With This Kiss: A First-In Series Romance Collection

by Kerrigan Byrne

  "I do, Pastor," Nez Beath answered.

  The preacher nodded and Althea's uncle retreated into the crowd. There was a moment of conferring within the group and then Paisley took Althea's arm and with Eben in their wake they followed Pastor Jay to the top of the Marrying Stone. They took their places above the crowd where everyone could see them and they could see the heavens above.

  The sun shone down like an angel glow upon the young couple as Pastor Jay read the wedding vows and they repeated them. There was no wedding ring, such a costly display among mountain folk was thought unnecessary. But a prayer for the couple and all those present was offered. Then the preacher, with a broad smile of satisfaction at a job well done, declared the couple wed.

  Paisley didn't kiss his bride, but smiled at her before he turned to nod at his cousin Eben who placed a small silver coin in the pastor's palm. His part of the ceremony now completed and paid for, Pastor Jay offered a handshake to the groom and a fatherly kiss on the bride's forehead, before he and Eben walked down the hill at the side of the Marrying Stone.

  Smiling, Paisley and Althea turned to face the crowd who waited in silence. As the couple surveyed the gathering of family and friends, the moment of quiet lingered in the midday sun. Finally, Paisley grasped Althea's hand. She gave him a nervous grin and then a nod of approval. In an instant the two made the short jump from the crown of the Marrying Stone and became, in the eyes of God and man, husband and wife.

  A roar of approval broke from the crowd, punctuated by applause and whistles. The most exuberant of the folks surged forward to compliment the bride, tease the groom, and congratulate both.

  "I think weddings are pretty nice," Jesse declared with a deep, heartfelt sigh. "I suspect it's almost as good as being married."

  Roe's glance strayed to Meggie and was caught by her own look. Raw, exposed, and vulnerable, they stared at each other for long tense moments remembering their own leap into a new life and what had happened since. In his memory Roe could feel the soft give of her body beneath him. Simultaneously he could hear her telling him to go on his way. She didn't need or want him. She'd find someone else after he was gone. A primal hurt seemed to stab him in his heart. He couldn't understand it, but it was real and it was painful. And somehow he knew only this woman could heal it.

  "Meggie—"

  Bringing a hand up to her mouth, she stopped the words that she might have, in that moment, uttered, and hurriedly turned away.

  Eager to put distance between herself and Roe Farley, Meggie hurried through the crowd of people, her heart pounding. How could Roe Farley always ensnare her like that? How could he always catch her unaware, with her feelings exposed? Like Jesse, she'd always thought weddings to be pretty nice. And she always thought that her marriage would be a dream come true. But dreams were only pleasant for a very short time, and reality went on forever. Meggie Best had fallen in love with a prince in a dream and that prince didn't exist.

  She made her way to the gaggle of young girls who were her friends. They hugged her excitedly, each a little teary-eyed and awed by having witnessed the wedding ceremony. Polly could hardly keep her emotions in check. Mavis rhapsodized over Althea's lovely homemade gown. Alba giggled about the gentlemen's obvious inebriation. And Eda tried to pretend that she was totally bored by the entire occasion.

  The bride and groom made their way through the crowd to the shade tree where Granny Piggott waited for them. As if the two distant young relatives were her very own children, the old woman got to her feet and cried for joy as she hugged them both happily. Watching the sight, Meggie felt a strange hurtful tugging in her heart and turned back to her girlfriends as if they were sturdy flotsam in a stormy sea.

  "We were almost late," she said. "Did I miss anything?"

  "Only half the fun," Eda Piggott answered quickly. "We were all watching the bride wait to see if the groom was going to show up."

  "Oh, Eda!" Polly complained. "Everybody knew that Paisley would show up."

  "Althea didn't appear concerned at all. Although I certainly would have been if my future husband had been out all night with that no-good Eben Baxley."

  "They are first cousins," Mavis said. "Paisley couldn't be expected to ignore him."

  "Well, if you ask me," Eda replied snidely, "Paisley seems to enjoy Eben's company a good deal more than he does Althea's."

