Read Online The Drifter's Bride by Tatiana March - Free Book Online

her, he abandoned all restraint and surged into her. Dark, consuming pleasure spiraled in his body and in his heart. He reached down and clasped her hips, tilting them, sliding deeper with each powerful thrust.
    Jade met his fierce invasion with ferocity of her own. Their bodies grew slick with sweat. Her fingernails dug into her shoulders. A fiery sense of ownership burned within Carl, chasing away the night chill that had seeped into his bones during the long ride in the rain.
    He could feel Jade arch beneath him and convulse in rhythmic waves of release that made her fling her head back against the pillows. Her frantic whimpers of pleasure drove him on, and he ground into her—deep, hard—and finally jetted into her, in a climax so forceful it seemed to tear him apart.
    He pulled away from her, his breath coming in shallow gasps, his heart hammering against his ribs. A blind panic filled him at the ties that seemed to be snaring him. Home. The word swelled in his mind. Family. How could he contemplate something he had no experience of, something he did not even know how to dream about?
    A small hand pressed against his heaving chest. ‘Carl?’
    ‘Jade.’ He rolled over to his side. She lay facing him, and in the lamplight he saw damp tracks of tears on her face. Guilt pierced the lingering waves of satisfaction that still rippled over him.
    ‘Jade, sweetheart, what is it? Did I hurt you?’
    ‘No.’ She drew a shuddering breath. ‘It’s just that I’m so happy you’re back. Oh, Carl, it’s been so hard.’ She pressed her face to his chest and spoke in a muffled voice, her tears trickling against his skin. ‘Pa fell off the ladder and broke his leg. He can’t go into town, and the merchants won’t deal with me.’
    He placed his hand on her back and rubbed her skin in a soothing gesture. His Jade, his wife, always so strong, was weeping in his arms. It filled him with wonder, and something else—a new sense of purpose. ‘It’s all right,’ he told her. ‘I’ll take the fruit into town. The stores will deal with me.’
    She craned back to look up at him. A plea shimmered in her eyes, but even amidst her tears she would not ask, would not make any demands of him. Carl dropped a kiss on her forehead and answered her unvoiced plea. ‘I’ll stay until the winter. I’ll help you harvest and sell the crops. By spring, Sam will be up on his feet.’
    As they settled down to sleep, a new sense of contentment hummed in his veins. He struggled to understand the emotions that had caused him to turn down a job with the stage line and ride back to the orchard. Perhaps it had been a premonition. That must have been it. A guess that something had gone wrong. Damn shame about Sam and his leg. Carl grinned into the darkness as he mulled over the quirk of fate that had given him an excuse to stay.

Chapter Six
    Jade clutched the bench of the buckboard as they jolted toward town. ‘What if they don’t buy the fruit?’
    ‘I can be pretty persuasive,’ Carl told her.
    ‘Don’t…’ She took a deep breath. He sat beside her, gun at his hip, stubble darkening his jaw. He looked like a man in a wanted poster. ‘Don’t cause more friction,’ Jade warned him. ‘If you frighten people into buying, they’ll stop as soon as you’re gone.’
    He sent her a teasing smile. ‘Don’t worry. I’ll be nice.’
    His light tone sent a flurry of warmth over her. They had spent the previous day harvesting fruit together, and now they had eight crates in the buckboard. Carl had been more relaxed than she remembered ever seeing him. In the evening he had sat with Sam, talking and laughing, and at night he had made love to her again.
    Had he come back to give her a baby after all?
    How long would it be before he left again?
    She didn’t dare to ask, didn’t want to think beyond the here and now.
    Carl brought the buckboard to a halt outside the sheriff’s office to let her down. They had agreed she would keep her distance