OUT OF THE DARKNESS (THE PRESCOTT SERIES)

by B. J. McMinn

  When he returned to the house for supper and didn’t kiss Jade, an expression of confusion crossed her face. For a moment, his gaze lingered on her pouty, little mouth before he turned his back and washed for supper. They ate in silence. Tension built between them.

  Emma sat on a blanket and played with her toys while Jade cleaned the kitchen. Nicky began to stir. He picked her up and rocked her until Jade was free to feed her. If Nickolas came to claim Jade and Nicky, these memories would be all he’d have left.

  Dishes clinked as Jade put the last plate away. Nicky began to fuss.

  “I’ll take her.”

  Jade’s small hand slid up his thigh as she scooped Nicky from his lap, stopping short of the intimate touch he craved. His breath caught in his throat. His lungs deflated leaving him unable to inhale his next breath.

  He caught a glimpse of sexual hunger in her eyes before she left the room, Nicky cradled in her arms. For weeks they had played upon each other’s desire, found the others weakness. Fanning the flames of lust higher with each touch, each penetrating glance, until he trembled with awakened desire and unfulfilled sexual hunger. Each sexual maneuver, each tactical retreat, generated its own personal battlefield. Their unusual mating ritual was bringing him to an explosion of emotion.

  Whether it would erupt in anger or in passion was the question.

  CHAPTER 28

  With a nauseating sinking despair, Jade dressed for bed. Eyes closed, her heart fill with pain. She couldn’t spend one more night alone in this room. With the return of her memory, nightmares no longer plagued her, but she missed Jason’s warmth next to her. Nicky was five weeks old and Jason had not invited her into his room. After the way she had teased and tantalized him in the last few weeks, she felt he would have wanted to put an end to their ‘marriage of convenience.’

  She hadn’t told him all she had experienced: the death, the fear and the darkness, or that she had been married. He must not care enough to be interested. A warm tear trickled down her cheek and she brushed it aside. He never asked about her past, nor did he appear curious about Nicholas.

  He appeared fond of Nicky, so, she must not be the problem. With her bright red hair, small features, and freckles across her nose, she had faced the fact that she wasn’t pretty a long time ago. But surely, any woman was better than no woman at all. She wanted more than a ‘marriage of convenience.’

  Come spring, if Jason couldn’t bring himself to care for her, she and Nicky would leave. Without him, she faced a lightless future. He’d been her anchor when she felt lost in the darkness, the light that drew her back from the brink of insanity. But, she loved him too much to stay without him loving her in return.

