Tears filled Brianna’s eyes even as she smiled. “I prayed for a miracle that day. The rent was due the following Monday morning, and I was a dollar short. Making so little per hour, I knew I couldn’t come up with it, so I prayed for a miracle. Not a big miracle, only a little one, and instead God sent me you.”
David snorted with laughter. The sound was contagious, and soon they lay wrapped in each other’s arms, laughing like fools. When the hilarity subsided, Brianna sighed and wiped her eyes. “I thought God had lost his mind, I truly did, but now, looking back on it, I know he answered my prayer with a wondrous miracle named David Paxton.”
“Ah, sweetheart. That makes two of us. Having you in my life is a miracle for me, too.” He lay quiet for a moment, toying with her hair. “Back to Boston when you were wandering the streets and praying for help. What kind of answer did God send you?”
“A job as a barmaid.”
“What?”
“I saw a sign on the door, and I was so desperate that I went in. The owner was a kindly, hunch-shouldered old fellow. A room came with the position. It was just off the main pub area and quite small, but it was warm and dry. Even more wonderful, the man loved babies and knew quite a lot more about them than I did. He was the father of seven and had twenty-three grandchildren. He said Daphne had colic because of the cow’s milk. He handed me money and told me where I could get goat’s milk. He also told me to stop off at the apothecary shop for some spirit of peppermint, which helps settle a baby’s stomach. I was afraid to leave Daphne with him, but he refused to let me take her back out into the freezing rain. I was terrified he might harm her, but he gave me no choice, so I left her with him. When I got back, he was waiting on tables with my baby sound asleep on his shoulder.
“Daphne seldom slept. I couldn’t believe my eyes. Come to find out, he’d dipped his finger in whiskey and let her suckle it off. He didn’t give her a lot, only enough to ease her tummy pain, and she slept as if there was no tomorrow. When she woke up, I gave her warm water laced with drops of peppermint before I fed her the goat’s milk. She never cried with colic again.”
Brianna felt David’s mouth curve in a smile against her hair. “So you had a happy answer from God.” He waited a beat. “But I’ve got a bad feeling not all of it was good. Am I right?”
Brianna told him of the nights when she’d been attacked by bar patrons, and how the owner had clubbed them off to save her from being raped. Then she went on to tell him about looking in the classifieds for another position.
“When I saw Ricker’s job post, I thought it would be perfect. I could work and have Daphne with me in a home environment. He wanted an all-around housekeeper and tutor for his sons. I had helped teach at the orphanage as I grew older, but I didn’t know much about cooking. I had, however, worked doing meal preparation in the orphanage kitchen, and I figured I could learn about farm animals. He wanted a young widow, with or without a child. By then, I knew how vulnerable a single young woman was, so I decided to dream up an errant husband who might resurface at any time. Across the street from the bar, there was a hardware shop called David Saxton’s. I felt funny about using a real name for my fake husband, so I changed the last name to Paxton. Ricker lived in Colorado, so I thought he might like it if I had once lived in Colorado.”
“So you dreamed up a place called Taffeta Falls?”
Brianna could laugh about that now. “Actually, until I met a very rude, relentless desperado named David Paxton, no one ever asked me where my pretend husband’s ranch had been located.” She sighed. “With my trumped-up qualifications, I got the position with Ricker. He sent traveling funds for me and Daphne. I took some of my money to buy a wedding band at a pawn shop, and off I went to Glory Ridge, with my story well memorized.”
“And then all didn’t go well.”
She smiled at the memory. “I burned the food I tried to cook. I was terrified of the cow. The chickens pecked my hands bloody. I’m certain Charles would have fired me if he hadn’t been worried about tossing a young woman and baby out on the streets in the dead of winter. He’s a horrible man who used to whip his boys until they bled. But he worried about appearances and what people in town would think if he threw me out. I worked hard to learn how to do everything, and he worked equally hard at getting me to warm his bed. He would corner me when I least expected it, and one time I almost didn’t get away. After that, I always carried a knife in my skirt pocket, buried deep in a potato so I wouldn’t cut myself accidentally, and the next time he came after me, I put the blade to his throat.”
