by Merry Farmer
They found their compartment and slipped into the seats. George quickly shut the door behind them.
“What do we do now?” Holly asked.
George shrugged. “Now we wait.”
As soon as the train was a few miles outside of Salt Lake City, winding through the massive, snowy mountains, Holly began to grow drowsy again. The ambient light of the city quickly faded, leaving them in darkness illuminated only by the glow of the moon off of the snowy fields around them. That, combined with the isolated nature of the sleeping compartment, gave her the eerie feeling of being more alone than she’d ever been. She snuggled closer to George and rested her head on his shoulder to combat the feeling.
“It must be getting late,” George said, sliding his arm around her and rubbing her shoulders. “I didn’t bring a watch.”
“It feels like time has stopped altogether,” she sighed, closing her eyes.
George waited for a few moments before saying, “Maybe we should pull the bed down and try to get some sleep. It will be ages before we get to San Francisco.”
Holly nodded and lifted her head. Together, the two of them managed to figure out how to pull down the facing seats to make a bed. It was a complex operation, and one for which they didn’t have much room to move. The act of twisting and reaching, gaining a foothold anywhere they could, and trying not to knock each other over as they wrenched, tugged, and pushed the cushions into a mattress, and then spread the sheets and blanket over them, not only woke Holly up a bit, it had her and George giggling.
“I think the sheets are supposed to tuck in at this end,” Holly said, stretching around George to tuck where she could. In the process, she flattened George against the flimsy door leading to the aisle.
“You know, this might have been a lot easier if we’d opened the door and given us some of the aisle space to move around in,” he said.
Holly laughed. “Where’s the fun in that?”
She tried to push herself back to standing once the sheets were tucked in, but George chose that moment to reach for the pillows from the compartment above her head. He bumped into her, which sent her sprawling across the makeshift bed in a fit of giggles.
“You might as well just stay down there,” he chuckled, tossing the pillows at her playfully.
“It does seem safer.”
She rolled to the window side of the bed and drew her knees up so that she could unlace and remove her boots. The idea of sleeping fully clothed didn’t seem entirely comfortable, but the prospect of taking off her clothes when there were so many people just on the other side of the compartment’s flimsy walls wasn’t something she relished either. Then again, their compartment door was locked, and the relentless chugging and rolling of the wheels under the car drown out almost every other sound.
George climbed onto the bed and took his shoes off as well, along with his jacket. “Not exactly what you imagined yourself doing the night before Christmas Eve, eh?”
She laughed and rolled her eyes. “It’s not what I imagined myself doing ever.”
His playful grin sank to a sad frown as he scooted to lean his back against the compartment wall. “I’m so sorry,” he said.
Holly’s heart felt as though it had caught in a bramble bush in her chest. All of the emotion she’d felt as they disembarked from the Haskell train came rushing back to her. “George, you have nothing to be sorry about.” She climbed around to sit against the wall facing him.
He shook his head, glancing out the window over her shoulder. “I have everything to be sorry about. If not for me, you’d be living a happy life somewhere in Baltimore. Maybe you’d’ve married an industrious shopkeeper and would have your own business now. Not to mention a family.”
“And maybe I’d still have ended up stuck with Bruce, but never having known the joy of you.”
He pulled his gaze away from the window and met her eyes.
She went on before he could say anything else with, “You might have married some spoiled society lady and ended up stuck in a sour marriage, stuck in your parents’ world. You would never have come west or found your calling and devotion to the Lord’s work.”
The turmoil in his expression only deepened. “I’m not sure I deserve the things I have after what I’ve put you through. Some servant of the Lord I am.”
“But don’t you believe that God is good and all-loving?” she pressed him. “Haven’t you always said that the doors of the church should be open to sinners as much as anyone else, and that kindness and goodness is what leads us all to His home?”
“Yes, but—”
“No buts about it,” she went on. “God’s loving acceptance applies to you as well.”
“Maybe.” He sighed. “I can understand how God can accept me with all my faults, but I don’t know how you can.”
“Because I—”
She stopped, her mouth hanging open as she studied his handsome, weary, regret-filled face. In a flash, everything made sense. Every last struggle and hardship, every difficulty and wall between the two of them was instantly as clear as day. The problem wasn’t something between the two of them. It wasn’t a wall or an ocean or even ten years’ worth of regret over the wrongs they had each done to each other. She’d forgiven him a thousand times over in the last three weeks, and if she was to take him at his word, he had forgiven her as well.
But he hadn’t forgiven himself.
“Is something wrong?” he asked, his frown filling with concern.
“Oh, George.” She breathed out the words from the bottom of her heart. “This has to stop.”
For a moment, he looked downright anxious. “What does?”
“This.” She pushed away from the wall, surging toward him. She knelt with her shins on either side of his knees, resting her hands on his chest. His heart thumped furiously under her touch. “You know that you have my full and complete forgiveness for anything and everything that’s happened to me and between the two of us, right?”
