One Pink Rose; One White Rose; One Red Rose (16 page)

God, she was stubborn.

“You love me, but you're leaving. Have I got that straight?”

“Yes,” she answered. “I do love you, and I am leaving. It all makes perfectly good sense to me.”

“Of course it does,” he snapped.

She refused to argue with him. She turned around, waved for the crowd to get out of her way, and headed back to the stagecoach. She was almost running. Travis stayed right by her side.

The crowd chased after them.

“I vowed never to do another rash thing for the rest of my life, and staying here would not only be rash, it would also be sinful. I'm going home.”

Travis was getting madder and madder by the second. He was consumed with panic and didn't like the feeling at all. He couldn't let her leave him. Didn't she understand how important she was to him? Without her, life wouldn't be worth living.

He didn't want to live without her.

The truth slapped him in the face, and he came to a dead stop. “Son of a gun,” he whispered, “I love her.”

Emily was sweet and good and loving, and all he wanted to think about now was keeping her by his side for the rest of his life. He was going to have to keep her out of that stagecoach first.

He caught up with her, heard her say something about a “rash” again, and patiently waited for her to finish rambling.

She finally stopped talking and gave him an expectant look. “Don't you agree?” she asked, wondering what had caused the sudden smile.

“Sure I do.”

“She's leaving now,” someone shouted from the back of the crowd.

“She'd be ruined if she stayed,” a woman called out.

“Amen,” someone else shouted.

They reached the stagecoach. Travis pulled the door open for her.

She put her hand out to him. “Good-bye, Travis.”

“You expect me to shake your hand?”

“It would be the polite thing to do. Why are you smiling?”

“I'm a happy man.”

She was crushed by the sudden change in his attitude. Her hand dropped back down to her side. “I'll write to you.”

“That'll be nice.”

“Will you write back?”

“Sure I will.”

There wasn't anything left to say. She turned to get back inside the stagecoach then.

“Just one thing,” he said.

“Yes?”

“Kiss me good-bye.”

S
he married a crazy man. She was so happy she couldn't stop smiling. She had even laughed out loud several times while she'd been in the bath, for she was filled with such an abundance of joy and love she couldn't keep it all inside.

She was waiting now for her husband to join her. She stood at the bedroom window above the Perkinses' parlor and stared out into the night while she brushed her hair. The moon was beautiful tonight, and the sky was alive with at least a hundred stars. Crickets were singing their nightly song in unison. The scent of pine filled the air, and everything seemed magical.

The long-stemmed pink rose Travis had given her before the wedding ceremony was in a vase on the table beside her. She picked it up and held it against her heart.

She turned around when the door opened. Travis came inside, bolted the door, and turned to look at her. His breath caught in his throat, and he was suddenly overwhelmed by the beautiful woman he had managed to capture.

She was dressed in a prim white nightgown that covered her from the top of her neck to the bottom of her slippers.

“Good evening, Mrs. Clayborne.”

She laughed, and he felt as though he'd just been embraced by her warmth. He leaned back against the door and grinned at her.

“Don't be nervous.”

“Why do you think I'm nervous?”

“You just threw your brush out the window.”

She laughed again. “I want it to be perfect for you.”

“It already is.”

It was the most perfectly wonderful thing he could have said to her. Oh, how she loved this man.

He removed his shirt, tossed it on the back of a chair, took off his shoes and socks next, and then came to her.

“You aren't really nervous, are you, sweetheart?”

“Just a little,” she admitted. “I know what's going to happen. I'm just not familiar with the how.”

“You mean you haven't made a thorough study on the subject?” he teased.

“No, but I imagine you have.”

He took the rose out of her hand and slowly trailed the fragrant bud down the side of her cheek. His gaze never left hers, and within seconds, the apprehension she had felt was gone.

“I love you, Emily. And only you,” he told her in a rich, gruff voice.

Impatient to take her into his arms, he put the rose back in the vase and carried her over to the side of the bed. She kicked her slippers off on the way.

“Do you want me to explain in detail what I'm planning to do?”

She knew from the tone of his voice that he was teasing her. “No, thank you very much, but I appreciate the offer. I believe I'd rather you showed me.”

He gently placed her in the center of the bed and came down on top of her, careful to brace his weight with his arms.

He leaned over her and stared into her eyes, savoring the love he saw there. “I'm going to make a thorough study of you, Mrs. Clayborne. God, I love the sound of that, and when I'm finished, it's my sincere hope you'll thank me very much.”

He was tossing her favorite expressions back at her. The way he was looking at her, with such love and desire, filled her with anticipation, and if she had trusted her voice, she would have told him he didn't need to worry about putting her at ease now. She was more than ready to become his wife in the most intimate way. Heaven help her, she was eager.

Shivers raced down her spine when he nuzzled the side of her neck. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders and stroked his back.

