It was the simplest solution, and he knew it as the words fell from his mouth. He would live anywhere to be with Charmaine. The idea had come to him as he’d circled the house . . . three times . . . looking for a sign. And then she’d passed in front of the window and he’d known what he had to do.
“What do you think?” he whispered.
She stood squarely in front of him and grasped the front of his shirt as if she needed the support or else was afraid he’d walk away. Lifting her head slowly, she looked him boldly in the eye. When she gazed at him this way his senses left him, and he was filled with the foolish notion that no matter what they faced, it wouldn’t break them.
“I’ve always been very honest about what I think, and it’s come very easy to me. I can freely say what I think, no matter how outrageous or shocking, but when it comes to how I feel it’s much harder.”
He would give her an easy way out, it was the least he could do. “If you don’t want to stay, and you don’t want me to go with you, I’ll understand. I won’t like it —” A quickly raised finger against his lips silenced him.
“I love you,” she breathed softly. Her eyes shone with unshed tears, and he couldn’t help but wrap his arms around her and hold her close.
When his arms were securely around her, she laughed lightly and a single tear ran down her cheek. “You know, I’ve been in love with you all my life. I used to think it was a curse that I thought about you so much while I was away. Childish memories, that’s all they were, and yet they came to me again and again while I was at school and then living with Felicity and Howard.”
He kissed her damp cheek.
“And then I came home and found out that I love you so much more as a woman than I did as a child. I love the way you laugh. I love your kind heart and your gentle soul. I love knowing that you’ve never taken any woman to your bed but me, that you waited for me just as I waited for you.” She lifted her face to him, and in the moonlight he saw new tears join the first, rolling down. And still she smiled. “I love your eyes, the way they light when they meet mine at the end of the day, the way they tell me when you want me. I love you in more ways than I can possibly tell you, and if you don’t take me home soon my heart will be forever broken.”
“You love me,” he whispered.
“Yes, and I have no intention of going back to Boston,” she said softly. “I want our children to grow up here. I want them to have grandparents and cousins and aunts and uncles close by.”
“Our girls are not going off to school,” he insisted, and as he spoke he took a step toward the bed with Charmaine secure in his arms.
“Of course not,” she agreed easily.
“Are you sure you won’t miss it?” Another step toward the bed. “The seminars and the manuals, the shocking discussions.”
Her moonlit smile was positively devilish. “Why, I won’t miss it at all.”
The backs of Charmaine’s legs were against the mattress. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“They use the schoolhouse for community meetings, so I was pretty sure they’d agree to let me use the building on occasion. Mayor Hildreth agreed with only a few reservations.” She sat on the edge of the bed and without taking her eyes from his began to work at his belt buckle. “Seth Brand, at the newspaper, was very enthusiastic about cooperating with me in the printing and sale of informational manuals.”
As the belt buckle fell loose, he took Charmaine’s hand and pulled her to her feet. “When did you set this up?” He loosened the ties at her neck and pulled the nightgown over her head.
“Today,” she said as the nightgown cleared her head. “Really, Ash,” she started unbuttoning his shirt. “You didn’t think I would give up on you so easily, did you?”
His clothes joined her nightgown on the floor, and together they slipped under the fat quilt that was bright in the moonlight.
“I missed you,” she whispered as she pressed her body to his and kissed him deeply. “More than you know, more than I thought I could ever miss anyone.”
“I missed you, too,” he confessed. He wanted her, now, but he kissed her mouth and her throat and then her rosy nipples, and when she moaned and arched against him he parted her thighs with his knee and slipped his hand between her legs to touch her feminine core.
She was wet for him, already, warm and inviting and calling out to him with every subtle rock of her body against his, with every breath he took for her, with her.
When he rolled Charmaine onto her back and towered above her, she parted her thighs and took his manhood in her hand. “One true love for all time,” she whispered, and then she guided his hard shaft to her welcoming body.
He filled her, and at the same time she somehow filled him. Heart and soul, with a spirit and a joy beyond his comprehension. He loved her, with his heart and his body, until she was all he knew.
And outside this warm haven, in the distant chill of the night, the town clock struck twelve.
Epilogue
The Annual Holey Masked Ball, 1900
Charmaine and Ash always looked forward to the masked ball, but this one was special. This year’s party fell on their fifth wedding anniversary, and everyone was here.
She loved dancing with Ash, who managed to grow more handsome with every passing year. At the moment there was a crowd of little ones dancing at their feet. To their right, Hester, now a beautiful seven years old, was trying patiently to dance with her cousin Montgomery, who at four was the very picture of his father. Green eyes, dark hair, black mask. To the left their two-year-old Nate was dancing with Tavish and Felicity’s Megan, who was also a feisty two years old. Her brother Connor, who was four years old and a full head taller than Montgomery, was dancing clumsily just behind Ash with Jeanette and Robert’s Alice.
The babies, their own Lila, Tavish and Felicity’s Bonnie and William, and Jeanette and Robert’s James, were in the nursery upstairs. After another song or two the other children would join them, and the adults would be able to dance without fear of stepping on their sons and daughters, nieces and nephews.
Tavish, tall as he was, was particularly afraid of stepping on one of the bairns, as he called them. While he and Felicity danced, he continually glanced down and around. Who would have thought, when he’d arrived in Salley Creek, that he’d become such a good foreman for the Haley ranch?
Jeanette and Robert were a lovely couple still, even though he was turning gray and she was, at this moment, well along with their third child. Robert, though he always had an air of the city about him, was a fine Salley Creek lawyer. Just last year he’d built Jeanette a house almost as large as this one.