  He’d find someone else to care for Emma until she was older. It would break her heart to leave the little girl. But, it would be best to leave before Emma became more attached to her. First, she must tell Jason her story.

  ~~~

  Lying in the dark, Jason could hear every movement Jade made in the room next to his. It was a cold night and the girls were asleep by the fireplace where it was warm. Yet, that was not the warmth he longed for. Jade, was the warmth he craved. He had missed her in his bed these last few weeks.

  He wanted to tell her that he loved her more than life itself. However, he was not going to break the promise he made her the day they married. If she wanted more, he would welcome her with open arms. But, the decision had to be hers. He rolled to his side to get more comfortable in the bed that felt too large without Jade.

  He blinked as his eyes adjusted to the dim light. She stood in the doorway, the light from the fireplace making her nightgown-made-for lovers transparent. He could see her slim hips, the dip of her waist. Even after having a baby, her figure was something that set his heart to pounding. The dark shadow of hair at the apex of her legs was clearly visible. Her milk-laden breasts swayed slightly as she walked toward the bed.

  Jason turned back the covers. Jade silently crawled in beside him as she had so many nights before. He gathered her into his arms and drew her against his bare chest. Eyes closed, nostrils flared, he took in her scent. She felt so good against him. He pulled her tighter.

  “Jason, I want to tell you why I was beside the wagon trail that day.”

  “Ssh, let me hold you,” he whispered, his words husky with desire. “It’s been so long.”

  She placed her hand on his chest, tangled her fingers in the short, springy hairs, and grazed her thumb across his flat male nipple. It hardened. He trembled.

  Blood coursed through his body and pooled in the center of his groin. Air suspended in his lungs. He forgot to breathe. His muscles convulsed with tension.

  She tilted her head up and her lips parted to form words that he never allowed her to speak. His head descended. His mouth devoured hers in a kiss meant to bring a response. He was not disappointed.

  Months of denial finally swept through him with a burning intensity he’d never experienced. Somehow, he remove Jade’s gown and tossed it into a shimmering, translucent heap on the floor. Her smooth, warm, silky skin touched him everywhere. And it was heaven.

  He trailed hot kisses down her neck to the hollow of her throat. He remembered the first time he yearned to kiss this delicate spot, to sip the liquid that had spilled there. His lips found the rapid beating pulse and savored the quickening of her breath as passion consumed her. Instinctively his tongue lavished her neck as he filled his hands with her luscious breasts.

  His fingers blazed a trail of tender caresses down her back to perfectly rounded hips. Exploring, tantalizing, touching forbidden places. Her hands moved over him as fast as his were on her. Captivated by her hesitant exploration of his body, he struggled not to release his passion before she was ready to accept his body’s invasion.

  Passion rode him hard. Her small lithe body urged him to continue. Wanting to discover if she was prepared for him, he slid his hand between her legs. When she stiffened in response, he patiently demonstrated with his tongue in her warm, wet mouth what he wanted to do with his fingers.

  He ran his tongue around the edge of her lips, slipped passed her tongue into the deep recesses of her mouth. Slowly he removed his tongue only to delve back inside, again and again.

  The moment she relaxed, he dipped his fingers into her tight crevice. She convulsed so hard her body lifted off the mattress as she cried out her release. At her cry, Jason rose above her and found what he had always dreamed of: the all-consuming love between a man and his woman.

  Easing his body from hers, he lay to the side, tucked her half underneath him as he stroked her, slowly bringing her down from the waves of ecstasy still quaking through her body.

  “Are you alright? Did I hurt you?” Jason asked concerned.

  He had never known a woman to cry out the way she had. What if it had been too soon after the baby? What if he had hurt her in some way?

  “I’m perfectly fine.” Jade said in the soft breathy voice of a woman completely satiated. Her body still held her in the grip of the passion she had experienced. Little quivers, she couldn’t control, pulsated through her body.

  “I never knew it could be like that.” She remembered the night in the wagon. Nicholas’ rough inexperienced lovemaking was nothing compared to Jason’s tender assault. He ravished her senses, made her come alive, and she enjoyed every minute of it.

  “It was beautiful,” Jade said between soft gasps of air. She rubbed her cheek on his shoulder .Vaguely, she remembered her nightgown that he’d tossed to the floor, but her naked body craved his warm flesh.

  Jason had heard of women who enjoyed sex as much as men did. Except he thought it was just campfire talk, men bragging about of their sexual experiences with women. Maybe he was one of the lucky ones, he thought as Jade snuggled closer. Smiling into the darkness, he proceeded to find out how much was reality, and how much was campfire talk as he brought Jade once more to completion.

  He lay in the dark and thought about the two little girls in the next roo
m. His family, he thought proudly, he and Jade would make a good life together for their children. Their ‘marriage of convenience’ had evolved into one of passion.

  The next battle would be to win Jade’s heart and her love.

  Nicky’s soft whimper brought Jade fully awake. She lay in Jason’s bed completely naked. Memories of the night before brought a smile to her face as they played through her mind. Surely, a man couldn’t make love to a woman like that and not care for her.

  Nicky’s whimper grew louder. She had nothing but last night’s sheer nightgown to put on. She was reaching for it when Jason came through the door carrying Nicky and, thankfully her robe. In his other arm, he held Emma, all smiles and giggles.

  The day passed slowly. Night couldn’t here fast enough to suit her. She didn’t know how she endured the day with all of Jason’s heated glances, soft touches, and stolen kisses. By the time a respectable hour came to go to bed, she was in a heated frenzy.

  Seams ripped as they shed their clothes with such haste that two buttons fell to the floor and rolled under the bed. Her cries of passion echoed in the room late into the night, answered by Jason’s growls of satisfaction.

