But it’s not a dream.
No, the warm hand that wraps around my own is all too real. This is how he’s going to teach me my place. Just likeheused to do.Pain for pain. I jerk away, but Warren’s grip is strong as iron and just as inescapable.
“It’s okay, wife,” he says in a voice too soft for comfort. “Be still and let me look.”
Wife. The very word disgusts me, reminding me of his ownership over me. Ownership I willingly gave him in exchange for protection against all other men, including himself. When he runs a finger over sore knuckles, I can’t take it anymore. “No,” I choke out. “Please don’t hurt me. Not my hands. I need to take care of Emmaline…to hold her and feed her. Please—just…just kick me back instead. Or slap me.” I could easily take care of her in bed even with a bruised face. Swollen eyes would be more of a hardship but still doable. But I have to have my hands in one piece.
“Kick you?” Outrage slackens his jaw as his grip falls away. Then he carefully stands and rounds the bed, a man intent with purpose even with his hobbled gait. “The hell are you saying, Mara?”
Blood whooshes at my temples and dizzies me, but I stand my ground as an upset Warren gets closer to me. Closer to Emmaline. “No!” Jerking up from the bed, I wipe salty tears on my sleeve and throw up an arm to block his path. “Don’t you touch her!”
“Good God, woman, you’re my wife now and she’s my daughter!” Warren tugs his hair in either anger or frustration. “I’m not gonna hurt either one of you,” he almost bellows in a bewildered tone.
“As if I could trust you. You said you wouldn’t lay with me.Not until you’re ready, you said. But look at you. It’s only been three days and already you break your word.” I hate the way my broken voice shakes right along with the rest of me, the weakness I try to hide now revealed in blatant exposure. “Why should I let you anywhere near her?”
Warren locks eyes with my watery ones as his hand drops to his neck. “Mara, listen to me. Please listen to me. I would never break my word. Never.”
“Only because I stopped you,” I whisper rawly. He’s too close. Too intense. But to back away is to allow him even closer to Emmaline. I settle for staring at his throat, watching the protrusion there bob up and down with his swallow. “Why…why else would you be bringing me to the bed?”
“Oh, Mara.” His hand moves to my tear-stained cheek but stops when my head rears backward. Not quite touching, but close enough to still feel the warmth radiating fromhis palm before it drops to his side. “I didn’t break my word to you. I would never. I was only moving you to the bed so you could sleep better than on the hard floor.”
The seconds tick on, quiet and tense as I look no higher than his neck and try to understand what he said. Could the truth really be so simple and innocent? This wouldn’t even have happened if I had just gotten in the bed to begin with? A small noise comes from behind me, and we both look at a squirming Emmaline. A sharp cry follows, one that makes me suck in a breath as my breasts tingle with the threat of milk.
“Go on, wife,” he urges softly at my halting lurch towards her. “Go get our baby girl.” Half of me expects this to be a trick, but the gentle sincerity in his tone feels real. One cautious step turns into two, and with two more, I have my baby in my arms.
“Momma’s got you,” I say through a quavery voice as I blink away another onset of tears and attempt to rock her. My bounces are probably too rough to soothe her, but Emmaline’s tiny fist rubs against her mouth until she manages to find her thumb. As she noisily sucks, her innocence strikes me all over again and has my lips trembling with emotion. She has no idea of what she just interrupted. No idea that her mother is barely holding on by a sliver of a thread.
“Mara.” Warren eases closer.
Hunter to the prey.
I want to put more distance between us, but with the wall behind me and him in front of me, there’s nowhere else to go.
“I’m not gonna hurt you. I swore to you that I would never ever do that. I’m no liar, wife, and I’ll keep proving it to you until you believe me. And I would never hurtEmmaline. She’s just a little baby, for Christ’s sake. One that I’ve claimed as my own flesh and blood. You’re both mine to protect, and hurting either one of you isn’t the proper way to do that.” Maintaining eye contact, he slowly leans down, cupping her small head as he presses a kiss to her dark locks. His hand is big. So big he could no doubt crush her skull.
Or so big that he could shield her with it.
I fight the instinct to squirm away at his intensity.
“Dogs sleep outside,” he says as he lifts up. “Out in the barn or here on the floor if it’s cold enough. Others may have treated you this way, but that’s not happening in this house. You’re not an animal. You’re my wife, and that means you sleep in our bed. Need a nap in the middle of the day? You sleep in this bed. Feel like going to sleep before I do? You do it in this bed. If I find you on the floor again, you best believe I’m gonna be picking you up and putting you in it where you belong.”
The roughness of his tone has me thinking he truly means it. But… “You say I’m not an animal, but what about Emmaline? The floor is all that’s good for her?” I’m surprised by the words that escape from me. Then again, maybe not. Not when it comes to my baby.
A wince tightens his lips as he rubs the back of his neck. “I’m working on it. I’ve been in the barn making a cradle.”
“Just for her?” A glimmer of hope shines through before I can squash it down. That’s what he was chopping wood for? To keep his promise?
“Just for her,” he confirms. Then his face softens even more. “I’m sorry I scared you and made you cry. That’s the last thing I ever meant to do. But you can’t fault me for wanting to take care of you. I’m a Shay, and taking care ofour family is what we do. Can you believe me when I say that?”
Senses and emotions still reeling, I clasp Emmaline more tightly. “I don’t know if I can.”
“Can you at least promise to try?” Warren caresses my baby’s hair, his fingers brushing against mine and then stilling.
I look at his hand, at those fingers that cradle my daughter’s head and that still touch me. Do I have any other choice? For Emmaline, there’s only one answer, even if it feels like a lie at the moment. “I…promise to try.”
CHAPTER 8
WARREN
