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  “Indeed we have,” she agreed. She reached up to loop her arms around his neck. Her eyes searched his. “And now it’s all signed and sealed—all legal.” She smiled a little nervously. “I can hardly wait!”

  He chuckled softly as he bent is head. “I hope I can manage to live up to all those expectations. What if I can’t?”

  “Oh, I’ll make allowances,” she promised as his mouth settled on hers.

  The teasing had made her fears recede. She relaxed as he drew her intimately close. When his tongue gently penetrated the line of her lips, she stiffened slightly, but he lifted his head and softly stroked her mouth, studying her in the intense silence.

  “It’s strange right now, isn’t it, because we haven’t done much of this sort of kissing. But you’ll get used to it,” he said in a tender tone. “Try not to think about anything except the way it feels.”

  He bent again, brushing his lips lazily against hers for a long time, until the pressure wasn’t enough. When he heard her breathing change and felt her mouth start to follow his when he lifted it, he knew she was more than ready for something deeper.

  It was like the first time they’d been intimate. She clung to him, loving his strength and the exquisite penetration of his tongue in her mouth. It made her think of what lay ahead, and her body reacted with pleasure and eagerness.

  He coaxed her hands to his shirt while he worked on the buttons that held her lacy bodice together. Catches were undone. Fabric was shifted. Before she registered the fact mentally, his hair-roughened chest was rubbing gently across her bare breasts and she was encouraging him shamelessly.

  He picked her up, still kissing her, and barely made it to the sofa before he fell onto it with her. The passion was already red-hot. She gave him back kiss for kiss, touch for touch, in a silence that magnified the harsh quickness of their breathing.

  When he sat up, she moaned, but it didn’t take long to get the rest of the irritating obstacles out of the way. When he came back to her, there was nothing to separate them.

  Her body was so attuned to his, so hungry for him, that she took him at once, without pain or difficulty, and was shocked enough to cry out.

  His body stilled immediately. His ragged breathing was audible as he lifted his head and looked into her eyes, stark need vying with concern.

  “It didn’t hurt,” she assured him in a choked voice.

  “Of course…it didn’t hurt,” he gasped, pushing down again. “You want me so badly that pain wouldn’t register now…God!”

  She felt the exquisite stab of pleasure just as he cried out, and her mouth flattened against his shoulder as he began to move feverishly against her taut body.

  “I love you,” he groaned as the rhythm grew reckless and rough. “Jessie, I love you…!”

  Her mouth, opened in a soundless scream as she felt the most incredible sensation she’d ever experienced in her life. It was like a throbbing wave of searing heat that suddenly became unbearable, pleasure beyond pleasure. Her body shuddered convulsively and she arched, gasping. He stilled just a minute later, and his hoarse cry whispered endlessly against her ear.

  He collapsed then, and she felt the full weight of him with satisfied indulgence. She was damp with sweat. So was he. She stroked his dark hair, and it was damp, too. Wonder wrapped her up like a blanket and she began to laugh softly.

  He managed to lift his head, frowning as he met her dancing eyes.

  “You passed,” she whispered impishly.

  He began to laugh, too, at the absurdity of the remark. “Lucky me.”

  “Oh, no,” she murmured, lifting to him slightly but deliberately. “Lucky me!”

  He groaned. “I can’t yet!”

  “I have plenty of time,” she assured him, and kissed him softly on the chin. “I can wait. Don’t let me rush you.”

  “Remind me to have a long talk with you about men.”

  She locked her arms around his neck with a deep sigh. “Later,” she said. “Right now I just want to lie here and look at my husband. He’s a dish.”

  “So is my wife.” He nuzzled her nose with his, smiling tenderly. “Jessie, I hope we have a hundred more years together.”

  “I love you,” she told him reverently. Her eyes closed and she began to drift to sleep. She wondered how anything so delicious could be so exhausting.

  The next morning, she awoke to the smell of bacon. She was in her bedroom, in her gown, with the covers pulled up. The pillow next to hers was dented in and the sheet had been disturbed. She smiled. He must have put her to bed. Now it smelled as if he was busy with breakfast.

  She put on her jeans and T-shirt and went downstairs in her stocking feet to find him slaving over a hot stove.

  “I haven’t burned it,” he said before she could ask. “And I have scrambled eggs and toast warming in the oven. Coffee’s in the pot. Help yourself.”

  “You’re going to be a very handy husband,” she said enthusiastically. She moved closer to him, frowning. “But can you do laundry?”

