Once

by Elisabeth Grace Foley et al.

  “Yes,” said Rosa Jean quietly. “Yes… I’ll go.”

  “We’ll have a good start,” said Quincy, feeling that something was missing, but not sure what, “with the reward money, and my share from the horses… I don’t know if I’m cut out for farming, but there’s a little town over in Nevada where a sheriff offered me a job as his deputy, last year. If he’ll pay me enough to support a wife, I’ll go back and hold him to it.”

  Rosa Jean was looking at him with an expression he did not understand. “A wife?”

  Quincy stared back at her. “Yes—what did you think?”

  Rosa Jean’s eyes filled suddenly, quietly with tears. “Oh, Quincy, I didn’t know,” she whispered. “I didn’t think that you—I thought you thought I was only a stubborn, troublesome kid.”

  “You are. Good Lord, you are,” said Quincy. “But you’re a lot more besides that, sweetheart, and I knew that from the moment I laid eyes on you. You’re quite a woman, Rosa Jean, and Lord help me, I love you.”

  She could not speak. He saw it in the eloquence of her streaming eyes, and he bent and gathered her into his arms so her face was pressed against his shoulder, and let her tears flow. He sensed somehow that they were the first tears she had allowed herself to shed in a long time. When at last she lifted her face from his shoulder, a faint smile on her tremulous lips, and lay back exhausted on the pillow her face was wet, but it had the look of a new day washed clean by a night’s rain.

  He leaned down and kissed her, softly, lingeringly, and then kissed her again. Then they were quiet for a while, and Rosa Jean twined her fingers in his and held his hand against her cheek.

  “I wanted you to come,” she said after a while. “In my mind I had a dozen good reasons why I was going… but deep down, I didn’t want to be alone. And it wasn’t just because I was afraid. Even down here, while I was getting ready to go, I wanted you terribly all the time.”

  “To hear you say that almost—almost—makes up for the scare you gave me,” said Quincy, grinning.

  “Oh, I did. And then up there, when I had Dugan in front of me, I knew for certain you’d been right—it wasn’t only the justice I’d been thinking about. I’d been telling myself that seeing him dead or caught would stop me from hurting so much. But it wouldn’t. Even if he was dead, I’d still be alone.”

  Quincy leaned down and kissed her fingers, and put his lips close to her ear. “Well, you’re not alone any more… and you never will be again, so long as I’m alive.”

  He chuckled suddenly. “That’s a first, you know. You said I was right.”

  “I did,” said Rosa Jean. “It wasn’t the first time, though. I admitted it to myself as hard as could be all the way up that trail, and all the time I was in the cabin.” Her smile was rueful, but her eyes were full of love. “You’ll remind me of that if I ever want to do anything specially foolish again, I’m sure.”

  The old smile was back on Quincy’s face. “Oh, you can just bet I will.”

  About Elisabeth Grace Foley

  Elisabeth Grace Foley (that’s Elisabeth spelled with an S, mind you) has been an insatiable reader and eager history buff ever since she learned to read, and has been scribbling stories ever since she learned to write. She now combines those interests in writing historical fiction. Her short Western novel Left-Hand Kelly was a nominee for the 2015 Peacemaker Award for Best Independently-Published Western Novel. Besides her Westerns, she is also the author of the historical-mystery series The Mrs. Meade Mysteries, a series of fairytale-retelling novellas set in different historical eras, and a variety of short fiction. When not reading or writing, she enjoys music, crocheting, spending time outdoors, and watching sports and classic film. She lives in upstate New York with her family and the world’s best German Shepherd. Visit her online at www.elisabethgracefoley.com.

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  Other fairytale retellings by Elisabeth Grace Foley

  Corral Nocturne

  A short and sweet retelling of the beloved Cinderella story set on the Montana prairies.

  Life on her brother’s ranch is lonely for Ellie Strickland. Ed’s ungracious manners and tight-fisted habits keep visitors away and his mother and sister close to home. But when Cole Newcomb, son of the wealthiest rancher in the county, meets Ellie by chance, he is struck by an unexpected impulse to rescue her from her solitude.

