Tracie Peterson - [New Mexico Sunset 04]

by Come Away, My Love

  Copyright

  978-1-55748-924-1

  Come Away, My Love © 1999 by Tracie Peterson. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without written permission of the publisher.

  All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise noted, are taken from the King James Version of the Bible.

  Published by Barbour Publishing, Inc., P.O. Box 719, Uhrichsville, Ohio 44683, www.barbourbooks.com

  Our mission is to publish and distribute inspirational products offering exceptional value and biblical encouragement to the masses.

  Chapter 1

  There it goes again,” the pilot yelled over the roar of the Jenny’s engine. “Don’t tell me you didn’t hear it that time, Flipflop.” The young man in grease-smeared khaki shrugged his shoulders.

  Lieutenant John Monroe, the Jenny’s pilot, switched off the engine and leaped to the ground as though he might take issue with the confused private. Flipflop, as he was affectionately called because of his nervous stomach at flight time, backed up defensively.

  “I mean it, Preacher, I didn’t hear it missing out!”

  John stopped short and offered a grin. “Then you take her up.”

  The private smiled back. He knew John’s words were said in jest only. There was not a pilot around who would let another man take up his lady, if he were able to fly her himself.

  “I’ll help you take the engine apart again,” Flipflop offered.

  “Naw,” John said and tossed aside his leather cap and goggles. “Go get some grub. I’ll stay here and see if I can’t figure out which cylinder it is. Say, where’s that worthless brother of mine?”

  Flipflop shrugged. “Last time I saw J.D., I mean Sergeant Monroe, he was heading to the mess. You want me to send him out here?”

  John shook his head. “No, go on. J.D.’s no doubt managed to finagle a pass into town. I won’t have him feeling obligated to help me here.” The private shrugged again and gratefully headed to the mess tent.

  John gave the Curtiss Jenny a determined stare. “You are sure one cantankerous lady today,” he muttered. At twenty-five, John had realized his dream of flying. It was a young dream, just like the art itself. But nevertheless, it was in his blood, and John could think of nothing that gave him more enjoyment and pleasure than soaring overhead, master of the Jenny.

  He laughed at that thought. “Some master. I can’t even figure out what’s wrong with you. Why don’t you talk to me, Honey?”

  The biplane sat in smug silence. If she were a flesh-and-blood woman, the cold-shouldered indifference could not have been more simply stated. But she was not a woman, not in the sense of flesh and blood, and she certainly was not a lady.

  Yet, John could not help but grin at her in the same affectionate manner that he would have his beloved Joelle. Ah, Joelle, he thought. He could see her dark eyes blazing with the same love and excitement he felt.

  “Pity the woman who shares a man with his plane.” Those famed words from John’s good friend and commander, Major Bob Camstead, were followed up with a haunting prediction: “She’ll always run a close second.”

  But John did not think so. He considered Joelle Dawson to rank right up there with his aggravating Jenny. The only problem was, would Joelle see it the same way?

  John heard the unmistakable approach of another Jenny overhead and stared out wistfully to where she was. There was absolutely nothing like it, he thought. John watched on in silence as the pilot cut back the engine and bounced to a rough landing with the Jenny’s tailskid absorbing most of the impact.

  “Flying up there gives a man a great belief in the reality of God,” Bob Camstead had once told him. “But landings were sure to get you religious in a quick way, if you weren’t already set in your thoughts.”

  John smiled and went to work on the engine. He had no doubt about the existence of God, nor of the love and peace that could be found when an obedient heart sought His way. Landing Jennys on rocky desert strips had not given John religion, but it had kept him regular in his prayer life.

  

  It was late that night when John finally managed to locate the problem with the engine. After a quick bite of food and a shower, John sat down to write to Joelle. While sweating over the engine, he had made up his mind that he was going to ask her to be his wife. Picking up his pencil, he wondered how he should go about it.

