Liz Ireland

by Trouble in Paradise

  Ed looked around the kitchen and parlor as if he hadn’t noticed anything out of the ordinary till just now. “Oh!” He chuckled. “Yes, I see. A little cluttered, isn’t it?”

  “A little?”

  “Well, you see,” his uncle replied, “I thought I’d buy myself a new suit.”

  That, apparently, was his explanation. He turned away from Roy and began sifting through papers on the ground again.

  “What does this paper have to do with buying a new suit?”

  “Oh, well, a few years ago I was spring cleaning and I went through the house lining all the shelves with a Montgomery Ward catalog. So now…” he tossed the paper in his hand aside “—now I’m trying to find the page with the men’s clothes on it.”

  “Good heavens!”

  Ed nodded. “I know…it’s turned into quite a project. I’m afraid it might be in the bedroom.” He looked at Roy worriedly. “Do you think Ellie will be up soon?”

  He obviously couldn’t wait to start ransacking another room.

  “If you’re so set on having a suit, why don’t you go see if Trilby’s has one ready-made?”

  Ed shook his head. “I don’t want to do that. That Cora Trilby would have it all over town before I’d even handed her the money for it.”

  “Well good grief, who cares if you’re buying some new clothes? You’re entitled to, I guess.” An idea occurred to Roy. “Or how about asking my mother?”

  His uncle’s face went slack with horror.

  “Why not?” Roy surprised himself by recommending his mother, but today he was feeling generous. In fact, he was beginning to wonder if he weren’t a changed man. “She’s a seamstress, and I’m sure she could use the work.”

  “I could never…” Ed’s words trailed off as he rifled through the papers with more fury than ever before.

  “For that matter,” Roy said, feeling a little uncomfortable seeing his uncle in such a state, “I don’t see what’s so wrong with your old suit. You looked fine in it last night.”

  Which seemed strange, now that he thought about it. Did Ed always dress up to take his apples to the mercantile?

  “Fine, you say?” Ed barked out a laugh. “It makes me look like an old snake who needs to shed his skin!”

  Just then, Ellie appeared on the stairway, and seeing her nearly took Roy’s breath away. For a moment he forgot about his uncle and catalogs and suits and simply focused on Ellie. She was so beautiful. And she loved him. He’d stayed up half the night marvelling at that fact. Every time he’d attempted to nod off to sleep, her face would swim in his mind’s eye, causing his heart to soar.

  But this morning, in the flesh, she was much prettier still. She’d dressed in her clothes from yesterday—she hadn’t brought any others—and her red hair was mussed from sleeping on it. She looked all the more adorable for appearing slightly rumpled. And her eyes were still muzzy from sleep.

  Or maybe they were muzzy with confusion.

  He’d almost forgotten he was standing knee-deep in clutter.

  “What’s happened?” she asked, her voice slightly croaky.

  Roy smiled. “My uncle wants to buy a suit.”

  She frowned. “But…”

  “He lined his shelves with the Montgomery Ward catalog, and now he’s looking for the page with men’s clothing.”

  “Oh!” Ellie’s eyes rounded. “I saw it last night!”

  Ed went rigid with surprise.

  She nodded and pointed into the bedroom. “When I was fetching another quilt for you, Roy, I saw that very page at the bottom of the chest in the bedroom.”

  Ed jumped to his feet, ran over to Ellie, and twirled her in a circle, laughing. “By gods, you are a wonder!” He winked at Roy. “Hold onto this one, nephew.”

  Roy looked at Ellie’s pink cheeks and surprised eyes and felt something inside him melt. “Believe me, I intend to.”

  “Your uncle said there’s going to be a dance in town in a few weeks.”

  Ellie could have kicked herself the moment the words were out. It sounded as if she were fishing for an invitation!

  Which she wasn’t. She wouldn’t even know how to behave at a dance if she wasn’t there to gather dirty punch cups. But she was curious…did Roy go to dances and talk and flirt with ladies? He would cut a fine figure on a dance floor—or anywhere for that matter. She found herself feeling jealous of women she didn’t even know for sure existed—any woman who might have set her cap for Roy.

