"Because I'm not very pretty. And I'm pregnant and awkward."
He cradled her cheek tenderly. "No ... no. You're a beautiful person. I saw that the first morning I was here."
She held the back of his hand and hid her eyes in its palm. These things were easier to admit behind closed eyes. "And I'm not very bright, and maybe I'm crazy. You knew all that."
He made her lift her chin and look at him. "But I killed a woman. And I've been in prison and in whorehouses. You knew that."
"That was a long time ago."
"Most people never forget."
"I thought because it was Glendon's baby inside me you wouldn't want to touch me.''
"What does that have to do with anything?"
Her heart seemed too small to contain such joy. "Oh, Will."
He asked, "Could I touch it once? Your stomach? I never touched a woman who was pregnant."
She felt warm and shy but nodded.
His hands molded the sides of her stomach as if it were a bouquet of crushable flowers. "It's hard ... you're hard. I thought it'd be soft. Oh God, Elly, you feel so good."
"So do you." She touched his hair, thick and springy and smelling of his unmistakable individual scent. "I've missed this."
He closed his eyes and gave her license. If he lived to be a thousand he'd never get enough of the feeling of her hands in his hair.
In time he let his eyes drift open and they lay for minutes, gazing, taking their fill. She of his incredible eyes and jumbled hair. He of her softly swollen lips and green, green eyes. He found himself unreasonably jealous of her early years with Glendon Dinsmore. "Do you still think of him?"
"I haven't for weeks."
"I thought you still loved him."
She drew courage and repeated his words. "What does that have to do with anything? Do you think I'll love this baby any less, just because two others came before it?"
He braced up on an elbow, stared at her and swallowed. He felt as if a great fist had closed around his chest. When he spoke the words sounded pinched. "Elly, nobody ever—" Abashed, he couldn't go on.
"Nobody ever loved you before?" She tenderly cupped his cheek. "Well, I do."
His eyes slid closed and he turned his mouth hard into her palm, clasping it to his face. "Nobody. Ever," he reiterated. "Not in my whole life. No mother, no woman, no man."
"Well, your life ain't even half over yet, Will Parker. The second half's gonna be much better'n the first, I promise."
"Oh, Elly..." Above all the things he'd missed, this had left the greatest void. Just once in his life he wanted to hear it, the way he'd dreamed of hearing it during five long years in a cell, and all the lonely years he had drifted, and all through childhood while he watched other children—the lucky ones—pass the orphanage and gawk from the security of their parents' carriages and cars. "Could you say it once," he entreated, "like they say people do?"
Her heart beat like the wings of an eagle, taking her soaring as she spoke the words. "I love you, Will Parker."
The sting hit his eyelids and he hung his head because nobody had prepared him for this, nobody had said, When it happens you'll be resurrected. All that you were you will not be. All that you weren't, you are. He lunged against her, burying his face above her breasts, holding fast. "Oh, God..." he groaned. "Oh, God."
She held his head as if he were a child awakening from a bad dream.
"I love you," she whispered against his hair, feeling her own tears build.
"Oh, Elly, I love you, too," he uttered in a broken voice, "but I was so afraid nobody could love me. I thought maybe I was unlovable."
"Oh no, Will ... no ... not you." His bittersweet words filled her with the deep wish to heal, left her throat aching as she curled around him, held his head protectively and felt him breathe against her breasts. She threaded her hands through his hair and felt him grow still with pleasure. She raked her nails over his skull in long, slow sweeps ... time ... and time ... and time again, lifting his scent, memorizing it, impressing it forever in her senses. His hair was thick, coarse, the color of dry grass. It had grown since she'd cut it, became shaggy at the neck where she brushed it up from his nape, then smoothed it before beginning another long, sensuous stroke at the crown of his head. He shivered and made a sound of gratification, deep in his throat.
His whole life he'd longed for someone to touch him this way, to touch the boy in him as well as the man, to soothe, reassure. The feel of her fingers in his hair brought back a measure of all he'd missed. He was parched earth, she fresh rain. He, a waiting vessel, she rich wine. And in those moments of closeness she filled him, filled all the lacks endowed him by his shiftless, loner's life, becoming at once all the things he'd needed—mother, father, friend, wife, and lover.
When he felt sated he lifted his head as if drunk with pleasure.
"I used to watch you touch the boys that way. I wanted to say, Touch me, too, like you touch them. Nobody ever did that to me before, Elly."
"I'll do it anytime you like. Wash your hair, comb it, rub your back, hold your hand—"
His mouth stopped her words. It seemed risky to accept too much in this first, grand rush. He kissed her with gratitude changing swiftly to the lushness of fresh-sprung love. He braced higher and pushed her softly into the pillow, letting his hand rove over her neck and shoulder, suckling her mouth, spreading his fingers on her face, resting a thumb so near it almost became part of the kiss. His body beckoned to join more fully in this union. Realizing this was impossible, he broke the kiss but spanned her throat with his hand. Her pulsebeat matched the quickness of his own.
"You know how long I've loved you?"
"How long?"
"Since the day you threw the egg at me."