  "Oh, for heaven's sake, Eda." Polly was losing patience with her friend. "As quickly as that courtship went, they must be in love."

  Eda sniffed. "Love? Paisley was calling on Meggie just last winter. He certainly got over her in a hurry."

  Meggie flushed bright pink at the implication. "Sometimes that's just the way. People do fall in love overnight," she said.

  "I suppose, I wouldn't know about that," Eda said, looking with abject disdain at Meggie. "Of course the new Mrs. Farley could explain it to us."

  "What do you mean?"

  "I mean you didn't have any courtship at all, does that mean love or just that you were desperate to grab hold onto the man?"

  The blush fled Meggie's cheeks as quickly as it had come, leaving her chalky pale.

  "Eda, now you stop that!" Polly snapped. "Meggie's business is her own. And her marriage to Mr. Farley is definitely her business. If she wanted us to know about it, she'd tell us."

  "It's not that I don't want to tell you about it," Meggie assured them quickly. "It's—"

  Meggie hated the lie that she'd gotten herself into and she detested having to sustain it among her friends. She would tell them the truth, she decided, but only as much as she could stand.

  "I do love him," she whispered softly. "And I'm glad that we jumped the Marrying Stone. I don't regret it for a moment."

  She had carefully avoided any comment about Roe's feelings and she was grateful that no one thought to question.

  She looked up into the eyes of her friends and saw only happiness. Except for Eda, whose nose was still in the air, her friends were glad for her. Her joy was theirs and they were thrilled to share it. Sadly, Meggie knew they wouldn't be if they learned the whole truth.

  "I need to speak to Althea," she said.

  Hurriedly, she clasped one hand after another in a gesture of friendship before she stepped away from the group.

  Eda sniffed. "Married talk, I suppose. Too important to be shared with the likes of us."

  Alba shook her head and rolled her eyes dramatically before smiling at Meggie. "Go ahead and give Althea your good wishes," she said. "We'll keep Eda here. She's so green, she should be growing in a garden."

  Meggie barely heard the young woman's huff of complaint and the giggles of the other girls as she made her way through the crowd toward the bride and groom. The mood of the people she passed was cheerful and welcoming. Time and again she was greeted with her own congratulations and polite inquiries about her father's health and her new husband. It was only when she reached the newly wedded couple that she realized that Jesse and Roe were already there.

  Meggie hesitated for a moment; she thought to redirect her steps elsewhere, but quickly concluded that with Eda and the other girls watching and the whole mountain in attendance, she could hardly let on that she was avoiding either her husband or her brother.

  Casually, as if it were planned, she stepped up beside the two men. Jesse, red-faced and stammering a little, was holding his fiddle out for Althea to examine.

  "I can make real pretty music for your wedding, Miss Althea," he said. "I don't mind that you didn't ask me, I brung my fiddle anyways."

  Paisley Winsloe's expression was sour and he made a point of not looking directly at Jesse. But the new bride smiled broadly.

  "That would be wonderful, Simple Jess," she said. "Having music will make it seem like a real wedding."

  "What do you mean 'a real weddin'?" Paisley asked, with more than a hint of belligerence in his tone.

  Althea blushed and glanced at him uneasily. "I mean like . . . like a big family wedding or something of that sort."
>
  "Lord, woman, ever' soul that the both of us knows is here," he replied impatiently.

  "Oh, I didn't mean—" She hesitated nervously. "It was a lovely wedding and your mother has been very kind. What I meant was . . ." She turned to Jesse once more. "I mean . . . thank you for bringing your fiddle to play for us. It is a wonderful wedding gift."

  "Wedding gift?" Jesse repeated her words and then smiled with pleasure. "Yep, it's my gift, my own, to you all from me and not no one else," he said.

  As Meggie watched her brother wander away, a satisfied grin upon his face, she heard Roe offering best wishes.

  "You're a lucky man, Winsloe," Roe said, good-naturedly mimicking the words that had been said by the other men present on several occasions already.

  Paisley chose to take exception to his words. His speech was still slurred slightly with drunkenness. "Indeed, I am," he said a little too loudly. "I got the prettiest gal on the mountain." He gave Althea only a momentary glance before giving Meggie a pointed look. "And she's got herself the most promising young farmer in Arkansas."

