The Chisholm Brothers:Friends, Lovers... Husbands?

by Janis Reams Hudson

  After she had cleaned up the kitchen for a final time that day, she turned to find Sloan standing behind her.

  “Can I get you something?” she asked. “There’s pie left. Would you like another slice?” She reached for a plate in the cabinet.

  “No.” He grasped her hand and threaded his fingers through hers. “Thank you, but no, I don’t want any more pie, as good as it was.”

  Emily saw in his eyes the desire that she had been fighting in her own heart.

  “Come for a ride with me,” he said.

  “A ride?”

  “Back to the pond. Just the two of us.”

  Emily’s heart started pounding. “I can’t leave the girls.”

  “They’re going to watch a Disney movie with Grandmother. They’ll be glued to the TV for two hours.”

  “I can’t take advantage of Rose that way.”

  “What advantage? I’ve already asked, and she said it was fine. Besides, it gets me off the hook. I’m grateful I’m not the one who has to watch those 101 spotted puppies again. It’s her favorite movie. She’s about worn out the video, and rumor is, she’s got the sequel now.”

  “You’ve arranged for your grandmother to baby-sit my children.” Was she supposed to be grateful for his thoughtfulness? Or angry at his presumption?

  “Is that a problem?” he asked.

  “I’ll have to think about that.”

  “But you’ll go for a ride with me?”

  Emily didn’t know why she was quibbling. Yes, she was leaving in barely more than a week and would surely never see him again. But, for right now, he wanted her, and she wanted him. “Yes,” she said. “I’ll go for a ride with you.”

  Sloan had tried to think of everything. He had ridden out to the pond earlier to set the stage. He had arranged for his grandmother to watch the girls. He had a quilt rolled inside a blanket strapped on behind his saddle. To prove he could be civilized as the occasion merited, he had a carefully wrapped bottle of wine and two wineglasses in his saddlebags. Candles, he had decided, would be overkill, considering it was still daylight, and he wouldn’t risk setting fire to the pasture anyway. But the pink-tinged clouds riding just above the tree line on the western ridge added a nice touch, even if he couldn’t take credit for arranging them.

  He was nervous, he admitted. He’d made it past the first hurdle, getting Emily to come with him. He looked at her now, as she rode silently beside him. She looked so cool and calm. So damn beautiful. So delicate, although she would fire up quickly enough if he said it aloud.

  What, he asked himself for the dozenth time, was he doing? He had feelings for Emily, strong ones, growing stronger by the minute. He didn’t want her to leave. Not next week, not next month. But how could he ask her to stay? She had home and hearth written all over her. Marriage. And that was something he could not offer.

  Maybe she was right, maybe she was strong enough for life on the ranch. Maybe he was the one who was helpless, when it came to her and her girls. He still remembered the sheer terror that had seized him when he heard Libby scream. The sharp fear of seeing Emily fall to the ground.

  She had handled Libby’s screaming without breaking a sweat, while his hands had shaken for more than an hour.

  Maybe it wasn’t her at all who was the problem, but him. In any case, a man should be in love with a woman before he asked her to marry him, and she should love him, too. That wasn’t the case with him and Emily. They liked each other, cared for each other, and were definitely attracted to each other. But love? Surely not.

  So where did that leave them?

  He doubted there was a job available anywhere in the county that would pay her enough to support herself and her daughters, pay for a place to live, day care, clothes, food and everything else required to keep a family going.

  It would be easy to suggest she simply remain as their housekeeper, but that would mean firing Earline, and that he could not do. It wasn’t fair, it wasn’t right, and Emily, not to mention his grandmother, would have nothing to do with such an arrangement.

  That left Emily and him with few options. No options, as far as he could see, except to make the most of the short time they had left.

  In all of his musings, there had been one important point in the back of his mind. He had mentioned it once to Emily, but she hadn’t taken him seriously. She thought he wouldn’t bother with driving to Fort Smith to see her.

