Bride On The Run (Historical Romance) (16 page)

They strung the quilts and blankets along the gleaming line and fastened them into place with the
wooden pins. Their task done, they turned to each other without a word and he gathered her into his arms.

For a long moment they simply held each other, both of them trembling. There were no more secrets between them. She knew about his time in prison and the nightmare of his wife’s death. He knew about the orphanage and the baby, about Harry and Caswell and her desperate, fugitive life. Tonight none of it mattered. Nothing mattered except love and need.

“Anna—” In Malachi’s rough whisper she heard the all his fears and uncertainties, all his longing to be loved.

“Don’t start talking now,” she whispered. “No explanations, no apologies. There’s nothing to be said.”

“In that case…” he chuckled, a low rumble in his chest that dissolved the tension between them “—I’d just like to remind you that something else needs to be on that clothesline as well.”

Anna stared into his laughing silver eyes. “I don’t see—”

The words died in her throat as his hand brushed the curve of her waist, skimmed her breast through the damp flannel, and slipped upward to the button below the collar. “You’ll catch your death if we don’t get you out of these wet clothes,” he muttered, his fingers working the button free of its hole. “And after that, we need to get you warm.”

Anna had dressed in urgent haste that morning. She was naked beneath the sodden flannel shirt and denim pants, and he knew it…oh, sweet heaven, he knew it.

His long, callused fingers worked their way downward to free the next button and the next. She gasped
as his rough hand slid through the open front of her shirt to cup her breast, molding her eager flesh, stroking, caressing her until the blood in her veins shimmered with heat. He was doing this for her, Anna knew, taking the time to rouse her to a fever pitch of pleasure. But didn’t he know she was ready for him
now
? Didn’t he know how much she wanted to feel the length of his hard, naked body against hers, wanted him to take her, to fill the aching core of her need with his love?

“Malachi…”

“Hmmm?” He had lowered his mouth to her breast while his hands liberated the rest of her buttons. His tongue brushed the exquisitely sensitive circle of her aureole, teasing the nipple to a hard berry, which he drew slowly into his mouth, sucking lightly, each tug sending freshets of desire surging downward into the moist center of her body.

“The children…” she murmured giddily. “They could wake up. They could see…” But even as she spoke she realized that she and Malachi were screened from the house by the solid line of quilts. No one could see them but the mules in the corral, who were discreetly minding their own business.

“Someone could come…they could see…”

“And what would they see?” His hands freed the buttons of her pants with the skill of a magician. “A man making love to his wife? Could anything be more right or natural, Anna? My touching you like this, loving you like this?”

As he undid the last button, the pants collapsed over her boots in a soggy ring, hobbling her ankles. The stars spun and blurred as his exploring mouth
nibbled downward, his tongue darting into the hollow of her naval, then skimming lower, lower…

Anna whimpered aloud. Her frenzied fingers furrowed his hair, pulling him into the thick, golden nest. Her mouth opened in a silent cry of ecstasy as his tongue probed her moistness, awakening the tender bud, the tingling petals of flesh. She was floating now, on the verge of shattering like a bubble.

“Malachi—” She arched against his cradled head as her body throbbed, yearning for his thrust, for all of him. He paused in his blissful torture, but only long enough to replace his mouth with his fingertip.

“Is there something else you want, Anna?” His eyes flashed up at her in the moonlight.

“Just…” She struggled against the wave of sensation that threatened to sweep her over the brink of sanity. “Just, please, get me out of these pants!”

He chuckled, then swept her up in his arms, the bunched pants still dangling over her booted feet.

“Where are we going?” she whispered as he strode across the yard, away from the house.

“Not far.” He reached the barn and ducked inside the tack room, where his bedroll lay spread on a pile of clean straw. She caught his head as he lowered her onto the thick mat of blankets, kissing him wildly, hungrily, her free hand tugging at the buttons of his shirt.

“I want to see you,” she whispered as he crouched above her, bathed in a shaft of silver moonlight that filtered between the planks. “All of you. Take off your clothes, Malachi. Now.”

