The owner, Virginia Anderson, was an aging widow woman whose husband had been killed in a mining accident two years ago. In spite of the rough-and-tumble life that went on in the streets of town, the woman kept a tidy, pleasant home, renting rooms only to married couples or single men who appeared clean and respectable. Her cooking was wonderful, and everyone sat at a big table in the dining room and ate off lovely china set out on a lace tablecloth. It was as close to home as she and Jake had been, and she thought how nice it was going to be to truly have a place of their own, where she could do the cooking and the decorating.
At least for now she could get a taste of being settled again. She needed something to do here for the winter and she wanted to make this place feel as much like home as possible. Yesterday morning she had offered to help Mrs. Anderson with the cooking and baking and kitchen cleanup, and to her relief the woman had agreed, explaining that she was getting a little too old to keep up with all of it. In return for her help, she and Jake would not have to pay for their meals, and they would get two dollars a week off the cost of their room. With what they had already learned about living expenses in this silver town, and with their own money reserves getting low, Mrs. Anderson’s offer was a welcome relief. It would make the winter’s stay here much easier.
She turned and put an arm across Jake’s middle, moved a leg over his own legs. Last night had been their third night here, and the first time both of them felt settled and rested enough to make love. They were finally beginning to get their strength back and get their bearings after the arduous journey. Once they located Wes and Jake found a job, life could be almost normal for them, except that they wouldn’t have a place of their own until they reached California. By then Jake would have a son or a daughter, and they would truly be a family. Maybe Wes would want to come to California with them and help Jake build a cabin, start a ranch or a farm. She so looked forward to seeing Wes again, even though she could not quite forgive him for leaving her and their father when they both needed him most.
“I’d better go out and start looking for your brother and for a job,” Jake spoke up, as though he read her thoughts.
She raised her head and looked at him. “I wasn’t sure you were awake.”
“With you crawling all over me? How can a man sleep through that?”
She smiled, and both of them relaxed in the luxury of being safe and warm and living in something that didn’t have wheels. He rolled on top of her, and Miranda closed her eyes as he entered her softly, gently. She thought how they just seemed to know each other’s minds sometimes, how lovemaking with him could sometimes be a desperate, grasping, urgent need; or just a gentle “good morning,” like this. They were both relaxed and warm, snuggled into the feather mattress with a down-filled blanket covering them, their body heat shielding them against the cold room, their coupling building that body heat. The potbellied stove in the corner needed stoking, but for the moment they would stoke the fires in their souls.
“I could stay right here all day,” Jake told her, kissing her eyelids.
“I wouldn’t mind,” she answered. She ran her hands over his broad chest, toyed with his nipples.
Jake drew in his breath and pushed harder, wondering at how easily she could make him want her, loving her to the point of worship. What a sweet feeling it was to wake up with Miranda beside him, wanting him this way. Now that they had this place to stay and a little privacy, he could teach her all of the delicious ways of making love, show her the things she had said she wanted to learn.
He had always figured proper women like Miranda would be stiff and unsatisfying in bed, but she had surprised him with the bold offering of her body to him for his pleasure. He loved knowing she was his wife, loved possessing her, claiming her, proving to himself she really belonged to him.
She drew the life from his depths, and it seemed that each time he did this she took a little more of the old Jake Harkner away and filled him with more of the new man. He belonged to her now as much as she to him. She had made him open up to her, share his deepest horrors and ugliest memories. Somehow she had made them easier to bear. Nothing must ever be allowed to destroy what he had found with this woman, yet he feared sometimes that the destruction would come from himself and not from outside forces. Could he really do this? Could he really leave the past behind and be a proper husband for her? Hell, he had no experience with this, no background to teach him how to do it right. The only thing he had going for him was her sweet, loyal love, the passion they shared, and his own desperate need never to be without her.