

  “I still hear bubbles in your voice.” Laughing, he went inside and lit the lamp on the kitchen table, then grinned when she danced inside, her arms lifted to an imaginary partner. For the first time in his life, Sam wished he could dance. When she twirled past him, he caught her cape from her shoulders and dropped it across the back of a chair. On her next pass, she tossed him her bag and he set it on the table.

  “I think I’ll make you some coffee.”

  “I don’t want this evening to end,” she said, standing in the center of the kitchen, her eyes closed, swaying to remembered music. A smile played around her lips. Lamplight glowed golden on the swell of her breasts above her neckline.

  There was no creature on earth as beautiful as a happy woman. She took his breath away. And when she opened her eyes and smiled at him, his arousal was immediate and powerful.

  “Kiss me again, Sam,” she said in a husky voice that resonated through his body.

  He placed his hands on her shoulders, crushing the poofy little sleeves of her gown. “I don’t want to take advantage of you, Angie,” he said gruffly, trying to ignore his rampant desire. “We’ve both had a lot of champagne. It would be easy to do something that we’ll regret in the morning.”

  Stepping close, she raised her arms and reached around his neck to open the ribbon tying back his hair. The scent of powder and rose water enveloped his senses and a low groan rumbled in his throat. His hands dropped to her waist and slid lower, and he pressed her to him, feeling the heat and length of her thighs beneath the layers of skirts and petticoats.

  She raised her face and gazed at him with black eyes that became seductive when she looked at his mouth, and Sam knew without a doubt where a kiss would take them.

  Staring into her eyes, he recognized the moment when she, too, understood that another kiss would be a beginning. A flame had ignited on the hotel terrace when he kissed her and every glance since, every touch, every smile, every small movement had wound the tension a little tighter, had made the fire a little hotter, and had swept them closer to this moment of decision.

  She wound her fingers through his loose hair. “At first I didn’t like your long hair. I thought it made you look like a pirate.”

  His fingers found the satin-covered buttons running from the nape of her neck to her waist. He pressed his lips to her forehead and murmured against her skin. “Say no, Angie, and it stops right here.”

  “Yes.” Her arms went around him and she turned her head to rest her cheek on his chest beneath his chin. “Yes, yes, yes.”

  “Do you know what you’re saying? What you’re deciding?”

  The back of the gown was opened almost to her waist, and he felt her shudder as his fingers brushed warm, bare skin.

  Then her head fell backward and she gazed at him from half-closed eyes. “Sam?”

  He bent to kiss her throat, inhaled the scented powder on her breasts, felt her tremble beneath his lips. “Hmmm?”

  “If you can’t say something romantic or nice, don’t say anything at all.”

  He jerked upright to stare at the smile on her parted lips. “I just want to be sure that y
ou know that we’re about to—”

  She pressed a finger across his lips. “Sam? Hush.” Raising on tiptoe, she bit him lightly on the chin. “I’m a grown woman in full possession of my faculties. I know what we’re doing.”

  He wasn’t so sure about the last. Her faculties were soaked in champagne, and she couldn’t really know what they were doing because she hadn’t done it before. But he’d satisfied the laws of decency and gentlemanly behavior; he’d acted as honorably as a man could given the circumstances. Now he could give in to his own champagne-soaked desires.

  This time when he kissed her, he didn’t hold back. The passion he’d first felt ten years ago shook him with his need for her. When he released her mouth, they were both breathing raggedly, and Angie was wide-eyed and gasping.

  He pushed down the top of her gown and she drew her arms out of the sleeves, then he slid the satin over her hips and let her gown and petticoats puddle around her ankles on the kitchen floor.

  She stood before him with the hair ornament trembling on her head, wearing long gloves, a lace-edged French corset, white pantaloons, and white stockings. The lamplight made her eyes shine and her skin glow.