“Sweet Christ.”
Brianna smiled slightly. “I sharpened that knife every night after supper. He knew he’d be a dead man if he ever tried to touch me again. I also kept a chair wedged under my bedroom doorknob at night. We got along well enough after that, but he never turned loose of the idea of getting rid of me. I was a sore disappointment because I spurned his advances. He made me write letters once a week to my husband, David Paxton, who mined for gold in Denver. He dictated what I was to say, and I could only pray there was no one in Denver with the same name.”
David chuckled. “There wasn’t, but he did live thirty miles south of there.”
“Yes, well, for a good many years, he never surfaced. After I became a good cook and farm helper, Charles resigned himself to keeping me on and went to town once a week to take care of his manly needs. During that time, he only occasionally insisted that I write to my husband, begging him to come for me and our daughter. Then, suddenly, he went to town more often and started making me write once a week again. He’d met a woman he wanted to marry.”
“And when he got hitched, he finally booted you and Daphne out.”
“Yes. That was frightening. I’d saved a bit over the years at Ricker’s, so I was able to rent an attic room in the boardinghouse and purchase all the little things Daphne and I needed to call it home. She was old enough by then to be left alone. I hated doing that—leaving her, I mean—but necessity dictated. I did odd jobs, got hired to clean the restaurant at night, and landed a position with Abigail sewing.” Brianna curled closer to David’s warmth. “Adam Parks, the restaurateur, was supposedly a happily married man, but he had a wandering eye. He often returned to the restaurant late at night to bedevil me. One night, I clouted him on the head with a frying pan.”
David said nothing for so long that Brianna wondered if he’d fallen asleep. “So tell me, Shamrock, how come you stifle your true nature, turn up your nose at nonsense, and always try so hard to be a perfect lady?”
“I promised.” Brianna’s throat went tight and scratchy. “When Moira was dying, I swore to raise Daphne for her. From the time we were little, Moira was a perfect lady, and I always fell short. When she drew her last breath and I took Daphne from her arms, I knew I needed to become like my twin in order to raise her daughter properly.”
Again, David was quiet for a long while. Then he said, “So you stifle Brianna and try to be Moira.”
“Brianna made stupid mistakes. She was rebellious and selfish. In the end, she was responsible for her sister’s death. I was glad to tell her good-bye. All she brought was pain and suffering.”
“Why do you think Moira entrusted you with her baby, Shamrock?”
“Because we were twins, and Moira knew I’d love Daphne as much as she would.”
“Did you ever stop to think maybe it was because you were all the things Moira wished she could be?”
Brianna lay still, thinking back. “She used to say we were incomplete without each other, that she was the calm, sensible one, and I was the adventurous, brave one. Together we created a perfect balance and could do anything.”
“So when Moira died, you decided to be like her, and in the doing, you abandoned the perfect balance.”
Brianna had never thought of it that way. David cuddled her close. “There’s nothing wrong with trying to copy Moira’s ladylike behavior, but if you toss away all of Brianna, you’re a lopsided person. You need to
show Daphne how to be a lady, but you also need to show her that having fun and laughing and being silly aren’t wrong. Otherwise, you’re raising her to be half of what she should be.”
Brianna felt a moment of panic. “I don’t know how to be Brianna anymore, David. She was wild, irresponsible, selfish, and thoughtless. I’m not sure I even want to be that person again.”
“Ah, but without her, the Moira you’re pretending to be is a wet blanket.”
“A what?”
He nuzzled her ear. “A wet blanket, what you toss on a flame to put it out. Life is no fun without a little fire, Shamrock, and as a kid growing up with Moira, you were the fire. You owe it to Daphne to let her come to know both you and her mother. Otherwise, she’ll never become the wonderful woman she should be. Does that make any sense?”
