Small Town Romance Collection: Four Complete Romances & A New Novella

by Brown, Carolyn

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Mercy meandered through the dusty streets of the little town on her way to visit Jenny. She'd really meant to crawl out of that big bed this morning and go to church, but she'd overslept. Hunter was still snoring loudly when she left a note propped on the coffee table telling him where she would be.

  She found the small adobe house easily enough, and knocked on the rough wooden door.

  "Mercy!" Jenny squealed when she opened it. She grabbed her old roommate and pulled her through the door as if Mercy were an apparition which might disappear in a sudden cloud of vapor if she didn't hold on.

  "Whatever are you doing here? Come in, come in. I'll make tea." Jenny rattled on as she led her through the tiny living room. Colorful mismatched rugs were thrown here and there on the bare wood floor, and the sofa was the same one she'd taken out of their house in Marietta.

  "It's a long story," Mercy said as she allowed Jenny to bring her in the kitchen. "Can I help you?" She pulled one of two chairs out from a small table and sat down.

  "No, just sit there and let me look at you," Jenny said, still in awe. "I don't really care what brought you here. It was my prayers. God Almighty, I hate this place." She turned abruptly and Mercy, taken aback, saw the tears streaming down her face.

  "What?" Mercy could hardly believe that her devoutly religious friend was taking the Lord's name in vain.

  "I hate it," Jenny repeated. She sat down across the table from her friend, looked her right in the eyes and placed her trembling hands over Mercy's.

  "Then quit right now." Mercy said. "Hey, everybody is not cut out for this kind of missionary work. Just admit you made a mistake and go home."

  "It's not just Mexico and it's not just missionary work," Jenny said. "I hate marriage. I hate it. And I can't talk to anyone about it. I wrote to my mother and she said most women feel this way at first and that after children come along I won't hate it so bad. She says the first year of marriage isn't ever what you think it is. Mercy, listen to me." Jenny sounded desperate. "Don't ever get married. Be an old maid and forget about men."

  "What?" Mercy cocked her head to one side, trying to figure out this strange turn of events. She had assumed Jenny would be in her element—and as smug and self-righteous as ever.

  "I'm sorry to spring all this on you, but I mean it. It's awful." Jenny shook her head. "The real world of marriage is awful. Don't do it."

  "You mean Kyle is mean to you?" Mercy grasped for a semblance of understanding.

  "Oh, no," she said. "He tries to be a kind husband. And we have good times together, except," she drew in a deep breath, "in bed. I hate sex," she said dramatically.

  "But why?" Mercy asked.

  "It's messy. It's smelly and it's damned degrading," Jenny wailed.

  "Oh my?" Mercy said sympathetically. "Well, the water is boiling. Let me make a pot of tea and you just sit here. Where's the sugar bowl?"

  "In the cabinet above the stove there—if the roaches haven't eaten it. I hate bugs. I hate bugs and I hate dirt and I have to battle both all day and then look forward to bedtime and all that at night. I'm going to go crazy," Jenny said just above a whisper.

  Mercy prepared the tea and studied her friend without speaking while it steeped.

  "Okay, Jenny." Mercy set a cup of fragrant tea in front of her. "Let's talk. I mean really talk. Have you ever read anything about how to please a man, or has Kyle read anything about pleasing you? Have you ever even read a good, sexy romance novel?"

  "I don't read trash." Jenny bowed up, a faint glimmer of her old self-righteousness surfacing.

  "Well, I'd suggest you read a little trash if you want to stay out of the divorce courts," Mercy said bluntly. "When I get home I'll send you a few books that might help. They sure won't hurt."

  "And just what would the people think if they found out their missionary's wife read such garbage?" Jenny said primly.

  "There are some things you don't have to advertise, Jenny. And what goes on in your private bedroom after you shut the door at night isn't anyone's business but yours," Mercy said.

  "How do you know so much?" Jenny eyed her curiously.