  ~~~

  Jason entered the cook shack late in the afternoon. He had spent the last two days in the house with Jade and the girls. He needed to check with Cookie to make sure that he’d kept the ranch running smoothly in his absence.

  Pete and Willie took one look at him and their cheeks turned a dark hue. They mumbled something about checking on a newborn calf and raced for the door. Cookie was grinning from ear to ear as he stirred the beans on the wood stove.

  “What’s up with them?” Jason asked, staring at their departure with a look of puzzlement on his face.

  They usually had a cup of coffee with him as they discussed ranch business. Now they couldn’t get out the door fast enough. Cookie stood there staring at him with a sappy grin on his face. Jason wondered if he had his clothes on wrong side out.

  “Uh, we was in the barn with that mama cow late last night,” Cookie explained.

  “So.” Jason couldn’t imagine what a cow had to do with the way the men were acting or account for their red faces.

  “You got you a screamer don’t you boy.” At the perplexed look on his face, Cookie went on. “Yer bedroom’s on the same side of the house the barn’s on.” As if this was explanation enough.

  “Oh.” Heat crawled up his nape. He turned on his heel and left the cook shack. Cookie’s laugh followed him out the door all the way to the house.

  It wouldn’t be wise to inform Jade about what the men had overheard. It would embarrass her. Besides, it made him feel proud knowing he could bring those cries of ecstasy to her so easily. He went directly to Jade and gave her a hug and a kiss. He knew he wore the same sappy grin that Cookie had.

  CHAPTER 29

  Morning brought clear skies. The sun was just coming up when Jason rose from bed to start another happy day. The babies were still asleep, and Jade had started breakfast. He came up behind Jade, encircled her with his arms, and nuzzled her neck.

  “Good morning, sweetheart. Do you realize how beautiful you are?”

  He blazed a trail of warm kisses from a sensitive spot behind her ear to the hollow of her neck. He didn’t know about her, but passion still rode him hard. He hadn’t realized he was such a passionate man until he held Jade in his arms. These last months with her had been the happiest of his life. Underneath, the fear of losing her to the past still raged inside him. He thought with time, he could bind her to him through their shared passion, also with the fact that Emma was now a ‘mama’s girl’. The little girl had attached herself to Jade. She always wanted Jade to rock her to sleep.

  “You make me feel beautiful.”

  She turned in his arms, reached up, and pulled his head down to kiss him long and leisurely. She had never been the aggressor in their lovemaking.

  Jason’s arms tightened. He let her take the lead in where such a sweet kiss would take them. She was becoming the lover of a man’s wildest dreams. She always responded to him, yet, had never initiated their lovemaking. He rather liked this new side of Jade.

  With her arms still around his neck, she slowly tugged her lips from his and peppered tiny kisses over his face. She stepped away and gazed up at him.

  “Come. I want to talk to you.”

  Taking him by the hand, she led him to the living area to his favorite chair. She sat on the sofa across from him and took his hand. Her green gaze bore into him with such a determination in their depths, it made him afraid of what she was going to say.

  Never had Jason consider himself a coward, but at this moment, he was terrified. Afraid his world wouldn’t be the same after Jade said what she was so intent on telling him.

  Had she decided her past life was better than what he offered? Had she recalled the love she had for another man? Nicholas? He knew this conversation was inevitable. But he would have preferred to live with the specter of Nicholas overshadowing their lives, as to lose Jade to him or to his memory. He felt torn between learning someone had hurt Jade and if there were someone out there she loved, who would claim her.

