I nodded my head, too in shock from his words to form a sentence.
It had been an odd conversation that I could tell had made him as uncomfortable as it had me. Mom hadn’t said much either after her few comments in the kitchen, but the questions behind her continued looks forced me to confess a few days later that Daniel and I were indeed now dating. I knew she liked Daniel, but I wasn’t sure how she felt about our relationship. She just told me not to rush into anything and had left it at that.
When I finally dragged my mind back to the path, the sun had disappeared behind a blanket of gray clouds and it was starting to snow. Wishing I had my favorite red scarf, the soft fuzzy one Mom had knitted for me, I instinctively pulled my collar up to protect my neck from the cold. Yes, it was cold, but I didn’t really care. Would it be overly corny to say that it was the warmth of my love for Daniel that was keeping me warm? I suppose so, but in truth I’d hardly noticed the cold. My mind was otherwise occupied with the familiar faces of the people who were the most important to me. Mom, Dad, Ben, Randall, Lois. They all cared about me in their own ways and they all seemed against my relationship with Daniel. In my brain, I could see the logic in their objections, but none of that mattered. My heart was the one in control now. All my heart knew was that we were in love. What happened now? Well, I guess I’d leave that in God’s hands.
As I followed Daniel up the wooded path, I thought about Randall. I think I’d finally forgiven him for his part in trying to break us up, but I somehow couldn’t help but feel this might only be a temporary truce. I knew he wasn’t being completely honest with me. Yes, he’d given Daniel his permission, but he’d felt forced into it. He was fully aware that had he not given in, we might very well have run off together. How did I know this? I’m still not sure except that I think our connection was growing stronger. I was beginning to be able to pick up on things I think he wished I wasn’t able too.
I knew he was still lying to me about things he was able to block me from hearing in his mind. Unfortunately I got the impression Randall didn’t consider lies of omission to be lies at all. Right now it didn’t seem to matter, but I knew it would someday. Someday, whether he liked it or not, I’d find out the whole truth about whatever it was he kept behind that black veil in his mind.
I had a feeling that a day of reckoning was in our future. What our relationship would look like when the dust finally settled at the end of that day ... well, that was very much a mystery to me. I hoped in the end it would bring us closer, but hoping wasn’t going to make it so. He could play the kind and loving grandfather all he wanted, but I knew there was a lot more going on underneath that charming smile than met the eye.
Randall and my parents weren’t the only family members on my mind. My brother Roger wasn’t far behind them in my concerns. Roger and I had an odd relationship for siblings. He was so much older than I was, and from a very early age had taken on the role of surrogate father when our own father had gone away on the many last minute business trips he’d taken when we were young. I didn’t see Roger half as often as I’d have liked anymore. He was married now and lived up in Hartford with Lauri and the kids. They spent half their holidays with her family in Pennsylvania, so I’d only seen him a handful of times in the last year or so. We talked on the phone, but it wasn’t the same. Not that we ever talked about it, but he was the only other person in the world who knew most of my childhood experiences. Neither of us wanted to discuss them, but that unacknowledged connection between us meant I could tell him anything. Even though we hardly saw each other anymore, he was still the only person I felt I could be completely honest with and find any measure of acceptance from. In my heart I ached to tell him the truth about Daniel, but I couldn’t and it was killing me inside.
Although Roger hadn’t verbalized his dislike of Daniel, it was obvious he was suspicious of him. I’ll admit that his unspoken recriminations of my relationship hurt way more than my parents spoken ones. Roger was my kindred spirit, my better half in so many ways. The fact that he didn’t seem willing to even give Daniel a chance hurt deeply. I wasn’t sure what I could do about it except pray that given enough time, he’d come around to accepting him. In all honesty, I had doubts about that. I think it was because I knew Roger could sense I was holding something back about this mysterious man who’d shown up on our doorstep Thanksgiving Day.
I wasn’t sure what I could have expected of his meeting Daniel for the first time, but the silent looks of suspicion and hostility over the dinner table certainly weren’t what I’d have wished for. Maybe I only had myself to blame. It must have been obvious I was hiding that Daniel and I were way more than just friends.
Our family was full of secrets and small lies of omission, but we never lied to each other, only to outsiders. In hindsight, I think Roger may have been directing some of his anger at me onto Daniel. He was probably upset that I was sitting across the table lying to him about our relationship. He had to have been wondering why I felt the need to lie to my own brother. After all, he was the only person in the world I had no secrets from. Well, he had been up until I’d left for school.
As I walked along behind Daniel, I felt horribly guilty and resolved to call Roger before I went to bed tonight and do a little confessing to him. Of all people to deceive, Roger was the last person I’d ever want to do that to. He’d had to suffer at the hands of our family just as I had as a child. It had been for our own good, I think I’d accepted that now, but Roger didn’t know that. He was still in the dark about vampires as were the rest of the family back home.
