The Marriage Maker

by Christie Ridgway

  The skin on the inside of her thighs was impossibly smooth. His fingers skimmed up it quickly, drawn toward the center of her. He reached the edge of her panties and lifted his head to gulp in a breath.

  Only to see what he had done.

  Impulsively, he’d bared her. In the kitchen. He had her on the counter, he had her open to him.

  For his pleasure.

  To satisfy him.

  He’d been out of control.

  Closing his eyes against the temptation of her lushness, he took in a long breath and softened his touch. “Cleo,” he whispered. “Let me take you to the bedroom.” Then he lifted her into his arms.

  She looped her hands around his neck. He tried not to think of her breast against his chest or her breath against his ear. It soughed in and out, in a fast rhythm that almost matched the speed of his pulse.

  He tried for get ting how close he’d been to sinking his fingers into her heated center, as uncontrollable as a teenager.

  Now he thought only of Cleo.

  His bedspread was cool against the backs of his hands as he slid her onto the mattress. He followed her down, but kept carefully to her side, thinking, control, control, control.

  It was dark in his bedroom, and he set about learning her body all over again, this time listening for what made her breath catch. This time sensing what touch ignited goose bumps over her skin.

  She moaned when he thrust his tongue in her mouth. She arched up to him when he took her nipple in his mouth. Her hands were restless along his back as he traced the delicate framework of her collarbone with his tongue.

  All the while Ethan breathed Cleo in, her scent, her taste, and he fought against his darker instinct to push, to press, to possess. Tension infused her body, and his pulse quickened as she became bow-tight. But still he played and dawdled and felt damn good about his restraint.

  “Ethan.” Cleo’s voice was breathy and she caught his hand against her breast as he played with her pretty nipple. “I—”

  “Shh.” He took her hand away and kissed her breast, letting his fingers trail down her abdomen. She jerked as he slid his hand beneath the elastic of her panties. He pressed his palm flat, letting her get used to this new sensation, and when she’d calmed he moved his fingers lower.

  Her thighs opened wider for him, and as he slid a finger inside he lifted his head to watch her.

  Her eyes closed as he found her wet heat, and then his did, too, because her body gripped him strongly, hotly. He fought the passion then, fought the need to have it, her, right that instant.

  When control was back he allowed his hand to move again, sending Cleo higher. He took her to the edge—he saw it in her face, in the trembling he could feel in her muscles—and then he took his hand away.

  “Please, Ethan.” She reached toward him, caught her finger on a belt loop of his jeans. “Please.”

  “Yes, sweet heart.” He shucked the rest of his clothes and rose over her, naked. “Now.”

  She parted her legs and he couldn’t look, afraid he’d lose it. This was for her. For Cleo, first and foremost.

  Hot, tight, wet. She sheathed him so completely that for a moment his mind spun. But he leashed his impulses and pulled out and slid slowly back in. She made a sound, sweet and low, and he went back to her breast to build a matching rhythm, slow and sure.

  That tension built inside Cleo again, each of her breaths a little shallower than the one before. But the tension was in him, too, and with each thrust into her body he found control that much harder to keep.

  “Please, Ethan.”

  He tilted her hips with his hands, drove deeper into her snug body, and she arched again. He kissed her, and she thrust her tongue deep.

  He held control only by his fingernails. But he held on, because they were…almost…there. Cleo arched again, he angled his head deeper, and then the spasms shook her.

  And him. It was a chain reaction of pleasure. They were climaxing, and it no longer mattered who controlled whom and who did what first and who drove whom to what.

  Once he could breath again, Ethan eased off of Cleo and gathered her into his arms. The hollow of his shoulder cradled her cheek. He smiled.

  What mattered was, at last, they’d found a way to ease the tension that had been building since the day they married. For once, he and Cleo had found an understanding.

  Or so he thought. Because suddenly, into the room heated with their passion, the sound of Cleo’s three little words rushed out. “I love you.”

  Cleo stared at the luminous hands of the alarm clock beside Ethan’s bed. It didn’t seem as if there would be nightmares or sweet dreams for her tonight.

  Not when her mind was occupied with running over every second of their lovemaking.

