by Imani King
"I'm going to take her fishing," I announced one night as my milk-drunk baby slept in my arms and her mother sat next to me. "There's a stream up behind the building site, I've seen fish in it, and if you follow it up the hill there's a small lake. I'm going to take her fishing there."
"I've never been fishing," Tia whispered, stroking Alice's cheek.
"Then I'll take you as well," I told her. "Who knows, if I can get the two of you up to speed maybe you can keep us all fed?"
Alice squeaked in her sleep. "Look," Tia whispered. "She looks just like you when she does that – that's the exact face you make when you're mad."
"No, I don't think so. She's way cuter than me."
"Well I won't argue with that."
That was our life, then – the fleeting and achingly sweet few weeks between Alice's birth and the completion of the new house – and her parents' marriage, which was scheduled to take place in late July on the Corbett Ranch property.
"I don't think I'm ever going to forget this," I told Tia one night, as we lay in bed whispering to each other so we wouldn't wake Alice. "This time right now, when she's tiny and we're all here together in this little cabin. When I'm old and gray and sitting in a rocking chair in front of the fire, this is what I'm going to remember – these moments, just the three of us."
Tia smiled and kissed me. "Me too. No matter what happens – and we know better than most people about life happening – we have this, don't we? Each other. Her."
"Are you ready?" I asked, referring to the wedding and the upcoming move. "No second thoughts?"
"Well, you haven't really learned how to make a decent béchamel sauce. And you did put a diaper on backwards two days ago, but I think I can live with you."
We lay together in the quiet darkness of the night, listening to our daughter's little snuffles and sighs coming from the bassinet next to the bed. When I looked over to say something about my béchamel-making skills, though, Tia was asleep. I pulled the sheet up over her shoulders and closed my eyes, happier than any man deserves to be.
Epilogue
Tia
"No! Tia, don't touch your face!"
Amber grabbed my hand before I could absent-mindedly rub my eyes and mess up the make-up that had been two hours in the applying. All eight of us – my great-aunt Jenny, Amber, Madison, Kayla, Marcy and Dani and Alisha from home were all in my dressing room in the new house, sipping champagne and making sure everything was just right before the ceremony.
"I can't believe this place," Dani swooned, walking over to one of the floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out over the pastures and rolling hills below. "This is like something from a movie, Tia."
She wasn't wrong. The house was perfect. Not some awful ten-thousand square foot McMansion, but perfect for Dallas and I – and Alice, when she got old enough to appreciate it. It was constructed mostly of pale wood and glass, which meant every room was filled with light during the daytime hours and that the house itself sat fittingly in the landscape rather than sticking out like a gaudy sore thumb.
And yes, I had a dressing room. It was a generously-sized space, with a cathedral ceiling, gleaming hardwood floors and a huge crystal chandelier Dallas's mother had won for us at an antiques auction back in Texas. I'd thought it was too much at first, telling Dallas after his parents had left after their first visit that it wasn't my style, but he'd insisted and now that I could see how it looked, I knew he'd been right.
"I know," I replied, still not quite believing that something so beautiful was my house. "It's crazy that this is where I live."
"Stop moving," Marcy griped, "one of the buttons isn't done up right. OK. That's better."
She stepped away and all six of them looked at me expectantly.
"Tia, dear," Jenny said, gesturing to me, "stand up. Let's see."
I stood up carefully, a great, rustling cloud of creamy silk and lace, and looked at myself in the mirror.
"Oh my God," Amber breathed, to nods of agreement. "You look amazing, Tia. Oh wow. Dallas is going to die when he sees you."
I couldn't even pretend I didn't concur. The wedding itself wasn't some over-the-top, thousand-guest affair. We limited ourselves to seventy-five – close friends and family only – and the biggest expense by far was the dress. After initially shooting down the idea of having it made by a famous Parisian couturier who had been dressing Dallas's mother for years, I'd eventually given in. Why not have my wedding dress made in Paris? I was pretty insistent on the point of not wanting to raise Alice to believe luxury was normal, but as Jacqueline Corbett herself had pointed out to me, if a girl can't splurge on her wedding dress, what can she splurge on?
