“Don’t leave me,” she murmured as the tremors faded.
“I won’t. I can’t.” But he shifted his body, just enough to see her. “I don’t want to ever leave you.”
The firelight bathed his face and was reflected in his eyes. “I never loved anyone like this, Rafe.”
“New, then, for both of us. But let me take my weight off you. I’m too heavy—”
“And still—”
“Hard as if I never had you? Yes. I can’t lie, can I? Not like a woman can hide.”
Her intimate smile invited his. A subtle shift, and she showed him that she wasn’t hiding from him.
“I’ll leave you sore,” he whispered, nuzzling her ear.
“A threat? Or a promise?”
“Where’s my prim Mary?” He braced himself on his elbows and looked down at her. Mary’s eyes were still dark with passion. Her hair spread like a burnished flame around her face.
“Where is she?” he asked again.
“Here, with you. Where she wants to be. And there’s only one woman, Rafe. A woman who found more pleasure than you promised, more magic than she ever dreamed of knowing.”
And he saw within her lovely green eyes that look of love she would not admit to. But he could and did.
“I love you. I’ll love you all night long, and for all the nights to come. All you have to do is say yes.”
Mary longed to say the words to him, to free what she held in her heart. But she would first have to tell him—No! She would not taint what they shared with her sorrow.
“Yes,” she whispered against his lips, showing him what she could not say.
She learned that his love could take her to drink deeper from desire’s well, and later, yet again, on a slower path that climbed to tumultuous heights.
She watched the embers in the fireplace darken with ash, even as dawn lightened the sky outside.
Rafe asked her again to marry him.
Mary was thankful that she faced the dying fire while his body curled spoon-fashion behind her. She didn’t want to look at him when she refused.
The touch of his warm lips kissing her bare shoulder distracted her. What could she say? I’ll swear to love you as no other ever could. I’ll fill your life with whatever makes you happy and fill your arms with babes. She had to remember Rafe’s words. And remember, too, that the last was impossible. She had only to think of what she had endured during her marriage with the arrival of her irregular cycle.
“Mary? What’s wrong? Why can’t you answer me?”
She simply couldn’t tell him. His admiration, his trust, and the very love he professed to have for her, would all be gone. He was a man who deserved to have sons and more daughters. He needed a woman who could give them to him.
But it wasn’t words of refusal that she said.
“Give me time, Rafe. Give both of us more time.”
“Don’t you believe that I love you? Can you tell me that love isn’t returned?”
She turned within the circle of his arms, and her lips silenced his questions with a plea for him to love her again.
And with that Rafe had to be content.
Or so Mary thought. In the following days, she began to suspect that Rafe had hidden a sly side. She knew he enlisted Beth’s help to draw her away from household tasks.
The very next afternoon, she had asked Rafe about the old Spanish helmet. He told the story of finding a few flakes of gold in the stream bed that had led him into the valley. He hadn’t discovered the stone house at first. And as he pointed out when she and Beth followed him outside, the valley itself was shaped like a loop in a rope. Where the stone house stood was the loop itself, but the stream almost ran in a straight line up the neck of the valley, where the sheer stone walls narrowed like the tunnel they had entered to get there.
They had seen where he first found gold.
He carried Beth through first, for the only way to get there was through the stream. Then he came back for Mary, although she insisted she could walk. Mary’s suspicions started then. To the accompaniment of his teasing and kisses, they finally joined Beth.
A few cattle grazed in the cul-de-sac. At the back wall of straight rock was the cabin he had built. It had fallen into disrepair. On the other side, he showed them the mine.
Mary thought her heart would stop when she viewed the deep notch cut at the base of a pinnacle of rock. It was seamed with cracks and crevices that appeared ready to shatter at any moment.
“There’s always talk of lost mines in these mountains, and of the Spanish who lived here and worked them. There are the cliff dwellings of what most call the ancient ones. Those dwellings, like the house, still stand, but it seems as if those who lived in them meant to return.
“I never found the bones of the men who worked this mine, but I understood why they hesitated going in there to take all of the gold out. I had to stop working it. And the seam is still rich, but not worth my life.”
“Is this the reason the Indians believe this place is haunted?” Mary asked, finding herself full of dire imaginings as she stared at the notch.
“I never had one follow me here. Behind that brush is a cave filled with shards of pottery, animal bones, and the remains of fires. It’s where I found the spear. It’s another place that appears to have been suddenly abandoned.”
“Let’s go see it, Papa!”
Beth ran off. When Mary suggested that she go back, Rafe wouldn’t hear of it.
“Oh, no. I’m not letting you go that easily.”
Later that night, Rafe cleared one of the bookshelves so that Beth and Mary could display their finds. He held Beth on his lap and read to her while Mary sewed. She was filled with such peace and contentment, and she knew it was hers for the taking for all her tomorrows. The crackling fire was soothing. She looked up to find that Beth had fallen asleep and Rafe was watching her. She couldn’t say it with words, but hoped her look conveyed that she was as eager as any bride for the night to come.
