FOREVER ASHLEY
By Lori Copeland
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to events or locales, is entirely coincidental.
FOREVER ASHLEY
Copyright © 1992 – 2013 Copeland, Inc.
Published by Copeland, Inc.
Springfield, MO
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Copeland, Lori.
Forever Ashley / Lori Copeland.
ISBN: 978-0-9854923-1-1
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, digital, photocopy, recording, or any other—except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher.
Cover Design - The Graphics Shop - Sharon Kizziah-Holmes
“What do you think you’re doing?”
“I’m going to give you a bath.”
“The devil you are!” Before she could finish, he’d unbuttoned all twenty-seven of the little buttons on her dress and pulled it down her shoulders.
Outraged, she clutched the fabric and stared at him. The man was good, she’d give him that!
“It seems you’re determined to stand in this stream all day complaining, but I have other commitments,” he said. He reached for her again.
“You can forget it.” Her eyes warned him to perish the thought.
With the barest hint of a smile, he let his gaze travel over her curves, barely hidden by the damp, clinging dress. His heart beat faster, reminding him of how long it had been since he had held such a woman….
Prologue
A soft chime sounded throughout the Great Hall of Apocalypse. Daniel stood up quickly, taking one final glance through the well-worn folder he carried.
Trying to quell the prick of anticipation he felt, he closed the Record Book that he used to keep track of his earthly charges. Well, Daniel old man, you’ll just have to do the best you can, he told himself.
At the end of the hallway, palatial doors swung open, and an older man, clad in a long, flowing, butterscotch colored robe, appeared. “Daniel?”
“Yes, sir?”
“Gerrbria will see you now.”
“Thank you.” Drawing a deep breath, Daniel followed the old man through the doorway. No matter how many times Daniel met with Gerrbria, Most High Exalted Clergyman of Women, he got nervous.
Upon entering the Great Hall, Daniel was, as usual, overwhelmed by its magnificence. The room was lit by a million candles, all glowing in ethereal beauty.
Daniel’s soft slippers glided across the floor of glistening pearl. He was most eager to dispense with his unpleasant task as quickly and efficiently as possible.
The angelic voices drifting through the air gave Daniel pause that morning. The voices sounded as though they came from a great distance, yet were very near. Their melodic strains bathed his frayed nerves and soothed his soul. No matter how often he heard the music, he was filled with delight each time he entered the Great Hall.
And today was certainly no different.
“Come, come.” Daniel quickened his pace obediently as he heard Gerrbria urging him closer. “I understand you wish to speak to me?” Matters of this nature were usually handled through lower channels, but Gerrbria had agreed to the meeting when Daniel sent the urgent message.
“Ye-yes, sir,” Daniel stammered, embarrassed that Gerrbria had caught him dawdling again. Time meant nothing here, but on earth it was of the essence. Especially today.
Gerrbria motioned for Daniel to approach his desk. “There is something troubling you, Daniel?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You may speak.”
“Well, sir…she’s done it again!” Daniel blurted out.
Gerrbria scowled, knowing at once of whom Daniel spoke. “Surely not.”
“Yes, sir, I’m afraid she has.”
Gerrbria shot to his feet, heat suffusing his round cheeks. “Bubbleshocks!”
The sound of Gerrbria’s beefy fist smacking the desk echoed throughout the Great Hall. The music faltered, the voices pausing expectantly.
Daniel waited patiently, having fully anticipated Gerrbria’s reaction. It was a rare case that could reduce the High Exalted Clergyman of Women to use such vulgar language, but then Daniel knew that Ashley Wheeler was a rare woman.
“Well? What’s she done now?” Genrbria demanded.
“She’s left the ring on his desk—but with a note this time,” Daniel conceded.
“Bubbleshocks!” Gerrbria smacked the desktop again, clearly at the end of his wits.
