Chapter 12 #2
Here. Where there’s nowhere for her to sit.
Except for… “C’mon.” There’s a giant oak nearby that’s probably a hundred years or so, judging by the sprawling roots and branches that hang low and wide, but they’re still too high for her with a baby in tow.
Instead, I take Mara’s elbow and lead her to the leftover stump of another close tree that was struck by lightning last year.
“Not the fanciest, but it’ll do in a pinch, I’m supposing. ”
Emmaline’s cries soon quiet when she gets what she wants.
There’s not too much of her in view besides her dark fluff of hair because of how Mara situates the blanket to keep her warm.
I don’t rightly know where exactly to put my eyes, but I guess that’s okay because they sure seem to make themselves at home by traveling down her neck and resting on a sliver of bare skin.
And God forgive me for these lustful thoughts creeping in about my wife’s chest when she’s very clearly still traumatized from her past, but I’ll be damned if she doesn’t have the prettiest pair of breasts I’ve ever seen.
Which, granted, hasn’t been many.
Actually, if I’m being entirely honest, it’s none.
Or at least not all the way. None beyond what spilled out of the scooped necklines of flirting girls at town socials.
While I may have taken a peek like any curious, red-blooded man would, looking’s all I’ve ever done besides a few kisses here and there.
So I’m very much looking forward to getting acquainted with Mara’s breasts and lips once she’s ready.
But I better quit thinking about those full, smooth beauties because feeling this way after what she told me before would make me a sick man, and that’s the last thing I—
Too late.
Shit.
I attempt to discreetly adjust the thickening bulge in my trousers, but the damn thing only throbs with a rush of intensity because it’s being touched.
Doesn’t matter that it’s my own hand doing the touching.
Damn it, I can’t be feeling this way when she’s feeding our daughter.
That’s just wrong. Gotta think of something the opposite of Mara.
Old instead of young.
Wrinkled instead of smooth.
Hunched over instead of—fuck.
Yep. That did it.
Thoughts of Old Widow Hester without any clothes are enough to kill even the strongest man’s desire. I drag my gaze up to Mara’s face, and it’s then that I notice her uncomfortable expression and the slight slump to her shoulders. “What’s wrong?”
Her lips curve in subdued longsuffering. “I just never realized how much the rocking chair supported my back now that I don’t have it.”
“Oh, I can fix that right up for you, darlin’.” Real easily. I straddle the stump behind her and pat my thighs. “Lean on back here and I’ll hold you.”
“Are you sure?”
My hands grip her hips in answer and help her scoot back.
When the slight weight of her finally meets my front, my cock surges once again at the soft press of her backside.
I glare at the bulge fighting to free itself.
Damn thing’s gonna have to be patient enough until I can get some time to myself to strangle it into temporary release.
“Fuck.” The quiet curse leaves me as I shift and angle it upwards so it doesn’t poke her.
“Are you okay?” She turns slightly, but I stop her before she can move any further and worsen the situation.
“F-fine. Just fine.” Voice strained, I pat her hips and urge her back around. “Just…have a cramp.”
Yeah. A damn cramp because of the confines of my pants. Goddammit, am I gonna have to think of old wrinkly hands to kill my erection every time? Gnarled fingers stroking me and—
Shit.
It worked, but it wasn’t pleasant. I hide my grimace in Mara’s hair, but the soft scent of roses doesn’t bode well for my lower half.
I need to calm down, so I slip my arms beneath hers so we both hold our baby.
There we go. Much better. Our breathing patterns gradually match up as she fully relaxes into me and loses the tension in her shoulders.
Knowing she trusts me to hold her like this as she feeds our child makes me want to beat my chest and yell to the world that my wife is finally softening towards me.
Now that I’m holding the both of them, I never want to let go.
“Look.” I softly nudge her with my chin until she notices the family of squirrels chasing each other through the oak tree.
“They look so happy.” Her lips tip upward. “Can you imagine what life will be like when Emmaline learns to walk and needs chasing after?”
“She’ll keep us busy, no doubt.” I chuckle and shove away the urge to say we might have another baby on the way by then.
Pretty presumptuous thinking considering I haven’t even kissed my wife yet.
