Enchanted Heart (8 page)

Caid pulled in a breath, deciding whether or not to tell her how she had saved him from an endless empty heart just by looking at him with gratitude in her blue eyes that night when he’d scooped her from the grip of that river. He wondered if he should explain to her that he knew in his soul that she was meant for him long before he had taken control of the oxen that she had been so hard on. He let the breath out and chose not to divulge either significant element that could forever change the way she felt about him. He knew that she was not ready to hear such a profound declaration. Not yet anyway.

He took her into his arms again and was surprised that she did not push him away. He pressed his palm against the back of her head while he groaned with emotion clearly in his raspy voice, “I’m sorry I said such a hateful thing to you. God, I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

He kissed her forehead, searing his lips to her skin for as long as it took in order to convey his heartfelt apology to her while he fought back the unshakable tears that he had brought about in his own body by his terrible words and the heart-wrenching look that they had caused on her beautiful face. Then he encased her in his arms again, pressing her face into his chest where his heart beat the expressions that he longed to utter.
I love you, I love you
, it repeated over and over while he searched for the courage to say the words aloud. And inside, he admonished himself for making the one woman, the only woman that he loved and would ever love; feel as if he hated her.

Marty clutched her fists beneath her chin and let the tears fall unchecked upon Caid’s shirt. How could he say such a hateful thing to her? How could he insinuate that she never wanted love again? And why did that hurt her more than the fact that she could never be a mother?

She felt him pull her away and then felt his palms against her cheeks while he held her face in his hands and declared to her, “I’m so, so sorry, Marty.”

She blinked hard, rolling her eyes against her lids and trying to hold back the tears now; but flow they did, breaching the confines of her lashes and streaming down her cheeks and into the palms of his hands. This must have revived his sorrow, for he groaned inwardly and clutched her to his chest again. For some reason, that tender gesture broke the wall around her heart and she wrapped her arms around his waist and clung to him as if he were her lifeline. And in that moment, her heart heard what his was conveying to her and it sang back in harmony the words that she had thought would never be uttered by her lips. In that enlightening flash of realization, she knew that he had truly been correct in his accusation that she feared love.

But all that had changed in an instant. Her life, her love, her future all seemed to be going in a whole new direction and she was now filled with fear that it would just as suddenly be changed back again to the agonizing pain of losing that which she now craved more than life itself. And that, she knew, would ultimately kill her.

Caid pulled her to arms’ length again and touched his lips to her forehead again, this time trying to lighten his voice and the mood when he drawled, “Next time I should take my boot off before I stick my foot in my mouth.”

Marty could not help but giggle and she ducked her head but he caught it in his hands before Caid promised, “There won’t be a next time.”

She smiled at him then and placed her hands upon his before she said, “We seem to get off on the wrong foot a lot.”

To that, they both laughed, pulling away from each other and realizing inwardly that they had only just met and already, they had shared both tears and laughter. In their own minds, they pondered the question of whether they were thrown together so that love could blossom or if the thorns of discontent would halt that union.

To Marty’s budding love, it was the former that was her definitive fate because she was tired of fighting the urge to fill her heart with that which God intended man and woman to enjoy. Her heart was ready, but her pride and her modesty made her reluctant to act upon that inclination, at least for the decent interval of time that a widow must endure before allowing another man to take her husband’s place. Then, almost laughing aloud, she realized that plenty of time had passed since Elias had died, but not enough time had passed since she had met Caid and a proper widow must watch her reputation before giving her heart to a new love.

Caid broke the silence that seemed to last a lifetime when he looked at her flushed face and referring to her almost drowning in the river, he said, “It looks like you are almost recovered from your near-fatal encounter.”

Near-fatal, her mind reeled. Life-giving was more the words that came to her mind as she recalled his strong arms around her while he rescued her from the depths of despair and delivered her to the heights of delight. And his touch seemed to heal her—body, heart and soul each time his skin, his very presence, came into contact with hers.

