Abandoning his pa.s.sive role, Madison rolled forward and placed his hand on Fern's abdomen.

She tried to continue her exploration of Madison, but his touch instantly demanded her attention. When his finger slipped inside her, her body flinched in response.

Her entire being focused on his invasion.

It seemed that he possessed her entire body all at once. Even as his hand ignited spirals that exploded in her loins, his other hand continued to tease her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. His lips scattered trails of fire from her forehead to her navel.

Unable to control her body, able only to writhe beneath the forces that tossed her like a feather in a whirlwind, Fern strained against Madison, begging for a consummation she knew must come soon.

''This may hurt a little at first," Madison warned, but Fern was beyond worrying about a little pain. Her entire body seemed to be twisting and convulsing in sweet agony. Dimly she felt Madison move between her thighs; when he entered her moist heat, she began to lose contact with reality. She seemed to be filled with him. Consumed by him. Overwhelmed by him.

A needle-like stab of pain. . . . Her body stretching as he entered her fully. . . . Her body exploding with the need to pull him deeper into her until he could reach the hidden core that fueled her need. . . . The more she tried to douse the flames lapping at her senses, the higher the blaze grew until she opened and surrendered completely to him.

Fern was acutely conscious of everything Madison did. Every movement, every breath, seemed to raise the pitch of her own excitement. She heard her groans as from a distance, her pleading cries that Madison somehow release her from this pinwheel of desire, her frantic efforts to force Madison to reach the core of her need before it drove her mad.

She dug her nails into his back. As the forces gripped her more fully, she sank her teeth into his shoulder. His answering moan seemed to be the trigger that released them both.

She felt a tremendous wrenching which seemed to start in her toes and explode through every muscle and nerve. Even as her body stiffened and rose to meet Madison, she heard him groan, felt his body shudder, and felt an explosion of moist heat inside her.

Fern felt that she had been flooded, filled to bursting with his vitality. Sensations rose in waves, each one more powerful than the other. She clung to Madison, pulling him deeper and deeper into the vortex of her spiraling need. Her own body grew taut. Like the coiling spring of a catapult, it wound tighter and tighter until she felt as though she would shatter into a million tiny shards.

Then as the agony grew too sweet to bear, it exploded within her in a shower of brilliant lights. For the first time in her life, Fern didn't feel alone. She felt a part of Madison, so inextricably bound to him that she could never be alone again. She was his; he was hers. The bargain had been struck and would not be canceled.

She clung to him with all her strength, her body seeking to emulate the fusion of their souls. She felt elated, triumphant, not only at her discovery of the wonders of love, but in her new relationship with Madison.

After tonight, everything seemed possible.

Fern's muscles began to relax, and her body started to loosen its hold on Madison. Then quite suddenly she felt absurdly weak. With a shuddering moan, she sank exhausted to the bed.

Many minutes pa.s.sed before either of them spoke.

"Are you going to marry me?" Madison asked, breaking the silence at last.

"Yes."

"You're not afraid anymore?"

"Only afraid you won't love me as much as I love you."

"That's something you'll never have to worry about."

Silence.

"Do you have to go back to the hotel?"

"No."

"Are you sleepy?"

"No."

"Neither am I."

Chapter Twenty-Five.

Fern woke to find herself naked and sharing a bed with an equally naked Madison. But that shock was nothing compared to the exhilaration she felt when she remembered they had made love together. She had conquered her fear of intimacy, her fear of letting a man have power over her body.

She relaxed, letting her mind concentrate on the exotic sensations of being unclothed. Never before had she been naked if she could help it. Even when she took a bath she remained covered as much as possible. As far back as she could remember, her father had encouraged her modesty. He left the house when she bathed. She did the same for him. Without realizing it, she had come to believe nakedness was wrong, even unpleasant.

She knew better now.

She luxuriated in the cool morning air on her skin, in the total freedom from the restriction of clothes, in the sheer joy of having exploded another fear. There was nothing wrong or hurtful or unpleasant about being naked. She felt perfectly natural. In fact, she felt better than she'd ever felt in her whole life.

Most important of all, there was no longer any reason not to many Madison. She didn't have to be afraid of him, or herself, or the mysterious unknowns she used to feel must be lurking out there ready to pounce on her if she lowered her defenses, if she allowed herself to care. She cared, and it was the most glorious experience of her life.

She looked at Madison lying next to her and shivered with happiness. Never in her wildest dreams had she imagined that anything like this would happen to her. She loved this beautiful, wonderful man, and he loved her. And she could love him without fear, without reservation.

She couldn't stand being awake by herself any longer. She couldn't stand being quiet and letting him sleep. She couldn't stand bottling up her excitement.

She shook Madison awake.

"Wha!" he said, coming awake with a start.

