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“Think you’ve had enough? Liniment, I mean?”
“No,” she said, her voice drowsy. “Not enough.”
His heart somersaulted and the bulge in his jeans hardened into a shaft of granite. Heavens above, he couldn’t take much more of this.
Maybe he’d sleep in the barn tonight.
For another quarter hour he rubbed and sweated and tried to keep his mind off her warm, silky skin and on her sore muscles.
“Thad?”
His hand stilled on the curve of her hip. “Yeah?”
“I should sleep on my stomach tonight.”
“Sure.” His throat was so thick he found that single word hard to articulate.
She wriggled her shoulders. “Would you pull my night robe down again?”
He closed his eyes. “Sure. Whatever you want.”
It was the last thing he wanted to do, but he managed to work the silky garment down to cover her hips. His hands shook more than aspen leaves in a stiff wind.
Yeah, he acknowledged with more than a twinge of regret. Definitely the barn.
Chapter Thirteen
The next morning Leah was so stiff and sore she could not leave her bed. Thad brought her a boiled egg and some toast for breakfast, and for supper a bowl of beans and two of Teddy’s odd-shaped biscuits.
Thad confessed he’d spent the night in the barn and hadn’t slept much.
“You do not need to sleep in the barn,” she had protested.
“I do. I…well, I don’t want to disturb you when you’re hurting.”
She could tell by his voice there was something he was not telling her, but she kept quiet. She thanked God for this steady, caring man; he seemed to like her well enough. She had thought he even liked kissing her, but perhaps she was wrong?
The memory of his mouth moving over hers brought an odd ache below her belly. She wanted him back, lying next to her at night.
Around noon, Teddy poked his head into the bedroom. “Pa ’n’ me are goin’ fishing. Kin I dig up some worms in your garden?”
“Pa and I,” Leah said gently. “Yes, there are lots of worms in the garden. Take a tin can.”
The two were gone all afternoon, and when they returned Teddy showed off his string of five brown trout. “Betcha don’t know how to clean the innards out of a fish, huh, Leah?”
But I do know, she thought. She refrained from challenging the boy; it was progress enough for him to ask politely for the worms.
That evening, Thad rubbed more liniment on her sore back and legs, and in spite of her resolve to stay awake, she drifted off to sleep, smiling into the pillow.
Thad MacAllister was a good man.
That night Thad again decided he couldn’t disturb her. Hell, he wanted to disturb her. He wanted to do more than just lie quietly beside her, but he didn’t feel right about it. Once again, he tramped out to the barn and rolled himself up in worn, musty-smelling blankets.
But he couldn’t sleep for the thoughts roiling in his brain. Physically, it felt right to claim her. But, God help him, emotionally, he felt himself holding back.
He appreciated Leah’s efforts to learn to cook. She kept the house neat and she cared for Teddy. Some days Thad could scarcely believe his good fortune. It didn’t matter to him one whit that she was half Chinese or if she was not as tough and work-hardened as other farm wives. Thad liked Leah for herself alone.
He would try like hell to be worthy of her, to wait until he could commit his whole self to her with no twinge of regret or guilt about Hattie. His conscience would not allow him to make love to Leah and think of Hattie; it wasn’t fair to Leah. He knew in his gut it wouldn’t be right.
In the morning, Teddy plopped down beside him on a hay bale. “Is Leah gonna be okay, Pa?”
Thad jerked. “What? Oh, sure she is.”
The boy’s head drooped. “You weren’t even listening.”
“You’re right, I wasn’t.” Thad touched his son’s shoulder. “Think it’s about time you learned to rope a horse, don’t you?”
The boy bolted to his feet. “Yeah, Pa! You won’t forget, will ya? Like last time? I guess you musta got mad at me or somethin’.”
Thad winced. “No, son. I won’t forget. And I’m not mad at you, I’m just, well…I’ve got things on my mind.”
“’Bout Leah, I bet, huh? He didn’t answer.
Teddy shot him a look of disgust and busied himself with his shoelaces.
The next morning Leah rose at dawn with renewed determination to carve out a place for herself in Smoke River. All her life she had yearned to belong somewhere, really belong. Growing up in China she had never felt accepted by the villagers where she had been taunted and excluded because she was “yang guizi,” a foreign devil. She had never been accepted as the daughter of Franklin Cameron and Ming Sa.