“You little wanton! You shameless little hussy!” His words teased her, but his eyes did not. His gaze
was raw with need, his voice thick with yearning. She lay back on the bedroll as he stripped off his clothes and stood above her, the moonlight defining every ridge and muscle of his rough-chiseled body, honed by a life of hard outdoor work.

Anna’s gaze traveled boldly from his massive shoulders to the patina of dusky hair that shadowed his chest, tapering down along his rock-hard belly to the tangled nest that framed the splendor of his aroused manhood. He was beautiful, she thought. But he could have been potbellied and bandy-legged and it wouldn’t have mattered. He was her love, her life. And she was his.

“Take off my boots,” she murmured, her voice husky with desire. She ached to have him, to hold him, to feel that great, hard length of him all the way inside her.

Did his hands tremble as he tugged at the damp leather laces? No matter. Impatient as he was, she curled to a sitting position and helped him, their fingers bumping and tangling, until, at last, he jerked the boots off her feet and the denim pants with them, freeing her ankles. “Now!” she whispered, unable to contain herself any longer. “Malachi, hurry, please—”

He entered her in one long, gliding thrust that sent a shimmer of joy through her body. Her legs caught him, and for a long, breathless moment they held each other in perfect silence, lengthening the moment—that precious, perfect moment when two lovers join for the first time. Would it be the last time? But Anna could not think of that now. She could only think of
Malachi, close against her, as she had wanted him, needed him, for so long.

“I love you, Anna,” he whispered, and the words broke her heart. A truthful reply would bind him to her forever—and destroy them both.

Keeping her silence, she arched upward, deepening his path and heightening the fire bursts of sensations that coursed between their bodies. His eyes glazed with need as he responded, pushing deeper, deeper. She moved with him, loving him, touching every part of him. She wanted to melt into him, to drown in him. To go on and on to the end of existence.

More…more…she met each thrust as the singing arose deep in her body, growing, swelling, sweeping her away in its power.

Malachi…oh, Malachi, I love you so
….

They shattered together in a burst of love so intense that Anna felt a surge of tears. She held him close as he quivered against her, kissing his bare shoulder, his throat, his face, never wanting to let him go.

They lay joined as the madness drained away, clinging to each other in silent gratitude. He was her love, her husband. Whatever might lie ahead, they would have this night, this simple place, and a few precious hours before dawn.

When she awakened to thin rays of pewter light, he was gone. Her pants and shirt, still slightly damp, lay spread on the straw at the foot of their makeshift bed. Anna scrambled into them and raked hasty fingers through her tangled hair. It wouldn’t do, she thought, for the children to awaken and discover that she’d spent the night in the tack room.

Carrying her boots, she walked to the door of the barn. The corral was empty, as she had feared it would be. Malachi could not spare another day from clearing the road, even if it brought their day of reckoning closer.

Her body responded with a raw twinge as she bent to pull on her boots. She and Malachi had made love again, then yet again in the hours before dawn, each time more tender, and more wrenching than the last. Malachi had said little, as if, in the course of their loving, he’d come to understand that this heaven could not be forever. That realization, so deeply shared, had only made their time together more bittersweet.

She would leave this place. She had to leave for the safety of these three precious people. But first she would keep her part of the bargain she had made with Malachi.

A wren piped its early-morning song from the limb of a tamarisk as she studied the house, the uncurtained windows, the cluttered porch. She thought of the children in their shabby, outgrown clothes and the piano, waiting for the touch of a young girl’s fingers. Yes, she had a great deal of work to do, and she could wait no longer to begin. Time was growing short.

“W
ait—this note’s an F. See, right here. You played an E.” Anna leaned close to the piano, guiding Carrie’s eager young fingers over the chipped ivory piano keys. “Yes…that’s it,” she urged her protégeé. “F, then G, then back down to D again—hear the melody? Once you know which key to play for which note, you can figure out any piece of music ever written!”