  The hell he wouldn’t, he thought as they approached the pond. Unless she simply refused to see him after she left, he planned to do just that. There had to be more for them than these few days.

  “Oh my.”

  Sloan heard Emily’s quiet comment and knew she’d finally seen what he’d done.

  “Do you like it?”

  “Like it?” Emily had to blink to clear the moisture from her vision. “Sloan, it’s wonderful.” She couldn’t believe he’d gone to so much trouble. He must have ridden for hours to gather all the bunches of wildflowers that greeted them as they rode up to the pond. She didn’t know their names, but there were tiny white flowers on long stems with fernlike foliage. There were black-eyed Susans, small pink cuplike blossoms, little blue flowers on stalks of long, green grass. All of them grouped in a large arc facing the pond.

  As they rode closer she realized the wildflowers were stuck in old coffee cans, Mason jars, milk jugs, whatever would hold them. And obviously, would hold water, too, or else the flowers would have long since wilted in the day’s heat.

  He’d done all this work for her. She was moved almost to tears by his thoughtfulness. It had been a long time since anyone had done anything special for her.

  They drew their horses to a halt beneath the big willow tree and before she could swing down from the saddle, Sloan was there. With his hands around her waist, he lifted her down until she stood between him and her horse.

  Then he kissed her. It was a slow, luscious melding of lips and tongue and teeth. With her legs already weak from the ride, Emily didn’t have a chance of standing on her own. She leaned on him for support.

  A deep tension inside Sloan dissipated when he felt her slight weight rest against him. This time he was going to take it slow and savor every moment with her, every inch of her.

  He broke off the kiss and led her to the base of the willow. He turned her until she faced away from the pond. “Stay right there.”

  She turned to follow when he headed toward his horse. “But I want to see the—”

  “Just—” He turned her around again and led her back to the tree, again facing her away from the pond. “—stay here. You can see everything you want to see—” he wiggled his eyebrows “—in a minute.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “What are you up to?”

  “It’s a surprise. Just stay here with your back turned so I can take care of a few things. Promise?”

  What was he up to now? she wondered. “All right, but I don’t need any more surprises. The flowers are beautiful.”

  “I’m glad you like them.” He placed a kiss on her forehead. “Now behave and stay put. I’ll be right back.”

  Emily stayed where he left her, tracking him with her ears. She heard him lead the horses farther along the shore of the pond. She heard the creak of leather. He must be loosening the cinch on each saddle.

  The grass swished with his footsteps. Then a rustling and a snap. A blanket? More swishing through the grass, then the distinctive chime of glass ringing against glass.

  Her heart started racing. He had obviously gone to even more trouble than she’d first assumed. She bit back nervous laughter. Did he honestly think he needed to seduce her? She had already nearly melted in his arms.

  Around her, the long narrow leaves of the willow rustled gently, while the larger rounder cottonwood leaves made a clattering sound as they slapped against each other in the slight southern breeze.

  She heard again the swishing of grass, this time coming toward her. She was suddenly wound so tight that she barely avoided jumping w
hen his hands settled on her shoulders.

  “Close your eyes.”

  “Sloan, this isn’t necessary.”

  “Humor me,” he said. “Just close your eyes.”

  She did, and he wrapped an arm around her and turned her toward the pond. The ground sloped down toward the water. With the first step he encouraged her to take, she stumbled.

  “Careful,” he said. “Here, this is better. Keep your eyes closed.”

  Suddenly the ground fell away beneath her. “Sloan!”

  “Hold on.”

  It took her a moment to realize that he had picked her up and was carrying her in his arms. “What are you doing?” It was, she admitted, a stupid question. She wrapped her arms around his neck and held on.

  He stopped walking. He slipped his arm from beneath her knees and stood her on the ground. When he had her facing the direction he wanted, he stepped from behind her and stood at her side.

  “Okay,” he said. “You can open your eyes now.”

  Emily opened her eyes and gasped in surprise and pleasure. A beautiful, colorful quilt, made in the star pattern, was spread out between her and the water’s edge. He had added flowers to each corner of the quilt, and at the edge nearest the water sat an open bottle of red wine and two wineglasses.

