A Man for Glory Read online

  “Better, Cade. With the horses out in the pasture and the children’s bedrooms being enlarged. Even the chickens are laying better than they ever have before. You’ve gotten in the spring hay and the loft is half full already. My garden is thriving, thanks to your help, and the children and I are happy. What more could I ask?”

  “Nothing for yourself, Glory? Isn’t there anything else you’d like to have?”

  “I’d like to feel a little better, Cade. Of late, I’m sleepy a lot and I’m not usually given to taking naps, but some days I feel like I just have to lie down for a few minutes. And in the mornings the smell of your coffee makes me feel kinda like upchucking. I don’t know what’s come over me, but I just feel strange, not like myself. But that’s not something you can fix, so don’t worry about it. It’ll work itself out.”

  He viewed her as she stepped from behind her screen, the gown he’d bought for her falling gracefully about her. The sight made him thankful that the girl belonged to him, for there was within him a mighty yearning for her, a need for her youthful body beneath his, for her arms to encircle him with the passion she held in abeyance for just such a time as this.

  “Come here, Glory.” He held out his arms and she crossed the floor, her look puzzled, for her normal pattern was to lie down on the bed and await his presence beside her. Now he held her close in the middle of the room, and her arms went around his waist, holding him against herself, feeling the rise of his manhood against her belly and between her thighs. Her eyes were closed and her cheeks were flushed with a faint rosy hue, and he felt at that moment that he was the richest man in the world. For in his arms he held a woman who was warm and willing and would cuddle beside him for this night and countless nights to come.

  What more could a man ask of life?

  But his sensible mind answered quickly. All the more reason to get the gold to the sheriff and let Pinkerton’s know he was done with this job. Then he could settle down and take up his new life with Glory.

  His thoughts prodded him to see the sheriff right soon.

  He lifted Glory and carried her easily to his bed, lowering her to the middle and joining her there, his clothing already scattered across the floor, for he’d known enough to ready himself for her while she’d been behind the screen.

  Now he bent over her, welcoming her arms as they clasped his neck. He lowered his head a bit, his lips touching the mouth that opened to his kiss, then spent long minutes pleasuring his wife, readying her for his presence within her tender body.

  “I could spend the next week right here, Glory. Just holding you and loving you and feeling your soft breasts against me and your sweet scent rising to tempt me.”

  Glory muffled her laughter, and then discounted his hopes as futile. “I fear you can’t do that, Cade, or your work will never get done. You have exactly six hours or so to spend here and then it will be time to get up and get busy.”

  “But just think what I can do in those six hours, sweetheart,” he said, his voice dark as black velvet to her ears.

  “Shall we think about it or do it, Cade?” she asked, her eyes on his, her body moving beneath him. Her legs opened for him and he was there, where she’d planned for him to be.

  “Ah, Glory. You’re such a wonder. I don’t know what I ever did without you. I’m so thankful you’re mine.”

  And then with a stealth born of long practice where Glory was concerned, Cade pulled her gown from beneath her and then over her head and dropped it on the floor.

  “You’re sneaky, Mr. McAllister,” she pronounced as she clasped him even closer.

  “Yeah, I know. But I wanted us on even ground. You may not have noticed that I came to bed without any clothes on at all.”

  “Oh, I noticed. From the time I came out of the corner behind the screen, I noticed. Couldn’t help but see that you have a problem here.”

  “Where?” he asked, posing his query even as his problem twitched between her legs.

  She laughed aloud now as she responded to his teasing. “As if you didn’t know. That thing that keeps trying to get my attention.”

  “And is it working? Are you paying mind to my problem, maybe with an eye to taking care of it, sweetheart?”

  Her body beneath his was most accommodating, for she wiggled to the proper place and then lifted her hips, solving his dilemma neatly.

  “How’s that, McAllister?” she asked, breathless as he took advantage of her willingness.

  “About the most perfect thing that’s happened to me for the past two days.”