  He looked affronted. “Lady, I can iron. Haven’t you noticed my uniform shirts?”

  “Well, yes, I thought the dry cleaners—”

  “Dry cleaners, hell,” he scoffed. “As if I’d trust my uniforms to amateurs!”

  She laughed and hugged him warmly. “Mr. McCallum, you’re just unbelievable.”

  “So are you.” He hugged her back. “Now get out of the way, will you? Burned bacon would be a terrible blot on my perfect record as a new husband.”

  “You fed Meriwether!” she gasped, glancing at her cat, who was busy with his own breakfast.

  “He stopped hissing at me the second I picked up the can opener,” Sterling said smugly. “Now he’s putty in my hands. He even likes Mack!”

  “Wonderful! It isn’t enough that you’ve got me trained,” she complained to the orange cat lying on the floor beside the big dog. Mack was already his friend. “Now you’re starting on other people!”

  “Wait until Jenny is old enough to use the can opener,” he said. “Then he’ll start on her!”

  Jessica looked at him with her heart in her eyes. She wanted the baby so much.

  “What if the judge won’t let us have her?” she asked with faint sadness.

  He took up the bacon and turned off the burner, placing the platter on the table.

  “The judge will let us have her,” he corrected. He tilted up her chin. “You have to start realizing that good times follow bad. You’ve paid your dues, haven’t you noticed? You’ve had one tragedy after another. But life has a way of balancing the books, honey. You’re about due for a refund. And it’s just beginning. Wait and see.”

  “How in the world did a cynic like you learn to look for a silver lining in storm clouds?” she asked with mock surprise.

  He drew her close. “I started being pestered by this overly optimistic little social worker who got me by the heart and refused to let me go. She taught me to look for miracles. Now I can’t seem to stop.”

  “I hope you find them all the time now,” she said. “And I hope we get Jennifer, too. That one little miracle would do me for the rest of my life. With Jennifer and you, I’d have the very world.”

  “We’ll see how it goes. But you have to have faith,” he reminded her.

  “I have plenty of that,” she agreed, looking at him with quiet, hungry eyes. “I’ve lived on it since the first time I looked at you. It must have worked. Here you are.”

  “Here I stay, too,” he replied, bending his head to kiss her.

  Fourteen

  The petition was drawn up by their attorney. It was filed in the county clerk’s office. A hearing was scheduled and placed on the docket. Then there was nothing else to do except wait.

  Jessica went to work as usual, but she was a different person now that she was married. Her delight in her new husband spilled over into every aspect of her work. She felt whole, for the first time.

  They both went out to the No Bull Ranch to see Mar
is Wyler and Keith Colson. The young man was settled in very nicely now, and was working hard. The homebound teacher who had been working with him since the summer recess was proud of the way he’d pulled up his grades. He was learning the trade of being a cowboy, too, and he’d gone crazy on the subject of wildlife conservation. He wanted to be a forest ranger, and Maris encouraged him. He was already talking about college.

  “I couldn’t be more delighted,” Jessica told McCallum when they were driving back to town. “He’s so different, isn’t he? He isn’t surly or uncooperative or scowling all the time. I hardly knew him.”

  “Unhappy people don’t make good impressions. If you only knew how many children go to prison for lack of love and attention and even discipline…. Some people have no business raising kids.”

  “I think you and I would be good at it,” she said.

  He caught the note of sadness in her voice. “Cut that out,” he told her. “You’re the last person on earth I’d ever suspect of being a closet pessimist.”

  “I’m trying not to be discouraged. It’s just that I want to adopt Jennifer so much,” she said. “I’m afraid to want anything that badly.”

  “You wanted me that badly,” he reminded her, “and look what happened.”

  She looked at him with her heart in her eyes and grinned. “Well, yes. You were unexpected.”

  “So were you. I’d resigned myself to living alone.”

  “I suppose we were both blessed.”

  “Yes. And the blessings are still coming. Wait and see.”

  She leaned back against the seat with a sigh, complacent but still unconvinced.

  They went to court that fall. Kate Randall was the presiding judge. Jessica knew and liked her but couldn’t control her nerves. Witness after witness gave positive character readings about both Jessica and McCallum. The juvenile authorities mentioned their fine record with helping young offenders, most recently Keith Colson. And through it all Jessica sat gripping McCallum’s hand under the table and chewing the skin off her lower lip with fear and apprehension.

