All The Trees in Pearl

An Ellora’s Cave Romantica Publication

www.ellorascave.com

All the Trees in Pearl ISBN 9781419916687 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. All the Trees in Pearl Copyright © 2008 Emily Ryan-Davis Edited by Mary Moran. Cover art by Syneca. Electronic book Publication March 2008 With the exception of quotes used in reviews, this book may not be reproduced or used in whole or in part by any means existing without written permission from the publisher, Ellora’s Cave Publishing, Inc.® 1056 Home Avenue, Akron OH 44310-3502. Warning: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000. (http://www.fbi.gov/ipr/) This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously.

ALL THE TREES IN PEARL

Emily Ryan-Davis

Emily Ryan-Davis

Chapter One Pearl, Colorado 1868

“This is it, miss!” Margaret Redde shifted to peek past the wagon’s canvas cover, eager to see the Colorado ranch that would be her new home. A swatch of pink sky stopped the breath in her chest. Recent daybreak hugged the horizon’s spiky mountain peaks. Closer than the mountains, green hills unfolded their rolling carpet, punctuated by trees of such unfamiliar shapes and sizes, so different from the forests of her native East Coast. A dusty, narrow trail pointed the wagon down into a valley. As the driver crested the hill, she caught a glimpse of several peaked red roofs all spaced close enough together that they were obviously part of the same property. Ethan Carver’s ranch with the house and all its working outbuildings. Home. Her stomach tightened and exploded with the anxious flutter of a thousand butterflies. She sank back to the wagon’s padded floor and covered her mouth, gasping for breath. Dear Lord. What would she say to him? What would he say to her? She should have remained in Pearl and hired a rider to inform Ethan she’d arrived earlier than planned. Surprises were for young, fresh girls, not grown, widowed women. The wagon lurched down the hill. She snatched up her olive green hat and frantically stabbed pins into her hair. She was nearly thirty years old—she couldn’t be seen with her head uncovered. Too soon the driver called to the horses and the wagon rattled to a halt. Margaret moved to see out the back. The scenery captured her a second time. From this angle, the dotting trees clung to one another and unfurled across the surrounding low mountains. The morning smelled of pine and earth. Her fingers itched to touch the spiny canopy, but she curled them into her palms. A quartet of men approached. The wagon bumped 4

All the Trees in Pearl

and bounced as the driver hopped down. A sudden instinct to hide drove Margaret to crouch in the corner near the driver’s bench. “This shipment’s overdue,” one of the men called to the driver. Big hands peeled back the canvas flap. He stuck his head and shoulders into the dim recess of the wagon and froze. Margaret blanched. “You’re a far cry from livestock feed,” he observed. The brim of his hat hid his eyes and the upper half of his face. The lower half was strong and square. She couldn’t tear her eyes away from the full curve of his bottom lip, which quirked in bemused amusement. Heat curled in her abdomen. His shirt, a simple dusty blue, was unbuttoned at the top. Dark blond hair curled in the opening. A few coils tickled the hollow of his throat. “And you don’t look like the sort to eat up all my feed…which leads me to believe this never was a wagon full of my supplies.” He hitched his elbow atop the wagon’s tailgate and leaned forward. “What’s your name?” She swallowed and prayed for recognition to show itself on his face. “Margaret.” His features remained disappointingly blank. “Margaret what?” Her shoulders slumped. “Margaret Redde. I’m here to see Ethan Carver.” “Ah.” He shifted and the wagon creaked as he propped his foot on the hitch. The grin that brightened his face melted her inside. “I sure do hope you like what you see, darlin’.” “I’m sure I will,” she said faintly. “Perhaps you’ll let me out, so I might find him?” He shook his head. “No need to go anywhere. I’m standin’ right here.” “You must be mistaken. Ethan knows me, and you don’t.” She frowned and drew up against the wagon’s side, plastering her body tight to the protection of wood. “Please bring him immediately.”

5

Emily Ryan-Davis

“I’m the only Carver living on this ranch,” he said, his tone turning from playful to bitter. “If you’re looking for Ethan Carver, you’re looking for me. Can I help you with something?” “I…but you…I’m going to be your wife, and you don’t…” she trailed off, speechless. His features froze, hardened. He didn’t know her. Margaret covered her face, deeply embarrassed. What have I done? “Please send the driver back,” she muttered between her fingers. “Are you comin’ out, miss?” Mr. Seeley, the old man who’d delivered her from Pearl, appeared at Ethan Carver’s side. “I have to get back on the road. Need to be in Wyoming by noon.” She drew a deep breath, blew it out, and looked between the two men. Ethan appeared perplexed and Mr. Seeley impatient as he unhitched the tailgate. “C’mon, this is your stop.” “This isn’t her stop.” Ethan’s head angled, betraying his curiosity. “Ticket she purchased says it is.” Refusal to leave the wagon perched on the tip of her tongue, but Ethan’s eyes, the curious smirk that had become of his smile, caught her. Angered her. She held his gaze and crept toward the opening, dragging her satchel along with her. As she drew close to Ethan, she murmured for his ears privately, “The letters you wrote say it is too.” Eyes narrowed, he stood back and made her exit without giving a hand to help her down. He opened his mouth to say something, but one of his earlier companions came up to them and held out a piece of mail. “From James,” the new man said. He glanced at her. “Who’s this?” Ethan broke the seal with his thumbnail. “Don’t know, Mickey.” “She looks like one of those actresses that came through last month.” Mickey smacked the dust off his hat. “Are you an actress, sweetheart?” “I most certainly am not,” she said, flushing.

6

All the Trees in Pearl

“You sure?” He circled behind her. Margaret ignored the stranger’s inquisitive examination and lifted her chin, focused entirely on Ethan. “You truly don’t recognize my name?” “Truly don’t,” he answered absently. He turned the letter over in his hands and frowned. “Mickey, take her inside and get her some coffee or something. Tell John to get a horse ready to take her back to town.” “Excuse me,” she interrupted. “I’m not going anywhere. You promised to marry me. You told me to come.” Ethan looked up from the note, his gaze slowly settling on her face. Fury burned in his eyes, caught her off guard. Margaret ignored the flutter his regard stirred in her body. Desperation lent a certain boldness, a forcefulness that she didn’t know herself capable of. “I came all the way from Connecticut. You are going to marry me.” “Honey you might not be an actress, but I promise you, you aren’t my bride-to-be either.” He turned and walked away, leaving her standing there in the middle of the dirt yard, three ranch hands and a wagon driver staring at her. Margaret looked from one to the other of them, noting the various degrees of surprise and amusement, and hurried after Ethan. She followed him into the dim foyer of the big house. “You can’t just walk away!” He spun on his heel and his arm shot past her, grasping the edge of the door and slamming it closed. His hand splayed across her breastbone and he pushed her back against the door, firm enough to silence her, not violent enough to hurt. Alarm climbed into her throat and heightened the strange arousal that battled anxiety for the upper hand. His splayed fingers dragged down her body, pausing only long enough to rub his thumb across her nipple before he cupped the apex of her thighs through her skirt. He squeezed, somehow found the crease of her sex despite the layers of clothes. A spear of heat lanced deep and long, penetrating at the precise point where his fingertip worked

7

Emily Ryan-Davis

her undergarment between her nether lips. She closed her eyes. His touch paralyzed her limbs, coaxed her hips to arch in eagerness. “You’re a pretty woman, Red. I’ll fuck you if you want me to,” he whispered as he worked the formerly soft, now excruciatingly rough fabric of her pantalets back and forth through the wet, narrow valley. “But you’re not staying here after. You’ll be happier if you take your pretty mouth back to town now instead of later.” Margaret’s eyes flew wide and her mouth dropped open. Her fingers curled tight around the straps of her satchel and brought the leather bag up between them, using it as a shield. Ethan’s breath rushed heavy against her cheek for long minutes as he stood there with his head lowered, his hand wedged between her thighs. “I’m taking you back to Pearl,” he stated. “Stay right here. Don’t move a single muscle.” Ethan disappeared into the belly of the house. Stunned, she stared after him. She couldn’t move even if she wanted to. An unsettling throb pulsed between her legs. I’ll fuck you if you want me to. She squeezed her eyes shut and forbade the words from returning to her vocabulary. Dear God, what had she gotten herself into? Moments later he returned, cheeks ruddy and jaw set. He wrapped long fingers around her elbow and pulled her away from the door, not looking at her. “Let’s go.” “Please tell me why you’re doing this,” she said as he marched her outside. “I could ask you the same thing. Seems a dirty trick to play on a man.” The wagon wasn’t out front anymore. Neither were any of the ranch hands. Ethan pulled her with him to the stable. “Wagon’s got a broken wheel,” he announced, “and I’m not risking one of my horses to you. You’ll ride with me.” She gulped. “Wait! Please!” “No time. You can come with me or you can walk.” He called for a mount and a thin boy led a large sorrel horse out into the stable yard. Margaret hurried after him.

