Sagebrush Bride (38 page)

Again,
Elizabeth’s and Cutter’s gazes were drawn to each other.

“You
finished?” Elias asked Cutter.

Cutter
didn’t respond. He was still staring at Elizabeth, his eyes searching.

“McKenzie?”

Raising
his brows, Cutter sat back finally, taking in a deep breath as he tore his gaze
away from Elizabeth to acknowledge Elias. He nodded, clearing his throat.

Elias
rose abruptly, scraping his seat backward. “Good,” he replied. “Thought we
might just go butt heads awhile.”

Cutter
rose, as well, tossing down his napkin. He winked at Elizabeth, chuckling when
she blushed, letting her know that he was no longer angry, but amused. “Lead
the way,” he told Elias.

As
though sensing her sparkling smile, Elizabeth let her gaze skip to Miss Mimi.
When Cutter turned his back to the table, Miss Mimi waved a spoon, her smile deepening,
as though to say, I told you so, dear.

Elizabeth did what she could to help Miss Mimi
with the dishes and then she climbed the stairs to her room, thoroughly
exhausted. Though once there, she told herself that she didn’t want to be
caught undressed, so she didn’t remove her clothing right away.

And it was a good thing, because after a while,
Katie tiptoed in to say good night, again without bothering to knock. Smiling,
Elizabeth hugged her, and then escorted her back to her own room, tucking her
in and pulling the blankets up to her chin. Without thinking, she began to
sing:

“Alas, my love, you do me wrong to cast me off
discourteously,

And I have loved you so long, delighting in your
company.

Greensleeves was all my joy, Greensleeves was
my—”

She halted abruptly, as though suddenly realizing
what it was she was doing, her brow furrowing, the beat of her heart erratic.

“That’s a real pretty song, Aunt Lizabeth.”
Elizabeth nodded absently. “Yes. Yes, it is.” She glanced down at Katie. “Your
grandmother used to sing it to your mommy and me when we were children,” she
found herself explaining. “And her mommy used to sing it to her.”

She smiled in remembrance, gazing up at the window
wistfully, into the night, seeing the soft spun gold of a distant lamplight,
and two little girls with shimmering hair, their faces together under the
blankets. Katherine had clung to her so many nights, running tiny fingers
through her hair. “
Sing it again, Beth,”
she could hear a little voice say again in her mind. And then a sigh. “
One more time, Katie. Just one more time.”
Her eyes hazing over the memory, Elizabeth again looked down at the child her
sister had brought into this world. Another Katie to love. “Sometimes even,”
she disclosed in an aching, misty-eyed whisper, “I would sing it to your mommy.
She loved it even more than I did.”

Katie’s eyes were wide. “Did you get to sleep
together always?” she asked with awe. “I never did have nobody to sleep with
me—’cept maybe sometimes my mommy.”

Elizabeth smiled, holding back the tears. “Yes,
Katie, we did.” Gently she swept the curls from Katie’s forehead. “We only had
one room, you see—” Her voice broke, her emotions too near the surface.
“And... and we had to share it. But then your mommy moved away and I had to
sleep alone. Just like you. It’s very, very hard to do,” she admitted. “Isn’t
it?” Silently she acknowledged the fact that she never really had gotten used
to it. And it dawned on her suddenly that even though she’d not spent the last
few nights with Cutter, neither had she sung herself to sleep—not since
the night Cutter had asked about “Greensleeves.” For the first time in years,
she’d forgotten her nightly fear: that she would wake up to an empty house, an
empty heart. But the truth was that her house had long been empty, yet her
heart had never been so full.

Katie nodded. “Yeah—but did ya never see a
ghost when you was alone? I did !” she swore emphatically, shifting Elizabeth’s
thoughts.

Elizabeth chuckled at her tone. “No,” she replied
as soberly as possible, shaking her head thoughtfully. “I don’t believe I ever
did. I wonder what your ghost looked like,” she pondered aloud, gently tousling
Katie’s soft hair.

