The Fire of Home (A Powell Springs Novel) (28 page)

“Kiss your bride, young man,” Mr. Mumford instructed.

Bax lifted Amy’s veil and gave her a bashful kiss. She smiled, both at him and to herself. This was not the same man sh
e’d
lain with on the sofa, caressing with feverish urgency. But he
was
her husband now; she knew the rest would come later this evening.

Mumford put his hands on their shoulders to turn them around to face their guests. “Friends—Mr. and Mrs. Baxter Duncan.”

Jessica gave her a handkerchief and they all applauded. Cole shook Bax’s hand. “Congratulations. I think you’ve got a great future ahead of you.”

Amy looked at Cole and nodded wordless thanks to him. She appreciated the kindness of his gesture, and knew that he made it with sincerity.

The small group crowded around them to offer their best wishes, and suddenly Amy found herself facing Susannah Grenfell, Cole’s former sister-in-law and a woman she had once used in her shameful scheme to win Cole away from Jessica. Certainly, she liked Susannah, but her primary aim had been to convince her that Amy was the better choice. Susannah had believed only that she had a good friend. Discovering the truth, and at just about the same time the army had notified Susannah that her husband was presumed dead on the Western Front in France, had left her disillusioned and numb. Amy planned to apologize to her, just as she had to Jess and Cole. But with all that had happened lately, she hadn’t had the chance yet. Amy swallowed. She wasn’t sure if Susannah and Tanner had come to celebrate with them or to censure her. She couldn’t imagine that Susannah would create a scene at a social gathering like this, but people sometimes did strange things.

“Amy,” Susannah greeted her with a hesitant smile. She carried John Henry in her arms and he slept on, despite the celebration going on around him. “I hope you’ve found what you sought for so long.” She glanced at Tanner, the man sh
e’d
married after sh
e’d
been declared a widow, and gave him a loving gaze. “I want you to be as happy as we are.”

Amy released a quiet breath and her eyes grew teary again. “Thank you both for coming today. It means a lot to me, and to Bax.” She kissed Susannah, then Tanner leaned in to peck her cheek.

“Come on, people,” Granny Mae called from the back. “Let’s get this party started. Everyone over to the New Cascades.”

“Still bossy as ever,” Amy murmured to Bax. Granny Mae wore a navy-blue dress, and this was one of the few times that Amy had seen the old woman without her apron. Deirdre’s death had knocked the wind out of her for a while, but sh
e’d
bounced back, for the most part. In some ways she wasn’t quite as cocksure as before, but that was a relief.

Bax took her arm. “What are we having for dinner?”

“Do you really care?” Amy asked, giving him a mischievous look. “
I’d
have thought your mind would have carried you beyond the reception.”

He grinned down at her. “Hey, I have to stoke up for afterward. I didn’t get much to eat this morning.”

They emerged from the doors of the church into the afternoon sun and the bell in the steeple rang out to announce them. “Oh, I wasn’t expecting that!” Amy said, looking up.

“I think Em arranged for that with her boys and Mr. Mumford,” Jessica said, standing just behind her elbow.

Bax and Amy were pelted with rice, and laughing, he grabbed her hand and pulled her away from the steps in the general direction of the hotel.

After a wonderful dinner, happy toasts of illicit champagne, and servings of cake, Bax and Amy slipped away from their guests under a hail of good wishes and threats of a shivaree to their room on the second floor. Bax opened the door and then swept Amy into his arms and carried her in.

“Can I take off my tie and jacket now?” he asked, setting her on her feet. “I’ve been wearing this getup all day and I’m not really a necktie sort of man.”

“Yes, take them off,” she said, “but you should know that you look very handsome in dressy clothes.”

“You might see me decked out like a store-window dummy once in a while in the future, but not often.”

She shook her head and unpinned her veil, draping it over a chair. “Just like Cole and Tanner,” she said, quirking a brow at him. “Even Whit was wearing a tie when he showed up, and h
e’d
been out on business.” She kicked off her shoes and sank onto the sofa, pleasantly tired from the excitement and complete happiness of the long day.

He waved that off. “He just went to check on the Beckers. It wasn’t like digging a ditch.” He slouched beside her and took her into his arms, so that they were half sitting, half reclining. “Anyway, I didn’t bring you up here to talk about men’s furnishings.” He nuzzled her ear and sent a wave of delicious shivers across her shoulders and over her scalp.

“No,” she whispered, “you didn’t.” She gazed into his handsome face and any shyness sh
e’d
felt began to melt away. Then she admitted, “When I got to the church and I didn’t see the county car, I thought . . .”

“Thought what?”

“Well, maybe you changed your mind.”

He gave her a serious look. “Amy—as if I could.” He slid from the sofa to his knees in front of her. “I promise I will love you and protect you, no matter what.” He put the flat of her hand over his heart and covered it with his own. “I’ll never lie to you or play you false. I’ll keep you first in my heart and my head. I won’t abandon you and I’ll always be faithful to you. You’re stuck with me.”

Amy’s throat grew tight and she almost wept. His pledge was even more meaningful and poignant than the vows the
y’d
exchanged at the wedding. “And I have never loved anyone as much as I love you,” she said, studying the lean line of his jaw. He leaned forward and kissed her then, with more heat than she had ever known, leaving her breathless from his pledge and his lips. He smelled of soap and fresh-cut grass.

He stood up and pulled her with him, turning her around. “Damn, you’ve got enough buttons on this dress to lock up a bank vault. How did you get into it?”

“Jess fastened me in when she and Cole came to pick me up.”

