Heaven in My Arms

by Colleen French

  Celeste ground her hips against him. She could feel his rod stiff and hot for her, pressing against her legs.

  Fox rolled on top of her, his hand still stroking the sensitive folds of her womanhood. They kissed again and again, harder, until frenzied, she parted her legs and raised up to meet his first thrust.

  "Please . . . now." Her voice was strained with desire, barely audible. Her heart was pounding, her breath coming in short gasps.

  "You're always in such a hurry," he teased.

  But as he kissed her shoulder, he slipped inside her.

  Celeste rose to meet his thrust as hungry for him as she had ever been. "Fox," she whispered.

  "Celeste." He lay still over her, deep inside. He kissed her closed eyelids. He brushed her lips in a butterfly kiss.

  She sank her blunt nails into his buttocks. Drained of emotion, she needed physical fulfillment. She could concentrate on nothing else but her own burning desire and the only act that could fulfill it.

  Celeste lifted her hips against his and pulled him down. Sensing her need, he thrust hard. She raised her hands above her head on the pillow, giving herself to Fox as she had never given herself to any man.

  Ripples of hot pleasure coursed from the center of her being outward. Every vein in her body shivered with want of him. Again and again she rose to meet his thrust. He kissed her mouth and then lowered his head to take one of her nipples.

  She strained against him, her pleasure surging. "Fox!" she cried out as she gripped his shoulders and her muscles convulsed. She felt as if she had climbed a steep mountain and flown off the edge. She was flying . . . flying in pleasure, flying in heat, flying in the comfort that she had finally found someone who could care for her . . . love her.

  Fox spilled his seed inside her with a groan and both grew still. Tiny undulations of the aftermath of their lovemaking still rippled through her.

  Fox slid off her and rolled onto his back, panting.

  She rested her head on her pillow, her eyes closed, floating . . .floating.

  Fox leaned up on one elbow, kissed her, and then pulled the cover over them both. The last thing she remembered before she fell asleep was the feel of his arms around her and the heady, musky smell of their bodies pressed close.

  Sometime in the middle of the night Celeste's eyes flew open. Fox was asleep beside her, his breathing soft and even. He lay on his stomach, one hand flung possessively over her.

  Her heart pounded.

  "He didn't say he loved me," she whispered softly to herself. It must have come to her in her sleep and woken her.

  "He said he wanted me," she said in a dazed murmur. "He said he needed me. But never once did he say he loved me. Never once did he say he wanted to marry me."

  Ice filled her veins and she was chilled to the bone. Carefully, so as not to wake Fox, she slipped out of the bed. She grabbed her night robe off the bedpost and slipped into it, naked and shivering. Grabbing an extra quilt off the end of the bed, she sat in the chair by the stove and dragged the quilt up over her. The stove radiated heat; she should be warm enough, but she wasn't. Her chill came from a deeper place—from her heart.

  Celeste sat in the chair, her knees drawn up, and rocked herself. Fox has never been anything but honest with me, she thought. He said he could never love a whore again. How could I have ever thought I could change him? How could I have thought for a moment that a man like Fox would marry a woman like me?

  But somehow, deep inside, she knew she must have thought he might, else why would she be so disappointed? No, she wasn't just disappointed. She was heartbroken.

  Silver whined, rose from the rag rug beside the bed, and padded over to her. She petted his head, scratched behind his ears, and the dog leaned against her and sank to the floor.

  It was her own fault. She knew better than to fall in love. She knew better than to allow herself to get so close to a man that this could happen. She got what she deserved . . .

  So now what? Did she go with Fox and live with him in sin as she did now? Wasn't it enough that he cared about her? That he needed her? She'd never find a better man to give her life to.

  But what about Adam? She remembered the need she had heard in his voice when he said he wanted to live with her. Though she knew that he knew that she loved him, she also knew that he wanted more from her. How could she deny her son? Celeste didn't know what to do. She wanted Adam with her, but she wanted to do what was best for him, not what was best for her. Did she leave him at the school in respectable surroundings? Or did she take him with her, and let him see what kind of woman she was?

