The Midwife's Secret (18 page)

“I mean, what you think about
me.
”

With teasing laughter, she escaped his grasp. When she shifted in her gown, her plunging satin neckline twisted, and he caught a glimpse of the most tempting cleavage. Blood coursed through his veins.

“I think…I think you’re absolutely wonderful.”

His soft lips pulled into a grin and his discretion left him. “I want to hear more. I want to know if what I feel for you is the same that you feel for me.”

Biting back a smile, she smoothed her gown over her knees, still wearing those long blue gloves that clung to her shapely arms. “Well, then you’ll have to tell me how you feel so I can compare.”

He filled his lungs with cool, fresh air. “When I’m with you, I feel like nothing can happen that I can’t handle. I feel like I can fight the world and win.”

Her eyes grew gentle and yielding. “Do you really feel all that?”

“Yes,” he murmured, his voice slicing through the night air. “Sometimes, I think about all you’ve been through in coming here to Banff, and it helps me to carry on when things aren’t going well in my own life.”

She moved toward him. Rising onto her knees, she positioned herself behind him, slipping her slender arms beneath his. Her breasts crushed against his shirted back. He savored the way she melted her warm curves against his, the way her warm breath nipped against his earlobe. “Do you know what I like most about you?”

“What?”

“You make me forget.”

“Amanda…” He cupped her arms and tried to swing
her around to face him, but she resisted. Maybe it was easier for her to open up and talk to him this way.

“When my husband left me, I wasn’t sure I’d ever meet a man again who I’d care to spend time with, and then…
you
arrived on my doorstep.” She kissed along his neck and it made his flesh quiver with expectation.

“You make me sound like a sack of potatoes.”

“Potatoes are my favorite. Fried with gravy.”

A breeze rippled through the bushes beside them.

“I know you’re a good man, Tom, and I want to open up to you, but…”

He stroked her arms and they rocked together, she pressed tightly behind him.

“Then open up to me, Amanda.”

“I’m not sure I can. Sometimes I feel like part of me shriveled up and crumbled in the wind when William left. I don’t know…if I have anything left to give you.”

“You have so much left to give, if you could only see yourself the way others who know you do. I’d be lying if I said I never wanted children. I’d also be lying if I said I could walk away from you.”

She buried her warm face into his neck and sighed. “I’m not sure that I’ll ever be able to enjoy that sense of intimacy, that…physical bonding…between a man and woman, ever again.”

They grew silent with her soft confession.

He realized it had taken a lot for her to share that private fear with him. This time, he took her by deliberate, gentle force, and whirled her around to lay on the grass, sprawled at this feet. She struggled, then collapsed with a sigh of pleasure, her arms spread wide at the sky.

“I’ll help you enjoy it.”

“Can we take it slowly?” she asked. “No promises?
I’m not inexperienced at this, but you may feel differently afterward. And I—I might feel differently, too.”

His emotions whirled at the invitation. “No promises. I promise.”

She laughed, the warm rumble melting into his.

He couldn’t resist her any longer.

Sliding along her body, he caught her in a soft embrace, rolling her on the ground beneath him. “I love it when you laugh. You look beautiful.”

When she reached up and wrapped her arms partly around his shoulders, returning his affection, he felt his body weaken.

“It’s the gown that makes me look good.
Your
gown.”

His hands moved gently down the length of her back. He enjoyed the cool, satin feel. He had a devilish new thought. “It is my gown, isn’t it?”

“Mmm-hmm. And your shoes, too.”

“They are, aren’t they? All mine.”

His mouth descended. She parted open for him, and he quivered when their tongues met. His hands caressed their way to her bosom. He cupped the curve of her breast, over the satin fabric, and found the nipple round and firm.

He hardened in response.

Raining kisses on her neck and throat, he planted one on her nose. “Since they’re mine, perhaps I’d like them back.”

“The clothes? I could get them back to you tomorrow—”

“I’d like them back right now.”

She broke free of his kiss to laugh. “Now?”

“Right now. Give them back to me, one item at a time.”

She laughed in a long, surrendering moan. “You want me to remove my clothes for you, one item at a time?”

He sensed her thrill of arousal. In quite a state himself,
he ran a hand through his tangled hair. “That’s right. You can do it. I have confidence in you.”

His hand locked against the fabric of her shoulder while she buried her face into his muscled chest. The warmth of her soft flesh was intoxicating.

“Thanks,” she said, gently slapping his ribs.