  His boastful words not being quite enough, Paisley's eyes narrowed as he glared at the two of them. "I got the best acres of corn bottom for miles," he declared. "And I own the finest pack of hunting dogs on this mountain. The woman that weds me gets her own milk cow, that just come fresh this summer."

  Meggie actually flinched at his bragging words, but reminded herself that liquor-speaking was not to be taken seriously whether it was sweet or raging. To her surprise she felt the touch of Roe's hand as he reached for her. Familiarly, he pulled her up next to his chest and wrapped his arm possessively around her waist. Meggie hardly had time to catch her breath before he spoke.

  "I can only hope, Mrs. Winsloe, that you and Paisley are as happy together as my bride and myself."

  As if to emphasize his words, Roe leaned down and kissed Meggie full on the mouth. Shocked, Meggie had no time to think, consider, or resist. She opened her mouth to the sweet familiar warmth of his and slid her arms lovingly around his neck.

  A hoot of laughter exploded behind them. With Meggie's gasp of surprise, they broke apart just in time to see Pigg Broody plant a wad of tobacco on the ground near their feet.

  "Good Lord, city feller," the old man declared loudly. "It's the other man's weddin'. Yer s'pose te be kissing his werman, not yer own."

  All the crowd nearby joined in Pigg's laughter.

  "Newlyweds," someone said by way of explanation.

  "Our hill gals are sure good for kissin', ain't they," Pigg commented.

  Roe grinned. "I couldn't agree with you more, Mr. Broody."

  "Don't let the city feller show ye up, Paisley," Pigg continued, pointing a bony finger at the other man. "Ain't ye gwonna give yer werman a buss?"

  With a good deal more force than was necessary, Paisley pulled Althea into his arms and planted a sloppy kiss upon her lips. She squealed a bit unhappily, but the sound only brought more laughter to the crowd around them.

  Meggie didn't wait for more. Shaking, she hurried through the crowd to the safety of the trees. It was only when she'd left the clearing and was running down the lonely wooded path that she heard the sound of Roe running behind her.

  "Meggie, wait!"

  She heard his call, but she ignored it. Inexplicably, tears were running down her cheeks. She wouldn't stop for him. She couldn't. She had to get away.

  The grip on her arm that brought her up short was surprising and she cried out. She hadn't thought him that close.

  "Meggie, what the devil?"

  "Let go of me!"

  He released her, but she didn't attempt to run anymore. She stared up into his face, angrily wiping the tears of frustration from her cheeks.

  "Why on earth did you say that?"

  "Say what?"

  "That you wished them as much happiness as us. What are you trying to do, put a hex charm on their marriage?"

  Roe stared down at her as if she'd lost her mind, then he shook his head. "Meggie, don't be foolish. I was just trying to take Paisley down a peg."

  "Oh, well," Meggie answered with feigned understanding. "After all he's just an ignorant mountain boy, that shouldn't be much trouble for a city scholar like yourself."

  Roe's brow furrowed. "It has nothing to do with mountain and city," he said. "Paisley was trying to make you regret turning him down."

  "He was just drunk."

  "He was full of liquor all right and full of himself. But if he had something to say to me about you, he should say it right out and not wait for a jug of donk to give him courage."

  "I can't imagine what anyone would have to say about me to you." Meggie's voice was raised in anger. "And as for the donk, well, you should know about liquor for courage. It was the reason that you reached out to me that night, wasn't it?"

  "Perhaps it was, Meggie," he answered honestly. "But I don't regret it."

  "Well, maybe I do regret turning Paisley Winsloe down."

  "What?"

  "I wish I'd married Paisley Winsloe."

  "I don't believe that for a moment."

  "Just because you don't want to marry me doesn't mean that he didn't."

  "Damn it, Meggie. I've asked you to marry me. I've asked and I've asked. I can't believe you'd marry Winsloe when you turned me down."

  "You should believe it. Paisley Winsloe can offer a woman a lot more than you can."

  Roe snorted unkindly. "Yes, I heard. A pack of hunting dogs and a milk cow."

