Hooked (45 page)

Oliver looked as if he wouldn't take the bills.

Meg glanced meaningfully at his mother. “If you won't do it for yourself, do it for her.”

With a sigh, Oliver reluctantly accepted the stack of bills. “Gee . . .”

Matthew slipped his hand onto Meg's lap and reached for her hand. He held it, softly rubbing her knuckles with his thumb. A lump formed in her throat and moisture filled her eyes. This wasn't going to turn into something about her. It wasn't. She did what she had to do. There was no courage in doing the right thing. It was the honorable thing.

“You deserved this last year. I wish you could have gotten all the attention. But I can't fix that. All I could do was enter and hope I could win for you.”

Oliver rubbed beneath his nose. “You mean you entered just to try and get me this money?”

“Yes.”

“Well, gee . . . I don't know what to say.”

“There is nothing to say,” Meg replied softly. “I hope you'll accept my apologies on behalf of my family.
It was wrong of my brother to do what he did. I hope you can forgive him.”

“I did that some time ago, Miss Brooks. But I do confess, I have been a mite angry with him at times.”

“Understandably so.”

Meg rose to her feet, not wanting to take up anymore of Oliver Stratton's time.

The two men in the room also stood. The moment was awkward and defined by wary trust and the hesitancy to say more than what had already been said.

Matthew opened the door, and Meg went outside. The day seemed to be brighter. Her burden of rectifying the situation lessened. Giving back the money could never remove the sting of having lost to a cheat. But it was the only thing she could do.

“I do appreciate your coming out here, Miss Brooks,” he said from the doorway. “You could have kept the prize for yourself and I wouldn't have had any call to ask you for it.”

She gave him a parting smile. “Good-bye.”

She began walking with her mouth still curved, unaware she'd been holding her breath since the moment they'd gone inside. The ache in her shoulders from tension began to slacken. And the fluttering in her stomach, which had felt like a thousand butterfly wings, started to still.

Matthew took her hand and helped her into the rented buggy he'd rented from Max Hess's livery. Silently, he mounted the seat, clucked the reins, and they rode from Oliver Stratton's yard.

Words didn't pass between them as the buggy wheels rumbled along the road.

The road back to Harmony.

She didn't want him to leave. She couldn't imagine
her life without him. She loved him. More than anything. He had accepted her for who she was just as she had come to accept him for who he was.

He needed to know that.

“Matthew, stop the buggy,” Meg said, putting a hand on his shoulder.

He reined the horses and pulled on the brake. Propping his foot onto the box, he turned to face her. The back of his arm rested on the seat back. So casual and relaxed. So unlike Matthew.

His fingers grazed her back and a delightful shiver ran across her skin.

She smiled at him. But her smile sobered. “Matthew, I have to tell you that I understand in your heart that you truly want to help people. Your articles do have good in them. I didn't want to see that before. If you've decided to go back to San Francisco . . .” She could say no more, her voice dimming like a flame flickering to darkness in the wind. For surely that's what her life would be like without him.

Darkness. Loneliness.

“Darling, I couldn't go back to San Francisco even if I wanted to.” He stroked her hair and the nape of her neck. “I spent my return train ticket money, and then some, on something in Harmony.” He reached into his trouser pocket and came out with a key. He handed it to her.

Bewilderment lifted her brows. “What's this?”

“The key to the new home of the
Harmony Advocate
. I sent my editor my termination letter this morning and I've asked him to ship a printing press and everything I'll need to start Harmony's first newspaper.”

“Really?” she asked, surprised. “Does this mean you're not going to write the article about Wayne?”

“I already tried to write it. I had a draft, in fact. Two nights ago when you came to see me, but I knew something was missing. It had nothing to do with proof. You made me realize what. What was missing was my heart. It just wasn't in the right place. I'm never going to write another article like that one, or like any of the others I've written before. From now on, I'm going to write about good things.” He tucked her hair behind her ear. “Like the first woman to win a fly-fishing tournament.”

“Oh, Matthew. I don't know what to say.”