  He took her arm and chuckled, and, as always, his merest touch sparked a fire inside her. She felt girlish, like skipping. Instead, she chuckled too, not even knowing why, and held onto his arm.

  “I have to warn you, the dances here probably aren’t what you’re used to.”

  She frowned, realizing suddenly that he had no idea what she was used to. Servitude. Her life hadn’t been about dancing and laughing and idle afternoons paying social calls, as Roy probably imagined. “Roy, I should tell you that my life hasn’t been all laughter and gaiety, as Parker might have led you to believe.”

  He looked down at her, his eyebrows raised in mock alarm. “Hasn’t it?”

  They were strolling on a hillside—Roy called it a hillside, though it just looked to her like a slope—through Ed’s apple orchard. The branches of the trees were mostly bare now, and at each step they took their feet crunched and then sank on the blanket of leaves dusted with snow. It seemed appropriate to Ellie that the very surface of the earth she walked on had changed since last night. Nothing felt the same. The morning air after the snow was clearer, crisper, the vista more unbroken and gleaming than anything she had ever seen before. Beyond this little patch of orchard, white fields stretched to the end of the horizon, dazzling her with their blinding brilliance.

  She took a deep breath, filling her lungs with the clean air and filling herself with courage. “No, Roy, it hasn’t.” She didn’t know how to begin to straighten the confused record of her past.

  He gasped, stopped, then spun her around. “I’ve got to do something about that!”

  “About what?”

  “About your unhappy life—from now on I’ve got to make it a whirl of gaiety!”

  His wide blue eyes were in such a comical panic that she couldn’t help grinning. “You?” she asked, planting her hands on her hips and looked up at him saucily. “And here I was wondering if you even knew how to dance!”

  “Dance? Why I can dance like the dickens!” he said, and to demonstrate, he pulled her into his arms and waltzed her around the orchard in steps that were actually great hopping leaps. They turned recklessly and fast, nearly bumping into trees, almost spinning out of each other’s grasps. Ellie was breathless with surprise, yet laughter tumbled out of her anyway. She’d never seen Roy this way, so smiling, so silly, so…

  Adorable.

  They snaked through the trees into a clearing, where their waltz degenerated into a spin like she hadn’t done since she was a child—they practically touched toes, held each other at arms’ length and simply whirled around and around and around till she felt dizzy with motion and laughter and looking into Roy’s blue, blue eyes.

  They finally flew apart, the force sending Roy against a tree and Ellie spinning off into the field until she finally collapsed in a heap on the snow. She was still laughing—so hard her side was beginning to hurt. She needed to stop, but when she looked up at Roy, she began giggling again.

  “Told you I was going to make your life a whirl,” he bragged.

  She groaned at his silly joke, then felt laughter bubbling up in her all over again. In retaliation, she balled up a handful of snow in her glove and lobbed it at him. The white powder splattered on the shoulder of his coat.

  His eyes widened in offense at her sneak attack. “Oh, so it’s not fun you want, but war?”

  Still chuckling, she shook her head—but she was too late; he was already bending down to ready his arsenal. When he came up and chucked a tight snowball at her that whizzed by her ear, barely
missing her, she got up with a shriek and began running. Back through the orchard they flew, darting around tree trunks they used as barricades against the snowy missiles they launched back and forth. When Ellie reached the end of the orchard, she had no choice but to make a run for it across the open field to the nearest shelter, which was the barn.

  She couldn’t remember the last time she had sprinted, or even played outside. Not since she was a girl perhaps. She’d forgotten how wonderful it was to laugh till she was sick with silliness, or to run until she was simply exhausted.

  Panting, she ducked inside the barn just ahead of Roy. She stepped to the side as soon as she cleared the door and watched Roy race right past her. He was halfway across the building before a nervous titter escaped her lips, causing him to turn, his expression a study in comic confusion. She barely held back another laugh.

  “Trying to hide, are you?” One brow arched up and he took on a little of the stage villain’s leer.