The dress itself was made of luscious pale cream silk with lace overlay that had been sewn by hand in the dressmaker's workshop. It had tiny, delicate cap-sleeves, and the cut was slightly fitted down to the waist, where it opened up fully and swooshed deliciously around my legs with every step I took. It was lovely, and perfect for me. Not ostentatious, but beautifully detailed. I wore my hair down, adorned only with the little white flowers that dotted the fields on the Corbett Ranch, and my only jewelry was a pair of pearl earrings that had belonged to Dallas's paternal grandmother.
There was a knock on the door as everyone buzzed around me like bees and Amber ran to open it. Jacqueline Corbett – the woman who would, in a matter of minutes, be my mother-in-law. She was tall and slim, exactly the way I've always pictured wealthy older women. She had also been as kind and welcoming to me as I could have hoped for, not once making any comments about my humble background or my age. More importantly, she was clearly sorry for letting Dallas down, and was obviously doing her best to re-establish the bond between them.
"Tia?" she said, stepping in and then, when she saw me, covering her mouth with her hand and gasping. "Oh, honey. Oh my goodness! You're beautiful!"
We still didn't know each other very well, but I could hear the emotion in her voice. She continued after a few more seconds of awed silence.
"It's time – that's why I'm here. Alice is fed and asleep, everything is ready."
Dani took me by the shoulders. "Are you ready?"
I looked around at my friends, Jenny, and at Jacqueline, but I knew I couldn't look for too long or I was going to well up and ruin my make-up.
"Yes," I whispered, taking a deep breath. "I am."
A string quartet played as I stood under a cloudless blue sky in the meadow at the top of the Corbett Ranch property, between my great-aunt Jenny and my great-uncle John. Each of them wore a locket, Jenny's around her neck, and containing a photograph of my mother, and John's on a chain attached to his waistcoat, containing a photograph of my father. I slipped my arms through theirs and took my first step towards Dallas, who was waiting for me under an arbor covered in summer wildflowers.
Everyone turned to look at me and I briefly wondered if I was going to faint from nerves. No. Not that day. I didn't really even see anyone else, though, because I was entirely focused on Dallas. I watched his expression change as I got closer, from one of pride to something rawer and less-controlled.
"Don't," I whispered, as we met in front of the pastor. "Please, if you start, I will."
He coughed, but I could see his eyes were already glassy. To my side, Alice stirred in Dani's arms, but she didn't wake up.
We were married in the late afternoon, under the golden rays of the sun as it began to set, and with the scent of flowers in the air. I managed not to stumble over my vows, and apart from a brief mishap where I tried to push the ring onto Dallas's middle finger, everything went smoothly. We stood gazing into each other's eyes, smiling and sniffling and doing everything we could to hold it together as the pastor pronounced us man and wife. And then, when he gave his permission to kiss the bride and I felt the warmth of my brand new husband's lips on mine, the audience erupted into cheers and applause. This woke Alice up, and I took her when she refused to settle, all three of us walking back down the aisle together as people threw
flower petals into the air over our heads.
"We did it," Dallas said, lifting my hand to his mouth and kissing it as we made it through the floral gauntlet.
"We did."
"Are you happy?"
I looked up into his blue eyes and spoke the truest word of my life: "Yes."
There was a huge party that night, at the new house. We invited everyone we knew, including a lot of people from River Bend, and fed them amazing food, played them amazing music and served them champagne into the wee hours. It wasn't a stuffy or formal affair, either, it was more of a welcoming party. A welcome to our community, our families, our friends and our baby daughter.
My husband and I mingled separately for about an hour, greeting people and accepting congratulations. At one point I spotted him deep in conversation with a man who looked strangely like him, and pushed my way through the crowd to get over to where they were standing.
"This is Austin Corbett," Dallas said, "my cousin from back home. I was just asking him when he's going to get himself a good woman and settle down."