  Lost Lake House

  The Twelve Dancing Princesses meets the heady glamor and danger of the Jazz Age

  All Dorothy Perkins wants is to have a good time. She’s wild about dancing, and can’t understand or accept her father’s strictness in forbidding it. Night after night she sneaks out to the Lost Lake House, a glamorous island nightclub rumored to be the front for more than just music and dancing…in spite of an increasingly uneasy feeling that she may be getting into something more than she can handle.

  More westerns by Elisabeth Grace Foley

  She But Sleepeth

  Rachel Heffington

  I.

  The Spindle

  Los Angeles, California

  L.A., luridly in need of a power wash, smelled of swimming pools and half-boiled dreams.

  “Why Peles Castle?” Brandon Thurman, the film producer, asked.

  “It’s pronounced, ‘Pelesh,’“ Maria muttered. As head of set design, she was really not in authority to correct her boss but she hated liberties taken with pronunciation. Especially of places she considered important.

  He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Okay, so, why there? I mean, it’s in Romania. I know The Sleeping Plague’s a big project. You don’t have to go halfway across the globe, though.”

  Maria watched a solar-powered Chewbacca dance on the windowsill beyond her boss’s right shoulder. Not that solar-powered Wookies generally captivated her, but they outranked her boss’s eyes fastened on her, waiting for an answer.

  “If America had a single authentic German-Renaissance castle, I’d be more than willing to look at it,” she recited from her practiced arguments. “But we don’t.”

  Maria transferred her notice from Chewbacca to Thurman. That look on his stolid face: unprofessional impatience mixed with professional knowledge of all the reasons it was not strictly necessary to send a set designer to a European destination. But she had to get there. Ever since the image of Peles Castle popped up in her online search, Maria had been unable to think of anything else. In the most bizarre way, it looked like it belonged to her. And nothing had ever really belonged to her. Being kicked from foster home to foster home like a hackey sack had taken care of that.

  “I’m a patient guy, ‘Ria-Princess,” Thurman said. “And a generous one.”

  Maria’s mouth bent in something which wasn’t a smile as she ripped her mental focus away from that mountaintop residence in Romania. “Are you?”

  “Look, Princess.” Thurman sounded sad. Wounded, even. “This isn’t about Peles Castle. I like working with you better than anyone else in this company. But you’re slacking.” He tipped his head. Red skin rolled in two more chins beneath his first. “It’s like something snapped in your creative process. You’re all, ‘I can’t do it yet, Brandon. Give me more time, Brandon.’ You’ve got to get some hustle, sweetheart, or I’ll call another girl to take your place. You’re head of design for Thurman-Fischer; you point, we go. What’s the hang-up?”

  Maria shifted her weight. Her phone buzzed in the pocket of her white jeans. Probably her intern, Heath Fischer, with a reminder to spring it on Thurman strong. Just like they’d talked about over drinks last night. At the thought of Heath, happiness pushed a blush to Maria’s face. She closed her eyes.

  “I can’t just demand inspiration, Brandon.”

  “It’s time, Princess.”

  An unreasonable desire to cr
y pressed under Maria’s breastbone. She fixed the picture of Peles Castle in her mind: creamy walls, chocolate-colored cornices, lattices, rooftops, turrets. A fairytale palace soaring against a slightly pixelated blue sky, swaths of verdant mountains rising behind it.

  “Brandon…”

  “What?” Thurman chewed his fleshy lip.

  “I’m… worried.”

  He snorted. “Well, yeah. We’re already months behind schedule on this project. Investors aren’t thrilled and it’s largely your fault.”

  She moved her gaze to a vintage Disney calendar on the wall. Heath had instructed her to play it chill, to absolutely not let on how much she wanted this, but to stand firm and demand it for inspiration’s sake. Keep it impersonal. Professional. But she didn’t feel the way Heath, her intern, had told her to feel. It did matter the way this ended. It mattered because perhaps, if she could get to Romania, she might be able to sleep again. It had been so long.

