Roses Collection: Boxed Set

by Freda, Paula

  Growing up, Jessie was always a fan of her mother's and Leatrice's persistence and success in winning the hearts of the men they chose to love and marry. Jessie believed herself capable of the same — like mother, like daughter. In her haste and immaturity, she didn't look past Walt's looks. Her infatuation blinded her to his ambitious, grasping nature that he hid well under a captivating smile. When Walt responded favorably to her advances, she thought she'd followed in her mother's footsteps and won the man she wanted. Too late, when she was wedded and bedded, did she come to know the real Walt and why he fell so easily for the tomboyish, naive teenager who had followed him about like a lovesick puppy dog. It took only three months into her marriage, to realize the reason Walt had responded to her advances, was because he craved the foreman's job on the Driscolls' ranches.

  The previous foreman, Tanner, after years of loyal service, and with the Driscolls' help and blessings, left to buy and run his own horse ranch with his wife Linda. The Driscolls' elder son, Tom, respectfully refused the vacant position his father offered him, in order to follow his dream of an academic career as a History Teacher at Montana Tech. Seth Driscoll offered the foreman's job to Calvin, his younger son, who eagerly and gratefully accepted.

  The Driscolls were aware of Walt's hankering for the foreman's job. Walt was their top ranch hand. Out of friendship and respect for the Carlsons and their daughter, and to appease Walt for not choosing him for the position, they deeded a parcel of their combined ranches to the newly married couple, as a wedding present, in their opinion, a far better offering than the foreman's job. But the Driscolls had no idea of the devious nature of Walt's desires and plans for his future, or his selfish, immoral nature that he hid well under the guise of a good-natured worker who simply wished to better himself .

  Walt didn't want a small ranch to work hard and build upon, and watch the resulting fruit of his labors over the years grow into a successful, profitable horse or cattle ranch, one to be proud of, for himself, his wife and his offspring. He wanted the foreman's job on the Driscolls' already successful and profitable horse and cattle ranches. He'd been slighted, he raged inwardly, and deprived of the effortless lucrative possibilities associated with being the foreman and son-in-law of the Driscolls' closest friends.

  Alone with his wife, his true nature surfaced in plain view. Right to her face, he told Jessie the real reason he'd married her, and how sick he was of her cloying, adolescent affection. Hurt and disillusioned, Jessie's rose-colored glasses shattered. But reality wasn't finished with her. She woke in the morning to find Walt missing. On his side of the bed, a two-sentence note, brusque and to the point.

  "I'm gone. Don't look for me."

  All the same, Jessie waited for him, hoping he'd miss her love, or at least reconsider the chance to make something of the ranch gifted to them.

  For her sake and the undeserved love she continued to harbor for Walt, Seth and Leatrice kept her ranch going. For two years she waited, with never a word, until one afternoon, the Driscolls and her parents brought to her authenticated documents, proving that when he married her, Walt had a wife and two children under another name. Jessie buried her face in her hands. No wonder he'd been adamant about waiting to have children.

  Her parents and the Driscolls immediately set about clearing her name and the bigamous marriage. An arrest warrant was issued for Walt. But he had disappeared. Jessie was free. At least in name. But her spirit, her view of life and the pursuit of happiness, were severely scarred. She swore she would never trust a man outside of her own family, or allow herself to feel attracted to one again. She'd grown up with rose-colored glasses, indoctrinated since childhood in fairytales with happy endings. Especially the story of Cinderella and her Prince Charming. She had scoffed at the new trend in children's fairy tales to show the independent heroine who often saved the hero, instead; the heroine who didn't actually need the hero to find her happiness, even when she chose to marry him — Cinderella, turning her nose up at her need for Prince Charming, even though she agreed to marry him and one day become his Queen and share in his wealth and title.

  Cinderella Ice. Like the Snow Queen. Jessie made up her mind. Yes, that's what I'll be from this day forth — Cinderella Ice.