When she fell back into the grass, gazing up into his eyes again, he knew it was a moment of reckoning. Would she do it? Did she trust him enough?

“What comes off first?”

He swallowed hard. Oh, blazes! “Your shoes.”

She slid through his arms, moving upright in splendid glory, reaching seductively beneath her gown. When he heard the snap of her unbuckling the five leather buttons, he stilled with the exquisite torture of knowing that she’d soon be naked.

Bending forward, he cupped her slender foot in one large palm, kneading and rubbing the delicate muscles through her white lace stockings. Pressing his lips to her ankles, he felt her tremble beneath his fingertips.

“What’s next?” Her thick, dark hair hung around her shoulders in graceful curves, dipping around the swells of her uptilted breasts, and he couldn’t believe she was peeling for him.

“Your stockings.”

Blue satin tumbled around her legs as she reached higher and higher, lifting her skirts way beyond his wildest dreams, even lifting one edge of her bloomers to finally plant her hands around a gorgeous peach-colored thigh, rolling the white lace of her stocking expertly down her skin. Her creamy round thighs cried out for his hands. He gripped her waist with both palms, tugging dangerously, roughly, toward him. Long, luscious legs curved in front of him. Beginning with her ankle, he pressed his mouth
against her flesh and kissed around the ankle bone, up the calf, then he bent her knee to kiss behind it, somewhere in the hollow. She moaned with animal pleasure, and it drove him madder. His hands trembled up her soft thighs, to the edge of lace at the bottom of her ruffled bloomers.

“Now what?”

In the watery starlight, her sleek, soft face radiated the wonder she was feeling. Soft crackles of fireworks sounded behind him, but he didn’t turn to look. “Your gown.”

“You don’t ask for much, do you?” She teased him with her hands, sliding them down his shirt, unbuttoning as she went, pulling out the shirttail from his pants.

“I ask for what I want.”

“Why settle for less?”

His smile widened in approval. Despite the cool summer chill, perspiration erupted at his brow. “My sentiments exactly.”

“Then before I remove my gown, I believe I should ask you to remove your shirt.”

He laughed as he regarded her. Wrapping his fingers around his cravat, he tugged until it came undone. Her eyes never left him. When he undid his collar, she sat up on her knees and trailed her cool fingers down his bare chest.

“Mmm,” he groaned. She helped him undo the last buttons, less inhibited than he’d imagined she might be. When his one bronzed shoulder pulled out of its sleeve, then the other, she slipped her hand to the soft, smooth skin beneath his arm.

He rocked back with uncontrollable delight. She lowered her head and kissed his matted chest, running her warm mouth over his rib cage, across his hardened nipples, then up to his throat.

“You might just drive a desperate man further to desperation.”

When she slid her gown up over her luscious hips, yanking it high above her head, her breasts nearly spilled out of her boned, white corset. The worn but well structured linen bodice was laced up the front with leather, and her breasts perched over the top. Would he really have her? This entrancing woman?

He removed the undergarment for her, flicking each crisscrossed string of leather as it slackened at his touch. Heavy breasts spilled into his hands, satiny smooth, ripe for him. Her string of pearls shimmered against her skin, a stunning vision. His lips found a flat, rosy-pink nipple and he teased it to attention. His hands slid across her silken belly, then over to her other side, gently outlining the circle of one breast while sucking the other.

“Tom,” she said, whispering into the stillness. “Why do you make me feel so good?”

Her words affected him deeply. “Because we were made for each other.”

She trailed her heavenly fingertips over his back, and his reaction was swift. “All right,” he said, ripping apart from her, “your bloomers come off next.”

She obeyed willingly, sliding them off until she lay there, naked under the stars, her golden skin flashing in the new round of fireworks, the light rippling over her curvy breasts, tight belly, and the soft black curls of her womanly mound.

He couldn’t fathom why he was entitled to her, but he wanted her more than any woman he’d ever been with. He hardened with need.

Removing his pants, he thrilled at the sexual way she watched him. Her gaze lingered down along his chest, then down along the rest of him to his shaft, and he quivered in response.

He caressed her cheek. “I want this to be good for
you… Tell me to stop if it’s going to hurt…because of what happened to you….”

“Don’t worry. I’m normal there, it’s deeper inside where it differs, but you won’t be able to feel it.”

“The heavens had mercy,” he whispered. “I’m so pleased for you sweetheart.” That
she
would be able to enjoy this.