He was determined to let her set the pace tonight, and within minutes he was richly rewarded. She tugged on his hair, demanded he stop teasing her and give her a proper kiss. One was all it took for passion to explode between them. By the time he removed her gown and his trousers, she was breathless with excitement and he was having a hell of a time breathing at all.

He knew more about how her body would react to him than she did. His hands were strong yet incredibly gentle as he stroked the fire inside her.

And when at last they joined as one, it was all so astonishingly exquisite, she couldn't contain her cry. She was overwhelmed with the love she felt for this man. He made it so very perfect for her.

He felt her tighten around him, and he gave in to his own climax, shaking now because he had never experienced such splendor before.

It took a long while for either one of them to recover. They lay together in a tangle of legs and arms, and, damn, he was so happy and content he thought he must be in heaven.

She was so happy she needed to cry and laugh at the same time. The satisfied look on his face was comical to her. Then she realized she probably looked the same way.

He kept her in his arms when he rolled onto his back. She stretched out along his side and put her arm across his chest.

“Now, aren't you sorry you made me wait so long?”

She patted his chest while she gently corrected him. “It was only two weeks. You knew that stagecoach was going to leave while you were kissing me, didn't you?”

“Of course. Did you honestly think I would let you go?”

“I honestly think I'm happy you didn't.”

He laughed. He was so pleased with her he had to kiss her again. Then he let his head drop back on the pillow and let out a loud, sleepy yawn.

“You put me through hell waiting to get my hands on you.”

He was exaggerating, of course, at least she thought he was, and she wouldn't have given up the last two weeks for anything. He had proven to her during that time that he was possibly the most romantic man in the entire world. He'd courted her with what he referred to as a vengeance. She had never had a chance against him—he'd warned her about that—but she had held out for as long as possible to give him time to make certain he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her.

She had been concerned that it was only an infatuation on his part and therefore he saw only the good qualities in her. He had set her straight about her misconception at dinner the night before by cheerfully listing every single one of her flaws. It took him a long time to get them said too, and though she had been aware of a few, he pointed out several more she hadn't even known about. She was still stubbornly insisting that she wasn't stubborn at all.

“Do you know what I think, Travis? That one kiss good-bye led to this night.”

He rolled her onto her back again. “I knew before then, and so did you. I love you.”

“I love you too.”

“Emily?”

“Yes?”

“Kiss me good-bye again.”

Time of Roses

It was not in the Winter

Our loving lot was cast;

It was the time of roses—

We pluck'd them as we pass'd!

That churlish season never frown'd

On early lovers yet:

O no—the world was newly crown'd

With flowers when first we met!

Thomas Hood (1798-1845)

T
he little woman was in trouble. Big trouble. No one, male or female, pointed a rifle at Douglas Clayborne without paying the consequences, and just as soon as he could get the weapon away from her, he would tell her so.

First, he was going to have to sweet-talk her into stepping out of the stall and into the light. He planned to keep on talking until he had edged close enough to take her by surprise. He'd rip the rifle out of her hands, unload it, and break the damned thing over his knee. Unless it was a Winchester. Then he'd keep it.

He could barely see her now. She was crouched down low behind the gate, shrouded in shadows, with the barrel of the gun resting on the top slat. A kerosene lamp was hooked to a post on the opposite side of the barn, but the light wasn't sufficient for him to see much of anything at all from where he stood, shifting from foot to foot, a few feet inside the open door.

A hard, driving rain was pelting his back. He was soaked through, and so was Brutus, his sorrel. He needed to get the saddle off the animal and dry him down as soon as possible, but what he wanted to do and what the woman would let him do were two different matters.

A bolt of lightning lit up the entrance, followed by a reverberating boom of thunder. Brutus reared up, let out a loud snort, and tossed his head. The horse obviously wanted out of the rain as much as he did.

Douglas kept his attention on the rifle while he tried to soothe the animal with a whispered promise that everything was going to be all right.

“Are you Isabel Grant?”

She answered with a low, guttural groan. He thought his harsh tone had frightened her and was about to try again in a calmer voice when he heard her panting. At first he thought he was mistaken, but the noise got louder. She was panting all right, and that didn't make a lick of sense. The woman hadn't moved a muscle since he'd come inside the barn, so she couldn't possibly be out of breath.

He waited for the panting to subside before he spoke again. “Are you Parker Grant's wife?”

“You know who I am. Go away or I'll shoot you. Leave the door open behind you. I want to watch you ride away.”

“Lady, my business is with your husband. If you'll kindly tell me where he is, I'll go talk to him. Didn't he tell you I was coming here? My name is . . .”

She interrupted him in a shout. “I don't care what your name is. You're one of Boyle's men, and that's all I need to know. Get out.”

The panic in her voice frustrated the hell out of him. “There isn't any need to get upset. I'm leaving. Will you tell your husband Douglas Clayborne is waiting in town to give him the rest of the money for the Arabian? I'm going to have to see the animal first, as he agreed. Can you remember all that?”