Cinderfella

by Linda Winstead Jones

  He placed an arm around his youngest daughter’s shoulder. “I would’ve killed him, if I’d raised a gun. I would’ve beat him to death if I’d raised a hand.” It was the truth.

  “I can’t believe I never saw, that Felicity never told me what was happening. I thought I knew Howard, that he was a good and decent person, but I was blind.” There was a forlorn quality in Charmaine’s voice, the kind of pain that would break any father’s heart. “I thought I was so darn smart, but I didn’t see anything clearly. I didn’t know people the way I thought I did. Not at all.”

  He stopped her there in the hallway and placed both hands on her shoulders. “Are you terribly disappointed that you won’t be returning to Boston right away?”

  She shook her head, and her eyes filled with tears. “I can’t go back there. Even before I found out what kind of man Howard was, I knew I couldn’t return to Boston and simply take up where I left off. It’s not what I want anymore.”

  “What do you want?”

  A single tear ran down her face. “I want Ash.”

  “Then you’ll have him,” he declared with finality.

  Charmaine shook her head quickly. “No. He doesn’t love me, he doesn’t want me, and I won’t have you interfering this time. I don’t want him back at gunpoint!”

  His daughters would have what they wanted. The best clothes, the best education . . . huge Scots, city-bred lawyers, even sodbusters. Maybe in this case the truth was a more effective weapon than a six-shooter. “I don’t know if you realize it or not, but Howard said some pretty strong words to Ash on Sunday afternoon.”

  “Like what?” she snapped, her tears drying quickly.

  “That you were too bright and beautiful to be stuck on a farm for the rest of your life. That you were . . . wasted here, and you deserved better.”

  “You didn’t stop him?”

  Stuart tightened his fingers. “Maybe in my heart I agreed with him. After all I’ve done to keep you here. . . . ”

  In spite of the tight grip on her shoulders, Charmaine backed away. “This is the worst thing you’ve ever done to me,” she accused. “How can I ever forgive you?”

  “Charmaine. . . . ”

  She turned from him and ran to the stairs, hurried up the steps with her skirt held in both hands, and disappeared into the upstairs hallway. A moment later, the door to her room slammed with as much force as the front door had slammed shut on Howard minutes earlier.

  Twenty-Two

  Morning light made her dreary world seem horribly bright and warm. The remaining red leaves on the maple tree outside her window danced playfully in the wind, brushing the windowpanes and calling to Charmaine, reminding her that life was rich and beautiful and forever changing.

  She unfolded the telegram in her hand and read once again. As she’d read it by candlelight last night and by the rays of the rising sun this morning.

  Disregard previous telegram. I seem to be falling in love with my husband!

  If Ash had seen this telegram when he’d seen the other, would he have forgiven her? If she showed it to him now, would it make a difference? Perhaps, perhaps not. It all depended on whether or not he loved her, too. She believed, in some hopeful moments, that he did love her. She’d seen it in his eyes, felt it in his touch . . . no one was that good an actor.

  Her heart lurched when the knock came at the door, and then she remembered that Howard was gone from this house and wouldn’t dare to return.

  “Come in.”

  The door swung open, and Felicity poked her head into the room. “Are you sure?”

  Charmaine folded the telegram and set it on her bedside table. She went to the door, took Felicity’s hand, and pulled her sister gently into the room. “Of course I’m sure.”

  They hadn’t had a moment alone since Felicity’s arrival. Last night Charmaine had stayed in her room, and Felicity had surely retired early after her long trip. There was so much to be said.

  “Why did you never tell me?” Charmaine asked. She accompanied her question with a hug Felicity responded to.

  “How could I? I was so ashamed.” Felicity placed her head on Charmaine’s shoulder. “And you adored Howard so.”

  “I didn’t adore him, I admired him,” Charmaine said sternly. “And I certainly wouldn’t have felt a smidgen of admiration for him if I’d known what was going on, if I’d had any inkling of the kind of man he was.” Felicity didn’t need to know about Howard’s advances, his foolish declaration that they were meant to be together. She set herself back and looked Felicity squarely in her deep brown eyes. “You should have come to me.”