Malachi watched them from the doorway as they studied the open music book, Anna’s tousled, tawny mane bent toward Carrie’s sleek, dark head. Carrie was wearing the muslin pinafore Anna had made for her to wear over her old dress. The simple, apronlike garment, which Anna’s magical fingers had whipped together in less than a day, hid the dress’s deficiencies in length and breadth, making it wearable, around the house at least, for yet another season.

Two more new dresses hung in Carrie’s wardrobe—not comparable to the fashions of London or Paris, to be sure, but Anna made up in speed what she lacked in finesse of detail. Carrie would be respectably
clothed for the visit of the Children’s Aid Society people, and for many months to come.

At Carrie’s insistence, Anna now had a dress for herself nearly finished, as well as three new shirts for Josh. Fresh curtains hung at all the windows, and the house fairly sparkled with cleanliness. Anna and Carrie had even made soap from the lye and drippings that were stashed behind the coop. She was a wonder, his Anna.

His Anna
.

Emotions churning, Malachi slipped out onto the moon-washed porch and sank onto the top step. These past two weeks with Anna and the children had been the happiest time of his life; but it was a happiness as fragile and precious as a rose in the desert. How long would it last? How long
could
it last when all the forces of hell were conspiring to tear his family apart?

After hours of passionate arguing, Anna had finally agreed to let him contact Stuart Wilkinson about the charges against her. Stuart was no great shakes as a lawyer, but he had some powerful friends in the legal system, friends who might be willing to protect her until she could tell her story. Malachi had every reason to trust his cousin. Even so, for Anna, it was a terrifying step, fraught with peril. Her willingness to take the chance was a testament to her courage, her faith and her love for him.

He had grilled her mercilessly about the murder scene, emerging, finally, with one thread of hope. Harry Solomon had been a tall man, close to six feet. The knife had been thrust into his back from a high angle, and with considerable force. If an exhumation
of the body bore this out, it could be argued, quite convincingly, that a woman of Anna’s small stature could not possibly have inflicted the fatal wound. They had a chance—a fighting chance. Even so, the thought of exposing Anna to the risk of a trial made Malachi’s stomach churn. She was so precious, so vulnerable.

Doubtful padded across the porch and nosed at Malachi’s hand, wanting to be scratched. Malachi massaged the great, flat skull, rubbing his fingers absently behind the ears, sending the dog into a paroxysm of tail thumping.

The motion of his arm crackled the folded paper in his pocket, an ominous reminder of the message a rider from Kanab had brought him today while he was clearing away the last of the slide. He had read it once and thrust it out of sight, barely overcoming the temptation to tear it into a hundred pieces. The moment of truth was close at hand. Days, even hours from now, that truth could explode and shatter his whole world.

“Pa?” Josh’s voice called to him from the kitchen. “What’s seventy-one take away forty-eight? I can’t seem to work it out.”

“I’ll be right there.” Malachi eased himself to his feet and ambled back inside to teach his son a lesson in borrowing. How much longer would he be able to help Josh with his studies? How long would he have any of them—Josh, Carrie or Anna?

How would he endure a life alone in this place?

Anna was playing the piano now, urging Carrie to join her in the mournful ballad about love gone wrong. Some would say it wasn’t any kind of song to teach a young girl, but the radiant joy in Carrie’s eyes overcame any objections on Malachi’s part. Anna had been good for his daughter. She had been good for both his children.

If they lost her, it would break their hearts.

An hour later Anna slipped outside, closing the screen door behind her without a sound. Malachi was sitting on the porch, gazing pensively toward the river. He looked so tired, she thought, as if the weight of worry was enough to crush his massive shoulders. He had, in fact, been silent all evening. Something was eating at him, troubling him deeply.

Stealing behind him, she sank to a crouch and slid her hands up the backs of his shoulders. An anguished shudder rippled through his body. The thick ropes of muscle that buttressed his neck were knotted with tension. Wordlessly she began to knead them, pressing the heel of her hand against his taut flesh. Even then, he did not speak or even turn to look at her.

For a time, Anna held her tongue. Fate had given her two precious weeks with this man and his children. It had given her the memory of a love that would warm her for the rest of her life. And, despite the fearful odds, it had given her hope—the hope that her troubles could be resolved and this beautiful dream would never end.

