CHAPTER FIFTEEN

 

Jenny looked into Finnegan's eyes and saw his certainty that their paths had crossed before. She studied his face, but no memory floated back. There'd been so many back then and their faces were now a haunting collage. But search as she might through those half-forgotten images, she couldn’t remember anyone who might have been Finnegan in his youth.

He waited for her answer, confirmation to his theory. She’d been that green-eyed innocent at one time in her life and to too many men. She couldn’t change the past, but she could accept it and hope Finnegan did, too. “I had to eat.”

“So it was you?” She saw no condemnation in his eyes, only mild surprise and satisfaction his suspicions had been proven true.

“It could have been. I worked there for several years.”

“I remember the room was wallpapered in roses, little pink roses. Almost like a child’s room.”

The blood left Jenny’s face. She hadn’t thought of that room in years. Nor had she thought of the conflicting emotions staring up at that paper always presented. A child’s life lived inside a woman’s body.

He took her in his arms and pressed her cheek to his chest.

“I’m so sorry,” he whispered, a catch in his voice.

“You’ve no reason to be sorry,” she replied. “I made that decision.”

“You don’t make decisions like that when you’re fifteen. Life makes those for you.”

The loss of her innocence was her last concern in those days. The source of the next meal was a more pressing worry.

“You were so thin, thin and delicate,” he continued. “And I . . . I don’t remember much about me. Except that I was drunk.”

There was an expectancy in his eyes, as if he wanted either confirmation or exoneration.

She placed a palm on either side of his face. “I don’t remember you at all, Mike, if that's a comfort."

Not much of an answer, she had to admit. But it must have been what he was looking for. Some of the tension eased from his shoulders.

She didn’t want to remember how it felt to be held in his arms, didn’t want to imagine intimacy between them--two awkward, groping adolescents.

Seeking to break the spell and sensing he wanted to say more, she changed the subject.

"So how did you come to be in the Mounties?"

He gave her a puzzled look, stepped out of her arms and returned to the fireplace. “The paper in Seattle ran an article about the Mounties, how they were a tough bunch, disciplined, sent out into the wilderness, far away from temptation." He shrugged one shoulder. "It seemed like the thing to do. The next day I scraped together what money I had, boarded a train north and eventually ended up in Regina. I enlisted and in their ignorance, they took me. It was my salvation.”

Finnegan turned away from the fire, hands by his sides, a vulnerability in his eyes she’d never seen before. “There hasn’t been a woman since I joined, Jenny.” There was a sad honesty in his voice that touched a responding sorrow in her own collection of regrets. Wiry Mike Finnegan had just laid at her feet everything she wanted. A home, family, love. Did she have the good sense to bend down and pick it up? Or would she, like him, allow old ghosts to chase her away.

"I've spent my adulthood trying to separate love from lust. I never knew the difference before.” He raised his eyes. “Now I do," he said. “Will you marry me, Jenny?”

She hadn't expected a proposal of marriage and hadn't wanted one. The word marriage carried a connotation of servitude and submissiveness, something she'd already had enough of. Over the years she'd hardened her heart against commitment and developed herself a fine arsenal of excuses. But now, faced with the honesty in his eyes, she couldn't clearly remember even one of them.

"I don't have much to offer a wife." He held out his hands, palms up. "The housing’s poor and the life’s hard. But you’ll have my heart, Jenny, and there’s never been a truer one.”

No doubt rose to challenge the truth of his words. He’d be a loyal husband and a devoted father to little Michael. As much as old habit urged her to say no, she wanted to say yes.

“Have you ever slept with someone you were in love with?”

“No.”

“Neither have I.” She stopped in front of him, his white shirt glowing softly in the firelight, marred only by the dark slashes of his suspenders. Fingers trembling with anticipation, she slid one of the wide elastic straps off his shoulder. “I’d like to know what it’s like. Wouldn't you?”

“What about our wedding night?”

Jenny laughed at his perplexed expression. “Now, that’s a little like shutting the barn door behind the horse for both of us, wouldn’t you say, constable?”

“I thought you might want to wait,” he said as he pulled his arm around out of the band and let it dangle in a loop at his side.

“Life’s too short for waiting.”

He clasped her wrist with a firm grip, the skin of his palm rough against her skin. “Is that a yes to my proposal?”

Their gazes locked, each reading the others thoughts. An unnerving thing, having someone anticipate ones thoughts.

“Yes, it is.”

He hauled her against him and bit at the base of her neck, rolling the sensitive skin between his teeth, sending waves of gooseflesh dancing down her arms. “I love you.”

She slipped her arms around his waist, urging him closer. “I love you, too.” The words were easier said than she'd imagined.

He pulled back and smiled. “Should we count our collective sins?”

Another ripple of desire spread through her, jarring in its intensity, oddly enhanced by the humor in his voice. “I don’t think we have enough fingers between us.”

“We could resort to toes.”

She stopped and looked up into his face. “We’d have to take off our shoes.”