  "I always intended to save myself for my husband just like you did." Mercy sipped the hot tea, and wished silently for a good cold beer instead. "But that didn't mean I couldn't read about love between men and women—which includes lovemaking. I was curious, and that's only natural. Besides, I wouldn't want to get married not knowing anything about sex—which is evidently just what you did. What did you expect, Jenny?"

  "I expected . . . oh, damn it all, I don't know what I expected. Something wonderful, I guess, like fireworks going off in the room and a beautiful glow afterwards. All I experienced the first time was fear and pain and since then it's just been a duty."

  "Hey, girl, it's been a long time since a wife just did her duty. Guess what. We are actually allowed to enjoy our husband's bodies as much as they enjoy ours. That's what makes a marriage last," Mercy told her.

  "I'll never enjoy it." Jenny shook her head.

  "Will you read the books I have in mind if I buy them and send them down here to you?"

  "Will you send them in brown paper so no one knows?" Jenny whispered, mortified that she would even consider Mercy's suggestion. But now she knew that "until death do us part" was a long, long time—with a lot of nights between now and then.

  "Sure will." Mercy smiled. "And you'll let me know if they help?"

  Jenny blushed, and nodded. "Will you send them on Tuesday?"

  "Yes, I will. By the end of the week, you should be feeling better. And don't forget, Kyle is probably just as bewildered as you are," Mercy said. "Now, tell me about what else is going on down here."

  "Nothing. I dread the nights so bad, I can't stand the days," Jenny said.

  "What are you doing in Mexico? You said last summer you'd never cross the border again." Jenny relaxed a little bit, relieved that some of her nervous tension had disappeared. She'd forgotten how easy it was to talk to Mercy.

  "You remember Hunter Wilson?" Mercy asked.

  "The good-looking hunk that bought your supper that night and came to church with you the next morning? You didn't bring him to my wedding, so I figured you'd come to your senses." Jenny tried to sound casual, but didn't quite succeed.

  "That's the one," Mercy said. "Well, we dated a couple of times and then I got really mad at him and we had this big, screaming fight."

  "You screamed at someone?" Jenny's brown eyes widened.

  "Yep, and he screamed back and went home. And I was so miserable I didn't know what to do but go home to mother. And she, bless her heart, let him kidnap me and bring me down here to work at Mickey's for the weekend. We're supposed to be working out our differences. When I go home, I'm either supposed to be over him or madly in love with him."

  "Which is it going to be?" Jenny asked.

  "I'm not sure, yet, but I don't think I want to be over him," Mercy declared with a giggle.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Mercy slipped between the cool sheets for the last night of their stay in Mexico. She laced her hands behind her neck and considered the events of the past few days. The bewildered expression on Jenny's face when she admitted frankly that she hated the marriage bed kept haunting her. Would she, too, find that she'd saved herself all these years for something disgusting and degrading? If Mercy did admit she was hopelessly in love with Hunter, would she wake up the morning after to find that she hated sex as much as Jenny?

  A cold chill started at her toes and made her shiver as it climbed up her long legs all the way to the top of her head. She refused to live a life of misery like that. Even if it meant a one-night stand with some renegade cowboy who wouldn't know her name the next morning, she damn sure wasn't going to make a vow to live with a man until death did them part and then live in dread of bedtime the rest of her life.

  She sat straight up in bed, amazed at her own waywardness. She argued with herself that she hadn't resisted the
advances of dates in high school and college, just to decide out of the clear blue Mexican sky that she would go to bed with a nameless man just to see if she liked sex. That was the most ridiculous thought ever to enter her brain . . . even in half-sleep.

  But she knew her first lover didn't have to be a nameless man. Hunter Wilson had let her know lots of times that he was more than interested. The way his handsome face broke into a sexy grin. The come-hither look in his eyes. Even the way he watched her when he thought she wasn't looking.

  Whoa, her conscience and religious teachings pulled tight on the reins. And if you let him seduce you, then what? He's surely not going to propose to you, young lady. He's already a two-time loser, and he's not going out again on a limb that broke both times he trusted it to hold his weight before. So if you play this game on the impulse you're having right now, you can expect to come out with a heart so broken it will never be the same. And what if he's exactly what you want . . . and suddenly he realizes you 're not what he needs or wants. What then?