After marching to the fratmore machine, Gerrbria’s hand trembled as he poured himself a brimming cupful. He tipped his head back and took a long swallow, letting the soothing, delectable liquid trickle down his throat.
When he finally lowered the cup, Daniel was relieved to see that Gerrbria had regained his wits. “You must forgive the outburst, Daniel, but the woman is giving me rotworst,” Gerrbria said repentantly.
“I understand, sir.” And Daniel did understand. Ashley Wheeler would give anyone a roaring case of rotworst.
“Well, she simply cannot be permitted to continue in this vein,” Gerrbria conceded. He took another long drink from his cup, then, suddenly recalling his manners, he smiled. “I’m sorry, Daniel, would you like a cup of fratmore? It’s quite tasty this morning.”
“Thank you, sir.” Daniel relaxed a little. To be invited to share a cup of fratmore with Gerrbria was quite an honor. Now he would have something to brag about to the others later.
“Limpid?”
“Uh, no, I take it with a little mosby, if you don’t mind.”
“Certainly, certainly.”
When Gerrbria handed Daniel the cup, he sipped from it, his eyes closing with ecstasy as the delicious juice trickled down his gullet. Lowering the cup, he smiled. “Excellent, sir. Truly excellent.”
Gerrbria nodded. “Now, to the matter of Ashley Wheeler. Do you have any specific recommendations, Daniel?”
“I have tried to think of a proper recourse, sir, but I’m afraid I haven’t been able to come up with a thing. I mean, after all, she has been given ample opportunities to find her true love.” Daniel set his cup on the corner of the desk and opened his thick folder, his eyes scanning the long columns on each page. “She was scheduled to be married by the time she was twenty-one. It’s all right here in her book. See? Twenty-one. But she’s nearing thirty, and she eventually finds something she doesn’t like about every man we send her.”
“Yes, I know.” Gerrbria sat down behind his desk, philosophically stroking his bushy brows. His job as head overseer of women wasn’t easy—not easy at all. “Let’s see…we have provided her with commendable candidates—the cream of the crop?”
“Yes, sir—the very best we have to offer.”
“Mmm—yes, there was Jon and Eddie…”
“Yes, sir. And Lon, the senatorial candidate?”
Gerrbria frowned. “Oh, yes. Whatever did she find wrong with Lon?”
“He wanted to move to California, sir.”
“Oh.” Gerrbria knew he wasn’t supposed to have any opinion concerning one earthly place or the other—but California…well, the girl had a point.
Gerrbria remembered only too well how he’d met his death in Los Angeles in the middle 1950s. During an earthquake, trapped on the top floor of a thirty-story building—screaming like a deranged billetworst!
It had been pure snoptz. Not to mention highly embarrassing. He had endured a merciless amount of teasing about it for months upon arriving here.
“…and now she’s just dumped Joel, her fourth,” Daniel was saying. He paused, releasing a sigh. “We simply can’t permit her to go on this way. We’ve already logged in well over three hundred hours just trying to get her settled.”
Ashley was the only one of Daniel’s charges behind schedule, and she was ruining what, until now, had been a sterling record. “We have a future to run here,” Daniel reminded.
It was Gerrbria who sighed this time. “Well, perhaps it is time for extraordinary measures.”
Daniel nodded. “I thought perhaps you might have an idea.”
“Shock tactics,” Gerrbria proclaimed gravely.
Daniel sat up straighter. “Shock tactics, sir?”
“Shock tactics. It’s time Ashley Wheeler was taught a lesson.”
“Yes, sir!” Daniel couldn’t agree more. He couldn’t keep sending Ashley perfectly good men who would each make her an excellent husband and have her keep casting them aside. No, sir. After all, she wasn’t the only single woman on earth looking for a husband! There were at least twenty other women under Daniel’s protection whom he had to consider. Twenty other women who weren’t so picky.
Leaning back in his chair, Daniel enjoyed another sip of fratmore. It was time for Gerrbria’s wisdom of women—something Gerrbria was known to have an extraordinary amount of.
