Mountain Laurel (Montgomery/Taggert 15)

“I don’t like having the woman I love doing things that need spying on, so we’re even.” He softened his voice. “Maddie, I was just trying to protect you. Is that so bad?”

“It is if I don’t want you to protect me. I can take care of myself.”

“Ha! If Hears Good hadn’t sent that arrow flying, that man would have—” He broke off, remembering that man starting to touch her, then he pulled her back into his arms, holding her full length against his body.

“Maddie, let’s not fight. I’ve done what I felt I had to in order to protect you and to find out what was going on in your life. I’ve never meant to offend you in any way.”

Maddie put her hands over her face and started crying again. He held her close as he stroked her back. “Don’t cry, baby, there’s nothing to cry about. All lovers have quarrels.”

With her arms pinned between them, she couldn’t hit him, so she settled for kicking him in the shins.

He gave a grunt of pain. “What was that for?”

“I have more important things to cry about than quarrels with you. And besides that, we’re not lovers. We’re—”

“Yes,” he said softly, “what are we?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know anything anymore. Six months ago I knew exactly who I was and what I wanted in life, but now everything seems different. I can’t seem to figure out anything.”

“That’s the best news I’ve heard. Maybe the best news I’ve ever heard in my life.”

Maybe how she felt was good news to him, but it wasn’t to her. She put her face in the hollow of his shoulder and inhaled of him.

“Does it bother you that we aren’t lovers?” he asked.

“No, of course not. A lady should wait until she’s married. A lady—” She stopped because ’Ring kissed her, and as he did so, he slipped his hand up inside her loose blouse and touched the bare skin of her stomach.

“ ’Ring, I don’t think…”

“Shhh, sweetheart, be still.”

She was quiet as his hand moved up to her breast, cupping it, holding her flesh in his big, warm palm. His thumb touched the peak of her breast. Her breath stopped in her throat. Her eyes closed and she leaned her head back as his lips touched her neck.

“Don’t you have any idea what I’d like to do to you?” There was pain in his voice. “Are you so innocent that you don’t know how much I want you, how long I’ve wanted you?”

“No, I…”

“I didn’t think so. I want you so much that Toby laughs at me. I want to touch you, your skin, your hair. I want to feel the inside of your body. I want to know you, Maddie, know you as well and as completely as any man can know a woman.”

He moved his head so that he could touch her ear with his tongue. His teeth made little nibbling bites and the hairs on Maddie’s body began to stand up straight.

“ ’Ring,” she whispered.

“Yes, baby, I’m here. I’m always here, always near you, always wanting you.”

He was kissing her neck now, but not just kissing it, touching her skin with his tongue. She began to tremble, and when she did, he stopped.

For a moment she lay still in the circle of his arms. She didn’t care if the whole US Army was watching them; she didn’t want him to stop. She put her hand up to his face and tried to pull him down to her.

“No,” he said. “I can’t. I mean, baby, that I’m not made of steel. Although for the last few days parts of me have felt as though they are. I can’t go on. You just be still and go to sleep. Tomorrow we’ll go down the mountain and we’ll have time for privacy.”

Maddie lay still in his arms, and after a moment her trembling stopped and her mind began to function again. She remembered his saying that for a very long time he’d wanted her. If he wanted her so much, how could he stop? Why wasn’t he trembling too?

She lifted her free hand and slowly unbuttoned the top button of his shirt.

“Maddie, what are you doing? You can’t—”

She put her lips on the warm brown skin of his chest, rubbed her face in the hair on his chest, and as she was doing so, she unfastened another button.