  Chapter Twelve

  The house fairly sang with enthusiasm as Cade cut wood and put it together to form the things he had promised to Buddy and Essie. The boy was with him a good share of the day, for Cade had given him a paintbrush, covering the floor first with a tarp he’d found in the barn. Buddy industriously painted the woodwork around the hole Cade had made in the wall, excited to see how large the room would be when finished. His desk was taking form this week, and the boy was already planning for his things to be placed there.

  Cade told him he’d see about making a drawer for the table he’d created, and told Buddy he’d not done such a thing before, but he thought it was something he could tackle and accomplish.

  Cade produced the drawer. It wasn’t deep, but wide, fitting beneath the middle of the desk. Made to hold pencils and paper and erasers and other such things that Buddy might use for his schoolwork, it was exactly what he’d needed.

  Glory went up to the room to inspect it and praised Buddy to the skies for the painting he’d done and for cleaning up Cade’s mess as needed. The new window looked as if it had always been there, so well had Cade fitted it into place. Even the boards he’d put in place beneath it were painted, as were the surrounding walls.

  Buddy’s room was almost ready to move into and he could hardly wait, begging for the chance to sleep there, even without his bed in place.

  “I could sleep on the floor tonight,” he said, his words a plea.

  “We’ll move your stuff in later on this afternoon, and you’ll be able to sleep in your bed tonight.” Cade spoke the words firmly, wanting Buddy to be settled by nightfall.

  “Oh, boy. I’ll start getting things ready to move, Pa.” And he was off, gone to his old bedroom on flying feet.

  “You’ve made him so happy, Cade.” Glory stood behind him as he smoothed a piece of wood with sandpaper. “I don’t know how you managed to know so much about building, but I’m sure glad you’re using your knowledge for us.”

  “Who else should I work for, Glory? You’re my family and I love all three of you.”

  She was stunned, looking up into his face as he rose to stand before her. “You love us? Me and the children?”

  His smile was warm, his arms strong around her as he bent to kiss her with a tenderness that almost made her cry, so sweet was his manner. “Of course I love you, Glory. I haven’t said the words to you, and I shouldn’t have assumed you knew without my telling you, but my love is yours. I knew when I first saw you that you could steal my heart, and doggoned if you haven’t.”

  Her arms crept around his neck and she leaned her head against his chest, hearing his heart beat beneath her ear. He said she’d stolen his heart, and the thought of that filled her with a joy she could barely contain.

  “I’ve never told a man I loved him before now, Cade. I’ll probably never say those words to another man, but you’re the most important person in my world. I feel for you as I’ve never felt for any other person in my life. I love the children like they were my own, but for you there’s a different sort of love. It fills me and overwhelms me sometimes. When you hold me close, when you kiss me, when you make yourself part of me … it all seems to blend in together in a marvelous sort of way that makes me want to be close to you, to touch you and have you hold me.”

  “Sure sounds like love to me,” Cade drawled slowly, his grin wide, his eyes sparkling. He looked down at her as he lowered his head, his mouth touchin
g hers in a kiss that seemed a promise of forever. Their bodies were close, drawn by the power that made them man and wife, their flesh crying out for the act that would join them together as one.

  “We can’t do this here,” Glory said quietly, knowing what his thoughts were, even as she was tempted to obey her own desire.

  “No. But we can wait till tonight, sweetheart. After it’s dark and the children are sleeping, we can remember where we were right now. It’s like reading a book and marking the page so you won’t forget where you are. We’ll remember once the light goes out tonight. In fact, maybe I’ll just leave it on, so I can tell what I’m doing.”

  “Cade McAllister, you seem to do your best work in the dark, if I know anything about it,” she retorted, and then collapsed against him as his fingertips found a ticklish spot just beneath her armpit, where her ribs began.

  “No fair, no fair,” she protested, trying to escape his hold.

  “I’ll let you tickle me tonight,” he promised, drawing her close, forsaking the fun of tickling her for the joy of kissing her.

