The Longing (17 page)

Kyle caught Amelia’s hand. “Let’s finish this
discussion in the office.”

“First let me say hello to the men my father
was so proud of,” she said, her voice loud enough to top the
distant buzz of the saws. Heads lifted and each man’s eyes
flickered with pride. “I haven’t spent time here since I was
sixteen, so I’ll need you to help me remember what you all do
here.”

Without waiting for Kyle’s approval, a short,
balding man on her left stepped forward. “I’m Willard Barnes. I
joined the crew last year. The gang calls me Willie and I do the
skiddin’ here. I pull the logs out of the woods, and also around
the yard or wherever the boss needs it.”

Amelia smiled. She knew what skidding trees
meant, but appreciated Willie’s consideration.

One after the other, the men introduced
themselves by their first name and position. Jake drove and cared
for the horses. Axle sharpened their saws and provided blacksmith
services. Lonnie dragged the scrap lumber off the saw tables. Cyrus
fed scrap wood to the boiler that produced steam and powered the
saws. Merle stacked cut lumber and loaded their customers’ wagons.
A stocky little man named Shorty puffed up his chest and declared
himself the best damned cook in the county. They were a gritty
bunch of men, some of whom Amelia remembered, but she felt an
immediate bond with all of them.

As they turned back to their jobs, Kyle
locked his fingers on her elbow and guided her directly to the
office. He closed the door and leaned against it, his jaw working.
“This is not going to work. The men won’t get anything done with
you here. Neither will I. I need to squeeze every possible bit of
production from this mill to have a hope in hell of resurrecting
it. I can’t do that if I’m busy pulling you away from circular saws
that will make you mincemeat before you can blink.”

“I won’t go near the saws.”

“They aren’t the only danger here. Chains
snap in half and slice the air like swords. Logs shift and crush
anything in their path. Horses trample our feet if we aren’t paying
attention. Boilers blow up and spray water that feels like molten
lava. There isn’t one of us who doesn’t have a black fingernail or
bruised shin. Tools break—”

“How is your shin?”

“What?”

“Your shin. I noticed you weren’t limping as
badly today.”

Kyle closed his eyes and pinched the bridge
of his nose. “It’s healing, but we’re not talking about my shin
right now.”

“I’m not leaving,” she said firmly.

He opened his eyes. “We’re this close to
bankruptcy, Amelia.” He held his finger and thumb an inch apart. “I
have no idea how I’ll keep that from happening, but I’d better find
a way, because if I don’t, my brothers and I are going to have a
hell of a time keeping the depot operating. We’ve poured every cent
we have into buying this place. Our new saw arrived yesterday and
nearly drained my personal bank account. I don’t have anything to
fall back on except determination and a lot of hard work.” He
straightened his shoulders and hooked his palm over the doorknob as
if impatient to get back to work. “I appreciate what you’re trying
to do, Amelia, but you’ll help most by going home and letting me
get this shipment ready for the Hale contract.”

The pleading look in his eyes encouraged her
to agree, but Amelia was determined to build a relationship with
her husband while helping him rebuild their floundering business.
“Let me clean up the office, then. It won’t distract the men, or
you, and there are no life threatening risks in here that would
keep you from concentrating on what you’re doing.”

He opened his mouth.

“Please, Kyle. I need to be more than a
burden to you.” Amelia lowered her lashes, desperate enough to beg,
but refusing to grovel. “I need to contribute something to our
marriage.” She was a lousy wife. She hadn’t even cooked for him yet
and it shamed her. Kyle had made her breakfast yesterday morning,
then last night they had had leftovers from their wedding. This
morning, he’d left without any breakfast.

He sighed and she looked up.

“Please,” she whispered. “I won’t bother
anyone.”

“Why didn’t your mother warn me that you were
so stubborn?”

“Maybe she was afraid you wouldn’t marry
me.”

The irritation drained out of Kyle’s
expression and he heaved a huge sigh. “You’re worse than Rebecca
when you want something.”

“Better for me to plead and cajole than to
kick you in the shin again.”

He snorted, then to her surprise, a lopsided
smile tipped his arrogant mouth. “I suppose that was your last
resort if I insisted you leave?”