To Brianna, it made a horrible kind of sense. “She’s rejecting Moira and becoming me,” she whispered. “I see it in her all the time—headstrong, rebellious, always questioning the why of everything.”
“The only reason she rebels is because you’ve forgotten how to have fun.” He pressed his face against her hair, as if to soften the blow of those words. “In the morning, I’m going to teach you how to let loose again, to let the real Shamrock come through, but for tonight, I have another kind of lesson in mind.” His voice had gone husky. “You ready to learn?”
“What are you going to teach me?” she asked.
“How to make love, sweetheart. No taking, no force, just sweet, fabulous sharing. You ready to go there with me?”
There was no other man on earth she wanted to be her guide. “Yes, I’m ready. Still a little nervous, but, yes, I am ready.”
He shifted, let go of her and sprang off the bed, exhibiting that incredible strength and agility she admired. Holding out a big hand to her, he said, “Of your own free will, come to me.”
Brianna struggled to a sitting position, held out her hand, and with that fabulous anchor of steely weight, he lifted her to her feet, the forward momentum carrying her into his arms. She instantly felt at home against him. His heat surrounded her. His strength buoyed her. She knew in that moment that she’d never feel afraid of a man again, because David would be there to protect her.
“I love you so much, David,” she murmured. “You sneaked up on me, kind of like influenza, a symptom here and a symptom there, until I realized I was a goner.”
He laughed and then curled himself around her. “You, my high-minded lady, are the best case of flu I’ve ever had.”
Brianna felt exactly the same. If he was a disease, she wanted him to infect every cell of her body. She felt her gown slip to the floor. Then David’s hands went to work on her stays. When she started to say something, he covered her mouth with his, and she sank into the wet satin heat, startled at first by the invasion of his tongue, and then lost in the sensations he aroused within her. Somehow her corset fell away. Next her underskirts and bloomers departed, forming puddles on the floor with her other garments. He had finally divested her of everything but her chemise.
Nervous but not really frightened, Brianna caught his dark face between her hands, marveling at how pale her skin was next to his in the lantern light. Locking gazes with him—and, oh, my, she’d never seen his eyes in the heat of passion, darkening to a gunmetal blue that danced with sparks—she whispered, “Please do remember I’ve never done this.”
He nibbled at the corner of her mouth, suckled at the V of her collarbone. “Neither have I, never with anyone I loved, anyhow. Just trust me, Shamrock. Can you do that? Forget everything and just come with me.”
Her lungs grabbing for air, Brianna clung to him as if she’d been swept off the lily pad and was going under for the third time. “Just say you won’t hurt me.”
His mouth, warm and moist, found her bare shoulder. “I can’t promise that, darlin’, not with this being your first time. But I can promise that I’ll make it as painless as I can.”
Visions of Moira after the rape flashed through Brianna’s mind, but then David’s gentle hands were there, and the images dimmed, and when she searched his face, his chiseled countenance and those compelling eyes became her only reality.
“Just turn loose, Shamrock,” he whispered, “and be with me.”
He swept her up into his arms and laid her on the bed again. She felt exposed. Her chemise had drifted up, but when she started to cover herself, he touched a fingertip to her wrist. “No, don’t do that. If you’re feeling shy, I’ll dim the lamp.”
He lowered the wick, and then he started to strip. Off went the duster, then his shirt. Brianna couldn’t jerk her gaze away from his chest—rippling mounds where she had breasts, striated muscle across his abdomen where she was soft and pliant. With quick flicks of his wrists, he took off his gun belt and draped it over the footboards. Next he took off his belt. Then he sat on the edge of the mattress to kick off his boots. Even in the dimmer light, she could see the play of strength across his back, large tendons and muscle bunching in his shoulder area, the massiveness tapering to a slender waist.