“Say you think it's a good idea.”

“I think it's a wonderful idea.” She hugged him, pressing her lips against the warm side of his neck and clinging to this man she loved. Whispering at his ear, she said, “You asked me once if I'd marry you. Does the offer still stand?”

“Yes.”

“Then I accept.”

Matthew drew her away from him, searched her face, then kissed her. A soft and rewarding kiss. A sealing of their love. Promises. Of things to come. She reveled in his touch. The feel of him next to her. His mouth on hers.

At length, he broke away. “We can do things up your way. I know you want something big like your friend.”

She shook her head. “I don't.”

He gazed at her with a playful skepticism in his eyes. “Is this the Meg Brooks I love?”

“Yes. But she doesn't want to wait for invitations and bouquets and a wedding dress.” She covered her
mouth with her hand, as if to keep from busting out laughing. “Honestly, Matthew, it's you I want to marry. Not the bouquet or the wedding dress. I really don't care about that.”

“Really?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Then what would you say to eloping with me? Right now. Go on over to Alder and be man and wife before sunset. What do you think?” He kissed her quickly, as if to test her reaction to the idea.

She kissed him back. Smiling, laughing. “I think we're wasting time sitting here.”

Matthew unhitched the buggy's brake, and set the team in motion with a holler.

*  *  *

They were married by the Alder court justice in a ceremony that lasted no more than ten minutes. Before they went to the courthouse, Matthew took Meg to the small town mercantile and bought her a wedding ring they picked out together. It wasn't a diamond like Johannah's, but that fact bore no consequence to Meg. She'd been thrilled with the four small rubies with a polished pearl in the center in a fancy setting of gold.

And with all the thoughtfulness she'd ever wanted in a husband, he gave her a bridal bouquet. It wasn't the ivy, snowdrops, and maiden's blush roses that she'd thought she'd have on her wedding day. It was better—a thick bunch of yellow daisies, pink azaleas, and lilacs with a long train of glossy ivy.

After the brief ceremony, they'd had a wedding supper at the only restaurant in town and then they'd checked into the Knotty Pine Hotel as man and wife. Their room was one of only two that had a fireplace.
Although the evening air had the promise of summer, Matthew had stoked a fire while Meg went to the bathroom down the hall and freshened up.

She hadn't thought about a change of clothes, or a nightgown, when she and Matthew had eloped. She hoped she didn't disappoint him. As she closed the bathroom door behind her and walked down the hallway to their room, her fears ebbed. She loved the man she married. He wouldn't think less of her for not having a silk wrapper to wear on their wedding night.

She opened the door to their room and saw her husband standing by the window, the sunset silhouetting his body.

As she shut the world out for the night, Matthew said, “I had the desk clerk send your grandmother the note you wrote.”

Meg smiled. “Thank you.”

She'd written a message to Grandma Nettie that said she was all right. And that she was with Matthew. Meg preferred to tell her grandmother in person that she'd married.

“I had the hotel send up champagne.” Matthew motioned to the small table by the window. A bottle and two glasses sat beside one another. “They didn't have wineglasses.”

Unbidden, a quake of shyness struck her as she nervously replied, “I'm sure it will taste the same.”

“Have you ever had champagne?”

“No, just sherry. Once. On my sixteenth birthday.” Why was she feeling so . . . giddy?

Matthew uncorked the bottle with a
pop
and poured a splash of the sparkling wine in their glasses. He handed her one, their fingers brushing, as he raised his glass to her. “To my wife. My love. I used to
think I wasn't cut out to be a decent husband. You've changed my life for the better.”

Blushing, she replied, “I love you.”

She sipped the champagne, liking the taste and the tickle the bubbles made as they passed her throat.

“Do you like it?” Matthew asked.

“I think I may like it too much.”

They drank the champagne, yet neither of them could take their eyes off the other and Meg's heartbeat thrummed in her ears. She glanced at the bed, the monstrous thing that seemed to take up the entire room. How did she tell him she wasn't afraid of that . . . of what they would do? If she came right out and said so, he'd think her brazen.

