Chapter Eight
The wedding party was still in high gear when Aidan walked Maura back to where her mother and another lady sat talking with each other. He and Maura had somehow managed to agree on a truce of sorts before he slipped off with Bernie Baxter, Jerry Glass. Mike Foster, Harry Anderson, and Tommy behind the ranch’s big barn. They’d called themselves Hell's Half-Dozen in college, and they were excited to be together again.
“Thanks for coming to the wedding on such short notice.” Aidan acknowledged his old friends’ presence at his wedding.
Mike looked a little embarrassed when he admitted why they were here. “Ah, we didn’t drive down from Portland for the wedding, Aidan. Sorry, bud. We didn’t have the money for gas. The fact is…me, Bernie and Jerry were already down here to help Bernie’s grandma move in with his parents. Harry there was here for his sister’s eighteenth birthday. That just leaves Tommy, and he lives here. But, glad we were close by when you needed us, old buddy.
“Now, quit messin’ around and crack that cork, Harry.” Mike lined up six shot glasses on a makeshift bar created from a bale of hay. “I confiscated some of my old man’s hooch. Homemade moonshine of this caliber doesn’t come around very often, so drink up, boys.”
Aidan took the shot offered and downed it. The clear alcohol took his breath away. “Damn, that’s some strong stuff.”
Everyone agreed, and Harry poured another round. Aidan lost count at six. Or was it seven? By the time his father found him and announced the party was over and his bride was waiting for him in the little cabin out back, his brain was a soggy sponge.
Amid the catcalls and back slaps, Aidan smirked at his friends and neighbors. He and his dad walked shoulder to shoulder toward the little cabin that his great-grandpa Finn had built on the original homestead across the creek all those years ago. Another sign his sacrifice was necessary.
"Son, I hope you spend some time getting to know your new wife. I think you are gonna be pleasantly surprised with her.”
“Like a new puppy?” He joked. The moonshine made him damned funny. At least he thought so.
“Aidan. The girl has feelings, you know." His dad admonished.
He wondered what he had done wrong now. “I know that.” Aidan thought back to the conversation he had with Maura a few hours ago. "We understand one another."
He could tell his father wanted to ask him what that meant, but they had arrived at the little cabin where his Jackson bride waited. The moonshine sloshed in his gut. For a minute he thought he was gonna be sick.
"Good night." He hugged his dad. A sudden wave of emotion hit his drunken brain. Tears burned his eyes, but he pushed them back. "I want to make you proud of me."
“I was proud of you the day you were born, son. There’s nothing you can do to turn back that clock.”
Aidan felt a twinge of guilt thinking about his parents’ expectations of having a grandchild soon. But Aidan hadn’t fully committed to that part of the arrangement yet. He wanted to wait and see what happened. One thing was for certain, his heart of hearts still wanted Beth and if there was a way he could convince her to come back to New Dawn Springs, then he would offer Maura a way out. If she was as smart as he thought she was, she would take the deal and then he would be free to choose his own bride. And that bride was Beth.
He had no problem living up to his parent’s expectations of him siring the next generation. But, he intended to do it on his own terms.
The thought sobered him a bit. He closed the front door of the tiny two-room cabin his mother had insisted they stay for their honeymoon because of the privacy away from the main house.
“Like that’s going to help.” He groused.
Aidan sat on the primitive, but comfortable, chair to take off his boots and socks. His feet rested on the handmade braided rug his great grandma, Maureen made when she and great grandpa Finn built this place in the middle of nowhere all those years ago. The rug covered a trap door to a root cellar where he used to play as a kid.
Aidan toed the rug with his bare feet. Tradition. That’s what this whole arrangement is about. Somewhere in the distance, someone was still having fun at his wedding party. He grinned. It was a great party. People would be talking about it for weeks to come. Some were obviously disappointed there wasn't an all-out brawl, but his dad had laid the law down. Fighting was not to be condoned. Anyone breaking that hard and fast rule would be shuffled off to town in the backseat of Sheriff Foley's squad car.
"Aidan? Is that you?"
Startled from his musings, he remembered his bride waiting for him in the other room.
"Yeah, it's me. Were you expecting someone else?" What made him say that, he had no idea. Perhaps it was the moonshine in his stomach, dulling his intelligence. Perhaps it was his underlying anger at being put in this position. Whatever it was, he immediately regretted it when he stood in the bedroom doorway and saw Maura lying in their marital bed. The sight of her took his breath away, and memories of a dappled creek hidden away came to mind.
He had no idea how long he stood in the doorway. It must have been long enough to make his bride uncomfortable.
“Are you drunk?”
Maura's voice broke his trance. He made a show of being unaffected by the woman lying in their bed, her bare shoulders peeking above the frothy lace of the bedsheets. His mother's doing, he surmised.
Maura's long hair draped over one shoulder in a thick braid. Her creamy skin glowed in the semi-darkness of the lamp-lit room. He was mesmerized.
He frowned. "What do you know about being drunk?"
"I know enough to know I'm not interested, thank you very much." She sniffed.
He grinned at her. He was glad when her shoulders relax. She picked at the lace on the sheet for a moment, and then she returned his grin. The tension in the room vanished.
Aidan found her openness…intriguing.
He sat down on the edge of the bed. The mattress gave way under his weight. Her eyes grew round, and some of her nervousness was back.
"Are you afraid of me, Maura?" He realized he didn't want her to be.
He watched her pause for a few heartbeats before she looked up at him with those green eyes framed by sweeping lashes. Jackson-green, he reminded himself.
"No. At least, I don't think so."
He nodded his understanding and pulled at his shirt’s buttons. He lost his coat hours ago.
“Are you? Afraid of me?"
Aidan choked on his laughter. "What on Earth would make you think I'm afraid of a little slip of a thing such as yourself?"
She hesitated and then lifted her chin in quiet defiance. "Well, first I thought you might be afraid I’d put a snake in your bed."
He couldn't believe she would bring that up.
"And second, you are clutching the edge of the bed as if you are afraid…of something. I thought it might be me."
Aidan's brain was slow to catch up, but when it did, the portent of her words hit him down low, and his manhood sprang to life. Any inhibitions he might have had consummating this marriage had fallen straight to the bottom of an empty glass somewhere. Now, he had something to prove.
Shoving away Tommy’s parting advice to stay clear of Maura, he knew his duty. He would consummate this marriage and then keep his distance from the woman now sharing his bed.
Aidan removed his shirt and his pants and stood naked in front of his bride. He reveled in the shock on her face.
"I'm not afraid of anyone, Mrs. Langley. And that includes you.”