He couldn’t believe that only two weeks ago he was worried he wouldn’t be able to sustain an erection with her, that his fear of hurting her might make him wither…but those fears were gone. The problem now, he thought with unabashed eagerness, was that his need was so intense for her, he was afraid he’d spill before he was able to please her.

His hands roved her body, making her arch to meet his fingers. He wanted to drag it out for her until she couldn’t resist, until she begged for mercy.

“Touch me
there,
” she whispered.

“Aye, aye,” he said, sliding his lips over her laughing ones.

He touched her
there,
and with mutual surrender, they gloried in each other’s embrace. He plunged into the hot depths of her body, rejoicing it was Amanda beneath him.

She saturated him, enveloping him with intense moist heat, fulfilling him in every way imaginable.

Both drugged with ecstasy and exhaustion, she finally peaked, and he allowed himself to release, knowing there would be no turning back between them.

A
lthough she didn’t know for sure, Amanda guessed that an hour had passed since they’d begun. She wove her legs and arms between Tom’s as they watched the final cascade of whistling fireworks above them. Turning over, her stomach met with his hips as she lay naked on top of him. Her loose, long hair tangled around her shoulders and dipped over his chest. The smooth necklace of pearls bounced off her pointed breasts.

“I’m not finished with you yet,” she drawled, pulling herself up to a sitting position, one leg on each side of him to rest her bottom on his abdomen.

The sinews of his dark jaw flexed as he searched her face. She felt his abdominal muscles coil beneath her as he grasped under her arms and lifted her, his tremendous strength wedging her into place on top of his erection.

Sweet satisfaction rolled through her as she tightened around him, one thought hammering in her brain. Her spirit wasn’t shriveled up inside, she felt alive and intense and burning with a mad fever for Tom.

The chill of the night air brushed her shoulders, while the hot pressure of his fiery palm cupped her breasts, making her climax quickly. She unwound her limbs, pinning
him at the shoulders, feeling her breasts sway as she rocked against him.

He kissed along the tendrils that jiggled at her ear, along her temples, along her straight, smooth brows. Then he grew urgent, rocking faster, digging his fingers into her waist, pumping his hands around her hips, sinking them into the creamy flesh of her bottom.

She brushed her lips along his cool forehead. “I never knew you could do this to me.” She rolled off him to the ground, collapsing into a delightful heap onto the soft fabric of her shawl.

His groan, his obvious pleasure at her words, made her smile. Having rolled with her, he swung off her now, revealing her bare thighs.

“I think it’s you who’s doing it to me.”

He stroked a path beneath the arch of her neck, over the ribbons of her lips, up to the bridge of her nose.

A cool wind curled around them, settling on her arms. She shivered.

“Are you cold?” he asked.

“Yeah.”

“Let’s get dressed then.”

“Do we have to?”

“We don’t have to, but we’ll look silly walking home naked. What would the neighbors say?”

“They’d say
lucky woman.
”

His easy laugh rippled through the trees.

He tapped her hips then playfully tossed her her stockings and bloomers. As she tugged into her clothing, watching him step into his pants, one long bronzed leg after the other, she knew she didn’t want this to end. She didn’t want to face the real world again, away from this haven of…lovemaking.

Had this night been one in a thousand? Could either of them give themselves to a commitment?

While he studied her, she sensed he was waiting for her to speak of it first. “You surprise me,” she whispered.

“How?”

“What is it about you that makes me react so strongly?”

Standing there, he loomed over her in the grass, his muscles flexing as he wove his belt through the loops of his pants, his black hair jumbled from rolling around with her. “Why, it’s everything about me,” he said with jest.

Stifling her smile, knowing it was true, she tugged at the laces of her corset. He paused in what he was doing and came to stand in front of her, gently coaxing her fingers out of the way so he could finish the lacing. She’d never had a man want to dress her before, and she allowed him, reveling in the newfound feeling of being cared for.

She grew wistful. “When I think about what happened in my life in Calgary, especially how my husband left me, I wonder sometimes why it happened. What reason did fate have?”

His fingers stopped moving. The lacing was finished. He wove his hand behind her neck to let it rest there, knotted in her hair, and looked softly into her eyes. “Because Amanda, fate sent you to
me.
”

Her stomach fluttered with the words. He sealed them with a provocative kiss, then said no more.