Austin took my hand, grinning. "It might be awhile yet, I'm afraid. I still can't believe this guy's married with a kid – I don't think any of us thought that would ever happen!"
He reminded me of Dallas – tall and charming in that slightly dangerous kind of way – and he had a small scar on his right eyebrow.
"Austin's busy trying to become King of the World," Dallas told me. "He doesn't have time for anything else."
We chatted for a few minutes about Austin's ambitions in the tech world and, when he left to go get another drink, I looked up at my new husband. "That one's going to break a lot of hearts, isn't he? Probably already has."
"Oh yeah, he's been breaking 'em since seventh grade. It's interesting seeing him again – we spent a lot of time together when we kids. You know, poking rattlesnakes with sticks and building forts. We used to talk about how we were never going to grow up, never get married, never have kids – adult life was just going to be one long party. It looks like that's still how it is with him, but I think he'll come around, when he meets the right girl."
"You think?" I asked.
"Oh yeah. Because that's the thing, isn't it? No sixteen year old boy wants to get married and have babies. And then one day you meet someone, and suddenly those things you thought would ruin your life become the only things you want. Who knows, maybe he'll be a bachelor into his fifties and then marry some twenty-two year old secretary, but I know that guy – he's got a mushy center, even if he tries to hide it."
"Sounds like someone I know..." I mused.
Dallas laughed. "Yeah, yeah. I'm sure I have no idea who you're talking about, Tia."
At nine o'clock, before anyone had time to get too inebriated, Dallas and I had our first dance to Roberta Flack's 'First Time Ever I Saw Your Face.' Just the sound of the scratchy vinyl at the beginning had me welling up, remembering the way my mother used to play it over and over during my childhood as she did housework or cooked dinner. But it was Roberta's voice itself that finally pushed me over the edge after a day so full of meaning and emotion.
"Hey," Dallas said, kissing the tears off my cheeks. "Hey, Tia. It's OK, babe. You made it this far, didn't you? I thought for sure you were going to cry your way through our vows."
"Me?" I asked, resting my head on his shoulder as we danced. "You weren't so dry-eyed yourself, there, mister."
He pulled away enough to look me in the eyes as the song played. "You know what, Tia?"
"What?"
"I actually remember the first time I saw your face. Outside Parson's, remember?"
"Of course I do," I smiled, pulling myself tighter against him. "You were mad at me for daring to touch your precious Ranger."
"That horse obviously has more brains than I do, that's for sure. Anyway, I wasn't actually mad."
I made a face. "Don't try and rewrite history, you were definitely mad."
Dallas shook his head, his expression suddenly serious. "No, I wasn't. I acted like I was angry, I get that. But I wasn't. Not at you, anyway. Not at anyone here in River Bend. But convincing myself I was, well, I thought that was the solution. If I hated everyone, then it didn't matter that I was alone. In fact, it made being alone preferable. But it was all a lie, and it took you to show me the truth. I'll never not be grateful to you for that, Tia. When I think about what my life would have been if you hadn't been there that day, outside the grocery store..."
"Oh," I said, "you probably would have met someone else. Some other girl. You're not as bad as you think you are, Dallas. Half the women in this town would happily have signed up to wash your socks and cook your dinners for the rest of their lives if you'd given them the chance."
"First of all," he replied, "you're really bad at washing socks. So I definitely didn't marry you for that reason. Now, I'll concede on the cooking point but –"
"What do you mean?" I asked, faux-indignant and grinning. "I can wash socks."
"Last week you put them in with that red t-shirt of yours and they all came out pink. My t-shirts, too. No, Tia, it has to be said – I definitely did not marry you for your laundry-related skills."
"Good!" I replied, nestling against him. "Because that would have been a big mistake."
"You were beautiful, though," he told me, a few seconds later."That day. You were beautiful. I could hardly look at you, you know."