  Ethan was spooned behind her, his hand heavy on her breast. She closed her eyes, savoring the sensation, aware of every inch where he touched her: hand, chest, his thighs against the backs of hers.

  A sweet shiver ran across her skin and her nipple tightened against the cup of Ethan’s palm. His breath moved rhythmically against her hair, so she could safely lust without his knowing about it.

  Without making the mistake of saying she loved him again.

  Her eyes popped open and she stared at the clock once more. Approximately sixty-seven minutes ago she’d uttered the words, and then immediately, desperately, wanted to grab them back.

  What had possessed her to say them? It was all his fault. In the first place, there was the tremendous relief of knowing Ethan was truly sexually attracted to her. But then he’d over whelmed her by the way he touched her, stroked her, stoked the fire of her passion for him. When her climax had nearly shaken her heart free of its moorings, the words had drifted from her heart to her mind and then out her mouth.

  She couldn’t be sorry they were finally in the same bed. Not only because of how good it was between them, but how good it was going to be for their marriage. Sharing a bed signaled a new intimacy that would definitely help in the building of a family.

  But then again, there were still those words she’d said. The words he hadn’t responded to, of course. Would a return to her own bed counterbalance them?

  Too much emotion made Ethan nervous. Cleo was certain of that. She straightened one leg and slid it across the cool expanse of sheet toward the edge of the mattress. Digging in her heel, she inched away from the heat of Ethan’s body, trying not to moan as the movement dragged his palm over her bare breast.

  Just as she scooted free, his arm roped her and pulled her back against his body. “Where do you think you’re going?” His voice was hoarse and his breath hot against her ear.

  Cleo was helpless against the shiver that rolled down her spine. “I—”

  He turned her and covered her mouth with his. Cleo lost her words, her thoughts, her determination to leave his bed.

  He thrust into her mouth with his tongue. His hand pulled her thigh on top of his, and he thrust into her body, already wet and soft for him. Cleo gasped, arched against his chest, and another shudder rolled down her back.

  Ethan chased it with his hands, and palmed her hips to tilt her body for another delicious thrust.

  Cleo moaned, then silenced herself by pressing her face against his neck. She couldn’t lose this. She couldn’t lose him.

  Cleo arched again as she took another thrust. She wouldn’t leave his bed. She would hold on to Ethan…even if it meant holding back how she truly felt about him.

  Nine

  Cleo walked toward the back door of the B and B with Jonah, her mood as bright as the morning sunshine. She and the baby had woken at their usual early hour, but Ethan had slept on, either exhausted by yesterday’s jet lag or by last night’s lovemaking.

  Her eyes narrowed as she hitched Jonah higher against her chest. Did he look a little flushed? She put her cheek against his, and he turned his head toward her, giving her what she could have sworn was a kiss. She smiled at him and he smiled back. “You angel.” With a nose-to-nose
nuzzle, she dismissed her little worry.

  Nothing could take the sunshine out of today.

  “Let’s go find Auntie Jasmine,” she said to Jonah. “You smile to distract her while I snitch some pastries.” And if her mother insisted, Cleo thought, she’d leave Jonah with her for the morning and bring Ethan his break fast in bed.

  And if he wanted to feast on her—well, she hadn’t had her fill of him yet. No matter what, she’d hurry home. She wanted to be near Ethan.

  She swung open the kitchen door and sniffed appreciatively. “Scones,” she whispered to Jonah. “We’re in luck.”

  But one look at her mother, sitting at the scarred kitchen table and looking exhausted, pierced Cleo’s good mood. She hurried over. “What’s wrong, Mama?”

  Jasmine pulled a mug out of a cabinet even as she sent Cleo a worried look. “What else? Another nightmare.”

  Cleo swallowed, looking from her mother to her sister, then back again. Celeste’s skin looked paper-thin and pale, shadows circling her normally bright eyes. Her heart sinking, Cleo dropped into the chair beside her. “Mama, this has gone far enough. We need to do something. Can’t you at least tell us what you’re dreaming about?”

