Olivia bathed and dressed for bed. She sat at her vanity and brushed her long hair until it was smooth and soft, curling around her brush. She hated her curly hair. It was problematic at best, but it was what God had given her and she wasn’t one to complain.
The house was quiet when she slipped under her bed covers. She puffed her pillow into a comfortable position and settled in, listening to the night sounds drifting into her room through the tiny crack of her half-opened bedroom window.
She heard the tinny sounds of piano music. It sounded like it had to be coming from The Holy Moses Saloon. The clock downstairs chimed the time. Ten o’clock.
She couldn’t help but wonder where Chance was. She had a pretty good idea. He was where most men like him were at this hour and it involved gambling, drinking and women—not necessarily in that order.
Olivia turned in the bed and pulled the covers up to her neck. She told herself to stop thinking about him, that he wasn’t husband material. And yet—
Her traitorous body wanted him. Truth be told, so did her lonely heart. She had saved herself for marriage and now that she was married, she was still denied the love she craved.
Olivia couldn’t sleep. Thoughts of his kisses made her want something more. Something that wasn’t good for her. She needed a distraction from her husband’s irresistible charms.
She pushed her thoughts into another direction and focused on her school. It was only another month before the first week of August and she wanted to have a whole month to prepare the school for classes. Perhaps she would go downstairs and look at the plans for the new school again.
Chris had hired a local architect to sketch out the two-room school house. It was a lovely building and she couldn’t wait to see it finished.
The carpenter and his crew had started construction a few days ago and promised to be finished by the first week in August. Although she had looked at the plan many times since she arrived, it gave her a feeling of accomplishment to see the drawings again.
“Who are you kidding, Olivia Palmer. You are just hoping he’ll come home and kiss you again. You have turned into quite the Jezebel, living way out here in the wild west.” She spoke aloud, hoping the reality of her words would stop her from doing something foolish. It didn’t.
She climbed out of bed and put on her robe and slippers. A glance at Chance’s open bedroom door told her he hadn’t come home yet. “Why would he when you made it perfectly clear you didn’t want to play his game?” she reminded herself.
Relieved, and yet somehow disappointed, she gazed out the stained-glass window looking for that bright star to give her hope in this impossible situation.
Laughter from late night party goers filtered through the night air as she quietly sat in her room and gazed down at the streets below. She was no stranger to loneliness, but tonight, it seemed different somehow. Bigger. Sadder. Insurmountable.
She drew in a sigh of discontent and pushed her thoughts of her unwilling husband aside. He was where he wanted to be and she was where she was supposed to be. That was the way it was and wishing on a star wasn’t going to change that fact one bit. She turned away from the window and headed downstairs.
* * *
Chance had left the saloon hours ago and walked around the streets of Creede searching for answers to his dilemma. He sought out the brightest star in the night sky and thought of his brother. And his parents.
He absent-mindedly thumbed the ring on his left hand, his father’s ring, and thought of his mother’s ring on Olivia’s hand. She deserved her own ring, not someone else’s hand-me-down.
Lost deep in his thoughts, he soon found himself standing outside his brother’s house, staring up at the window where the object of his frustration was sleeping.
He wished things could be different between them but he had made a mess of things before he fully understood the situation. Perhaps if he hadn’t been so stubborn and determined to have his own way—but did it matter now?
He let himself into the house and went straight to the kitchen for a glass of warm milk. It was a fond memory of his mother’s tender care for him he clung to on night’s when he couldn’t sleep. The warm milk had never been a cure for his sleeplessness, but the warm memory of his mother brought him some small measure of calm that helped him relax.
Chance was used to having a staff of servants answer his beck and call. He didn’t think it appropriate to ask Olivia to make him some warm milk. In fact, he was quite certain that if he did ask her, he would be wearing the milk instead of drinking it. So, he exited the back door, stepped down into the root cellar and retrieved the last remaining quart jug of cold milk.
He poured some into a metal pan and lit the stove’s burner, careful to turn it down low so not to scorch the bottom.
The milk bubbled in the pan and he poured it into a thick-sided glass mug and carried it into his brother’s office, setting it down on the desk in front of him.
For a time, he cupped the glass between his hands, soaking up the warmth and remembering the love of his mother in that little glass of milk.
His thoughts drifted to the woman up the stairs, sleeping at the top of the second story landing. She was so close to him, and yet so far.
Her words returned and he replayed them once more in his head. “Women like me have to be very careful around men like you.” When had he become that kind of man? He figured it had been somewhere between his mother’s death and the latest clinging female who only wanted his name and his money.
