Harper's Bride Page 15

  Glancing down the street, he saw Belinda Mulrooney's Fairview Hotel. It was said to be a magnificent establishment, just as she'd promised. During her first twenty-four hours of operation, the bar alone took in six thousand dollars. Even if the place did have canvas walls, the dining room was reported to be lavish.

  He took the stairs two at a time and opened the door to find Melissa at her usual spot at the stove. She glanced up at him and smiled, then ducked her head, blushing shyly. She had rebraided her hair, and she wore a clean, starched apron. She was a sweet sight to come home to, he couldn't deny that.

  "I was thinking we might have dinner out tomorrow," he said, stopping at Jenny's cradle to let her grab his finger. The baby grinned at him and gurgled; even she looked better than she had when he first saw her.

  "Out? Do you mean on a picnic?"

  He glanced up. "No, I mean at the Fairview Hotel."

  "Oh, Dylan, really?" Melissa's eyes were wide with excitement, and her smile was as bright as ten candle flames. "I've heard it's a grand place. But what about Jenny?"

  He shrugged. "We'll bring her along. She should be all right. Belinda owes me a couple of favors—she might even have a maid she can spare to watch her for an hour or so."

  "We'll have to dress up, won't we?" she asked, casting a sidelong glance at his buckskins.

  He laughed. "Oh, I might surprise you. I guess you haven't seen all of my clothes." Then he added, "I believe I heard Belinda even has an orchestra playing."

  Melissa's brow furrowed slightly as she stirred the stew. "Do you think they have dancing there?"

  "No, the orchestra is out in the lobby. Why? Is dancing against your religion, or something?"

  Idly, she stirred the pot on the stove. "Well, no, of course not. I just—I don't know how, that's all."

  He went to the table and sat down, afraid that if he didn't he'd be tempted to stand behind her and nuzzle her slender white neck "Really? I thought all girls knew how to dance."

  "There wasn't a lot of call for ballroom dancing where I grew up," she said.

  "It was forced on me when I was a kid. 'No gentleman can conduct himself in society if he cannot properly escort a lady around a ballroom,' he mimicked in a pinched-up voice that made her giggle. It was good to see her smile, he thought.

  "I think we were only told not to use our sleeves for handkerchiefs."

  "Oh, I heard that one too." This scene wasn't far from the one he'd envisioned. Sitting around the kitchen at night after dinner. Talking, laughing, being close. "Would you like to learn? To dance, I mean?"

  "Maybe someday, I guess. I'll get someone to teach me."

  "I'll teach you," he said, and knew he offered only for the chance to hold her.

  "What, you mean now?"

  "Yeah, sure, why not?"

  She looked at him with those clear gray eyes as if he'd lost his senses. "But dinner—"

  "We can take a couple of turns. We'll just be a minute or two."

  "There's no room in here. Don't you need a dance floor to dance?"

  "No, not to learn a few steps."

  "But there's no music."

  "Sure there is. Can't you hear McGinty's piano player next door?"

  Yes, Melissa heard it. The sound was always there, in the background. And Dylan had managed to deflect all of her excuses. But she didn't want to stumble all over his feet and make a fool of herself. Dancing—that had been the last thing on anyone's mind in her old neighborhood.

  He held out his hand to her. "Come on, Melissa. If you won't dance with me, I'll just have to ask Jenny."

  She laughed. "Oh no, you won't. I just fed her and she'll spit up all over you if you jiggle her."

  "Then I guess I'll have to jiggle you. Come on now, don't say no."

  Oh, that teasing grin was so hard to resist. She couldn't imagine what had put him in such a playful mood, but it sure beat an angry, cleaver-wielding man.

  "Well, I suppose . . ." She put down her cooking spoon, and he immediately whisked her into his arms. He cocked his head and listened for a moment.

  "They're playing 'On Top of Old Smokey' down there. Let's see, that's a waltz. Put your left hand here"—he positioned it high on his right arm—"and I'll take your right one here." He closed his fingers around hers and put his other hand on the small of her back. "Now just relax and follow me."