8

All the Trees in Pearl

Ethan grabbed her around the waist, hiked her skirts scandalously high before she could blink and practically tossed her into the saddle. She didn’t know how she managed to hold onto her bag. Seconds later he landed behind her. His weight shoved her forward, dragged her crotch along the seat rise. The horse shied left. Ethan spoke a sharp word and the animal mercifully calmed. She, however, couldn’t get her heartbeat under control for anything. Her arms ached, she clutched the horn so tight, and the pressure of leather against her sex amplified the arousal he’d torn from her so recently. “Do not fall off,” he ordered as he grabbed the reins and nudged the horse into a gallop. Margaret squeezed her eyes shut, a scream lodged in her throat. She’d gone beyond the point of unsettling desire and crossed firmly into the realm of terror. Ethan rode like the devil for an eternity, his thighs sandwiching hers against the horse’s sides. She couldn’t bring herself to open her eyes for fear she might lose the meager breakfast she’d consumed that morning. After some time, the horse’s pace slowed. Margaret chanced opening her eyes. The little town of Pearl unfurled to either side of the dirt road. Ethan drew their mount to a stop, unceremoniously muscled her off the horse, dumped her on her feet and rode off. Knees shaking so bad she couldn’t stand, Margaret clutched her satchel close to her chest and sank to the edge of a planked porch. Ethan tore around a corner and vanished from sight.

9

Emily Ryan-Davis

Chapter Two “I’m supposed to be his wife. I have a letter from him. The postmark says Pearl, Colorado.” Margaret thrust the creased packet at the proprietor of Thomas’ General Store, which, per the signpost out front, temporarily doubled as the post office. The middle-aged man, bent over his ledgers, shook his bald head without looking at the travel-worn envelope. Out on the dusty stretch of earth used as a road in the small town, a wagon’s wheels rattled away. Margaret bit the inside of her cheek to quell a rising tide of frustration. “Please look—it’s from here. You must know of Mr. Carver. If you’ll only look.” “I know Ethan Carver, miss. I also know he hasn’t brought a letter through in six months.” The sunburned man clapped his book shut and wiped the dust off a jar full of rock candy. “You must be mistaken. These are postmarked from Pearl. From here. I need you to help. It can’t be right or legal for him to take back his commitment.” Ethan Carver had given her every reason to run hard and fast and not look back, but stubbornness rooted her, held her to her committed path. The man had deceived her, molested her person, made her imagine scandalous scenes wherein her skirts were around her waist and his member buried deep inside, and damn it, she deserved compensation for the grief he caused. She deserved the husband he’d promised to be. Setting her shoulders, she shoved the letter forward again, this time using it to block his access to the next dusty jar. “Please look.” He sighed loudly and pushed the rag deep in his pocket before he finally squinted at the address on her letter. “The man who wrote that is Ethan’s brother James Carver. He had a little plot with a gold mine on it, but he took off out of town a week ago.” Margaret blinked. “But…” Ethan hadn’t written about a brother.

10

All the Trees in Pearl

Mr. Thomas reached under the counter and produced a different book, which he turned toward her. He flipped to a page dated back to March. “See here.” He skimmed his finger down and pointed to an entry. “Bought a new shovel and ordered bricks. He was diggin’ a well.” She glanced at the purchase log. “I don’t see how this is relevant to my problem.” Mr. Thomas slid his fingertip over to the end of the row and tapped the page. “Order signed by James Carver,” he said. Margaret pressed her lips together. The J matched the Js in her letters from Ethan, but brothers could write the same J. She shook her head. “This doesn’t prove anything,” she said. He pointed to a second entry on the opposite page. Signed Ethan Carver. Not signed as her letters had been. Her fingers tingled as she unfolded the last letter she’d received and smoothed it out. She brought the two signatures side by side. Her chest tightened. The man who wrote to her slanted all his letters to the right edge of the page. Ethan Carver—the one in the store log—angled his script to the left. The C in his name in the letter’s closing curved perfectly and ended with a flourish, but the C in the book was a brisk, barely curved slash. She looked back to James Carver’s entry in the book. The C matched the C in the letter. “They’re not the same,” she said numbly, determination deflating. “I think I should sit down.” “Nope, not the same. I don’t know how to help with your problem, young lady. James didn’t tell anybody where he was heading. Stopped by to fill his saddlebags and rode out.” She’d been a fool from the day she walked into the office of the mail-order bride service in Connecticut right up to the instant she climbed down from the wagon and thrust herself upon Ethan Carver. Letters were no foundation for a relationship, and certainly no grounds upon which to base a decision to travel some fifteen hundred miles to a prospective husband she’d never met. Now she was stuck. Left a widow by 11

Emily Ryan-Davis

one man, jilted by another before she even had sight of the altar. Not even jilted. He had no idea he’d been pledged to wed. She braced herself against the shop counter, fighting dizziness. She’d put so much hope into the words. She hadn’t expected love—he didn’t promise her that—but she had expected friendship. Security. “You want me to send a boy out to Laramie to fetch a wagon up?” Margaret shook her head, too mortified to lift her gaze from the countertop. “I didn’t purchase passage back. Just as far as Pearl. Ethan—James—he promised I wouldn’t want to leave. We’re to be wed.” She could buy tickets home…if she had one. He grunted and swiped at the counter a couple more times. Finally, he pulled a key from beneath the till and headed for the door. “You come with me.” “Where are we going?” “To the bank.” “I can’t take a loan.” She hurried after him. A headache throbbed sudden and hard behind her eyes. What disaster had she brought upon herself? “More than loans at a bank. Come along before he leaves.” He led her down the way to a solid brick structure. A wood sign nailed to the door proclaimed the First Bank of Pearl. He pushed past the sign and held the door open for her. Margaret stepped in with reluctance. She had to shade her eyes just inside the door when a shaft of sunlight from an east-facing window threw light right in her face. Mr. Thomas shooed her farther inside. “You wait right here,” he instructed, and left her in the small lobby. Margaret sat on a carved bench and pressed her handkerchief to her eyes. Her nose stung with the effort required to hold tears at bay. She was well and truly homeless now. She would have been better served if she’d remained in Connecticut and turned to the textile factory for a livelihood. The promise of wide-open ranges and a fresh start in Colorado had lulled her into a misplaced hopefulness.

12

All the Trees in Pearl

Male voices from the office adjacent to the lobby drove her from the moment of selfpity. Ethan’s voice, stronger and a notch louder than the others, said, “She is mistaken. I’ll tell her again myself.” She hurriedly stuffed her handkerchief up her sleeve and stood. A woman should never greet a man without her full height at her disposal. No sooner had she gained her feet than Ethan’s lean, powerful figure strode from the office. A memory of desire hummed in her veins, kept quiet only by the reappearance of Mr. Thomas. Another gentleman in a banker’s suit hurried behind him. “Ethan, just wait up now.” The tall rancher stalked past Margaret and opened the door. He fixed his gaze on a point past her shoulder. Refused to look her in the eye. “I’ve already told you once. I don’t know who you are, but if you think you’ve been corresponding with me, you’ve been sorely tricked. My brother isn’t around to confirm or deny his deceit. I suggest you go home.” Mr. Thomas bristled but held his own counsel. The banker shook out a folded piece of paper and said, “Ethan, we need to finish looking at your brother’s instructions.” Her headache deafened her to the finer points of his words. She couldn’t move her brain past his second refusal of her, but neither could she bring herself to believe she’d been deceived. She searched his features for something that would indicate he was the man who’d penned such gentle letters over the past year. Something more than the evidence of signatures. Sunlight beamed across the crest of his cheekbones and lit his eyes. Margaret moved closer. He finally looked at her. The mismatched pair, one blue and one brown, regarded her suspiciously. She lowered her gaze to the letter she still held. “‘You’ll recognize me, Maggie,’” she read out loud, every word precise. “‘My eyes are different colors. One’s blue and one’s brown. Don’t know how it happened that way, but it did. Look for my eyes. I only hope you’ll still want me when you find them.’” 13

Emily Ryan-Davis

He stiffened and pushed the door shut. It latched with a quiet, gentle click. “I understand the words aren’t yours,” she said, “but I don’t understand why the man is you.” Margaret held the letter between two fingers and stared at the words marching across the page. They promised her a home. A family. And now this man wanted to renege on that promise. The banker cleared his throat and broke the silence. “Maybe we all better come and sit down,” he said.

***** The woman his brother had dragged all the way from Connecticut to Colorado was too beautiful for the West. Ethan studied her profile. A soft, shiny clip of red-gold hair came away from her hat and hung down her cheek. It was a wonder that hat still remained in her possession after the ride he’d taken her on. His fingers itched to wrap the strands into a curl and tuck them behind her ear. Worse, his balls ached with curiosity. He needed to know whether her hidden thatch matched her hair, or whether it was more cinnamon like her eyebrows. He needed to know whether it was thick like the coil of hair atop her head, or thin and fine enough he’d be able to see the moist, pink flesh it protected. Not that the color of her hair mattered. James had left the country. No amount of panic and fury changed the fact he’d lost his last blood to the world. She brought him back from grief when she looked into his eyes, caught him in the confident surety of her gaze. By the time she got to “I hope you’ll still want me”, he’d wanted to throw her over his shoulder and take her away from here. Bury his anger, his sorrow, between the sweet thighs hidden by her green-striped skirt. “James didn’t leave any word of where he was going.” The banker’s words came after a long and stiff silence. Ethan shifted in his chair and dismissed Margaret Redde’s thighs from his mind.

