“But baby…this isn’t the time…”
“Please…”
“Okay, …whatever you want.” She sighed. She walked over to the door, her breasts swinging. She came back and he pulled her down to the bed with one hand. His lips touched her breasts and he laid with her for a long time, kissing, loving, touching, and looking. She was squirming with aches and needs, but knew he couldn’t fulfill those needs right now. He was hurt. But somehow his loving took his mind off his hurting, and she knew that too.
He sighed happily. “A man could find heaven on your breasts. I've dreamed of you pillowing me like this. This is my heaven.”
She blushed.
He smiled, and his hand moved away. “I sure could use a kiss about now.”
She smiled, and lowered herself so she could touch his lips with her own. The moment she did he groaned, and she started to pull away. But he shook his head. “No, don’t go away…”
“I’m not going anywhere, honey, but you are in pain.”
His glance captured hers. “In more ways than one.”
Then he collapsed.
She moved her lips against the hand that caressed her cheek. “Oh…Lee…my sweet, sweet Lee,” she whispered.
She moved away from the bed, and temptation itself. Fastening her shirt, she sat beside the bed, holding his one hand in hers.
She fell asleep as she settled in the rocking chair she’d pulled up against the bed, her hand holding onto his.
It was way into the night before he came to. The kids were asleep, Joe hadn’t returned yet, and he looked very awake as he squeezed her hand.
She wiped her eyes and stared at him with a lazy smile.
He brought her hand to his lips, folding it in his. He smiled as he kissed her.
“From the moment you walked out of those bushes, I knew you were going to be important to me…I just didn’t know how much.” He looked straight into her eyes as he said it. “You had so much spunk and sass. I spent a whole war thinkin’ about you, and tryin’ hard not to, for both our sakes. How I shouldn’t love you, shouldn’t want to be with you. How I could put your life in such danger by loving you, but it changed nothing. When I lost my arm, I dreamt about coming home…to you. I remembered how you said you’d take care of me. But honey, it was your face I saw in my sleep, your face I saw in my dreams. Only you.”
“Oh, Lee…” she gasped. “That’s all I wanted to hear.”
“To think you returned my love. That was more than any man could hope for,” he whispered as he pulled her down so he could kiss her proper on the lips.
She felt herself growing warm and wet and wanting him.
She came up for air only for a moment. “It’s always been you…Lee. Only you! My God, the first time you kissed me, you stole my heart. And if you hadn’t kissed me, it wouldn’t have mattered, I’d have kissed you.”
“God…We have to be together, we have to…” He sighed and passed out once more.
She looked down into his face, brushed the hair from his forehead, bent and kissed him on the lips and admitted aloud, “Yes, my darling Lee, we do, ‘cause I want to have your babies.”
Chapter Ten
The doc spent the better part of the next morning pulling the bullets out of Lee’s shoulder and leg, and bandaging him. As he joined Joe and Hattie in the kitchen, he shook his head.
“I thought he died in the war,” the doc said as he thanked Hattie for the coffee. “It was a pure shock when Joe came into my home last night and told me what had happened.”
“We all did…” Hattie said. “I put a stone up for him…the newspapers said he’d died. I almost wish he’d stayed quiet about being home. This wouldn’t have happened.”
“Joe says the Jeffries are at fault for this…” the doc said, sipping his coffee slowly. “He’s got every right to file charges.”
Hattie brought her cup to the table. “They are at fault…”
“Do you think he’ll file charges, then?” the doc asked, his eyebrows raised.