“Like my mommy,” Katie responded at once, sending
a quiver down Elizabeth’s spine. “And I wasn’t even scared,” Katie said, “but
my granpapa said it was a dream ghost, anyhow, and I shouldn’ta been ascared,
anyway. Do ya wanna know what the dream ghost tol’ me?” she asked, with just
the right hint of intrigue.

Elizabeth stroked the back of her fingers against
Katie’s cheek, smiling fondly at her. Without even trying, Katie had somehow
become so much a part of her. And it had happened so easily, and so swiftly.
“What did the dream ghost tell you?”

Katie’s eyes were wide and haunting in the
darkness. The lamplight falling across her face made her skin pale, her
features ethereal. “She tol’ me you was gonna be my mommy now.”

At the unexpected declaration, Elizabeth’s heart
twisted violently.

“I asked my granpapa, and he said you was. Are
ya?” she wanted to know, her dark eyes round and hopeful.

Again, Elizabeth’s chest constricted. “Do you want
me to be your mommy?” she asked with a catch in her voice. The sweetest smile
touched Katie’s lips, and she nodded slowly. Smiling faintly, her heart as full
as it had ever been, Elizabeth bent to kiss the child on the forehead, tucking
the blanket higher about her little chin. “Then I would like that,
too—very, very much!” she assured her. She rose, but her fingers
continued to caress Katie’s cheek. “Good night, sweetheart.”

Like a satisfied kitten, Katie stretched, and
Elizabeth could almost feel the tension leave her. “Night, Aunt Lizabeth,” she
replied.

Elizabeth dimmed the lamp slowly, waiting for a
protest. When it didn’t come, she snuffed it completely, and then bent again to
kiss Katie’s soft little cheek, thinking, with a sigh, that this day had easily
been one of the most emotional she’d ever endured. Katie’s sparkling eyes
followed her as she went to the door, opening it.

“Sweet dreams,” Elizabeth whispered, feeling
suddenly as drained as she’d ever felt. Stepping out, she drew the door closed
behind her, touching it briefly, her eyes closing as she turned away.

On the way back to her own room, Elizabeth decided
with a weary sigh that it would be silly to pace the floor all night waiting
for Cutter, fully dressed. Cutter and Elias might very well “butt heads” until
late in the night, and it just didn’t make sense for her not to go on to bed.

Besides, it wasn’t as though there were a reason
to wait up.

With that decision made, once she was in her room,
she quickly stripped down to her drawers and camisole, and then she divested
the bed of its top cover, placing it upon the chair for Cutter. Savoring the
luxury of clean, cool sheets against her flesh, she crawled into bed. As an
afterthought, she put out the lamp, snuggling deep into the sheets.

Little more than fifteen minutes had passed when
Cutter sauntered in. Closing the door, he immediately began unbuttoning his
shirt in the darkness. Elizabeth said nothing, only watched, the tiniest part
of her feeling guilty because she was straining through the shadows to catch
even the smallest glimpse of him. To her disappointment, she couldn’t see a
thing, because the curtains were closed and the darkness was impenetrable.

As though he’d read her thoughts, Cutter suddenly
stepped toward the window, shrugging off his shirt on the way and dropping it
onto the end of the bed. Drawing open the drapes, he let in the silvery
moonlight, and Elizabeth squeezed both lids dosed, not wanting him to know that
she was still awake. A moment later, when the stillness of the room piqued her
curiosity, she peered through her lashes.

He was standing, gazing out the window, his face
in profile to her. The light that fell across his features made him appear
harsh. Made his broad shoulders glisten. As she watched him, he turned
abruptly, and she snapped her lids closed, only this time, not all the way.