He made an impatient noise, and then as if by magic, her dress suddenly dropped off her shoulders, puddling around her ankles. He turned her around, and she stood before him in her white stockings and almost-transparent chemise with its strategically placed lace insets. His brows rose and he exhaled. He pulled a pin from her hair, and then another, letting them drop to the hardwood floor. With the last pin gone, her hair fell out of the elaborate style it had taken her an hour to construct and tumbled over her shoulders.

He combed his fingers through the braids to loosen them and muttered, “God, I’m glad you haven’t bobbed your hair. A woman as beautiful as you should have long hair.”

“Would you hate it if I did?” She had no plans to cut her hair. She was only curious.

“No. I want you to do what makes you happy.” His gaze swept over her again. “I didn’t marry you for your hair. But—” He gestured at it and sighed. She smiled.

With a featherlight touch, he skimmed the side of her breast and her eyes closed briefly at the sensation. Taking her hand, he pressed a kiss into it before he led her to the small adjoining bedroom.

Pushing her back against the blue jacquard bedspread, he tugged his shirt off over his head and was down to his drawers before she had the chance to reach out and participate. He climbed over her and rolled her up against him. He planted kisses along her hairline, as soft and fluttering as the first one h
e’d
put on her wrist that long-ago afternoon in the backyard. His breath stirred her eyelashes and she was electrified—she swore she could feel every sensation in her body. Her own breathing, her heart, the blood pumping through her veins. The sweetness of his lips moved over hers, now with an aching hunger. The hint of arousal that sh
e’d
known only with Bax now raged like a grass fire, melting her, turning her to thick, warm honey. She was no innocent, but all of this was new to her.

He gripped her backside with both hands and pulled her tight against him. She nestled her hips against his and felt the hard length of him. When she pushed harder, he groaned and buried his mouth against her throat. Then he edged away enough to fit his hand between them and unbuttoned the bottom of her chemise, which wasn’t much more than ribbons of lace and diaphanous chiffon. She had made it herself and in a hurry, especially for this day.

“You won’t tear the fabric, will you?” she whispered.

“No, honey, why would I do that? I want to see this on you again.” Then Bax looked at her and she saw in his eyes that he realized why she worried. “I would never do that to you.”

When he touched the slick center of her and stroked her most sensitive place she drew a sharp, surprised breath. It was as if h
e’d
touched her with a live lamp cord. A moan sounded in her throat.

Instinctively she reached for him, too. Snaking a hand into his fly, she found him hot and smooth under her fingers, and much more than she expected.

“God, woman, you’re merciless,” he mumbled. Amy felt empowered—an equal partner—in a new and completely different way. She wasn’t frightened or burdened with a sense of duty that made her want to shrink from his touch. Bax desired her and she wanted him. He rolled out of her grip and stood to strip off the underwear. His long torso and backside had not a spare ounce of fat and she could see his muscles flex beneath his skin. His strength, and his contrast to her own softness, added fuel to her desire. Behind him the late-day sun gleamed through the filter of the lace curtains on the window, and he was outlined with rich gold light that highlighted all the red and blue strands usually unnoticeable in his dark hair.

Bax was a man—a true man, physically and morally. His touch was gentle as he teased off her stockings and slipped her camisole straps off her shoulders, then bared her to his view. His hands and mouth were everywhere on her then, tender, urgent, passionate. She responded in kind. Lips and tongues met and moved on to explore, only to return and meet again.

“All those years alone,” he said, his breath coming fast, “all that time was the sentence I served to have you. And you were worth every minute.”

“You’re my reward for paying the consequences of every bad thing I did and have lived through,” she said against his chest.

Bax took her then in one heat-fueled stroke, his body covering hers, their hips reaching for the other. Her breath whooshed out of her, the sensation was that intense and unexpected. So primal and visceral was their joining that words had no use or meaning now. She felt as if sh
e’d
lost the power of coherent speech. All of her attention was concentrated on the core of her femaleness, being ministered to by her husband with darts of flame, pushing her ever closer to a completion she had never known before. Feeling as if her soul and body were on the knife-edge of being split in two, when that explosion came she realized that she was being forged in a conflagration that would join her to Bax.

Bax had already guessed that fulfillment she should have experienced with a man would be new to her. He was pleased, knowing that he was the one to give it to her. But the muscle contractions surrounding him in her wet, warm flesh took every other thought from his head except finding his own release. H
e’d
held back to make sure he satisfied her first because he knew he wouldn’t be able to maintain control any longer than that. Now with her writhing and sobbing beneath him, he held her tighter and sank deeper into her and the completion he needed.

Sweat-soaked and exhausted, they both lay boneless and relaxed.

He kissed her again. “Are you okay? No aches or pains?”

She said nothing but smiled at him with a dreamy languor that told him what he wanted to know. He sighed and rolled them to their sides, still joined.

An hour later, Bax slept on his stomach while Amy lay with her head propped on her hand and studied him in the waning daylight. The scars that she had glimpsed just one time now were fully visible. She traced around them with a light fingertip. They obviously had faded over the years, so she could only guess how horrific they must have looked early on, because they were very vivid even now. She wondered how on earth h
e’d
survived them. He had another on the back of his shoulder; it must be the one h
e’d
suffered first. It made her heart ache to think of everything h
e’d
been through, but it also swelled with love for him. Sh
e’d
told him the truth when sh
e’d
said she had never cared as much about anyone as she did him. But no other man had shown her the kind of devotion and genuine love that he did. He had become her heartbeat.