  “Oh, Sloan. How lovely.” She looked up at him. “Thank you.”

  He smiled. “Come sit down.” He tugged her to the center of the quilt and sat.

  When she joined him there, he began pulling off his boots. No small feat, Emily thought, no pun intended, without the use of a bootjack. Then she remembered that he had managed it well enough in the barn yesterday, so perhaps it wasn’t as difficult as it looked.

  Whatever, it looked like a good idea. She toed off her sneakers and set them, as Sloan did with his boots, on the grass beside the quilt, then peeled off her socks and tucked them into her shoes.

  “I thought this might be nicer than the barn,” he said.

  Emily smiled and sipped her wine. “The air is fresher.”

  He let out a short laugh. “It is that. Em, you deserved better than a stall in the barn.”

  “You can’t possibly be taking responsibility for that,” she said. “If you recall, I’m the one who stripped down and came at you like a shameless hussy.”

  His grin was slow and devilish. “Oh, yeah, I definitely remember that. And I’ll be grateful for it until my dying day.” He leaned forward and kissed her.

  Her mind simply shut down. She tasted rich wine on his lips and tongue. She smelled sweet clean wind and growing things.

  Sloan pulled back, then tilted his head and kissed her again, a little harder this time, a little deeper. “You deserve a bed with satin sheets and candlelight. I can’t give you those things right now. I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be,” she told him. “This is wonderful. It’s special and thoughtful, and I love you for it.” The instant she said the words, she knew they were true. She did love him. Heaven help her.

  Her words shook Sloan. She didn’t mean them, of course. Not the way he wanted her to. But he would hold them close inside just the same. He kissed her again. Then again, and again.

  “If you keep this up,” she said, “I’m going to spill my wine and it will put an ugly stain on this beautiful quilt.”

  “Since I plan on keeping this up,” he said, dipping in for another quick kiss, “we better figure this out.”

  Emily set her glass of wine on the grass, beyond the edge of the quilt. She turned back and reached for his, placing it next to hers. “What’s to figure?”

  “Ah.” He moved in closer and nudged her until her elbows were the only things keeping her from lying down. “A woman after my own heart.”

  The next thing Emily realized, she was lying on her back, staring up at the blue, blue sky, with Sloan leaning over her.

  Sloan knew they had all the time they wanted. There was no rush, even if they stayed until late. The horses knew the way back to the barn no matter how dark it got. Yet he felt an urgency building inside him to have her beneath him, embracing him, taking him in.

  Slowly, he reminded himself. Slowly.

  With the tip of one finger, he traced her eyebrow, the line of her cheek, the length of her jaw. “You are so incredibly beautiful.”

  Her throat worked on a swallow. “You make me feel that way, when you look at me like that.”

  “I knew your eyes were the color of the sky before I ever saw you.” He kissed each eyelid.

  “How did you know such a thing?”

  “Because I knew that only a beautiful, blue-eyed angel could have given birth to those two little blue-eyed angels who greeted me at the door of that café.”

  She smiled and ran her fingers through his hair. “You say the sweetest things.”

  “I try.”

  “You don’t have to, you know.”

  “I don’t have to try?”

  “You don’t have to say sweet things. You don’t have to seduce me. You did that with the flowers.”

  He stared into her eyes, and kept staring as he kissed her. “How is a man supposed to resist you?”

  “What if I don’t want you to resist me?”

  “I can’t tell you,” he said, moving toward her mouth again, “how relieved I am to hear that.” He settled his lips over hers and tasted the wine, and himself, on her tongue. While he deepened the kiss, he smoothed his hand from her hip to the side of her breast.

  Emily was burning from the inside out, but she didn’t want to rush things. This could easily be the last time she and Sloan would be together this way. She would be gone in barely more than a week, and privacy was at a premium. They might not find another chance to be alone together. She wanted to savor every moment, to press each touch, each sensation deeply into her memory to pull out for warmth on the cold, lonely nights ahead. She would take whatever he offered, give whatever she had, and she would have the memories to last a lifetime.