Mara sighs as she rests her head against me and closes her eyes.
Her scowl is one of the cutest things about her, but seeing her at peace…
damn. It feels nice. “Do you know how right this feels with both of you in my arms, wife?”
She’s quiet for long seconds. “Do you know that I never wanted to willingly be in the arms of another man ever again? That I was ready to kill myself and Emmaline to make sure of it?”
Painful outrage comes back full force and stabs into my heart.
I knew it. Knew there wasn’t an innocent reason for her to be looking at that knife like that, and she just outright confirmed it.
She was so small, so wounded with that small pocketknife in hand and hopeless despair heavy on her face.
I shove my feelings down and hold her tighter to keep myself calm.
“Do you know how heartbroken I’d be if I hadn’t been there to stop you? ”
Silky strands of her hair brush against my chin as she tips back to look at me, trust shimmering in the depths of her unearthly blue eyes. “I was angry at you because you stopped me when I was so close. So close to finding freedom in death. But then you gave me a different kind of freedom.”
“Mara.” Roughly clearing my throat, I slide a hand up to cup her face. “You don’t have to tell me now, but one day, I want to know more about you. About where you came from and what happened to you. Anything and everything you want to tell me.”
My arm drops when she turns to switch Emmaline to her other breast. Maybe she’ll give me something and maybe she won’t, but either way, she’s in my arms. Right where she needs to be.
But she doesn’t say anything.
At least not until Emmaline’s finished and burped and securely wrapped to her chest again.
“I was raised by missionaries,” she starts off quietly, staring at some bare trees in the distance as she runs her fingers through our baby’s hair.
“The Overstreets. I don’t remember any sort of life before them.
Mrs. Overstreet always told me I was given up at birth, and she made sure I knew at every turn that it was only because of the Christian kindness of their hearts that she and her husband took me in.
Mara, they called me. It means bitter. Because I was a bitter reminder from the Lord to care for the poor and orphaned. ”
“Sounds like they only wanted recognition from their parishioners for their self-righteous works.” Then another thought hits me. “Did they hurt you?”
“Not physically, but I was never loved by them, either. They were an older couple and had one child of their own. Neil.”
At the level of revulsion in her voice, the back of my neck prickles and a heavy weight knots up my stomach. “And how old was this…this Neil?” I ask evenly. I already didn’t like the parents, but I want to find this sonofabitch and kill him for making her feel like this.
“At least fifteen years older than me and addicted to the devil’s cards.
He wasn’t around too much when I was growing up, but then Reverend Overstreet died, and Mrs. Overstreet and I went to live with him.
Not too long afterwards, she died, too. And then…
” Her voice trails off. “Then it was just me and Neil.”
I already know this story won’t end well.
Not with how I found her. Goddammit. The anger I pushed away earlier seeps back in.
I don’t even feel my knee bouncing in agitation until Mara rests a hand on it.
“Sorry,” I mutter, threading our fingers without realizing it.
I underestimated how hard it’d be to listen to her tell me these things, but if she can endure reliving it, then I sure as hell am gonna be right there with her. “How old were you then?”
A pause, then a soft, “Thirteen or fourteen. The Overstreets took me in when the chrysanthemums at their house died in the fall, so I always used that as a sign of a year passing.”
Nausea creeps up my throat at the mention of her young age, but I swallow it down…only to remember the storm a week ago.
The chrysanthemums were more than well on their way to dying, and if that’s what she marked her birthdays with, no wonder she punched the porch steps. I’m gonna make damn sure she has something better for the rest of her birthdays. No more dying chrysanthemums.
“Things weren’t too bad at first. But then came the looks. Then the touching.”
“Jesus Christ,” I rasp. A consuming rage and a violent need to protect the young, innocent girl my wife once was from the man who abused her burns in my veins.
“It’s okay, Warren.” Mara pats my hand, and the small touch brings the bitter taste of guilt to my tongue. How is it she’s the one comforting me when it’s her nightmare of a story? “It was a long time ago.”
But now her tone turns flat and distant. As if this trauma had happened to someone else and not herself. “And then the first nighttime visit happened. By the time he lost me in a poker game a few months later, I understood all too well what happened when a man decided he wanted a woman.”