He hesitated, lips twitching. He covered her hands with his own. “I know. I don’t deserve it, but I know you forgive me.”
“And I forgave you long ago,” she said, then rushed on with, “But you haven’t forgiven yourself.”
His face pinched as fast as if she had slapped him. His brow pulled together in torment. “How can I?” he whispered, “when I caused so much pain to the one woman I’ve ever truly loved.” He moved a hand to caress her face.
She pressed her cheek into his palm and closed her eyes for a moment. When she opened them, she met his gaze with stalwart determination and a newfound sense of freedom. “George, in these last few weeks, you have helped me to see that my past failures are exactly that, in the past. I will always regret leaving you the way I did, but God has given me an entire lifetime to make up for that mistake. I am at peace with what I did, but I need you to be at peace as well.”
He sighed and leaned his head back against the wall, blinking up at the ceiling. “But I did so many things that are so much worse than you could ever do, Holly. And worst of all, I caused you to fall into a terrible situation.”
“I married Bruce of my own free will, to please my parents, not because of anything you did or didn’t do. And I survived,” she assured him, closing both of her hands around the side of his face this time. “I survived, and by some miracle, God led me back to you. Surely that has to mean that He wants us to be together.”
He pulled his gaze down from the ceiling to meet her eyes.
“I don’t think anyone, God or mankind, wants you to hold onto whatever guilt you’ve been clutching so tightly for all these years,” she went on. “And from every little thing I’ve seen since setting foot in Haskell, you have turned your life around and made amends for anything and everything in so very many ways. Not a soul in your congregation doubts that you are a good and worthy man. And might I remind you, they all know about your past and still feel that way.”
He looked at her, staring so hard that she felt as though
she could see right into his heart. There was so much pain in him, but it was the kind of pain that was bubbling to the surface, on its way to being let go.
“It’s just so hard,” he said, barely above a whisper. “I can forgive just about anyone else for every kind of sin, but it’s so hard to forgive myself for hurting you.”
“I’m not hurt now,” she assured him. “George, I’m so far from hurt now that I’m stunned. I’m here, with you, married to you.” She smiled in spite of herself. “We’re off on a grand adventure, doing something good and exciting. We have a beautiful life ahead of us. The past is gone. Let it be gone.”
He stared at her—so long and hard that she wasn’t sure if he was going to burst out in a fit of self-loathing or cry. In the end, he did neither. He smiled and brushed a loose strand of her hair—a snow-white strand of hair—out of her face.
“I love you, Holly Pickering,” he said, his words heavy with emotion.
“I love you too, George.”
“I know it sounds crazy, but I can’t forgive myself without you.”
“That doesn’t sound crazy at all.” She smiled, threading her fingers up through his hair. “I forgive you, and as your wife, I demand that you forgive yourself.”
He laughed, his arms circling around her to hold her close. Her knees brushed up against the wall as she sat astride his legs. “If you say I have to forgive myself, then with God’s help and yours, I promise I will.” He leaned forward and kissed her lightly, then pulled back, face serious. “I don’t think I’ll be able to forgive myself completely overnight, though.”
She smiled, her heart feeling as though it would expand beyond her ribcage, beyond the sleeping compartment, and beyond any wall they could ever build between the two of them. In fact, she felt that wall crumbling to rubble. “As long as you keep trying, and as long as I have breath in my body, I don’t care how long it takes. I’m yours now, and you are mine.”
He smiled, kissing her freely when she pressed into him. What started out as a kiss of victory to seal the promise they’d made to each other quickly turned to more. His arms closed more tightly around her, hands running up and down her back and around to her sides. As his fingertips brushed her breasts, she gasped, and a shiver passed through her.
That shiver, their closeness, and the steady rocking motion of the train ignited the fire within her. Wild as it was, he was her husband, and she wanted him. Her legs were already parted, and she rolled her hips against him, pleased beyond telling to find the tell-tale firmness of his own desire ready and waiting for her.
“Holly,” he whispered, kissing his way from her lips to her neck. She tilted her head back to give him more to kiss. “We’re on a public train.”
She giggled, the sound low and throaty. “Then we’ll just have to be quiet.”
He echoed her giggling with a sensuous chuckle that sent tingles across her skin, and then he tugged her blouse out of the hem of her skirt. As his hands caressed her torso, fingers inching toward the hooks of her corset, she raked her hands down from his hair, across his neck and shoulders, and began unbuttoning his shirt. As they worked to free each other from the constraints of their clothes, they continued to alternate kisses, touches, and stifled laughter.
“We can’t undress all the way,” he warned as he freed her corset, then rolled her to her back. She made a disappointed sound as he positioned himself on top of her. “The door might be locked, but a porter could come along with a key at any moment.”
For some crazy reason, the threat of discovery sent a thrill through Holly that coalesced in an urgent, molten feeling in her core. “Then we really do need to be quiet,” she whispered.