  He started to write, then shook his head and discarded the piece of paper and picked up a clean sheet. Maybe she would think it was too soon. What if he had misunderstood her feelings? No, he reasoned, that was not possible. He put the pencil down and thought for a moment. It had to be just right.

  The well-worn Bible that he had brought with him to army life sat on his bed. It had been his habit to make it the first thing he read when he woke up in the morning and the last thing he saw before going to sleep at night. Picking it up, John began to leaf through the pages.

  

  Joelle Dawson fairly danced through the kitchen of Piñon Canyon Ranch. Her tiny frame seemed as light as air, and her face was radiant in its joy.

  Joelle’s sister-in-law, Daughtry, rolled her eyes and suppressed a giggle. “John must have written another letter,” she mused to her mother, Maggie Lucas.

  Maggie watched the dark-eyed Joelle float from the room into the hallway. “She’s completely gone over him, isn’t she?” Maggie laughed, then looked back to her daughter. “Of course, you are just as bad, oh daughter-of-mine.”

  “I beg your pardon?” Daughtry feigned indignation.

  “Oh, don’t play ingénue with me, Daughtry Dawson. You still get gaga every time Joelle’s brother comes waltzing through the door. A body might think that Nicholas Dawson hung the stars and the moon in the sky.”

  “I’m no worse than you are about Daddy,” Daughtry countered. “I’ve seen the way you run to the mirror and check to make sure you look your best when you hear him coming up the walk.” The look on her mother’s face caused Daughtry to laugh, and Maggie could not help but join her.

  

  Joelle could hear the two women giggling like schoolgirls as she moved away from the main section of the ranch house and down the west wing. Here, the Lucases had kindly provided her a room to live in when their daughter, Daughtry, and son-in-law, Nick, had come to the ranch to anticipate the birth of their second child. Joelle was a kind of tag-along who had happily lived the last few months on Nick and Daughtry’s ranch. The youngest of her family, Joelle had come to stay on with her brother in order to help care for Kent, their firstborn, and keep house for Daughtry.

  At least that is what she had told her mother and father when she had pleaded to be allowed to do the deed. They had had little idea that she saw this as the best way to position herself close to the man she would come to love.

  Joelle had met John Monroe at the Lucas’s Christmas party just two years earlier. He was not the kind of guy who caught everyone’s eye when he walked into the room, but when Joelle first caught sight of him, she had immediately felt her heart skip a beat. He was a half-foot taller than she, with sandy blond hair and the most stunning blue eyes she had ever seen in her life.

  That evening had been the most perfect one she had ever known. Although there had been many other men trying to get Joelle’s attention that night, she had enjoyed talking to John the most. Daughtry alone had five brothers and John had a younger brother who was not to be outdone by his sibling. There was also another young man, John�
�s cousin, Sam, but no one else mattered much after she had met John. By the time the party was over, Joelle knew that John Monroe was the man she intended to marry.

  Clutching the latest letter from her beloved John, Joelle dreamily closed the door behind her as she sought her privacy. Unable to contain her excitement any longer, she tore open the envelope and read the words of Song of Solomon 2:10-11.

  “My beloved spake, and said unto me, Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away. For, lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone.”

  Joelle loved John’s romantic notions and the way he used Scripture to court her. Her own faith in God was still a tender mystery to her, but John’s was robust and invigorating. She found strength in it. She continued to read.

  My beloved Joelle,

  I would like to be at your side when you read these words, but the army doesn’t care how or when a man proposes his love. They only care that when duty calls, I answer and that I do it in double-time.

  Joelle felt her heart beat faster. This was the letter for which she had been waiting. After what had seemed an eternity of time, Joelle knew herself to be hopelessly in love with the handsome army lieutenant, and she could only hope he felt the same. She closed her eyes, savoring the letter, wanting to make the moment last as long as possible.