  Felicity sniffled. “That’s what Tavish says, what he said all along.”

  “Tavish,” Charmaine said, her hands on her hips. “Now that’s another surprise. I had no idea —”

  “You were so caught up with Howard’s work,” Felicity interrupted. “I couldn’t very well admit to you that I’d fallen in love with another man. A man more tender than Howard will ever be, a gentle and loving man who made me realize that there’s more to love than sacrifice and pain.”

  “He’s good to you, is he?”

  Felicity’s eyes were suddenly bright. “He is. Tavish saved me, Charmaine.”

  “I have to know,” Charmaine said sternly. “Is Tavish his first name or his last?”

  That got a smile from Felicity. “His first. Tavish Alexander Ewan Dougald MacCullen.”

  “That’s a mouthful,” Charmaine said with a smile of her own.

  “Daddy’s making him sleep in the bunkhouse,” Felicity confided. “I imagine he’ll either shoot him or put him to work before the week is out.”

  “Daddy shot Ash.”

  Felicity paled and her smile disappeared. “He did? I was just kidding. . . . ”

  “It was just a scratch,” Charmaine amended. “And he didn’t know it was Ash at the time.”

  That news didn’t console Felicity at all. “I have to warn Tavish.”

  The door opened, and Jeanette slipped into the room and closed the door behind her. “What are you two talking about? I was headed down for breakfast and I heard these little voices chattering away.”

  “Nothing important,” Felicity said quickly. “I have to run. . . . ”

  “Wait.” Jeanette came to them and placed an arm over each sister’s shoulder. “I have news.”

  “More news?” Charmaine said lightly. “I don’t know that I can take more news for at least a few days.”

  Jeanette ignored her. “We’re staying!” she said gleefully. “Robert and I discussed it last night, and then Robert talked to Daddy bright and early this morning, and we’re going to stay!”

  “Robert’s not going to take up ranching, is he?” Charmaine asked dubiously. She couldn’t imagine the refined man living her father’s life-style.

  “Of course not,” Jeanette said sensibly. “Small towns need lawyers too, you know.”

  “We’re staying, too,” Felicity said softly, “if Daddy doesn’t shoot Tavish,” she added forlornly.

  They put their heads together, the way they had as little girls. Charmaine was still the runt, the little one, the baby. Right now that didn’t seem so bad.

  “Just imagine it,” she said. “The three of us, here in Salley Creek again.”

  “We’ll turn this town on its ear,” Jeanette whispered.

  “They’ll never know what hit them,” Felicity said with a smile.

  “And what are we going to do about Ash?” Jeanette asked in a no-nonsense voice.

  “Nothing.” Charmaine drew away slightly. “We’re going to do absolutely nothing.”

  She was pinned between her sisters, and they gave her matching devilish smiles.

  “Nothing?” Felicity repeated. “Think again, Runt.”

  Tomorrow Charmaine would be gone. Ash paced in front of the fire, half-crazy with lack of sleep and missing his wife.

  Principle was all well and good, but just how much sacrifice was a man supposed to make in
the name of what was right? And . . . a horrible thought . . . what if he was wrong? What if Charmaine was pacing her room in the Haley house, packed and ready to go to Boston and missing him as much as he was missing her?

  He’d never expected her to stay, in spite of her promise of forever. Science, right? Magnetism.

  He knelt on one knee and threw back the rug to reveal the Montgomery treasure hiding place. The box was small, but it held so much of his mother and what he remembered of her. He brought the box up and placed it close to the fire, where he could see more clearly.

  Opening the Bible, he settled himself comfortably on the floor. His name was the last entry in the book. He had been so certain that Charmaine’s stay in his life was a temporary one that he had never entered her name and the date of their marriage. And she’d never asked him to.

  He barely glanced at the Montgomery blessing. One true love to cherish for all time was not a concept he could deal with right now.