  She giggled and in return for his efforts assumed the frightened cower of a beleaguered ingenue. Playacting wasn’t difficult with Roy striding toward her, hunched menacingly, clutching his melting snowball as if it were a dreaded weapon. “Please sir,” she begged in a quavering high-pitched squeak, “do not bludgeon me with your icy mace.”

  “I’ll do worse than bludgeon you, my pretty,” he uttered with a low cackle.

  And before she could ask what worse there could be, he grabbed her into his arms and pressed the snowball to her nape, provoking a very real squeal of surprise from her. She tossed her head, sending her hat flying, and pleaded for mercy. Roy, grinning, obliged, dropping his snowball and swinging her up into his arms for a kiss.

  One touch of his warm lips instantly undid the snowball’s damage to her temperature. She melted against him, cleaving to him as if she were born to have her hands entwined around his neck, her lips pressed to his. Delicious sensations coursed through her, torching to life desires she’d tried so hard to bury. Such feelings couldn’t be wrong. Not when she was so sure that what she felt now was love, and that her love was returned.

  His lips left hers and she looked up into blue eyes darkened with passion. His gaze narrowed. “I’m sorry, Ellie—you must be exhausted,” he said, pressing her head to his shoulder.

  She closed her eyes and was barely aware of the fact that they were moving, covering the length of the barn with Roy’s quick strides, past horse stalls and a tack room, beyond a pile of sweet-smelling hay to the very back of the building where there was a small cot. Though breathless, she felt far from tired, and yet she revelled in the feeling of snuggling against him like this, smelling his male scent mixed with the starch in his shirt and the sweet smell of hay all around.

  When he stopped, her eyes blinked open. “What’s this?”

  He placed her gently on the small bed, a mattress tick stuffed with corn shucks.

  “This is where I slept last night.”

  On this tiny bed? She wasn’t sure whether to laugh or squirm with guilt. Poor Roy! “How did you even fit here?”

  He eased down next to her, smiling. “It was snug, but to tell you the truth, I didn’t much feel like sleeping.”

  “I can imagine!” she exclaimed. “You must have felt like a moose in a matchbox.”

  He tugged her gently into his arms. “That wasn’t the reason I couldn’t sleep, Ellie.”

  She remembered her own night in Ed’s comfortable bed, and the restless hour she’d tossed and turned, thinking about Roy. “I understand.”

  His eyes lit with fire. “Do you?” He shook his head as he gazed at her face, seeming to try to take in all of her at once. “I wish I could. I feel as if some strange affliction has taken over me. You’ve bewitched me, Ellie.”

  She loved it when he said her name, loved it when he pulled her a fraction closer, loved it when his gaze caught on her lips as if he just couldn’t wait to kiss her again.

  She loved him, period.

  It was still so astonishing to think about! She smiled. “Could sorcery coax another kiss out of you?”

  His answer was swift and sure. His lips captured hers again with the same hunger as last night. Only now, she realized happily, they weren’t by a woodpile, or in a kitchen, but on a comfortable bed. That fact should have shocked her, but it didn’t. Instead, all sorts of tempting thoughts circled the periphery of her consciousness.

  Nor was she shocked when Roy reached inside her coat and caressed her breast through the muslin of her dress. The mere touch of his hand sent waves of pleasure through her, blocking out all other feelings. As he deepened the kiss, mating their tongues in a sensual dance, she held tight to his shoulders and thought only of more. She didn’t want Roy ever to stop kissing her, touching her.

  The most intimate feminine core of her stirred with heat, and as if sensing her need, Roy shifted his hand underneath her skirts, creating a molten trail up her woolen stockings to that core. He eased her onto her back and she tensed slightly as he fiddled with the plethora of undergarments standing between himself and her hub of desire. She didn’t know what to expect—certainly not the gentle massage he lavished on her. His tender ministrations created a ferocious ache within her that could only be relieved by more of his touch. The heat spiraling inside her transported her to a world she’d only known through the exotic accounts of volcanoes and whirlwinds and hurricanes. All those forces held sway inside her, sweeping her feverishly along until her whole body quaked helplessly.

