to leave her dreams behind?
Before he thought any further on that, she started to unbutton his shirt. She slid it off his shoulders, so he eased it off his arms.
Even still, she kissed with her eyes, watching his chest while he tried to breathe. At last she looked away and stared at the sky.
She hadn’t touched him, but he’d been laid claim to. From this night on there would be no other woman for him. It didn’t matter where he was or where she was—there would be only Emma.
The night was peaceful in the way that only crickets and frogs could make it. A splash of water or the wind in the grass only made the land more tranquil.
After a long moment Emma sighed and looked down. He couldn’t remember ever seeing a face as beautiful. And her hands, worn with work and caring for others, snatched his soul when they began to pop open the tiny buttons on the front of her shirt.
With the buttons open she slipped the garment off. She untied a ribbon on her shift. There was a whisper of cloth on flesh when she took that off, too. She wriggled out of the dress and tossed it aside.
There she sat on top of him naked to the night breeze. Moonlight did what he didn’t dare. It caressed her breasts with soft light and sparkled over her nipples, touching them, pebbling them.
His fingers hurt, his jaw ached. Then she reached between her thighs and opened the buttons of his pants. She tugged, so he lifted his hips.
“Seduce me, Matt,” she whispered, and trailed one finger down his chest.
“You know I can’t do that.” But he did touch her. With both his hands. Her heart beat triple time under his fingers.
“I was angry when I made you promise that. We don’t have much time left.” She rubbed her fingertips in a circle around his nipples, so he did the same to her.
She moaned something, maybe his name. “Please, be my husband for a little while.”
“I can’t, not for a little while. It’s got to be for good.”
“I can’t give you for good, Matt. You can’t give it to me, either.”
Matt put his arms about her and rolled, setting her beside him then drawing them both down, side by side in the grass.
He leaned up on his elbow. Moonlight kissed Emma. It twinkled her cheeks, laughed along her neck, then stroked shimmers across her chest and ribs. It pooled in the hollow between her hips, then fingered down to tease her mound of woman’s hair. It adored her like the luckiest of lovers. He wished life would allow him to do the same.
“What if I stayed?”
“Don’t tease me.”
“If I told you I would, we’d have a big whoop-de-do over it and ruin this.” He gestured toward the water, the sky and their naked bodies.
She scrunched up on her shoulder, looking at him, eye to eye. “We would. If you said those words, our fight would wake the children who are likely tucked in bed at the party by now.”
“If I asked you to come to California?”
“That would wake the folks in Dodge.” She stroked his hair, his cheek with the back of her hand. “If I asked you to make love to me, just forget about what’s coming, what then?”
“Could you be so cruel, darlin’? To take my heart, then toss it back to me when I’m leaving?” Lord, he hadn’t wanted her to well up. A fight might have been better. He dashed the moisture off her cheek. “Looks like we’re at an impasse. You can’t go my way and I can’t go yours.”
“We have tonight. Let’s call a truce. Just this once, we put it all aside. What if we lie here until morning with nothing between us but moonlight.”
“I suppose we can have that fight tomorrow.”
She lay back on the grass. He did the same. Emma reached for his hand at the same instant he reached for hers.
* * *
Back home an hour before dawn and still in her party dress, Emma stood in her kitchen. Set out on the table, slowly plumping in the lamplight, were six loaves of rising dough. She gave each one a punch in the center and watched while the warm dough folded in on itself.
Was she cruel? Maybe even selfish? If she looked at things through Matt’s eyes, maybe.
It had been a relief last night to be able to set things aside for a while, but now a new