First Time, Forever, page 11
Sookie Peters and Ma Watson in charge of a wedding. It was like the pair of them had found a bear cub—thought it was real cute at first, but as they kept feeding it, it kept getting bigger and harder to control.
Before Evan had known what was happening, the whole town was getting involved. Preacher booked, church dusted out, hall ready, a decorating committee, for Pete’s sake. Presents had been arriving at his house all week. Jesse opened them as they came, looking more and more disgusted at blenders and knife sets, matching bath towels and sheet sets.
Disgusted, Jesse told Evan that wrapped things were supposed to hold toys. Evan had told him what was happening. That Kathleen would be coming to live with them, and in time Jesse might come to think of her as his mother.
Jesse had looked at him blankly. “Mac coming live hew?”
“Yeah.”
He’d looked inordinately pleased about that.
“You’ll be like brothers,” Evan said before he’d thought it through properly. Mac was Kathleen’s nephew; that wouldn’t make the boys brothers.
But Jesse latched onto the idea with great enthusiasm. He even let Mac, who was still coming to work, in spite of the pre-wedding excitement that held Hopkins Gulch in its grip, or maybe because of it, open some of the presents. Mac was as disgusted as Jesse with the items.
“Initials,” Mac said, staring at the white towels. “EA on this one KA on this one. Yuck.”
Evan tried to hide his own horror. White towels? His personal feeling had always been the darker the color of the towel the less handprints showed. Monogrammed to boot. People seemed to have figured out Kathleen was a different class of person than he was.
Jesse and Mac’s disgust had intensified this morning when Sookie had showed up with matching suits, and a little pillow for the ring.
Mac was supposed to be an usher; Ma and Sookie were in charge of getting him ready. Evan had been returning his dark gaze steadily all week, letting him know he wasn’t going to back down from him, trying to let him know everything would be okay.
He suspected he wasn’t very convincing, because he had doubts himself about whether it was going to be okay.
He’d found the two boys hiding in the barn an hour before the wedding and herded them to the house to clean up and sullenly don their suits.
Now the music started to play. Fresh sweat broke out on Evan’s brow. The side door of the church opened.
“Evan, get up off that grass,” Ma said. “Lord, boy, haven’t you ever worn a suit before?”
“No, ma’am.” And he never had. In Las Vegas they couldn’t care less if you got married in your underwear. He’d been wearing jeans with a rip in the knee if he remembered correctly. He stood up, brushed some dry grass off the seat of his suit.
Ma looked him over and smiled. “It looks real good on you. You cut a rather romantic figure, like an old riverboat gambler. Come on.”
Why not look like a gambler, he thought darkly. He was gambling. With his life and hers and two kids thrown in for good measure. He looked wistfully at the open prairie and thought briefly about bolting.
But it would break her heart if he did that, after she’d taken a chance on him, and if there was one thing he was determined not to do, it was hurt Kathleen. Ever.
Meekly he followed Ma into the church. She showed him where to stand at the altar, positioned Sookie at his elbow. He looked down the long aisle at the main door of the church. The church was filled to the rafters, a blur of faces. If he thought it had been hot outside, it was unbearable in here. He found he couldn’t even focus on who was there, could not answer the smiles directed at him.
The music seemed to go on forever, and for a sick moment he thought, She’s come to her senses. She won’t come.
And then the back door opened and Jesse came toddling up the aisle, holding a mutinous Mac’s hand with one hand, and the little pillow with the other.
She had said she didn’t want a ring, but Evan had bought her one anyway. Not a showy one, because that wouldn’t have been right for her. A band of pure solid gold. Now that was Kathleen.
Mac arrived at the altar singing, “Here comes the bride, big fat and wide,” under his breath. Evan nudged him and gave him a look. He shut up.
The door opened again, and she came in.
Evan’s jaw dropped.
He could not believe that this woman had said yes to him.
She was a princess in her yards and yards of white, the collar high around her beautiful throat, her hair laced with flowers and piled up on top of her head. She looked like she was floating down the aisle toward him, and she looked like all the things he was not—calm and composed to begin with, and sophisticated and worldly to end with.
Her eyes never left him, shining.
Radiant.
No worry line, he was pleased to see.
Maybe she wasn’t worried.
She glided to his side, smiled, and her smile stilled the wild beating of his heart. He looked into the calm in her eyes and felt it wash over him. He took a deep breath, and could feel himself fill with confidence.
This was the right thing to do.
Maybe not orthodox, maybe not how the rest of the world did it, but right for him and for her.
His voice suddenly strong and sure, hers like music, they said their vows.
And kissed until Mac, making gagging noises, brought them out of it.
The minister pronounced them man and wife.
“Me got Mommy,” Jesse announced, running down the aisle in front of them, apparently having understood more of that conversation a week ago than Evan had guessed.
“Don’t expect me to start calling you Daddy,” Mac said in a sullen tone to him.
Evan eyed him. “I don’t have that expectation, Mac.”
Then a flash of disappointment went through Mac’s eyes, and Evan had a premonition that this one was going to be hard to win.
