The Endless Forest
Page 87

She said, “Are you in pain?”
It wasn’t a subject she had meant to raise, but the question was there between them and couldn’t be ignored. He looked away for a moment and then back. The muscles along the line of his jaw clenched and then relaxed.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “It was a rude question.”
“Not rude,” he said. “Took me by surprise, though. My mind was someplace else entirely.” He leaned forward until their noses were almost touching. “Just about right here.”
He was smiling. A slow smile, but cheeky.
“You are very sure of yourself. Or me.”
“Is that so?” His breath touched her face. He had been chewing on something, some herb that made his breath sweet. “You saying I’m mistaken about what’s happening between us two?”
Martha considered herself braver than most girls her age, but now her hands were trembling so that she had to fold them together. This was the last thing she expected when she came home to Paradise. It had happened so fast, but there was no denying it.
And he smelled so good. He smelled of evergreen and wood smoke and herbs, and of something else; maybe it was only himself, his own smell.
“That what you’re saying?”
“No—”
He leaned forward just that last inch, inclined his head, and caught her mouth before she could finish her thought. It was a tentative kiss, one that came with a question. She let herself be drawn in and he broke away for the smallest moment to look at her, his composure intact, but his breath coming faster.
Martha reached out and touched his hand with her own and in response he brought it up to cradle her head and pull her back to him. Then everything was gone but the kiss, deep and true. His tongue touched hers and a shudder ran down her spine. Martha heard herself make a sound and she saw that it had pleased him. He smiled against her mouth and then drew her back down into the kiss.
At some point—when she couldn’t say—that same hand had come around to cup her throat and then it moved to her shoulder. Fingers trailed down, tracing the curve of her breast. She caught it and held herself away.
He raised a brow.
“What is happening between us?” It came out in a coarse whisper.
The question distracted him enough to make him sit back. It was full light now and as far as she could see, trees were lit up like candles at the first touch of the sun. Her heart was pounding, for fear of what he was going to say.
He leaned forward and touched his forehead to hers.
“Why don’t we just get married?”
It sounded like a question, but his expression made it more of a challenge.
Panic flowed through her, and worse still, she could see that he knew what she was feeling. He saw it, but what did he make of it? Disappointment? Anger? Amusement?
She sat back and folded her hands together in her lap, as tight as she could.
“Um, I thought you wanted to talk to me about teaching.”
Daniel grinned, clearly pleased to have flustered her so completely. “Will you help out at the school until the end of term?”
She nodded, because she didn’t trust her voice. There was a tic at the corner of her mouth, a smile that wanted to show itself. Which was utterly ridiculous; this wasn’t a game they were playing.
“That’s settled then. Now what about getting married?”
She expelled a sharp breath. “You’re serious.”
“I am serious. And if you’re honest with yourself, you’ll recognize it’s right. You can feel it in your gut, I know you can.”
She took his hand in her sincere wish to be heard. “Daniel Bonner, we hardly know each other.”
He gripped the hand she had given him and his thumb moved across her wrist in a motion so light and so shocking that she jerked, as though he had stuck her with a hidden pin.
He said, “How well did you know your Teddy?”
Annoyed, Martha turned her head away. “Don’t call him that. Don’t call him my Teddy. And the obvious answer is, I didn’t know him as well as I thought I did.”
Daniel was not in the least put out by her irritation, and was that not impolite? Though some small voice pointed out how refreshing it was to be able to say what she thought without worrying about it being wrong somehow. She wondered what it would take to make Daniel Bonner angry, or to turn him away. A question she had never asked herself about Teddy, but she had found out the answer anyway.
He was saying, “Do you think I’m after your money?”
“No!”
Martha got up and walked to the end of the porch. She should be collapsing with weariness, but every nerve was tingling. A breeze had come up and with it, the smell of things greening. Birds darted in and out of shadow, small flags fluttering under the canopy of trees where the evergreen branches were tipped with new color. The light irritated her eyes. Martha squinted and wished for the handkerchief she must have left behind at Lake in the Clouds. She was not near tears, she told herself sternly. In no way or manner was she about to weep. No matter how confusing and shocking this sudden proposal, no matter how—thrilling.
Daniel Bonner wanted to marry her.
Something bright had blossomed in her as he said the words, an excitement and pleasure she couldn’t remember ever feeling before, though surely she must have, when Teddy proposed. What had been in her mind then? How had she felt? Relieved, certainly. But otherwise she had no memory beyond the fact that he had a smudge on his cheek, one she wanted to tell him about but certainly could not, not in the middle of his very formal, almost—