"All that time and you never said anything. Oh, Will..."
A swift slew of possessiveness hit him. He claimed her mouth again, washing its interior with his tongue, holding her arms locked hard around his neck. He bit her lips. She bit back. He lifted a knee and pressed it high and hard between her legs. She opened them and squeezed his thigh. He circled her immense waist and held her as if forever.
"Tell me again." he demanded insatiably.
"What?" she teased.
"You know. Tell me."
"I love you."
"Once more. I got to hear it more."
"I love you."
"Will you get tired of me asking you to say it?"
"You won't have to ask."
"Neither will you. I love you." Another kiss—a hard, short stamp of possession, then a question filled with boyish impatience. "When did you know?"
"I don't know. It just came upon me."
"When we got married?"
"No.''
"When we bottled the honey?"
"Maybe."
"Well, sure's heck not when you threw that egg."
She chuckled. "But I noticed your bare chest for the first time that day and I liked it."
"My chest?"
"Aha."
"You liked my chest before you liked me?"
"When you were washing, down by the well."
"Touch it." Jubilantly he flattened her hand against it. "Touch me anyplace. God, do you know how long it's been since a woman touched me?"
"Will..." she chided timidly.
"Are you shy? Don't be shy. I thought I was, too, but all of a sudden it seems like we got so much time to make up for. Touch me. No, wait. Get up. First I gotta see you." He piled onto his knees and pulled her up to kneel before him, holding her hands out from her sides. "Mercy, are you a pretty sight. Let me look at you." Her chin dropped shyly and he lifted it, pressed the tousled hair back from her temples, then fluffed it with his fingertips and arranged it on her collar-bones. "You mean I don't have to sneak anymore when I want to look at you? You got the greenest eyes. Green is my favorite color, but you knew that."
She folded her hands between her knees, quite overcome by this exuberant, demonstrative Will.
"I used to think if I was ever lucky enough to have a woman of my own, she'd have to have green eyes. Now here you are. You and your green eyes ... and your pink cheeks ... and your pretty little mouth..." With his thumbs he touched its corners and let his hands trail down to her shoulders, to her upper arms where they stopped. "Elly," he whispered, "don't move." He slipped his palms to the sides of her breasts and held them lightly while the blood rushed to her cheeks and she searched for a safe place to rest her gaze. The dim light shifted on the folds of her nightgown as he cupped a breast in each hand, his palms too narrow to contain their prenatal fullness. Gently, he reshaped and lifted, then released them to glide one hand down the fullest part of her belly. There it rested, fingers splayed. He watched the hand, soon joined by the other to smooth the cloth toward her hips where he held it taut, disclosing the impression of her distended navel. Bending, he kissed her. There. On the stomach she'd thought ugly enough to put him off.
"Will." She found his chin and attempted to lift it. "I'm fat as a pumpkin. How can you kiss me there?"
He straightened. "You're not fat, you're only pregnant. And if I'm going to deliver that baby I'd better get to know him."
"I thought I married a shy, quiet man."
"I thought so too."
He smiled for the length of three glad heartbeats, then laughed. And wondered if life would ever again be this good. And decided surely tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow it could only get better.
* * *
He was right. He'd never imagined happiness such as he knew in the days and nights that followed. To roll over in sleep and draw her back against him and drift off again in a cocoon of bliss. Or better yet, to roll the other way and feel her follow, then press close behind him. To feel her hand circle his waist, her feet beneath his, her breath on his back. To awaken and find her lying with an elbow beneath her cheek, studying him. To kiss her then in the buttery light of early morning and know that he could do so anytime. To leave her with a goodbye kiss and return anxious. To step into the kitchen and find her working at the sink, glancing shyly over her shoulder then down at her hands until he crossed the room and slipped both hands into her apron pockets and rested his chin on her shoulder. To kiss—over her shoulder—awaiting the exquisite moment when she'd turn and loop her arms up in a welcoming embrace. To eat cake from her fork, braid her hair, refill her coffee cup, watch her embroider. To lean over the sink and shiver while she washed his hair, then wilt on a kitchen chair while she dried, combed and cut it, and sometimes kissed his ear, and sometimes teased him when he dropped off and she had to awaken him with a kiss on the mouth. To walk down the driveway holding hands, pulling the boys in the wagon.
Only one thing disturbed him during those serene days.
Will jumped and swung around, startled by her voice.
"Library's closed, ma'am."
"Well now, I know that. So's the cafe, 'cause I just shut off the light. Thought I'd sashay on over and congratulate you on your new job." She leaned against the doorframe, one arm crossing her waist, the other hand dangling near the white V of her uniform collar. "That's the neighborly thing to do, i'nt it?"
"'Preciate it, ma'am. Now if you'll excuse me, I got work to do."
He squatted again, turning his back, minding the chair. She moved into the windowless room and stood behind him with her knee against his back. "You thought any more about what I said, sugar?" She kneaded the side of his neck. "Man like you makes a girl lay awake nights. Figured maybe you lay awake, too, what with that wife of yours bein' pregnant. No sense in both of us losin' sleep now, is there?"