  The book of poems was at the very bottom. Somewhere in this book was the poem his mother had made him memorize. It had been years ago, before she got sick. All he could remember was that his name was in there, somewhere.

  It was a slim volume of poems by Thomas Campion, and as he picked it up the pages fell open to a well-used page. His poem.

  Thrice toss these oaken ashes in the air;

  Thrice sit thou mute in this enchanted chair;

  Then thrice three times tie up this true love’s knot,

  And murmur soft: “She will, or she will not.”

  There was more, but this one verse was enough to make him doubt everything he’d done.

  He hadn’t given Charmaine a choice. He’d made it for her, thinking it was for the best, certain he had to sacrifice his happiness for what was best for her. But he hadn’t given her a choice.

  Charmaine Haley, who flouted convention and spoke her mind and preached on the rights of women from her very heart . . . that woman wouldn’t have stayed with him after their bizarre wedding unless somewhere deep inside she had wanted to. She could’ve run, she could’ve disappeared, she could’ve made his life hell, instead of heaven.

  She will, or she will not.

  How could he let her go without knowing for sure? He’d spend the rest of his life wondering. . . .

  It was late, but he couldn’t sit here and do nothing. Would she, or would she not?

  He delayed only long enough to take an ink pen and write Charmaine’s name next to his, along with the date of their shotgun wedding.

  * * *

  Everything was in place. Charmaine paced in front of the window and fiddled with the ribbons at the cuff of her nightdress. Eula had assured her that Ash always did his shopping at her mercantile, and that wouldn’t change no matter what. When she finally saw him and told him that Charmaine was planning to stay here in Salley Creek and marry the first man who asked her, after their divorce was final, he’d have to do something — wouldn’t he?

  What if he didn’t?

  Then at least she’d know that his reason for sending her away had nothing to do with what was best for her.

  Felicity and Jeanette were convinced that it would work. And if it didn’t they planned to show him the second telegram. Charmaine hadn’t agreed to that part of the plan, not yet. It was too much like begging, and she would not beg.

  What if Ash had decided, in these days apart, that he didn’t need her after all? What would she do then? She could just see herself, a spinster living here with her parents for the rest of her life. It was a sad, sad picture she conjured in her mind.

  At least tomorrow Howard would be gone and out of their lives for good. He’d signed Robert’s papers without a word of protest, not even asking about Hester, and then he’d taken Stuart Haley’s advice about lying low. He was closeted in his room at the boarding house, hiding from Tavish and the Haleys, no doubt. He was such a coward, a coward who had hit his wife.

  In her mind she went over the discussion she’d had with Felicity that morning, and wished again that she had seen what was going on in the Stillwell household. She’d been so blindly naive. So utterly stupid.

  Charmaine wondered if she really appeared so unforgiving that Felicity was afraid to tell her the truth. Did she appear to be so harsh that there was no sympathy in her heart?

  She’d done her best for a very long time to ignore the workings of her heart, at least until Ash had come along.

  Felicity was fortunate to have found a man who loved her and Hester so completely. Tavish seemed perfectly content, even though Daddy was making him sleep in the bunkhouse. At least he hadn’t pulled a gun on the Scot. Yet.

  It looked as if Robert and Jeanette really would be settling in Salley Creek, at least for a while. There was only one lawyer in town, and he was nearing retirement. Once Stuart Haley had promised to throw what business he could Robert’s way, they’d made their decision.

  Everything was falling into place. Now, if she could only bring Ash around. . . .

  There was a sudden plinking sound at her window. Sleet? It was cold enough, but it hadn’t looked like rain earlier, and the moon was lighting her room brightly, without a blanket of clouds masking its brilliance. Then all was silent again. Surely it wasn’t her imagination. . . .

  The plinking sounds came again, a little harder this time, and Charmaine went to the window. No sleet after all, just a man standing in the shadows of the maple tree under her window. Probably Tavish, looking for Felicity’s room. Goodness, he was on the wrong side of the house. One window over and he would have been tossing pebbles at the master bedroom.