14

All the Trees in Pearl

“He did give detailed instructions for handling his affairs in his absence,” the banker said. “What’d he want me to do?” Ethan asked impatiently. The older man adjusted his spectacles and read, “‘Of my brother Ethan Carver, I request that he return the mine and the land to the whole of the Carver ranch.’” “That’s it?” “There’s more. Ah, ahem. ‘To Miss Margaret Redde, I leave the profits of the mine. Miss Redde shall also receive my mother’s wedding jewelry, all pieces of which have been secured in a safe deposit box at First Bank of Pearl, provided she remain on the ranch with Ethan for a period of no less than one year starting the day she arrives in Pearl, Colorado.’” His brother’s “heir” inhaled. Her knee jerked beneath the bulk of her skirt. She squeezed the arms of the chair until the knuckles of her small hands showed white. “What does that mean?” she asked. “It means,” Ethan drawled, “that you’ve inherited the bridal payment without having to perform the bridal duty.” And it meant that if she was greedy enough, his chances of finding out the details of her anatomy had just increased exponentially. God, he hoped she was a gold digger. His mother’s unwanted pearls would be a high price to pay for passage beneath Margaret’s skirt, but hell, they’d never done him any other good. The redhead stared straight ahead. “Will it cover the cost of passage back East?” “You heard the man,” Ethan interjected. “You can’t have anything until you’ve stayed on the ranch for a year. You have three hundred and sixty-four and a half days left.” She closed her eyes and lowered her head, breathing deep and even into a dusty handkerchief. The banker sat in awkward silence, shuffling papers and looking everywhere but at the woman. His brother’s betrothed. The newest resident of Twin

15

Emily Ryan-Davis

Mountains Ranch, which hadn’t seen a female in the ten years since his mother took his sister to Europe for finishing. Ethan’s memory skittered away from that separation only to come face-to-face with the fact of the latest Carver evacuation. With James gone, Ethan was the only one left. She surprised him by shaking her head. “I can’t,” she said. “Why not?” Margaret gave him a level, withering look. “It’s not proper.” Ethan’s frown became a scowl. “What are you going on about?” “I believe she is reluctant to live as an unmarried, unchaperoned lady with a strange man. As she should be,” the banker contributed. Ethan studied Margaret’s eyes. Smoky blue heaven. Angry as hell with him for his treatment of her, scared about her predicament, and stubbornly refusing to settle for a situation less than the one she wanted. She’d come looking for a husband, and even though he wasn’t particularly in the market for a wife, he’d be a fool not to ensure he could take advantage of having such a delectable body living on his land. Reassuring himself that divorce would be an option after the year passed, Ethan glanced at the banker. “Are the documents in order for the bridal contract?” The banker nodded. “And are my brother’s documents included in the sum of the property he’s assigned to me?” If James really had deceived Margaret Redde into traveling west, lured her to Colorado with the promise of marriage, he had little choice anyway. She’d bargained her life on the word of a Carver. Ethan sighed and glanced sidelong at the slim woman beside him. Her cheeks alternately gleamed ghost white and apple red as she vacillated between emotions, probably panic and fury. He couldn’t see her smoky eyes, but the desire to look into them again surprised him. His dick and his honor ganged up on him. “Find me a preacher,” he muttered. “I want the marriage done by sundown.”

16

All the Trees in Pearl

Chapter Three Margaret wrung her hands and paced the aisle that divided the town hall into two different sections of seating. Ethan stood at the door, looking out over the town. His shoulders appeared relaxed, not an anxious twitch to them. “Why are you doing this?” she asked. He half turned toward her. The sun put him in shadow. “Because it’s right.” She bit her lip, wondering about the reasons he didn’t give. “You aren’t reconsidering?” “Are you?” “I don’t know anything about you. I don’t know whether anything you wrote is true.” “James wrote,” he corrected. Margaret sat on one of the hall’s wooden chairs and worried a snag in her skirt. “I came here for a husband,” she said. “So I’ve heard.” She ignored the dry flippancy in his tone. “For a family. A home. Not for love.” “That sounds like a practical reason to travel across the country,” he remarked. She stared at him. “You say that sarcastically, but you’ve never been without a home, have you?” “No, I can’t say that I have.” “You’ve always belonged somewhere.” He inclined his head. “I haven’t. It’s a powerful reason, a big desire to obtain. You probably think I’m foolish.” 17

Emily Ryan-Davis

“I do, but not for wanting a home.” “Then for what?” “For doing it this way.” He came up the aisle and crouched in front of her. Margaret moved her feet away from him. Ethan put his hands on her knees, held her legs still. “You did something dangerous.” He tipped his head back and looked into her eyes. She squirmed, but he tightened his grip and wouldn’t let her away. “You’re doing something dangerous. How do you know James wasn’t going to get you here and beat you instead of love you?” She felt the heat of his hands acutely. Her body’s response to him embarrassed and distracted her. He was a stranger. Even though she suspected he was the man James had portrayed in correspondence, he still would have been a stranger. She pressed her thighs together and willed her inappropriate want to go away. Searching his eyes, she asked, “If I marry you, are you going to beat me?” His jaw tightened. “I don’t beat my women.” “Do you love them?” A flush stained his cheeks. He looked down at her lap. “That’s not what you came here for.” Margaret firmed her lips. The sudden, unwanted romantic stirrings irritated her. He was right. She hadn’t come in search of love. She’d come in search of a life in which she wouldn’t be impoverished. Before she could pursue his willingness to tie himself to a woman he didn’t know, criticize his foolishness as a match to her own, the preacher arrived with a pair of witnesses.

***** Ethan rented a room in the town’s single boarding house. Pearl didn’t have a hotel. “I paid the owner extra to make sure you had water to wash with,” he said before he closed the door and left her alone. 18

All the Trees in Pearl

Margaret sat on the narrow bed and looked around the skinny room. Her body was numb with shock. She’d barely managed to agree to the marriage vows, and still wasn’t sure she’d made the right decision in saying “I do” instead of “I don’t”. A chipped porcelain basin and pitcher stood atop the room’s single small table. Her scalp itched from the dust of nonstop travel but there wasn’t enough water for a real bath. She’d make do. She hadn’t had the luxury of a full soak in ages; her previous boarding house didn’t even have a hip tub. The only appreciable difference between the Connecticut house and this one was the smell. Lavender soap and cookies perfumed the ladies’ house. This one stank of lye soap and stewing beans. A long time later, Ethan hadn’t returned. Margaret brought out a dwindling packet of dried rose and mint. A precious pinch of it in the basin made the water smell fresh and soothing. It even eased her headache somewhat. She worked the fastenings of her dress and stepped out of the weary, well-worn fabric, shaking it out and draping it over a chair. Her undergarments followed and she dipped a cloth into the tepid water. Outside, horses’ hooves drummed a gallop down the packed-dirt road. Margaret touched the clean cloth to her face, held it there. Rivulets of water slid down the column of her throat and trickled between her breasts, down the plane of her stomach. She shivered despite the warmth of the room and reluctantly drew the cloth over her shoulders and down each arm, wiping away as much dust as she could. She bent to swipe the cloth down her legs, around each foot, and froze. “When did you come in?” she asked evenly, surprised that the question came out minus any of the panic that held her paralyzed in the awkward, exposing pose. Her new husband didn’t answer. He dropped a pair of saddle bags on the floor in front of the door, turned the key in the lock and came to her. She started to straighten, but his hand on her nape held her in place. He plucked the drying cloth from her unresponsive fingers, swished it in the basin and squeezed cool water between her shoulder blades. Beads rolled into her armpits, down the sides of her breasts, into the hollow of her back.

19

Emily Ryan-Davis

She drew a deep breath and flattened her hands on the seat of the chair. “I don’t think—” “Shhh. Keep it that way.” The low, rough pitch of his voice struck her somewhere deep. He pulled her hair away from her neck and drew the cloth from her hairline down to the swell of her buttocks. “James wouldn’t have known what to do with you.” Ethan reached between her thighs and washed the inside of each one in turn. To her mixed relief and dismay, he avoided her most intimate place. Mention of his brother should have instilled some measure of shame, but the soft scrape of cotton eroded her good manners. “You’ve been married before.” He passed the scented square around her hips and across her belly. His gaze made her skin burn and tingle. “How did you know?” she whispered. “You don’t respond like a virgin. And James left me a letter in that safe box of his.” “What did it say?” Ethan ignored the question. He straightened behind her and tossed the washcloth into the basin. His hands, big and damp, cupped her shoulders and drew her upright. Margaret closed her eyes against the brief dizziness that came first with blood rushing to her head and second with the hot, open kiss Ethan pressed into the curve of her throat. “Does it matter to you?” he asked against her skin. “What he said?” “Whether it’s me or him.” Margaret bit her lip, unsure how she should answer that question. Would he think her a whore if she confessed that in some ways the man didn’t matter as much as the security of home?