She had held happiness between her hands like a rainbow bubble. Now, she sensed, that bubble was about to shatter.

“Do you want to tell me about it?” she asked at last, breaking the silence between them.

Malachi responded with a ragged sigh. “Are the children asleep?” he asked.

“Yes, both of them. I checked before I came outside.”

“Let’s walk.” He rose to his feet and ambled distractedly across the yard, just wandering at first, then moving toward the river. Anna walked beside him, biting back the probing questions she knew would only deepen his natural stubbornness. Whatever the trouble, Malachi would tell her in his own way, in his own time.

The ferry landing was bathed in moonlight. He paused on the bank and stood staring at the current. “Where did you learn to play the piano?” he asked as if making idle conversation. “I wouldn’t think the orphanage would have offered music lessons.”

Anna forced a laugh. “I learned from an old man, a freed slave, who worked a riverfront saloon in Natchez. Shadrach—that was his name. And the way he played, you’d think the man had signed a contract with the devil. One night when business was slow I offered him ten dollars to teach me. He gave me a few lessons, and I taught myself more over the years. Carrie should be able to do the same after…”

After I’m gone
. Anna choked on the words, unable to speak them aloud. Hope was a two-edged sword. If Malachi’s plan worked, she would be free. If not,
she would be facing the gallows, or worse, perhaps, life in the rotting hell of prison.

Without a word, Malachi turned and caught her in his arms, holding her as if he never wanted to let her go. As Anna’s hands crept around his ribs she could feel him trembling against her. She pressed her face to his chest, wanting only to lose herself in his manly warmth and the sound of his beating heart.

That was when she heard it—the crackle of the folded paper in his pocket. And that was when the thing she had only suspected became a dreadful certainty.

“The people from the Children’s Aid Society. They’re coming, aren’t they?”

She felt him nod.

“When?”

“Any day now, I’d guess. The wire is dated nearly three weeks ago. It gathered dust in the telegraph office waiting till somebody could get out this way and deliver it. Now that the road’s open—”

He did not finish the sentence. As she held him, Anna sensed the war of self-recrimination that raged inside him. “You had to open the road,” she said gently. “You couldn’t have shut the world out forever. Not for any of us.”

“Couldn’t I?” His voice rasped with bitterness. “Do you know how many times I was tempted to blast that damned road into kingdom come? To chop the ferry into kindling or burn it to the waterline? Lord, there’ve been times when I would’ve done anything to keep things the way they’ve been these past two weeks! Now it’s too late!”

“Don’t.” Anna’s fingertip brushed his lips. “You
know a thing like that would never have worked, especially with the children. We have to face this. And we’ve got to believe we have a chance!”

“No.” He gazed beyond her, toward the ferry and the rushing, tumbling river. “You’ve done a fine job here, Anna, with the house and the children. But we’re both fooling ourselves if we think it’s going to make a nickel’s worth of difference. The decision’s already been made. It was made weeks ago, maybe months ago, back in Santa Fe.”

“Don’t say that!” Anna argued, holding him fiercely. “There’s still time, Malachi. Even if the Children’s Aid people find against you, they have to report back to the judge and get a ruling. In the meantime, your cousin could file an appeal—”

“No, Anna.” His body quivered against her, racked by a rage he had no way to express. “The wire made that one point clear. If our visitors decide against me, they have written, legal authority to take the children at once.”

“Oh,” Anna whispered. “Oh, Malachi.” Her arms tightened around him, even as her mind struggled to blot out what they both knew. Malachi loved her deeply, but without his children his heart would shrivel and harden. The warmth, the tenderness in him would die forever.

“Make love to me,” she whispered, clasping him close. And her heart echoed,
Make love to me as if it were going to be the last time
.

The visitors from the Children’s Aid Society arrived the next evening, just as the sun was sinking behind the vermilion cliffs. It was Josh who looked
up and saw them coming around the farthest visible bend. The shout he raised brought everyone to the front yard—Malachi from the barn, Carrie and Anna from the house. They stood in a tightly drawn circle, all gazing up the road.