  Jade realized neither she, nor Jason had mentioned Nicholas’s name since the day Nicky was born. With his confession of love last night, she felt more confident about her confession, knowing he returned her love.

  She had tried several times over the last months to tell Jason about the darkness she had lived with for nine months. He always found something else to do, or said they would talk later.

  Last night, as she lay drowsy after their spent passion, he’d repeated the words he said each night after he heard her steady breathing. He didn’t know she feigned sleep just so she could hear those words before she drifted off to sleep.

  Only last night they were not the same words.

  This time he’d whispered, “I love you, Jade. I promise I’ll make you happy.”

  They were sweeter to her ears than ever before. Tears had stung her eyes at the sincere commitment behind his vow. He needed to feel free to say those words in the light of day, not just in the dark hours of night when he thought she couldn’t hear.

  It made her realize she had to force him to listen to what had held her in its dark grip until he came into her life. She wanted him to know the love she felt for him, wanted him to understand about Nicholas.

  She wanted to speak those words aloud in the light of day.

  “Jason, I want to talk to you about my past. About Nicholas.”

  “Nicholas?” Jason repeated. A guarded expression on his face, as if, he had never heard the name before.

  “Yes, Nicholas. I don’t want him to stand between us any longer.”

  Their future depended on him knowing the truth. Accepting it and putting it behind them. She had taken his hand so he couldn’t get up and leave with a lame excuse as he had in the past. This time he would have to stay. She wasn’t going to let him put her off any longer.

  “What about him?” Jason asked grudgingly.

  “Nicholas was my friend from childhood, my husband for a few days, but you Jason, you are my life. I love you with all that I am,” she reassured him. “I want you to know why I was silent those months before Nicky was born.”

  “You love me?”

  He reached for her and tried to pull her into his arms. Putting her hand against his chest, she held him back.

  “No Jason. I want to tell you what happened, with no distraction,” she insisted. “I need for you to know, for you to understand.”

  He nodded, sat forward, and braced his elbows on his thigh. Jade began the arduous journey back in time. Into the darkness. Past it, into her life before everything had been ripped from her. Then back into the darkness, through it, into the light where she now lived.

  “Nicholas’ and my families had been friends for years. We grew up together. Nicholas, almost nineteen, was one year older than I was, and we were best friends. Nicholas’s father was determin
ed to take his family west, so my father decided to go with them. To save money, for when we got to our new homes, our families bought one wagon. If we shared everything, we would have enough to get us through the first winter.

  “The men slept outside while the women slept in the wagon, among the supplies. Nicholas’ younger sister and my younger brother were with us. We were several weeks into our journey when a fever struck the wagon train killing nearly one-fourth of the people, men, women, and children. Nicholas contracted the disease. But, being young and healthy, he survived. Our families were among those we buried along the trail.”

  “I’m sorry, sweetheart. I know this is not easy for you to tell,” Jason sympathized.

  Jade squeezed his hand tighter and continued, tracking the terrible events of that day through her mind, trying to put them into the words that she hadn’t been able to voice for so long.

  “Women of the wagon train didn’t think it was proper for Nicholas and me to share the same wagon without our parents, or the benefit of marriage. The people forced the wagon master to ask us to leave. Being on our own in unfamiliar territory, we both knew it would be best if we married so we could remain with the wagon train. But, Nicholas continued to sleep outside while I slept in the wagon.

  “Three wagons, including ours, split from the main wagon train to head south where we were to buy land. On the third day, it rained so hard we never broke camp. Everyone stayed inside the wagons.”

  She and Nicholas had not shared the wagon before. It seemed natural in the limited space, since they were married, to share a bed. In the night as they snuggled for warmth, Jade had awakened to fumbling fingers and Nicholas’ weight on top of her. The experience had not been pleasant. Nicholas apologized and promised it would never happen again. He had been half-asleep and didn’t realize what he was doing, he’d explained.