Read Crossings for Free Online Page B

sometimes.”
    â€œWould I share your bedroom?”
    â€œNo,” she rebounded quickly. “Bedroom privileges aren’t part of the agreement.”
    â€œBefore, you said that if I wanted to take you to my bed, you’d be willing to negotiate.”
    Her blue eyes grew darker than the calico he’d compared them to earlier. “It’s become a nonnegotiable issue now.”
    â€œSix months of playacting as your husband, livingwith you, but having no sex. Are those the terms you’re offering in exchange for your land?”
    Hesitation skittered across her face. Hell, he had his own hesitation. He’d be moving out of his mist of silence and desolation. His self-imposed banishment would be suspended for six months. One hundred and eighty days. Christ all Jesus, it might as well be one hundred and eighty years. Six months was an eternity to be straddled with humanity and its habits. Things had changed since he’d left Libertyville. The smallest coin in use back then was a silver five-cent piece. On his several visits to Genoa, he found that if he wanted tobacco, a bag was a quarter. If he wanted cigarette papers, they were a quarter. If he wanted an apple, or a candle, or a newspaper, or enough whiskey to get himself good and drunk, twenty-five cents was the price every time. The current way of doing business in Genoa was nothing short of highway robbery.
    â€œYes.” The fragile whisper of her answer broke into his reverie. “Those are my terms.”
    Crushing the stub of his cigarette beneath his boot, he talked while he exhaled smoke. “What about a divorce later?”
    â€œUnless you want to be free to marry someone else, a divorce won’t be necessary for me. I don’t plan on marrying again.”
    â€œNeither do I.”
    The inkwell fell onto its side, and Helena righted the bottle with trembling fingers. “Then I guess we have a bargain.”
    â€œNo guessing. We do have a bargain.”
    â€œWell . . . I’ll get Ignacia and have her watch the store so we can go to the justice of the peace.”
    As she nervously licked her dry lips, Carrigan imagined kissing them to make them wet. Her mouth was full and pink, resembling the petals of a rose. Would they taste just as heady next to the tip of his tongue? He loosely cocked his hip against the counter,needing to release some of the pressure behind the placket of his trousers. “Whatever you say.”
    Helena was gone and back in less than a minute, returning with a middle-aged Mexican woman who looked thinner than a bar of soap after a hard day’s work against a washboard.
    â€œThis is Ignacia Perades,” Helena introduced. “She’s our stock tender’s wife and cooks for us.”
    He had no hat to tip, so he inched his chin up a notch as a form of greeting.
    Helena walked toward the counter opposite him while tugging at the wide bow of her apron. The doubled ends knotted, and she jerked on them to no avail. He strode to her and bumped her fingers aside. She froze as he worked the knot free, his knuckles grazing the many gathers of her skirt. The fabric felt soft and feminine beneath his touch. He would have lingered, savored, and perhaps tested the span of her corset-nipped waist with his hands, but she moved away from him with a skittish hop.
    â€œThank you,” she murmured, looping the apron on a hook. He was given a view of her slender back, level shoulders, and the gentle curve of her confined hair resting against her nape. There was no telling how long her hair was, but its thickness was evident inside the net. She didn’t miss a step while going for the glass case that contained a small amount of jewelry. Reaching inside for a tray, she took out two rings. “Let me see your left hand.”
    He held it up for her to examine.
    She put the first ring back and picked a second, larger one. Slipping between the part in a doorway curtain, she