Caid touched the back of his hand to her forehead and shook his head and said, “But you still have a fever. You’d better get back in there under those blankets until you’re well.”

Closing her eyes against the warmth of his hand, she sighed and suddenly felt very tired, utterly consumed by the wave of emotion that enveloped her. With a faint smile, she agreed, “I guess I should.”

She climbed back into the bed of the wagon, but poked her head out and said quickly, not realizing that her words meant more to her, to him, than she had intended, “Thank you for saving me.”

Caid winked and smiled brightly at her, his face reflecting the true feelings in his heart, while he declared the words that he had decided against expressing earlier, “It was my pleasure, Marty.”

She did not realize, at that moment, that his words had a double meaning too, and that the pleasure that Caid had experienced was not of the chivalrous kind. It did not occur to her that his starving heart had been nourished by the close proximity of her shivering body against his that night when he had plucked her from the depths of destruction and when she’d clung to him just moments ago. And her naive mind never realized that his mesmerized gaze, which he cleverly disguised as worry that night, and which was truly filled with apology after he’d said the words that could have torn them apart forever, was gushing with the desire to envelop her in the heart-stopping embrace of his loving arms again and to make all of her pain disappear.

She did, however, want to admonish him for speaking to her, for touching her, in such a familiar manner for propriety’s sake. But she was tired, too tired for an argument that she knew that she would not win. He had saved her life, had warmed her with his body and had encircled her with his arms and he would certainly argue that they were close enough to be acquaintances that were on a first name basis, if not soon to be very close friends.

Marty sat, snuggled into the blankets next to her sister’s knees and was filled with the warmth that mere man-made materials could not provide. She closed her eyes against the reality that only a friend was not what she needed Caid McAllister to be. The memory of his warming arms around her and the searing stare that he had stolen at her fueled a fire in her that she had thought had been dowsed long ago.

But she knew that the few times that they had touched, had exchanged glances, had spoken polite words through courteous conversation, had aroused a myriad of emotions in each other, including anger, and had indulged in a luxuriously languid embrace, were not enough to bind their hearts together with the infinite love that withstands life’s tribulations. Only time and Heaven’s affectionate intervention could unify their hearts and seal their fate. And only when she was finally willing to allow such a life-changing event to occur, despite the fear of lost love and disregarding society’s rules, would she ultimately find the true and unending love that she needed so desperately for her very survival.

Chapter Nine

Caid drove the wagon while Marty recovered, which gave her time to get to know the man who had saved her life. Within a few days after he had rescued her from the river, she had felt well enough to ride beside him on the seat of the wagon where they would talk, but he seemed to be less forthcoming with information about his life than she was with hers. She told him about their voyage across the ocean when she and Greta were seven years old and how Papa had died and how sad that had been for her, for which, she received a quick sympathy hug. Then she elaborated about Elias and how very distraught she had been to be a widow at such a young age, which got her a nudge on the shoulder and an insistence that she was not like any widow that Caid knew. She reminded him of her miscarriages and confided that she was more than a little jealous of Greta, who had Seraphina, but he furrowed his brows and reminded her that Greta was not as strong as she was and that such a loss to her twin would quite possibly kill her sister, to which, Marty agreed with a resounding sigh that puffed around her face in the cold morning air.

Greta, having no reason to stay inside, walked along with their cousin Elsa and the children. She had not heard the conversation and was not privy to the fact that she had been the subject. She twirled her daughter around, igniting excited giggles from the curly-headed girl who held onto her mother with adoring arms.

Elsa stumbled on a rock with Baby Jake in her arms and fell to her knees, keeping the infant safely in her arms but scratching her leg on a mesquite bush. Caid stopped the wagon and helped Elsa to her feet while Marty took the baby and climbed back onto the wagon seat. Caid walked Elsa to her own wagon where her husband carried her to the back and bandaged her leg. She rode there for a few miles while the train went forward and while Marty held Baby Jake in her arms next to Caid, who seemed to her to sneak peeks at the little pink face wrapped in a bundle of blankets.

