Wyatt-1(Lane Brothers, Book 1)(45)

It comforts me so much that the tears stop, leaving me with the odd hiccup as I try to catch my breath.

“I-I missed my period, and I thought…but I just got it, so I’m not, and I guess I got a little too excited, and now…”

“Oh, Ellie, we have all the time in the world to have babies and do and see everything you want. This isn’t the time, no matter how much I wish it were, and we both know it. Now dry your eyes and come on. Let me give you a back rub and go get some of Ma’s special tea.”

He’s being so sweet and supportive, trying to care for me and assure me that it’s no big deal. But I see the fleeting regret there when he accepts that the bond he was banking on isn’t there yet.

Wyatt is a thinker as much as a doer, so you know that he’d never do anything without planning it first, and that includes taking me without protection.

“Here, baby, drink this while I go get some lotion to rub your back with.”

“I love you,” I say for only the second time since I let it slip four days ago.

He stops mid-walk to the bathroom and all but leaps at me, his mouth fusing to mine in a kiss that leaves me tingling below the belt.

“Say it again, sweet Ellie. Please,” he begs, breathing harshly against my lips.

I obey and smile through the next kiss.

I don’t get that back rub he promised. Instead, he finally lets me have a go at him and I learn that penetration is not the only, or necessarily the best kind of sex to be had.

By the time I pull my mouth off of him hours later and lick my lips at his taste, he’s collapsed from pleasure and drowning in smiles.

***

“Oh, Ellie, dearest, would you care to join me for a walk?”

I look up from the puzzle that Jude and I are building when Lynn joins me at the table, her blue eyes so sad and yet smiling down at me.

I usually avoid her at all costs, because her sadness makes me uncomfortable to the extreme.

But rudeness is not my thing, so I try to deflect.

“Er, uh, Wyatt said I’m not allowed outside unless he or one of the brothers goes with me.”

Not that I usually listen. I’m not afraid with all the guards crawling around the grounds, but she doesn’t need to know that. I at Jude in desperation when the other woman pouts and looks away sadly.

“You don’t like me. Who can blame you, dear? I am after all the mother of…”

“Er, no. No, that’s not true, Lynn. I like you a lot. It’s just that I…oh, what the hell. What Wyatt doesn’t know won’t kill him,” I mutter.

We walk in silence as I struggle to find something to say. What can I say?

“So, I’ve never had the chance to really talk to you after…that unpleasant business with my Bolton.”

Huh.

“Um, well it’s not like I was expecting you to visit me in the hospital or anything, Lynn. I know that that was hard for you, especially after he…died. And, well, this is weird enough as it is, even four years later,” I point out.

She laughs, a sound of humorless mirth that makes my skin crawl.

“That’s an understatement, Ellie. To say that I was inconsolable at the time…well, Jerry brought in a doctor and sedated me. I couldn’t even go to the funeral,” she laments.

Like I care, as ungracious as the thought may be. Part of me is glad that his faux funeral was attended by only a father who hated him and a preacher who was paid to be there.

“I’m sorry. That must have been painful for you.”

“You have no idea. Why, I’d just lost my only child, and then to hear that he’d done such awful things….it was so difficult to get over that and remain on speaking terms with poor Georgie.”

We’ve walked a good distance from the house by this time, and my knees are trembling. I feel lightheaded and so nauseated that we’re forced to stop so I can catch my breath.

“Oh dear, Ellie, are you alright?” she asks, her eyes filled with worry when my knees give out and send me crashing to the grass.

“Wyatt.”

My head feels like a throbbing mass of cotton wool, and the only movement I can get my body to make is the tremors running though my muscles like an electric shock.

I feel worse than I have before, even worse than I felt when Bolton starved me and I was so weak I couldn’t lift my head.

“Oh God. Ellie, what’s wrong?”

Lynn is most definitely panicking by now and wringing her hands hard enough to make me worried about the state of her hands if she doesn’t quit it.

“Wyatt. Get Wyatt,” I rasp, my vision blinking in and out.

The last thing I see before I pass out is Jerry Conrad running our way, a gun held firmly in his right hand.

“Oh Jerry, what are you doing?” she yells, the sound echoing in my head in a series of waves that amps up my delirium.