"Wake up, sleepyhead," she teased. "It's morning."

"No, it's not," Madison said, looking at the first streaks of dawn coming over the horizon. "It can't be any later than six o'clock." He turned over and pulled the pillow over his head.

"Wake up," Fern said, prodding him vigorously in the side. "I forgot you Easterners expect the sun to be halfway across the sky before you get up."

Madison groaned.

"Listen. Can't you hear the rooster? How can you sleep after that?"

"You wring his neck, and I'll show you fast enough," Madison said, grasping her hands to keep her from attacking him again.

"You can't mean to lie in bed all morning."

I could try," Madison said, c.o.c.king one eye in her direction. "As I remember, we didn't get much sleep last night."

Fern blushed rosily. "That's no excuse. It's a new day. It's time to be up and around."

Madison leaned over and kissed her. "I liked the old one. Can't we try that one over again?"

Fern giggled. "Of course not, silly. If people could do that, we'd still be back somewhere with those awful Greeks you were telling me about."

I like the Greeks. They knew how to have fun."

"If they did half the things in bed that you said, it's a wonder we didn't have a second flood. You do that here in Abilene, and they'd ride you out of town on a rail."

"Shall we try?" Madison asked, nuzzling her.

She giggled again. "We can't even do that," she said when his hands covered her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. "Pike and Reed will be here before long."

"d.a.m.n," Madison said, sitting up. "Here we are in the middle of a vast, uninhabited prairie and we don't have a bit of privacy. I wonder how the buffalo managed it."

"You're crazy," Fern said, laughing.

"It's all your fault," he said, pouncing on Fern and tickling her until she was helpless with laughter. I was a perfectly sane, well-adjusted adult before I met you. Now I consort with women in pants and think nothing of riding into the teeth of a tornado. We'll have to change all that. The good people of Boston would never understand."

"Boston?"

"Yes, Boston. My home. Where I work. Where we're going to live as soon as I can marry you."

"Marry?" "Yes, marry," Madison said, nuzzling her again. "I'm going to make an honest woman out of you. How would this morning do?"

"Don't be silly. I couldn't get married this morning. I haven't even fed the animals."

"Turn them out to fend for themselves. The antelope and prairie chickens have been doing it for millions of years. Surely your pigs could manage for one morning."

"You know I can't do that."

"Okay, but the only thing I'm going to let you have in Boston is a cat. And me, of course, and children if you decide you want some."

"When are you going back to Boston?" she asked. She almost wished she hadn't waked him. Everything seemed so much easier a minute ago.

"As soon as I get back from Hen's hearing. Do you think you can be ready then?"

"Ready for what?"

"To be married. To move to Boston."

"Do you have to go?"

"Of course I do. That's where I work."

"And you expect me to go with you?"

Madison sat up, his expression suddenly serious. "A man usually expects his wife to live with him."

"I know, but . . ."

"But what?"

"I'm not sure. Everything seems to be happening so fast. I hadn't thought . . . I don't think . . ."

"You're not still afraid of me, are you?"

"It isn't that."

"You do still love me?"

"Of course."

"Then what is it?"

Fern wondered how she could have been so simpleminded as to think failing in love with a man like Madison would be easy. She guessed she had spent so long a.s.suming that nothing would ever come of it, she hadn't really looked at what becoming his wife would mean. But now she did, and what she saw frightened her.

I guess I haven't made up my mind about some things."

"Like what?"

"Well, there's the farm and"

"Sell it."

"I can't just sell it."

"Why not?"

Why couldn't she? She could break it up into homesteads. She had some of the best land in Kansas.

"I don't want to sell it," she answered. "It's my home."

"Then keep it. We can hire Reed and Pike to run it for you."

"But"

"But what?"

"I'm scared."

"Of what?"

"Everything. I don't want to go to Boston. Those people won't like me. I know you said Samantha would help me, but she really doesn't want to. She loves you herself. And don't say a word about feeling like she's your sister. Only a lawyer could look at Samantha Bruce and feel anything sisterlike."

"Is that all?"

"No. I'm afraid of having to wear a dress all the time. I won't mind once in a whilelike dressing up special for a partybut I don't like dresses. They make me feel stupid. And I don't much like women. And from the way you talk, Boston is full of them."

"Fern"

"Can't you see I'm afraid of what will happen to me? I'll be lost in your world. There won't be anything left of Fern Sproull. There'll only be a scared, lost Mrs. Madison Randolph who everybody pities because she doesn't know what to do." Now that the barriers were down, the words came out in a rush. Fern wanted to tell him everything before she became too afraid to say anything at all. "She has no graces. She curses, she's awkward and tongue-tied, and she doesn't know how to ride sidesaddle. She doesn't like parties, she's uneducated, and she doesn't know anything about proper clothes or proper behavior."