Into the Light (31 page)

“You traitor! I should have shot you sooner. I should have shot her when she come running at me.”

After that everything degenerated into a cursing, shouting babble. Trey took Deborah’s arm and led her outside into the clean early evening air. “He’s right. He could have shot you,” he said, pulling her close.

“No, he couldn’t. He was already trying to run away and had his back to me when I first saw him.”

“Promise me you won’t do anything like that ever again.”

“I promise I won’t ever do anything like that again unless someone tries to kill you again.”

“Aah, Deborah.” He pushed her hat brim out of the way and leaned his forehead against hers. When approaching footsteps sounded, Trey brushed his lips over hers before straightening.

“I guess you don’t have to worry about him from here on,” the chief said. “If he won’t plead guilty in court, we’ll just bring you in and have you wave a red flag at him again.”

“Is he insane?” Deborah asked.

“No more than most we get in here,” the chief said. “At his age he’ll never be a free man again. We’ll keep him until he goes to court and then it will be prison. You go on to your party now and forget about him. And best wishes for — a quieter future.”

“I forgot about the reception,” Deborah admitted as they walked toward the town hall.

“Me too, but we’d better go eat wedding cake and do whatever else is expected or they’ll never forgive us.”

“Yes, they would. Let’s run away.”

“Later. We’ll escape together later.”

“I
S IT LATER
yet?” Deborah said. “We could slip out the back door before anyone noticed.”

Trey looked down at the woman in his arms — his woman, his wife. A smile curved her lips, but the worry was there, deep in her dark eyes. His own nerves ratcheted up a notch. His wife, who hit men with knives and threw herself at men with rifles, was afraid, and only one thing was going to take away the fear — if anything could.

At least she didn’t want to stay at the reception as long as possible and put off being alone with her new husband. Maybe that proved her courage. Maybe she believed in getting unpleasant things over with as fast as possible. Whatever her motive, her desire to leave immediately and without a fuss coincided with his own.

Dancing couples filled the floor of the town hall. The reception had been in progress long enough no one seemed to be paying particular attention to the bride and groom. As they circled again, Trey maneuvered to the outer edge of the dancing couples, opened the back door with no hesitation, swung Deborah through, and followed her.

“Being married to a sneaky woman is going to corrupt me, isn’t it?”

“Do you think anyone saw us?”

“Everyone, but after the day we had, they’re willing to let us get away with it. No newly married couple should have to spend the first hours of their marriage with the police. Your family can throw things at us tomorrow at the railroad station, although I don’t expect my mother and sister to brave a crowd of Suttons again that soon.”

“Did you know they were coming?”

“No. They surprised me at the house before the ceremony. Really surprised me.”

“Does it mean they’ll visit us? We won’t have to go to the ranch, will we?”

Trey guided her toward the garden where they’d first met, aware of the anxiety in her question. “No, remember I’m forbidden to set foot on the ranch. Mother may visit us once or twice a year when she’s in town on her way somewhere else. Alice even less often. She and Vernon live in Kansas City when they’re not hiding out at the ranch with a new baby.”

“Little Web really is adorable. How old were you when you made them stop calling you that?”

“Five. I just stopped answering to it until they gave up.”

“Maybe this Web will be like you and make his own life.”

“Maybe he’ll find an easier way.”

“Your father....”

“Don’t worry about him. We’ll stay estranged, as they call it, until he’s doddering. At that point if he gets maudlin and wants to see me, I’ll probably give in, and we’ll have one last raging quarrel, but you’ll never have to see him. Let’s pretend he lives in China.”

He had stopped between the two benches they’d sat on a year ago. By the light of the half moon shining from a cloudless sky, Deborah’s features were shadowed — beautiful, beloved, and easily distinguished. He cupped her face in his hands and whispered against her lips. “If we were this close that night, we could have seen each other.”

“I’m glad we weren’t,” she whispered back. “I would have run and never known you.”

He kissed her, a soft promise of more to come. “No more running?”

“No more running.”

They left the garden and headed for home. Her hand was cold in his, perhaps nerves, perhaps the cooling April night. Trey shrugged out of his jacket and draped it around her shoulders.

