by Indiana Wake
As he set her on the ground, Suki was careful to lean all her weight on her good ankle; this was not a moment for her to topple over. Without another word, he pulled her gently into his arms, encircling her waist as her body leaned against his.
“I really am in love with you, Suki,” he said, his voice hoarse. “If you give me your heart, I promise I will love and treasure it. That I will never hurt it.”
“And I really am in love with you, Sonny. I think I have been from the beginning. I give you my heart gladly for I know it will be safe surrounded by your love.”
“Then shall we just get on with it, Suki? Shall we just trust one another from now on?”
“Yes, let’s do that.”
“Then will you marry me, Suki Shepherd?”
“Yes, with all my heart, yes.”
Sonny gently placed a hand on the back of her neck and drew her face towards his, kissing her with a passion she hadn’t quite been expecting. It startled her to begin with, but she very quickly found herself returning that passion with equal vigor. His lips felt warm and smooth against hers and she reached up to run her fingers through his thick, black hair.
Her excitement mixed with joy made her realize that she could, once again, smell the beautiful sweet grass on the warm summer air.
Epilogue
“Well, what do you think?” Sonny prompted, leading his wife by the hand.
“I can’t see with this blindfold on, Sonny.” Suki giggled, holding tightly to his arm.
“Sorry.” He laughed as he untied the soft scarf.
“Oh, it’s beautiful,” Suki said, even though she’d seen the neat little house being built from the ground up.
But today was Sonny’s day, and she was overjoyed to see his pride in his own achievement. He led her into the house. The back door opened directly into a large, square kitchen of similar layout to the one in her parents’ farmhouse. Sonny had always liked it, stating it was the finest room in the Shepherd homestead. He had always liked the warmth and the feeling of a loving family life that he had first experienced in that room, and he had gone out of his way to recreate it on a smaller scale.
“Sonny, I don’t know what to say. Goodness, I am just so happy. Our own home at last.” Suki swatted tears of emotion from her eyes.
For the first few months of their marriage, Suki and Sonny had lived with Suki’s parents. It had been wonderful enough, but they were both ready for a place of their own and ready for their life together to truly begin.
“And we move in this very day. This is where we’ll sleep tonight.” His blue eyes twinkled with mischief and Suki laughed.
“I can’t wait,” she said in a hoarse whisper.
“I love you, Mrs. Reynolds,” he kissed her gently.
“And I love you, Mr. Reynolds.”
“Come and see the sitting room,” he said, leading her by the hand again.
The sitting room had been sparsely furnished and she knew he wanted to have her choose the rest of their things. What was surprising, however, was the table in the middle of the room with plates of little savory pastries and fruit pies.
“What’s all this?” She looked at him with some confusion; there was far too much food for just the two of them.
“Surprise!” Honey Goodman burst out from behind the drapes with a bright smile on her pretty face.
“Oh, my goodness!” Suki shrieked as her hand flew to her chest. “Honey Goodman, you scared me half to death!” Suki laughed and dashed into her best friend’s arms.
Her mother, father, and brother had followed them into the house. Brad Lowry, ever more a friend to Sonny, wandered in also. Where had they all been hiding?
“Well, this sure is nice,” Suki said, fighting little tears of emotion again. “How lucky I am to have you all here to celebrate our new home like this.”
“Where else would we be?” Her father reached out for her, hugging her tightly. “I’m just so proud of you,” he whispered as he held her close.
“And I’m just so proud of you, Daddy.”
No other words were needed; they had both, with hard work, come on a very long way.
“And my son-in-law!” he said brightly as he released his daughter. “What a fine job he has done here. What a fine job he always does.” He looked about the room and everybody clapped in agreement.
“Always with help, John,” Sonny said as he shook him by the hand.
“Before I forget, Josh Langley wants some help with one of his horses. A brute, by all accounts. I said you’d swing by.”
“I sure will,” Sonny said; word of his talents was certainly spreading, and he knew he would soon have enough work to set himself up properly doing the work he truly loved.
“We made it, Sonny.” Suki slid her hand into his.
“We sure did,” he said and kissed his wife to the murmured appreciation of their guests. “Well, tuck in everybody. Let’s get this celebration started!”
