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She rose. “I should never have come here.”
Cord didn’t quite know what lit up inside him. Fear. Panic. Love. Whatever it was, it had him grabbing her by her upper arms. “Where’s your husband, Florie?”
It was a thought that had swirled in his head all night, and morning. He remembered her almost inhabitable cabin and falling-down barn. No man should expect a wife to live in such deplorable quarters.
She chewed on her bottom lip.
“Where is he, Florie?”
Florie thought about her practiced response. Rosalie had made it up years ago. The one about how all the brothers were off working in the gold mines in Colorado. Would Cord believe it, as others had? Many men left families behind while they sought work elsewhere, and the small parcels of money the boys sent home every now and again helped confirm the tale. Florie’s stomach flipped, as if the baby didn’t want her to lie. She laid a hand against the movement. There were already enough secrets between her and Cord.
If the brothers hadn’t already told him everything, they soon would. She could at least tell him about Junior.
The deep breath she inhaled lodged halfway in. “He died two years ago.” The act of saying Junior had died was a bit of a relief. Rosalie refused to allow the words to be spoken, even when it was just the two of them. “He’s buried back at the farm,” Florie continued, since Cord’s silence and expression said he didn’t quite believe her.
“He’s dead?”
She stepped out of his hold, needing the space to think. “We met here, in El Dorado,” she said, remembering finding Junior in the barn behind Sister Marie’s, a place she’d sought when the noise below the attic grew too strong to sleep through. “He was on his way to Colorado. Said there was so much gold there a person could just pick it up off the ground.”
“Colorado?” Cord then asked, “When? How old were you?”
“Fourteen. He was fifteen.” She walked to the window, pulled aside the curtain. “My grandmother had died, and my…the family I stayed with—” she shrugged, dropping the curtain “—I was a burden to them, so when Junior asked if I wanted to go with him. I did.”
“Went to Colorado with him?”
She shook her head. “No, we only made it as far as Dodge when his family found us. They brought us back to Greenfield.” A fog seemed to swirl around her, full of floating memories. “We got married there, and he went to…work.”
“How did he die?”
A bout of sadness rose up and welled around her heart. “I don’t really know. They brought him home wrapped in blankets. Rosalie wouldn’t let me look at him.” The mist was still throwing images at her. “He was only nineteen. Much too young.”
His hand, gentle and tender, rubbed her upper arms. “I’m sorry for your loss, Florie.”
She nodded. “Me, too.”
Cord turned her around. Without a word, he folded her against his chest, held her tight. The comfort was so real, so right, she wrapped her arms around his waist and nestled her head beneath his chin. The outside world seemed to float away, leaving her nothing to recall, nothing to worry about except how Cord rocked her to and fro, whispering softly.
His hands rubbed her back, from hip to shoulder and down again, igniting sensations beneath her skin. She dug her fingers into the material of his shirt, recalling how glorious it had felt to stroke his hard yet subtle body.
She’d relived their night together so many times, she had to know it wasn’t, once again, a dream. Her hands roamed to his sides and up his chest to lightly cup his cheeks, feel the heat of his skin. “Cord?” she whispered, needing to hear his voice.
His gaze floated over her face. “Aw, Florie. Sweet, sweet, Florie.”
The way he whispered her name, as if she was special or somehow out-of-the-ordinary, made her wobbly from the inside out. She wanted to close her eyes and cherish the moment, but was afraid he’d disappear if she did.
She stood there, absorbed by the authenticity of tenderness in his gaze. He was real. Flesh and blood beneath her fingers. The swirling inside her grew balmy and overpowering. “Cord,” she whispered. “Take me away. Take me away like you did that night,” she pleaded, revealing the ultimate reason of her journey to El Dorado.
“Florie.” He sounded as breathless as she felt. “You don’t—”
She stretched on her tiptoes, brushing her lips against his and quivering at the potent connection. “Please, Cord. It’s the reason I came here. I need you.”
Her heart caught between beats. Stalling, waiting. Then it jolted, practically burst inside her chest as his lips captured hers. His kiss was fierce and soft, sweet and demanding, all at the same time.