“I’d planned to take mine off anyway.” He lowered his head and claimed her mouth again. Tender at first, the kiss deepened and his breaths grew ragged as his control ebbed away. Jenny fumbled with the buttons on his shirt until the fabric opened, revealing his soft knit suit of winter underwear. She snapped off his other suspender, then raked his shirt over his shoulders and down his arms.

He released her mouth, shook off his shirt and dropped it to the floor. Eyes bright, his breaths were shallow and quick and where he touched her, his grip trembled. Abruptly, he turned and walked away from her.

“We’re going too fast,” he said, his back turned. “Too fast.”

She pursued him and walked around in front of him. Hands on his hips, he stared at the floor, obviously fighting for control.

She touched his shoulder and he flinched. “You won’t disappoint me.”

He raised his head, seemingly surprised she’d read his thoughts. “I’ve just realized that I know plenty about sex and nothing about love.”

“It’s not something you study, Mike.” She traced a finger down the rounded pearl buttons of his undershirt and smiled when he quivered under her touch. “It’s something you learn from practice.”

He studied her a moment, then lifted her hair and pushed it behind her shoulders, sliding his warm fingers against her skin. He undid the buttons on her dress until it hung open to her waist, revealing her thin chemise underneath. Frowning, he ran a fingertip across the scar that skirted the top of one breast. “What’s this?”

“A gift from a customer who didn’t feel he’d gotten what he was looking for.”

Finnegan leaned forward and kissed the puckered skin. “He was obviously looking for the wrong thing.”

Jenny threaded her fingers through his hair as he pushed the lace-edged fabric off her shoulders. “I want to see you,” he said as the material slid beneath her breasts and lay at her waist. She stood before his gaze, her breasts tingling as her body responded to the baby’s sleepy whimper.

Her body less than perfect, producing milk for a child of another man’s seed, she suddenly wondered how on earth Mike could find this reality sexy. Her passion faded and she moved to step away in anticipation of his rejection. Before she could, he bent his head forward and captured one breast in his mouth. She put a hand on his shoulder to push him away, but he caught her forearm and raised his head.

“It’s all part of you, Jenny. I’m not thinking any further than that and neither should you.”

He backed her toward the bed until the hard rail of the side pressed against the back of her legs. Aroused nearly to the point of speechlessness she looked up into his face, soft in the firelight. Only with Frank had she allowed her body to respond to passion. And then only in their early days before his abuse robbed her of even that. But Frank had never elicited from her the sweet desire now racing through her blood. But then Frank had only aroused her body. Finnegan had aroused her mind and her heart as well.

He crouched in front of her and undid the button that held her dress tightly to her waist. The fabric of her remaining clothes slid to the floor and she stood before him naked and chilled.

His gaze roamed over her boldly, then he dropped to his knees. “What this scar?” He pointed to the ugly red scar that bisected her lower abdomen.

“Another gift from a customer, a priest, set on destroying harlots, as he called us. Only he had no qualms about sampling the forbidden fruits first.”

“Dear God,” she heard him whisper and he pressed his lips to that sensitive skin. She flinched. He was far too close to forbidden areas.

She reached for the buttons on his trousers, but his hand closed around hers. He stood and removed his remaining garments himself, his gaze locked with hers as if measuring her response to his body by degrees.

A scattering of red hair and lay across his chest and muscular forearms. Here and there scars marred the softly freckled surface of his skin--evidence of a physical and difficult life. He moved the hair off her neck and put an arm around her waist to urge her closer. Teeth nibbled at the top edge of her ear as he stroked her back, drifting lower and lower with each caress until he pulled her hard against him.

“Jenny,” he whispered brokenly, moving closer, reminding her of his need and revealing his desperation.

Jenny ran the palms of her hands across his hips and up his back to knead loose the tight muscles there as he’d once done for her. “Slow down,” she whispered against his cheek then stepped back away from him.

His cheeks blazed with color, from embarrassment or desire, she couldn't decide, but she lifted his hand and kissed the open, scarred palm. “We have the rest of our lives.”

He released her and stepped back, the raging color drained from his face until he was nearly pale. He bent, picked up his trousers and rummaged in the pocket. He took her hand and pressed into her palm a French shield, protection from another pregnancy.

She looked up into his expression, a mixture of expectation and study awaiting her reaction. “You thought of this?”

He shrugged one shoulder, obviously ill at ease. “I wasn’t taking any bets on my behavior once you were in my arms.” He caught her arm as she turned toward the bedside table. “Are you sure about this?”

There was a vulnerability in his eyes she hadn’t seen before and obvious doubts circling his thoughts. Raising up on tiptoe, she ran her fingers through his hair. “Never surer about anything in my life.”

 

* * *

 

He backed her toward the bed until the bed rail pressed against the calves of her legs. Together, they tumbled into the tangled quilts, nested together against the cold. He hauled her close, his warm arms encircling her, protecting her. She sighed and rubbed her cheek against the soft skin of his shoulder, surprised at the contentment she felt just lying beside him.

But Mike wasn’t content to simply lie with her close. He moved over her, pinning her beneath him. Thus trapped, she looked up into his eyes and slid a hand between them to touch him intimately. He jumped and caught her wrist in a firm grip, frowning. Surely he’d been touched this way before, caressed by a woman’s hand? Was his concern a matter of urgency or trust?