“Now you’ll be cold,” she said.

“Being near you has this mysterious warming effect. I’m fine.”

She turned her head away, but kept a comfortable hold on his arm.

Their house came into sight, soft gray paint pale in the night. Instead of opening the wood gate, Trey led the way between houses to the alley.

“Where are we going?”

“I have something to show you.”

What had been a one-horse barn sat behind the house. Trey fumbled with the kerosene lantern he knew hung by the door, wishing the barn had gas lights like the house, and heard Deborah gasp when the wick caught and light reflected from the glossy dark green paint of a new Columbia Runabout.

“Jamie convinced me you’d like one of these for a wedding present better than jewelry.”

“Oh. Oh.” She walked to the vehicle slowly, pulled off a glove and ran her hand over the leather fender, touched the dashboard. “It’s really ours?”

“Yours. I have Irene.”

“Oh, but for town. Trey, this is.... It’s beautiful.”

“You have to be careful, and you have to let Jamie teach you how to drive it.”

“Only if you do too. After all, I can’t go back to the mill alone, can I?”

“I hope not, but I have a feeling you’re still going to sneak off on me now and then.”

She hugged him around the neck and kissed him. A good kiss, one without any reserve he could detect.

“What did you mean when you said the next time I did this, I had to laugh?”

“After the shooting contest, I saw Norah rush into Caleb’s arms. He kissed her right there in front of the crowd, and she kissed him back, and she laughed. I watched them, and I thought, that’s what I want. I want a wife who loves me like that.”

Her arms were still around his neck, his around her waist, holding her close.

“Twice now you’ve thrown yourself in my arms and kissed me. I want it to happen without you being frightened into it. I want you to be laughing.”

He had another kiss in mind, but she pulled away.

“We have to go inside. I have something to show you too.”

Disappointed, he followed her into the house. A long narrow box lay on the only table in their parlor, and his spirits rose.

“This wasn’t here when I left for the church today,” Trey said, staring at it.

“No. Uncle Eli brought it here after you left.”

“Tell me that’s not Caleb’s Big Fifty.”

“No, of course not. Open it.”

The rifle in the box was indeed a Sharps .50-90, if not Caleb’s, its twin.

“Mannie Ascher bought it, thinking it would help him beat Caleb, but it didn’t. He tries something new every year as if the right gun will make him better. When I inquired about buying this for you, he said if he could help beat Caleb that way, he’d give it to me. He let me pay in the end but probably only about half what it’s worth.”

Trey lifted the rifle out of the box and ran a hand over the barrel then the stock with reverence. “Do I have to win for you to kiss and laugh?”

She tipped her head to one side as if considering. “Another draw will do.”

“Does Caleb know?”

“No, and you have to stop calling him that. He won’t let anyone but Norah and the three of us call him that.”

“He’s making an exception for me. Since I’m family now, he says.”

“He really likes you.”

“I’m very likable.”

“Yes, you are.”

“Lovable even.”

“Yes.”

The tension flooded back into her face, fear into her eyes.

“Let’s go upstairs,” Trey said, placing the rifle back in the box.

She nodded and led the way, looking small and vulnerable inside her repaired lacy dress.

Trey watched her, his own desire muted by fear he wouldn’t find a way to love her that would stop her fear, much less bring her pleasure. She’d come to enjoy kissing. That made at least a starting place.

“Can the light be on?”

Her request was the opposite of what he expected, yet hadn’t he once thought she needed to leave the dark and come into the light? He lit the lamp in the sconce beside the bed, enough light to see by, a single golden glow. “Enough?”

“Yes, thank you.” Her voice was high and thin, her breathing ragged.

He began pulling pins from her hair. It fell down her back in a silky dark cloud, taking his breath away. He swallowed hard, forced a matter of fact tone. “I’m not going to hurt you, you know.”

“I know.”

As big a lie as she’d ever told by the look of things. “I have some liquor downstairs. Suppose I bring you a glass of brandy. It will help you relax.”

She shook her head violently. Good old Aunt Em’s influence there, he’d bet.

“What else?”

“Talk to me,” she whispered. “Your voice. I’ll know it’s you, and your voice makes me feel safe.”