  She lifted the panes slowly and silently. “Are you completely insane?” she hissed.

  “I think I must be.”

  Her heart stopped. It wasn’t Tavish at all. It was Ash.

  “What are you doing here?”

  With a leap off the ground, he took a tree limb in both hands and hoisted himself up and closer to her open window. “I came to talk to you.”

  “To talk to me?” Her heart lurched with hope, and terror that her hope was useless. “After what you said to me the last time I talked to you, what makes you think I might possibly be interested in continuing that conversation?”

  He sat on the limb and leaned against the tree. Leaves ruffled in the wind and again as he pushed them aside to give her a full view of his face.

  “I was thinking of starting a whole new conversation, if you don’t mind.”

  “Have you been talking to Eula?” So soon?

  “No. Why?”

  “Never mind,” she snapped. “Well, what do you want? I don’t suppose you’ve come to apologize for your atrocious behavior.”

  He stood on the limb and grabbed another, one that would bring him even closer. A small limb cracked and fell, and she held her breath, but Ash was perfectly steady as he raised himself a few feet higher.

  “I came,” he said testily, “to ask you to sacrifice everything you are and everything you want for yourself because I love you. To ask you to come home with me and be my wife. To be my one true love to cherish for all time. That’s what I should apologize for,” he said harshly, “that I dare to ask for so much. . . . ”

  “You love me?” she whispered.

  “Of course I love you.” He stood too quickly and one foot slipped off the limb. He teetered for a moment, and Charmaine held her breath.

  “Be careful,” she hissed.

  He reached out and grabbed a limb for support, and it crackled slightly. “I haven’t climbed a tree in fifteen years,” he confessed, “but I couldn’t wait another minute to do this. I didn’t get the chance to ask you to marry me, but I’m asking you now to be my wife.”

  She had to pull Stuart down to lie beside her. “You stay where you are and keep quiet.”

  “Maybe you should tell Ash Coleman that,” he hissed. “I’ve never heard so much racket in all my life.”

  In the dark, she smiled. Everything was going to work out for the best, she was cert
ain. “He isn’t exactly cat-footed, is he? At least any fears you might have had about Ash being a burglar are put to rest.”

  “There’s sure as hell no Indian blood in the Coleman family,” he grumbled. “That boy couldn’t sneak up on a deaf man.”

  “We won’t have to worry about him stealing up on you during Sunday visits and startling you out of your wits.”

  “Sunday visits,” he whispered. Outside his window, another limb cracked loudly. “It’s what Charmaine wants, isn’t it? Ash and that farm.”

  “Ash wherever he is, I think. I imagine tomorrow Charmaine will be packing her things and moving back to the Coleman farm.”

  “If Ash doesn’t kill himself playing Romeo,” Stuart grumbled.

  They could hear whispered words, the clatter of leaves and limbs, a gust of wind.

  “It’s hard,” Stuart whispered. “Harder than I ever imagined.”

  “Having children?” she asked with a smile in the dark.

  Stuart sighed. “No. Hell, even Howard Stillwell can make a baby. Having them is easy. Loving them is what makes everything so damn hard.” He placed a wide and rough hand over her gently rounded stomach. “And here we are starting all over again.”

  “Are you sorry?”

  He turned a grinning face to her. “Sorry? Hell no. I can’t wait.”

  A gust of cold wind grabbed him and he had to clutch at a limb to keep from falling to the ground.

  “You’d better come in,” Charmaine whispered, and she opened the window wide and offered her hand.

  He climbed a bit farther, and then took her hand and threw one leg over the windowsill.

  “Your hands are like ice,” she said as she tugged gently at his hand. He slipped into Charmaine’s darkened room, and she closed the window behind him. “I can’t believe you. . . . ”

  With the hand she held, he pulled her gently into his arms for the kiss he’d been dreaming about for days. “I do love you,” he whispered against her warm lips. “More than anything. If you just have to go to Boston, if you can’t live without it, I’ll sell the farm and come with you. Because I can’t live without you.”