A moment of silence passed.
“Papa?”
He wouldn’t feel bad. He wouldn’t. “Yes?”
“Mama says I’m not too big for hugs.”
Wes’s throat constricted. This impressionable, fragile little person believed Wes was the father he’d been yearning for. Wes had set himself up for an unbelievably huge responsibility. It didn’t matter he’d never been on either end of a night like this. It didn’t matter he couldn’t find words. It didn’t matter where he’d come from or that he had no previous examples of fatherhood or family. All that mattered was making a difference in this child’s life…a difference for the better.
He perched on the edge of the bed. The instant he leaned forward, John James’s skinny arms shot out and closed around his neck.
The little boy smelled like clean sheets and castile soap. His hair was cool and soft against Wes’s cheek.
A hundred nights gazing at the aurora borealis couldn’t compare to the wonder of a child in his arms.
Wes had come home.
Behind her, her sisters and cousin sniffled, and Mariah turned to see them dabbing tears from their cheeks. She had tears in her eyes, too, but they were from biting her tongue so she wouldn’t scream at the intruder to clear the hell out of her son’s room and leave their home.
“Go to sleep now,” she said to John James.
“Papa, can you ride with me to school in the morning?”
Wesley tucked the covers around the boy’s shoulders. “I suppose that’d be okay.”
Mariah turned and headed out. Tucking in her son, walking him to school, letting her boy call him Papa! What was next?
Her sisters and Faye joined a row forming in the hallway. As she stepped into the hall, Mariah came face-to-face with the half dozen young women, all wearing expectant grins.
They appeared suspiciously happy about something, and she didn’t like it one bit.
“Your room is ready,” Faye said and took Wes’s arm to lead him forward to the opposite door.
Hold on, you’re taking him to my room! Mariah thought in a panic.
Sylvia caught her hand and smiled into her face. “Mariah’s coming with us for a few minutes, Wes.”
As the youngest and still unmarried sister, Sylvia had a room of her own at the end of the hall near their parents. She and Annika swept Mariah into the confines of that room and guided her behind the dressing screen where a pitcher of warm water, towels and fragrant soap awaited.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Mariah asked.
“Quickly now,” Annika said. “Don’t keep him waiting.”
“What is this all about?” she asked.
Annika didn’t wait, but came right behind the screen and turned Mariah away to unbutton her dress and push it to her hips. “We didn’t get to do all this when you were first married because you were in Chicago. So we’re doing it now.”
Faye spoke from the other side of the screen. “It’s easy enough to see that things are a little awkward between you two. We just want to give you a nudge in the right direction.”
“It’s natural to be nervous,” Annika told her. “Your husband’s been gone so long. But this is an exciting time, Mariah. Try to relax and enjoy his return.”
Annika wet a cloth and soaped it. Mariah took it from her and shooed both of her sisters to the other side of the screen. “None of this is necessary.”
They weren’t listening to her. Even her cousins had filed into the room, and now stood giggling and teasing. Trapped in her web of deception, Mariah washed and dried, then yelped when Sylvia spritzed her with cologne. Both her sisters dropped a voluminous silky sheer nightdress over her head and tied the ribbons.
Mariah looked down in mortification. “You can see right through this!”
Faye laughed. “That’s the idea!”
“Where did this come from?” Mariah asked.
“It’s a gift from us.” Annika tugged her forward and urged her to sit at Sylvia’s dressing table. Mariah crossed her hands over her breasts in embarrassment. “I need my wrapper.”
“You can’t wear that old thing tonight,” Annika told her.
In minutes, her hair was brushed, her cheeks powdered and Annika applied glycerin to her lips. Faye dropped a floral-patterned satin robe around her shoulders and Mariah gladly grabbed it and closed it around her.
They guided her along the hallway with the utmost giggling and shushing, finally pausing before her closed door.
“We’re so happy for you, Mariah,” Annika said in a throaty whisper. “Now get reacquainted with your husband.”
One of them rapped and opened the door. Several pairs of hands urged Mariah through the opening. At the very last second, the robe was lifted away and out.
Mariah stood inside her closed door wearing only the sheer nightdress and a look of horror.
Chapter Five
An oil lamp glowed from the top of a bureau, and a welcoming fire burned in a brick fireplace. The four-poster bed had been turned down and pillows with white cotton cases piled and fluffed for comfort. Wes stood studying the room, pondering his predicament. The Spangler women believed he was Mariah’s husband…and as Mariah’s husband, he would naturally be expected to sleep in this room with her.
His gaze traveled again to the bed. Sleep with her. Requesting another room or heading for the stables would drag up uncomfortable questions.
Behind him the door opened. He turned at the same moment someone entered, a flash of fabric whisked outward, and the door closed with a firm click.
Six mugs of beer had gone to his head, because he could have sworn a naked woman had joined him in this room. His mouth was suddenly so dry he wished he had another drink.
He should have turned away immediately, but not looking was impossible. She was real. Wes took in every lush curve and interesting hollow visible through the sheer white garment. He was a red-blooded, more-than-able-bodied man after all. And Mariah was incredibly beautiful.
She’d been frozen to the spot, but once she got her bearings and moved, she shot toward the bed, grabbed the coverlet and wrapped it around herself. It was too late. He had that creamy-skinned hourglass body and those lush dusky-tipped breasts seared on his brain for eternity. To what fortuitous hand of fate did he owe the privilege of meeting her son and seeing her naked all in the same day?
“I will never forgive them for this. Never!” She gathered the folds of the bedcover and dragged it behind a bamboo dressing screen with her. “You might have looked away,” she said from the other side.
“Might have,” he agreed.
Only then did he hear the soft laughter and the hushed giggles coming from the hallway.
“A gentleman would have,” she added.
“Might have,” he said again.
The rustling sound of fabric told him she was putting something on, a nightdress perhaps. A real nightdress.
“Forget that happened,” she begged.
Not if I live to be a hundred. He said nothing. His presence here was lie enough.
She came out from hiding wearing a printed cotton