Cinderfella (32 page)

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 certain. “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.”

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.