She shook her head. “Not even close.”

It
was the first time Kyle had entered his own house to find supper
waiting for him, and though it smelled divine, all he wanted to do
was wash the grime off his body and fall into bed. His back ached
and his shin throbbed. Dirt and sweat covered his body in thick
layers that made his skin itch.

His stomach growled, prodding him to get to
the kitchen, but Kyle ignored it, his gaze glued to the thick
cushions on the sofa as he contemplated trying to steal a
ten-minute nap before Amelia realized he was home. Even five
minutes would be a blessing. Two minutes would suffice.

He shifted his weight to one leg, reached
down and yanked off his boot, then did the same with the opposite
foot. Two steps and he would nose-dive into oblivion.

“I was beginning to worry about you,” Amelia
said, standing in the kitchen doorway watching him.

Kyle jerked upright as if she’d caught him
peeking in her undergarment drawer.

“I hope you’re hungry.” Her lips tilted in a
warm, welcoming smile. “I think I made enough to feed our
crew.”

The warmth in her eyes made him ravenous. All
he’d thought about during the evening was kissing her sassy mouth.
She’d been smart to leave the mill before he yanked those godawful
pants of hers down to her ankles and consummated their marriage on
the damned desk.

“There’s a tub of hot water beside the stove.
I thought you might want to bathe before supper.”

“You heated a bath for me?” Kyle couldn’t
imagine Amelia struggling with the metal caldron and going to so
much trouble for him. His tub was huge. It took forever to fill it
with hot water. “I can’t believe you wrestled that heavy tub into
the kitchen by yourself,” he said, unbuttoning his shirt as he
crossed the parlor.

“Who do you think did all my lifting and
heaving at school?”

He had never considered it. Before he could
comment, his stomach interrupted with an obnoxious growl.

“Maybe you should eat first.”

“Not while I smell like a horse.” He angled
his chin toward the kitchen and shrugged the shirt off his
shoulders. “I asked my mother to pick up a few things for you. Did
you have everything you needed for supper?”

“Yes.” She glanced at his chest, then her
gaze flickered back to his face. “The pantry shelves are sagging
and the cupboards overflowing. I won’t need to shop for anything
but meat for the next two months.” Her gaze dropped back to his
bare chest.

Well, what do you know? Maybe Boyd had
been right after all.

Kyle rolled the dirty fabric into a ball. The
evening had suddenly taken an interesting turn. For the hell of it,
he unbuttoned the waist of his pants.

Amelia didn’t say a word as Kyle stepped into
the kitchen, but her eyes grew large and she grasped the brass knob
on the door between the kitchen and parlor. “I’ll close this for
you so you can have some privacy.”

“Leave it open,” he said, deciding to test
his wife’s starch. He freed the rest of the buttons on his
trousers.

Her gaze dropped to his hips, her cheeks
blazing. “You’d better hurry. The dumplings will be done soon,” she
said, then moved farther into the parlor.

Kyle had no intention of hurrying. He turned
his back to the open door and purposefully slid his pants and
undershorts over his hips and down his legs, praying Amelia would
discover the mirror on the parlor wall before he got into the
bath.

He greeted the ensuing silence with a long,
loud yawn and lifted his arms overhead, tightening his leg and
buttock muscles, arching his back as he leisurely stretched toward
the ceiling.

A startled gasp came from the parlor.

He grinned and stepped into the tub, then
turned toward the open doorway for a few bold seconds before
sitting down. If he had to share his house with her, then she would
have to put up with his bad habits. It was only fair.

Heat swirled around his fatigued body as he
eased into the water. God, this was nice. A hot bath to soothe his
aching body, a good meal to satisfy his hunger, and a woman to warm
his bed. Life would have been perfect in that moment if he could
have looked forward to a night of bold, boisterous sex, but he
worried that Amelia would continue to shrink from his touch.

It wasn’t that he didn’t appreciate the bath
and supper. He did. But God, he would appreciate her naked and
lying beneath him so much more. Or sitting on top of him.
Or...hell.