“You aren’t the marrying kind.” She had told him with sad resignation marring her beautiful face. He would have agreed with her as recent as a month ago, but now...now he wasn’t so sure. The last month spent living under the same roof with her made him realize she was different than the women he had known in his past. She was independent and she didn’t want to control him. She was easy to be around and he found he liked her sense of humor. If only he had known—
He heard a sound in the darkened hallway. He turned his head to listen, hoping against hope it was the object of his angst. Soon, he saw the white ghostly vision of his bride in her nightgown coming toward him. Whatever had brought her downstairs so late, he was grateful for and glad she was here. And, he was going to do everything he could to convince her to stay.
Chapter 15
Olivia walked down the dark hallway to Christopher’s office without lighting a lamp. There was no need. She knew the way. Funny how she had grown to love this house in so little time. It was almost as if she belonged here from the beginning.
She stepped into the doorway and removed the glass globe from the lantern sitting on the wooden table by the door. The flicker of her match caught the lamp’s wick and it flared to illuminate the dark office.
“What are you doing up so late? Can’t sleep either?” a familiar voice spoke low in the semi-darkness.
Olivia swung around to see the man of her thoughts sitting at the desk, his hand cupping a glass of milk. She wanted to grill him about where he had been and whom he had been with. She wanted to throw herself into his arms and kiss him like he had kissed her this afternoon. But in the end, her common sense won out. Instead, she walked calmly to where he sat and set the lamp down, careful to keep her trembling fingers steady as possible.
“I suppose I could ask you the same question. I...I didn’t think you were home.”
She stopped talking for fear of giving her feelings away. It wouldn’t be safe for him to know how much she...what? Loved him? Dear God, when had that happened? She didn’t want to love him because she knew he would break her heart. Olivia closed her eyes against the truth and rubbed her temples, hoping to make her mind see more clearly.
“I’ve been home about an hour or so. I didn’t hear you up, so I stayed downstairs...to think. Do you have a headache? Here, let me help you,” Chance offered.
Before Olivia understood his intentions, he pushed his glass of milk toward her and rose to stand behind her. “Here, sit down and drink thi
s. It will help you sleep. At least that’s what I’ve always been told, but it never seemed to work for me.”
She sat in the chair he offered and felt his fingers massage her temple. She steeled herself against the onslaught of sensations his fingers had on her skin.
“If it doesn’t work, why do you keep trying?” She said, hating the breathy sound of her voice in the dimly lit room. She prayed he hadn’t noticed.
“Because my mother always said it would.”
Olivia forced her mind to focus on his words as her body focused on his hands.
“You said you stayed downstairs to think. About what? Unless it’s none of my business,” she added.
Could it be he wasn’t out cavorting with women at the gambling hall? Well, he hadn’t been for the last hour anyway. She refused to allow her mind wander past that glorious fact.
“See? Now doesn’t that feel better?” he whispered over her shoulder, his breath caressing the back of her neck, his fingers tangled in her loose curls.
She realized Chance had misunderstood the reason for her sigh, but it was better to leave the misunderstanding between them. It was safer that way. “Yes, that feels much better.”
“And to answer your question, there are several things that I’m confused about. I find quiet reflection helps. I would like to share my thoughts with you because I feel it is very much your business, because—” He pulled her to her feet and into his arms. Olivia’s breath caught in her throat and she warred with herself whether to stay or go.
“Because?” she whispered.
Chance leaned down and she knew he was going to kiss her again. She should probably go upstairs and lock herself in her room, but she ignored the voice of reason and leaned into him instead. “Because,” he murmured. “Miss Olivia Palmer Garrison, I can’t stop thinking about you.”
Olivia’s breath caught and her heart stuttered. She knew his words might not be from his heart and she also knew there would be consequences tomorrow if she let her defenses down. There always were for the woman left behind. But tonight, she just wanted to lean into his strong arms and hold on tight. She knew he didn’t love her, but she hoped that maybe someday he would look back on this night with fondness.
He pulled her into his arms and kissed her like she wanted to be kissed. He pulled away from her and looked down, into her eyes.
“Olivia,” he whispered. His breath sent chills of anticipation across her skin. “I can’t promise you all of my tomorrows. No man can. And, I don’t know what the future holds for either of us. But I can say with the utmost certainty, I want you more than I’ve ever wanted any woman in my life, and I’d be honored if you would allow me the privilege, the honor, of coming to your bed tonight and loving you like you were meant to be loved.”
Her heart hiccupped in her chest and her pulsed raced. Madame Wigg’s words reminded her there would be consequences to her actions and she should make her decisions with the practical application of her brain and not allow her emotions to rule.
But right now, right this minute, she didn’t care about consequences and practical applications. She wanted her emotions to rule. She wanted to feel this man’s arms around her. She wanted him to press her down into the bed with his weight. And she wanted to be loved like a woman was meant to be loved by the man she desired.
“Chance,” she whispered and took his hand in hers. There would be plenty of time for regrets tomorrow. Tonight, she would welcome the quiet starry night for it would no longer be a place of sadness and regret for all the possibilities she had been denied.