I wondered if I should tell him. I think it would give him some measure of peace about our past as it had for me. No, I couldn’t do that to him. That kind of peace, I was finding, came at a great price. I had Daniel as my consolation, but Roger wouldn’t.
As we continued up the path, Daniel looked down at me and smiled as he squeezed my hand tenderly. I think he could sense the heavy thoughts on my mind.
I smiled back and wondered how Daniel would feel if he knew the real me. I wasn’t exactly the woman he thought I was. I hid it so well and buried it so deep, I sometimes wondered myself who I really was on the inside. In the end, I liked who I was when I saw myself reflected in his eyes, and I desperately wanted to be the woman he thought I was. I could be her for him – and I guess I was her to a certain extent.
But like Daniel, I was a person with many layers, and he’d really only scratched my surface. Not quite ready to confront my demons yet, I guessed we’d cross that bridge when we came to it. I think I just needed to have faith that he’d love me no matter what.
As we walked up the path, I realized even I had little idea anymore of who I really was deep down at my core. Maybe he knew more about that me than he was letting on. After all, he’d heard me talk in my sleep. He’d never really told me what I’d said, but it was obvious whatever it was had shaken him profoundly. To be honest, I wasn’t sure I really wanted to know. He’d said it wasn’t me, but I didn’t see how that could possibly be. More likely, it was the real me. Again, another bridge we’d cross when we were ready.
After a while we came upon the open expanse of the orchard. It looked so different now. The leaves were all gone and the bare branches were receiving a feathery dusting of snow, making them look all silvery in the overcast sunlight. He walked me down to the spot where we’d first kissed in the grass that day. He didn’t say anything as we strolled that way, but he squeezed my hand affectionately as if recalling the same memory I was. We sat down in that same spot and stared in wonder as the snow began to cover the valley below us in a blanket of white, as if nature was erasing all the wrongs of the world.
“It’s so beautiful,” I said in a whisper as I cuddled up to his side. He put his arm around my back allowing me to snuggle under his coat with him. A few minutes went by in silence where we contentedly watched the snow fall and felt the pressure of each other’s bodies up against the other. Without looking up, I could sense he had something on his
mind, but I didn’t ask what it was. I suppose I had my own thoughts to occupy mine, and I knew he’d tell me his whenever he was ready.
Suddenly he pulled his arm back and turned to face me. His brow was furrowed like he was nervous about something. Then he reached over and tenderly moved a lock of hair out of my face, as if pausing for a long moment to gather his thoughts.
“What is it, Daniel? Is something wrong?”
“I brought you here for a reason, Sara.”
I was starting to get worried. Daniel usually seemed so calm and confident. It wasn’t like him to act so unnerved when it was just the two of us. That was my job.
He took a deep breath like he was trying to draw courage from it and said “I asked your father for permission to date you … and I asked Randall for permission to court you, but I still need to ask you. – Sara, will you do me the honor of allowing me to formally court you?”
What?
I think I must have scrunched my face up in a question mark.
“Court me? Exactly how is that different from dating?”
“Dating has no specific destination in mind. You’re just going out and doing things together. Where it’s leading isn’t necessarily important. Courting means that you’ve selected someone, someone who you believe may be the one you want to marry someday. It means you want to pursue a relationship that hopefully will lead in that direction. It’s a much deeper commitment than dating would imply.”
“How is that different from being engaged?”
I loved Daniel, but I wasn’t sure if that was what I wanted right now. Marriage? I’d always thought these were things we’d discuss after I graduated. That is if he still wanted me then, which always seemed doubtful in my mind.
“Honestly, it’s not that much different if you’re already in love. It’s not something many people do nowadays, but this is how it was done when I was your age.”
I looked into his eyes, those sky blue eyes that I’d lost myself in a thousand times before. I wasn’t sure what I was looking for in them, but I found myself saying “Yes,” before I had a chance to think about it.
Daniel’s face instantly transformed as a wide smile spread across it. He laughed with excitement as he reached out and pulled me into is arms. And for some reason, I found myself laughing as well.
Then I felt his lips as they covered mine, and his hand on my shoulders as he gently pushed me down on my back. Under my head I heard the sound of the frozen grass as he laid me down underneath him. It softly crunched in my ears as I began to slowly run my fingers through his silky hair.
As our lips intertwined in a lingering kiss, I heard an “Oh, Sara” escape his lips in a moan as those same lips began to move south, gently nipping and kissing their way down my neck.
Boyfriend?
No, Daniel was much more than that. I think he was more my suitor now. Suitor, I liked the sound of that. Despite all our vast differences, it made us somehow sound suited for one another.
After a minute he leaned up and wordlessly stared down at me with something like joy behind his eyes. Rolling off me, he laid at my side looking down at the valley. I think what I saw in his eyes was contentment.
Still on my back in the grass, I gazed upward. I laid there smiling, looking up as the snow softly fell on me. Closing my eyes, I felt each flake as one by one they caressed my face. It tickled.