  CHAPTER ONE

  (Jessie)

  Ready to sign the check she had made out to her parents, Jessie caught herself in time to avoid using the surname, Kemperson, one of Walt's several false aliases that the private investigator hired by her parents and the Driscolls, had uncovered during the investigation. The man she'd loved since her early teens was an immoral, a liar and a bigamist.

  Free of him now, she had suffered no physical scars. But the injuries to her spirit and her mind, those were deep and permanent, bearable only because of the sincere and unconditional love of her parents, and the solace of her close friends. She had returned the gifted ranch to the Driscolls and moved back to upstate New York with her parents at their colonial mansion in the Hudson River Valley.

  The paltry amount she had written on the check to her parents was all she could afford monthly on a typist salary at the local bank. Her education was limited; she had never gone to college, eloping at nineteen with Walt — if that was his real first name. For the sake of her sanity, she'd keep him cataloged in her thoughts as Walt.

  At first, her parents had refused the monthly stipend, and offered her free stay for as long as she wished.

  "No way," she'd told them. "Not after all the heartache and expense I caused you. I'll work and pay my way, and learn to be wise, and self-sufficient."

  How much clearer could she be? Nonetheless, within six months of her stay, her mother had conspired with friends of the family to find her a beau. Double dates with young men who knew her from high school. Blind dates with young men they considered worthy. Even an online Christian dating service. Jessie acquiesced to a few of her mother's attempts, but finally and adamantly told her parents, "Stop! Mom and Dad, just stop. I'm finished with the opposite gender. The myth of a Prince Charming no longer sways me. Just catalog me as Cinderella Ice."

  In retrospect, it wasn't so bad living back at home in her old room. The only items she'd kept from the small apartment shared with Walt were her clothes and a portrait by an unknown of a free white stallion in motion leading his mares galloping behind him, set against an evening background of various shades of blue.

  Dad had insisted on remodeling her room. With her approval, he'd replaced the life-sized posters of the Gold label teen-age heartthrobs she worshipped during her early teens, with serene Monet evening seascapes and country landscapes. On the opposing wall, hung her most favorite painting, an ornate oak-framed copy of Vincent van Gogh's "The Starry Night."

  Many a night when unhappy memories interfered with sleep, the painting's swirls of blues and whites and yellows, some soft, others stark, lulled Cinderella Ice back to sleep.

  "The Starry Night"

  An oil on canvas by the Dutch post-impressionist painter Vincent van Gogh

  Painted in June 1889, at Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, just before sunrise, with the addition of an idealized village, The Starry Night was in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York City since 1941, regarded as among Van Gogh's finest works, and one of the most recognized paintings in the history of Western culture.

  This morning Mother Nature had decided to cooperate with the First Day of Spring — sunny with a pleasant cool breeze. However, the weatherman had forecast showers for the late afternoon. Her parents had left early to join her sister, Carol with her husband, Herb, for an international patent lawyers convention in Manhattan. Except for the elderly housekeeper, busy in the kitchen, and her husband the handyman, gardening, both of them more family than servants, Jessie had the house proper all to herself.

  The Carlson Mansion in the Hudson River Valley had stood for two centuries. Its lawns and gardens encompassed a hundred acres. At its center, a two-storied columned white stone mansion that overlooked the Hudson River
.

  After breakfasting in the kitchen, a huge room, brick-floored, with an authentic colonial hearth, Jessie lounged in the living room, furnished in a mix of warm woods and damask upholstery. She had always loved this house, a study in rustic and eighteenth century English, with its sliding doors, multi-paneled and carved in English ivy bas-relief, that introduced each of the two main rooms — the gracious dining room with its large crystal chandelier and polished wood floors. Opposite it, across a spacious hall, the graceful living room with cypress-paneled walls, oak-beamed ceiling, and ivory damask camelback Chippendale sofa and wing chairs, carved tables, swag and jabot treatments on the windows, and plush wine-red carpeting.

  In the lobby, before entering the living room, a small but elegant staircase led up to the bedrooms, equally beautifully furnished with canopy poster beds, the wood thick and carved, and imported rugs from France and Syria.

