Summer Moon by Jill Marie Landis

His head tossed from side to side as he mumbled something she could not understand. She leaned closer.
    “Reed,” she said softly. “It’s me, Kate. I’m right here beside you at last. Please, fight this, Reed. Get well. We’ve so much to talk about. So much to plan.”
    As she leaned against the edge of the mattress, staring down at strong features drained of all color, she could not help but recall his written words. They were all she had of him now.
    I want a family again. I have been lost without a wife, without my child. I need a loving woman in my life who is willing to stand by me, willing to face life’s challenges and share my hopes and dreams. A woman who can love this land.
    “Reed?” she whispered. “Oh, please, Reed.”
    He stirred again and turned toward the sound of her voice but did not awaken. Kate sighed and leaned back on her heels, closed her eyes, and lowered her forehead to the edge of the mattress. She was exhausted but determined not to lose hope.
    His arm brushed against her face and she felt his burning skin. A basin of fresh water and clean folded rags stood ready on the washstand across the room. She stood up and walked over to the washstand and dipped a rag into the tepid water, wrung it out and went back to Reed’s bedside. Bone tired, she had no thought of leaving. Each passing hour spent alone with him was a gift. A precious, private, one-way exchange that allowed her time to know him in an intimate way.
    Bathing him the way Sofia had done earlier, Kate found it almost impossible not to let her hand linger as she ran the damp cloth over his face and neck, across his strong shoulders, and down his arms. She drew the bedsheet past his chest, to his hips. Staring down at the crisp dark hair that covered his pectorals and trailed to his navel, she blushed fire.
    I am touching a naked man.
    She took comfort in the notion that he could not see the burning embarrassment of a once-cloistered spinster and tried to remind herself this wasn’t the first time she had ever set eyes on a man’s naked body.
    As she studied the hard lines and angles, the muscular shoulders and arms, his size and strength became apparent and a bit overwhelming. Lying in the center of the double bed, he almost dwarfed it. There was barely any room left for someone else to lie there without being pressed against him.
    She lifted his right hand, washed it carefully and gently, whispering all the details of her trip West, hoping to soothe and comfort him. Each finger was attended to with care. She turned his hand over, traced her fingertips across the lines and calluses that marked his palm, carefully laid his arm down, and then picked up the other.
    As she studied his hand, she could not help but think about how, when he was well again, these very hands would one day touch her, fondle and caress her. She shivered and felt her face burn again. Still, she anticipated that day.
At least I know what to expect.
She had never forgotten all she had seen and heard those years she lived with her mother, had not forgotten the things that men and women did with one another.
    The curtains billowed as the night wind lifted them high and let them sink back against the window frame. She looked outside, watched high, thick clouds slip across a full moon. In that instant, from somewhere deep inside the cobwebbed corners of her mind, came a recollection of her early years.
    Twisted sheets on narrow beds. The pungent smell of aroused, sweaty bodies. The mystery behind the gruff sounds made by the noisy strangers her mother had taken into her body.
    Meg Whittington had entertained men for money— for food and shelter. She had let them touch and taste her, couple with and ride her. If Mama hated those nights, if she had ever suffered shame, she had kept it hidden behind a brazen bravado. Kate refused to wonder if her mother might actually have enjoyed her work, if there was something in Meg that had made her want to whore with