Side by side, Evan and Kathleen greeted friends and neighbors. They walked out of the church to thousands of soap bubbles, their guests each having been given a little bottle and a blower.
Somehow he got through it all, the speeches and the food and the dancing that went well into evening, without making a complete ass of himself.
Because all he wanted to do was be with her.
Alone. Away from all these people who meant so well.
Mac and Jesse were going with Ma for a few days, and finally he and his bride were on their way home. Alone.
“Let’s stop,” she said, “and look at the stars.”
So he stopped the truck and they got out, she gathering up her dress, and hiking across the prairie. She tilted her head back, and looked and looked and then looked at him, and smiled.
“Evan, I have something I have to tell you. Maybe I should have told you before. The time just never seemed right.”
Oh, God. She was already married to someone else. She was an illegal immigrant and would have to leave the country. She had a deadly illness.
“Hey,” she said, pressing her hand against the worry lines on his forehead, “that’s my department.”
“What do you need to tell me?” His voice sounded grim in his own ears.
The color rose in her cheeks. “I’ve never done before what you and I are going to do tonight.”
For a minute he didn’t comprehend what she was saying. “Uh, pardon?”
It was her blush, darkening over the high arc of her cheekbones, that made him get it.
“You’ve never been with a man before?” he asked quietly.
“It’s awful, isn’t it? I mean at my age, can you believe—”
“Hush,” he said, moving to her swiftly. He looked into the luminous darkness of her eyes, and saw fear and anticipation there. “No one’s ever given me a gift like this before. Never. It’s the most beautiful thing I could imagine.”
He lifted her into his arms, and felt her arms twine around his neck, her head lean against the column of his throat.
He tilted his head up at the stars.
There were never instruction books when a man really needed them, or at least not ones that worked. Not for potty-training, not for this wondrous surprise that had been dropped in his lap.
Step five out of Potty-Training for the Hopelessly Confused came to him for some reason. Pray.
And then he remembered he had read it incorrectly. It had really said play.
And probably both were applicable to the night ahead of them. He kissed the tip of her nose, prayed to be the sensitive guy she needed to get her through this and then felt his heart grow inside his chest, until it felt as if it was two sizes too large, just like a cartoon he’d seen once.
It was like a dream, being in his arms as he carried her across the threshold. He did not set her down, but went quickly through the darkened house, down the hall and into his bedroom, closing the door behind him with a kick of his heel. He set her on her feet gently.
A lamp had been left burning. And the bedroom, too, looked like a dream.
“The bed is beautiful,” she stammered, looking everywhere but at him, and the steady look in his eyes. It was an antique four-poster, covered in plump white pillows, the comforter as white as snow.
“A present from the Watsons.” He smiled. “The neighbor women have been in here all week, clucking at the mess me and Jesse have managed to make. You’ve never seen so many feather dusters and mops going.”
“I would have done it.”
“I don’t want to turn you into a cleaning woman, Kathleen. I don’t want to feel like I’m stealing your life from you.”
She laughed shakily. “Oh, Evan. This is what I want. To be a mom to Jesse and Mac.” She whispered. “To be a wife to you.”
“You know you’re a woman who could do anything, don’t you? You could be an astronaut or a doctor. And here you are on this little farm in Saskatchewan.”
“Evan, it’s not about whether I’m an astronaut, or a doctor or a housewife. It’s about me being allowed to choose what I really want without feeling ashamed or as if I have to make excuses. Why do women always have to make excuses about everything, the work they do, the books they read? Right now I’ve got exactly what I want. Do you understand?”
“Yes, ma’am” he said, his voice low and throaty.
“This dress,” she said shakily, “has thirty-eight buttons on the back of it.”
“Really?” he breathed. “Then I guess we better get started. We only have six hours until dawn.”
She laughed, as she knew he had intended, and turned around, her heart hammering in her throat, as his hands found their way to the buttons, big hands, strong, but sure on the delicate workings of those buttons.
“Are you scared?” he asked in her ear, his hands faltering on the last button.
“No.”
“I am.” He worked the button free.
She looked at him over her shoulder, then turned slowly to face him, the dress loose now. She waited, her eyes on his face. He licked his lips, hesitated, closed his eyes.
“Evan?” She could have sworn he was praying.
But when he opened his eyes, the anxiety was gone from his steady gaze, and he looked playful and tender and like the Evan she knew.
He moved close to her, looked into her eyes, his hands moved to her shoulders.
She gasped as the dress fell away, and she was standing before him in the lace and silk of her ivory-colored camisole.
“Undo this tie, Kathleen, before it chokes me.”
Shaking now, but not from fear, she did as he asked, taking her time, her hands unsteady on the unfamiliar tie. When it was gone, she hazarded a brief look into his eyes, and then she undid his buttons on his shirt. The buttons seemed as if they were too large for the button holes as she fumbled with them, focused on them, her tongue caught between her teeth.
And then the last one was undone and his shirt hung open. She glanced at his chest, and felt her heart pick up tempo.
“Touch me,” he whispered, and her heart moved into double time.
