Just Imagine (45 page)

He stepped out of the shadows, and the years seemed to have fallen away from his face. The gray eyes that she'd always thought cold overflowed with feeling.

"Yes," she whispered.

Then he was beside her, catching her up, pulling her to him. "My sweet, sweet Kit," he groaned, burying his face in her hair. "Dear God, how I've missed you. How I've wanted you. All I've dreamed about since I left was being with you."

She was in his arms again. She tried to take a deep breath, but it turned into a sob as she drew in his familiar clean scent. Feeling his body against hers after so many months was almost more than she could bear. He was the other part of herself, the part that had been missing for so long. And she was the other part of him.

"I want to kiss you now and make love with you more than I've ever wanted anything," he said.

"Then why don't you?"

He gazed down into her upturned face, a sense of wonder in his expression. "You'd let me make love with you after you just found me with another woman?"

The pain was a sharp, keen stab, but she fought it down. "I guess I'm partly responsible for that. But it better never happen again."

"It won't." His smile was soft and tender. "You love just like you do everything else, don't you? Without condition. It took you a lot less time than it took me to figure out how to do it right." He drew back. "I'm going to let you go now. It won't be easy, but there are some things I have to say to you, and I can't think straight when I'm holding you like this."

He released her with agonizing slowness and stepped just far enough away so he was no longer touching her. "I knew long before I left that I loved you, but I wasn't as smart as you. I tied strings to it and made conditions. I didn't have the guts to go to you and tell you how I felt, to put everything on the line the way you just did. Instead, I ran. Just like I've done all my life when I felt somebody or something getting too close to me. Well, I'm tired of running, Kit. I don't have any way to prove this to you. I don't have a banner to wave under your nose. But I love you, and I was coming back to fight for you. I'd already made up my mind. As a matter of fact, I was just getting ready to tell Ruby I was leaving when you barged in that door."

Despite the unmistakable message of love she was hearing, Kit couldn't help but wince at the mention of the saloonkeeper's name.

"Get that fire out of your eyes, Kit. I have to tell you about Ruby."

But Kit didn't want to hear. She shook her head and tried to fight the notion that what he'd done while they were apart was a betrayal.

"I want you to listen," he insisted. "No more secrets, even though this part isn't easy for me." He drew a deep breath. "I—I haven't been the world's greatest lover since I left you. I haven't… I haven't been any kind of lover at all. For a long time I stayed away from women, so I didn't think much about it. Then I came to work at the Yellow Rose, and Ruby was pretty determined, but what you saw today was all one-sided on her part. I never touched her."

Kit's spirits rose.

He shoved a hand in his pocket and turned slightly away from her, some of his former tension coming back. "I guess to you. Ruby doesn't look like much, but it's a little different for a man. It had been a long time for me, and she was making it easy—coming to my room all the time dressed like she was dressed today and letting me know what she wanted. But I didn't
feel
anything for her!"

He stopped talking and looked at her as if he expected something. Kit was beginning to grow confused. He sounded more like a man confessing infidelity than one confessing fidelity. Was there more?

Her confusion must have shown, because Cain spoke more sharply. "Don't you understand, Kit? She offered herself to me in every way she could, and I didn't want her!"

This time Kit did understand, and happiness burst inside her like the whole world had been made anew. "You're worried about your virility? Oh, my darling!" With a great whoop of laughter, she threw herself across the room and into his arms. Pulling his head down, she pressed her mouth to his. She talked, laughed, and kissed him all at the same time. "Oh, my dear, dear darling… my great, foolish darling. How I love you!"

There was a hoarse, tight sound deep in his throat, and then he trapped her in his embrace. His mouth came alive with need. Their kiss was deep and sweet, full of love that had finally been spoken, of pain that had finally been shared.

But they'd been apart for too long, and their bodies weren't content with kisses. Cain, who only moments before had doubted his manliness, now found himself aching with desire. Kit felt it, yearned for it, and, in the last instant before she lost her reason, remembered that she hadn't told him everything.

With her last ounce of will, she pulled back and gasped out, "I didn't come alone."