Jake’s little arms popped out of the warmth as if they had a mind of their own, stretching and balling the tiny fists and then flopping back to his body. Marty captured them and snuggled them back into the blankets before she nuzzled his little nose and said, “He certainly is a Hirsch.”

Caid looked at the child and then at her, wondering what she had meant. Marty, remembering that she had only told him her married name, explained, “My father’s name was Hirsch. Elsa’s mother was Papa’s sister, but Baby Jake has Hirsch blood in him.”

“He does look like his mother,” Caid said offhandedly.

“In English, Hirsch means deer,” Marty said.

Caid tilted his head and smiled, quipping, “Which one?”

Marty narrowed her eyes at him, with a questioning look, so he clarified, “I mean, does it mean ‘deer’ the animal or ‘dear’ the endearment?”

She had to giggle at his question and then she said, “The animal.”

“Do they have deer in Germany?” Caid asked while he moved the blankets away from Baby Jake’s little rosebud mouth.

“Yes,” Marty said quickly. “They are strong and resilient and not afraid of anything, even men.”

The way in which she had said this made Caid chuckle and wrap his arm around her before he said, “You are certainly a dear.”

Of course, since they were talking about the animal, Marty concluded that he was referring to it. And, because he had said earlier that she was more resilient than her twin, Marty thought that he believed that she had more Hirsch blood in her than her sister Greta. Oblivious to his jest, she looked up at him and smiled, then kissed the cool cheek of her little cousin and buried her nose in his clean-baby smell. Then, a fleeting thought that he might have meant the other version of the word made her suddenly embarrassed at her naivety and she blushed into the warm blanket.

Caid removed his arm from her waist and took the reins into his hands and puckered his lips and kissed the air toward the oxen. Marty raised her head quickly, thinking that he was making a lewd gesture toward her and fully intended to admonish him for it, but she saw that he was trying to get the lead bull to pick up his pace, for their wagon had lagged behind quite a bit during their conversation.

She stared at the head of that horned creature while she said, “You really do like animals, don’t you?”

Caid tilted his head toward her while still watching the oxen trudge ahead of him and answered, “Yep.”

“Did you have animals when you were a child?” she asked, trying to glean information from him about his past.

“Mother did not want pets but Grammy let me have them,” he said with a smirk that indicated that he must have owned a menagerie at Grammy’s house. “We had horses, goats, ducks, cats, dogs and an occasional broken-winged bird.”

“You have a kind heart,” she said without thinking.

“I learned it from my Grammy,” he said as he stared ahead of him. “I wish you two could have known each other. She would have liked you. You have a kind heart, too.”

Marty smiled. It was a sweet compliment and she enjoyed hearing it. But she knew that sometimes she did not have such a kind heart. Life had seen to that. Life and all the tragedies and having to grow up too soon had made her heart hard, but when it came to the man sitting next to her and the baby nestled in her arms, she found it softening quite a bit. She pulled the child up to her face and kissed him one last time while Caid pulled the wagon to a stop so that Marty could hand the bundle down to Elsa, who had come to take her baby back.

“Feeling better?” Caid asked with genuine concern.

“Yes, thank you!” Elsa said as she wrapped the baby into the quilt that she had draped around her shoulders.

The weather was turning colder and everyone had to wrap themselves in blankets and quilts to keep warm. Marty eased closer to Caid’s warmth and pulled the quilt around her shoulders in an unconscious yet feeble attempt to maintain space between them. The memory of his arms around her, his kiss upon the skin on her forehead, the tender expression on his face and the concern in his deep blue eyes made her want to press her body into him, to drink in his manly warmth. But her pride and her conviction to remain a respectable widow made her find ways in which to avoid touching him. And the fear of falling in love with him, as her heart was desperate to accomplish, and then losing him like she had Elias along with her children, those blessed creations of love’s impassioned alliance, made her scoot just a few inches away from him and to keep her mind on the children who danced around her wagon in the cold morning air.