She hestitated, wanting to reach out and to tell him what he obviously wanted to hear—that she was torn in her affections for him but that she desperately wished to continue with their relationship. But she couldn’t give promises she might not be able to keep. She’d tried marriage once before, and it had failed.

Blanketed in his warmth, she helped pack up. They walked to his home, and the sawmill and the small barn
where he was still entitled to kept his horses for the summer. After he hitched his mare to a buggy, they plodded along the streets of Banff to Hillside Road. The paths were filled with couples walking home from the ball, hand-in-hand, some in carriages, some in leather buggies similar to theirs. It was a dreamy, star-filled night; one she’d remember forever.

What would it be like, returning to her normal routine? How could anything be normal again after tonight?

In a strange way, she was glad she had tomorrow to herself, away from Tom and his influence, to think about what had happened and where it might lead. Would he feel differently, now that they’d made love and his desire had been quenched? How would he feel seeing her Monday, bringing her to the courthouse?

And what about all the other problems that intruded in their lives? Hers with her deed and the log cabin, his with the banker and his brothers…and on and on.

Her muscles ached with fatigue. Doubts and misgivings grappled with the bliss she felt for having made love with Tom.

Monday morning came with sunshine. The splendid heat soaked through Tom’s shirt into his shoulder blades as he urged his horse and wagon onto Amanda’s road. How would she greet him this morning? He grew nervous.

After two nights and one day of thinking about her, he still sang her name. Their night of lovemaking was all he could think of—the turn of her cheek, her tempting body beneath the firework lights, the smile and sigh when she’d uttered his name in the quiet of the forest.

His mind raced to what living with her might be like. How did she comb her hair for bedtime? What side of the
bed would she prefer to sleep on? What, he wondered with a smile, did she eat for breakfast?

Could he imagine a fulfilling life with her, alone, just the two of them?

Would
he
be enough for her? That was the most pressing question on his mind. If they continued seeing each other and it blossomed into something more, something deeper, how long would it last before she tired of him? Most women would have babies and youngsters to fill their lives with hopes and dreams and love, but she might only have him.

He wasn’t arrogant enough to believe that he could be enough for any woman.

Would she be satisfied enough, happy enough, to be involved with other people’s children, even if they had none of their own? Quaid’s maybe, and Gabe’s once he finished his schooling and married, and then even the children Amanda took in—especially Josh and Margaux.

Tom hoped whoever adopted the two would live close by, no matter what happened between him and Amanda. The thought of the children moving away filled him with sudden gloom. He wanted to watch little Josh grow up to speak correctly, whose life was turned around because of Amanda, and he liked spending time with both children, teaching them things he knew how to do.

What was Amanda thinking about the future? Saturday night when he’d taken her home, he knew she was holding back whatever emotions were tumbling through her.

Then thinking about his banking troubles, he cursed softly. How could he possibly entertain the notion of any future with Amanda when his business was on the verge—

The O’Haras’ cows mooed in the distance. The O’Haras were good people, and they’d befriended Amanda and Miss Clementine, but how was the rest of the town feeling
lately? At the ball, there’d been no indication of trouble, but then not everyone had been there. Not Fannie and not her father, and not Mrs. Hawthorne.

The wagon rumbled onto the path and Tom pulled up beside the shack, searching for Amanda. She was nowhere in sight, but Miss Clementine was out front, putting her gloves into her bicycle basket. She was nervously chewing on gum.

He removed his felt hat. “Where you headed?”

She adjusted her knitted shawl across her shoulders. “It’s such a lovely mornin’, I thought I’d ride to the courthouse.”

“But didn’t Amanda tell you I’d be here to drive you both?” He pulled the handbrake, then lurched out of the wagon.

“She did, but to tell you the truth, my old nerves kept me awake most of the night, and I need to calm them. If I don’t do something to settle them down, I’m afraid I might stand up in court and start yelling at the magistrate. Or Lorne Wilson himself. The bicycle will tire me nicely.”

The door creaked open and Amanda stepped onto the porch. Although neatly dressed with her hair pulled tightly into a bun, she looked pale. Of course, he thought, she was concerned about the outcome today. “Good morning, Tom,” she said softly.

“Morning.” He filled with a warm glow of seeing her again.

If he thought he might detect any indication of the evening they’d spent together, he saw nothing in her eyes. They flickered on him, then to her grandma. Nothing? he thought with disappointment.

He leaned against the railing of the porch, beneath Amanda’s elbow. “Miss Clementine says she’s not coming with us.”