Her eagerness was noted and appreciated. How much appreciated, Rafe showed her with lovemaking that was more tender and cherishing than the night before.
He and Beth woke her in the morning with breakfast. She wasn’t given a moment to herself for the rest of the day.
Rafe admitted there were a great many things lacking—a cow for Beth, chickens, for all three of them missed having fresh eggs. By nightfall he had added a stove for Mary to his list. She burned the bread. A first for her, and she blamed Rafe for his insistence that she joined a game of hide-and-seek.
Beth named her father the seeker because he was the oldest. Mary teased and disagreed, but their two votes overrode hers. Rafe found her each time, kissing her senseless before they would run off and find Beth.
Mary hadn’t fully understood that Rafe’s wealth meant he didn’t have to work. He chopped wood to see them through the winter, and that took a good part of his day. She often stopped some chore to watch him. His muscles rippling with each swing of the ax, sunlight gleaming on his hair. A sensual excitement filled her the moment he stopped and saw her watching him.
He came stalking her then, demanding a reward for his hard efforts to keep her fireplaces fueled. Beth would giggle, then whisper to her doll or kitten, while Mary allowed herself to be caught. But Rafe was sly, as she had come to know. He’d sometimes settle for a slice of herb bread, or a taste of what she had cooking. At other times it was a hug, or a chaste kiss. And there were rare times he’d swing her into his arms and carry her back to the woodpile. He insisted she sit where he could watch her, despite her halfhearted protests that she’d burn supper or left chores undone.
But he conspired with his daughter, too. He’d catch hold of Beth and she’d shriek for Mary to rescue her—the price, a kiss.
Beth’s wound healed with small scars that Mary hoped would fade with time. Just as the child’s nightmares faded away. She no longer had her haunting dream, for she knew her wounded spirit was healing. How could it not? She was in love and was loved in return.
Rafe taught them to pan for gold in the stream. Beth insisted on weighing the small but growing pile of flakes they found each night. Rafe turned it into a lesson in arithmetic, as he did counting the herd of horses, then mares, fillies and colts.
Mary used the books and the growing number of arrowheads to do the same.
On the days Rafe hunted, Mary taught Beth to sew. The kitten often wore the results, much to Beth’s delight and Mary’s surprise.
They all called her Kitty, but Beth would shake her head with a secretive smile and say that wasn’t her name. She wouldn’t tell what it was. Her secret. Hers and Muffy’s.
Mary helped Rafe break a few of the horses to the saddle again. None were truly wild, but he had been away for a long time. Beth had her daily riding lessons, but dressed warmly as the weather turned colder.
There were picnics on idle days when Rafe and Mary told childhood stories, with Beth an avid audience. It was on such an afternoon that Mary was struck by the bonds of love and laughter the three of them shared. Rafe had just finished a tale of a bear that had raided the mining camp repeatedly to steal sides of bacon. The bear had outwitted them at every turn, finding bacon wherever the miners thought to hide it.
“I swear it’s true,” he declared. “Those miners, me included, took to strapping those sides of bacon to our backs just so we wouldn’t have to eat plain beans. No one would leave his claim to get supplies.”
“And did the bear go away, Papa?”
“Not on his own. We each cut strips from our bacon and planted a trail one night that led across the creek to another camp. Those men howled the next night. But that bear didn’t come around to bother us again. Days later, Three-Fingered Jack, who’d been hunting gold for almost forty years, chased that bear up the mountain into a cave. He come running right out swinging his pick, and tore a chunk of rock off the cave’s entrance. He hit a pocket of gold that took him all the way to San Francisco in high style.”
“Oh, Papa, you did a bad thing but made it good. Just like you promised me.”
“I’m trying, Beth. Trying real hard to keep that promise.”
The engaging smiles on father’s and daughter’s faces led Mary to believe she figured prominently in that promise.
Later that night, after they made love, Mary asked Rafe if it was true.
He was braced on his arm above her, the blanket draped over his hips. With the fire behind him, Mary couldn’t see his face clearly.
“I promised to marry you,” he answered. He brushed her hair back from her cheek. “Beth loves you. She wants you to be with us forever. Her words. My desire. Mary, I want you for my wife, my love. To have and to hold, to cherish and to protect.”
His hands drifted from her cheek to her neck, where his thumb measured the wild beat of her pulse, before he cupped her breast. “I know you’re happy. It’s rare to see the sadness in your eyes anymore. And,” he teased, “despite all you do, you’ve put on weight.” He lowered his head to taste her. “Right here. I can tell.”
