“No, you’re not broken, Mara. Not one damn bit.” Warren separates my hair and plaits it, but the confidence in his low voice wraps around the jagged pieces of my heart. “Life’s kicked you up one side of the hill and all down the other, but you’re still here because you’re strong. And you’ll never be broken because now I’m here to stand in front of you and take the hits. You’re my wife, and I’m not gonna let anyone ever hurt what’s mine. You’ll always be safe with me.”
My heart latches onto that word.
Safe.
Safe.
Safe.
I just want to be safe for once in my life.
Unshed tears burn my nose. The fire thaws my frozen heart as much as it does my body, and I don’t know what todo with all of these feelings his promises stir up. Do I dare allow myself to believe him?
“All done.” Warren ties off my braid and lays it over my shoulder. “It’s mostly dry, but you need to stay here by the fire so you don’t catch cold.”
“Emmaline.” My lips silently form her name as the violence of the storm tapers off, leaving the rain to patter softly against the windows. Did it ever wake her? I don’t remember hearing her, but maybe the thunder swallowed her cries as it did mine. Guilt gnaws at me when I think of her crying for me, trusting me to console her. Did she think I abandoned her? How can I be a good mother when I’m falling apart myself?
Warren tucks the blanket around me, and even though the flames lick at the hearth, all the warmth seems to go with him as he silently leaves the parlor. Is he leaving me, too? I wrap empty arms around myself to stave off the unexpected ache, but it doesn’t work. A night spent alone would have meant the world to me only last month, but now? Now the thought isn’t as appealing as before.
But then he’s back with a cradle, and relief sweeps away loneliness as he quietly places it at my feet. “Emmaline,” I whisper as my little girl’s half-hearted cry fades into a yawn. Part of me yearns to hold her, but the other part of me knows I should keep my heaviness at bay so it doesn’t tarnish her little soul.
“Shh…stay asleep, Little Bit.” Warren’s dark hair falls over his forehead as he pats her chest with one big hand and rocks the wooden cradle with the other. “It’s still nighttime, and Momma and Papa need to rest.”
After pressing a soft kiss to her hair, he stands and opens his arms in a wide stretch. Uncertainty creeps in as he glances between the crackling fire and the wet sofacushions. Is he going back to the bedroom by himself? The other two chairs are too small for him, and other than the sofa, there’s nowhere to sit except for the floor.
Sleepy brown eyes study me in the firelight, trailing down the length of my damp, black braid and back to my face. “Hope you’re all right sharing that rocker with me,” he murmurs, shadowy tendrils reflecting along the strong lines of his shoulders, “because we’ve spent every night the last month sleeping together, and I don’t intend for us to stop now.”
A token protest waits at my lips even as something inside me flutters, but by then, he’s already scooped me up and placed me on his lap. “There we go,” he soothes as he situates the blanket around us. “All nice and comfy?”
The softening of my heart is at odds with the stiffness of my spine, but I push back and balance on the hard thigh beneath me as the blanket falls to my hips. He could easily keep me here with little effort, but the warm hand on the middle of my back to hold me steady doesn’t threaten me in this moment.
“Why?” My question is but a mere breath as I stare into the writhing flames to avoid the pity sure to be found in his gaze. God has never answered me, but Warren might.
“Why what?” His thumb lazily rubs side to side through the shirt I wear—his shirt—and the light touch feels more intimate than it should through the thin material.
There are so many questions I could ask, like why he hasn’t forced himself on me. Why he’s been so kind to me. Or why he hasn’t even berated me for going out into the storm and disrupting his sleep. Let alone the wet mess I left on the sofa cushions.
I choose the one that’s burned at me from the moment he dragged the judge into that room at the doctor’s house tomarry me before Emmaline was born. “Why me? And why her?” I glance down to my sleeping baby. “You could have had your pick of any white woman. One who...wouldn’t mind if you touched her.”
One who wasn’t dirty from the touches of all the other men before him.
As soon as I ask, regret stings. I don’t want to hear how sorry he felt for me.
“Oh, Mara.” A rough finger hooks beneath my chin to tilt it up, and when I dare to look, pity is nowhere to be seen in the depths of his piercing gaze as it leisurely caresses my face. “I’m touching you now, aren’t I?”
He is.
At the slow, dawning realization, prickles burst at our every point of contact. My thighs against his. His hands at my back and chin. My bare legs to the cotton of his trousers. The urge to wiggle and test his hardness is strong, but I don’t know what I would do if he was. “That’s not what I meant.” Why do I sound so out of breath?
“All right, darlin’.” Warren’s full lips soften into a crooked grin that would make him look boyish if he didn’t have a day’s worth of stubble on his jawline, but there’s no denying that I sit on the lap of a fully grown man as he leans back a little and pats one broad shoulder in invitation. “Put your pretty little head right here and I’ll tell you.”
Pretty, he calls me. Well, that’s his choice in how he thinks of me. It also hasn’t escaped my notice that he’s called me darling so many times tonight without me correcting him. But now I have a choice of my own to make, and a month of rebuffing his every touch doesn’t make it easy. Men have always taken from me, but this one wants me to willingly accept his touch. I lower my lashes to furtivelystudy his strong chest and arms. He’s so careful with Emmaline. Will he be as careful with me?
Maybe not all men are like the ones I’ve known.
Maybe he truly means that I’m safe with him.
Maybe I’m foolish for doing so, but I tuck my hands together and slowly dare to press my cheek to his bare, smooth skin without resting my full weight against him. He’s so warm that I shiver in response to the sudden change in temperature.