20

All the Trees in Pearl

“Never mind.” He seemed to sense her uncertainty and wrapped one hard arm around her waist so she couldn’t move away. “It doesn’t matter to me. Be quiet and give me your left hand.” She bristled at his orders, but had nothing to say that would make a confrontation worthwhile. His embrace was a comfort and a heat she didn’t want to relinquish, not just yet. Her hand was a reasonable price to pay. She placed it atop his. Ethan splayed her fingers and touched a cool, metallic object to the tip of her third finger. A ring. He pushed it down until it sat against her knuckle. Margaret passed her thumb over the band, testing its shape. A creamy pearl nestled atop the gold. After he placed the ring, he turned her into his embrace and covered her mouth with his. His hands fell everywhere at once, searing her breast and clutching her behind. He urged her back toward the small bed. Her calves hit and she lost her balance. Ethan didn’t catch her as she tumbled backward. Instead, he came down on top of her and spread her thighs wide to either side of his hips. The stiff, rough denim of his pants scraped her delicate sex. He shifted up against her, ground his erection down hard, and she gasped into his mouth. Relations with her first husband had never been like this—fumbling and urgent. Ethan’s strength frightened and excited her. She touched his shoulder, tentatively caressed his hair as he sucked her tongue into his mouth. He caught her elbows and pulled her hands down. Held them flat to the bed as he rose up off her chest and broke the kiss. Full dark had fallen and she couldn’t see the expression on his face. The short, fast rhythm of his breathing betrayed his need. “Are you going to stay for the year?” he demanded. Margaret swallowed. The question caught her off guard. How was she supposed to answer it? His fingers tightened around her wrists. “You married me,” she finally said. “Are you going to stay?” Puzzled, she jerked a nod. “That’s what marriage is. Staying.” 21

Emily Ryan-Davis

He released her wrists and hitched his hands beneath her knees. The bed creaked as he pushed her higher on the mattress. He fumbled between her thighs and swore softly. She did too—in her head—when the length of his arousal slid against the inside of her thigh and prodded her labia. Ethan’s fingers were rough. He pushed two inside her without preamble and dropped his mouth to tug on her nipple in short, quick sucks. His unskilled urgency caught her up in the depth of his need, and she didn’t care that his teeth hurt on her breast. She wrapped her legs around his waist and reached to pull at his wrist. Suddenly, she would have given anything to feel his cock plunging deep. “Come inside,” she murmured. “You’re not ready yet.” He referred to her lack of wetness, she knew. She also knew he didn’t know the first thing about a woman’s readiness. She could have taken him bone dry in that moment and loved every agonizing inch as long as it ended with his weight pressing her into the thin mattress. “Do it anyway,” she said. Ethan groaned and dropped his face into the hollow of her throat. He lined the thick head of his shaft with her entrance and thrust hard once, twice, before he achieved penetration. Margaret hissed in his ear and bit her lip as she pushed up against him. The thump of his engorged head as it connected with her cervix made her groan like an animal in heat. She clawed at his shoulders, frustrated by the barrier of cloth, and threw her head back as he withdrew only to slam into her again. He barely lasted a dozen strokes before his chest stiffened and his long, hard rhythm turned short and unpracticed. She had missed the liquid heat, the satisfying pulse of a man losing himself inside her body.

*****

22

All the Trees in Pearl

“James is a kid,” Ethan said to the ceiling. Margaret lay on her side facing away from him. He couldn’t muster the energy to turn down the blankets so he’d covered her slim, naked form with his shirt. Once he’d gotten off her and bothered to remove it. “Nineteen.” He sat up and reached for his tobacco pouch. A small sound from Margaret made him reconsider the cigarette. It wasn’t polite. “He wrote that he was gone past twenty-five in his letters.” Her voice made his cock stir. The words didn’t make a damn bit of difference. It was her precise way of talking, her East Coast accent that did it. Ethan drew the corner of the blanket across his groin. “He also signed his letters with my name,” he said. “Somebody should’ve told you not to believe everything you read.” The bed shook a little as she tensed. In his mind’s eye he imagined her pulling the tail of his shirt over her shoulder. She didn’t have much to hide behind, but she seemed the kind of woman to make the most of what she did. He turned toward her. He couldn’t help himself. Once he had the picture of her slim, straight back in his head, he had to satisfy his eyes. A pang of guilt struck him. He leaned over her, deliberately pinned her bright tangle of hair under his elbow, and drew his fingertip down the seam of her ass. She jerked and arched her hips away from him. “Come here,” he persisted in a voice too rough for polite company. “I do right by my women and I haven’t done right by you yet.” “You married me,” she said. Her thighs pressed together, teaming up to keep him at bay. It didn’t matter. The way she bent her knees and drew them up to her chest, he had all the access he needed. He twirled a soft tuft of ginger hair between his fingertips. The curls were wet from his pleasure. He wanted them wet from hers. “Let me do it right,” he whispered. A sharp little tug on the captured curl made her gasp.

23

Emily Ryan-Davis

She rolled as far onto her stomach as she could, given the hold he had on the rest of her hair. At first, Ethan thought she really was trying to get away from him. The way she pulled her knee up farther though, opened her little pink pussy to his touch. “It’s not seemly,” she said. He arched an eyebrow in the dark, seconds away from gliding his finger down between her lips. “What’s not?” “Twice in one night.” Ethan grinned. “This ain’t twice. It’s once for me. Once for you.” He worked his middle finger up her slit, pressed her button. She squeaked and jumped. “Good girl,” he murmured. “Good baby. You keep doing that, and I’ll keep doing this.” He spread her with his thumb and forefinger, exposing her hot silk to the chill in the room, and tapped her clit a second time. Margaret turned her face into the pillow and pushed her mouthwatering ass up against his hand. Her body fascinated him, especially the cool, soft curves of her cheeks. She didn’t have any of the hard muscles a ranching woman acquires. She didn’t have any hard words either. He’d never heard a woman say “not seemly” instead of plain old “ain’t right”. What wasn’t seemly was how he’d left her flushed and panting but not satisfied. Overcome by a need to satisfy her, to make her want to stay, to hear her moan, he traced the quivering entrance to her sex. Her shoulder trembled. Ethan kissed it and closed his eyes. Her skin smelled like mint from that water she used, and his tongue craved the sharp sweetness all of a sudden. He reluctantly moved his hand from between her legs. “Don’t move,” he instructed. Margaret shifted anyway, came up higher on her knees and hugged the pillow low against her chest. He let the disobedience pass and got up to wet the washcloth in the basin. When he came back to bed, she tensed. “Careful, darlin’,” he murmured. “Hold still or you’ll get wet.” Kneeling between her calves, he balanced the basin at the small of her back and ran the fragrant cloth down her thigh. 24

All the Trees in Pearl

She gasped. “That’s ice cold.” Ethan smiled at the pleasure in her voice. “I know.” He splayed his fingers over one hip and caught her ass cheek with his thumb. She jerked. The basin wobbled. “I said stay still.” Margaret’s breath shuddered through her body, jostling the porcelain bowl all over again. It stayed put though, and Ethan dismissed it. He had more interesting tasks. Holding her spread open, he placed the cloth at the top of her crease and squeezed ’til the water ran down over her pucker and rinsed her clean. Her shiver made him even harder than he’d been earlier when he walked in and caught her naked down to her ankles, bent over and washing herself. He’d wanted to lick her then too. Impatience got the better of him. He cleaned her pussy with a rough swipe, rougher than he meant. She whimpered. “I’ll make it better,” he promised. He tossed the cloth aside and dipped down to run his tongue between her cheeks, lapping the minty rinse and breathing deep of flowers. Her thighs trembled. “You’re not supposed to do that,” she said, so prim and proper he almost laughed. Instead of laughing, he nipped her cheek. “You’re not supposed to marry men you don’t know either…but you did.” “I had no other choice.” “You had a choice.” He settled on his stomach and pushed his face up between her thighs. “You could’ve said no.” He sank his tongue into her silky entrance, the mint there only a faint under-note. Her scent dominated it, filling his nostrils and slipping over his tongue like a warm, creamy dessert. She clenched those small, tight muscles around his tongue and held him trapped. Ethan breathed a laugh. He didn’t want out. She could hold him all she wanted. He dug his tongue deeper. “What choice do I have now?” she asked.

