Jodi Thomas - To Wed In Texas

She didn't say a word as she went about being the best wife she knew how to be. He hardly noticed the cornbread that crumbled in his hand or the coffee still full of grounds. He read to the twins, then she put them to bed.

When she came back downstairs, Daniel was waiting for her.

“I wanted to ask you something,” he said, suddenly nervous.

“All right.” She trying to guess what bothered him so.

“Will you marry me.”

She smiled. “I thought I was married to you, Daniel.”

“I know, but I wanted to ask you so you'd know you'd been asked right and proper.”

Karlee understood. “And what is the bargain you offer?”

“A forever kind of marriage. A true marriage. I don't have much. This house isn't mine. The church burned, and my income from the articles is never enough. Most folks would say you're getting saddled with a readymade family. But I promise to love and cherish you for the rest of my life.”

“Then I'll be your wife.” She answered. “My home will be your arms.”

He hugged her tightly. “Come along, Mrs. McLain.” They walked, arm in arm into the kitchen. She was looking up at him and for a moment she didn't see all the people standing quietly around the table loaded down with presents of all sizes, wrapped in shiny paper with pink ribbons on each box.

“What's this?”

“It's your birthday, my love.” He grinned.

DANIEL HEARD THE CHURCH BELL RESOUNDING through the clear summer air. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath thinking how he'd missed the sound.

He marked his place in the Bible with two ribbons, one blue velvet, one pink satin, and stood from a desk now void of all clutter. Glancing up, he noticed Karlee standing at the study door and wondered how long she'd been watching him.

Her beauty stopped his breathing for a moment. How could he have ever thought her hair a hindrance, or her body too thick? She was perfection. Just the memory of how they'd made love in the hours before dawn made him wish for the privacy of night once more. She was a woman who took him into her heart and body so completely, he became lost in the pleasure of her.

“You still love her, don't you?” she asked so quietly it was almost a thought. Her eyes held only a question, not a demand for denial.

Slowly, he straightened, pulling himself back to the present, making his mind see her now and not as she'd looked at dawn with her body bare and damp after their mating. “Yes.” He circled both ribbons around his hand. “Do you mind?”

Karlee smiled. “No. She's part of you, part of what made you the man I married. If you stopped loving her, you wouldn't be my Daniel. She can be your first love as long as I can be your last.”

He closed the few steps between them and kissed her tenderly. He couldn't keep his hands from moving over her, longing for the feel of her closer. “I do love you,” he whispered against her ear.

“I know.” She leaned into him as she always did, a perfect fit against him.

He knew she loved him, she'd told him so since before he even wanted her to say such words. But it was the way she touched him, always offering more, almost daring him to take more, that drove him mad. They'd been married four months now and, when he made love to her completely and fully, he saw her smile as she fell asleep, exhausted and satisfied. She somehow knew he'd never get his fill of her. She knew he'd always want more of the nearness of her, the feel of her, the taste of her.

He leaned, very properly, and kissed her on the forehead as his hand, hidden between them, moved over her boldly. She grinned, taking in a deep breath so that her breasts brushed lightly against his starched shirt. Daring again, he thought. An invitation. The challenge he'd grown accustom to.

Cinnamon shattered the silence as she ran down the stairs and out the back door, yelling, “Clear the decks!”

Daniel pulled himself back to the world.

Starlett followed her sister. “We're going to be late, Cinn. The bells are already ringing.” She disappeared through the kitchen.

Daniel and Karlee didn't move. They both seemed to need another moment of closeness before the day began.

He wondered if she knew how deeply he wanted her? How much a part of him she'd become? He wasn't sure he'd ever find the words to tell her, but he planned to spend the rest of his nights showing her.

He couldn't resist tasting her lips briefly before moving away and pulling on his coat. “Are you going to miss this house?” His voice was slightly off balance as he forced conversation that lay far from his thoughts. There was no need to talk of the desire growing between them. They both knew it would be satisfied in the midnight hours.

Karlee shook her head. “My home is anywhere you are. Ida needs to live here, and we have a place waiting for us.”

Daniel took her hand. “It'll be different, helping start a land-grant college. Some say it will take a few years. An agricultural and mechanical college at that. Sounds like a strange school to need a theology professor.”

“Maybe they'll just call it A and M.” She took his hand. “They'll surely change the name as it grows.”

They walked out of the house without looking back. The wagon was loaded with their belongings. The twins were already on board, sitting atop Karlee's old trunk.

No one said a word as they drove toward church. It had been months since the fire. Daniel had the frame of the new church up with the bell tower finished. He'd even put benches for pews for his last service in Jefferson.

He knew Karlee worried about how the town would accept a preacher's wife who swam nude, but he didn't care. They hadn't accepted him before, and he could find no shame in loving her. He'd give his last sermon to a congregation of three if need be.

As they turned the corner Karlee let out a startled cry even before Daniel looked up the street.

The framed walls marked the boundaries of the church, but people stood all around. What would be the inside was packed with families, while many others waited out on the grounds and sat on blankets and boxes all the way to the boardwalk.

Karlee straightened with pride as Daniel helped her down. She looked very proper as a minister's wife in her finely tailored traveling suit. She walked to the first pew while Daniel stepped forward and unfolded his notes. When he glanced down at her, she winked in a most unminister's wife's way. He fought down a grin and cleared his throat.

As Daniel McLain began to speak, no one noticed the hairy giant in the back who laughed.

“Inspired,” Wolf mumbled as he watched Daniel talking only to Karlee. “Makes a man want to believe in love.”

He slipped away, not wanting to overdo his first time in church.

“Maybe I'll shave.” He scratched his beard. “Maybe I'll make up my mind to fall in love one of these days.”