Through her lashes, she watched him as he released
the top button of his trousers, and the sound of it popping loose sent a shiver
of remembrance down her spine. In another moment, he’d tugged his denims down
just so far, and then sat on the chair facing her to remove them the rest of
the way. He tugged off one boot, and then moved to the other, grunting as he
loosened it. Finally he jerked it off, but not without issuing what sounded
suspiciously like a groan of... Was it pain?

With a muttered curse, he threw the offending boot
to the floor and then shrugged the rest of the way out of his denims. When
those were discarded, he rolled off his socks, sighing long and hard as he
dropped them to the floor as well. And then, for the life of her, Elizabeth
couldn’t tell what he was doing, but it appeared that he was inspecting the
sole of his foot in the darkness. For what reason, she didn’t know, but she
felt like lighting the lamp. Honestly, how did he expect to see anything at all
in the dark?

He swiveled toward the window suddenly, lifting
his left foot up to probe it by the light of the moon. “Damn,” he swore softly.

Forgetting in her concern that she was supposed to
be asleep, Elizabeth lifted herself a fraction. She squinted her eyes, trying
to get a glimpse of his foot, but saw nothing. She cursed her eyesight.

Hearing the sheets rustle, Cutter dropped his foot
abruptly, glancing at the bed.

Elizabeth froze.

“You awake?”

Cutter sighed irritably when there was no
response. He’d come in hoping to find her up, but had opened the door to find
the lights out, instead, and Elizabeth snuggled in so cozily that he didn’t
have the heart to wake her. Hell, his foot was aching enough that he’d wanted
her to look at it, but he wasn’t about to wake her just for that. He’d suffered
a helluva lot worse. Besides, he’d downed enough deadshot that it should have
been anesthetized by now, and it probably would be soon.

“Cussin’ foot,” he muttered. The moist heat of his
boot hadn’t done it much good. But now that the fresh air was soothing it, it
felt better. Leaning forward, he rested his forearms upon his lap, letting his
hands dangle tiredly between his legs, his fingers linking, while he stared
somberly at the bed.

How had she done it? he wondered. Snagged his
heart without ever trying? He shook his head in self-disgust. He must be
getting soft in his old age, because that chocolate-eyed niece of hers had
somehow managed to do the same. He could look into the kid’s eyes and almost
believe she was his and Elizabeth’s.

With that thought, he closed his eyes, and with
primeval pleasure, tried to imagine what a child of their own would look like,
only to realize the mistake he’d made in following that train of thought. His
body responded at the barest hint of their mating, rousing in the space of
seconds.

Hell, he’d been walking around in a state of half
arousal all day because his pride wouldn’t let him make love to her again
without her asking him to do so. He’d come too close this afternoon to baring
his soul, and it hadn’t moved her a’tall. It still galled him that she’d
preferred to sleep in the chair than with him.

Lifting the blanket she’d left for him, Cutter
shook it out with a scowl, then settled back into the chair.

Propping his feet upon the bed, he covered himself
to his chest, and then, as an afterthought, shoved his injured foot out of the
blanket. He grunted with self-disgust as the blanket settled over him, forming
a tent at his groin. He glared at it as though it were a dirty double-crosser.

If she didn’t want to share his bed, he reminded
himself, then he didn’t want her. Trouble was in convincing his Judas body of
that fact, because it didn’t seem to have accepted his decision. At this rate,
he sure as hell wasn’t going to get a wink of sleep.

Laying his head back, he stared at the roving
shadows on the ceiling, willing himself to sleep, willing the tent to fold itself
up. When that didn’t work, and the pain in his crotch intensified, he tried to
shift his concentration to the pain in his foot, hoping the one would overpower
the other.

It didn’t work.

Hell, he could actually hear his breath quickening
and his heart hammering... pounding? No, more like pattering. His body tensed
with awareness, but it was another befuddled second before Cutter realized that
the little thumps he heard were not his own... that they came from the hall. It
was another instant before he determined that it was the sound of Katie’s
little feet... and that Miss Mimi was calling after her... and that she was
coming closer...