25

Emily Ryan-Davis

He groaned, sliding his right hand around to wind up her body and tweak a small, gently swaying breast. Her nipple drew to attention. “I hold still and let you do this.” She squeezed his tongue to make her point. “Or I move and get away. Except moving means a soaked bed and sleeping on the floor.” God, she tasted good. He closed his eyes and soaked in her scent, swallowed her flavor until she relaxed enough that he could ease his tongue free. He nipped the inside of her thigh, kissed the damp hair that crowned her sex, and allowed, “Didn’t say either situation had great choices. Most of the time, a choice is just a decision between bad and worse.” Margaret stretched subtly, careful flexing that didn’t dislodge the basin. She surprised him into laughing again when she asked, “Why do you keep talking?” “Thought it might relax you.” He drew back and propped his head on his hand. While he had her at his mercy, he scraped his short fingernails up the inside of her thigh and drove a single finger straight into her pussy. She muffled a shout in her pillow and surged back, shoving her ass in his face. He grinned and bit her again. “Is it working?” She didn’t answer for long minutes. He entertained himself by stretching her open with a second finger and fucking her slow and soft. His cock pressed painfully against the mattress. Every stroke into her heat, he promised his member that soon it would have some relief too. Eventually he prompted, “Red? What’s it doing?” “Distracting me,” she panted. He grinned and inserted a third finger. She moaned, clutching so tight he couldn’t get past his first knuckle. God, the heat of her. If he could convince her to stay on the ranch more than the year, he’d never be cold again. If. That thought sobered him. Could he keep her on the mountain? He couldn’t keep James. Shutting his mind in the face of everything except the woman in his bed, he withdrew his fingers and moved the basin off her back.

26

All the Trees in Pearl

Margaret blew out a breath and held herself stiff on elbows and knees. He ran his palm down her calf to cup her foot. She had her toes curled against the mattress. Too tense to really enjoy his hands. He’d fix that. Ethan flipped her easily and stretched out beside her slim body. Her arms stole across her breasts and she held herself stock still. Her eyes, big almond shadows in the dark, focused on him. “I don’t think I should want you,” she said. “But you do?” He curled around her, cradling her head in the crook of his shoulder and brushing the backs of his fingers down her arm. The fine, light hairs rose in the wake of his touch. He plucked her forearm away from her chest and covered her breast with his hand before she could reclaim that right. The tip pushed at his palm, less shy. He kneaded the soft mound. Pinching her nipple gently between his thumb and forefinger made her suck in a deep breath. She didn’t answer. Her breath fanned his chest, stirred across his nipple until it drew to a tight peak. The sensation made him want to draw her into his mouth and suck until she felt the pull in every nerve of her body. As if she read his thoughts, she touched the tip of her tongue to his tight flesh. He jumped and wrapped his hand in her hair, on the verge of pulling her face back when she drew the bead between her lips, rolled it over her tongue and nipped. The sharp little bite went straight to his cock. “You do,” he confirmed on her behalf. She opened her mouth against his chest, licking slow circles around his nipple. He fought a base desire to pull her up by the hair and redirect her wet mouth to suck his cock. To remove temptation, he spread his fingers down over her stomach and between her legs. Her thighs stiffened. She drew her knees up and pressed them together, squeezing his hand tight. He whispered, “It’s all right,” and worked his finger past the soft tangle of hair. Pressing down on the hidden knot of nerves made her body jerk. Her ass came off the bed. Ethan pushed her back down. “You have to relax for this part.” “I can’t,” she gasped. 27

Emily Ryan-Davis

“Why not?” Her body vibrated as he drew a circle around her clit. His touch was soft and slippery, eased by the lubrication of her arousal, which pooled at the top of her sweet pocket. As sexy as the creamy swirl was, it kept him from building the friction he wanted, kept him from driving her truly wild. He experimented with a slow flick. She rewarded him with a groan, but she also clutched his wrist and pushed at his hand while arching her hips away from him. The touch was too direct. Too abrasive. He’d kept her waiting too long for climax. He tugged her nipple to distract her from the intensity and centered his fingertip securely atop her pleasure center. He pushed down gently, firmly, settling his touch right where he wanted it. Margaret’s throat gleamed pale and white in the dark as her neck arched and her breast pushed up into his palm. She rewarded his precision with a low, kittenish whimper that drove him crazy. He couldn’t help himself—he shifted to lay his erection along her thigh and worked his hips slowly, rubbing himself against her. Tiny spasms made her body jerk beneath his hand. Ethan persisted, attentively treating her hot spot. His free hand traveled back and forth between rock-hard nipples. She opened her knees wide and shoved his wrist away. Her strength surprised him. His knuckles skimmed her eager entrance and the high moan that followed made his cock jerk. He wanted her again, so bad his balls ached. If he mounted her though, it would be over in seconds. He couldn’t even pretend control. “Red, make this easy on both of us,” he whispered. Brushing her hand away, he worked his fingertips back to her clit and rolled it insistently. She thrashed, threw off his restraining arm and rolled toward him. The unexpected touch of her mouth on his skin, nuzzling through his chest hair and latching on to his nipple made him groan. He had to be inside her. Ashamed of his own weakness, too aroused to care what she thought, he swiftly negotiated the limitations of the small bed and changed places with her. Ethan guided Margaret’s knees to either side of his hips. She sank onto his cock effortlessly, hot and

28

All the Trees in Pearl

so damn tight he saw spots when he closed his eyes. The more he had of her body, the stronger her hold on him. A defeated voice in the back of his mind whispered, You’re caught. “Fuck,” Ethan breathed. Margaret laid her hands on his stomach and moved. “I am.” Strange calm settled over her, as if being physically in charge eased her tension. She walked her hands up his chest and stretched to hold onto the headboard. Ethan barely dared to breathe as the position pitched her pubic bone against his and pulled the skin at the base of his cock tight. He swallowed hard and bit his lip, caressed the hollows of her knees with his thumbs. If he were a smart man, he’d keep his mouth shut and let her do her mind-blowing thing. An ornery imp, a foolish part of him, needed to challenge her instead, and before he even knew he was thinking about opening his mouth, he said, “Didn’t know they taught ladies to ride Back East.” Margaret shook her hair out and stared down at him, narrowed eyes searing his skin. “I can ride,” she said evenly. And then she moved, slow and deliberate, a tiny motion that seated him even deeper within her, that stole his breath. What the hell? She did it again and her own breath caught. She lifted her chin and bit her bottom lip, arched her back as she rocked upon him a third time. Her nipples drew tight, inches from his mouth. Ethan wrapped his hands around the narrowest part of her waist and angled up to lave a cool, hard bead. Margaret moaned. He worked one hand down between them, intending to return the pleasure she was giving him, but couldn’t get his fingers between her mound and his pelvis. She’d already taken care of herself. He had a sudden picture in his mind, focused right there where their bodies joined, of her pussy spread wide and planted down hard against him—of her using his body to work her clit—and his toes curled. She didn’t need him. She made use of his body just fine. No other woman had used him that way. He drew his knees up and shifted down on the bed, bounced her forward ’til he could brace her ass with his thighs and drove higher, deeper. The sound of her pleasure 29

Emily Ryan-Davis

sent darts of heat to his groin. His eyes rolled back in his head. He grabbed onto her ass, tried to brace himself, to chase off his release. His balls tingled. “Red—” “Be quiet,” she ordered, clipped and no-nonsense. “I can’t finish with you talking to me.” Ethan lost the battle. He dug his fingertips into the soft cheeks of her ass, arched his neck and thrust so hard his hips came off the bed. Margaret yelped and lost her hold on the headboard. She fell down on him, smashed his face between her breasts. He couldn’t breathe. His brain melted and shot out his cock over and over again ’til he was sure she’d sucked him to a dried husk of a man. Thought he didn’t have another drop. Her body shuddered around him. The groan in her chest vibrated against his cheek and another wave of ecstasy tore through him. Jesus Christ, I’m not going to survive the night.

30

All the Trees in Pearl

Chapter Four Ethan left long before the sun came up. Margaret remembered his exit hazily. A blanket drawn up over her shoulders. A caress from the nape of her neck to the backs of her thighs. She flushed now as she brushed and plaited her hair—she’d asked him not to go. “I’ll be back,” he promised. “Have some things to do.” He’d kissed her cheek and locked the door behind him. The key was still on the floor where he’d slid it under so she could use it later if she wanted. Where would she go? More important, where could she go and not encounter the facial evidence that the entire town knew of her hasty marriage to and endless night of fornication with a veritable stranger? No matter. She had to leave the small room. The scents of her and Ethan’s lust did nothing to ease the hunger. It didn’t matter where she went—she had to escape the room. She didn’t pause to exchange greetings with the boarding house’s owner. The allure of fresh, rain-clean morning air lent her feet wings. The rain had come sometime between the moment she collapsed upon Ethan and the narrow predawn hour that woke him. In turn he had woken her with that tender lover’s kiss. The kiss remained a puzzle. Wives deserved that kind of intimate farewell. She wasn’t a proper wife. “Miss Margaret?” The woman’s voice jerked Margaret into the present. She stared mutely at the oval face turned toward her—a stranger. Manners overcame her surprise and she nodded acknowledgement. The other woman tsked. “That boy’s a fool.”

