Gabe heard a groan. He realized he’d unintentionally made a noise, and a blush heated his cheeks.
Birdie, my God, she’d always been a caution. She hadn’t changed one bit. Outspoken, frank to a fault, full of piss and vinegar is how Petra once described her.
A memory leaped into his mind’s eye. Birdie-Alice and Jo at thirteen, stark naked, budding bosoms bobbing and bare butts glistening wet in the summer sun. Just as clearly as if it were yesterday, he could see them dragging poor Tommy Dixon, kicking and screaming, up the path to the far side of the bathing pool. The boy made the mistake of getting caught spying on the girls while they bathed. From the barnyard, Gabe and Van had heard the boy’s cries for help, but it was too late. They arrived in time to watch the girls toss the boy into the rushes.
Word got around, and from that day on neither Jo nor Birdie had any problems with peepers. All the boys gave the ladies their privacy. But Gabe had gotten an eyeful, and he’d never forgotten the sight of Birdie’s pink little bottom or her ripening, perfectly pink-tipped nipples.
All the while he and Van worked to extricate poor slime-covered Tom from the rushes, both of them were laughing so hard Gabe feared he might pass out. To this day, whenever he and Van needed a good chuckle, all either one of them had to say was poor Tommy and the memory would have them both in stitches.
Funny, but for once the memory didn’t make him want to laugh. It made him randy, and hence he had groaned with shame.
Damn it anyway.
He couldn’t get Curly-Birdie out of his mind, the way she looked, full-bosomed, eyes shining with the devil’s own mischief.
No, Gabe didn’t doubt for a minute Birdie could route any male stupid enough to think he could spy on her or the ladies in the hot spring. Birdie and Jo could take care of themselves, and any of the guests who accompanied them. After all, they’d been in charge of entertaining female guests long before Petra passed away. Jo could swim like a fish, fast and sleek in the water, and Birdie, what she lacked in style she made up for in courage and strength.
But the reminder the girls usually swam in the raw—that, he had trouble with. The thought of Edditha naked or in the water in her underclothes made him wince with something akin to embarrassment.
Edditha didn’t like going anywhere without her gloves on. To expect her to strip down in front of strangers and jump into water, no, not the Edditha he knew. Then again, her mother would be there, which might help. Mrs. Millican gave the impression of a woman up for anything.
He also worried about when and how Edditha would find out about Doreen having once been one of Buck’s whores here at the hot spring. He wondered if Mrs. Millican realized the hot spring had once been a brothel? If so, had she told her daughter about its colorful past, about Buck’s colorful past, and about his mother’s involvement with a pair of no-goods by the name of Laski?
What did the woman know? She remembered Buck and Raphael, but did she know two years after the infamous trial finding Gabe’s father guilty of multiple murders, Rafe’s wife had run off with their children to Oregon City with the lawyer from his father’s trial? Did Mrs. Millican know Gabe’s father had swung from the end of a rope for his sins? And if she knew all of it or even some of it, why had she allowed him to court her daughter?
Life at the hot spring might give the appearance of a wholesome enterprise, but hidden away in its past lay a treasure trove of nasty nuggets Gabe would as soon keep locked away.
He feared Birdie-Alice, Curly-Birdie, posed the biggest threat. She knew all the sordid details of the Buxton family history, as well as her own family history and how it all intertwined. Gabe knew she loved to recount, as well as embellish, the story to anyone who showed the least little bit of interest.
He didn’t trust this new and supposedly mature Curly-Birdie. There was something smoky about her behavior. She was holding back. She’d have to bust loose sooner or later and then look out.
The troubling fact of the matter he realized immediately. It should’ve been Edditha’s body dripping wet giving him enticing fantasies, not Birdie’s. He couldn’t quite bring into focus Edditha’s body. She might look sleek as a cat, maybe a slender, graceful cat. At least he supposed that’s what her body would look like; he’d never really seen her body except for a glimpse of throat, wrist, or ear lobe.
The female body he fantasized about most of the time glistened with droplets of water, from her curly blonde head down to her pink toes. In between, he saw a set of curvaceous hips, perfectly formed with a dainty little belly button right in the middle of her creamy white, soft, and slightly rounded tummy. Her twin breasts, round and firm as plump ripe peaches, tipped with petal-pink erect nipples, tantalized him. He dreamt of a thatch of golden curly hair at the apex of her strong thighs that begged exploration, always holding the promise of a warm, sweet, and juicy center.
God help him. The guilt.
He blamed Birdie for his out of control passions. She’d done something to herself to make him long to touch, to taste every inch of her. She was up to something, playing some kind of game, but why and who was her victim?
Edditha? It had to be Edditha. By attacking Edditha, Birdie could get back at him. But she hadn’t attacked Edditha. She’d actually gone out of her way to be nice to her. Too nice, suggesting a picnic. It had to be a trap. And proposing Edditha might like to ride smelled of a set-up.
Maybe Birdie wanted to get back at him for kissing her and then running off to Portland. Well, he’d gotten engaged, but he didn’t need to have her permission or approval. There were no promises given when he’d bestowed a kiss on her at her sixteenth birthday party. That night he’d put the blame on the moon.