  "Well, I'm a good sturdy limb," Mercy said to no one in particular as she crawled out of bed and stood before the window, looking at the twinkling stars. She wrapped her arms tightly around her body, and paced the floor, back and forth, from the bed to the door, and back again, several times.

  Finally, Mercy eased the door open, half expecting to find Hunter still reading on the sofa. He wasn't there. She could see the light under the door of the guest room, which meant he was still awake. Her mind told her to go back to bed and count sheep, recite the 23rd Psalm, or even do multiplication tables. She would feel like a complete idiot to open his door and have him tell her he wasn't interested in what was under her silky blue nightgown. He wouldn't want to make love to a novice who didn't have any sexual experience, other than what she'd read in books.

  But her heart knew what her feelings were toward this man. The impulse which pulled her toward that door was also pulling his heart toward her. At least that's how she'd instinctively understood the situation when she rescued him from that red-haired hussy in the cantina. He didn't push her away then and tell her he was finishing the dance with the customer. And he didn't even look twice when the woman stormed out.

  Yet it took her five full minutes to cross the room, each step harder than the last. She was breathing as fast as if she'd just run a three mile race when she reached for the guest room doorknob. Before she could talk herself out of it, and go running back across the carpet, she opened the door with a flourish and found Hunter propped up in the bed with at least six pillows around him.

  "Mercy?" He looked up quizzically. "Is something wrong? You look like you just saw a ghost? Have a nightmare?"

  "No." She shook her head, wondering how to get from the door to his bed gracefully, and then to take the initiative and kiss him first. If she could just do that, maybe the rest of it would come naturally, and he'd never know she was as green as spring grass when it came to experience in how to make a man's blood boil.

  "Then what is it? Come here and sit beside me. Something you ate making you sick? Need some medicine?" Hunter was truly concerned.

  Mercy slowly crossed the room from the door to the side of his bed, sat down on the edge, lost her balance and fell right into his arms. "Oh, my," she gasped. "That edge isn't as wide as I expected."

  Hunter didn't know how much willpower it would take to keep from kissing her from the tip of her pretty nose to her red toenails. But he did know it was a lot more than he had, and it was going to be the biggest test he'd ever tried to get through. When she looked up into his eyes, all the self-control he thought he had flew out the door. He pulled her close to him and kissed her lightly, enjoying himself to the max.

  "Mmmm," she said. "You taste wonderful. Do that again?"

  "So do you," he managed to say before she pulled the back of his head down so his mouth touched hers again, and she knew exactly what she was going to do before the break of dawn. When she was eighty years old—an old maid who'd only spent one night in her entire life in the arms of a man, with only the memory of the time a handsome rancher in a big black truck took her off to another world and showed her what love was all about—even then she would never regret this decision.

  Passionate kisses made them both weak with sensual hunger as she readjusted herself to lie closer to him. He pitched several pillows on the floor and stretched out beside her, tensing as the heat from her body made him want her more than he'd ever wanted a woman in many years. He slipped the straps from the blue gown down over her shoulders. The moonlight streamed through the window at the top of the bed, making a wide swath of diagonal light across one breast and leaving the other in darkness.

  He cupped one of those magnificent breasts in his hand and delighted in the little shiver his touch caused. "Mercy, we've gone far enough," he said hoarsely. "Pull your straps back up and hightail it back to your bedroom. I've got willpower but not this much."

  She pushed herself off the bed and he sighed loudly. She slipped the silky gown off her tall body and let it fall like a pool of crystal clear water around her feet, then deftly stepped out of a pair of white cotton bikini underwear. He sighed, again, mesmerized, desiring everything he saw.

  "This is what I want, Hunter." She lay beside him again and stretched her naked body next to his. "I want you to make love to me."