Olivia blew out the lantern on the desk and led her husband down the dark hall and up the stairs. Olivia was not naïve. She knew Chance’s capitulation didn’t mean he would stay forever. He had even warned her of the possibility. But it was the tiny seed of hope that this night could lead to something memorable, something to be treasured and remembered when she was left alone that made her choose to take a leap of faith.
Taking one stair at a time, Chance’s hand in hers, the bittersweet memories of Christopher’s letters pouring his heart out to her reminded her that to love someone would always hold the possibility there would also be pain and disappointment.
He had wrote to her of his pain when his beloved Tessa died and how he didn’t think he could go on living. “But I wouldn’t trade one minute of our time together if it meant not having known the joy of loving and being loved by the woman I adored. I will hold those memories dear for the rest of my life.”
Olivia reached the landing of the second floor and felt the weight of her decision. She hesitated just outside her bedroom door.
“Olivia, are you having doubts about this?” Chance whispered to her in the dark hallway. She turned to him, he was standing so close she felt his breath ruffle her hair.
She gave him a wistful smile. “I’m a practical woman, remember? If I were having doubts about inviting you into my bed, you wouldn’t have made it this far.”
She saw his grin in the dark and he leaned in to kiss her, but she placed her hand on his hard chest to stop him. “Not here.”
Without a shadow of a doubt in her mind, she knew when she stepped across that threshold, her life would change forever, and she was ready.
Olivia turned and led this man she had fallen in love with into her bedroom and closed the door behind them. She knew she would have regrets, but she would rather allow herself this night with this man she had fallen in love with than to always wonder what could have been. Then, she stepped into his arms with her eyes wide open and her heart for the taking.
Chapter 16
* * *
Chance opened his eyes, and for a moment he was confused about where he was. Then, his memories of last night came flooding back to him and he shot a look toward his bed partner in the bright morning light. She wasn’t there.
He lay still and listened for sounds of his family’s activities. All was quiet. He lay amidst the tangled bedsheets and replayed his night with Olivia.
He could admit to himself he almost bolted when she took his hand and led him up the stairs to her room. It was his old knee-jerk reaction to run from a woman offering him her charms because there was always the looming consequences of a wedding noose in his near future, but when Olivia came to him and offered herself to him without the usual demands of forever and always, he found her trust in him humbling. And refreshing.
When she came to him, he had been surprised to find her still a virgin, after all, she was five and twenty years old. He had always just assumed there were other lovers and he had been jealous of every one of them.
He grinned up at the tin ceiling of his brother’s room. Secretly pleased to find Olivia had never been with another man, he had staked his claim on her last night. He wasn’t certain he could live up to her confidence in him, but he would damn sure try.
The morning sun peeped into the stained-glass window casting rainbows of color across the hardwood floor.
“Where is everyone?” He rose from the bed and pulled on his clothes from the night before. He turned to leave when he saw a handwritten note tented on Olivia’s vanity with his name on it.
He picked up the note and read:
“Dearest Chance, I thought perhaps after last night, you would like some time to yourself since you said your brain works best when it is quiet.
It would appear you have much to think about since there are several telegrams that arrived for you this morning. I placed them on your desk. It seems you’ve been busy these last few weeks. And here I thought you and I were finally able to see eye to eye on things.
“The children and I have gone to see the progress of the new school’s construction. Then, we will be staying with the Hanovers until something equitable can be arranged between you and me.
“Please do not concern yourself about me or whether I will make new demands upon you. I am made of sturdy stock and have no delusions about what last night might mean for us. If you will recall, I am a practical woman and I
made my decision with my brain fully engaged.
Olivia
Chance re-read the letter again, his heart sick with regret. He rushed downstairs and found the offending telegrams and read them one by one.
These were all answers to the telegrams he sent when he first arrived. The train tickets. The boarding school. The renovation of his home in Boston.
He had sent new messages, but Olivia didn’t know that. She thought—
There was a simple solution to this mess. He would simply find her and explain. He had copies of the telegrams somewhere. He would find them and show them to her.
If this was her way of letting him off the hook and keeping him at arm’s length, she had another thing coming. He didn’t want to be off the hook. And if she thought otherwise—
He stopped in mid-thought. This was exactly what he had been afraid of all of his life. He had run from marriage because he saw it as a burden. A responsibility. An obligation. He hadn’t wanted the duty of being a father or a husband because he thought it would interfere with his freedom and happiness.
Chance rose from his desk and headed upstairs to his bedroom to wash and dress. He had to find Olivia and explain.
He poured water from the pitcher into the basin and splashed cold water on his face. He looked into the mirror hanging on the wall and stared at his reflection.
He didn’t look any different. Still the same strong jaw line. The same dark hair. He crooked his mouth. The same mocking smile.
Olivia’s Obligation: The Alphabet Mail Order Brides Page 13