When he stood to kick off his pants, Brianna closed her eyes, afraid she might panic if she saw his erect manhood. But then he lowered himself onto the bed beside her, and his arms were around her, and she felt the throbbing hardness of him against her thigh, as silken on the surface as polished satin, but rodlike under the softness. She wondered fleetingly how something that big could possibly fit inside her. But then David made her forget that and everything else. He was there, all around her, his mouth, his voice, his strength, and his solid heat.
He tugged loose the front ribbons of her chemise, baring her breasts, and when he caught her aching nipple between his lips, she thought she might die of pleasure. Electrical zings shot through her body, pooling like blue fire low in her core. She could barely breathe. She made fists in his hair, inviting him to sample her other breast. Through half-opened eyes, she tried to take him in visually, the bronze gleam of his arms and shoulders, the mat of gold hair across his chest, but mostly all she could focus on was the feel of him.
“I love you,” he whispered, his voice gone hoarse with desire.
And then his hand found that private place between her thighs. Brianna gasped and her spine snapped taut. David used his weight to ride her back down to the mattress and touched her there, on that most sensitive area, until her nerve endings bunched, urgency built within her, and her breath came in jagged bursts as she raised her hips toward his hand, wanting more and more.
He gave it to her. Tumbling off the lily pad into the waves. She floated up, dived right, soared left, and the electrical ribbons of pleasure turned white-hot as the storm surrounded her. She didn’t want to surface. Instead she arched, clinging to his shoulders. He buried his face in the lee of her neck. She felt out of control, distantly alarmed. Never in her life had she experienced anything like this.
“Go with me,” he whispered near her ear. “Shamrock, turn loose. Trust me. Just go with me.”
She remembered how he’d made such beautiful music on the prairie with his fiddle, his big hands expertly wielding the bow and pressing the strings, filling the night with magic. She stopped fighting and offered herself up to him. He didn’t disappoint. Each touch of his fingertips, each stroke of his hands, each pull of his mouth made her pulse race faster, a fever pitch of need building within her. As if he knew, he increased the pressure and pace. Her body jerked and trembled. He took her higher and higher until she came apart with indescribable pleasure. She felt like a ray of light that exploded into hundreds of brilliant shards that began to trickle in fading bursts back to earth to land safely in David’s arms.
He trailed kisses across her face and whispered to her. And then she saw him, magnificent in the dim glow of the lantern light, rising above her. For just an instant, she clamped her thighs together, fearing what was to come, memories of Moira invading her passion-drugged senses again. But then she found David’s eyes, glassy and nearly black with desire, and all the fear l
eft her. This was her David, the man who’d stood against three roughriders to protect her and her daughter, willing to sacrifice his life for them. How could she feel afraid of him, even for a second?
He poised himself over her, his knotted fists buried in the down mattress, his muscular body arched over hers, his eyes blazing as he met her gaze. Every inch of him quivered with restraint. “If you’re afraid, I’ll stop,” he said raggedly. “This first time, I don’t want you to feel frightened.”
Brianna realized then that he truly would stop, and love for this marvelous, incredible man flooded through her, turning her bones to hot syrup. She realized he might pull away, and she grasped his hips, wanting to experience it all. Locking eyes with him, she lifted herself up. Moira’s ghost turned loose of her, and for the first time in years, Brianna allowed her true, adventurous self to take over. “I’m not afraid. You asked me to come with you. Don’t back out now.”
He gave a harsh, broken laugh, and then he nudged his manhood against her opening. Brianna let her thighs part, trusting him as she’d never trusted anyone. He pushed in a little way and then stopped, his blue eyes fixed on hers, his body trembling with a need he refused to satisfy.
“You okay, Shamrock? I don’t want to hurt you, and I know I will.”
Brianna thrust up with her hips, hard and fast, taking the choice away from him. Pain. She sucked in air, stiffened, rode it out, and then sighed softly as the first onslaught became a dull ache.
Clutching his thick, hard upper arms, she whispered raggedly, “Come with me, David. Don’t turn lily-livered on me now. Come with me.”