Free Train Station Bride by Holly Bush Page B

the back of her dress. Julia swore she would only have dresses with front buttons now that she had no maid. She stood at the sink, dress around her waist, in her silk chemise and washed.
    * * *
    Jake came up from the barn to get a cool drink and see if Julia still looked as pretty as he remembered from that morning and as tempting as she had the night before. His bride was as soft as newborn chick down and all woman that was for certain, every curvy indent, every rounded bit of flesh. Jake had been scared to death he’d crush her when they made love. She was such little thing, tucked under him, mewing soft sounds of pleasure. He was thinking it would only get better with time and familiarity. If it could.
    He stopped dead in his tracks at his screen door. Julia stood in front of the sink, hair pulled up except for a few tendrils stuck wet to her back. Her dress was to her waist and she was running a washrag over her neck. Her skin was as pale as the shiny fabric of her underclothes. Julia tilted her head from side to side and hummed softly. Jake turned quickly when he heard his foreman hollering to him. He slammed the kitchen door open prepared to ask his bride what in the hell she thought she was doing standing near naked within a hundred yards of his randy group of farmhands. She turned as the door swung open. He took one fierce, angry step inside even as the sight of her stirred him.
    “What in the hell …”
    “Be careful,” Julia shouted
    Jake charged into a bucket of water in front of the door. Water sloshed everywhere and the bucket flew end over end hitting a kitchen chair and knocking it over.
    Jake grabbed for the door handle as his feet began to go out from under him. Julia ran to him and kicked an errant potato straight at him. He bent and grabbed his shin where it hit. His muddy boots slipped in the water and sent Jake careening to the floor. He lay still on his back, the wind knocked out of him.
    Julia dropped down on her knees beside him.
    “Oh, dear. Jake, are you all right?”
    It took a moment to get his breath. He could already feel a knot growing on the back of his head. “Julia, everyman jack could a seen you standing at the sink practically naked.”
    Julia’s head popped up to the door. “Does your head hurt? I heard it smack,” she asked as she returned her attentions to him.
    Julia leaned down close and was running her hand through his hair, bringing her magnificent breasts swinging loosely within inches of his nose.
    Julia sat back on her haunches. “No one is looking at me, Jake. What a silly thing to think.”
    Jake sat up and touched his head gingerly. “Trust me, Julia. The men have been waiting for another glimpse of you since the day I brought you home. If any of them had come on the porch instead of me, they’d a gotten a whole lot more than a glimpse.”
    She tilted her head. “Don’t be angry. I was hot and dirty and wanted to wash up. No one saw me.”
    Jake straightened out one arm behind him and leaned close to Julia. His eyes dropped to the low scoop of her silk under things and all that beautiful pale flesh behind it. He ran his finger down her neck, to her collarbone and trailed slowly down, stopping when his knuckle touched breast. Julia’s eyes dropped, and she let out a slow sigh.
    “I know men that’d kill to see a woman like you, looking like this.”
    “Dinner’ll be ready about seven,” she whispered and fluttered her lashes.
    “What did I trip over anyway?”
    “The wash water. I couldn’t get any further than the door. It was too heavy. And I dropped a potato on the way to the sink. That’s what I kicked when I went to catch you,” Julia said.
    Jake was sitting in a puddle of foul water on his kitchen floor. His head hurt, and he had hit his behind with a bang. His wife was too weak to carry a bucket of wash water, and his dinner wouldn’t be ready till near his bedtime.
    “That’ll be fine,” he said.
    “I better get started then,” Julia