He slid his fingers into the silk of her hair by her temples, stroked her brows with his thumbs. “Aah, but I can’t talk when I kiss you, and I want to kiss you. Shall I see if I can kiss and hum?”

One corner of her mouth curled, and that was enough. He kissed her, feathered kisses over her face and neck, until shining eyes and parted lips invited a slow, deep kiss, exploration.

Between kisses he talked. Talked of how much he loved her, how beautiful he found her and each part of her, his thoughts that first time he’d seen her at the ice cream parlor, before he knew she was his mystery woman.

She relaxed and kissed him back. This was going to be all right. All the lust for her he’d first denied and then hidden surged hot in his blood until he ached so fiercely he wondered if he could get his trousers and drawers off without exploding.

Beginning to unfasten the dozens of small hooks hidden under a seam of her dress turned her into a marble statue.

“Would you rather do this yourself?” he asked. “Get into a gown in another room?”

“No.” More a breath than a word.

Unsure if he should continue, unable not to, he murmured more soothing words he no longer heard or understood himself. Petticoat, corset cover, corset, drawers, the layers that protected her seemed endless.

He kissed, caressed, whispered. She neither resisted nor responded.

Throwing covers aside, he eased her onto the bed, traced gentle circles on the soft skin behind her knee as he removed one stocking, the other. Her legs were long and slim, exactly like the ones he had dreamed of having wrapped around him.

Touching her now, kissing the arch of a foot, achieving that dream seemed farther away than ever. Except. Her bowed head lifted. She touched his mouth, traced his lower lip with a look of wonder.

The chemise could stay. So could his shirt. It wouldn’t hide everything, but maybe enough to temper her fear. Yanking off the rest of his own clothes as rapidly as possible, Trey forgot to talk, too afraid the signs of her arousal would disappear at the sight of his own.

She didn’t watch, turned her head away before he finished. Biting back a curse, he slid down on the bed beside her, silent again, as he pressed his head to her breasts and was still, aroused, frustrated, half afraid to go on.

“Please talk some more.” Her voice was still barely a whisper.

Aah, yes. That talking thing. Her first sound of pleasure came when he cupped a breast, rubbed the nipple to a hard peak through the thin fabric of her chemise. Leaving even so fragile a barrier was too much. He slid the straps from her shoulders, pushed the cloth to her waist. Her breasts were as he’d envisioned, perfect in size, tipped with rose brown nipples.

She touched him again when he kissed the rounded white surface, her hand knotting in his hair. She didn’t try to pull him away, but her fingers tightened as he sucked one nipple, licked, kissed, fanned his breath over wet skin.

Afraid to kiss lower, he stroked a hand along her ribs, circled her navel with a fingertip, caressed her inner thighs until they parted slightly. She was wet. Not drenched but wet, yet she pulled away from his exploring fingers.

Unsure what else to do, he lowered his body over hers, nudged her legs apart, and pushed his aching cock partway inside. She’d asked for light, but now her eyes were closed, her hands fisted at her sides.

Sensation overwhelmed uncertainty. He thrust deeper, withdrew, stroked slowly.

Talk. Talk. He couldn’t talk. Yes, he could, damn it. “Sshh, sshh, it’s just me, just me, and I love you, am loving you.”

He moved faster, not wanting to frighten more but not wanting to prolong. He finished quickly, the bursting pleasure of physical release giving no other kind of pleasure.

Rolling off onto his back beside her, he wondered what he’d just done. Her eyes remained closed. No tears, no sign of flight.

He wished he had stashed some of that liquor here in the bedroom. His mouth was dry. He could really use a drink.

Her hand moved slowly toward him, touched his wrist, moved to his hand and took hold. He closed his own eyes for a moment, relief washing through him.

S
HE LOVED HIM
yet she had still expected pain, that feeling of strangling, the frantic need for a breath that wouldn’t come. She had expected wrongness, the sense of being less, her feelings and desires of no consequence.

When he had begun removing her clothes, memory had frozen everything inside. Then the difference of what he was doing had melted the ice away, melted
her
. She had expected taking. He had given.