  Yet contrary to what the eye discerned, the Carlsons, like their ancestors, were never a rich family, in respect to money. Their wealth lay in their ancestral heritage. They were hard workers, good investors, respectable and quality-minded, ruled by their desire to preserve the past, and they modeled their behavior accordingly.

  Mark and Cybelle prized quality above quantity, and held a deep respect for the past and its heirlooms. Mark was old school, reserved, set in his ways, and seventeen years older than Cybelle who had come to live here from Long Island as a teen, placed under his guardianship when her parents were killed in a fire that destroyed their small cape cod, leaving Cybelle an orphan with no living relatives, except for Mark, her father's closest friend. Jessie never tired of listening to Cybelle retell their love story.

  Jessie sighed. She was doing it again, letting rose-colored glasses tempt her into believing she was destined to discover and experience the kind of lasting love her parents shared. She shook her head, remembering her promise never again to let herself be attracted to a man or to believe his lies. "Cinderella Ice," she reminded herself.

  Jessie rose from the couch. Her parents were not due to return until tomorrow night. Jessie was a lot like her mother had been in her teens. Petite with wavy brown hair, silken to the touch, and flashing brown eyes. But there the resemblance ended, she reasoned. Cybelle had the wisdom and persistence to fall in love and capture the heart of an honorable man.

  Feeling distraught, depression threatening, she didn't realize she spoke aloud. "I need to get out, take a good long walk, wear myself out, so I'll be too exhausted to reflect on my failures!"

  "What failures might those be?" a man's tenor voice asked.

  Alarmed, Jessie turned, ready to cry out for help.

  CHAPTER TWO

  "Easy, it's okay. I'm family," he said, holding up a hand and gesturing for calm. "Don't you recognize me?"

  Jessie shook her head. "Who are you?" she demanded.

  "Jessie, it's me, Michael, Michael Sands, Harriet and Val's son." Still no reaction from her part, he added, "Geraldine's grandson?"

  "Michael?" Jessie uttered, recognition dawning. The tall, blonde, dark blue-eyed young man in a gray business suit bore little resemblance to the straggly-haired gangly teenager in t-shirt and blue jeans that she remembered. "Michael," she repeated. "It's been a while," she said.

  "That it has," he agreed, nodding.

  It was her own bout with a broken heart that made her recognize the same sadness in another. Jessie distinctly heard the sadness hidden behind the three words, that it has.

  "It's good to see you," Jessie greeted. "You've changed."

  He smiled. "I get that a lot."

  Jessie laughed. "Definitely for the better," she told him in earnest.

  "Thank you," he replied.

  Yes, definitely, she thought. Despite being the firstborn and elder brother, Michael, boisterous at birth, brown-eyed until eye-surgery some years later to correct a corneal problem, turned them a dark blue, had grown to be the shy one, quiet, nervous, in awe of his father, who he resembled, even more now that he had grown tall and matured in appearance and stature. A late bloomer, unlike his younger brother, John, who had always fit the prowess and body build normally attributed to his Viking ancestors.

  The Sands family were kind people, especially Michael's mother. Harriet had gone through her own trauma, one that had nearly unhinged her. But fortunately, Thorvald Sands had come into her life and rescued her.

  Acknowledging the recognition in Jesse's eyes, Michael came closer. "Can I at least get a hug?" he asked.

  She'd forgotten his warm, sensitive smile. Always friendly, if timid. Never sarcastic or double-edged.

  "Of course." Jessie hurried toward him and hugged him. Cinderella Ice was not immune to a good friend, she told herself.

  "I recall now, Geraldine mentioned you'd gotten engaged, but it didn't work out." She beckoned him toward the couch. Let's sit. I could do with some company."

  He sat down beside her, sighing, "Yes, we weren't right for each other. But we parted as friends."

  "Macey, right? Tanner's daughter?"

  He nodded. "She's happy now. Married the right man for her." He waved his hand, brushing away the unhappy memory. He shifted, as if to regain momentum, then asked, "Ger mentioned you went through a rough time, yourself, recently."

