Wendy Lindstrom
Page 37
“It’s so pretty in here,” Cora said, her eyes wide as she stared at the pine wreaths and ribbons and candles that decorated every wall and table.
It looked kind of bright and girlish to Adam, but he and Cora had sure been enjoying the food table in the back. It was loaded with cookies and pies and food they had never tasted before.
Someone touched his shoulder, and he wheeled around to see if Faith was fussing with his shirt collar again. But it was Rebecca, looking pretty in a green dress and shiny green hair ribbon.
Her eyes were almost as sad as the day he’d told her he couldn’t see her anymore. “Are you mad at me?” she asked.
“No,” he said, glad his voice wasn’t croaking as often. “I thought you were mad at me.”
“I was just . . . I’ve missed skipping stones and walking to school with you.”
He’d missed it too. Nicholas Archer had been coming around, but it wasn’t the same as being friends with Rebecca.
Cora skipped across the floor to see Amelia’s new baby, leaving him alone with Rebecca.
“Want to go raid the cookie trays together?” she asked with a smile.
He was going to say no, that he’d eaten more than his share, but the hopeful spark in her eyes wouldn’t let him disappoint her. “If you’re allowed to be around me.”
“I’m allowed. Daddy said we can be friends.”
Friends. It was less than he wanted in his heart, but he’d thought he’d lost everything. “Do you want to be friends?” he asked.
“Yes, Adam. But only until I’m sixteen.”
Confused, he wrinkled his nose. “Girls are so odd.”
“When I’m sixteen you can kiss me again.”
His mouth fell open.
“If you want to,” she said.
“Yeah. I mean, sure.” He wanted to kiss her now! “If your dad will let me court you.”
“He will. And when I’m eighteen we can—”
“Gads, Rebecca! Don’t even say it.”
“Why not?”
“Because you might be overheard, and . . . gosh, it’s all I’ll be able to think about now.”
She laughed. “Is that bad?”
“It’ll be torture. I’ve got three years to wait before I can even kiss you.”
“Two and a half. I’m thirteen and one-half years old,” she said, spelling it out for him. She stuck out her hand with those pretty long fingers that could skip stones better than Adam sometimes. “Friends?”
He closed his hand over her soft, warm skin, his heart lifting. She was worth waiting for, and someday he would make her his wife. “For now,” he said, feeling shaky and eager. “But I can’t WAIT until you’re sixteen.”
“I can’t WAIT either,” Rebecca squawked, and they both laughed, their smiles fading slowly as they held hands.
“Will you hate me if I steal a kiss now and then?” he asked, knowing he would, that despite his effort to be good and honorable and live up to the Grayson name, Rebecca’s sweetness and warmth would be too tempting to resist.
“I’d be disappointed if you didn’t.”
God knows he wouldn’t disappoint her desire for a kiss. He just hoped he could keep his urges under control and not disappoint himself.
“Maybe we should go get some cookies,” he said, because he couldn’t stand there and look at her without wanting to kiss her. She tucked her hand into the crook of his elbow, and he guided her to the food table, proud to have her at his side.
Adam wove through the crowd and greeted everyone who’d been at Duke and Faith’s wedding. Duke’s younger brother Boyd caught him as he passed by, and clapped a strong hand over Adam’s shoulder. “I hear you’re a Grayson now,” he said, clowning like he did at the sawmill.
“Yes, sir.”
“That’s yes, Uncle Boyd,” he said, scrubbing his knuckles on the top of Adam’s head.
Adam laughed and elbowed him away, but it was the best night of his life. He had a dog, a dad, and Rebecca’s friendship. And later, maybe more.
o0o
Duke watched Boyd joke with Adam and his heart flooded with warmth. He linked hands with Faith and drew her to his side.
The joyous sound of bells filled the room and drew their attention to the front of the room. Bells in hand, Iris stood with Patrick beside the huge pine tree that Tansy, Claire, and Anna had strung with red and gold ribbons. “Welcome to our first annual family soiree,” she said, giving the bells a jolly shake that made everyone clap.
Everyone except Duke. He wasn’t chancing any activity that would make his shoulder ache, because come hell or high water, he was making love to his wife tonight.
Iris winked at him. “This year we have much to be thankful for. I’ll start listing our blessings by giving thanks for each one of you with your loving, forgiving, accepting hearts that have allowed me and my family to find a real home.”
Duke lifted his glass of ale. “Here’s to you, Iris, and your outrageous family, who has taught me not to take what I have for granted.” A loud cheer shook the rafters, then everyone fell quiet, waiting for him to go on, but he was so choked by emotion he could barely speak through the gratitude and love filling him. He moved his glass in an arc to encompass and salute his friends, his brothers and mother, his wife and children, and the Wilde women he’d come to love. “To each of you, for being too stubborn and noisy to let me die in peace.”
His comment made them laugh, and one by one each person in the room added to the long list of their blessings. Rebecca said she was thankful to have a mother and father who loved her.