  “You aren’t ticklish,” she said, pouting.

  “No, but it would be fun, having you look for places where I might be,” he told her.

  “Is that all you think about?” Her voice was prim now, as if the impropriety of the situation had just struck her.

  “Most of the time,” he admitted. And then his grin appeared again. His dimple even showed, a rare occurrence, for he seldom smiled so widely. “Don’t you know that husbands are addicted to the marriage bed? And with good reason, love. It’s the most beautiful part of being married, the taking of a wife into your arms and coaxing her to accept you into her body.”

  “You didn’t have to do much coaxing, Cade. I fear I was an easy target for you.”

  “You have no idea how I worried about the process of loving you the first time, Glory. I feared I would hurt you and scare you off. And then I didn’t know if I would be able to give you pleasure in our bed.”

  Her eyebrows lifted and she tipped her head back, the better to look up into his eyes. “You didn’t hurt me, Cade. Only a little, and I expected that. As for the pleasure part, I don’t know if I could stand much more than you offer.”

  His face took on a look of happiness she had not seen before. “I didn’t know that, Glory. That you enjoy so much the loving part of our marriage. Oh, I knew you were pleased with things, but not that you truly wanted to make love to me without any coaxing.”

  Her tongue traveled the length of her upper lip as if she thought long and hard about her words. “I kinda like the coaxing part, Cade. Please, don’t quit that part of it.”

  He laughed aloud, and she put her fingers on his mouth to hush the sound. “Don’t let the children hear you.”

  “Who cares. They’ll just know that their pa loves their mama. And there’s nothing wrong with that, sweetheart.”

  Essie nagged at the supper table, pleased that Buddy’s room was almost finished, but worried that her room was not even begun.

  “Can we start tomorrow, Pa? Can we work on my room, please?”

  And Cade, even though he was tired from the chores and the added work upstairs, managed a smile when he answered the child. “We’ll see, Essie. I need to work on a set of stalls in the barn, and I may have to put your room on hold for a couple of days.”

  “More stalls?” Glory asked on her way from the table to the cupboard where she stored her pies. She’d baked a custard pie, one Buddy liked especially well.

  She brought him a large piece, placing it before him.

  “Oh, boy, Glory! That sure looks good. You even whipped up some cream for it and everything.”

  “I sure did, Buddy. You’re almost my favorite fella, you know.”

  Glory looked over at Cade, enjoying his obvious pleasure in the dessert she’d given him. “This seems like a good time to bring it up, Cade, while you’re happy with the pie and the lady who baked it. I’d like to go to town in the next day or so if we can. I want to buy some material for curtains for the children’s rooms. And they need to pick out the colors they want. And we have to look up the schoolteacher and get things settled. We’ve been to town twice since you mentioned seeing her and it’s past time to do it.”

  “You’re right, Glory. How about the day after tomorrow? You’ll have another batch of butter done by then for the general store, and maybe three or four dozen more eggs.”

  “All right. That’ll do, I think. In the meantime I’ll do the baking and see about cutting out a dress for Essie from the material we bought.”

  “I thought that was for you, sweetheart,” he said quietly.

  “Oh, not the flowered piece, but another of pink-and-white gingham. I got it a while back and saved it for summer for her.”

  “A new dress for me?” Essie jumped down from her chair, having listened intently to the conversation.

  “Yes, a new dress for you, Essie.” Glory held the small body tightly against herself, her heart filled with love for the child.

  “You didn’t drink your coffee, Glory. Would you like tea, instead?” Cade asked, his gaze fixed on her face.

  “It didn’t agree with me for some reason. No, I’ll have tea later when my food has settled a bit.”

  But the food didn’t settle well at all, and Glory found herself leaning over the slop pail in their bedroom a half hour later, losing the supper she’d consumed.

  She carried it out to dump it in the outhouse and washed it out near the horse trough, aggravated at herself for ailing again. It was getting to be a regular thing and she wondered at it, although she had a suspicion as to what her problem might be.

