Prairie Wife (6 page)

"Thanks," the boy said sullenly and bit into the meal.

Amy poured Jesse a cup of coffee and cut him a narrow slice of
apple pie. She knew he liked something sweet with his coffee at night, but
lately he hadn't been coming in during the evening.

He thanked her and took his place at the end of the table. Amy sat
across from Cay, while the two ate.

"We'll leave at first light," Jesse told her when he'd
finished.

"I'll pack food for you. How long do you think the trip will
take?"

"With the wagon, probably a day to Kansas and a day and a
half taking it easier comin' back."

They'd be returning with his mother's body. What a difficult trip
that would be.

Earlier in the day Jesse had deposited both his mother's and Cay's
bags in the parlor. Amy thought of their belongings now. "Will you carry
Cay's bags upstairs, please?"

Cay stood. "I can do it."

"Okay." She removed her apron, folded it and placed it
on top of three others to be laundered. "Jesse can help you put things away
and get settled in your room."

"I don't need any help. Just show me where."

After Cay found his bags, she picked up a lantern and climbed the
stairs ahead of him. Jesse followed with the other lamp. He hadn't been
upstairs for over a week. She had wondered what he would do when his mother
arrived. Now it was Cay staying in the other bedroom, and she was still
anxious. Would Jesse leave and have the boy speculate as to why he didn't sleep
in the house?

She entered the room she had readied for Jesse's mother and placed
the oil lamp on the bureau. "You can put your things away in these
drawers. When you need your clothing laundered there's a basket by the door—
just set it out in the hall. If you should need anything tonight..." She
paused, confused over saying
I
or
we
would be close by.

"...we'll be right across the hall," Jesse supplied
softly.

Amy's stomach knotted at his words. "Good night, Cay."

He didn't respond.

Jesse handed her the other lamp, and she carried it to their room.
She had removed her shirtwaist and washed before Jesse opened the door and
entered.

He walked to the window and stared out at the darkness through a
slit in the curtain.

Something wild fluttered in Amy's stomach at her husband's
nearness.

"I remember when your mama died." His voice was rough
with emotion.

She removed her underclothing and quickly donned her nightdress.
Without sitting at the dressing table, she loosened her hair, picked up her
brush and made quick work of brushing and braiding. Her mother's death had been
the first loss she'd experienced. She'd been brokenhearted and Jesse had been
there for her. He'd offered silent compassion, as well as companionship to her
father.

"There'll be one more marker on that little hill."

She hadn't been back to the pair of graves on their land to the
east since last year, and she didn't want to think about them now.

"Both of Tim's grandmas will be there with him."

Amy dropped the jar of glycerin she'd been rubbing into her hands,
and it hit the wood floor with a resounding
crack.

Jesse turned from the window.

She looked from the jar on the floor to his weary face and bent to
pick up the glycerin. A knot of anger formed in her chest and she took a deep
breath to dispel it.

She was angry with herself—furious over her inability to dredge a scrap
of feeling from her dead soul. She didn't know how anymore. She'd nailed
everything up and lost the tools to let anything out. Some of her anger seeped
over toward Jesse, as if he were to blame for making her feel so empty inside.

Anyone with a heart and blood in their veins would go over and
touch him, offer him some small measure of comfort. She could see herself doing
just that, imagined crossing the room and placing her hand on his firm chest,
drawing him close to her body and sharing her warmth. She imagined his
heartbeat against her breast, steady, strong, pictured her head on his shoulder
and smelled his familiar scent.

Pain knifed across her chest and sucked the breath from her lungs.
She set the jar on the dressing table and practically staggered to the bed,
where she turned back the covers and slipped between the sheets, drawing the
top one to her breast.

Jesse removed his clothing and she didn't look away. The sharply
defined muscles of his chest and shoulders flexed with each movement, and his
body tapered to slim hips and strong hair-dusted thighs. Memories of touching
him, lying with limbs entwined and pulses racing kept her attention fixed. He
was a good man, not greedy, not selfish. He was kind and gentle, yet strong in
all the ways she'd ever needed him to be strong.

She had failed him so many times, had let him down, shut him out,
hurt him. Yes, hurt him. And that was the worst. The shame she couldn't bear
was that of her own wrongdoing.

She watched as he folded his pants over the back of a chair and
moved to blow out the lamp. The bed dipped, and Amy squeezed her eyes shut
against the sudden panic that threatened to find a crack in the armor around
her heart.

She smelled him. Soap. Man. Jesse.

She heard his breath. Ragged.

She sensed him turn to look at her. Felt the length of his body
stretched out beside her, though he wasn't touching her anywhere.

Jesse needed her.

Without further thought, but with a purpose born of her
self-loathing, she turned toward him and placed her hand on his chest. His skin
felt warm and supple, as she'd known it would.

His hand came up and wrapped around her wrist, bringing her
fingers to his lips and kissing them. His lips were hot and moist, and though
she didn't want to, she remembered the feel of them on other places on her
body.

He rolled toward her then, cupped her face, and she imagined he
could see her in the shadowy darkness. "Amy?"

There was no scent of liquor on his breath this night, only
coffee.

He needed her.

He moved close to gently touch his lips to hers. The kiss was too
sweet, too tender, leaving too much room for thought and choices, so she
pressed harder. His lips parted and his tongue sought hers. Along with his
desperation, she tasted the coffee and her pie.