  Relax! As if she could, with the clean, male scent of him drifting to her and his warm arms holding her. He stepped back and pulled her along, but her feet didn't move, and she tumbled against his chest. Had she noticed before how broad it was?

  "Oh, I'm sorry," she gasped, recovering her balance, but not her dignity. Her face turned flame-hot.

  He chuckled. "That's okay, but this time when I step back, you step forward. When I move to my left, you move to your right. You know, just follow along."

  Melissa had grave doubts, but she nodded, unwilling to be released from his grasp just yet.

  He led them through a series of less than graceful maneuvers on the small floor space, her skirts snagging on the chair legs, until the music changed to a much faster tempo and beat. Their movements narrowed to just standing in place and turning in a circle. It all seemed so silly, Melissa got the giggles and couldn't stop. Dylan laughed with her, and finally they collapsed into the chairs at the table.

  "You get the idea," he said, and pushed his hair away from his forehead with both hands. "Kind of."

  "Yes, kind of." It felt so good to actually laugh with someone for a change—to have something to laugh about—and not have to worry about being told to pipe down, damn it. "We'll just have to wait until we have a bigger kitchen to dance in," she added, and than realized how it sounded. "I mean a bigger floor, anyway."

  Dylan's laugher died, but the smile stayed in his eyes as he gave her a contemplative look. It passed so quickly she wasn't sure what she had seen, except she felt as if he been examining her soul with his riveting gaze. "Maybe we'll have a chance to try again someday," he said.

  Pushing herself away from the table, she replied hastily, "I'll finish putting dinner together."

  For the rest of the evening after they ate, Melissa bustled around the small room in a flurry of busyness. Dinner out, in a hotel dining room! And with Dylan. She had eaten in a restaurant only one other time in her life, and that had been in Seattle when Coy relented and let her buy hot tea and a doughnut in a cafe. Surely, this would be more exciting.

  While Dylan sat at the table and held the baby, she brought out her nicest new dress and pressed it carefully. She even ironed a clean dress for Jenny, although she worried that it might be a little small for her—she was growing so fast. Jenny sitting on Dylan's lap looked so natural, she thought. He had endless patience for her, and he genuinely seemed to enjoy entertaining her. Melissa got that little pull at her heart again. If only he were really her father.

  As for her clothes, Melissa had a nice dress to wear, but her heart sank when she realized how functional and bulky her work shoes were. They weren't intended to be worn for a dressy occasion. And she had only two pairs of stockings, both black cotton.

  Thinking back to the day she and Dylan had gone to the marketplace, she remembered seeing all kinds of pretty lingerie for sale—petticoats, corsets, silk stockings. Of course it was disgraceful that it was all out on public display, but just the same it had been lovely. Standing at her ironing board, she could feel the weight of her apron pocket, heavy with gold, against her thigh. She had feared spending even one cent of that dust she'd worked so hard for. It represented her future, which was uncertain at best.

  But tomorrow night would be very special. Maybe she could afford to part with just a little money to buy nice stockings and a pair of dress shoes. And possibly some cologne to go in the atomizer Dylan had bought for her.

  At about ten-thirty, after Jenny was asleep, Dylan stood and stretched. Melissa tried not to stare, but she was fascinated by the way his shirt buttons strained against the lean muscle beneath them.<
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  "Well, I guess I'll go down and have a last look at the store."

  "All right," she responded. This was her time to get ready for bed. When he returned, she would be in her nightgown and lying under the covers with the lamp out.

  But tonight when he closed the door behind him and went downstairs, Jenny woke up squalling. It took Melissa the better part of a half hour of rocking her and walking her and swinging her in her cradle before she settled down again.

  After the baby finally went back to sleep, Melissa stripped down to her chemise and drawers and stood at the porcelain basin to wash. She glanced out the window next to, her. Outside, the early August sky was growing dark; the midnight sun was finally waning and the nights were getting longer. Down in the street the parade continued, and she heard music coming from several of the dance halls and saloons on Front Street.