  Slowly Sam removed his jacket and pulled the studs from his shirtfront and cuffs, not taking his eyes off of her. She raised her arms and removed the hair ornament, then pulled the pins from her coiffure. A rich wave of reddish brown tumbled down her back and around her shoulders, and Sam sucked in a breath.

  She wet her lips and watched him tear off his shirt and throw it behind him. Then she wiggled out of her pantaloons.

  He would have liked to finish undressing her in the lamplight, but this was her first experience. She would find comfort in darkness. Crossing to her, he swept her into his arms and carried her into his bedroom. After he pulled off his trousers, he knelt before her, rolled her garters down her legs, and peeled off her stockings, then sat beside her on the bed and unlaced her corset.

  “I can’t move,” she whispered. “I feel weak and heavy.”

  “I know.” He kissed her eyelids, her temples, her mouth. When his hands found her breasts and cupped them gently, she stirred and her breath quickened.

  “Can you see me? Please don’t look at me.”

  “You’re beautiful, Angie. So beautiful.” He jerked the blankets back, then gently drew her to the pillows. “Just lie there.”

  His touch was light but his hands were callused and rough on her skin. The roughness made her shiver with pleasure and twist beneath his caresses, offering herself like a wanton. She had imagined this so many times, and she had been so wrong. She had imagined something gentle and dreamy with tenderness, but it wasn’t like that, and she didn’t want it to be.

  His mouth burned on her skin, and his hands moved on her body, teasing, coaxing, touching, withdrawing only to approach again, tease again, until she was panting and twisting to follow his fingers. He kissed her mouth, her breasts, her belly. Her head thrashed from side to side on the pillow, and she whispered a mindless, “Please, please, please,” not knowing what she begged for but needing whatever it was, needing him.

  When she was bathed in sweat and wild with wanting more than his mouth and hands could give, when she thought she would surely die if he didn’t come to her, Sam rose above her and thrust forward. A sharp pain caused her eyes to fly open and her fingers dug into his damp shoulders.

  The pain was fleeting and swiftly forgotten, swept aside by a tide of passion that overwhelmed thought and mind. Her hands flew over his chest, his back, his hips, then to his lips and mouth. Her body lifted with the rhythm of his thrusts, and a great joy burst through her.

  This was the mystery that had hovered beyond reach for so many years. Now she knew. Now she had felt a man’s heartbeat pounding next to hers, had felt his breath hot on her lips and bare skin. She had discovered an unsuspected emptiness and known the astonishment and bliss of fulfillment.

  Angie fell asleep in Sam’s arms with a smile on her lips.

  At first light she awoke with a start and bolted up in bed. Good Lord, she was as naked as the day she was born. Snatching the sheet, she held it over her breasts and stared at Sam, appalled. She gave his shoulder a rough shake.

  “You’re still here! You’ve spent two nights in the house this week and both times the girls were gone. What will the neighbors think!”

  Sam opened one eye. “They’ll think Sam Holland slept in his own bed with his own wife. That bastard. He should be tarred and feathered and run out of town on a rail.”

  “I’m serious.” Angie jumped out of bed, pulling the sheet with her. “Get out of that bed. . . . Oh!” He was naked, too. Spinning around, she faced the bureau, struggling to pull the sheet behind her to cover her exposed fanny. Fire blazed on her cheeks. He was very naked, and now she’d seen his very nakedness in the daylight. Lordy. “Sam, get up right now and get out of here. Molly and the girls could arrive any minute.”

  If he got out of bed as she was demanding, he would walk naked past her and walk naked into the kitchen to find his trousers. “Wait.” Swallowing hard, she clutched the sheet to her breasts. “Stay there for a minute. I’ll fetch your trousers.”

  When she saw the kitchen she groaned aloud. Pieces of clothing were strewn everywhere. After tossing several items aside, she found his trousers. Rushing back to the bedroom, nailing her gaze firmly to his face and nowhere else, she threw the trousers across his lap and spun again to face the bureau.

