Minnie stared back at him and tried to smile.
“Oh…” he sighed, and motioned her inside.
“Like the way you’re keepin’ house,” she muttered, then stopped when he shot a warning finger up in the air. “You all right, Thomas?”
“No, I am not. I am most certainly not,” he said, placing his gun back on the dresser.
“Can we talk about Cora? I know about you askin’ her and all.”
He gazed absently at her for a second. “So you’re here to tell me it’s over, right? Even though I tried to explain everything to her last night.”
“Honey, I don’t really know. Cora ain’t talkin’ except to say she’s comin’ over tonight to tell you her decision.”
“It’s useless…so useless.” He sank back on the bed, his shoulders hunched over like an old man’s.
Minnie cleared her throat, flung a couple of his shirts off of the bed and sat down next to him. “I’ve been thinking. I suddenly remembered something important about Cora.” She watched for a reaction, got none, and continued. “I’ve been remembering what Cora did when she was really happy. More than that, it was when she trusted someone completely. She did it with our mama and our papa.
He raised his head to listen.
“It was just a little thing. She did it with you.”
“She used to place her hand over her heart. I do remember,” he said. “She doesn’t do that anymore with me.”
“Or anyone else, for that matter.”
He stared at her.
“So all’s I’m sayin’ is when she comes over tonight, before she even speaks, if she does that same thing, you know she really trusts you. If she bits her lip or…”
“Rubs her neck.”
“Yes, rubs her neck, why then you’re in trouble. So just remember, hand over heart, if she’s open to you, biting her lip or rubbing her neck if she ain’t.” She reached out for his hand. “Just thought it might be easier for you to prepare yourself before she spoils anything by talkin’.”
She got up and holding out her arms, gave him a warm hug. “God bless, Thomas. Hope it works out. Even if it don’t, Cora loves you, whether she’ll admit it or not.”
His smile was closer to a grimace, but he managed to lead her out into the hall and gently kiss her cheek. “Good bye, Minnie, and thanks.”
* *
By quarter to eight he could feel his pulse picking up. By eight-thirty, he reached for one of the hotel’s courtesy glasses and poured himself a stiff one. Here goes nothin’ was his last thought before the familiar burn went down his gullet and the double knock echoed in the emptied out room.
His pulse raced, as he stumbled to the door, leaned his head against the wood, and tried to gather some courage. He had never noticed a slight creak in the door hinges before, but he sure did now as he opened up to his future.
It was her. Smartly dressed, her hair shiny, her face––was it guarded? He couldn’t tell. He drew a very deep breath and prayed.
Suddenly, she placed her hand over her heart and smiled.
Instantly, he jerked her into his arms, the intensity of her kiss matching his own. A tangle of arms, hands, necks, hair, they stripped off each other’s clothing and fell hard against the desk together, still kissing, still yanking off her petticoat, his pants, her undergarments, his long-johns so they could explore each other’s naked body. All the while, the room felt as if it were swirling around them, their breaths more like gasps and moans as they shifted over toward the bed. No longer teenagers, their mature needs were different––hers, urgent, almost aggressive; his, needing to savor every inch of her. She no longer thought of the phrases the doves had told Ellie so long ago, because she had desires of her own as they completed the lovemaking they had missed all these years.
When it was over, cuddled silently against each other, their chests still heaving, each one satiated, she finally spoke.
“So, it’s on to Cheyenne?”
“Yes. On to Cheyenne.” Thomas paused. “What made you finally change your mind, sweetheart?”
“Sweetheart. I like that,” she said, with a tiny, high-pitched giggle.
“Well?”
“Of course, once I knew you didn’t really desert me that made all the difference. And I knew Minnie and Ellie would support me, no matter where I went. But in the end, it was something else.”
He wrapped both of his arms around her and nuzzled her neck.
“What was it?” His words came out like a low-pitched hum.
“Trust. I watched Ellie have it so easily with Brett, and it even came for Minnie, whenever Bradford Jones was around. So I began to think, why not just give it a try?”
Sitting up, he looked down at her, with her hair loose around her shoulders, the rose in her cheeks like old times behind the barn.
One of his eyebrows arched. “As simple as that?”
She smiled. “Yes, as simple as that.” Chuckling, she pulled him back onto her.