  Jonah cooed, as if in encouragement, and Cleo’s fears eased a bit when Celeste held out her arms for the baby. Celeste even smiled a little as she looked into his face and stroked his wisps of blond hair. “I’ll be all right, girls. Really.”

  Jasmine sent Cleo another pointed look as she plopped a mug of hot coffee in front of her. “If you ask me, we can blame those damn reporters and all their questions about the skeleton.”

  Cleo noticed her mother stiffen. She took a fortifying gulp of Jasmine’s miraculous coffee and then put all the steel she could muster into her voice. “Mama, what’s bothering you? We’re not going to let up until you tell us.”

  Celeste settled Jonah closer against her and slid her own mug of coffee toward the table’s center so the baby couldn’t reach it. “I don’t know whether to blame the reporters or not, but I did have the nightmare again last night.” She sighed, and it was a sad, weary sound. “And Blanche was in the dream.”

  Cleo and Jasmine exchanged glances. Their mother had never talked in detail about the nightmare before. “She, um, hasn’t been in it before?”

  Celeste shook her head. “No. I realize that now. Before last night it had always been the same. My brother Jeremiah…carrying someone I always assumed was my sister. But last night I knew it couldn’t be Blanche.”

  Cleo swallowed another gulp of coffee, unsure what to say next. Should Celeste be talking of it at all? Would that only make it seem more real? But God knew that bottling it up inside her hadn’t given her any relief. “How was the nightmare different last night, Mama?”

  “I’ve always been alone, watching Jeremiah come toward me. I’m always…dreading what he holds in his arms and he’s always insisting that I obey him and look at it.”

  An icy finger dragged down Cleo’s spine and she saw Jasmine shiver, too.

  “But last night…” Celeste continued. “…last night I wasn’t alone. Blanche was on the shore beside me, as young and beautiful as ever, and she spoke to me.”

  Jasmine slipped into the chair beside Cleo. Cleo saw that her sister was trembling, and underneath the table she slipped her hand over her sister’s and squeezed reassuringly. Celeste often said that Jasmine was an “old soul.” Whether that was true or not, it was clear that Jasmine’s soul, whatever its age, was afraid.

  So was Cleo, and she suddenly longed for Ethan.

  “Mama,” Jasmine started, then stopped, cleared her throat, began again. “Mama, what did Aunt Blanche say to you?”

  Celeste’s beautiful green eyes looked off into the distance. Cleo felt that icy finger again and chills ran up through her scalp and down to her ankles.

  “She told me that the past is about to rise up and greet me.” Celeste’s voice was reed-thin and eerie-sounding. “She told me to be careful to make the right choices.”

  The temperature in the kitchen dropped. Or maybe it just seemed that way. But Cleo didn’t imagine the charged silence in the room. She didn’t know what to say. Jasmine looked just as stunned.

  Cleo’s yearning for Ethan resurfaced with a force that startled her. She was used to taking care of herself and other people. Was this what one night in his bed could do? She wasn’t sure if she liked this need to have him near her.

  But then, as if she’d beckoned him to her with the force of her feelings, he walked through the kitchen door. Dressed in jeans and a long-sleeved denim shirt, he looked disgruntled. Their gazes collided and his face hardened. “What’s wrong?” he asked. “I woke up and you weren’t there.”

  “I…” Cleo couldn’t put her relief into words, and that worried her even more. “I came for some breakfast and…ended up chatting with Mama and Jasmine.” She added a falsely casual note to her voice that made it sound as if she hadn’t seen any reason to hurry home, even though their relationship had taken a new turn the night before.

  “You were chatting,” he repeated flatly. He didn’t sound very happy.

  She shrugged. “You were sleeping.” Was she supposed to just start spilling the disturbing details of her mother’s nightmare? She wanted to, oh, she did, but the dream was almost as scary as this new need she had for Ethan.

  She could feel her mother’s and Jasmine’s puzzled stares. Obviously they expected her to be more open with her husband. They were the kind of family that shared problems with one another. But Cleo had never fully shared her problems with Ethan, so she avoided looking at them and offered to get him a cup of coffee.