He rolled onto his back and lifted her as though she weighed nothing. She took him deep, so deep her hands reached to grip his. She rocked, matching his rhythm, matching the savage tempo of her own pulse. And Rafe was with her, sweat-sheened skin bronzed by fire, holding her, cherishing her with so much love that she nearly fainted from the ecstasy they created together.
Mary knew she had to tell him.
But in the morning, Rafe announced his intention to go hunting for a Thanksgiving turkey. Mary was surprised. Almost two months had slipped by without her noticing. She thought of the merry month-long holiday she and Sarah had shared with Catherine last year. From Thanksgiving to the first day of the New Year. She vowed she would help make these first holidays that Rafe shared with Beth very special ones.
Her mind was busy with the cookies she could begin baking. When Rafe asked for a kiss for good luck, she absently pecked his cheek.
“Ah, Mary, that’s a wifely kiss you give a man to send him off. What’s taken your thoughts?”
“Spices,” she murmured. “I’m thinking about what I’ll bake to celebrate.”
“Spices, is it? Then give me a kiss,” he demanded, in a mock growl that sent Beth into giggles. “A kiss worthy of your thoughts, to keep me while I’m gone.”
She was too happy to scold him for behaving like this in front of Beth. Or, as she told herself later in the day, she was coming to believe that Rafe would not stop loving her even if she couldn’t give him a child.
That day marked a flurry of activity. There were spices to grate, sugarloaves to be crushed and rolled, dried fruits to soak. Planning Beth’s gift for her father took two days to reach a decision, required hours of secrecy and no end to Rafe’s grumbling when Mary and Beth shut themselves up in the child’s room.
Rafe brought home several turkeys. Beth, in the spirit of the day, was whooping through the house in a headdress of rawhide and turkey feathers. She wore Rafe’s fringed buckskin shirt as a dress. Mary and Rafe were declared Pilgrims.
Mary had tied a white linen square for a shawl collar over her new wine-colored gown. Rafe told her with words and with his frequent looks how beautiful she looked. She watched as he carried corn bread and steaming biscuits to the table, then returned for beans baked with molasses and bacon, the bowl of stewed tomatoes and herbs, hominy and maple syrup. Mary turned the turkey on the spit and gave a stir to the gravy. The dried apples had been made into a pie, and there were sugared doughnuts—bear claws, Rafe called them, and swore men would travel one hundred miles to have a taste of one—sugared nuts and spice cookies for dessert.
The turkey was golden-brown, the aromas tantalizing enough for each one to declare they were starved for their feast.
Mary bent over to stir the gravy, then taste it. “A pinch more of salt,” she murmured, straightening and turning. She dropped the spoon as a wave of dizziness and an attack of nausea left her weak. She clutched the mantel with one hand as the room swirled around her.
“Rafe!” she called out, and felt herself falling.
When she opened her eyes, she discovered she was lying on the double bed, a wet cloth on her forehead and two anxious faces hovering over her. Her quilt covered her to her chin, and her shoes were gone.
“Mary, don’t worry. Papa said I could be your nurse.”
“What happened?” Mary asked. Rafe curtailed her attempt to sit up.
“Just lie still,” he ordered. “You fainted.”
“Fainted? I’ve never in my life—”
“They say there’s a first time for everything. This is one of those times.”
A frown creased Mary’s brow, and he quickly smoothed it with a gentle touch. “Don’t you know?”
“Know what?”
“Beth, be Papa’s angel and let me talk with Mary alone for a few minutes. Go make sure your kitten hasn’t eaten our supper.”
“But Mary might need me, Papa.”
“She will. I promise you that. But not right now. Go on.”
His look brooked no argument. Beth left them, and Rafe closed the door after her. He returned to sit on the bed and took hold of Mary’s hand.
“Don’t look so bewildered, love.”
“But I am. You’re being deliberately—”
“No. It’s not deliberate, Mary. I always figured it was a woman’s place to do the telling.”
Rafe slowly drew the quilt down until the edge rested across her thighs. He lifted the cloth from her head and set it aside.
“Rafe?” Mary was almost paralyzed with fear. She wanted to close her eyes against the blaze of tenderness in his. Tears welled in her eyes, tears she couldn’t explain. But he didn’t seem to find them exceptional. He simply brushed them away as they slipped down her cheeks, and waited.
And Mary knew she had run out of time.
“Rafe?”
She had to close her eyes. Somehow that would make the telling easier.
“I’m here. I’ll always be here for you, Mary.”
She reached up to take his hand and hold it tight with hers.
“Do you remember Beth’s tale of the ghoulies coming because she wished for too much?”
“I’d slay dragons for you.”
“But sometimes you can’t see them. They live inside the mind. I’ve wished too much. Wanted too long.” She squeezed his hand, finding the words so hard to say. “I thought I knew what love was. I thought I loved Harry when I married him. But I didn’t know. Love is you. And I’m afraid to believe, afraid to trust.”