“I recognize Ephraim Snow’s rig.” Malachi squinted into the blazing sunset. “And there’s old Ephraim driving it. Looks like they must’ve come into Kanab on the stage and hired him to bring them out here.” His eyes strained to see the two prim-looking figures seated on the back bench. He couldn’t make out many details at such a distance, except they were both holding parasols.

“I don’t want them to come, Pa,” Josh’s hand tugged at the edge of Malachi’s vest. “Tell them to go away and leave us alone. I don’t want to live in Santa Fe with Grandma and Grandpa.”

“Hush, Son,” Malachi said, his own heart bursting. “Go wash your face and hands, and put on that new shirt Anna finished for you today. Make me proud of you tonight.”

Anna, still in pants, pressed close to him, shading her eyes against the glare. “Two women,” she muttered. “Look at the way they sit, with their backs as straight as stove pokers. Oh, dear…”

Malachi could feel the apprehension in her taut body. He understood. Anna would have suffered much from such women—so-called decent folk who looked down their noses at her careless beauty and her way of earning a livelihood; the kind of women whose husbands had likely put down hard-earned cash to bask in the vision of Anna’s golden beauty and drink in the warm, sweet honey of her voice.

Malachi felt the fear in her as, for a long moment, she lingered beside him, her fingers twisting a lock of hair into a tawny rope. Then she exploded into action like a nervous little wren. “Carrie—check the stew! Make sure it’s not scorching! Then give me a minute to change, and I’ll braid your hair. Thank goodness we made bread and churned butter this morning! Josh, get a broom and sweep the porch—oh, and Malachi, shouldn’t we shut the dog up somewhere? He scared the life out of me when I came here—”

Malachi stood for a moment watching the frenzy of preparation around him—watching his beloved Anna doing her best for a cause he knew to be hopeless.

Then he turned and, squinting into the glare once more, let his gaze follow the buckboard as it rolled down the winding trail like the herald of an oncoming apocalypse.

“Well, I must say that was a tasty stew.” Miss Sophronia Hull, tall and racehorse lean, dabbed at her mouth with the folded calico square that passed for a napkin. Her companion, Miss Lucy Bigler, who reminded Anna of a plumply risen yeast roll, buttered a tidbit of bread and popped it daintily into her mouth.

“I should say it is!” she warbled. “Yes indeed, you should give me the recipe, Mrs. Stone. Really, you should.”

Anna glanced hesitantly from one woman to the other. They were middle-aged, both of them, and clad in nearly identical navy-blue bombazine gowns that covered every inch of skin except their hands and
faces. How on earth, she wondered, had they survived the withering midday heat?

So far, the visit of the Misses Hull and Bigler had been nothing but a chain of calamities. Doubtful had started the show by escaping from the barn and barking like a fury. Malachi had been glowering and withdrawn, and Anna’s own efforts at playing lady of the manor had fallen as flat as a biscuit without soda. Her game might have fooled a pair of men, but these maiden ladies were far too shrewd to be taken in. Within minutes, their sharp, knowing eyes had reduced her to quivering jelly. Even Josh, the very soul of charm, had farted during grace and been too flustered to say “excuse me.”

“Mrs. Stone?” Lucy Bigler gazed at her now, one pale eyebrow raised condescendingly. “I asked you for the secret of this delicious stew! Pray tell, what did you use for seasoning? Some wild herb, perhaps? It couldn’t have been common onions and parsley!”

Anna swallowed, playing for time. In truth, it was Carrie who had made the stew—and much as it might enhance her standing with these women, she was not about to lie and claim credit.

“Well?” Miss Lucy’s plump finger drummed on the tablecloth as Anna cleared her throat.

“To tell you the truth—”

“The recipe’s an old family secret!” Carrie interrupted sweetly. “Anna’s promised it to me on my wedding day, and not a minute sooner! I fear you won’t succeed in talking her out of it. But she’s teaching me to cook other things, and to sew and to play the piano.”