  Tears slid down her cheeks.

  And what about herself? Didn't she deserve to be loved?

  The next morning Celeste stood at the stove, her back to the doorway when Fox entered the kitchen.

  "Morning, sweet."

  She heard him drop his boots by the chair and sit to put them on as he did every morning.

  She spun around. "You didn't ask me to marry you," she blurted out.

  Fox glanced up with a look of utter confusion on his freshly shaved face. "What?"

  "I just want to understand." She raised her index finger. "You didn't ask me to marry you."

  He looked down at his boot as he slipped his foot into it. "No."

  "And you didn't say you loved me last night either. You just asked me to go with you to California."

  He slammed his foot into the second boot. "Isn't that enough, damn it!"

  "No." She dropped her hands to her hips. "It's not."

  He rose out of the chair and slammed it under the table. "What do you want from me, Celeste? Just what the hell do you want?" There was a tremble in his angry voice. "I care for you. I need you. I'll take care of you. I'll give you anything the hell you want."

  Her lower lip trembled as she fought back aching tears. She couldn't weaken now, she wouldn't. "But not your love."

  He looked down at his feet, the hands she loved so much hung at his side. "No. I can't. Won't."

  His words tore her heart asunder. She forced herself to be calm, her voice cool and unemotional. "I think you need to move from my house."

  He strode from the kitchen and slammed the doorjamb with his fist as he passed into the hall. "I think you're right."

  Chapter Twenty-three

  "I can't believe you've done it and then stuck to your guns," Sally said as she poured Celeste a cup of tea from Kate's favorite china pot.

  Kate's kitchen was quiet because it was only eleven in the morning on Sunday, and the other girls were still abed. Celeste and Sally had gone to church service together and then come back for tea.

  "I just realized I couldn't live like that anymore, Sally. I've been so afraid something would happen to him. That I'd lose him. It was making me crazy."

  Sally sat across from Celeste and reached for the sugar bowl. She wrinkled her nose. "But you have lost him."

  Celeste shook her head. "It's not the same thing."

  "It's not?" Sally added a third lump of brown sugar to her tea.

  "No. It's not." Celeste stirred her tea, though there was nothing in it but tea to stir. "This is on my terms. If I give him up—if I send him away, it's different. It's my choice, and it's the right thing to do. I can live with that."

  Sally licked her spoon. "Different, huh? So's you can live with your conscience instead of the man you love." She sounded doubtful.

  "Exactly."

  Sally dipped her spoon in her tea again. "If you say so."

  Celeste unpinned her hat and placed it on the table beside her. "If he doesn't love me, he won't stay true to me. You know he won't. That's the way men are. And if he loved me, he'd marry me. He'd make a home for my son."

  Sally poured thick cream into her teacup. "But he don't know you got a son."

  "It doesn't matter," Celeste told her regretfully. "What matters is that nothing could come of this relationship, so I might as well end it here before I get hurt."

  Sally poured tea into her sa
ucer. "Looks to me like you're already hurt," she said to her teacup.

  Celeste watched Sally slurp from her saucer. "I need you to help me here, Sally," she said softly. "I need you to help me tell myself I've done the right thing. Even if Adam doesn't come to live with me, I can't continue to live in sin with men. I have to become respectable. As respectable as . . . your grandmother."

  Sally gave a snort of laughter. "My grammy? She sold my mama's virginity to a mule driver when Mama was only thirteen!"

  Celeste rolled her eyes. "You know what I mean."

  Sally laughed and tossed her blond ringlets. "I know. I'm just teasin' you because I hate to see you hurting like this." She slid her tiny hand across the table to take Celeste's. "You know I give you a hard time, but I'd do anything for you. I love you as much as I love my Noah. More, because it's different with women."