“Ah, love,” he whispered softly, and leaned down to kiss her lips. “Don’t torture yourself like this. The past doesn’t matter, Mary. I won’t let it.”
“But it does matter. When I couldn’t conceive, Harry became bitter. I wanted to give him a child more than anything else. But that was a blessing withheld. He said—”
“Don’t I won’t let you do this to yourself.”
“But I need to tell you. I need to,” she repeated in an agonizing whisper. “He called me worthless as a woman, as a wife because I couldn’t give him a child.”
“But all I want is you. A man twice blessed to have you and Beth. It’s enough. I told you that. The love I have for you, Mary, has no conditions, no boundaries. Except for one—that you marry me. I want the world to know you are mine.”
“And if I could give you more?”
He wished she would open her eyes. He wanted to see love shining within their green depths. But his lovely lady required every ounce of patience he could command. Where they touched he felt her body’s tension.
“Hold me. Please hold me.”
He drew her up into his lap, holding her close and aching for the way she clung to him. Her hot tears fell on his shirt. He rocked her, as if she were Beth, giving silent comfort and willing her pain to pass. He asked nothing from her.
“I was afraid to tell you. Afraid you wouldn’t love me.” She was too distraught to be embarrassed by her noisy sobs, and the flood of tears that followed as she held on to him, trying to climb inside him for safety, as if she were a child and not a woman grown.
He ran a hand up and down her back, circling it slowly so that she gradually relaxed against him.
“It’s frightening to need someone so much, Rafe. I thought all I wanted was to have some small financial independence. I thought I was contented with my life.”
Mary lifted her head from his shoulder and gazed into his eyes. All the barriers were gone, all her defenses were shredded.
“I want to have your child, Rafe. I want so much to give you the most beautiful gift in the world. A gift that lives in endless beauty and endless promise. A child born of love.”
Rafe raised her hand to his lips and pressed a kiss to her palm. “Don’t you know yet that you are the gift of love to me?”
“I feel I am being given a second chance, Rafe. A chance to love you and Beth. But if I am wrong and there is no child—”
“Hush, love, hush. I’ll fill our home with all the children you want, if that’s what it takes to make you happy.” He kissed her softly and gazed into her eyes, which brimmed in wonder with all the love a man could ever want. And he smiled to see that there were no shadows of sadness.
“I’ll take you to New York, Mary. There are orphanages filled with needy children. We’ll adopt a dozen. Two dozen, if you like. We’ll live wherever you want. I’ll give you everything—”
“Rafe. Oh, Rafe, I want only you. And Beth. I’ve been—”
“Loved,” he finished for her. There was a brightness in her face that confirmed her words, despite the sheen of tears. He held all that was bright and beautiful within his arms.
“I love you, Rafe. I’ve wanted to say those words to you a hundred times. You once said that I made magic for you. It isn’t quite true. You are the one who makes magic.”
He watched her eyes grow luminous. He wanted to capture this moment and savor it for all of his days. He lowered his head and kissed her. Sweetly, cherishing her with tenderness. A kiss of love and of promise.
He gently ended the kiss. “I’m glad we came here,” he whispered, “to discover what we could have together. Tell me again. I need to hear you say the words.”
“I love you, Rafe.”
“That, too. But say you’ll marry me. For all the right reasons.”
She laughed and tightened her arms around his neck. “I will marry you for all the right reasons.”
There came a soft tapping on the door, and Beth’s hesitant voice calling them.
“Come in, Beth.” Rafe spread one arm to hold her close when she climbed on the bed. Mary’s arm came to rest above his around Beth’s waist.
“Is Mary better?” Beth asked. “She’s got tears.”
“Happy ones, Beth. Very happy ones,” Mary repeated, and hugged her closer.
“Beth, Mary is going to marry us.”
“Truly? Oh, Papa, you kept your promise.” She lifted her hand to Mary’s cheek. “I told Papa you’d be the best mama ever. I told him I’ll show you how.”
“Yes, Beth, yes.” Mary drew the child’s head to her shoulder. “I am the happiest and luckiest woman alive.”
Rafe’s hand stole between them and curved over Mary’s belly. He shook his head, then mouthed, “Not yet. Ours for a little while.”
Beth suddenly jerked her head up. “Oh! I must go and tell Wishes.” She squirmed free and ran to the door, then spun around. “I forgot something else, too! The turkey’s burning.”
“Beth, wait,” Mary called out. “Who is Wishes?”
“That’s my kitten’s name. I couldn’t tell till my wish came true, Mary. You said I could wish and wish and wish as much as I wanted. You gave me all the magic words so I could. I have to tell her.”
“Wise beyond her years, Mary. Magic. She’s right. You make that with me, for me. And the hell with the turkey. I’ve a fire of my own that needs quenching.”