“I tried to convince her but it’s hard to convince her of anything.” Amanda smiled good-naturedly at him, then he saw by her warm feminine expression and the slight hue of color that flushed her skin that she
was
thinking of him.

His mouth dipped and they shared a private smile. Of course, how could he assume either one of them could ever forget Saturday night?

Miss Clementine mounted the bicycle. She rang a bell. “What’s that?” He pointed to the rectangle of metal on her gripping bars.

“It’s my new cow bell,” she said. “Your pa had it hanging around his place and he said I could have it.”

“What do you need a cow bell for?”

“Oh, Tom,” said Amanda, stepping off the porch and removing her apron. Her nose pinched with concern. “She rings it at every opportunity to let everyone in town know she’s coming.”

“I’ll show ’em a circus,” Miss Clementine grunted, flinging her braid over her shoulder in defiance.

Tom stared at the old determined expression, stifling his laughter. “I bet old Jefferson’s eyes bug out every time he sees you.”

“They do,” Miss Clementine whispered, as if they were in a conspiracy. “You should have seen him yesterday when I rode it to church. As I was barreling down the hill, I rang it in time to the church bells, and I thought the man was going to keel over.”

She gave a friendly laugh, smacking her black gum.

“Grandma, I wish you’d be careful,” Amanda said gently. “Not everyone in town might think it’s funny.”

“Ruby does.”

“Ruby’s special. She’s nice and she likes us.”

Tom looked at Amanda, standing high on the porch
above him. “A lot of people like you,” he insisted, wishing more did.

“A lot of people don’t,” she answered.

His lips softened into a serious line. Dammit, he wished it weren’t true. “Where are the children?” he asked.

“Margaux’s in school and Josh is at Ellie’s.”

“How’s Josh?”

“Good. He’s eating soup and dumplings now.”

Tom grinned at the news, wishing he could reach out and touch Amanda. But Miss Clementine didn’t know how involved they were, and he’d promised Amanda to keep their involvement quiet, until they’d discussed it some more.

On his side of things, he couldn’t wait for everyone in town to know how he felt about Amanda. He’d never treat her the way William had, but she needed more time to see it.

“Ellie said we can take our time coming home.” Amanda smoothed the hair at the back of her bun. She looked so different from the other night—so prim and proper that he longed to take a hand and muss up her hair. “I’d like to pick up kerosene from the mercantile, and I need a new tin pail at the tinsmith’s, if you have the time to wait for me.”

“That’s why I brought the wagon.” He walked to it and began unloading his tools. “Just in case you needed it for errands, and because I’ll need to start on construction this afternoon, right after the magistrate declares the land is yours for good. We have to catch up on lost time.”

Amanda smiled at him.

“That’s awful nice of you, Tom,” said Miss Clementine, her eyes tearing up. “It’s gotta work out that way.”

Tom nodded. “It will.” Picking up kerosene was good. It proved that Amanda was thinking ahead, that she thought
the property
would
be hers at the end of the day, despite her doubts now.

Miss Clementine left, Amanda went inside to get ready, and Tom took the ten minutes to set up his tools.

When Amanda returned, he helped her up beside him in the wagon. “It feels good to touch you. I missed you yesterday.” He clasped her hand and kissed it, enjoying the way his rough fingers laced into her smooth ones.

“I missed you, too.” With a slow smile, she lowered her head, straightening her dark skirt, adjusting the row of white buttons down her blouse. She seemed a lot more detached than he felt.

He reached out and slapped her thigh. Just to show her who was who.

She laughed at that. They headed to town, both quiet, Tom feeling as though he shouldn’t push her to talk. They both had a lot on their minds with the property dispute, no matter what they pretended on the surface.

When they pulled up to the town hall, there were already several buggies lining the road, around the grassy town square, with single horses grazing beneath the trees.

Amanda shifted beside him. “Why are there so many people here?”

“They’re curious, I guess. We rarely have cases heard in Banff.” And the outcome might affect many people, he thought, but he didn’t voice it.

Inside, the place was packed. In spite of his words, Tom had no idea there’d be this many folks here. This was supposed to be a simple judicial hearing, mostly paperwork to discuss, he’d thought. Hell, at one point, he’d considered not even showing up himself. It didn’t really matter, he supposed, because it seemed like an open-and-shut case to him. Wilson’s deed wasn’t dated, but Amanda’s was, and hers was witnessed by lawyers.