  She forced a calm breath. “I’m worried that I’m going to have a… a breakdown.”

  “Right here?” He actually looked concerned.

  “No. Soon.” Maria blinked back tears. “Can you please give me a week?”

  “In Romania?”

  “…yes,” she whispered.

  He pointed at her. “If you promise to give me some ideas, I’ll consider.”

  “If you give me a real castle,” she countered, egged on by the promise of a good night’s rest. “The ideas will come. The Sleeping Plague needs to be fresh.”

  Thurman shook a pencil at her. “Fresh. Not overdone. Exactly! ‘Sleeping Beauty Goes Bubonic’ – can’t afford a cliché.”

  “Which is where I’m stuck. Castles—fairytales. I mean, how can it be made new?” Emboldened suddenly, Maria commandeered eye contact. “Send me to Peles Castle. There are one-hundred and sixty rooms, each decorated in an entirely different manner. You never know what you’ll find when you round the next corner. It’s the perfect setting, architecture, everything. I’ve done as much research as I can from home. I need to physically conduct the remainder. On location.”

  Done. Nuanced and everything.

  He looked at her for a long moment. “Fine.”

  Thurman sat back in his chair and drummed out the remainder of his reluctance with a pen on the desktop. “You think I’m in the habit of sending employees on exotic vacations, do you? Thurman-Fischer has thrived only because I’m good with money. I don’t spend it helter-skelter.”

  Relief swam before Maria’s eyes. “Whatever.”

  “What?”

  “I said, ‘Thanks, Brandon. You’re the best ever.’“

  “That’s the attitude.”

  Another buzz. Maria slid her phone out of her pocket and glanced at the screen. A single line from her immaculately tailored intern:

  Do it like royalty princess :)

  Questionable punctuation aside, the message calmed her. She mentally locked eyes with Heath while she spoke, toeing her next phrase like a wedge into the conversation, just as she’d practiced with him:

  “I expect two plane tickets in my inbox this afternoon.” He had smiled at her delivery of that line last night and she’d studied the bubbles in her champagne flute, turning pinker than rosé.

  “Two?” Brandon complained, jowls sagging like disappointed dollar signs.

  She smiled. “I’m taking the intern along.”

  “I didn’t sanction that.”

  “Brandon…”

  “You know I have personal reasons for disliking him.”

  “Heath Fischer has never done anything to deserve your poor opinion, sir.”

  Brandon ran a hand through his hair and stood it all on end. “His father was my dad’s partner, Maria. Mr. Fischer embezzled company funds and temporarily made the company a complete gaff.”

  Maria pocketed her hands and shrugged. “Then why on earth give Heath a chance? You obviously hate him.”

  “I don’t hate him. He isn’t his dad—I hope. Besides, I sort of need an honorary Fischer to keep the whole Fischer-Thurman name accurate. He’s a decent employee.” Brandon finished with a shrug. “I don’t have to like the guy to admit that.”

  Maria smiled. “Then you’ll make arrangements for both of us to catch a flight to Romania.”

  He swatted at her, hand cupped like a catcher’s mitt. “Get out of here, princess. Two tickets. And don’t bother to come back till you’ve got something original.”

  Peles Castle

  Sinaia, Romania

  “King Carrrrrrrrol of Romania made summer palace to be hees child after hees real child died…”

  The tour guide’s accent weighed down her words, fastening Maria’s imagination to the sumptuous foyer in which they stood. Intense wood adornments twined darkly up the green walls like piped frosting to a series of panelings which, upon first sight, appeared to be paintings done in shades of brown. The effect of watercolor was actually achieved with a deft play of wood inlays. One such piece of expert craftsmanship would form the focal point in an American millionaire’s collection. Here, eight reposed in the same square room, understated and priceless. Just hanging out there above large ivory figurines and ebony carvings, as if they’d been nothing but aboriginal cave paintings instead of remarkable pieces of art. Above them, on one side of the soaring, arched entryway, a little staircase twisted to the third floor. Maria poised her stylus above the screen of her tablet, ready to take notes, but she only half listened to the petite guide whose creative style of English told her little.