“I’m thankful to be a Grayson,” Adam said, casting a half-grin at Duke that made his chest tighten with pride. “And to have a bunch of uncles who are as crazy as my aunts.”
“Crazy?” Boyd lunged at Adam, and the boy danced away with a laugh.
“I got a pony!” Cora shouted.
When the laughter died down, Duke’s brothers joked that he would have to carry the piano downstairs by himself, and teased him about taking so long to get back to work at the mill, but they all gave thanks that he had survived his injury.
“Amen.” His mother raised her glass. “I’m eternally grateful to Faith and Doc Milton and this big, crazy family for nursing my son back to health.”
Faith’s arms slipped around Duke’s waist, and she smiled at him with those lush lips. “I miss you,” she whispered, making him want to ravish her on the spot. Her smile faded and tears glistened in her eyes. “I love you, Duke. I’m so grateful for you and for what we share. I feel so much love and . . . Oh, darling, there just aren’t words—” She broke off and pressed her lips to his jaw. He drew her close, agreeing that what they were feeling was too big, too deep, and too powerful for words.
He pulled her closer, tighter, longing to make love with her. “Tonight’s the night,” he whispered near her ear.
“I know.” She looped her arms around his neck and smiled up at him.
“Whoa you two!” Boyd lifted his palms. “Before you start a fire, I’ll go play Faith’s special request.” He swept Claire into his arms and danced her across the floor to the piano. They sat and began playing “Kissing in the Dark.”
The rich sound of the piano filled the room and Duke gathered his wife in his arms and kissed her in front of everyone. “I love you,” he whispered. He would kiss her in the light of day and in the dark of night and every chance he got.
He opened the dance floor right where they were standing, holding his wife in his arms, sharing their deep and true love. He longed for Faith and the privacy to love her, but he savored the moment and the blessing of having this big, loving family gathered around him.
The dance floor filled, and Patrick and Iris twirled past, their bodies close, their eyes sparking with desire and fixed on each other’s face. “She’ll marry him,” Duke said, resting his hand against the curve of Faith’s waist.
“I hope so.” She looked at Iris and sighed. “But you don’t know my aunt like I do. She
’s stubborn and independent and terrified of giving her heart to a man.”
“Well, I know Patrick, and my money is on him. He won’t quit until Iris speaks her wedding vows with him.”
“Good.” Faith smiled. “Ste needs a strong man who isn’t afraid of a challenge.”
“Then Patrick is her man.”
“And you’re mine,” she said, drawing him closer, making him tremble with the need to love her.
He felt the unmistakable tug of Cora’s small hand on his suit- coat. She looked up with bright eyes and a chocolate-smudged cheek that wrung his heart. “Will you dance with me, Daddy?”
He wanted to, but he couldn’t hold her in his arms yet. Faith reached down and lifted Cora onto her hip. “We’ll both dance with Daddy,” she said, and Duke gladly, joyfully drew his girls into his arms.
Chapter 44
After a long night of celebration, Faith reached for her husband, missing him, eager for his loving touch. But he stepped away from her and set the lantern on the table in the bathhouse.
“I want to give this to you first,” he said, pulling something from his coat pocket.
To her surprise, he placed her mother’s silver-handled hair brush in her hand. Her breath sighed out and she held the brush in her palms. “You found it!”
“I’d forgotten about it until I put my coat on tonight.”
“Oh, Duke, this is . . . it reminds me of the times Mama brushed my hair.” She stroked her fingers over the painted roses on the porcelain back, remembering those brief but warm moments with her mother. “She loved me.” The truth flowed into her heart, washing away the ache, leaving behind peace and love and forgiveness. “I was loved,” she whispered.
“You were. And you are.”
She drew the brush through her hair, feeling the delicious tug against her scalp and hearing the raspy sound of the bristles slipping through her hair. Her mother had loved her.
“I’ll brush your hair if you like,” Duke offered.
She raised her eyes to her husband, touched by his tender consideration, but she shook her head. She didn’t need her hair brushed anymore; she needed to be in her husband’s arms. She laid the brush on the table, at peace. “I want you to love me.”
“I do,” he said, his voice filled with sincerity and conviction. He embraced her.
“Even after all I’ve cost you?”
“You’ve brought me riches I never dreamed of.”
“Would you have chosen me if you’d known the truth?”
“The only truth that matters is that I met and fell in love with a brave, compassionate and loyal woman, and I chose with my head and my heart when I asked you to marry me.”
She cradled his firm jaw in her palms, loving the textures of his body and the smoldering heat in his eyes. “I could have been a wealthy princess with a kingdom of men to choose from, and I would have chosen you as the love of my life.” He would always be her friend, her lover, the man of her dreams.
o0o
A sense of homecoming filled Duke, and he kissed his wife, feeling a deep, burning need to make love with her. “I wanted to sneak you down here hours ago.”