31

Emily Ryan-Davis

Margaret flinched. Gossip, she expected. This bluntness filled her with a new breed of shame. She glanced away. “Excuse me, I—” “Oh—forgive me—I didn’t—” She couldn’t bring herself to lift her head as she muttered, “I’m late for an appointment,” and tried to edge past the stranger in the narrow channel between her skirt and a muddy puddle. “Please wait!” A small, work-rough hand clasped Margaret’s elbow. She stared at the red knuckles and ragged nails and hid her own soft fingers in her palms. Why had she ever believed a life out West would suit her? “I didn’t mean that as it sounded! James was a dear friend—I only meant to say that you would’ve pleased him. You’re so beautiful.” A headache snuck between Margaret’s eyes. “I wish I had known him,” she said, unsure whether she meant it. She wanted to know the man portrayed in the letters she received, written by James, signed Ethan. The confusion of identities left her bemused and unsure of her own judgment. What if James had not left? If he’d been waiting, ready to greet her upon her arrival? Would she have wanted him as strongly as she wanted Ethan? She brought her head up and fixed the brunette with a small, false smile. A sudden need to see what would have been her home—to learn something of the man who penned the letters—prompted her to ask, “Can you show me where he lived, Miss…?” “Call me Darla. My husband’s a Swede—I can barely pronounce my own married name. I won’t trouble you with it.” She winked. “Can’t show you James’ house though. He lived out near his mine. I can find a boy to ride out and show you, if you can ride.” A deep, hard throb pulsed between her thighs. Heat blazed in her cheeks. She managed to choke out, “Please do,” around the sudden tightness in her throat, the shortness of breath in her lungs. Darla’s mouth pinched and her brows drew together. “Are you well?”

32

All the Trees in Pearl

Margaret fanned her face. “Took in a bit of dust,” she lied breathlessly. “Of course you did. The rain’s already dryin’ up. It’ll be nothin’ but dust here by noontime. Let me get some breakfast and tea for you, and we’ll get Mr. Thomas’ boy to take you out to James’ place. You should be all right out there—your Mr. Carver rode out that way early this morning.” Darla hefted her basket, which near overflowed with men’s undergarments, and tightened her grip on Margaret’s arm. “My husband built us a little house right here on the main street,” she said proudly. Ethan had gone to deal with James’ property. Of course. A small suspicious, paranoid seed planted itself in the back of her mind. He’d be gathering his brother’s things, readying them for removal to his ranch. How much had he packed already? Composing herself, Margaret shook her head. “Thank you, but I couldn’t possibly inconvenience you. And I’d like to ride out directly.” She needed those pieces of James’ life, pieces of a puzzle she only had a small chance of solving. Darla frowned but acquiesced. “I’m goin’ by Mr. Thomas’ next. I’ll ask him to send one of the boys.”

***** Shortly before noon Margaret’s guide delivered her to the front stoop of a modest house with a crooked roof, built to sit lopsided on a grade. Ethan’s mount stood tethered to a post inside the fenced yard. She sent Mr. Thomas’ boy back to town. As the young man rode away, she shaded her eyes and surveyed the down-sloping hill that slid out below her. A breeze tugged scraggly grasses back and forth. Nothing else moved. She mounted the porch with caution, uneasy with the absence of life and regretting her decision to send her escort away. Fighting doubts, she tested the door. The latch gave easily and swung open.

33

Emily Ryan-Davis

“Hello?” she called, feeling foolish for doing it, but a trespasser if she didn’t. Moments passed without a response. She bit her lip and stepped inside, breathing in the raw-wood smell of the place. Where was Ethan? The house consisted of a scant handful of rooms—a sparsely furnished parlor that had a bed tucked away in a far corner, a kitchen and a third room with a closed door. She could see the entirety of the house, except for that closed room, from where she stood just inside the threshold. The closed door piqued her curiosity. She curled her fingers against her palms, uncertain whether to take advantage of this opportunity to have a walk through James’ possessions or go in search of Ethan. There was a mine somewhere. Perhaps Ethan had come to inspect his brother’s mine and had no intention spending any time at all in James’ house. Thoughts of Ethan amplified her discomfort. She went outside and walked around the house, squinting against the sun. A second structure stood in the back—a tool shed of some sort probably. The door was latched. A plume of smoke curled up from behind the small building and her heart thumped a warning pattern. “Ethan?” Where did James get his water? She hadn’t seen a well or obvious signs of an irrigation system. Mr. Thomas said James had recently purchased tools and intended to dig himself a well. Had he finished the task? Heavy hands landed on her shoulders and jerked her backward up against a long, hard body. “What are you doing here?” Ethan demanded. A thrill shot from her ears down to the tips of her toes. He held her facing the sun. Her eyes watered until she closed them and darkened out the day. Her breath lodged in her throat. “I wanted to see—” “There’s nothing to see.” He pressed his face to the back of her head. Without warning he transferred his grip from her shoulders to her breasts. Her nipples drew tight, ached. “Who brought you?”

34

All the Trees in Pearl

“One of Mr. Thomas’ sons.” She peeked through her eyelashes to see down her body. He clasped her breasts so tight that puckers of fabric wrinkled between his fingers. “There’s only one horse out front.” His thumbs swept down and pinched her nipples. Twin darts of alarmed pleasure fired off from his ungentle treatment. Her knees weakened and her head lightened. “I sent him back,” she whispered. “Good.” He released her breasts and wrapped his arms around her ribs, hid his mouth in the curve of her shoulder. He labored over his breathing. A confused moment passed before Margaret realized the moisture dampening her throat came not from kisses but from tears. Ethan’s sobs were quiet, controlled, but he was crying. She touched his forearm and tipped her head to rest her cheek against his temple. Her own dry eyes drew a wash of guilt and misgiving. She didn’t know this man at all. Hadn’t stopped to consider his brother’s flight would’ve given him cause to grieve. Concerned with her own welfare, her own upset plans, she had neglected to acknowledge that people who actually knew and loved the man she barely held as an acquaintance would feel his absence. She tried to turn in Ethan’s arms, to hold him, but the band of muscle around her chest tightened. “Stay,” he said roughly. Margaret sighed and closed her eyes. His hair and clothes smelled of dirt, of sweat. Of smoke. His sorrow tugged at a sympathetic part of her, a nurturing part. “Come inside and let me hold you.” “Can’t. Need to put out the fire.” “What are you burning?” “Clothes. Papers.” Things she’d wanted to see. It didn’t matter though. She’d seen enough to suspect James hadn’t really told her anything of himself at all. The home he’d described to her

35

Emily Ryan-Davis

looked nothing like this tidy, tiny house. The flat stretch of prairie was not the mountain range he’d written about with such pride. As Ethan held her, she wondered whether James had ever intended to meet her at all. Soon, he rubbed his mouth on her shoulder and sniffed deeply. Pulled himself together, enough that his voice was even when he said, “Wind’s getting stronger, coming down from the mountains. I have to bring water from the well before the wind picks up any embers. Stupid of me to start a fire out here. The rain from this morning’s not enough to get the grass really wet. Not deep down.” He released her and turned away to gather up four wooden pails, two in each hand. “Come with me.” Margaret followed him past the shed. A contained fire flickered and danced in a deep pit a few yards from the building. She glanced into it as they passed, but the flames had devoured everything except the sleeve of a plaid shirt, and they were busily licking at the flannel. Not even the sleeve would remain by the time they returned. The flat land dipped a short distance from the house. Ethan stepped down into a wide, shallow land basin bisected by a thin stream. A wood-frame doorway had been dug and hammered into the ground on the far side where the side of the small crater started to rise back to the level prairie. Margaret squinted at it. “Is that the mine?” she asked. “It’s closed over now.” He dropped the four buckets and knelt to dip one of them into the stream. “Will it be opened again?” “No.” Margaret glanced away and moved over to settle down beside him. She tucked her skirt securely around her legs before leaning to dip one of the other pails into the stream. Cool, clear water slid over sand-colored pebbles and chilled her wrists, soaked her sleeves. After she brought the bucket clear, she examined her glistening fingers,

36

All the Trees in Pearl

shrunken and cold. Her taste buds craved the flavor of the water. Surreptitiously, she licked the back of her thumb. Beside her, Ethan made a soft sound. He pinned her with his beautiful, strangely mismatched stare. “Do you like pearls?” She pressed her thumb over the bead that adorned her hand. “I’ve heard tell that they bring misfortune. They’re beautiful but I find them rather unsettling.” His brow furrowed. “Truly?” Margaret nodded. “All the jewelry James gave you—every piece of it—is made of pearls.” His attention shifted from her face to the stream. “My father got it in his head that he could make my mother love Pearl—love his land—if he gave her enough pretty tokens by the same name. But he couldn’t. She didn’t like them pink, she didn’t like them black, and she sure didn’t like them white.” His pain reached out and circled her throat, stroking and tightening until her breath weighed heavy and laborious. None of this pain had existed in the letters. This was a layer of Ethan that James couldn’t replicate. “You want to leave, don’t you?” he asked, interrupting her marvel. “I don’t know if this is where I belong,” she hedged. “Right here? Where you’re standing?” “No.” She hesitated. Ethan’s eyes insisted upon an answer. Margaret released her breath and clarified. “Right here with you.” “You married me.” And said marriage means staying. “You’re not the man I came here to marry.” “Those letters you have say that I am.” She stared back at him, unable to refute his words. “You don’t even know me.” He arched an eyebrow. “You forget last night already?” Margaret flushed. “You know that’s not what I meant.”

