“Yep. And he actually lent me the money.” He smiled and shook his head as if he couldn’t believe it either. “I guess showin’ him that we wanna be part of the community for the long haul was all he needed to get the loan approved. That said, I had to buy Henrikson’s cattle and I’ve agreed to turn over one hundred percent of the money earned when we sell at market this fall. But I’ve done the math, darlin’, and we can afford this. Even without your money from teachin’ and Doc. I can even afford to hire a ranch hand until we make little ranch hands of our own.”
She sidestepped him and walked to the “parlor,” which didn’t have a stick of furniture in it. Oh, but it had so much potential.
“I also got a little extra money for you to buy furnishings or whatever you want. Since Doc is movin’, he said to tell you he’d give you anything from his house that caught your eye. Says he’s too old to cart a bunch of crap with him or to try and sell it.”
She laughed. That sounded like Doc. And she knew, too, that his offer partially came from grief. Mrs. Agnes had passed on in February. He’d decided that after Dinah and Jonas got married, he’d quit practicing medicine and move south, where the winters weren’t so brutal. Since Martha and Jimmy were more like his kids than his servants, they’d chosen to leave with him the end of the month.
“This is why you kept me away from the cabin the past two weeks.”
He chuckled. “Yeah. Jimmy helped me move everything over. Today he relocated all the chickens and…well, you heard. Been hard keepin’ this from you, but I wanted to give you something special today of all days.”
Dinah faced him. “You’re special every day and everything I could’ve hoped for in a husband. This…is almost too much.”
“Hey now, no cryin’.” He fastened his mouth to hers, teasing her lips open with the tenderest of kisses. Caressing her arms with his big hands, slowly gliding the palms up and down as if to warm her.
She was definitely getting all kinds of heated up.
Jonas rested his forehead to hers. “Let’s go to bed.”
“Yes.”
“I’m gonna be in you as soon as you’re nekkid.”
“Yes, please.”
He scooped her up and ran with her to the back of the house.
In a bedroom the size of their entire cabin was their bed, covered in their bedding, the book they were currently reading, The Prisoner of Zenda by Anthony Hope, on the side table next to their reading lamp.
Jonas started to touch her. “You looked beautiful today. I love that you designed this dress just slightly scandalous.” He drew his finger across the square neckline in ruched ivory satin that rested midway across her chest, and up the capped sleeves covered in silk roses.
“You look pretty handsome yourself, Mr. McKay.” While plain workday clothes were still his preference, he’d gotten used to donning the suits and nicer pieces of clothing his brother had left behind.
“Please tell me you brought a button-hook for all these blasted buttons.”
She froze. “There’s one at the cabin. In my sewing supplies.”
“That’s the one thing I didn’t move because I figured you wouldn’t have a lotta time for sewin’ these next couple of days.”
“Oh.”
Against the upper swell of her breasts, he groaned a frustrated noise of a man being denied something he really, really wanted.
“Jonas,” she whispered in his ear, “the dress is slightly scandalous, but what’s underneath is completely scandalous.”
“What’s that, sugar pie?”
“Nothing but my pantalets.” She nipped his earlobe. Hard. “No shift. No slips. You take the pantalets off and you can take me.”
“Christ, Dinah.” He rubbed his lips across her cleavage. “This ain’t the way I wanted this to happen.”
She flitted away from him. Watching his hungry gaze, she lifted up her skirt, untied the waistband of her undergarment and shimmied the cotton down her legs. She let him look his fill of the fluffy tulle and satin dress pulled up to her waist, her legs bare, save the stockings peeping out of the tops of her white boots. “Do you really think we’re the first newly married couple who don’t get all of their clothes off before they’re rutting against each other?”
He stood back, legs braced apart, one hand on his hip beneath his jacket and his other hand moving back and forth across his chin.
Sighing dramatically, Dinah threw herself onto the