After several earthshaking moments, he paused to bury his face
against her neck and wrap his body around her. "God, I miss you,
Amy," he said, his voice a low rasp.

It had been so long that it felt awkward, but she raised her hands
to his hair and found it thick and silken beneath her fingers. He groaned at
the simple caress, and her shame grew to a beast that filled every shadowy
corner of the darkened room.

He touched her through the cotton nightdress, stroking her hips,
her belly, her breasts and against her thigh she felt his desire. She didn't
resist when he raised her gown and touched her skin in all those same places.
With a minimum of urging, her nightdress ended up in a puddle beside the bed.

She had spent the past year erecting barriers and shields, and to
her bewilderment they served her well now. The furious trembling that had begun
inside her subsided. A small sound came from her, like a sigh, but she didn't
connect it with herself.

The faint sliver of moonlight that came through the curtains cast
a sheen on his hair and a glow across her skin when he pulled back the sheet to
look at her.

Jesse rose over her then, his weight achingly familiar and yet
disturbingly foreign at the same time. Deliberately initiating a long deep
kiss, he entered her body the same way... with purposeful, yet slow
movements... too tender... too intentional.

He needed her.

Amy had a lock on her emotions. Her body was another matter. Jesse
knew her body. And he used his knowledge to woo a physical response. He knew
she liked a long, slow buildup, so when she tried to hasten his movements, he
held her still and played her nerve endings with patient fingers and coaxing
lips.

He knew kisses across her shoulders and her collarbone made her
shudder with heightened sensation, so when she tried to duck her chin, he held
her jaw aside with his thumb and touched his mouth to her skin in enticing nips
and plucks.

She closed her eyes and tried to escape the onslaught of
sensation, but he was unwavering, and ardent and good... oh so good. He cupped
her head to kiss her and his fingers snagged in her hair. A ripple cascaded
across her scalp while another pulsed from the recesses of her body and
engulfed her, his sought-after goal coaxed and fed and
grasped.

And he
knew
he'd brought her release, so he pressed his
lips against her cheek, grasped her hips and spent himself inside her.

His heart beat like a war drum against her breast, and their damp
skin cooled in the air. Jesse moved his cheek against hers, and she felt
wetness. Had she cried? She didn't think so. A person had to feel to cry.

She sensed an awareness that slowly bled into Jesse's body, in the
nearly imperceptible tightening of his limbs and the turn of his head. He
raised himself, found the sheet to cover her nakedness, and moved to lie on his
back at her side, one arm flung over his head.

She wanted to say something. He expected it. But it was his
expectations she couldn't deal with.

"I'm sorry about your mom, Jesse."

When his voice came, it was hard. "Is that what this was,
then? Pity?"

She shrank inside herself at his accusation. At her shallowness.
She couldn't give him more, she couldn't. "I would say comfort."

He sat up, stretching the sheet taut. "Well, shit, Amy. How
about love, huh? That word drop out of your vocabulary?"

She hated it when he placed demands on her this way. She didn't
know what to say.

He bolted out of bed and was yanking on his pants before she could
think of anything.

"Where are you going?"

"Away from here."

She sat up. "Where?"

"To the boardinghouse."

"So you can drink?"

"Maybe. There's more fire in a bottle of whiskey than I've
found in this bed for a long time, Amy."

"What did we just do?"

He slipped his arms into his shirt and left it hanging open to
glare at her in the darkness. "What
did
we do?"

As she held the sheet pressed to her breasts, he came toward her
and leaned forward, one hand on each side of her hips on the mattress, his face
inches from hers.

"I know what it
used
to be—lovemaking."

Her chest tightened.

"Do you even love me anymore, Amy?"

Her head roared with confusion and fear. He was her husband. He
was Jesse. He'd just known her body intimately for the thousandth time, and yet
she couldn't say what he wanted her to say. He needed her.

His need terrified her.

Slowly, he straightened. While he put on his boots, she consciously
admitted her faults to herself, knew he deserved more and curled into a ball on
her side.

The door opened and closed, and he was gone.

God help her, he was gone.

And it was what she deserved.

***

Amy slept only a couple of hours that night, and woke early to
dress and tiptoe past the room where Cay was staying and down the stairs. She
prepared a chicken and several sandwiches, wrapped slices of pie and jars of
water and lemonade and packed two crates full of food.

When Jesse entered the kitchen dressed in his buckskins, the
ever-present Colt revolver on his hip, she had a breakfast of ham, eggs and
biscuits ready. He looked tired, but not hungover. After he'd gone up to wake
Cay and returned without him, they avoided eye contact.

She indicated the crates on the end of the table nearest the door.
"That's your food for the trip."

"We'll only be gone three days at the most."

"It'll probably only last two. And you should find Cay some
milk along the way."

Cay showed up in overalls, carrying a hat. He sat at the corner
opposite Jesse, and Amy served his breakfast.

He raised his blue gaze to Amy, then to Jesse, and said
reluctantly, "Thanks."

After he'd finished his meal, he helped Jesse carry the crates out
to the wagon in the door yard. Jesse had harnessed a handsome team of blacks,
and they stood in the pink light of dawn, swishing their tails.

Sam approached on horseback, just arriving from his place a mile
away. He dismounted and walked his horse to where Jesse and Amy stood several
feet apart.

"Don't worry about anything," Sam told him. "We'll
handle the place until you get back."

Jesse shook his hand. They'd been partners to start with, but were
now family. The words weren't necessary.