  Celeste covered Sally's hand with hers and gave it a squeeze. "Thanks. Now let's not talk about me. Fox has moved out and into one of those new boardinghouses on the end of Cherry Street. I imagine he'll be selling his part of the mine and moving on before Christmas. What's done is done." She lowered her hands to her lap and glanced up at Sally, forcing a smile. Her heart was crumbling inside, but she knew she was doing the right thing, the safe thing. "Now tell me some more about Noah. When are you going to get married?"

  Sally giggled into her china teacup. "We was supposed to wait until Christmas, but Noah says he can't wait for me that long, else his you know whats going to burst." She lifted her lashes. "So we're talking about getting hitched the first of December."

  "Why that's right around the corner! I'm so glad to hear it. I want you to get out of Carrington. I want you to have the life you deserve."

  "Well, Noah says it's burning him up inside to think I'm still rollin' men, so . . . " Sally toyed with her spoon. "I'm going to tell Kate I'm done. If she wants to kick me out before Noah and I are married, she can, but this girl has asked Jesus to forgive her and I ain't doin' it anymore."

  Celeste sipped her tea, truly delighted for Sally and only a little envious of her happiness. "The man sounds like he's worth his weight in silver. When do I get to meet him?"

  Fox sat on the edge of the narrow cot and stared at the plain, painted white wall. The boardinghouse had gone up a short time after they struck silver at MacPhearson's Fortune, and the room still smelled of freshly sawed lumber and whitewash paint. The room was small, but clean, the walls thin, but it served his purpose. Fresh sheets and towels were provided weekly, clean water for shaving and washing daily, and the outhouse was only a short walk from the back of the building. What more could a man ask for?

  Fox spent his long days at the mine and came here only to sleep, and then not every night. Tonight he'd returned only because Titus had insisted that if Fox didn't get some sleep, he was going to make a serious mistake in the mine and kill himself or someone else. Fox had reluctantly returned to his rented room, but he couldn't sleep. He missed Celeste. He missed her dog that had somehow become his.

  Fox ran his hands over his unshaven face. Where had he gone wrong? What had he done? He had offered to take Celeste with him to California, to care for her, to provide for her. Why did women always want more than was offered?

  She said she wanted him to love her. Of course she hadn't said anything about loving him. Women were like that . . . whores at least. They wanted to take, but they didn't want to give. Fox had to keep reminding himself of that. At some point in a man's life he had to stop laying his heart open. He had to stop trusting women that he knew, from experience, couldn't be trusted.

  But then, what reason had Celeste given him not to trust her? He shared a house with her, a business, a bed, and not once in all these months had she led him to question her word or deed even once. So was he really afraid to trust Celeste because she had been a whore, or was he using this as an excuse? Maybe he was just plain scared to love a woman again, any woman.

  Fox lifted his head from his hands and stared at the wall. Light from the lamp on the table beside the bed cast a distorted shadow of him against the vertical, painted boards.

  Fox didn't honestly know anymore how he felt or what he thought. All he knew was that without Celeste, he was damned miserable.

  He rose off the bed and began to pace. The room was exactly six paces by five. He knew from experience. He walked to the wall, turned and walked back, only to turn and go the other way again.

  For two weeks he'd had no contact with Celeste except at the mine, and there it was strictly business with her. She treated him as if he were one of the damned workers. She smiled pleasantly, but coolly, and went on talking figures as if they had never kissed, never touched, never made love as they had that last night in her room.

  Fox balled his hands at his side, so frustrated that he couldn't think clearly. He needed her. He wanted her. Why couldn't he have her?

  Fox knew he couldn't continue to live like this. He knew he should just sell the mine, take his money, and go back to California. He'd even contacted Trevor about the possibility of buying his share. In the same conversation he'd threatened that if Trevor was stealing from him and Celeste, he'd slit his throat. Oddly enough, no more silver had come from the Trevor mine. It seemed as if he had hit a dry spot.

  Going to California made sense. Fox would have enough money so that if he was careful, he could buy land and start the vineyard he'd always dreamed of. But for some reason the dream seemed to have turned as sour as a bad batch of wine. Truth was, he didn't want the vineyard without someone to share it with. He didn't want it without Celeste.