THE END
THANK YOU:
Thank you so much for taking the time to read The Dolan Girls. I hope you enjoyed it; I had a blast researching that time period! If you did enjoy reading it, I would certainly appreciate a short review of it up on Amazon (See “Before You Go” at the end of this book to give a short review). Alas, we authors count on those.
I would love to hear from you directly as well:
Pinterest - I have some good history boards that are getting a lot of attention—history, vintage clothing, older films—so be sure to check it out.
Website/Blog
Twitter
Facebook Author Page
Google+
Goodreads
Amazon Author Central
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Books are usually collaborative efforts and THE DOLAN GIRLS is certainly no exception. To my astute beta readers: Donalie Beltran, Sharon Cox, Judith Kilcullen, Judith Lucci, Elaine Marshall, Amy Metz, Graydon Miller, and Steven Ramirez, all of your input/insights were truly invaluable. Thanks as well to Vivek Rajan Vivek for steering me into this genre in the first place, and last, but by no means least, to Patricia Zick, for all her fine editing, formatting, and endless support.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Now, please understand, I have always scoffed at astrology pickup lines such as, “What sign are you, baby?” and I would never base my entire future on astrology, but recently, I was flabbergasted to read the following list of astrological traits which explained so much of whom I am.
According to this list, Geminis are socially outgoing, adjustable, restless, creative, sometimes unable to pay attention to details, good with their hands, easily distracted, anxious, humorous, and love to share. Suggested careers for this sign include writer, teacher, inventor, and craftsperson. Now, go check out my bio:
Wildly eclectic, I’ve worn a myriad of hats in my life. I started out as a classical/pop singer/composer. Next, I moved on to the professional world of production art and calligraphy. After that, came a long career as an award-winning quilt artist/teacher and an ESL/reading instructor. By the time I started writing my first story, I was a middle-aged English teacher, in a twenty-year marriage, with two teenage children. I couldn't be stopped. Before I had my first book published, my flash fiction short stories (See TALES TO COUNT ON) had already been published in descant 2008, Snowy Egret, Transcendent Visions, The Storyteller, and Down In the Dirt. When I was a professional quilter, I had several non-fiction quilt articles published through Traditional Quiltworks and Quilt World.
OTHER BOOKS BY S. R. MALLERY:
UNEXPECTED GIFTS
A TRUE AMERICAN FAMILY SAGA: Can we learn from our ancestors? Do our relatives’ behaviors help shape our own?
In Unexpected Gifts that is precisely what happens to Sonia, a confused college student, heading for addictions and forever choosing the wrong man. Searching for answers, she begins to read her family’s diaries and journals from America’s past: the Vietnam War, Woodstock, and Timothy Leary era
; Tupperware parties, McCarthyism, and Black Power; the Great Depression, dance marathons, and Eleanor Roosevelt; the immigrant experience and the Suffragists. Back and forth, the book journeys, linking yesteryear with modern life until finally, by understanding her ancestors' hardships and faults, she gains enough clarity to make some right choices.
SEWING CAN BE DANGEROUS AND OTHER SMALL THREADS
WHEN HISTORY, MYSTERY, ACTION, and ROMANCE ARE ALL ROLLED INTO ONE! These eleven short stories range from drug traffickers using hand-woven wallets, to a U.S. slave sewing freedom codes into her quilts; from a cruise ship murder mystery with a quilt instructor and a NYPD police detective, to a couple hiding Christian passports into a comforter in Nazi Germany; from an old Salem Witchcraft wedding quilt curse to a young seamstress in the infamous Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire; from a 1980’s Romeo and Juliet romance between a Wall Street financial ‘star’ and an eclectic fiber artist, to a Haight-Ashbury love affair between a professor and a macramé artist gone horribly wrong, just to name a few.
TALES TO COUNT ON
Curl up and enter the eclectic world of S. R. Mallery, where sad meets bizarre and deception meets humor; where history meets revenge and magic meets gothic. Whether it’s 500 words or 5,000, these TALES TO COUNT ON, which include a battered women’s shelter, childhood memories, Venetian love, magic photographs, PTDS fallout, sisters’ tricks, WWII spies, the French Revolution, evil vaudevillians, and celebrity woes, will remind you that in the end, nothing is ever what it seems.
The Dolan Girls Page 24