"I remember that. I thought you were so disgusted with me for touching Ranger that –"
"No, no, it wasn't that at all. I'd never seen you before and suddenly there you were, all wild curls and gorgeousness, petting my beast of a stallion like he was a kitten. It was always there for me, right from that very first second. You made my heart beat a little too fast right from that moment."
I laughed, unable to stop myself, and Dallas asked me why.
"Because it was totally the same thing for me! You were so – ugh, Dallas, you were so hot in your stupid, sexy cowboy hat with your stupid, sexy blue eyes. And you were so mean, I was mad at myself for even thinking you were hot."
"You think I'm hot, huh?" he smiled down at me and kissed my lips.
"How could you tell?" I teased him back.
"And now look at us," he said. "Husband and wife. Mom and dad. I still can't get used to it."
"Me neither, it doesn't feel real."
"It is real though, Tia, my sweet girl. It's all real. And now we have the rest of our lives together, until we're old and gray and drinking wine on the deck, watching our grandchildren play in the fields."
I closed my eyes and tried to picture the scene – Dallas and I, gray-haired and stooped, our faces lined but smiling, and our hearts full. I looked up at him. "I love you, Dallas."
"I love you too, Tia Kinsley-Corbett. And I'm going to spend every day making sure you know it."
The song finished playing and another one started, something more conducive to drunken dancing. I looked around the room, at all the people I loved, and who loved my new husband and I. Everything seemed lit with a kind of golden light, blurred into softness like an old photograph. Which is what it was, in a way. An old photograph in real time, one I knew I would carry with me for the rest of my life.
"C'mon babe," Dallas urged, taking my hand. "The night's just getting started..."
The End
Excerpt from 'Killian: Prince of Rhenland'
Eva:
Wednesday took a long time to arrive. The Prince was sending a car to my apartment at six, so I rushed home from work to have a shower and re-do my hair and make-up. But the car didn't take me to Killian, not right away. It took me to a spa in one of the Capital's ritziest neighborhoods, where an immaculate woman in a white uniform led me into a treatment room and asked me to undress.
I wasn't a spa girl. Not because I didn't want to be, but because I could never afford it. But there I was, lying face down on a table, naked except for a small towel. I don't know how long the massage lasted, I dozed off a couple of times, but it
felt like hours – blissful hours. When it was over and I stood up, my body felt like it was floating, like every single one of my muscles had been injected with some kind of magical relaxant.
"Oh my God," I exclaimed, looking wide-eyed at the masseuse. "This feels amazing!"
She smiled. "It's your first time, no? I always say if more people had professional massages, society would be a lot healthier. It's impossible to be angry or stressed after a massage."
She was right, too. My mind was as relaxed as my body, suffused with a glowing wellbeing and, rare for me, not automatically searching for something to worry about. I was slowly gathering my things to leave when I felt a hand on my shoulder. "We have something else for you, from the gentleman. I'll leave you alone to get dressed."
I turned around and the masseuse gestured to a black garment bag lying across a velvet armchair.
"That's for me?"
"Yes. Enjoy your evening, Miss James."
She left the room silently, giving me a little respectful nod as she did so and I unzipped the garment bag. Inside was the most beautiful dress I have ever seen in my life. Forest green, made of fabric so soft and supple it made me gasp when I touched it, and every inch of it covered in tiny, slightly iridescent sequins. Without bothering with my bra or panties, I slipped it on and stepped in front of the mirror, knowing instantly and with full confidence that nothing had ever looked that good on me. It was long, and the hem swept the floor as I moved. It had long sleeves, too, with a very slight blouson at the cuffs. The v-neck was deep and dramatic – not so deep as to be uncomfortable or too exposing, though – and when I turned my body to the side the fabric swished deliciously around my legs. The dress sparkled, even under the low light in the room, making my skin look like it was lit from within. In short, it was gorgeous – and it made me look gorgeous.
I walked down to the car feeling like a princess, lifting the bottom of my new dress up to walk daintily down the steps. The Capital looked different that night, glittering with possibility as the driver made his way through traffic with me in the backseat, gazing dreamily out the window.