37

Emily Ryan-Davis

“I’ve learned enough about you to know I’d like to learn more.” He reached out for her wrist and pulled her still-damp fingers to his lips. Sucked two of them into his mouth. Margaret’s voice fled along with her sense of balance. As his tongue tugged at her fingertips, she felt herself listing toward the stream side of the downslope. She dropped her free hand to the ground and clutched a handful of grass to steady herself. “What are you doing?” she whispered. Her fingers popped out of his mouth. “Risking the fire.” He nuzzled her palm, licked the inside of her wrist, bit the base of her thumb gently. His teeth sank down on a nerve that connected with her nipples. The bite stung sharp and vivid, resonated at the peaks of both breasts. “We’re outside,” she gasped. “You see anybody else out here?” He settled on his back and pulled her to sprawl atop him, trapped her hips between his thighs. His arousal and his belt buckle dug into her belly. She squirmed, but the movement only repositioned the ridge of his cock more firmly against her sex. His eyes closed, his features relaxed in sunlit bliss that made her catch her breath. “Ethan, we’re outside. This is where animals couple.” Margaret pulled at her hand, but he tightened his grip, worked his tongue down inside the sodden cuff of her sleeve. “Then it fits since you’re making me think like an animal. I get ahold of you and all I want to do is mark you as mine.” His hat tumbled off and his bare head rested in the grass. He looked up at her. A glittering intensity in his eyes made her own widen and a third protest died on her lips. He clamped his free hand low at the small of her back, anchoring her hips to his. “Right now I want to mount you. Put you on your hands and knees, push your skirt up to your waist and hold your face down in the grass so you’ll never be able to smell earth again without remembering my cock deep inside.” Liquid heat slid between her legs. His sex words rendered her speechless. She had to focus on breathing in and out because if she didn’t concentrate, she just might stop 38

All the Trees in Pearl

altogether. She dropped her forehead down to his chest, nuzzled between the buttoned edges of his shirt and breathed his scent. Grass mingled with dust and springtime sweat. Dear God, would she go to Hell for wanting him like that? Shameless as a barn cat? Ethan interrupted her supplication with a sigh. He kneaded the sides of her breasts, pulled at her braid to bring her head up. “You like it better on top though.” Margaret shook her head, stricken by his wickedness. By her own. Her cheeks burned. She could feel wetness soaking her undergarments, making her pubic hair sticky and slippery. She curled her hands in his hair. “I want you to be…wild.” He froze and narrowed his eyes. “Tell me that again.” “I want you—” “Hard? Animals do it hard.” Margaret swallowed. “Hard.” “Rough?” He turned his head to bite the base of her palm. “Because they do it rough.” Her breath slid out in a rush. “And rough.” “Promise me you’ll come.” She blinked. “What?” He pulled her braid again. His features, so recently soft, had gone hard and fierce. “Last night, you wouldn’t finish until you were on top. I’ll only do you like this if you promise you’ll come.” “How can I make a promise like that?” Her stomach tightened, fearful, but the small muscles deep in her wetness clenched in anticipation. “It’s not something you can just…guarantee.” “Yes, it is.” He leaned up and kissed her throat, bit the underside of her chin. “You promise if I can’t bring you all the way, you’ll work on it yourself. With your fingers.

39

Emily Ryan-Davis

And my cock inside you. And when I ask you for it, when I ask you to come, you won’t say ‘I can’t’ like you did last night.” He flexed and lifted his hips, rubbing his erection against her through her skirt. Margaret gulped, but said, “I p-promise.” “Good girl. I wish it didn’t have to be fast,” he murmured against her forearm. She suddenly wished it didn’t have to be fast either. She hadn’t been brave enough to really taste him the night before. Ethan removed both hands and squeezed her bottom, bunching the bulk of her skirts until she could feel sprinkling spray from the stream cooling her legs. He shifted her weight down to the ground, kissed the nape of her neck and bit her there. “Get on your hands and knees.” She obeyed, pushing herself up. The front of her skirt caught beneath her shins, but it didn’t matter. Ethan shoved the back up past her hips and hooked his fingers beneath the drawstring waist of her underwear. “There’s a slit,” she managed. “If you reach—ahhhh, God, right there.” His knuckles slid over her entrance as he found and parted the open seam at her crotch. He grunted. “Christ, you’re wet. I want to—don’t move—oh darlin’, you’re the best parting gift a man ever got.” What was he talking about? She started to ask, but his belt buckle pressed hard against her bottom and his length burrowed into the cloth slit, riding shallowly between her sticky lips. He curled his fingers across the back of her neck and urged her down. “Smell the grass,” he muttered as he drew his length back and positioned against her tight tunnel. Her elbows gave under the pressure of his hand at the same instant her pussy gave under the pressure of his cock. Margaret moaned into the grass long and loud as he slammed himself deep. His balls swung right up against her clit. Every muscle in her body jolted. He didn’t stop. She clutched fistfuls of grass as he pounded relentlessly, connecting with her secret spot, riding her so hard that every withdrawal dragged her 40

All the Trees in Pearl

entire body back with him. He drove in and threw her forward, pulling the seams of her skirt tight against her hips. Somewhere in the pines a bird shrieked and Margaret screamed with it as he hit a spot deep inside that tore the sound from her throat. Ethan bent over her, reached around to clutch her thighs and spread them wider. “I’m going to fuck you under every tree on this land,” he vowed, hips hammering, punctuating every word. “Until you can’t imagine doing it anywhere else in the world.” Margaret pushed her bottom up against him, grinding her nipples down against the ground. Stiff grass blades stabbed through the fabric of her bodice and nipped at her breasts, tiny fragrant spikes that reminded her where they were. She felt like a wild creature, couldn’t bring herself to summon a care for the fact that she’d spread her legs open under the sky and begged a man she barely knew to screw her as if she were a mare in heat and he the stallion meant to bring her to breed. His wildness was a drug and he wouldn’t need all the trees in Pearl to keep her—she was already addicted, already craved the sound of his shout as he came, the bonelessness of her own orgasm lurking mere thrusts away. As if he read her mind, Ethan growled, “Now. Come now.” Margaret tried to move, tried to push her hand between her legs. Blind panic struck her when she hit the barrier of skirts trapped between her knees. She whimpered. “I can’t. I can’t get—” He swore and bit her shoulder hard. “You promised. Do it.” “I can’t reach!” she wailed. Desperately, she scrabbled at the barrier of her skirt. Blades of grass brushed her lips as she sobbed her urgency. “Ethan, please. You have to help me!” He buried his face between her shoulder blades and his weight fell upon her back like a hard, muscular blanket as he began to spend. Margaret squeezed her eyes shut, fighting tears. He’d finish without her. He’d finish and leave her trembling because she promised and couldn’t reach. He’d— Her eyes flew open as a shockwave of fire exploded. He pinched her clit hard between his fingers, rolled it between his knuckles, 41

Emily Ryan-Davis

and she lost all awareness of his release, her own overwhelming it, hitting so hard that it very nearly had a sound of its own…the sound of an animal’s hoarse scream. Her own scream, shouted into the dirt, as he relentlessly pulled at her over and over again even after he’d stopped moving. She tore handfuls of grass, scraped dirt beneath her fingernails, cursed him as he laughed. “Wildcat,” he breathed, his arm a band beneath her stomach, anchoring himself to her jerking, bucking body. She heard him say, “Thank you, James,” before he pinched one last orgasm from her tormented flesh.

***** Ethan stayed to hold her for a few dreamy minutes, cradling her against his chest with his face in her hair. Neither of them spoke. Margaret lay listening to his heartbeat as it slowed to something closer to normal. A breeze traveled down from the mountains and skimmed the stream until it arrived cool and fresh to dry the perspiration and semen that dampened her legs. She needed to ask him questions, to make him repeat the words he’d uttered at the peak of his climax, but her throat tightened around the curiosity that could destroy her bliss. Questions could wait. She wanted to linger and sigh over every last throb of pleasure slowing through her veins. Before the last one slipped away, Ethan stirred. He rubbed her stomach and pulled a fistful of skirt down over her hips. Kissed her ear and murmured, “Stay here. I’ll be right back.” Margaret glanced over her shoulder and watched him fasten his pants. “Where are you going?” “To put out the fire.” He ran his hand down the stocking-clad curve of her leg. “Stay here.” A pleading note in his voice caught her attention and drew her gaze to his face. He hid it fast, his yearning look, but she caught it in time. Stay meant something different to him. Something longer. She sat up, mentally shaking off the lethargy of satiation. “I’ll come with you.”