  "I don't mean that."

  "Then what? The corn bottom?"

  "He can offer love."

  "Love?"

  "Yes, love," Meggie shot back. "He obviously is in love with his wife, and I think he would have loved me." She turned away from him, frustrated once more at the tears that gathered in the corners of her eyes. "You can't offer that, can you, Mr. J. Monroe Farley? Oh, you are willing to do your duty to me and pay for the crime of taking my innocence but you aren't willing to offer me love. You don't know a thing about love."

  Roe was silent, staring at her stiff, unyielding back. She couldn't read the expression on his face, nor could she see the sudden pallor of his skin.

  "Nobody has ever loved me," he told her quietly. "How could I know anything about love."

  "You couldn't," she answered, her voice as sad as it was certain. Still, she couldn't turn around to face him. "I don't blame you, Roe," she said. "I can't. But I won't accept a marriage based on anything less."

  His silence answered her unasked question.

  "I don't want you to stay here any longer," she continued. "I want to be married to a man who can love me and the longer you stay here, the more unlikely that is to ever be." The desolate sigh she uttered cut him to the quick. "Go back to the Bay State, Roe Farley. Go back there and maybe someday I can be as happy as Althea and Paisley."

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Roe Farley returned to the wedding celebration, or infare as it was called, with a heavy heart. Meggie had made her choice and it was very clear that even if he decided to stay through the winter it wouldn't work. His presence made her unhappy, and there was no longer a reason to delay. As he joined the noisy celebration he found that he no longer moved among the people of the community as if he were one of them. He was an observer now, an outsider. He wasn't really Meggie's husband and he never had been. He was leaving.

  As the evening wore on he listened to Jesse play his fiddle. He watched the exuberance of the people dancing— some square dancing and others doing a sprightly jig that he was sure came over from Scotland and Ireland along with the music he'd collected. He watched with a half-conceived idea of involving the dancing in his study, but his heart just wasn't in it. Dutifully he checked on Onery to see that he was not overdoing things. He allowed Granny Piggott to tease him again. Pastor Jay stopped to speak to him and asked once again about Roe's father, Gid Weston.

  Oather Phillips attempted a serious but stumbling conversation with him about politics. Labin Trace t
alked philosophically about the blending of the Christian wedding and the Marrying Stone superstition. And Roe made polite conversation with other folks on the sidelines of the dancing.

  People liked him. He was accepted. But it no longer mattered. He was leaving.

  Later that night he lay alone in the snug little bed that Granny Piggott had given to him and his bride and tried to make sense of his life, his future: A skunk in the wrong place, a need to gain the trust of the wary mountain folk, and a too close acquaintance with kill-devil donk had led him to this turning point in his life. And there was no way back, just one direction or the other.

  It was before the first light of dawn that he heard Meggie rouse to stoke the fire. There was no reason to wait longer. He got up and slipped on his duckins and went into the main room to join her.

  Kneeling upon the hearth, Meggie's honey-blond hair fell long and free down her back and glowed in the bright orange reflection of the new morning fire. The thin cotton josie that she wore hugged the contours of the body that he knew so well and that still enticed him. But this morning when she looked up at him, her blue-gray eyes weary from sleeplessness and slightly swollen from tears, his heart lurched. It was pain. It was sadness. It was disappointment. He was leaving. He was leaving Meggie Best behind.

  She stared at him in silence, and then as if she could feel the emotions in his gaze, she turned her attention once more to the fire.

  "I'll have some coffee ready in a bit," she said.

  He nodded. "Coffee would be nice."

  He glanced around the cabin. The austere, primitive room that had appeared so foreign and exotically unfamiliar only a few months ago now felt like home. A home he would never see again.

  Roe hesitated only a moment before speaking the words he had come to say. "I met a drummer at the celebration last night who is staying at Phillips's store," he said. “The man is going to head out for Calico Rock this morning. I'm going with him."

  Meggie looked up at him quickly. For a moment he hoped that she would beg him to stay. She needn't even beg. If she would merely ask him to or suggest that he might, then he wouldn't leave her. He would stay if she only asked.