  While he served himself instead, Cleo whispered to Jasmine and her mother that they could talk about the nightmare later. For now, she just wanted to smooth over the awkward moment. Some other time, when she had better control of herself and her fears, when she didn’t feel so vulnerable, she could tell Ethan all about Celeste’s nightmare. About Raven’s murder.

  But as the awkwardness hung around the kitchen table like a stubborn cloud, Cleo thought it might be best to get out of the B and B altogether. She stood and reached for Jonah, taking the baby out of her mother’s arms. “Ready to go, Ethan?”

  He stared at her over the rim of his mug. He’d taken maybe three sips of his coffee. “Now?”

  She took a step toward the back door and caught sight of her aunt, uncle and cousin Frannie coming through the woods. Uh-oh. It looked like a family powwow in the making, and if it was, Ethan would know she’d been trying to keep things from him. “Now,” she said firmly. “I’d like to go home now.”

  If she became involved in a family discussion of the past, and became scared again, she’d turn toward Ethan for sure. She didn’t want to want his support and comfort that much. If she came to depend on him, it might jinx what they could eventually find together. Just as she’d jumped the gun on saying “I love you,” she didn’t want to jump the gun on needing Ethan.

  He looked wary and puzzled and maybe even a little hurt, but she ignored him as she said a cheerful goodbye to her mother and sister. She planned on a just-as-cheerful wave to the Hannons before she and Ethan escaped to their cars.

  And they almost made it. Cleo’s hand was on the doorknob when Sheriff Rafe Rawlings pushed through the swinging door that led into the kitchen from the dining room. His gaze took in the family group and then he smiled a little as the doorknob was pulled from Cleo’s grasp and Yvette, Edward, and Frannie filed into the kitchen.

  “I’m sorry to disturb your family, Celeste,” he said politely, “but I have some questions for you and Yvette.”

  That fingernail of fear skittered down Cleo’s back again. She instinctively edged closer to Ethan, and she felt his warm palm on her shoulder. Oh, it was so easy, too easy, to lean on him.

  She made herself move away. She was the capable, dependable one. “What’s this about, Rafe?”

  Celeste spoke for him. “It’s about Raven.” Her eyes roa
med the faces of her family. “Get some coffee and sit down, everyone. I think we all need to hear what the sheriff has to say.” Ethan moved and she pinned him with her gaze. “That means you, too, Ethan Redford.”

  More chairs were drawn up, more coffee poured. Cleo found herself at the table between her mother and Ethan. Jonah had drifted off for an unusually early morning nap in her arms. Rafe sat directly across the table and addressed his remarks to Celeste and Yvette, who were positioned beside each other.

  “My investigation of Raven Hunter’s death has brought me to Blanche and Jeremiah,” he said. He reviewed the details of where and when the skeleton had been found, and the bullet, then told about the identification of the remains. As he spoke, Cleo felt Ethan’s increasing attention.

  “I’ve been talking with Jackson Hawk and wanted to verify with you what he’s told me,” Rafe said.

  “Jackson Hawk?” Ethan asked.

  Rafe answered the question matter-of-factly. “He’s an attorney who lives on the Laughing Horse Reservation.”

  “And a friend of Raven’s,” Yvette added. “That much I remember.”

  Rafe turned his gaze her way. “What else do you recall, Yvette? Were you aware of your sister’s affair with Raven?”

  “Of course.” Cleo’s aunt nodded. “The three of us sisters were very close, and she needed our help at times to slip away from Jeremiah.” Yvette reached out beside her to rub her husband’s forearm. “I hadn’t met Edward yet, you see, and I had never seen a love like that. It was something you could touch, how they felt about each other, and I thought it wonderfully romantic.” A sad smile touched her lips.

  Rafe circled his coffee mug with his hands and spoke carefully. “You say that you helped her give Jeremiah the slip. Did he oppose the match?”

  Yvette’s eyebrows raised. “Didn’t Jackson tell you that?”

  Rafe was noncommittal. “I want to hear your impressions.”

  “Jeremiah absolutely opposed the match. He was out spoken in his hatred for Raven, any Native Americans, actually, but particularly Raven.” Yvette sighed. “Jeremiah wasn’t a tolerant or understanding man, Rafe. I don’t know what fueled his hatred, but it was very, very real.”