“It’s all right,” she soothed and caressed him past the strangeness of her touch. His tender parts balanced in her palm, she felt powerful and yet humbled to be the recipient of his trust and love. And undeserving.

She shoved at his shoulders and he obediently rolled to his side. While he watched her, she applied the French shield, noting that his gaze never left her face.

“I’ve never used one of these before,” he said into the silence between them.

“Never?”

He shook his head.

“You should have.”

He smiled slowly. “That wasn’t the first thing on my mind in those days.”

Such protection was common enough in the more reputable houses, insisted on in some since shields had become widely used and accepted. She smiled down at him, enjoying the role of teacher.

But soon, the teacher became the student as he rolled her beneath him and took her slowly, cautiously, easing past the soreness. Once impaled, Jenny waited as he stilled and cupped her face in his hands. He seemed about to say something, but then his lips brushed hers lightly, then firmer, as if he would consume her there and then. His body moved within hers with torturing deliberation. It was as she’d thought. Mike Finnegan did indeed know how to pleasure a woman.

Despite the barrier between them, he struggled to wait, slowing and stopped their pace when necessary, but never sacrificing her pleasure with his pauses. She applied her arts, hard won and dearly sacrificed for, wondering if all the past, all the pain had been for this moment, this joining. For he loved her with a tenderness she’d never imagined, much less hoped for. As his own pleasure increased, so did he make sure hers followed. By his own admission, Mike Finnegan hadn’t been with a woman in a long time, but he surely hadn’t forgotten the nuances of the act.

Years and oceans of sorrow had passed since she’d been a tender virgin, but tonight, held so tenderly, so adoringly by the man she loved was as foreign to her as if she’d never loved before. He swept her past the simple act of sex, past the physical satisfaction and into a realm of contentment and well-being she’d never imagined was possible in any man’s arms.

“Are you all right?” he whispered, his breath hot on her ear.

She nodded, speech long ago an impossibility.

His hands moved over her head to grip the posts of the headboard, shifting the angle of his body. She covered his rough knuckles with her fingers and stared up into his face as he quickened the pace of their lovemaking, clearly aware of and measuring her response. Hands still clutching the headboard, he closed his eyes as he brought them both to pleasure.

Trembling with the effort of holding his weight off her, he rolled them to the side and snuggled her against him without withdrawing.

“We almost broke the bed,” she whispered into his hair.

“That we did, lass.” His voice was husky and rough, tinted with humor and arousing in its honesty.

She pulled back a little to examine his face. “Regrets?”

He kissed the end of her nose. “Are you joking? You?”

She shook her head.

He started to withdraw and she stopped him with a hand on his hip. “Not yet. Please?”

He pulled her closer, tucking her head beneath his chin. “We can’t stay like this, you know.”

“We can for a little longer.”

“I’m afraid that’ll take care of itself eventually, lass.”

Safe in his arms, she memorized the last few moments. The rumble of a chuckle deep in his chest. The scrape of his stiff chest hair against her cheek. The scent of their lovemaking, clinging to them both. She committed every detail to memory in case some circumstance of life sprang up between them and the future as she willed it never came to pass.

They lay cradled in each other's arms, naked, sated and marked with each other’s scent, until the fire burned low and the room grew chilly. Finally, he sat up on the side of the bed and looked back over his shoulder with such tenderness that she wanted to cry and sob and cling to him, to forbid him ever to leave her arms again.

He flipped the tumbled quilt over her, pausing to tuck it firmly to her side. A tiny motion, but one that said much about the man before her. Suddenly the world was far more dangerous and uncertain than it had been thirty minutes ago.

He dressed in silence while she watched, admiring the way shadow and light played across the rise and fall of his back. Such commonplace motions--picking up a shirt, sliding on a pair of pants, buckling a belt--everyday tasks performed in the privacy of bedrooms and witnessed only by those intimately trusted. So simple and yet so endearing. She committed the images to her growing mental album. Then he came to sit by her again on the ruined bed frame and the tousled sheets. He cupped her cheek with his palm. “I’m holding you to your promise.”

She covered his hand with hers. “And I’m holding you to yours.”

He sobered and she felt the specter of reality creep into their world. “I want to put Frank behind us before we’re married, draw him out somehow, make him show his hand.”

Her hopes sank. Frank was far too crafty to fall for a ruse. “How do you intend to do that?”

He stood and the bed shifted with the loss of his weight. “I’ll think of something.” He bent and brushed a kiss across her lips. “Don’t worry.”

The door swooshed shut behind him leaving her alone in the gentle glow of firelight. A sense of loss filled her, however temporary, and she yearned to have him back at her side. She glanced over at the baby, sleeping peacefully in his bed, and then slid further beneath the quilts. The far away dream of hearth and home became a growing hope.

If Frank was truly still alive, why was he playing dead? What could he want from her? What would draw him out? Money would draw Frank out, money and success. Hers. His need to control and manipulate would override his sense of caution. She’d bet her stash of gold dust on it.

 

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