Sweetwater Seduction (42 page)

“You look like you had the mean stomped out of you,” Darcie said with a shake of her head.

“Kerrigan don't look much better.”

“Knowin' that oughta make your bruises hurt less,” she said tartly. Darcie's heart was in her throat when she asked, “You wasn't—weren't—lyin' to me just now, were you, Felton? About you and Miss Devlin, I mean?”

“No. The engagement's off. She's going to maybe wait awhile to tell everyone, so's to avoid talk. But I got the ring back tonight.” Felton dug in his jeans and found the tiny diamond set in the thick gold band. He held it out reverently in the palm of his hand. “Will you let me put this ring on your finger, Darcie?”

Darcie picked up the ring and held it out to the lamp, turning it this way and that so she could see it sparkle. “Oooooh, Felton. Oooooh. It's so beautiful!”

Felton could see a bigDarcie's reaction to the ring and Miss Devlin's. Darcie was trembling, she was so excited, and the smile on her face could have lit up a dark night.

His heart pounding in his chest, he took the ring from her and slipped it on her finger.

It was too big. The ring had clearly been made for a larger woman, and Darcie had to hold her fingers together to keep the band from sliding off.

“We can get the size changed—” Felton said desperately.

Darcie looked up at him so adoringly that her chest might as well have been flayed open, her heart was so bare to him.

“Now that you put this ring on my finger, Felton Reeves, I ain't—I'm not—
never
gonna take it off. That is, till it's time to add a weddin' band. So you tell that jeweler man he's only got one day to get this ring fittin' right.”

Felton knew right then that he had chosen the right wife. A woman like Darcie was a rare find, and he was lucky he hadn't let his pride and his stubbornness cheat him out of the joy of living with her the rest of his life.

He wanted to make love with her. Right now. This minute. Only she was dressed like a “decent” woman. Felton had no experience with the species. The thought of helping Darcie remove her high-necked prim-and-proper dress made his skin get up and crawl all over him.

Darcie was having a different problem. She wanted Felton as much now as she ever had in her life, but he had been hurt bad in the fight. She saw in his reluctance to touch her a fear that he would end up hurting even more than he already did. As physical as their lovemaking always was, it was bound to be painful for him.

They stood there, more awkward than they had ever been with each other, at the one moment when they both wanted to express their love in the most complete way possible.

“Uh . . . Darcie . . .”

“Yes, Felton.”

“Do you think you could get that dress off by yourself?”

“Yes.”

“Would you take it off?”

“Right here? Right now?”

Felton swallowed hard. It would be like watching a Sunday-school teacher undress. There was something scandalous about it. And downright titillating. “Yeah. Take it off right here. Now.”

Darcie took her time.

Felton's pupils dilated and his nostrils distended as he watched her slowly peel off one layer after another. First the green polonaise overdress with its twelve buttons down the front, followed by the slightly ker underskirt. The white petticoats came next, one after another, six in all. He heaved a sigh of relief when her corset came off.

She was left wearing a dainty white chemise and pantalettes trimmed in pretty pink ribbons. Felton grinned when he noticed her prim white stockings were held up with shocking red garters.

Darcie raised her hands to let down her hair.

“Let me do it,” Felton said in a husky voice.

She stood stock-still as he took several hesitant steps toward her. She could feel the tension in his body as his hands reached for the sedate bun at her nape. He fumbled with the pins and dropped several. He started to reach for them, but she smiled and caught him before he could stoop down. “It doesn't matter.”

Felton was mesmerized by the soft, silky feel of her hair in his hands. “Where are all the curls?”

“I left it straight after I washed it.”

“I never knew it was so long.” He took two handfuls of her thick raven tresses and brought one over each shoulder so they made a seductive shawl for her breasts. Then he reached for the halter straps on her chemise and lowered them. He scattered kisses across her collarbone and worked his way down toward her breasts, finally brushing her hair aside as he took the tip of one breast in his mouth.

Darcie's head fell back and she arched toward Felton with a moan. She grabbed his shoulders and held on as he took her soaring to heights that seemed higher because of the strangeness of the place, and the clothing, and the specialness of the moment.

Felton lavished the other breast with equal praise and then kissed his way back up to Darcie's mouth. “I love you, Darcie,” he said. “I want us to make a baby.”

Darcie felt the tears spring to her eyes, and there was nothing she could do about it.

“What's wrong, sweetheart? You don't want a baby?”

“Oh, Felton, I do! I want your baby. It's just I never thought . . . I never hoped . . .” She smiled a beaming, silly smile through all her tears. “I will make you the
best
wife, Felton. You'll never be sorry—”

He took her head between his hands and looked deep into her green eyes. “You don't have to convince me, Darcie. I'm yours. Forever. And ever.”

“Oh Felton.”

They didn't say much for the next couple of hours, just
oooohs
and
aaaaahs,
moans of ecstasy, and groans of pleasure, and once or twice pain when Darcie accidentally elbowed Felton in his bruised ribs. The loving was not quite as vigorous as it might have been if Felton hadn't spent the evening tangling with Kerrigan, but it was no less moving. Darcie stayed on top, so she could do of the work, but that allowed Felton to touch her breasts and body more freely with his hands and mouth. When they had both climaxed and thought they were spent, Darcie happened to kiss Felton's navel and it started all over again.