His eyes were glazed with passion, and it was a moment before he heard. "No?"

"No. I—I brought Miss Dolly with me."

"Miss Dolly!" Cain laughed, a joyous rumble that started in his boots and grew louder as it rose upward. "You brought Miss Dolly to Texas?"

"I had to. She wouldn't let me go without her. And you said yourself that we were stuck with her. She's our family. Besides, I needed her."

"Oh, you sweet… My God, how I love you." He leached for her again, but she stepped back quickly.

"I want you to come to the hotel."

"Now?"

"Yes. I have something to show you."

"Do I have to see it right away?"

"Oh, yes. Definitely right away."

Cain pointed out some of the sights of San Carlos as they walked along the uneven wooden sidewalk. He kept his hand tightly clasped over hers where it rested in the crook of his elbow, but her absentminded responses soon made it evident that her thoughts were elsewhere. Content merely to have her beside him, he fell silent.

Miss Dolly was waiting in the room Kit had taken. She giggled like a schoolgirl when Cain picked her up and hugged her. Then, with a quick, worried look at Kit, she left to visit the general store across the street so she could make some purchases for the dear boys in gray.

When the door closed behind her, Kit turned to Cain. She looked pale and nervous.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

"I have a—a sort of present for you."

"A present? But I don't have anything for you."

"That's not," she said hesitantly, "exactly true."

Puzzled, he watched her slip through a second door leading to an adjoining room. When she came back, she held a small white bundle in her arms.

She approached him slowly, her expression so full of entreaty it nearly broke his heart. And then the bundle moved.

"You have a daughter," she said softly. "Her name is Elizabeth, but I call her Beth. Beth Cain."

He looked down into a tiny valentine of a face. Everything about her was delicate and perfectly formed. She had a fluff of light blond hair, dark slivers of eyebrows, and a dab of a nose. He felt a tight prickling inside him. Could he have helped create something this perfect? And then the valentine yawned and fluttered open her pink shell lids, and he lost his heart to a second pair of bright, violet eyes.

Kit saw how it was between them right away and felt that nothing in her life could ever be as sweet as this one moment. She pushed away the blanket so he could see the rest of her. Then she held their child out to him.

Cain gazed at her uncertainly.

"Go on." She smiled tenderly. "Take her."

He gathered the baby to his chest, his great hands nearly encompassing the small body. Beth wriggled once and then turned her head to look up at the strange new person who was holding her.

"Hello, Valentine," he said softly.

Cain and Kit spent the rest of the afternoon playing with their daughter. Kit undressed her so her father could count her fingers and her toes. Beth performed all her tricks like a champion: smiling at the funny noises that were directed toward her, grabbing at the large fingers put within her reach, and making happy baby sounds when her father blew on her tummy.

Miss Dolly looked in on them, and when she saw that all was well, she disappeared into the other room and lay down to take her own nap. Life was peculiar she thought as she drifted toward the edge of sleep, but it was interesting, too. Now she had sweet little Elizabeth to think about. It was certainly a responsibility. After all, she could hardly count on Katharine Louise to make certain the child learned everything she needed to know to be a great lady. So much to do. It made her head spin like a top. It was a tragedy, of course, what was happening at Appomattox Court House, but it was probably all for the best. She would be far too busy now to devote herself to the war effort...

In the other room, Beth finally began to fret. When she puckered her mouth and directed a determined yowl of protest toward her mother, Cain looked alarmed. "What's wrong with her?"

"She's hungry. I forgot to feed her."

She picked Beth up from the bed, where they'd been playing, and carried her over to a chair near the window. As she sat down, Beth turned her head and began to root at the dove-gray fabric that covered her mother's breast. When nothing happened right away, she grew more frantic.

Kit gazed down at her, understanding her need, but suddenly feeling shy about performing this most intimate of acts in front of her husband.

Cain lay sprawled across the bed, watching them both. He saw his daughter's distress and sensed Kit's shyness. Slowly he rose and walked over to them. He reached down and touched Kit's cheek. Then he lowered his hand to the cascade of gray lace at her throat. Gently he loosened it with his fingers to expose a row of rose-pearl buttons beneath. He unfastened them and pushed apart the gown.

