leaped off the stage and dived into the shadow. He swept her out of Woody’s hold and into his own. Then he swung her away from her would-be swain and pressed her close to his chest.
“Go find yourself a single lady, Vance. My wife is going to be busy for the rest of your life.”
* * *
Woodrow Vance might never know how close he had come to being maimed. If it hadn’t been for the truly stricken look on his face and the swiftness with which he had relinquished Emma, he would have been eating barn floor for dinner and no teeth to chew it with.
It was a lucky break for Cousin Billy, too, that he had picked that moment for some private courting and was not in the barn.
Matt settled Emma in his arms and stomped out of the barn. He snugged her in good and tight and carried her toward the creek.
Closer to the creek crickets and tumbling water became the night music. Party sounds seemed a long way off.
At the creek Matt turned north, walking near the edge of the water. He walked for a long time with his boots squishing in the mud. When he found a secluded spot, he set Emma down, then sat beside her.
“How’s your toe?”
“It’s screaming at me good and proper.” He touched the toe of her shoe. “Ouch!”
“I’m so sorry, Emma.” He took her shoe in his lap and eased it off her foot. “I never should have said what I did. Even if Billy thinks it’s best…even if I think it, it’s not my place to choose a man for you.”
She winced when the slipper passed over her toe. “I will be busy for the rest of Woody’s life,” Emma said, a little smile teasing the corner of her lips. “Heaven only knows, it will take a stouter woman than I am to dodge his feet.”
A big fat full moon shone down on them. It glinted off the water and played games in Emma’s hair where it fell full and free down her back. The ribbon had disappeared some time ago. No doubt it was being tromped on by dozens of party-going boots in the barn.
Life was perfect here in the deep quiet of the night. Let the party go on until dawn—he was where he wanted to be.
“Here, darlin’, roll up your skirt and give me your foot.”
He touched her ankle, then slid his palm up her calf. She must not have felt that this was a seduction, because she let him continue halfway up her thigh. When he found the top of her stocking, he rolled it down her leg, easily over the ankle and just whispering over the injured toe.
“Move toward the water just a little…that’s it.” He lowered her foot into the creek and watched the water swirl about her calf. “That ought to help the swelling some.”
“Feels like heaven,” she murmured, then took off her other shoe.
She began to roll down her stocking, but he placed his hand over hers. She allowed his knuckles to glide slowly against her thigh, so that must not have been seduction, either.
“Take off your shoes, Matt. It’s awfully nice and cool.”
He did and put his feet in the water.
She kicked her legs. Droplets tumbling in midair caught freckles of moonlight.
“Oh! Look at that!” She pointed her finger at the sky. “A shooting star!”
He couldn’t look at the sky, though—he couldn’t look away from her face. How would he live the rest of his life not seeing that smile?
He did the one thing he could do in that moment, what the moonlight and stars demanded of him.
He kissed her.
Her mouth felt like home and heaven all in one. When he pulled away he didn’t see anger or broken promises. He saw starlight.
Emma pulled her feet out of the water. She straddled his thighs, cupped his face in her hands and kissed him back.
“I think you better stop now, darlin’, if you want me to abide by that agreement.”
“I think I better not.”
She pushed him backward on the springy grass, sitting on top of him, kissing him again, but only with her eyes.
In his lifetime he’d never imagined a kiss like that. Yes, he felt it on his lips, his face, his neck and lower, but more than that he felt it in his soul. She’d seen into every dark corner, turned over every secret and wanted him, anyway.
And she did want him, even if she didn’t want to. But enough