When I felt Daniel’s hand take mine, his thumb gently caressing my knuckles, I realized Randall was right. This was a decision I had to make with my heart, not my head. I suppose that’s why I’d answered so quickly. My heart had responded with the only answer it could possibly give.
The End
Please continue reading The Purity of Blood series in
The Purity of Blood: Volume II
Purity Lost
Christmas vacation now over, it’s time for Sara Donnelly to head back to New Paltz University. What promises to be a happy semester and future with the man of her dreams turns out to be just the opposite when Daniel mysteriously disappears only a few weeks into term.
Torn by feelings of betrayal not only for the man she loves for abandoning her, but also for the grandfather who isn’t telling her everything he knows, Sara finds her way into the arms of another. Desperately searching for stability in a life that feels as if it’s coming apart at the seams, Sara turns to her best friend Ben. Finally giving in to the feelings she’s always had for him, she finds a quiet spot in the eye of the storm. But can she be happy with a love that seems only a shadow of the tumultuous emotions she still feels for Daniel? After she discovers that Ben isn’t exactly who he’s claimed to be, Sara decides to take a chance on him, but mysterious forces in her life may already be taking that decision out of her hands.
This exciting second novel in Jenifer Geoghan’s popular The Purity of Blood series is not to be missed.
Coming Soon in 2014:
The Purity of Blood: Volume III
The Blood that Binds
The Purity of Blood: Volume IV
Purity’s Progeny
The Purity of Blood: Volume V
Blood’s Solemn Vow
Keep up to date on when Jennifer Geoghan’s next books are being released at
www.facebook.com/JenniferGeoghanNovels
A Note from the Author
Although most of the characters in this book are not based on any actual person, two of them are. As a genealogist, I’ve always dreamed of meeting the ancestors of mine that I’ve spent years researching. Ancestors such as my fourth great grandparents, Randall Wells and his wife Lois Maxson. I’ve always wondered what they were like as flesh and blood people apart from the mere dry paper facts of their lives that have survived all these centuries.
And so with this in mind, I was inspired to breathe life into the dry facts of their lives, and in the farthest recesses of my imagination I tried to fashion characters that might represent these grandparents of mine in a somewhat realistic fashion. Well, as realistic as one can get when vampires become involved. How close my representation of them as people is to who they were in reality, we’ll never know. But I feel free to say that to my greater knowledge neither of them were, or are still to this day, vampires.
The facts that I know are the following. Randall Wells, born the thirtieth of September 1747 is my great, great, great, great grandfather. Born the son of Edward Wells and Elizabeth Randall, he was a farmer by trade and built a beautiful house in Hopkinton, Rhode Island that still stands to this day. I did take literary license here as the house was actually completely circa 1780 but for the sake of my story, I altered that to the year 1770. In the year 1770, he married my fourth great grandmother, Lois Maxson, daughter of John Maxson the 3rd and Sarah Burdick.
Randall served in the Hopkinton Militia during the Revolutionary War, and spent most of his service in the Militia guarding the shores of Narragansett Bay from the British.
Both Lois and Randall are buried in the family cemetery deep in the woods across Route Three from their home in Hopkinton. Although their headstones no longer mark their graves, I feel free to say that they still rest peacefully in that secluded spot among the other members of the Wells family buried there.
There in that house in Hopkinton they raised a family of six children and lived their lives. Who were they as flesh and blood people with personalities? These centuries later we’ll never know. The only clues we have are in the emotional legacy they left behind in how they raised their children. How they shaped their young son Russell, shaped how he raised his son Jonathan. In turn how Jonathan molded his son Williams was a reflection of how Williams trained up his son Elliot to be the man that raised my mother. All this in some form or fashion made me the person that I am today. Who we are as a family is a result of the chain of love and respect that was originally shaped and directed by these distant ancestors so long ago.
I feel fortunate that I’m a Wells with a rich genealogical legacy. And maybe it’s because of this rich legacy that I often find
myself wondering about how strong an influence people like Randall and Lois were on the person I am today.
Would Randall and Lois approve of how I’ve depicted them in this work of fiction and the ones that follow? Who’s to say, but if I had to hazard a guess, I’d like to think they’d just shake their heads with tolerant smiles and a silent chuckle. Why do I think this? I can’t say for sure, but it’s just a reflection of the spirit of the family I was born into.
In the coming books the story of their fictitious lives is unfolded in more detail. Like an onion, layers are peeled away with each book to reveal more and more of who they are as fictional characters based on the facts of lives lived so long ago.
I hope my fellow Wells family members both distant and close will look favorably on these stories. Am I perhaps messing with things sacred, blurring the facts of the lives of honorable people? I don’t think so. I’m honoring them as ancestors who deserve to be remembered. Through this work of fiction, I hope to inspire others to find those ancestors in their own family trees that cause them to sit back and wonder, what was this person really like. Is some small part of me the way I am because of who they were?
About the Author
The Purity of Blood: Volume I Page 53