“Well,” Gerrbria said, his features assuming his most solemn, wise expression. “It is not our policy to administer punishment, but rather to provide guidance for our subjects. But we are now forced to make Ashley understand that after not one, but four opportunities for lasting love, she must be willing to accept it.”
Daniel nodded. “I agree.”
“Now,” Gerrbria mused, “we must come up with an effective way to administer the lesson.”
“I suppose a gentle reprimand is in order?” Daniel knew that was how Gerrbria handled most matters.
“Not necessarily. It’s going to take more drastic action to gain Ashley’s attention,” Gerrbria conceded.
Silence fell upon the two men as they racked their brains to come up with the perfect way to teach Ashley Wheeler a long overdue lesson. She was a sweet young woman, but a bit stubborn at times.
“She works as a legal secretary by day and as a tour guide in a Boston museum by night, is that correct?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Her life is good, isn’t it?”
“Excellent.”
“Mmmmm.” They thought some more. “Broke up with the surgeon, did she?”
“A few minutes ago. Just left his ring and a note on his desk.” Daniel shook his head, still finding it hard to believe that she’d do such a thing.
“What doesn’t she like about him?”
“She likes him—in fact, she could love him if she would permit herself, but she doesn’t know that.”
“Mmmmm. ’
They thought some more.
“Well, obviously we’re going to need an unusual man to make her realize that true love doesn’t come along every day,” Gerrbria mused.
“Yes, sir. Most unusual.”
They went back to thinking.
“Likes history, does she?”
“No, sir, she hates it, particularly the eighteenth century. She only accepted the job at the museum to supplement her income.”
“Oh?”
Daniel nodded.
“She works in an eighteenth-century museum and she hates history?”
“You’ve never met Ashley, have you, sir?”
“No.”
Daniel sighed. Oh, to be so favored. “No, she doesn’t like history. Claims she’d never be able to exist in such crude conditions—you know…she can’t give up her mousse and Red perfume.”
“Uh-huh.” Having been High Exalted Clergyman of Women for many years now, Gerrbria knew all about those perfumes and mousses his flock admired so much.
“Too bad we can’t send her back to the eighteenth century,” Daniel said. “Show her how good she has it—”
“Oh! Oh!” Gerrbria exclaimed, interrupting Daniel’s musings. His cheeks filled with color, and there was a naughty twinkle in his eye.
Daniel started. “Yes, sir?” He grinned. This was going to be great! He could just feel it.
“I know just the thing and just the man!” Gerrbria leaned forward and began to whisper gleefully into Daniel’s ear.
Daniel’s face lit up, his grin widening as he listened to the slightly unorthodox but completely suitable plan Gerrbria was concocting. “Yes…perfect! Perfect! That’ll make her think twice about dumping another man! Oh, sir, I can hardly wait to set the plan in motion. But we’ll need a storm—a big one. Perhaps even this afternoon?”
“Consider it done.” Gerrbria sat back, smiling with satisfaction. For a moment there, he’d thought that Wheeler woman had him stumped. “I’ll arrange for a storm—a real doozy! It shall take place around four.”
“Wonderful!”
They lifted their cups of fratmore, saluting each other’s wily ingenuity.
After draining the last of his cup, Daniel stood, hurriedly gathering his folder. There was work to be done.
Gerrbria sighed. All these problems. Today’s American women were just never content with what he gave them. No matter what he did, he couldn’t keep them satisfied.
“You know something, Daniel?” he asked.
“No, sir. What?”
“I think that earthly talk show host—what’s his name? Bill? Will?”
“Dr. Phil, isn’t it, sir?”
“Yes, yes, Phil.” Gerrbria sighed again. “I think he’s hit the nail squarely on the head.”
“About what, sir?”
“America’s going to snoptz in a handbasket.”