  She pictured in her mind John’s tousled, blond hair blowing across his forehead and falling haphazardly across his sky blue eyes. She had not seen him in person since his sister, Angeline, had married Daughtry’s brother, Gavin Lucas. That was nearly three months ago, not that it mattered. She could still hear his voice, soft against her ear. . .still see him waving good-bye from the cockpit of his biplane.

  “Oh, John,” she whispered his name as praise and turned her eyes back to the paper in hand.

  Once, it was only a dream of mine that I might find a woman to love. A woman with whom I could plan a future. You, Joelle, are that woman. I can’t imagine life without you, and every day that passes without knowing that you officially belong to me grieves me as surely as anything has ever grieved me. I know this lacks the flowers and candlelight that you deserve, but, Joelle, I am hopelessly in love with you and. . .

  Joelle paused to take a deep breath before she continued reading. ask, with humble, loving heart, that you would consent to be my wife

  Joelle let out a scream of delight without even being consciously aware of what she had done. The sound of hurried footsteps in the hallway soon brought Maggie through the doorway, followed by the slower moving Daughtry.

  “What is it, Joelle?” Maggie questioned in worried overtones. “Are you hurt?”

  Joelle clutched the letter to her breast. She shook her head and breathlessly replied, “He’s asked me to marry him!”

  Daughtry leaned against the door and smiled. “Is that all?”

  The three women were soon embracing one another joyously. Joelle was the first to pull away. She could not stand still for very long, and Maggie laughed at the way the petite woman flitted from one corner of the room to the other.

  “I’m so happy, I shall cry,” Joelle said, the emotion heavy in her voice. “Oh, Daughtry, Maggie, this is exactly what I’ve hoped and prayed for.”

  “I can’t imagine a finer wife for John,” Maggie stated, meaning every word.

  “Or a better husband for Joelle,” Daughtry added. “I certainly wouldn’t wish any of my brothers on her.”

  “Oh, hush,” Maggie said, waggling a finger at her daughter. “You have excellent brothers, and what with Gavin married to John’s little sister, I have only four others to marry off.”

  “Good luck,” Daughtry continued her mock harangue. “You’re going to have to send away for wives. The women around here know them too well to be taken in by that Lucas charm.”

  All three women laughed, but each knew the merriment was not credited to Daughtry’s words. It was clearly Joelle’s joyous expectation of marriage to John.

  “We should go right away and tell Lillie,” Maggie suggested, thinking of the woman who was her lifelong best friend and John’s mother. “No doubt John will write to his folks when he gets a chance, but a mother likes to know these things right away, and Lillie won’t be any exception.”

  Joelle sobered a bit. “Do you think she’ll approve? She won’t think it rushed, will she?”

  “John’s mother is as romantic as the next woman,” Maggie said, reaching out to smooth back a strand of Joelle’s dark hair from her face. “Besides, I think Lillie already has a good idea of what John’s intending to do.”

  “Honestly?” Joelle’s eyes were wide in anticipation of Maggie’s response.

  “She told me, not two days ago, that she thought John was quite sweet on you,” Maggie replied. “In fact, she commented that knowing John’s penchants for moving right ahead with things and his rather romantic outlook on life, that she expected to have a daughter-in-law by spring.”

  “Oh, Maggie!” Joelle gasped. “That’s wonderful. Then you think she really won’t mind? I mean, I know John will want to get married right away.”

  “I don’t think she’ll mind at all. Why don’t you get a letter of acceptance off to him, and when you’re finished we can ride into town together and post it, then go see Lillie.”

  Joelle threw herself into Maggie’s arms. “I don’t know how to thank you. You’ve all been so kind and good to me.”

  “No thanks are necessary,” Maggie said, giving Joelle a hug. “You’ve been a blessing to Daughtry and that in turn has blessed me. What with the way Kent runs around here like a wild banshee—”

  “Speaking of my son,” Daughtry said with a sudden worried tone, “I’d better locate him and see what mischief he’s gotten himself into.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Joelle said, pulling away from Maggie. “When Jordy brought me this letter, I traded him Kent.”