  And when the storm ended, she lay next to Roy, mindless and numb, her head spinning as he pulled down her skirts. She’d never known such sensation was possible—never known a man could pleasure a woman selflessly. She was stunned, almost shamed when she realized she was sweating and sticky from her sated desire.

  And the terrible part was, she still wanted more. Wanton, indeed!

  He smiled down at her, kissing her forehead. His hand, lying on her hip, made a caressing motion and moved toward her middle. To her baby.

  Ellie gasped, and shot up to sitting.

  She was shocked, but not by her discovery of physical pleasure. Rather, it was Roy, and the realization that he didn’t know the true story about the child she was carrying. For the past twelve hours she’d been so caught up in herself and her own desires and happiness, that she had almost forgotten that she had the feelings of another to consider.

  There was so much Roy didn’t know about her. Roy didn’t know about her baby’s father. Roy didn’t even know that she wasn’t a widow. What would he say when he realized that her baby was not the issue of legal matrimony?

  How could she tell him?

  “Ellie, what is it?” he asked, sitting up next to her.

  She looked into his eyes, trying to gauge what his reaction would be. She wanted so to share her secret, to share the truth about the child she loved already though it wasn’t born. Yet would Roy share her joy, her anticipation?

  Or would he condemn her?

  Of course, his actions indicated that he had few scruples about passion outside the marriage bed….

  She frowned. Not that he’d whispered a word about marriage. He’d spoken of love, and vaguely of “the future,” but she’d read of instances in the west of men and women cohabiting without marriage, calling each other “common-law” wives and husbands.

  She didn’t want that. For her baby, she wanted a real family. A loving father like she’d had. Yet she didn’t want to beg a man to marry her, either.

  But she didn’t travel across the country to announce her child’s illegitimacy to the world. If word got out, and Roy didn’t marry her and she was stuck trying to get by in Paradise on her own…

  “Ellie, is it the baby?” Roy asked nervously.

  “Yes,” she mumbled.

  She couldn’t deceive Roy indefinitely, but now, after what had just happened, didn’t seem the right time to tell him her unfortunate life story. But then, when would ever be the proper time to unravel the web of falsehoods she’d woven aroun
d herself since coming to Paradise?

  He swallowed, looking at her abdomen anxiously, as if an unexploded grenade were buried inside her. In a way, she supposed he wasn’t far from the truth.

  “I should have been more careful!” He swallowed with effort, and she detected a bead of sweat on his forehead. “It isn’t…coming, is it?”

  The pallor of his face indicated he would rather face a firing squad than a baby’s birth. Heaven knows the prospect filled her with trepidation, too.

  She forced a smile, and shook her head. “No, it’s a few months away yet.” Two months that suddenly seemed like a heartbeat. But surely some time during those two months she could find a better moment than now to explain the truth to Roy. “I just…felt its kick.”

  Roy exhaled in relief. “We’d better get you inside now.”

  He helped her off the bed, and she stood uneasily on her feet. She still felt physically spent, but now she was confused as well. Her legs balked at moving, even when Roy tried to tug her back toward the house.

  “Is something the matter?” he asked, tenderly tucking a tendril of her hair behind her ear. She couldn’t remember where her hat had gone.

  She felt a restless stirring inside her just looking into his blue eyes, and a frustration. And a fear that she had been selfish.

  Not to mention awe at Roy’s restraint. Percy Sternhagen would never have passed up this opportunity to take his pleasure!

  Or perhaps the thought of her baby had cooled Roy’s ardor completely.

  “Don’t you…?” She couldn’t bring herself to say the words coherently. “I mean, you didn’t…”

  Roy’s face screwed up quizzically for a moment before he finally registered understanding. Then he laughed and pulled her into his embrace. “Not this time, Ellie. But there will be others. We have all the time in the world now, don’t we?”

  She nodded numbly, allowing the hopeful exuberance in his tone to overtake her trepidation. She put aside worrying that she’d just let an opportunity pass by, and that she was now, through her silence, trapped in a series of lies of her own making.