  Her reflection in the mirror made her sigh. Wild loose hair curled down her back and over the slope of her breasts. Her lips were still swollen from passionate kisses, and recalling those kisses caused her nipples to bud and stand out beneath the sheet as plain as day.

  In less than twenty-four hours she’d fallen from dull respectability to a state of disheveled wantonness. Narrowing her eyes, she studied her image, wondering if Miss Lily looked like this in the mornings.

  Sam appeared behind her and met her gaze in the glass. “Having regrets?” he asked softly.

  “I don’t know,” she said after a minute. “Are you?”

  “Me?” He laughed and kissed the top of her head. “Can a man regret heaven? No.”

  “What happened between us . . .” She hated the violent pink burning on her cheeks. “It was a one-time event, Sam. I guess I don’t regret what we did. I always wondered about, well, you know. But this can’t happen again.”

  “I understand.” He placed his hands on her bare shoulders and spoke to her reflection in the mirror. “Well actually, maybe I don’t understand.”

  “How can you not understand?” She threw out her hands, then grabbed the falling sheet and yanked it up over her breasts. “We can’t share a bed again. It wouldn’t be decent. As soon as we can, we’re going to get a divorce!”

  His hands caressed her arms, and the long strokes made her shiver. Gently he pulled her long hair back and gazed into the mirror at the thrust of her nipples against the sheet. “Remind me. Why are we getting a divorce?”

  For one fevered moment she couldn’t remember, couldn’t think. Then she jerked away from him. “Why? For one thing, we ruined each other’s lives. For another thing you betrayed me with Laura, and for the last thing, I’m going to marry Peter De Groot!”

  Oh Lord. Peter. The room spun around her. No, she wouldn’t think about Peter. Later she would flog herself with thoughts about Peter, but not now. How on earth had a simple thing like a divorce gotten so complicated?

  She’d have to sort that out at another time because right now she had a more urgent problem. Molly called her name and knocked on the back door. “Yoohoo, Angie. Are you awake?”

  Wide-eyed, she whirled toward Sam. “Quick, quick. I’ll pick up the clothes in the kitchen, you jump out the window.”

  “What?”

  “Out. Go.” She made a shooing motion with her hands, then she dropped the sheet and grabbed her wrapper from the hook on the back of the door. “We don’t want Molly and the girls to know you spent the
night in my bed.”

  “It’s my bed.”

  “I don’t care whose bed it is, you and I shouldn’t have been in it together,” Angie hissed. “Go!” She looked down, then clapped a hand over her eyes. “First, put on your pants.”

  “You really are beautiful,” he said as she turned aside to tie the belt of the wrapper.

  “Damn it, Sam. Go.” Dashing past him, she ran into the kitchen, bending and grabbing clothes off the floor and chairs. “I’ll just be a minute,” she said to the door.

  “Did you bring us something?” Lucy called.

  “Is it cake?” Daisy shouted.

  “You’ll find out in about one minute.”

  Rushing into the bedroom, she flung their evening clothes on the bed, then gasped and put a hand over her heart when Sam’s head and naked shoulders appeared outside the window.

  He scratched his jaw and gave her a thoughtful look. “When you have a minute, I’d like you to explain why I’m sneaking out of my own house.”

  “Think about your daughters!” She jerked the curtains together, shutting him out of sight. She could only hope he had the sense to wait until Molly and the girls were inside before he made a dash for his tent.

  Damn, damn. There wasn’t a thing to do about her wild hair, swollen lips, bare feet, or a certain knowing look that she could swear had not been there yesterday.

  “Angie?”

  “I’m coming!”

  After Angie opened the door, Molly looked her up and down and raised her eyebrows, but she didn’t say anything. And she didn’t say anything a few minutes later when she pushed aside two shirt studs before she set down plates for the cake.

  When the coffee was ready, Molly settled back in her chair. “Well. Tell us all the details that are fit to tell.” Her gaze was steady, but her mouth twitched at the corners.

  Daisy sighed happily. “Cake for breakfast. Wait til Papa hears.”