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“I don’t think they’ll be quite what you’re used to, Joe.” Dr. Carrie Macey winced almost as if she was apologizing for something. “They really are amateurs in every sense.”
“Mama, I don’t mind that at all. You should have seen some of the productions that the Willamette University Players used to put on.” Joe laughed at the memory of some of the more frivolous plays he’d seen during his time away studying. “It was hard work staying in your seat sometimes.” He grinned at his mother.
“But you did?”
“Of course, I did, Mama. I was raised right.” His grin became a bright smile, one designed to sway his mother into believing him completely.
“You know, honey, there are hundreds, maybe thousands, of folk who would just not believe you.”
“About staying in my seat or about being raised right?”
“You are the cheekiest child.” Carrie Macey smiled indulgently and crossed the kitchen to where her son sat at the table, ruffling his dark hair until he was wriggling to escape.
“Mama, I am twenty-two and hardly a child,” he objected playfully.
“You will always be my little boy, no matter how old you get.”
“All right, Mama, just as long as you never say that out loud and in public.” He snatched her hand and kissed the back of it. “Otherwise, I shall pretend not to know you.”
“Fair enough, son.” Carrie laughed. She loved her son’s sense of humor. “So, what are the town players putting on tonight?”
“It’s one they’ve come up with themselves. It’s called Moonlight on the Plains, of all things.”
“Sounds whimsical.” Carrie lifted a plate from the table, it was full of crumbs her son had just made as he hurriedly dispatched two large pieces of bread and butter. “Have you had enough to eat?”
“Yes, thank you,” he said and patted his belly by way of proving it. “And I have no idea if the play is whimsical or otherwise. The title is as much as I know about it.”
“Then it will either be a nice surprise or… well, anything but.”
“I’m sure there’ll be something in it to like. There usually is.”
“You are kindhearted.”
“Maybe a little, Mama, but it is true. If you watch something closely and listen attentively, there is usually something of worth to be found, even if the play or book, or whatever you are entertaining yourself with, isn’t really your sort of thing. Folk are in too much of a hurry to denounce someone else’s efforts. I can’t abide that sort of closed-mindedness.”
“Quite so. Unfortunately, you will likely stumble across folk of that very type this evening.”
“Mama, I know. I’m not a stranger here,” he said and instantly regretted his tone. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to sound so agitated.”
“It’s all right. I know you didn’t mean to sound agitated. But if you are agitated, you can certainly tell me about it. Y
ou know I’ll listen.”
Joe knew it was true. His mother was a very open-minded woman, one who could put a body at ease listening to their problems. Probably so many years as the town doctor had trained her well in the art of listening. Being a female doctor in the west in 1868 had given her the edge when it came to handling people, their fears, and their funny ways. Sometimes, even their aggression and hostility. Every time Joe thought of the things his mother had endured, simply to earn the right to help people, he felt himself become angry. As far as he was concerned, his mother was just about the cleverest person in all the world.
His father was a clever man, too, an attorney and a very good one, with a thriving practice to prove it. But Daniel Macey had never had to fight to get to where he was; his intelligence and worth was simply accepted by all.
“I guess it’ll take a little bit of getting used to,” he confessed. “But I’ve done it before, haven’t I?”
“You have,” Carrie said and sat down at the kitchen table beside him.
The three years he had been away at the Willamette University in Salem had been liberally sprinkled with trips back home. But those had been largely spent with his family, and the few acquaintances he’d made before he went off to university had very easily evaporated over time.
Although he had been born in Oregon three years after his mother had crossed the overland trail, he had never truly felt like he belonged.
Carrie Macey had been among the first women in the country to attend The Female Medical College in Pennsylvania, an absolute condition when she had agreed to marry Joe’s father. The family had set off for the East once more when Joe was just nine-years-old so that his mother could study for her medical degree, and they did not return to Oregon until he was fourteen. His father, the head of his thriving practice, put a manager in place and conducted business by correspondence. For that, Joe admired his father greatly. He knew that very few men would have kept their promise to a clever wife that she could take a place at medical college, and fewer still would keep the little family together by joining her on the other side of the country.
If only his father could be as intent to let his son follow his passion as he had been to let his wife. Maybe, it was not a matter of unfairness, but rather the nature of the passion itself. Daniel Macey was a practical man who understood that law and medicine were things which people would always need help with; there would always be work. Producing literature was rather more nebulous, opaque, cloudy; it was a form of entertainment, not a necessity. It was unreliable as a source of income and relied too much on the whims of the masses.