Charmaine watched her parents dance, for a moment, smiling at the heartening sight. Her father, rough and tumble cowboy at heart that he was, loved nothing more than having a house full of family. He openly delighted in his children and his grandchildren. Sundays were a circus in the Haley house, and through the commotion, the laughter and the tears and the occasional crisis, Stuart Haley grinned from ear to ear.
The entire town was here, dancers mingling with the large family. Eula and Winston, who’d wisely left their five children at home; Delia and her husband of three years; the new Mayor; Reverend Howell, who’d performed that memorable marriage ceremony five years ago — everyone.
Nathan and Oswald had made the trip this year, and Oswald was presently surrounded by an assembly of giggling young girls who found the well-known actor fascinating. The stage agreed with Oswald more than anyone had ever expected. He was successful and much sought after — and loved it.
Nathan was on top again, with Oswald as his leading man. Five years of success hadn’t changed him a bit. Pumpkin was getting on in years, though, and when Nathan left Salley Creek this time he would be leaving the mare on the Coleman farm.
Verna wasn’t here, thank heavens. She was comfortably settled in San Francisco with the husband she’d taken four months after leaving Salley Creek. Elmo and Ruth had made the trip, though.
They’d been married two years now, had one little boy who was a chubby replica of his father, and Elmo had become quite successful as a geologist. As a matter of fact, his trip to Kansas had nothing to do with the masked ball or the anniversary.
Charmaine glanced around but didn’t see them anywhere. “Where are Elmo and Ruth?” she asked as the music stopped. “They said they’d be here.”
Ash was unconcerned. “You know Elmo. Always late, and these days he’s much more interested in rocks than in people.”
“Except for Ruth and Bink.”
His grin was bright. “Except for Ruth and Bink. Who names a kid Bink, anyway?”
Before she could chastise him for being rude, little Stu was tugging on his pants leg. “Ash,” he said in his most grown-up voice. “I don’t want to go upstairs with the children. I want to stay up all night like my sisters.”
Ash explained in a very patient voice how dull the party would be once the children left, and how much fun they’d have at their own little party upstairs, and without another word of protest Stu left with the other little ones.
Everyone but Charmaine thought it was odd that Stu listened to Ash better than he did anyone else. Ash could reason with him when no one else could, and the child ran to him for comfort and hugs and occasionally to dry his tears on a sleeve. Of course, Ash was more than Stu’s brother-in-law. He was also his godfather.
Charmaine was thankful for so much in her life. Ash and their children, the farm that continued to do well, having her family close by . . . even though her father and Ash still butted heads on occasion. Stuart Haley insisted every year on giving Ash cattle, and every year Ash refused. Just to irritate his father-in-law, she’d decided.
She gave regular lectures at the schoolhouse, usually the second Tuesday evening of every month, and printed corresponding manuals to distribute. There were those who were dismayed, of course, but she looked at those narrow-minded people as challenges to be met and conquered. She was almost always successful.
Her seminars on family planning were the most scandalous, and the most well attended.
When the music began again, a waltz, Ash gave her his full attention. There were no children to watch out for, no little hands tugging at their clothing.
“When it gets too warm for you,” he said softly, “well take a stroll out to the gazebo and rest a while.”
Goodness, they never got a moment’s rest in the gazebo, but this had become a yearly ritual.
“I don’t know,” she whispered. “How do I know you won’t attempt to dally with me once we’re alone?”
Oh, she loved that smile, so bright it grabbed her heart and wouldn’t let go. “You can be assured I will,” he promised.
“Ash! Dammit Ash, where are you?”
Ash closed his eyes and his smile faded. Elmo’s distraught cry came from the main entrance, and all heads turned in that direction. The music came to a gradual halt.
Elmo was wide eyed and red faced and . . . and absolutely filthy. He was covered in black smears from his head to his boots. In fact, he was tracking some of the mess onto the carpet.
The crowd gave him a wide berth as he spotted Ash and hurried across the room. A few women squealed when he came too close to their expensive gowns.
“What happened to you?” Ash placed his hands on his hips and glared down at his stepbrother.
“I found it, I knew it was there and I was right!” Elmo’s grin was white in contrast to a near-black face.
“You found what?” Ash asked patiently.
“Oil, in that ridge I’ve been drilling on all week.” Elmo was so excited he was near breathless. “Oil.” He waited for a reaction and was disappointed. “Ash,” he said with a despairing moan. “You’re rich!”
Ash stared at his stepbrother for a moment as the news sunk in. “Well, that’s nice,” he said calmly. “Now, you go clean up and bring Ruth to the party and we’ll celebrate.”
Elmo left, the crowd murmured and stared, and the orchestra didn’t begin to play until Ash turned to them with a wave of his hand and a demand for another waltz.
Charmaine and Ash began to dance first, and eventually the rest of the crowd joined in.
“We’ll have a hell of a time slipping away now,” Ash whispered. “Everybody’s watching.” He leaned close, so that his mouth was near her ear. “We’ll have to distract them, somehow.”
“Didn’t you hear what Elmo said?” she asked as he pulled slightly away. “You’re rich.”
He stopped dancing, in the middle of the waltz, in the middle of the room. The dance went on, brightly lit and brightly clothed friends and relatives circling around them in time to the music. Ash ignored them all, placing a hand beneath her chin and lifting her face to his for a brief and tender kiss.
“I know,” he whispered. “I know.”
And they lived, for the most part, happily ever after.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1998 by Linda Winstead Jones
Cover design by Open Road Integrated Media
ISBN 978-1-4976-0312-7
This edition published in 2014 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
345 Hudson Street
New York, NY 10014
www.openroadmedia.com
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