Chapter One
“…and so, ladies and gentlemen, the Revolutionary War did not begin in 1775, as most people assume. It began several years before. As early as 1763, the first important incident of the war was instigated by the British decision to keep a standing army in North America without consulting the colonists. That was followed by the Navigation Acts, which included the Quartering and Stamp acts of 1765, which further angered the colonists.” Ashley Wheeler paused to draw a deep breath. The museum was unusually hot and stuffy tonight. She glanced at the darkening windows, frowning. It was going to rain again, she just knew it.
“The Townshend Acts of 1767, which placed duties on tea, paper, lead, and paint imported into the colonies, further fed the colonists’ anger. They began a boycott, refusing to buy British goods, thereby forcing Parliament to repeal the duties in 1770—with the exception of the tax on tea. Britain steadfastly retained the tax to prove it claimed the right to levy taxes for revenue. The British sent troops to garrison Boston, and a fatal clash between the redcoats and the townspeople occurred on the night of March 5, 1770, which was later called the Boston Massacre. In 1772 Samuel Adams and James Otis persuaded Boston to appoint a Committee of Correspondence. This committee was formed to explain to other towns and to the world the rights of the colonies and to show how Britain had violated these rights.”
Ashley paused a second time to wiggle her toes inside the pair of satin, embroidered, buckled slippers. A mother of a blister was already forming on her big toe, and the whalebone corset she wore, along with the steel collar with long needles stuck upright to keep her head erect, were nothing short of murder.
Drawing a deep breath, she eased the slipper off her foot and tried to mask a grateful sigh. “Marie Antoinette should have been beheaded a year earlier for introducing her latest ‘vogue’ in women’s gowns,” she muttered.
Ashley’s friends would attest to what a lovely young woman she was, with only one minor character flaw: speaking before she thought. Over the years, she had worked on correcting the problem, but at times she experienced minor failures—but only minor ones.
“Speak up,” someone in the crowd shouted. “We can’t hear you!”
Straightening, Ashley jerked her collar off, then tugge
d back into place the wide farthingale that encased her hips. Forcing a smile, she wedged her swollen foot back into the shoe and continued. “Then came the famous Tea Act of 1773. On December 16 of that year, a band of colonists disguised as Indians raided British ships anchored in Boston Harbor and threw the tea overboard.
“In 1774 the Intolerable Acts were passed by the British government to close Boston Harbor to commerce until the city showed ‘repentance’ for its ‘tea party.’
“As a result, the colonists met in the First Continental Congress in Philadelphia in September 1774 to defend
American rights, and they decided not to export anything to the British Isles or the West Indies until abuses were corrected.
“It was during this time that Patrick Henry sounded the rallying cry: ‘I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death!’
“So by the year 1775, the quarrel between the American colonies and England had reached a point where it seemed impossible to avoid war. A forbidding array of tall-masted British warships sat in Boston Harbor. Occupation troops dressed in scarlet coats marched in the streets, scoffing at the resentment they stirred. The British believed themselves to be far superior in courage and fighting ability to the Americans, whom they considered to be a ragtag, disorganized force of small consequence.”
The air seemed closer. Not a breeze stirred in the small museum. The form fitting gown with its tight corset, high waistline, and Empire bust clung to Ashley’s body like epoxy. She winced as she heard the first roll of thunder rumbling in the distance. Wouldn’t you know it? Another spring storm, and every window on her car was rolled down.
Occasional flashes of light illuminated the windows now as Ashley moved the group from room to room.
She knew most wouldn’t call her uncommonly pretty. Slender, but not fashionably gaunt, she had nice cornfield-blue eyes, an unruly mane of copper-colored hair, and more freckles than she’d ever wanted.
In school, Ashley had been the class tomboy, but at twenty-nine, she prided herself on being more together, except when it came to men. A frown marred her features as she thought about Joel. She had come so close this time—so darn close. Moving to the Washington Room, Ashley continued to point out various items of interest, deliberately pushing Joel from her mind. It was over, and that was that.
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