Joshua and Rosa: A Love Story (Part 13)

One overcast day, Rosa took John with her into town to purchase some material to make new curtains for the family room. Emma was left in charge of Mary who was fast asleep in her crib. Joshua was finishing a project in the workshop in the barn.

Emma took lunch out to Joshua who was working without his shirt as he swung the great hammer onto molten iron. Emma lingered in the doorway of the barn much as Rosa often did on such occasions.

Joshua, taking a moment to mop his brow with the handkerchief he kept in his back pocket, glanced and noticed his audience. His first impulse was to reach for his shirt, which he had thrown onto the handle of a nearby plow but he stayed that. He watched silently as Emma crossed the space between them carrying the tray with his lunch on it. He took note once more of her smooth, fair skin and her golden hair and he felt himself rising to arousal.

Emma placed the tray down near the forge and walked closer to Joshua. Neither of them could find any words. They stood a foot or so separate their eyes boring into each other’s. Then Joshua reached out with his great, calloused hand and stroked Emma’s cheek. Emma sighed softly and tentatively reached out to stroke the sweat-glistened dark hair on Joshua’s chest.

Joshua took a deep breath and then pulled the girl to him, kissing her lips hungrily. Emma, so long without the touch of a man, surged into his arms, her dress and apron growing damp with his sweat. Joshua lifted her up into his arms and carried her over to a far corner of the barn where bales of hay for the horses were stored. He sat her on one of the bales and shoved her dress and petticoat up revealing her alabaster thighs while she clung to his neck anxiously.

Joshua all but ripped her underwear down and then furiously undid his own dungarees. He paused for a moment, guilt stabbing him like a sword, but an encouraging kiss from Emma was enough for him to go forth. Emma cried out as Joshua surged into her and they rutted together, her legs tight around his hips, for a long inarticulate time until Joshua growled his orgasm deep into the girl.

Emma clung to Joshua, standing there with his trousers around his ankles and his manhood still inside her, and he held her tight. They said nothing, sharing humid kisses until they disengaged from each other. Emma pulled up her now-tattered underwear and slid off the bale. She looked up at Joshua but found that he could not meet her gaze now. Emma leaned forward and planted a tender kiss on Joshua’s chest and then she scrambled past him and dashed out of the barn and into the house. She quickly changed clothes, taking special care to dispose of her ripped underwear in the fireplace.

When Rosa and John returned, Joshua was still out in the barn working. Emma, having changed into a different dress and apron, was changing Mary’s diaper. Rosa felt an odd tension from Emma but as Mary was now ready to be fed she couldn’t pursue the thought. Rosa handed John, who had fallen asleep during the ride home, to Emma and took Mary into the bedroom to nurse her.

The mood was odd and tense at supper…both Joshua and Emma saying little…and Rosa’s began to wonder exactly what had happened. Rosa knew better than to press Joshua when he wasn’t in a mood to talk so she concentrated on her children and tried to keep suspicion out of her mind and her heart.

Joshua, for his part, was consumed by guilt…guilt over having betrayed his wife and, perhaps even worse, guilt over the fact that he still found himself mightily attracted to Emma. Unsure of what he needed to do, he withdrew from both of them…keeping them at arm’s distance with stony silence.