  The judge was watching her surreptitiously. When the witnesses had all been called and the recommendations—good ones—given by the juvenile authorities, she spoke directly to Jessica.

  “You’re very nervous, Mrs. McCallum,” Kate said with teasing kindness and a judicial formality. “Do I look like an ogre to you?”

  She gasped. “Oh, no, your honor!” she cried, reddening.

  “Well, judging by the painful look on your face, you must think I am one. Your joy in that child, and your own background, would make it difficult for even a hanging judge to deny you. And I’m hardly that.” She smiled at Jessica. “The petition to adopt the abandoned Baby Jennifer is hereby approved without reservation. Case dismissed.” She banged the gavel and stood up.

  Jessica burst into tears, and it took McCallum a long time to calm and comfort her.

  “She said yes,” he kept repeating, laughing with considerable joy of his own. “Stop crying! She may change her mind!”

  “No, she won’t,” the judge assured them, standing patiently by their table.

  Jessica wiped her eyes, got up and hugged the judge, too.

  “There, there,” she comforted. “I’ve seen a lot of kids go through this court, but I’ve seen few who ended up with better parents. In the end it doesn’t matter that your child is adopted. You’ll raise her and be Jennifer’s parents. That’s the real test of love, I think. It’s the bringing up that matters.”

  She agreed wholeheartedly. “You can’t imagine how I felt, how afraid I was,” she blurted out.

  Kate patted her shoulder. “Yes, I can. I’ve had a steady stream of people come through my office this past week, all pleading on your behalf. You might be shocked at who some of them were. Your own boss,” she said to McCallum, shaking her head. “Who’d have thought it.”

  “Hensley?” McCallum asked in surprise.

  “The very same. And even old Jeremiah Kincaid,” she added with a chuckle. “I thought my eyes would fly right out of my head on that one.” Kate checked her watch. “I’ve got another case coming up. You’d better go and see about your baby, Jessica.” She dropped the formal address since the court had adjourned. “I expect you new parents will have plenty of things to do now.”

  “Oh, yes!” she exclaimed. “We’ll need to buy formula and diapers and toys and a playpen—”

  “We already have the crib,” McCallum said smugly, laughing at Jessica’s startled reaction. “Well, I was confident, even if you weren’t. I ordered it from the furniture store.”

  “I love you!” She hugged him.

  He held her close, shaking hands with the judge.

  From the courthouse they went around town, making a number of purchases, and Jessica was in a frenzy of joy as they gathered up all the things they’d need to start life with a new baby.

  But the most exciting thing was collecting Baby Jennifer from a delighted Mabel Darren, the woman who’d been keeping her, and taking her home.

  Even Meriwether was a perfect gentleman, sniffing the infant, but keeping a respectful distance. Jessica and McCallum sat on the sofa with their precious treasure, and didn’t turn on the television at all that night. Instead they watched the baby. She cooed and stared at them with her big blue eyes and never cried once.

  Later, as Jessica and McCallum lay together in bed—with the baby’s bed right next to theirs instead of in another room—they both lay watching Jennifer sleep in the soft glow of the night-light.

  “I never realized just how it would feel to be a parent,” McCallum said quietly. “She’s ours. She’s all ours.”

  She inched closer to him. “Sterling, what if her mother ever comes back?”

  His arms contracted around her. “If her mother had wanted and been able to keep her, we wouldn’t have her,” he said. “You have to put that thought out of your mind. Sometimes there are things we never find out about in life—and then there are mysteries that are waiting to be solved just around the corner. We may solve it, we may not. But we’ve legally adopted Jennifer. She belongs to us, and we to her. That’s all there is to it.”

  Jessica let out her breath in a long sigh. After a minute she nodded. “Okay. Then that’s how it will be.”

  He turned her to face him and kissed her tenderly. “Happy?” he whispered.

  “So happy that I could die of it,” she whispered back. She pushed her way into his arms and was held tight and close. As her eyes closed, she thought ahead to first steps and birthday parties and school. She’d thought she’d never know those things, but life had been kind. She remembered what McCallum had said to her—that bad times were like dues paid for all the good times that followed. And perhaps they were. God knew, her good times had only just begun!

  Special thanks and acknowledgment to Diana Palmer for her contribution to the MONTANA MAVERICKS series.

  With appreciation and thanks to Marnie H. Pavelich for her contribution to the MONTANA MAVERICKS series.

  ISBN: 978-1-4268-5362-3

  ROGUE STALLION

  Copyright © 1994 by Harlequin Books S.A.

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