  Peles Castle. How could she not feel invigorated by wandering through a Neo-German Renaissance-style estate? She frowned and drew a squiggle on her tablet screen, making sure her stylus was working. The problem was, she wasn’t going to get in a good wander and that kind of trumped the initial jet lag-induced glow. And she still hadn’t had a good night’s sleep.

  “Eef you will be looking to the ceiling,” the guide crooned, “you will see stained glass. Thees panels retract and act like doors for star-seeing.”

  At this information, a collective murmur fluttered from the guests and beat like dove-sounds upward, toward the roof. Maria let her gaze follow the guide’s manicured finger as she pointed and when Maria saw, her breath snagged in her throat. The ceiling was made completely of glass, stained red and green and blue and yellow at the edges. Where it arched in the middle, the guide indicated, the panels of glass pulled away, allowing for an uninhibited view of the night sky. A happy chill crawled through Maria at the idea of dancing under the stars of an Alpine sky. Dancing with someone who looked a terrible lot like Heath Fischer, when she scrutinized the fantasy.

  When she brought her eyes down, her gaze collided with Heath himself. He raised his chin and slipped into a smile. Maria’s pulse thundered and she hastily erased the mental image of being held, in his arms.

  “Ceausescu stole idea from thees room to make ceiling for hees ballroom in Palace of Parliament. Whole ball-room ceiling peels back. Like a citrus.” Sing-song-sing.

  Another appreciative murmur from the crowd, which Maria did not join. She found the roll-back ceiling enchanting, but it still did nothing to endear that guide-woman to her.

  “Please come into the weapon’s room.”

  The woman had unnerving yellow-gold eyes. Not to mention she had made Maria put plastic booties over her Toms, for heaven’s sake. Crinkling across red carpets would dampen anyone’s ardor for original furnishings.

  When Maria followed up the rear of the group into the grandiose weapons room, she knew she was thrilled to be there, viewing the criss-crossed sabers and full suit of horse armor. But she was tired. She had fastened on this palace. She’d become an insomniac for it. Every night since first finding photos of Peles Castle online, Maria had lain awake. Not even slightly sleepy, though exhaustion pooled in every joint and hollow of her body.

  “King Carrrrrrrrrrroll many weapons collected in thees room.”

  Maria felt the grit beneath eyelids heavy with begging
for sleep. Besides, it was her birthday and she’d been made to stand on a nineteenth-century red carpet in plastic booties. She wanted to be alone to stare at the magnificent walls and steep in the grandeur.

  But no, the tour moved on into the masculine receiving room which was carved up in Germanic wood like a chocolate-frosted cake.

  “King Carrrrrrroll of Romania all hees business conducted at thees desk.”

  “Is this tour in English or not?” Heath’s voice so close to her ear startled Maria.

  She’d almost forgotten about him. “What, having a hard time understanding your native tongue?”

  He adjusted his tie. “That’s not the kind of English that teaches anything. And you can’t gain knowledge by osmosis, Itty.”

  His use of her nickname smoothed down some of Maria’s ruffled temper. It was a ridiculous name, but it was his for her. She wondered if it bothered him much to be under her direction when his own father had once owned a half share in the company. Probably.

  The guide pushed between them and inclined her left hand to the tall doorway. “Next is King Carrrrrol’s library. Please come.”

  Maria prepared to exit the dark-paneled room with its portraits of the handsome king and his patient-eyed queen. She found their longsuffering faces, especially the queen’s, unsettling. Like a young fashion maven who hadn’t received her customary invitation to the Met Gala and was going to wait for it instead of saying something. Gold level avoidance of confrontation. Maria felt a certain kinship with the queen on that. She could think of few things worse than a frank discussion.

  Business. Maria erased the squiggle on her tablet, tried to focus. She was here to scout the place and save her job, not mull over the portraits.