Yet, he hadn't thought her brazen for entering a fishing contest as a man. In fact, Matthew loved her for who she was. So there was no reason not to speak her mind, if she dared. But she did, after all, still have modesty.

She bit her lip, thinking Matthew the handsomest man in the world and marveling just how lucky she was to have found him, to have found a man who loved her just as much as she loved him.

She felt the potency of Mrs. Wolcott's words on love. Love wasn't something that could be forced. She could no more force herself out of love with Matthew as she could force herself to be in love with him. She'd fallen for Mr. Wilberforce, but it was the Matthew in Vernon that she'd loved.

Would always love.

Would make love to.

“I do believe it's warm in here,” Meg remarked, fanning her face and looking toward the fireplace.

“Do you want me to put it out?” Matthew set his glass down.

“Oh, no. I like it. It's just that maybe we should take off our shoes.” She hastily added. “To cool off.”

He gave her a sly smile and patted the top of his thigh. “Put your foot up. One hand on my shoulder to steady yourself.”

She put her glass next to his and rested her shoe on his leg. He undid the laces with deliberate slowness that had her shivering. His casual manner wrecked havoc on her senses, which seemed to be heightened even with what little champagne she'd had.

Her husband removed her shoe, then grazed his hand up her calf and gently massaged her muscles. She leaned her head back a little and closed her eyes. Heaven. His touch was heaven.

Then he brought his fingers higher, drawing her petticoats and skirt hem upward to her garter.

“Is this petticoat going to fall off?” he murmured.

“I don't know . . .” she said, her voice sounding throaty in her ears. “It would seem my petticoats have a mind of their own. I've bought some new ones.”

“But you'll save the old ones for me and wear them around the house. I might just get lucky and watch one fall off.”

She laughed, soft and full of love.

With a slow slide, he pulled her stocking down her leg and off her foot. She giggled when he ran his fingertip beneath her instep. “Ticklish, are you?”

“Not me.”

“Liar.”

She couldn't help laughing.

He lowered her right leg and pointed to her left. “Other foot, darling.”

She complied, thinking this was the most romantic thing she had ever experienced in her whole life. The taking off of one's shoes and stockings by the man she loved.

Once she stood barefoot, she said, “I'll take off your shoes.”

She felt wicked doing so. Delightfully wicked for undressing her husband. But it was empowering knowing that she could make him shudder just by drawing her fingertips over the knuckles on his toes. Toes she had fallen in love with from the first time she'd seen them while hiding under his bed.

When she finished, he gathered her into his arms and spoke two words that heated her skin: “Kiss me.”

And she did.

Long and without restraint. Cherishing him. He tasted sweet like the champagne. She wanted to melt inside him—to be a part of him. To be his wife in every way.

“Am I really your wife?” she whispered.

“Yes,” he replied against her mouth.

“Then show me what only a husband can show his wife.”

Matthew lifted her off the floor in one swoop of his arm and brought her to the bed, laying down beside her.

While he stroked the contour of her cheek, he asked, “Do you want to talk about making love?”

Dismayed that she would blush over the subject, and with him, she replied with boldness, “I don't think we should talk about it. I think we should do it.”

“All right, Meg . . . whatever you want. This night is yours.”

“And yours,” she returned.

Matthew brought his hands to the buttons of her shirtwaist and began to unfasten them. With each button that popped undone, she drew in a breath, her breasts straining against her corset. As soon as she wore only her corset and shimmy, she unfastened the buttons to Matthew's shirt and slid her hands inside, across the taut planes of his chest.

He had very little chest hair; the slight ruffling of crispiness beneath her palm excited her. She explored him with her hands. Testing. Learning. Liking the way he sucked air into his lungs when she lowered her fingertips to the edge of his trousers.

With her barely being aware of it, he rolled her on to her back and raised himself over her, dipping his head down to kiss her fully on the mouth. Taking from her what she so freely gave: Her heart. Her love. Her desire.