  So why couldn't she be reasonable? Why couldn't she be content to take what he offered? They would be happy together in California. He knew they would.

  But no. She didn't just want flesh, she wanted his heart.

  Fox halted in the center of the room, squeezed his eyes tightly shut, and pressed his arms to his sides. For a moment he was a boy again. Alone. He remembered the ache in the pit of his stomach so fierce that he felt it now. "Why'd you let her do it to me?" he whispered to the lonely room. "Why . . . Papa?"

  Fox's eyes flew open and he wiped at the moisture that had gathered there. It would be so easy to love Celeste. But could he do it? Could he take the risk again? He honestly didn't know.

  Fox grabbed his woolen coat off the end of the rope bed and punched his arms into the raglan sleeves. Celeste must have worn it sometime. He smelled the scent of her on it.

  Fox threw his new gray cloak over the coat because he knew how bitterly cold it was tonight. Then he blew out the lamp and reached for the new porcelain doorknob. It was late, almost midnight, but he had to get some fresh air. He had to think.

  Fox walked the length of Cherry Street. It was dark and only a pale quarter moon shone. Its light reflected off the dirty snow and bounced up to illuminate his way. Somewhere a dog barked and he thought of Silver. Taking these midnight walks wasn't the same without the good old hound.

  Somewhere a baby cried and then was hushed, perhaps by his mother's breast The domestic thought made him smile to himself. He had always thought he might like to have a child. He knew he could be a better father than his had been. He'd just never known a woman he would want to share his blood with in that way—until maybe now.

  Fox turned at the darkened railway station and started up Peach Street. There was still tinny music and drunken laughter coming from the saloons. Two miners, half-drunk, passed him on the wooden sidewalk and tipped their hats to him. Another man rode by in a wagon headed out of town, the blackboard bed filled with sleeping or passed-out miners.

  Fox continued along the street, past Kate's Dance Hall, past Sal's Saloon. He thought about stopping for a drink at Sal's. Sal said it wasn't natural, a man who didn't drink. But Fox didn't want anything to interfere with his thinking. He was having a hard enough time making any sense to himself as it was.

  Past the dance halls and saloons, Peach Street grew darker and quiet. The piano music and the laughter faded. Fox fel
t so alone in the cold silence.

  The sound of pounding footsteps in an alley caught his attention, and he glanced over just in time to see someone running down the alley between a bank and a stable, away from him. Fox halted, took a step back, and squinted into the darkness. The shadow disappeared into the night.

  Fox hesitated in the entry to the alleyway, the hair rising on the back of his neck. He smelled something odd, familiar, and yet not familiar. The scent was warm and metallic in the frosty air. Then his gaze fell to the ground and a crumpled shadow. A streak of light cast from the moon behind him illuminated a green fold of material. It was a cloak, perhaps. Celeste had just bought a new green cloak the very same color. He remembered how it had matched her eyes and made them sparkle when she'd modeled it for him.

  "No," Fox whispered. It couldn't be . . .

  He stood frozen for only an instant and then ran into the alley. He stooped to touch her, praying she lived and that he'd scared the killer off in time. She was still warm, but his hand was instantly wet and he knew that she was covered in blood. "No, no, Celeste," he muttered under his breath as a chant. "Not Celeste. Not my angel."

  He went down on one knee, oblivious of the muddy slush left by the last snow and men's boots, and lifted her in his arms. Her hair was long and dark, like Celeste's, but he couldn't tell what color. Her head fell back limply as he lifted her and pushed back the lumps of bloody hair that covered her face.

  "No, no," he whispered, his heart pounding. He tipped her head so that the moonlight shone on her face. "Please, please . . .

  Then he heaved a great sigh of relief, mortified at the same time that he could be so callus. It wasn't Celeste. Oh, God, thank you, thank you, it wasn't Celeste . . .

  Fox touched the young woman's bloody throat, hoping to find a pulse. None. She was dead. He eased her back onto the cold ground and stood, heaving in great cold breaths of air, exhaling white frost. He had to get Sheriff Tate.