He responded as if she’d issued a challenge, stopping even his laughter from making a sound. He couldn’t stop himself from shaking with mirth, though, or from heating up like a bonfire on a snowy eve. With economical movements in the confined space, he shrugged out of his shirt. Holly reached for him, spreading her hands across his bare chest and reveling in the feel of his skin. She let out a long hum, but George pulled back, put a finger to his lips, then shook his head.
It was all she could do to keep silent as he tugged at the hem of her skirt, pulling it up and bunching the fabric above her waist. Part of her wished they could make love unfettered, skin to skin, but the excitement of the train was a new kind of aphrodisiac that she’d never considered. And when he tugged loose the drawstring of her drawers and pulled them down, sliding them right off, she caught her breath.
From there, he raked his fingertips up the inside of her leg. She shivered at the sensation and in anticipation of what was to come. When his touch brushed across the part of her that was wet and waiting for him, they both let out the faintest of moans in delight. Moments later, they were both stifling laughter at their slip. George dipped down to kiss her in an effort to keep them both silent as his hand traced circles in the most delightful places.
She was glad to have his kiss to muffle the sounds that escaped from her as he plunged a finger inside of her. How anyone could expect her to keep silent when the sensations he was causing were so delicious, was beyond her. The insistent rocking of the train only added to the friction of his touch as he stroked her closer and closer to ecstasy.
She wriggled against him, inching her hips wider apart so that he could plunge deeper. When he added his thumb to his teasing exploration, circling around her dot of pleasure, she couldn’t hold on anymore. With a swallowed sigh, she burst into pleasure, all of her senses afire. It was bliss to have him send her soaring that way, as no other man had done before. Her whole heart joined in, giving itself to him. She could tell from the rumble low in his throat that he enjoyed her surrender as much as she did.
She could also tell that he wanted more. More that she was so very willing to give. As her pleasure subsided, he pulled back just enough to reach for the fastenings of his trousers. He barely gave her time to look at the glorious sight of him before covering her, adjusting himself until he tested her entrance, then sliding inside of her.
“Yes.” There was no silencing the gasp that blossomed up from her heart as he filled her. She loved the sensation of him joined with her so much that she strained against him, joining his thrusts to make them as deep as possible. He’d opened a world of surprise to her the night before when they’d joined for the first time. She had been ready to sacrifice and feel pain, as she had with Bruce, in order to make him happy. But she’d been surprised and delighted to receive as much pleasure from their joining as he had. If it made her wanton, then so be it, but she could spend her entire life exploring the sensation of their bodies joined and still not get enough of it.
It became harder still to keep quiet as his pace quickened and his thrusts became more primal, more desperate. She could only hope that the clattering of the train covered everything they couldn’t keep inside. The train’s motion combined with George’s sent her spiraling right back up to the heights of pleasure then crashing over the side once more. He must have felt her burst, because moments later, his soft cries took on a desperate edge, and his thrusts reached a pitch before softening.
He let out a long, deep sigh and loosened. She fell back to earth with him, filled with warmth and light and everything good. And still the motion of the train continued, even as he collapsed, spent, beside her.
As soon as they were able to catch their breath, the laughter began all over again. Holly twisted to her side, half hiding her face in the pillow, certain she was blushing madly over what they’d done. George looked every bit as guilty, but this time his guilt was impish and beautiful.
“I can’t believe we just did that,” he chuckled, pulling her into his arms.
“I can,” she giggled.
“You can?”
“We waited ten years for this,” she whispered, stealing a kiss. “We have a lot of time to make up for.”
“We most certainly do,” he agreed, then kissed her long and hard.
Already, Holly could f
eel that they were going to risk embarrassment again before the night and the trip were done, but she didn’t care.
“I love you, George,” she whispered as their hands began another round of explorations.
“And I love you,” he replied.
She knew that nothing would ever come between them again.
Chapter 15
By the next morning, Holly was warm and relaxed and happier than she’d ever been. The train chugged on, keeping her drowsy long after she should have woken up and started her day. It was hard to do anything more than lie snuggled against George’s side, her hand on his chest measuring the steady rise and fall of his breathing. Everything felt new and golden and warmer as dawn’s light poured through the train’s window. Not a wall in sight.
She closed her eyes and wasn’t sure if she dozed on for another ten minutes or an hour, but at last she finally dragged herself to full wakefulness as George stirred and sat up.
“Any idea where we are?” he asked, voice groggy, moving slowly.
Holly pushed herself to sit as well. Her clothes were rumpled—the ones that hadn’t been tossed aside at some point during the night. She rubbed a hand over her face, then her hair. It must look like a rat’s nest. But she couldn’t bring herself to care. Squinting, she raised the window shade all the way and squinted out into the brightness.
Her brow flew up. They’d come out of the mountains and now traveled through scrubby lowlands. Lower mountains and hills continued to stand out against the horizon, but they had passed into an entirely different sort of landscape. This landscape was filled with signs of civilization—clusters of dwellings and the promise of an even larger town in the distance.