All at once, he began to doubt his sanity. He wondered now if he hadn’t left the hot spring to go make a life for himself, not only to get away from memories of his mother but also to get away from his feelings for Birdie. He couldn’t love Birdie…Curly-Birdie, his almost-sister. He couldn’t lust after a little sister; that would make him some kind of sick bastard.
“I might have to ride over to Halfway and pay a visit to the Thurmans, see how they’re doin’,” Buck said, bringing Gabe’s attention back to the present.
“I’ll ride along,” Rafe said. “Haven’t seen Dave for a while. It’d be good to pay him a call. Besides, I’m not interested in huckleberry picking or picnics.”
Buck accepted the offer with a grin and a nod. “Good, we’ll let Van, Gabe, and Cornell escort the ladies tomorrow.”
From the porch, Gabe saw the ladies come up the lane, returning from their swim. He waited for Birdie and Jo to enter the house from the back and for a light to come on in Edditha’s cabin.
Buck, Rafe, Van, and Cornell rose from their places at the table, eager to have their turn for a late-night swim. Gabe hung back, intending to wish his fiancée goodnight.
He knocked on her cabin door and when she opened it, her hair unbound and wearing a dressing-gown of blue jersey, he felt a jolt of desire and instinctively reached for her hand to draw her into an embrace.
Just as instinctively, Edditha stopped his impulsive attempt with her hand going to his chest to hold him at bay. He’d started courting Edditha seven long months ago. In all that time, he’d never really embraced the woman. Oh, he’d had his hands on her waist during a waltz, and she’d allowed an awkward joining of arms during their brief encounters of lips upon cheek, or briefer still, lips touching lips upon greeting or saying goodbye. Tonight, he felt compelled to take Edditha in his arms and kiss the hell out of her. Tonight the devil challenged him to set her on fire. He wanted to inspire her to seek his embrace, his kiss, ignite passion.
“Let me hold you, Edditha,” he heard himself beg. His hands enfolded her cool fingers between his own. “You’re lovely in the moonlight with your hair down. You should wear it down more often.”
“You shouldn’t see me like this, all undone. It isn’t at all proper.” She moved to the side of the door and tugged her hands free to pull her robe closer about her.
Gabe tipped her face up. “We’re going to be married, Edditha…man and wife. I’ll see you with your hair down and in your dressing gown every night.”
Unable to look him in the eyes, she fluttered her eyelashes and said with a little shake of her head, “Not every night…surely not every night, Gabriel.”
“Well, we’ll sleep in the same bed,” he declared, suddenly ill at ease with the direction this conversation had taken. Once again, he tried to take her in his arms to kiss her and taste her lips, but she evaded his intent with a shake of her head.
“The same bed—oh no, I couldn’t. I’ll want my own bed. I’ll want my own room, Gabe. You’ll have your room, and I’ll have mine. We’ll want our privacy. Now,” she said, giving him a patronizing little pat on the chest. “I’m tired. I need some sleep. We have a big day planned tomorrow, and I don’t want to be too tired to enjoy it. The hot spring is lovely, very relaxing. I don’t swim, but I had fun with your sister and Birdie.
“Mother told me Mr. Buxton once ran this place as a brothel. Doreen worked here plying her trade. I found the notion intriguing, naughty, but intriguing all the same. I can’t imagine Doreen as a prostitute. She seems so matronly and genuine, truly a lovely woman, not at all coarse or crass as I would expect.
“We come from very different backgrounds, Gabe. I hadn’t realized. Mother knew all about you and your family. I’m glad I came. I can’t wait to see more of your home and learn more of your family. I should be angry with Mother for keeping secrets and with you for not telling me about you and your family. I think you should have trusted me to understand, Gabe. Let’s not keep secrets from one another.”
Gabe dropped his hands to his side and stood stiff as a post, unable to respond. What could he have told her? How could he have explained?
As for his future existence as husband to Edditha, it rose up before his mind’s eye a rather cold, lonely, and unfulfilling picture. Surely he could change, convince Edditha intimacy between a man and a wife would be preferable to, to…stark cohabitation.
Well, he’d start changing her mind tonight. Pulling her into his chest, he put his lips to hers. Startled, her mouth opened and he inserted his tongue. She struggled a bit at first and whimpered, but then she stopped resisting, growing stiff as a poker with her breath coming in short little huffs of indignation. And he realized he’d botched it, he’d made her angry. He let her go—it was no use.
Managing to shrug him off with a little giggle, she said, “I believe there is a bit of your father in you after all, Gabriel Buxton. The man they hung that is.”
He knew she’d meant it as a joke, but her thrust went deep. He hated being compared to his birth-father in any way. His sire’s disreputable reputation prevented him from defending himself against bullies and taunts his whole life for fear he’d be judged just like him.
In response to Edditha’s thoughtless comparison, he lashed out. “I don’t want to sleep alone, Edditha. My wife will sleep beside me every night. I sleep in the raw. Always have.”
He stalked out into the black of night, going he didn’t know where. Taking long strides, he kept marching, bypassing the hot spring with the sounds of his father’s laughter in his ears. Not Buck’s laughter, but the father he never knew but had heard of, a jeering laugh, an evil laugh. He didn’t stop walking until he entered the canyon, and then he realized his destination. He was headed for Petra’s boulder. Petra’s boulder, the place of his birth, the place he’d always retreated to when his mind wouldn’t let him rest.