  His hands trembled as he caressed her gently. He'd been with lots of women . . . but none had ever evoked this kind of tender passion. Mercy ran her smooth hands over the soft brown hair on his chest and he gasped at the fire engulfing his entire body. He wanted her so much it was hard to restrain the excitement filling his heart. Had he found his soul mate at last? He had a feeling that Mercy was the woman who would make him a whole man.

  When she arched against him in the middle of a deep kiss, returning his loving measure for measure, he knew that whether or not she was the other half of his soul, he had to physically have her. He eased on top of her, pushing gently between her thighs and finding no resistance there, he pushed further, kissing her forehead, her eyelashes and her ears until suddenly he realized he was the first man she'd ever known. He looked down at her closed eyelids, knowing there would be a brief moment of pain.

  "Mercy, why didn't you tell me?" he whispered as he kissed her in awe.

  "Just make love to me," she whispered back. "Please don't stop. This is wonderful." Mercy pulled his head down to kiss him and forgot everything but the wonderful sensations he was causing in her body.

  Then it was suddenly over and just when she thought the stars had fallen out of heaven and into her room, he cried her name hoarsely and gathered her into his arms possessively, and climaxed in waves of pure pleasure. Then Mercy felt what she'd only read about until that time: the sensual aura called an afterglow, and she truly hoped it would never end.

  "Why didn't you tell me you'd never been . . . ?" Hunter propped up on an elbow and she stroked the hair on his arm like she would her tomcat's fur.

  "Been what?" She put her finger over his lips, amazed that she desired him even more now. "To bed with another man? Would that have made it better?"

  "Hell, no," he said. "You're the best. And when you touch my lips like that, I want to start all over."

  Mercy laughed in that deep, honest way he loved. "Okay. That's exactly what I had in mind."

  They were curled up together, arms and legs entwined, when he awoke the next morning. Hunter lay very quietly, breathing in the essence of her blond hair, of the faint aroma of the powder she'd dusted her body with the night before, and of that particular scent that was hers alone. He shut his eyes tightly, trying to create a memory that would last until he had gray hair and nothing left but the ability to remember the good times. This might not last forever. Mercy might walk out of his life just as quickly as she had walked into it. If the memory of this wonderful night and the morning after was to be all he had someday, then when he walked with a cane across the fields of the ranch, he would still smile. Because once u
pon a time in a little town in Mexico he had found the other part of his heart, and for that little while, he was a whole man.

  "Mmmm." Mercy snuggled closer to him and opened her blue eyes to the bright sunlight streaming through the window. If she ever roped Hunter into marriage, they might not even wait until the night to sneak off to the bedroom, or the hay barn or anywhere else she would entice him into making love with her. This was too wonderful to become routine.

  "Mercy, what are we going to do?" He wanted to say something more, but he couldn't seem to find the right words.

  She opened those eyes wide and smiled at him, and he felt heat rising in his body. "Let me brush my teeth and I'll meet you back here in two minutes for some more of those delicious kisses and we'll see where they lead," she said. Mercy was out of bed in one fluid movement and headed toward the bathroom, unashamed of her naked beauty.

  "You wanton hussy." Hunter made himself get out of bed and turn on the shower. Even the toothpaste foam on her full mouth looked tempting. "I'd love to spend the whole day in bed with you, but if you'll look at the clock, you'll see we've slept away the morning. Mickey and Maria are probably not even a half an hour from here right now. So I'll have to turn down that offer in order to keep from embarrassing you and them both."

  "Half an hour," she groaned. "Well, then move over and we'll save a little time by showering together. Here, wash my back." She popped into the shower with him and handed him a sudsy washcloth.

  "You're a witch," he laughed.

  "Yep, I am, a wicked one," she laughed back.

  They had their bags packed and sitting beside the door, but they were stealing quick, heartfelt kisses when Mickey and Maria opened the door. It didn't take a counselor with a master's degree in love relationships for Hunter's friends to know they'd just caught them making out on the sofa. There was a high color in Mercy's cheeks that no amount of makeup could ever create, and Hunter's lips were swollen just slightly from too many passionate kisses.