  Her arms and neck were covered with suds when she heard Dylan coming up the stairs. Oh, God, she thought, as she looked in the mirror at her state of undress. She began splashing water haphazardly, trying to rinse off the soap and dry herself before he came in, but she succeeded only in soaking her chemise in the process.

  The door opened and Melissa jumped, letting out a gasp. There Dylan stood, looking at her as if he'd never seen a woman before, taking in every inch from her bare feet to the top of her head. Looking down she saw that her wet chemise was as transparent as organdie, showing off her nursing breasts and nipples to their fullest. The expression in his eyes was possessive, powerful.

  But it wasn't fear she felt.

  "P-please turn around," she demanded with a shaking voice.

  With a last sweeping glance at her form, he took a deep breath and complied. "I thought you'd be done by now," he said, sounding a little short.

  "I would have been, but the baby woke up, and—"

  "Look, I'll just wait outside on the steps until you're finished. You can call me." He walked out again and slammed the door behind him.

  Melissa scurried to finish her ablutions and shimmied into her nightgown, worried about keeping him outside too long, but almost afraid to let him back in.

  Outside, Dylan flopped down on the top step, resting his elbows on his knees, and tried to ignore the nagging ache in his groin. That image of Melissa—full, ripe breasts, nipples like sweet cherries, a tiny waist, and gently curved hips—burned a picture in his brain that knifed through his heart, bounced down to his crotch, and back again. How the hell was he supposed to go back in there and sleep in the same bed with her and pretend that he hadn't been affected by her? Sullenly, he propped his chin on his hands. He wasn't a monk, but by God he was living like one, and he didn't like it for one damned minute.

  For the briefest moment he thought about visiting one of the prostitutes that had settled over on Second Avenue in the heart of the business district. But he abandoned the idea. It wasn't just physical satisfaction he wanted. He could buy that any hour of the week, except Sundays, of course. He wanted more, and with a sinking feeling he realized that the only woman who could give it to him was Melissa.

  In the soft warmth of her he might find solace and peace, possibly even the sense of belonging he'd craved since he was a kid.

  But making love to Melissa was out of the question. Men needed only the urge to make love. Women needed a reason. And he cared too much about her not to give her a good reason. Where would that leave them? Nothing could come of their pairing. He would be going back to The Dalles, and she would continue with her life, someplace.

  Behind him the door opened a crack. "I'm finished now."

  "Okay," he grumped.

  He heard her bare feet scamper across the plank flooring, and then the ropes under the mattress creaked as she flew into bed.

  He stood up and stretched his back, wishing he had somewhere else to sleep tonight, without the torture of temptation lying next to him. He'd once thought of sending Melissa off to a hotel. Now he wondered if he should be the one to get a room. Tipping back his head to look at the emerging stars, he knew he couldn't do that either.

  He would just have to suffer through it.

  *~*~*

  Had the clock that sat on Dylan's trunk ever sounded so loud? Melissa wondered. She lay in the darkness, listening to the timepiece noisily tick off the minutes that dragged by. The room had a chill tonight, and she burrowed down beneath the light blanket

  She suspected that Dylan was awake as well, and envisioned them lying in his bed like two tailor's dummies, stiff and tense.

  How could she sleep after he'd walked in on her while she was practically in the altogether? It was bound to happen sooner or later, she supposed, considering their tight living quarters. The embarrassment of being seen in her underwear, though, was only a pinprick compared to the other feelings roiling inside her.

  With each passing day, she felt a womanliness ripening within her, a sensation she'd never fully experienced before. Coy had not summoned such feelings, not before she married him and certainly not after. This restlessness, this itchy yearning, seemed to be caused by just one man: Dylan Harper.

  She rolled over, turning her back to the rice sack. But nothing could come of how she felt about him.

  He'd made that plain. And maybe it was for the best.

  Chapter Eleven

  The next day Dylan stood downstairs in the store, feeling as if his eyelids weighed five pounds each and were made of sandpaper. Irritable from lack of sleep, he wished business were a little slower today, but he'd been busy from the moment he unlocked the front door. At least it kept him from going to the side window to look for Melissa.

  "Mister, have you got any tenpenny nails? I'm building me more sluice boxes."