He sighed and lay back in the tub telling his
awakening body not to expect anything more pleasurable than a bath.
His knees popped out of the water like small mountain peaks, but
his aching shoulders were blessedly submerged in hot water. It must
have taken Amelia two hours to fill the tub. Her back probably
ached as bad as his from hauling the metal caldron out of the
pantry and into the kitchen. The tub rested in a small wooden frame
with casters, but was still a beast to move, not to mention heating
enough water to cover him up to his neck.

He would thank her during dinner. He would
tell her she’d done a nice job of cleaning up the mess he’d made in
the office while looking through her father’s files.

Kyle wet his head then lathered away the
specks of sawdust and dirt that coated it. He slid beneath the
water to rinse his hair. Completely submerged with only his knees
poking out of the heat surrounding him, Kyle vowed to repay Amelia
for this gift. Maybe he would undress Amelia and put her in the
tub. She could sit in the bath and eat her supper while Kyle rubbed
her feet. The chance of Amelia going along with his plan was so
absurd it made him snort.

Kyle regretted the impulse the instant he
inhaled. He levered himself into a sitting position and coughed the
water from his lungs, his shoulders shaking and eyes burning.

“Are you all right?” Amelia asked from the
doorway, her expression a mixture of concern and embarrassment.

He was fine, but another hard cough cut off
his answer.

She took a cautious step into the kitchen and
Kyle realized that she would come to his side if she thought he
needed help. The idea was too tempting to resist. He buried his
face in his hands to hide his guilt. He shouldn’t do this to her.
Really. It would be unkind after she’d worked so hard to please
him. It would be unfair to subject her to his state of undress when
it obviously flustered her. But he couldn’t resist testing Boyd’s
theory a bit more. And dammit, he wanted his wife in his bed.

He heard the fabric of her gown swish past
his ear then felt her clutch his shoulder. “Are you breathing?”

Not answering was unforgivable, but he had to
see what she would do.

The flat of her palm struck the middle of his
wet back, the connecting crack so loud it stung his ears as
fiercely as it stung his bare skin. He gasped and jerked upright as
if she’d rammed a poker between his shoulder blades.

Amelia’s breath rushed out and she sank down
onto the chair, her hands pressed to her stomach. “I thought you
were choking to death. You’d been under water so long I thought
you’d fallen asleep and...God, you scared me.”

She
had
been watching him! Kyle’s
ego started doing somersaults. Amelia hadn’t been able to keep her
eyes out of the mirror any more than he could have if she had been
the one bathing.

Kyle’s conscience immediately chastised him
for taking advantage of his wife’s innocence, but with her sitting
beside him trying not to stare at his water-streaked body, and
failing miserably, Kyle refused to waste a moment on shame. He
would suffer that bane later. Right now, he was too busy trying to
decide if he should ask her to wash his back.

Amelia would comply, believing it her wifely
duty, but to Kyle’s complete shock, he realized he wanted more than
a dutiful wife. He wanted the bold woman who had stood up to him at
the mill earlier. He wanted a wife who would drop her dress on the
kitchen floor and climb into the bathtub with him. A woman who
would throw her head back and laugh as they sloshed water across
her pretty oak floor.

“Are you all right?”

Kyle hunched forward, his body aching. No, he
was
not
all right.

“I’m sorry I hit you. It must hurt like the
devil. I left a bright red hand print on your back.”

Do
not
think about her in this tub!
Do not think about her warm skin all slick with water and her
nipples tight and...ah hell, he was lost. Kyle held the washcloth
in front of his eager body. “Our supper is boiling over.”

Amelia vaulted from the chair. When she
peeked beneath the lid Kyle seized the opportunity to stand up and
sweep the towel off the chair.

“The dumplings are perfect,” she said,
glancing at him before he could shake open the towel and cover
himself. “Oh!” The lid clanged back onto the pot and she stumbled
away from the stove. “Oh, I’m...I’m...oh, my goodness!”

If she wouldn’t have looked so shocked, Kyle
might have actually laughed at the expression on her face. But
instead of embarrassment, he saw fear in her eyes.

A mixture of irritation and sympathy swept
through him and he covered himself with the bunched towel. “Let me
dry off before you dish that up,” he said, nodding toward the
steaming pot.