  Daughtry grinned. “That ought to teach my baby brother to go fetching mail for moon-eyed young ladies.”

  “I am not moon-eyed,” Joelle protested, but very weakly. “I’m in love! And, I’m getting married!”

  About fifteen minutes later, Joelle appeared in the kitchen, her readied response in hand. Maggie was nowhere to be seen, but Daughtry was vigorously kneading down bread dough. Glancing up, Daughtry could not help but smile. Joelle had apparently not only written the letter but had also changed her clothes and rearranged her hair.

  “Wanting to make a good impression on your future mother-in-law, I see?” Daughtry teased.

  “Oh, Dotty,” Joelle answered, staring down at her outfit, “do I look perfectly awful?”

  “Not at all. I think you look very fit. Mother is having the buggy brought around. I don’t know why Daddy won’t just get a car and make it easier on all of us.”

  Joelle wriggled her noise. “They smell funny, anyway.”

  “So do horses,” Daughtry laughed.

  “I guess that’s so. But truly, do you think I look all right? I was going to wear the blue serge but it looked too stuffy. Then I tried on my green skirt with the plum piping, but it just didn’t seem right, either.”

  Daughtry left her bread, wiping her hands as she came to where Joelle stood. “Turn around and let me see.” She motioned with her hand and Joelle pirouetted in slow motion. Joelle had finally settled on a lavender print dress. “Yes, you look just fine. That dress really sets off your figure.”

  “What about my hair?” Joelle questioned, her hand going up to readjust her hat. It was a wide-brimmed straw affair with a lavender scarf to tie it smartly to her head. “Does this hat seem a bit too much?”

  “Don’t all hats, these days?” Daughtry questioned lightly. “Nick says if they get any larger we can just turn them over and use them as laundry baskets.”

  Joelle looked at her sister-in-law in horror. “Does it look that bad?�
��

  Daughtry laughed. “The hat is fine. You hair is perfect. Your face is free of smudges and dirt, although given the ride into Bandelero, it won’t take long to rectify that. Joelle, relax. You know Lillie Monroe adores you. She’ll want only the very best for her son and for you.”

  “I suppose you’re right,” Joelle replied, nervously biting at her lower lip. “It’s just that I love him so much. I’m so afraid something will happen to spoil it all.”

  “Trust in the Lord, Joelle,” Daughtry advised. “He’s the One Who holds the future. If it’s right for you and John to marry, God will see to it that nothing else interferes.”

  “But what if it isn’t what God wants?” Joelle questioned, suddenly realizing for the first time that perhaps there was a larger stumbling block to her happiness than she had even allowed herself to imagine.

  “If it’s not right, Joelle, then you certainly don’t want to defy God and marry John.” Joelle’s panic-stricken face caused Daughtry to hurry ahead. “But I know John, and I know he wouldn’t have asked you to marry him without having first asked God. He must feel quite confident about it, or he wouldn’t have come this far.”

  Joelle’s smile was back in place. “Of course, you’re right! John would never propose marriage without feeling sure that God was leading him in this. All right, Daughtry. I shan’t worry another moment about Lillie. I know God will see to the entire matter. I just know it!”

  

  John was up to his elbows in grease when Flipflop approached him with Joelle’s letter. The Jenny was causing him problems again, though in all honesty it was not her fault. The army was experimenting with the loads she could carry. They continued to add and take away various items from the plane until John was not all that certain if the engine had been removed by direct order of his superiors.

  “You got a letter, Preacher,” Flipflop said with a grin. “I think it’s the one you’ve been waiting for.”

  John quickly picked up a rag and wiped his hands. His face was smudged from the oil, and his hair, which was due for a trimming anyway, had taken on a darker appearance from his time spent over and inside the Jenny’s V-8 engine.