The blue ribbon on her chemise surrendered with a single tug. He saw the trickles of sentimental tears on Kit's cheek and leaned down to kiss them away. Then he opened the chemise so his daughter could be nourished.

Beth made a ferocious grab with her tiny mouth. Cain laughed and kissed the chubby folds of her neck. Then he turned his head and touched his lips to the sweet, full breast that fed her. As Kit's fingers coiled in his hair, he knew he finally had a home and nothing on earth would ever make him give it away.

There were still promises that had to be sealed between them in private. That evening, with Beth safely tucked in bed where Miss Dolly could watch over her, they rode out to a canyon north of town.

As they rode, they talked about the lost months between them, at first only the events, and then their feelings. They spoke quietly, sometimes in half sentences, frequently finishing each other's thoughts. Cain spoke of his guilt at deserting her, overwhelming now that he knew she'd been pregnant at the time. Kit spoke of the way she'd used Risen Glory as a wedge to drive them apart. Sharing their guilt should have been hard, but it wasn't. Neither was the forgiveness each of them offered the other.

Tentatively at first, and then with more enthusiasm, Cain told her about a piece of land he'd seen to the east, near Dallas. "How would you feel about building another cotton mill? Cotton's going to be a big crop in Texas, bigger than any state in the South. And Dallas seems like a good place to raise a family." He gazed over at her. "Or maybe you want to go back to South Carolina and build another mill there. That'll be all right with me, too."

Kit smiled. "I like Texas. It feels like the right place for us. A new land and a new life."

For a while they rode in silent contentment. Finally Cain spoke. "You didn't tell me about the man who bought Risen Glory. Ten dollars an acre. I still can't believe you let it go for that."

"He was a special man." She regarded him mischieviously. "You might remember him. Magnus Owen."

Cain threw back his head and laughed. "Magnus owns Risen Glory and Sophronia has your trust fund."

"It only seemed right."

"Very right."

The deep, cool shadows of evening fell over them as they entered the small, deserted canyon. Cain tied their horses to a black willow, drew a bedroll from behind his saddle, and took Kit's hand. He led her to the edge of a lazy creek that meandered through the floor of the canyon. The moon was already out, a full, shining globe that would soon bathe them in silver light.

He looked down at her. She wore a flat-brimmed hat and one of his flannel shirts over a pair of fawn britches. "You don't look much different than you did when I pulled you down off my wall. Except now, nobody could mistake you for a boy."

His eyes traveled to her breasts, visible even under his oversized shirt, and she delighted him by blushing. He smoothed out the bedroll and took off first her hat, then his own. He tossed them both onto the mossy creek bank.

He touched the small silver studs in her earlobes and then her hair, coiled in a thick knot at the nape of her neck. "I want to take your hair down."

Her lips curved in gentle permission.

He took the pins out, one at a time, and set them carefully inside his own hat. When the shining cloud of her hair finally fell free, he caught it in his hands and brought it gently to his lips. "Dear God, how I've missed you."

She put her arms around him and gazed up. "It's not going to be a fairy-tale marriage, is it, my darling?"

He smiled softly. "I don't see how. We're both hot-tempered and stubborn. We're going to argue."

"Do you mind very much?"

"I wouldn't have it any other way."

She pressed her cheek to his chest. "Fairy-tale princes always seemed dull to me."

"My wild rose of the deep wood. Things between us will never be dull."

"What did you call me?"

"Nothing." He stilled her question with his lips. "Nothing at all."

The kiss that began gently grew until it set them both on fire. Cain plowed his fingers through her hair and cupped her head between his hands. "Undress for me, will you, sweet?" he groaned softly. "I've dreamed of this for so long."

She knew at once how she would do it, in the way that would give him the most pleasure. Tossing him a teasing grin, she rid herself of her boots and stockings, then peeled off her britches. He groaned as the long flannel shirttail fell modestly below her hips. She reached beneath it, pulled off her white pantalets, and dropped them next to her.