42

All the Trees in Pearl

“You don’t have to.” He rose and took up two of the vessels they’d filled earlier. “I know.” Her hair fell around her face in tangled mess, sagging from her mangled braid. She pushed it from her eyes and climbed to her feet, uncertain and wobbling on her legs. Drawing a determined breath, she willed her knees to cooperate. A glance at his face betrayed his watchfulness, the possessive way he observed her every motion. In his world she already belonged to him. The prospect of belonging—to him—thrilled her, warmed a dangerous place in her chest. She breathed past it and said, “I’m coming anyway.” His mouth firmed at her insistence, but he nodded toward the remaining buckets of water. “Bring those.” Thin needles of fiber poked from the braided rope tied to each pail. Her palms itched, soft skin recoiling from the rough handles. She suddenly thought of Darla’s hands, red-knuckled and chapped from harsh soaps and work just like this. Was this the life she wanted? Life as a rancher’s woman? The taste of grass stayed on her tongue, a reminder of Ethan’s passion. His vow to take her beneath every tree, to make her want to stay. Ethan’s shadow speared across her path. She looked up to find he’d climbed the slope of the basin and stood watching her. “I’ll buy you all the creams and lotions you could ever want,” he said quietly, as if he knew her mind. “And gloves. We’ll go to Denver and have them made special to fit your hands.” His wet pants clung to his thighs, plastered to muscle by water that had sloshed from the buckets. Margaret swallowed. She’d never felt so wanted before. Never wanted so strongly before. Perhaps he had it right that a single night was enough time to work up an appetite for more. She sighed, bent to retrieve her share of the water and struck off after him.

“Tell me about the letter James left for you,” she said as she came up behind him.

43

Emily Ryan-Davis

Ethan took the rest of the water from her and poured it over the sodden remains of his small fire. “Tell me about the letters he wrote you,” he countered, not looking at her. Weird reluctance plagued him. Fear that the full truth of James’ deceit would have her turning tail and heading Back East. He couldn’t blame her either. It wasn’t right to withhold the truth, but he didn’t want her to go. She persisted though. “I asked first.” “You want to know more than I do. I’m holding all the cards.” He turned to look down at her upturned face, her pale cheeks pinkening under the sun, the streak of brown dirt and green grass stain smeared beneath her chin. Smiling wistfully, he dropped his hat down atop her head. The brim shaded her eyes but it didn’t hide her frown. “You’re laughing at me.” She propped her hands on her hips. New want stirred in his loins. Even though his body didn’t have another performance in it yet, his brain sure did want more. Maybe if he kept her distracted with talking… “Not laughing, darlin’. Gloating. You want to know what he had to say for himself? Why you’re here at all?” Margaret

bypassed

his

questions.

“When

you

were—when

we—when

you…finished…” His lips quirked. “When I came?” “You said ‘Thank you, James’. Why?” The smile died a hard death. He looked away from her. “A man can’t show appreciation?” “Were you in on this with him? Is it something you planned on?” Ethan snorted. “Did it seem like I knew about you when you showed up yesterday, ready to take my name and make it yours?” She turned away from him, tugging restlessly at the hems of her sleeves. “It seems like you know about me now. I want to know why I’m here. Did James ever plan to

44

All the Trees in Pearl

meet me? What did he think would happen when I arrived and he wasn’t here? Were you really going to just leave me there in the middle of town?” Ethan stared down into the smoldering remains of the fire, which had mostly burnt itself out by the time they came up with the water. It had eaten the evidence of James’ foolishness and his skewed intentions. “James wasn’t going to be here when you came. I expect he figured I’d have found out before you got here—the letter he left me gave your arrival date as two days from now. And I don’t know what I would’ve done if I’d known first. What would’ve happened differently.” “Why did he do it? Lie to me and lure me here?” “Because he thought he needed to give me a substitute,” he said, unable to keep a neutral tone. Bitterness edged the words. Margaret turned back to him, tilting her head and narrowing her eyes on his face. “A substitute for what?” “For him. For my sister.” He dropped the empty water bucket into the fire pit. “James wanted to leave. He wanted to go after Collette and see the world the way she has. He didn’t want to be tied to a piece of land that stinks of sheep shit, but he didn’t want to leave with a guilty conscience either. So he ordered a wife to keep me company. Distract me. Hopefully repopulate the bedrooms at the ranch, since our father dried up after Ma left.” “That seems unfair,” Margaret said evenly. “It was unfair to you.” His gut twisted, but he had to say the words. To give her the choice James had stolen from her. It might’ve been a point of honor to marry her, to honor James’ promise, but it was an even bigger point of pride to know that she stayed because she wanted to. Because it was her decision, not her lack of options. He couldn’t look at her as he said, “If you want to leave, I won’t keep you. I’ll give you the money James put in holding and you can go have the life you wanted. Buy the pearls from you if you want—or sell them in Denver. They haven’t kept a woman here yet. I don’t expect them to keep you.” 45

Emily Ryan-Davis

Christ. Ethan damned his brother for giving him a taste of Margaret. Sharp acid burned in his throat. He turned away from her, staring blindly up at the white-capped peak of the nearest mountain. Beside him, her breathing came irregular and stretched into a long silence. She eventually broke it by saying, “You don’t have to do that.” “You came all the way here, and I’ve taken advantage of you. I do have to do it.” “I came out for a man named Ethan,” she said. “I’ve met you. I…want you. I think the man your brother showed me was the closest he could get to you without actually being you.” “It was a deception.” “Maybe not so much of one.” She put her hand on his arm. Ethan looked down at her fingers, so pale and soft and dirty from clinging to the grass while he took her under the sky. Her sleeve was still wet. The bend of her elbow, the hunch of her shoulder, drew his gaze up to her eyes, and the blueness, just like the horizon when mists hung low on the mountains, made him wish. “Tell me what you want to do,” he said. Tell me you want to stay. “If I understand correctly, your brother gave me a year-long holiday on your ranch,” she said, slow and measured. “Unless you like having that big house all to yourself, I’d like to take advantage of his gift.” “Only a year,” Ethan said flatly. She’d destroy him, but he couldn’t bring himself to tell her no, to send her away to save himself. “To decide whether we want more.” Margaret squeezed his arm. “Ethan, you deserve someone who wants to be here,” she said gently. “Someone you can love.” I can love you. Could he make her love him?

46

All the Trees in Pearl

Epilogue Ethan buried his face in the curve of her neck and crowded her up against the trunk of a wide tree. Snow eddied around Margaret’s face as he bit the sensitive skin above her collarbone. She smiled at the lacy canopy of ice-crusted branches above them and watched her breath cloud in the cold air. “What number is this?” she murmured, threading her fingers through Ethan’s hair as he fought his way through the layers of woolen skirts and petticoats she wore to protect against the frigid temperatures. “Don’t remember.” He shivered against her. Margaret wound her arms around his torso and kissed his temple, spreading her booted feet to make it easier for him. “Too cold to remember,” he said. “I remember I love you though.” She laughed. “Well, hurry up and we’ll go home, have some soup and count—oh God.” He pressed his hand between her thighs and worked a handful of icy granules against her heat, slid two frosty fingers into her body. She shrieked and bucked against him. “That’s snow!” “I know.” He covered her mouth and filled her with the warm flavor of his morning coffee even as he rubbed his chilled thumb around her entrance and funneled melting snow into her channel. He broke to nip her lips, to position his cock against her intimate chill. “Tell me.” Margaret dropped her head back against the tree, panting with the effort to hold her hips still, to make him work for it. “You tell me first,” she breathed. “How bad do you want it?” He thrust forward, just a fraction, teasing and making her muscles clench. Her cheeks were cold as fresh peppermint, but the heat he drew down between her legs chased away any remnant of snow. She wanted it bad. “You’re a devil,” she said, and opened her eyes. 47

Emily Ryan-Davis

He hovered close, his breath on her nose, thick lashes spiky with snowflakes. “I know. Tell me anyway.” “I love you,” she whispered, holding his gaze locked. His eyes darkened and he bit his lip, hitched her bottom up into his hands and slid deep. The relief that relaxed his features, that set him free, filled her heart to bursting. Of all the things she’d expected, love hadn’t been among them.

48

About the Author Emily Ryan-Davis lives in Maryland with her loving husband and hateful guinea pig. On any given day, you can find her shopping (online or in stores), chatting/writing (the pair go hand in hand, can't have one without the other), knitting (or buying yarn) or mocking her husband's comic colection (while parenthtically wondering why comics haven't upgraded to the e-book age; imagine all the extra space she'd have). Occasionally she picks up her mandolin, but mostly she just ignores it. You won't find her paying attention to current events or the latest celebrity gossip because writing stories is her way of pretending it doesn't matter that she doesn't know how to use the television remote. Emily's favorite to-read authors are Megan Hart, Terry Pratchett, JR Ward and Orson Scott Card. She loves sexy, magical, funny, and intense stories, but especially enjoys immersing herself in the breathles intensity of a "with feeling" love scene. She can't pick a genre (decision-making issues!) so writes in whatever setting calls to her at any given time: contemporary paranormal, historical western, medieval Europe, gothic France-if she can imagine a strong emotional attraction exsting in a particular place or time, chances are she'll write the story. The author welcomes comments from readers. You can find her website and email address on her author bio page at www.ellorascave.com.

Tell Us What You Think We appreciate hearing reader opinions about our books. You can email us at [email protected].

Discover for yourself why readers can’t get enough of the multiple award-winning publisher Ellora’s Cave. Whether you prefer e-books or paperbacks, be sure to visit EC on the web at www.ellorascave.com for an erotic reading experience that will leave you breathless.

www.ellorascave.com