  She moved, trying to shift his hand to cover her breast.

  “Not yet,” he whispered against her mouth. “Not yet.” He stroked his hand back down her side, along her hip. “You feel so good.” But he wanted to feel more. He slid his hand beneath the hem of her knit top and traced his fingers back and forth across the silky skin of her abdomen. The way her muscles quivered in response sent his blood rushing.

  The knit top was in his way. Pulling it off over her head was a simple matter, one which she helped him accomplish. He tossed it aside. Her soft skin, so pale next to his, fairly begged to be tasted. He pressed his open mouth where his fingers had been.

  Sweet. She tasted as sweet as he’d known she would. But just to make certain, he tasted another spot, and then another, until he had tasted every inch between the waistband of her jeans and the bottom edge of her bra. Then he kissed his way up the center of her ribs, over the middle of her bra, over her chest, up her neck, until he reached her mouth.

  While he feasted on her mouth, he reached beneath her and unsnapped her bra. With a slight shift of his weight, he was able to slide the straps down her arms and away. He raised onto his elbows so he could see what he’d just revealed.

  “So pale,” he whispered. “So perfect.” With both hands, he cupped her breasts. They plumped beautifully to fill his palms. He flicked first one tip then the other with his tongue and watched them harden.

  Emily sucked in a sharp breath. He was killing her, slowly, one kiss, one breath at a time, and she welcomed it. When he brushed his tongue across her nipples she cried out at the sudden sharp sensation that arrowed from those twin points to deep in her belly.

  She felt his fingers trail down her middle, then reach for the snap on her jeans, then the zipper. Her stomach muscles quivered. She helped him push down her jeans then she kicked them off.

  He reared back and sat on his heels to look at her. She could feel his eyes on her as if they were his hands. It was the most erotic sensation she’d ever known, lying there, spread out before him, naked, li
ke a feast for the taking, while he sat there fully clothed with the fire of heightened passion in his eyes.

  Sloan gazed down at her and thought he’d never seen a more beautiful sight. Until she pushed him over and rose above him, her knees straddling his hips. She took his breath away.

  “It’s my turn now.” She pulled his shirttail from his jeans and began working the buttons. When she finished she spread his shirt open and ran her hands over his chest, making his breath catch. In that moment there was nothing in the world he wouldn’t have done for her. He was her willing slave.

  She tugged his shirt down his arms and away, then set to work on his buckle. His snap. His zipper. She was careful with the zipper, not letting her fingers touch him at all. It nearly killed him.

  She started working his jeans down over his hips, but had trouble. “Help me,” she said, frustration coloring her voice.

  “Gladly.” He shucked his jeans and shorts and watched her face.

  Her gaze started at his feet and moved up, slowly. The smile on her face was secretive, self-satisfied. When she reached his loins, he could have sworn she actually touched him. His reaction was immediate and physical and made her smile widen.

  Her eyes finally reached his face, and he let out a breath. He wanted her to make that same trail again, this time with her hands. Then her mouth. Oh, how he wanted her mouth on him.

  But just then it was her eyes that held him captive. They were filled with an odd mix of innocence and ancient female knowledge. She made him feel more of a man than he had felt in his entire life. She made his chest swell, his brain stall. She made him as hard as a rock.

  “The first time I saw you,” she said, stroking his cheek with her gentle fingertips, “I thought you had the most compelling face I’d ever seen.”

  “I notice you didn’t say handsome.” He tried to smile, but a sudden rise of emotion nearly choked him. God help him, was he in love with her? Could that be what this soaring, trembling feeling meant?

  “Handsome?” She shook her head. “Such a weak word for such a strong face. I’d never really noticed a man’s looks before, until I saw you.” She leaned down until the only thing separating her lips from his was a scant breath. “I’m so glad I saw you that day. So glad,” she said, taking a quick nip of his lips, “that you came in for lunch.”