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.She relaxed as Olympia quickly adapted to the situation, then nudged Will with her bare foot.“I think you’re pretty good, Captain,” she whispered.He noticed Olympia’s squirms and picked her up from Frannie’s arms, putting her face near his shoulder as he patted her back.The reward was a substantial burp, which startled Olympia and made Frannie chuckle.“You know, Frannie, under the circumstances, perhaps you could call me Will,” he suggested.The car was getting lighter.He could see her face plainly as she gave him a measuring appraisal.“Under the circumstances? Will, it is,” she told him.“And do you know something? I prefer Francie.My brothers call me that.”“Francie, it is,” he told her as he handed back Olympia and filled the eye dropper again.They continued feeding the baby, Francie’s head close to his.When Olympia began to squirm this time, she put the baby to her shoulder and rubbed her back until the burp came.Worn out with her efforts and by her full stomach, the infant slept, nestling her dark head into the hollow of Francie’s shoulder.Francie kissed the baby and heaved a small sigh that sounded to Will like perfect satisfaction.“Too much of that and you’ll find yourself unable to let her go,” Will said.“And you think I haven’t already succumbed?” Francie asked, her voice suddenly as serious as his own.“Will, you’re not as bright as I thought.”“That probably isn’t hard to imagine,” he replied.“I could sit here and think about all the ways I could have changed the outcome of that hambone surgery.I could have taken a closer look at her when I went through the immigrant car earlier.I could have…”He stopped, because Francie had put her finger to his lips and then leaned forward and kissed them.He couldn’t think of a single objection and kissed her back.Since Olympia was balanced between them, he steadied himself with a hand on Francie’s knee.When they finished kissing, he left his hand where it was.“My da says you have a bad habit of doing that,” she murmured, her lips still close to his.“Francie, I’ve never kissed your father.”She laughed softly and flicked his cheek with her fingernail.“You know what I mean! Da says you berate yourself every time someone dies, and pace around your office and mutter to yourself and second-guess.” She lightly touched her forehead to his.“All surgeons do that,” he said in his defense.His hand was still on her knee.He felt his whole body growing warmer, which was welcoming, because he felt as though he had been cold for years.“I doubt Captain Hunsaker second-guesses himself,” she retorted.“Maybe not all.”He didn’t try to stop himself.He moved his hand under her nightgown, until he touched the soft hair between her legs.“Just a minute.”Embarrassed, Will started to leave the berth, but she stopped him.“Just a minute, I said,” she repeated, as she handed him the sleeping baby.She opened her valise on the floor and folded in a tablecloth he had borrowed from the dining car, making it a sheet.She took Olympia from him and set the sleeping infant in the open valise, tucking it partly under the lower berth, where it was firmly anchored.After closing the curtains around them, she sat on the lower berth and pulled her nightgown over her head.Without a word, Will pulled back the blanket again and removed his trousers.The uniform jacket was already off and getting wrinkled—where, he didn’t much care.“Are you sure about this, Francie?” he whispered.She nodded.“Remember last night when Nora told you about her husband covering her with a blanket at the dance? You’ve now done that twice to me.”“Francie, that was…”“Different? Tell me how some time, but not now, Will.I need you.”“Ditto here.” He pulled the blanket over them without another word.Chapter EightWill had occasionally fantasized about making love on a train.There was something pleasantly stimulating about the rhythmic clatter of the wheels that had appealed to the sybarite in his nature.As he began to explore Francie’s abundant curves, he tried to tell whatever part of his brain might still be rational that this was a supremely bad idea.This embarrassment of riches was his hospital steward’s daughter, for goodness’ sake.He explored Francie’s breasts with his hand and then his lips, as he reminded himself that it was getting light; that the conductor knew where his berth was and could fling open the curtains with another medical emergency; that he was about one week away from marrying a beautiful lady who loved him.None of his puny admonitions had the smallest effect on his body.If Francie had any similar objections, they weren’t registering with her, either, from the eager way she touched him and kissed him more thoroughly than he had ever been kissed in his life.He knew he should have been gentlemanly enough to assure her that he would be gentle—on the chance—and what did he know?—that she was a virgin—but he didn’t.Just as well, because he wasn’t gentle.With a sigh, Francie happily accommodated his rather assertive entrance into her body—good grief, where were his manners? She pressed against his back with her hands and heels as they both discovered that train rhythm was amazingly erotic: a satisfactory conclusion to his scientific experiment.He gathered her close, relishing every thrust and parry and holding himself off until she climaxed once and then again only delirious seconds later.She pressed her lips against his neck to keep herself from letting the entire train car hear her approval of what the two of them had just so energetically wrought, courtesy of biology and the Union Pacific Railroad.If she could be so restrained, so could he.Will groaned into her ear when his own turn came, which only made Francie tighten her grip on him and unleash herself again.Man of science that he was, Captain Will Wharton, post surgeon, had no inkling that the average woman in 1877 was so talented.But enough was surely enough, especially when the porter came through the car, sounding his summons to breakfast and announcing an arrival in Omaha in one hour.He knew he should be a kind fellow and unlimber himself from Francie’s charms, but for the life of him, he had no urge to find the exit.Besides, she was still twining her legs around his—who knew that a gentle hand running up and down his back would be so soothing? Every single care he had boarded the train with in Cheyenne had flown away; he was jelly.Francie shifted first, so he reluctantly did the polite thing and moved.She was all business for a moment, finding a cloth for him and her, probably the handful of napkins that he knew he would never, ever return to the dining car.And then she curled close to him, so they lay together as one
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