She slipped her hands inside his shirt and touched the skin and muscle she had yearned to feel for so long. Without interrupting her, he peeled off the shirt and dropped it to the floor. She gulped, looking at him.
“Don’t stop. Touch me all you want. Until you don’t want to anymore.”
“That will be never,” she said, and then blushed.
But he laughed, low in his throat. “We can only hope.”
She could feel a faint tremble in him now, as her hands moved over him, over the broadness of his shoulders, the deepness of his chest, down to the hard muscles of his narrow stomach. His skin felt as she knew it would—heated silk wrapped around solid iron. She reached behind him, and ran her hands down the muscled expanse of his back, pulled herself in close to him, and rested her head on his chest.
She could feel his heart beating. Double time.
“Taste me,” he whispered.
She looked at him, wide-eyed, and then with a sigh of surrender, she touched her lips to his chest. To the place above his heart. To the hollow of his throat. To his ears.
And finally, to his mouth.
It was the invitation he had waited for, and he gathered her to him, pressed her softness into his hard length and took her mouth with his.
She felt then, the kind of power she held over him, and in his kiss felt his absolute and unconditional surrender to it. She felt the desire on his lips, and saw it turn his eyes to smoke.
She gnawed on the sensuous fullness of his bottom lip, and felt the tremble within him deepen. She nipped lightly, and then his hand made its way to the back of her head, pulled her toward him and he took her lips captive. There was no innocence in him. What was in him was male need—powerful, wild, intoxicating.
He demanded more than little light kisses.
She had lit a match.
And he was tinder. And now fire.
His tongue pierced the hollow of her mouth, and the jolt went down deep inside her to a place she was not aware had existed. He took her lips and commanded, without words, that she give back everything that he gave, that she match him, passion for passion.
Tentatively, uncertainly at first, and then with growing boldness and confidence she met him, explored with him, until she was gasping with pleasure and need so great it bordered on pain.
He tumbled her backwards on the bed. Kissed her toes until she shrieked with tortured delight and swelling anticipation. He rained fire as he carved a path up the curve of her leg with his tongue. And then, slowly, his eyes suddenly on her face, he slid her slip upward and touched his lips to the delicate flesh of her inner thigh.
Then, his eyes turned to molten pewter, his intensity showing in the tautness of every muscle in his body, he slipped his fingers under the strap of her camisole, and paused.
“Yes,” she whispered.
He slid the silken strap from her shoulder, kissed where it had been.
And then he moved the fabric away from her breastbone, and kissed where it had been. He continued until there were no silken barriers left between her naked skin and his questing lips.
And she did not think she was old. She did not think he was young. She did not think at all. Pure feeling took over, as his lips found the soft mound of her breasts, and he anointed them with his breath and his tongue.
Something wild leaped within her. Wild. Untamed. Primal. As old as the earth. As old as man and woman together.
Her hands slid to the waistband of his trousers, found the button, undid it. Her hands moved to his hips, and slowly, she tugged them off.
His lips claimed hers again, feverish, and she arched against him, begging him with her body to fill her, to fill that part of her that had never been filled.
And then she felt him part her legs, gently, watched as he posed above her on strong arms, trembling from holding himself above her, from holding himself back, but not even seeming to be aware of his own trembling.
“Evan,” she called his name across all the time that had separated them in this universe and on this plain of life.
“Evan,” she called her welcome to him, as he entered her, filled her, completed her.
“Evan,” she called once more, as sensation took her in its mighty grip, shook her, carried her, took her finally, to a place she had never been. To a place where people become as gods, for a few short seconds, where they became heaven and earth, sky and wind and fire, calm and storm.
He lay against her, his head buried in her shoulder, his hair plastered to her skin.
She ran her hands through that hair, nipped his ear with her teeth, then laughed with something that went deeper than pleasure. Joy.
“If I’d have known what I was missing,” she finally said huskily, when her breathing had calmed, “I might have tried this sooner.”
He lifted his head and looked at her. More than looked. Drank her in, a man who had crossed a desert, dying of thirst, and found life at the fountain of her love.
“If I had known it would be like this with you, I think I would have waited,” he said.
And then they cuddled in each other’s arms, kissing, exploring, talking, laughing, kissing some more. Dawn was bathing them in its first rosy light when they finally slept in the tangle of their wedding clothes and in the circle of each other’s arms.
Chapter Eight
“Darlin’, wake up.”
Kathleen snuggled deeper under the covers. Then she felt lips on her toes. Her eyes flew open, and she remembered suddenly, deliciously, where she was, who she was—Mrs. Evan Atkins—and what they had spent the night doing.
Evan burrowed under the covers, his head popping out beside hers.
She smiled, looking into the deep, laughter-filled blue of his eyes.
“Good morning, Mrs. Atkins.” He kissed her on the cheek.
“Is that supposed to be a step up from ma’am?” she groaned.
“I forgot you’re grouchy in the morning. Except it’s not morning. We were supposed to leave on our honeymoon three hours ago.”
Ma Watson had offered to take the boys for four days so that Evan and Kathleen could slip away to Cypress Hills, an oasis of earth not far from Medicine Hat that had been missed by the ravaging effects of the glaciers.