  "Harper, you'd better give me another bottle of that Electricatin' Liniment. My back's killin' me from all that digging, and I used up the last of that stuff on my horse. Oh, and throw in a canned ham while you're at it, and some Eagle's condensed. I ain't payin' no thirty dollars a gallon for fresh milk."

  "You ready to sell me that new hammer I need, Dylan?"

  The goods and gold changed hands at a brisk pace, but Dylan's mind was not on business.

  He thought he must have dozed off sometime during the night, but only after he lay on his side of the rice sack for what seemed like hours. He alternately cursed and blessed the barrier between himself and Melissa. If it hadn't been there, he wasn't sure he would have remained the disinterested gentleman that he'd promised to be that afternoon on the duck-boards outside of the saloon.

  He hadn't talked to Melissa yet today. When he'd left this morning to come down here, she still slept, with the blanket pulled up to the collar of her nightgown. But her pale hair, loose from its braid, had flowed across her pillow and over the edge of the mattress, making him think of a lovely sleeping princess in an old legend.

  He shook his head. Brother, if that wasn't a lot of moony drivel. Tonight he had to sit across the table from her at the Fairview Hotel and pretend that she had no affect on him.

  Just get through this, he told himself again. Just get through this. In a couple of months or so it would all be over. He'd sell this place, buy himself a steamboat ticket back to Portland, and get passage to The Dalles. Melissa Logan would be just a memory of a good deed he'd been talked into.

  At least he hoped so.

  As the afternoon wore on, traffic finally slowed, and he decided he'd close early to go buy himself a bath and a shave. It might not feel altogether bad to dress for dinner again. At least he didn't have to do it every damned day, as he had back home.

  Just as he was about to move the lard bucket he used for a doorstop, Melissa walked in with the baby in her arms. Jenny gave him a big smile that went straight to his heart

  "Oh, are you leaving?" Melissa asked, her delicate brows rising with the question.

  If she was here, he really didn't want to. God, but she was pretty, he thought. She looked better every day, like a neglected flower that had finally found its way to sunlight. A rosy glow tinte
d her cheeks and lips, and her gray eyes were bright and clear. Even her hair seemed to shine. And her clothes only hinted at the lush shape that lay beneath them. Her slender waist would fit perfectly between his hands. Her hips were sweetly curved like the swell of a wave. And those full breasts, ripe with milk . . . Jesus, he was driving himself crazy thinking about her.

  "I was just going to run an errand, but help yourself to anything you want."

  "I didn't come down to shop, Dylan. I'm going upstairs now to get ready for dinner." She glanced at his plain work shirt and at his knife. "I wondered if you wanted me to iron something for you to wear."

  Obviously she still didn't believe he owned anything else but boots and buckskins. "Don't worry, I'll leave the knife at home."

  She flushed a becoming shade of pink. "I didn't mean to sound critical—"

  He pushed the lard bucket away and waved her out the door. "Just think about what you'd like to order for din—"

  "Mr. Harper? Are you Dylan Harper?" A flush-faced young man came running toward them from the street, dodging wagons and pedestrians. He was breathless and looked as though he were coining to report a fire.

  "Yes, I'm Dylan Harper."

  The young man pressed his hand to his side. "I have an urgent message for you." He pulled a folded note from his pocket.

  Dylan felt his heartbeat double in his chest. He grabbed the paper and opened it.

  I would like to see you, my good friend. RD.

  He looked up at the other man. "Did Rafe Dubois give you this?"

  "No, sir. Miss Mulrooney herself put it in my hand. She only said to deliver this note with all possible speed and to tell you that it's urgent. I'm to bring you back to the hotel with me."

  "Dylan?" Melissa questioned worriedly.

  "You and Jenny wait for me here," he told her, not looking up from the spidery handwriting on the note. "I need to find out what this is about."

  But Dylan figured he already knew.

  *~*~*

  At the Fairview Hotel, Dylan followed Belinda's clerk to Rafe's room. This end of the hallway was quiet, although through the front part he could hear the buzz of voices behind what were really nothing more than curtained cubicles with paper glued on.