  Sleeping with Cade had resulted in a baby, of that she was almost certain. She’d realized just today that her monthly had not arrived as scheduled, and then began counting back, finally concluding that she hadn’t had that flow of blood for well over two months. As close as she could figure, she was almost three months along, and it was no wonder she’d tossed up her meals several times of late.

  The idea of a baby had always fascinated Glory, for she was curious about the changes in a woman’s body leading up to childbirth. The women in town almost went into hiding when they carried a child, it seemed, for in the over three years she’d lived here, she’d rarely seen a woman swollen with child. And that seemed strange to her. It seemed that there was almost a shame attached to the condition.

  But not for me, Glory thought staunchly. No matter how enlarged her body grew, she would not be ashamed of it, or fearful of letting folks know of her pregnancy. Pregnancy. It was a word she’d thought of, but not in connection with herself.

  And now she faced the fact that she was heading in that direction, and found that she could think of no one to speak about it with, for she hadn’t made friends with the women in town. Her closest friend was Cade, and she wasn’t sure how much good he’d be under the circumstances.

  Essie was in the parlor and Glory joined her there, watching from the doorway as Essie played quietly with her doll baby. “Should we make some clothes for that baby?” Glory asked, remembering an earlier conversation about the subject.

  “I’d sure like to, but I know you’ve been busy, Glory.”

  “Not too busy for that. How about if we make her a dress out of the scraps of your pink-and-white-checked fabric? When I finish with yours, I’ll do one for her, and you can be dressed alike,” Glory said, taking a seat on the sofa.

  “Would you really?” As though she could not conceive of such a wonderful thing, Essie approached Glory and climbed up to sit beside her, her doll in her arms.

  “I’d think we could get a remnant of flannel from the store and make her a small quilt if you want to, Essie. I think I can remember how to do that. My mama used to sew for my babies when I was a little girl.”

  “Was your mama good to you, like you are to me and Buddy? Did she teach you stuff, like your arithmetic and reading? And what’s a remnant, Glory?”

  “To begin w
ith, a remnant is a piece of fabric left over on the bolt, once the storekeeper has sold most of it to the women in town. Usually it’s just a bit of a piece, less than a yard, and they put a lower price on it so that someone will pick it up and decide they’ll save money by buying it. As to the rest of your questions, I went to school when I was a little girl, and when I was old enough I went to college for two years. That’s how I learned how to teach children a bit.”

  “I don’t think I need to go to school in town, Glory. Not while I’ve got you to teach me.”

  “Well, in a couple of years, I’d like you to go, Essie. The teacher there can do much better than I, and you’ll learn so much from her. You’ll be coming home and telling me all the wonderful things she’s talked about in class. Wait and see, when the time comes you’ll like going to school.”

  “I like it right here with you.” Essie scooted closer to Glory’s side, leaning her head against her stepmother and yawning widely.

  “I think we’d better talk about bedtime, sweet. You’ve had a big day and we’ve got things to do tomorrow so we can go to town the day after. Maybe you can help with the churning a little. I’ll bet you’re strong enough to hold the handle and lift the dasher in the churn.”

  “Can I really? I’d like to try that. And I can wipe off the eggs for you, Glory, and pack them for town.”

  “You’re a big help to me,” Glory said, lifting the child into her arms and carrying her through the house.

  As they reached the kitchen, Cade and Buddy came in the back door and Cade’s glance caught Glory with her arms full.

  “I’m not sure you should be toting her around, Glory. She’s getting pretty heavy for you to lift.”

  “Not any heavier than she was four months ago, Cade, and I carried her then.”

  “That’s true, but things have changed a little since then.” His brow furrowed and he shrugged, turning away. “We’ll talk about it later, sweetheart.”

  She lowered Essie to the floor and went up the stairs with her, entering the child’s bedroom and noticing how small it truly was. It was time enough they did something about it.