“I’d have come willingly.” She kissed his neck. “I’ll always welcome your touch.” She nibbled his earlobe. “And your love.” She slid her hands down his sides. “And your passion.”
His groin tightened and his breath hissed out.
She stroked her hands up his chest. “I don’t want to hurt you,” she whispered, driving him mad with her fondling and teasing. “But I can’t stay away from you any longer. You might have to take a little discomfort with your pleasure.”
“Gladly.” He shook with a need to consume her, and yet he held back and kept the kiss tender. Love wasn’t for the fainthearted. But it was worth the wounds. It was worth every moment of doubt and pain. Because to live and love, one had to be willing to bleed.
“It’s been forever since you’ve kissed me,” she whispered against his mouth.
“I couldn’t kiss you and not make love to you.”
“You can do both now.”
“I will.” He trailed his tongue across her lips and filled his palm with her breast. `All night,” he said, loving how she smelled of blooming flowers and scented oils and the good rich earth that filled her greenhouse.
She gazed up at him, her eyes sparkling in the lantern light. “It could be a long night. I brought some oil.”
“Gads! Not the smelly lavender, I hope.”
“Better than lavender,” she said, in a warm, sexy tone he’d not heard her use before, a tone of openness and confidence and trust. “I mixed up a special combination, just for us.”
“This better not be your sneaky way of treating my shoulder with another one of your concoctions.”
She smiled, the glow of happiness on her face a feast for his eyes, her lush lips a temptation to his mouth. “You know what I thought of the first time you kissed me?” she asked.
“That I was taking advantage of you.”
She shook her head. “I thought I’d kissed the sun. I didn’t want to leave the warmth of your arms or lose the thrilling heat of your mouth on mine.” She stroked his jaw. “I need your light, Duke. I need your love.”
“You have my heart and my soul, sweetheart.”
Her eyes sparkled with mischief. “Can I have your body too?”
“Only if you promise to stop your doctoring.”
“Well, I thought I’d stretch your muscles before we—”
“God save me!” He growled and playfully bit her neck. “I can put your lovely hands to better use, sweetheart.”
Her arms circled his waist in invitation, her soft laugh echoing off the stones and into his heart, and love was no longer a mystery out of reach, beyond his wildest dream. Faith was love. She brought companionship and passion and meaning to his life. All the struggles and sacrifices and lessons were worthwhile. Their future would be an amazing journey filled with family, laughter, passion. Giving his heart to Faith had changed him, altered his too-rigid way of seeing the world, and taught him what it meant to love, to be a husband, a father, and a better man—a complete man.
And their journey was just beginning.
END
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Fredonia residents drilled the nation’s first natural gas well in 1821, and laid pipes to convey the gas to an old hotel and several stores in the tiny New York State village near the shores of Lake Erie.
In 1871 Alva Colburn drilled a gas well on Mill Street (now Norton Place) with the hope of running his first grist mill machinery by gas, but the gas was insufficient. Mr. Colburn built a raceway (a channeled watercourse) from the dam, which was one of the largest along the Canadaway Creek, to his mill. The amount of water in the raceway (referred to as a pond in this story) was controlled by a head gate, allowing Colburn to use a large water wheel as power for grinding grain. Later on a boiler room was added and steam power was used. Mr. Colburn’s sons eventually took over the mill, and a few years later, two of them moved to McPherson, Kansas, to build a flour mill.
To serve my story, I sent all four Colburn brothers to Kansas in 1879, and brought Faith Wilkins to town as the new owner of Colburn’s Grist Mill property, which she promptly turned into a greenhouse.
For the sake of accuracy, Fredonia is a village in the town of Pomfret located in Chautauqua County (despite my loose terminology in this story). The county sheriff in 1879 was Leander S. Phelps, but I invented the details of how a sheriff did his job. Everything about Syracuse, except the name of the city, is fiction.
Japan was a reclusive nation until 1853 when Commodore Matthew Perry of the United States Navy sailed gunships into Tokyo harbor. Japan opened itself up to trade with the U.S., and in 1869, settlers with The Wakamatsu Tea and Silk Colony were among the first to arrive from Japan. The 1880 Census shows a total of 148 Japanese in the United States. The Japanese geisha I smuggled aboard the Commodore’s ship is a product of my imagination.
The song “Kissing in the Dark” was written by George Cooper (lyrics) and Steven Foster (music) in 1863. Damon’s Band was from Dunkirk, but I don’t know if the band was a string quartet.
Thank you for indulging the small liberties I’ve taken with the setting and history of Fredonia—a wonderfully romantic place for Faith and Duke Grayson to fall in love and live happily ever after.
—W.L.
o0o
If you would like to read about other characters in the Grayson Brothers' series, please visit http://www.wendylindstrom.com or e-mail the author at wlindstrom2000@yahoo.com
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
AUTHOR’S NOTE