Later, when they were lying naked on the mattress they had dragged from the bed to the floor in front of the fire, with Felton's head in Darcie's lap, he had simply turned and kissed her thigh, and the chain of kisses had taken him to dewy pastures that Darcie was more than willing to have him explore.

At last sated, they lay exhausted in front of the fire as it burned low with golden embers.

“Felton?”

“Hmmmm?”

“About that baby . . .”

“Hmmmm.”

“How does the spring sound?”

“Hmmmm?”

“Late April or early May.”

“That sounds fine.”

Darcie felt a little disappointed at Felton's reaction to her news that the baby he had wanted was already on the way.

Suddenly Felton bolted upright. “April or May? That means . . . Darcie! Are you—? Is there—?”

Darcie grinned. “Yes.”

Felton's gaze lowered to her naked belly. It didn't look that much different. It was just a little rounded. He stretched his hand out and she took it and laid it on her belly.

“Our son or daughter is already growing inside me, Felton. And now he's going to have a mother and a father and a home. . . . It's a dream come true for me. I want this baby to have everythin' I never had, Felton. A chance for a good life . . . a decent life.”

Darcie leaned over and kissed away the tear on Felton's cheek. “I love you, Felton Reeves.”

Felton swallowed over the lump in his throat. “We're seeing the preacher in Canyon Creek tomorrow.”

“All right, Felton, if you say so.”

“I love you, Darcie.”

She brushed the hair back from his forehead as she cradled him in her arms. “I know, Felton.”

They fell asleep in front of the fire, curled together with their child between them, ready for the wonderful new life that would begin on the morrow.

Kerrigan sat in the saloon for a long time after Felton left. He didn't drink, he just stared at the empty glass and thought, and worried, and thought some more.

What could he say to persuade Eden Devlin that his agreement with the Association wasn't the reason he had seduced her? It certainly hadn't been on his mind when he had finally held her in his arms. If she asked him what he
was
thinking about, he wasn't sure he had an answer. He could say he had wanted her from the first moment he had laid eyes on her, but somehow that story didn't sound very convincing, even to him. Except it was true.

He had been denying his feelings to himself, but they were there, had been there, from the beginning. He hadn't expected to desire her. He hadn't wanted to desire her. But he had. He had no explanation for why she had inspired such feelings in him, but the more time he had spent with her, the more he had been drawn to her. Until it was no longer a question of whether he would seduce her, but only of when.

He was in awe of the love he felt for her.

It had come as an unwelcome surprise. A shocking revelation. A horrendous calamity. But he was definitely in love with Eden Devlin. And while he ached for her touch, he was in agony for her devotion. He had taken the one. She had once freely given the other.

And now she never wanted to see him again.

“We're closin' the bar now, Mr. Kerrigan. Do you want some help gettin' to your room?”

“I can get there fine.” Kerrigan tried getting to his feet, but between the first two whiskeys he had drunk, and the beating he had taken in the fight with Felton, it was rough going.

“Sure you don't want some help?” the barkeep asked.

“I'm sure.” Kerrigan grunted with pain as he slipped into Sundance's buckskin coat. He gasped as he straightened, pulling a bruised muscle. He managed, one step at a time, to cross the room. The saloon door had been pulled closed sometime earlier in the evening and he was astonished at the blizzard that he realized now had been raging outside unbeknownst to him. He had to hang on to his hat to keep from losing it, and squint his eyes against the stinging snowflakes, as the wind shoved him across the street to the Townhouse Hotel.

It was agony getting up the stairs to his room, and he was so tired, he didn't even bother to light the lamp when he got there. He slipped his coat off and let it drop on the floor, then unbuckled his gun belt and felt in the dark for the bedstead and hung it there. He sat down on the edge of the bed, and it was all he could do to cross his legs to pull off his boots.

He let out another groan and a moan or two as he stripped to his long johns and pulled down the covers, and then he was tucked inside. The pillow was soft, and the bed, too, even though both were frigid with the cold. He knew he ought to get up and light a fire, but he was too damn tired, feeling hin body and spirit. There were plenty of blankets. He wouldn't freeze.

He couldn't think anymore tonight. Tomorrow the right words would come to him, and he would go see Eden and straighten everything out. He let his mind drift, and in a short while all was oblivion.

He never noticed the small piece of folded paper on the floor inside the door. It lay there unread all night. But it was the first thing he saw when he opened his eyes the next morning.

Chapter 19

Hard-boiled eggs tend to be yellow inside.

A
BOUT THE TIME
K
ERRIGAN AND
F
ELTON WERE SITTING
down together at the Dog's Hind Leg, Miss Devlin was stepping up into the box frame of the spring wagon Deputy Joe had brought, supposedly to take her back to town. The instant she sat down on the padded, button-tufted seat, he slapped the reins and the two mules set off at a sedate trot. Miss Devlin grabbed the metal frame of the seat and braced her feet against the bottom board in front, wishing the deputy's urgency matched her own.

It was windy and cold, and it was snowing steadily enough that Eden suspected there would be a good covering of the white stuff on the ground by morning. But the road itself still showed numerous patches of brown, since most of the snow dashed across its flatness until it came up against some bush or a rise in the terrain where it caught and began to form drifts.

Deputy Joe kept t