Joe admired his father, but they could not have been more different in their outlook.
“It should be easier this time. I’ve only been away for four years and it’s all still familiar. Not like when we came back from Pennsylvania and I thought I was in another world altogether.” He chuckled at the memory.
“I guess I’ve spent more of my own life in the East than the West, honey, so I do understand.”
“I know you do, but this is home to you, I can see it in your eyes. You’re so content here, Mama, you fit in.”
“I do fit in, but that’s because I have a place to fit into. I have my work, my patients, and my family.” She smiled serenely, like she always did; it made Joe feel at peace, as if everything would work itself out in the end.
“Well, I have my family. One out of three.” He shrugged.
“You will find your way.”
“Will I? Because if finding my way means ending up following in my father’s footsteps, I don’t think I’ll ever feel settled.”
“He just worries about you, that’s all.”
“I know, Mama, and I’m not complaining.” He paused for a moment and looked right into his mother’s eyes. “I just wish I could be me. I wish I could write and follow my own dreams without my father being offended by it.”
“He’s certainly not offended by it, honey.”
“I know. Wrong word,” he apologized, thinking a moment. “Disappointed.” He nodded slowly. “And, please don’t try to tell me that he isn’t, Mama.”
“He worries you won’t be able to support yourself.”
“But how will I know if I don’t try? I’ve already started getting my ideas down on paper. I’m already making progress. And Father would know that if I was able to talk to him about it.”
“Then, maybe you should do just that.” Carrie’s eyes were shining, and Joe felt guilty; she was squarely in the middle of the chasm that was beginning to widen between father and son, and he could see how it was hurting her.
“I don’t know, Mama. I don’t think he’d be interested. And he’s not a man who reads much that isn’t law or news. My ideas would probably make him despair even more. I guess we really are like chalk and cheese.”
“Well, you’re both just so stubborn,” Carrie said with a sigh. “At least you have that much in common.”
“I’m sorry, Mama, I didn’t mean to upset you.”
“You haven’t, Joe.” She smiled at him and stroked his cheek. “You’d better get going if you’re going to make it into town before the curtain goes up.” She laughed. “Figuratively speaking; they don’t actually have a curtain as such, not unless things have changed since the last time I saw them put on a play.”
“You’re not doing much to sell this play, Ma!” He laughed and rose to his feet, pleased that he hadn’t upset her as much as he’d feared.
“I don’t want to get your hopes up is all, honey.” She kissed his cheek and shooed him out of the door.
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Indiana
About the Author
Indiana Wake was born in Denver Colorado where she learned to love the outdoors and horses. At the age of eleven, her parents moved to the United Kingdom to follow her father’s career.
It was a strange and foreign new world and it took a while for her to settle down. Her mom raised horses and Indiana soon learned to ride. She would often escape on horseback imagining she was back in the Wild West. As well as horses, Indiana escaped into fiction and dreamed of all the friends she had left behind.
From an early age, she loved stories. They were always sweet and clean and more often than not, included horses, cowboys and most importantly of all a happy ever after. As she got older, she would often be found making up her own stories and would tell them to anyone who would listen.
As she grew up, she continued to write but marriage and a job stole some of her dreams. Then one day she was discussing with a friend at church, how hard it was to get sweet and clean fiction. Though very shy about her writing Indiana agreed to share one of her stories. That friend loved the story and suggested she publish it on Amazon Kindle. Together they worked really hard and
the rest, as they say, is history.
Indiana has had multiple number one bestsellers and now makes her living from her writing. She believes she was truly blessed to be given this opportunity and thanks each and every one of her readers for making her dream come true.
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Thank you so much for reading this book. I love to write and to share my stories with you and hearing your wonderful comments gives me great pleasure. Until our next adventure keep well my friend xx
©Copyright 2019 Indiana Wake
All Rights Reserved
Indiana Wake
License Notes
This Book is licensed for personal enjoyment only. It may not be resold. Your continued respect for author's rights is appreciated.
This story is a work of fiction any resemblance to people is purely coincidence. All places, names, events, businesses, etc. are used in a fictional manner. All characters are from the imagination of the author.
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