Wishes Read online

  Nellie did laugh when she was on top of the wall. What a day, she thought, what an incredible, unbelievable day! No standing over a hot stove or hanging wash; instead she was walking with a divine man who treated her as though she were beautiful.

  She stood on top of the wall and began to walk along the rim, her hands out for balance. Her childhood had ended one day when she was twelve years old, on the day her mother had died. For sixteen years there had been no foolishness, no wasted hours in her life.

  Jace stood back and watched her walking on the wall. She seemed to grow younger and happier by the minute. He made a leap, and in a moment he was on the wall with her, and when he held out his hand to her she took it. “If we fall, we go together,” he said, liking the idea of tumbling down the ditch together. “This way.”

  Nellie, holding his hand, followed him south along the wall toward Midnight Lake. A gust of wind came and she almost fell, but he caught her in his arms and pulled her close to him. Nellie had never been held by a man, and she could feel her heart pounding.

  With one swift movement Jace pulled the pins from her hair and threw them away. Nellie’s long, chestnut hair flowed to her shoulders.

  “Beautiful,” he whispered, and he put his cheek next to hers.

  Nellie thought perhaps her body might stop functioning.

  He pulled away, his face inches from hers. “I’d kiss you, but we seem to have an audience.”

  Nellie looked across the ditch to the park to see half a dozen young couples playing croquet, only now they had paused to look at Nellie and Jace on top of the wall. “Take me away before I die of embarrassment,” she whispered.

  “Your wish is my command.”

  For a flash Nellie thought of what her father would say when he heard of this, but she pushed the thought from her mind. Now was all that mattered.

  Jace got down first and then lifted his arms to help Nellie down. She had a moment of doubt that he could hold her, but she was beginning to trust him. He took her weight easily, and for a moment he held her to him.

  “People are watching,” she said, pushing him away while blushing and laughing.

  He took her hand and began to run with her, down one side of the ditch and up the other, then through the trees east of the lake, then further until they were at the edge of the park. Jace stopped, Nellie beside him, her heart pounding from the run, and looked out across the rolling countryside to the mountains. In the distance was a train, and they could hear its faraway whistle.

  I’m falling in love, Jace thought. Falling in love with this woman who looks at me as though I’m twenty feet tall. She looked at him through her thick lashes, and he felt as though he could do anything. Julie had looked at him like that. And when he was married to Julie he could do anything. And since her death he had been able to do nothing.

  But now, with every minute he spent with Nellie he was feeling more alive.

  Nellie was trying to tie up her hair, but she had no pins or string.

  “Leave it down,” he said, looking at her and wanting to touch her, but it was too soon yet. He knew he needed to go slowly with Nellie. And he was willing to go as slowly as needed.

  “All right,” Nellie said softly, and she put her hands at her sides.

  He led her up a little hill, then pulled her down to sit beside him, and when Nellie was seated he turned and put his head in her lap. Nellie was, for a moment, too shocked to respond.

  “Mr. Montgomery,” she at last managed to whisper, “I don’t think…” She trailed off. Somehow, in the lessening afternoon light, it seemed right that this heavenly man should rest his head in her lap. The whole afternoon had been magical, and this was just part of the magic. Tomorrow she would be back to cooking and cleaning, but today she was going to participate in the magic.

  He closed his eyes, and, tentatively, she put her fingertips to his temple to touch the soft hair there. He didn’t open his eyes but gave just a bit of a smile, enough to make the dimple in his cheek show. She ran her finger along that dimple.

  “Did you get your dimple from your father or your mother?” she asked softly. For this moment she could pretend she was like any other young woman and this man was hers.

  “Father’s family,” he said, not opening his eyes. “Montgomerys now and then have dimples, and sometimes the girls get red hair.”

  “And your mother’s family? What are they like?”

  Jace smiled as Nellie’s hand softly stroked his hair. “Talented. All the Worths are reeking with talent. My mother sings, her sister paints, my grandfather sings, my grandmother and her father paint.”

  “And what do you do?” Nellie was growing more bold as he lay there, his eyes closed. When Terel was small Nellie had held her and cuddled her, but as Terel grew older she’d wanted to be independent and hadn’t allowed Nellie to mother her. Today Nellie was beginning to remember how pleasant it was to touch another human being. She ran her fingers through his hair, feeling it curl as she mussed it. She touched his eyebrows, his chin, felt the whiskers just under the surface of his skin.

  “A little of both,” Jace said, his voice husky. It was difficult for him to remain quietly in her lap, difficult not to take her in his arms. Not yet, Montgomery, he told himself, not yet.

  “My mother tried to teach me to sing,” he said, “but I never had the discipline. I’d rather be on a boat. My grandmother taught me some about drawing, and I was able to use that to design a few boats for my father’s company, but mostly I just did what I could.”

  Nellie suspected he was being modest. Just as she’d sensed his loneliness when she’d first met him, she now knew he was not telling her all the truth. “No doubt your father paid you a salary in spite of the fact that you are a wastrel.”

  His eyes flew open. “I earned my keep. In fact, I designed a yacht that outran everything on the eastern seaboard. Neither of my brothers could design a rowboat, and I have some medals at home that—” He broke off, then grinned and settled back in her lap. “I’ll owe you for that, Nellie,” he said, smiling. She’d made him act like a bragging schoolboy. He picked up her hand and kissed the palm. “Now tell me about you.”

  “There’s nothing to tell,” she said honestly. “I have no talents, no accomplishments.” Except eating, she thought. One day she ate three whole cakes.

  “Music?”

  “No.”

  “Art?”

  “No.”

  “You can cook.”

  “So can a great many women.”

  He opened his eyes and frowned up at her. “You’re not telling me the truth. There must be something you like more than anything in the world.”

  “I love my family,” she said dutifully, but when he kept frowning at her she sighed. “Children. I’ve sometimes thought I’d like to have a dozen children.”

  “I would love to help you,” Jace said solemnly.

  It took Nellie a moment before she understood what he meant, then she blushed furiously and pushed at his shoulder. “Mr. Montgomery, you are wicked!”

  He leered at her, wiggling his eyebrows. “You make me feel wicked, Nellie.”

  She laughed. The sun was setting, and the day was growing dim. She didn’t know how it was possible, but he was even better-looking in the fading light.

  “Listen,” he said.

  There was a church at the north end of the park, and in the stillness they could hear a Christmas carol.

  “Choir practice,” Nellie whispered. “For the services on Christmas Eve.”

  “Christmas,” Jace said softly. “Last Christmas I don’t even remember where I was, but I got drunk and stayed that way for two days.”

  “Because of your wife?”

  Jace sat up and looked at Nellie, looked at her lovely face, then put his hand on her cheek, then touched her hair. He looked down at her body, at her big breasts, her waist over hips that he’d like to put his hands on. He wondered if her thighs were as white as the skin on her neck.

  It sudde