  "Ger," she whispered, the nickname her parents and she sometimes used for Geraldine, who during the years had often taken the role of a nanny when needed. "Yes, I did. I married ... well I thought I married ... a soulless heel."

  "It's over now. He's out of your life. Ger mentioned there's a warrant out for his arrest for bigamy."

  "If they ever find him," Jessie remarked, helplessly. "But all the same, I am lucky we had no children to keep me tied to him, unlike his other victim living on welfare with two little ones. She isn't even sure that her marriage is valid. The man was a liar and a sociopath." It was difficult to keep the bitterness out of her voice. Walt's lying face reared up in her thoughts and she forced it back into the part of her brain where nightmares were shelved.

  Attempting to regain her calm, she gazed through the front double window draped in pale beige damask. She focused on a minor detail. The window's lower sashes were not as high as the upper ones, attesting to the building’s age. What helped to ease her mind was the view in the distance, the arboreous landscape sloping toward the lordly Hudson, its dark blue-green waters flowing peacefully.

  "Have you returned home to stay?" Michael asked, drawing back her attention.

  "For the time being. I need to re-define myself. Where do I fit in? What is my goal in life? What do I hope to accomplish? How do I clear up the mess I've made of my life so far?"

  "That's a lot of riddles for a broken heart to solve. A lot of weight for a wounded spirit to carry," Michael said. "Maybe you should do what they advise swimmers who have overexerted themselves — Just float for a while."

  Just float for a while. Michael's words resonated with her unhappiness, along with his concerned attitude and his smile. She had always liked his smile, even when he wasn't as attractive in his teens, or as well dressed. The executive style suited him to a tee. Cinderella Ice frowned. Jessie reminded herself that although Michael wasn't a blood relation, he'd always been considered family, because of the strong friendship between their respective families. He was in the loop, as her elder sister Carol was used to say.

  "Just float for a while. Sound advice, Michael, that I'll take to heart. Thank you."

  His smile widened, and Jessie had to look away. Yes, definitely handsomer than she remembered him.

  "Would you like some coffee?" she asked.

  "Thanks, but Ger has a pot brewing. How about joining me for a cup?"

  A welcome distraction, Jessie thought, grateful. "Yes, sure. She's expecting you, then?"

  "I called her on my way here. She loves visiting with her grandchildren. I haven't seen her in a couple of years and I've missed her."

  I missed her, too, while I was living in Montana. After the elopement, I wanted to visit
my family, to reconnect, Geraldine included, but Walt wasn't that keen on my parents, especially Ger. He considered her no more than a paid servant, long overdue for retirement." Jessie shivered at the memory. How could she have been so blind to the real Walt?"

  "It's over," Michael said. "You're home now. And I can smell the coffee brewing in the kitchen. Ger brews a powerful pot of coffee," he chuckled. "Let's not keep her waiting."

  Jessie nodded, the anticipation of good company and refreshments, warming her downtrodden spirit.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Geraldine's eyes brimmed with tears of joy as she hugged her grandson tightly. It felt so good to see him again. She couldn't help it; she loved her grandchildren as much as she loved her daughter Harriet. She had been so worried about Michael these past two years. She pulled away enough to study his face. "How are you holding out?" she asked.

  "If you mean, my broken engagement. I'm fine. It was all for the best. Hey, I actually gained a couple of pounds."

  Geraldine laughed. "That's my boys. You and your brother, John. Good boys, strong-minded, but wise."

  "Well, what else could we be, with you as our grandmother?"

  Geraldine smiled. "And Grandpa."

  "Goes without saying," Michael chuckled, hugging her again.

  "Speaking of Grandpa, I'll fetch him."

  "Oh, it's okay. I spoke to him on my way in. He was gardening in the back — the rose bush."

  "Ah, yes. Cybelle's favorite," Geraldine nodded.

  "I remember you telling us, when we were children, to be very careful when playing around that bush."

  "Yes, I remember that, too," Jessie said. "It holds a special place in her heart. I recall we children thought it there was something magical about it ... and that white moth that we often saw fluttering about it."