by A Wanted Man
Gently, slowly at first, then faster.
Julie matched Will’s movements until they began to move in tandem, developing a rhythm of sex that was uniquely their own. She kissed him as they moved together—kissed his arms, his shoulders, his neck, his chin, the corner of his mouth. And she trusted him to lead her to that place that seemed just beyond her reach—the place where she became him and he became her. . . .
The place where the two of them became one.
Then Julie felt it as Will shuddered, shouted her name, and spilled himself deep inside her. She screamed his name and let herself go with him to the spot where there was only Will and the almost unbearable feeling of pleasure spiraling inside her.
Chapter Thirty-five
“One word frees us of all the weight and pain of life: That word is love.”
—SOPHOCLES, 496–406 B.C.
Julie woke up some time later to find that Will had pulled back the coverlet, placed her on the soft sheets, and crawled in next to her. She was on her left side. He was behind her, and she could feel him stirring against her bare bottom as she nestled closer to the warmth his big body offered. She liked the feel of him, his large body curved protectively around hers, his face pressed into her neck, his warm breath brushing her ear, his arm draped over her waist, his hand possessively splayed over her abdomen, the tips of his fingers touching her red curls.
She pressed against him.
“Wriggle at your peril, my sweet,” Will whispered in her ear.
“Am I in peril?” she queried.
“I fear you may find yourself sheathing my sword at any moment.”
Instantly intrigued, Julie asked, “Is that possible from this angle?”
“Not only possible, but about to begin.” With that he slipped inside her from behind and rocked them both to the stars and beyond. . . .
* * *
LATER, SHE LAY CRADLED AGAINST HIS CHEST, LISTENING TO the steady beat of his heart. His arm was wrapped around her, holding her close. “Will?”
“Hmm?”
“Are you asleep?”
He gave a little snort of laughter and Julie felt his chest rise and fall with it. “Are you insatiable?”
“Yes,” she admitted. “I can’t seem to get enough of you.”
He hugged her. “Then I’m not asleep.”
Julie giggled. “Thank you.”
“You are very welcome,” he said, the leer clearly evident in his tone of voice.
“Not just for the lovemaking,” she told him. “Thank you for trusting me with your secret, and for bringing me to Coryville with you to meet your friends. I like them very much.”
“The feeling is mutual,” he told her.
“How do you know?”
Will took a deep breath and gave up on sleeping. “I’ve known Jamie a long time. I know when he approves of someone and when he doesn’t. He approves of you.” He pressed his lips against her hair. “He told me so.”
“How long have you been friends?”
“More than twenty years. We went to school together, then university in London, and then we returned to Hong Kong and started work at Craig Capital, Ltd. I’m a year older than he is, so I started work first and was his boss when he began.”
“But that changed?” She phrased it as a question, but she already knew the answer.
“Yes. As it should have. I’m second in command at Craig Capital. James’s father turned the company over to James on his twenty-fifth birthday. Jamie offered me forty-nine percent of the business if I would help him expand it and to branch out from Hong Kong. I accepted the deal, and Jamie and I became partners. We run the business together and share in the profits. I took over the San Francisco office five months ago and built the Silken Angel Saloon as a front for our rescue operation.” He smiled in the darkness. “It’s turned out to be far more profitable than either one of us expected.”
“I’m amazed you could leave Coryville behind to go to San Francisco. . . . Craig House and its grounds are like a fairyland.” She began sliding her hand up and down his arm.
Will took another deep breath and slowly exhaled. “Jamie built Coryville in honor of Cory, his little girl who died. He wanted it to be the perfect place for children to grow up.”
“I didn’t realize he and Elizabeth had lost a child.” Julie didn’t see how either one of them could bear the loss.
“Elizabeth and James married last year. Cory was Jamie’s daughter with his first wife, Mei Ling. She died before we left Hong Kong.” Will surprised himself with his sudden willingness to talk about Mei Ling and Cory and the life James had had back in Hong Kong, because he’d never talked with anyone except Jamie about any of it. “She’s the reason we left Hong Kong. Jamie nearly went mad from the grief.”
Julie was silent for a moment. “What about Mei Ling? What happened to her?”
“She died, too.” Will’s voice was hoarse. “Shortly after Cory died.”
“How awful! That must have been devastating for James.”
“It was devastating for both of us,” Will told her. “I was madly in love with Mei Ling, too. I had been since I was seventeen. Watching her die was horrible. It nearly tore us apart.” He pulled Julie closer to him and began caressing her upper arm, running his palm up and down over it. He pressed another kiss against her hair. “She starved to death.”
“Like Su Mi.”
“In a way,” he said. “The difference was that Mei Ling starved herself to death. And it was a bloody wretched way to die. I’ll never forget the sight of her. After.” His voice broke, and Will had to take a moment to compose himself.
Julie gasped, hearing the pain in what he didn’t say. She had seen Su Mi. She knew what starvation looked like. And she would never forget the sight either. “Why would she do such a thing? Was she grieving for her little girl?”
“Who could tell with Mei Ling?” It was easier to talk in the darkness, easier to tell her when he could hold her in his arms. “You grew up in Hong Kong,” Will said. “You’ve heard of the practice of ‘bathing the infant’?”
“Oh, no.” Bathing the infant was a Chinese euphemism for drowning unwanted babies—usually girl babies, but sometimes male babies were drowned, too, by their parents or the midwife or another family member. It was a horrid practice. Newborn infants were drowned in basins and bathtubs, or often taken to the country or to the ocean and left in bodies of water to float until they sank. Julie’s heart hurt at the horror of it.
“Mei Ling left Cory in a pond while Jamie and I were away on business.” Will sucked in a ragged breath, remembering. “Mei Ling starved herself to death because Jamie wouldn’t—couldn’t—forgive her for what she did.”
“And you, Will?” Julie asked, her heart aching for him, for his pain. “What about you?”
“I forgave her,” Will whispered. “I just never forgave myself for not being able to save her.”
“Oh, Will . . .”
“There’s more,” he warned her. “Let me get it out while I can.”
“All right.” She lifted his arm from around her waist and placed his hand on her cheek.
“I left Coryville five months ago because Jamie refused to accept the resignation I tendered. I had decided to return to Hong Kong to help take care of my father, because I believed I was falling in love with Elizabeth.”
Julie gasped once again and tried to roll away from him, but Will held on. She lay quietly in his arms for a long time before she whispered, “Do you still love her?”
“As a friend,” he answered honestly. “But I’m not in love with her.”
“You’re not?”
“No,” he affirmed, turning Julie so he could see her face, so she could see his. “There’s only room in my heart for one woman. I’m in love with you, Julia Jane.”
“And I’m in love with you, Will Keegan.” Julie hugged him.
“And just so there are no misunderstandings, let me say that I want to marry you, Julia Jane Parham, and make you
my wife.”
Julie tightened her arms around him. “You are all I’ve ever wanted.”
“You’re certain?”
“As certain as I’ve been of anything in my life,” Julie told him. “I’d love nothing more than to be your wife and to have you as my husband.”
“When?” he asked.
“As soon as possible.”
Will grinned. “There’s just one thing. . . .”
“Oh?”
“Before we get married, I need to know what you plan to do about your missionary work,” he said.
Julia blinked.
“I’m not going to be a Salvationist missionary any longer,” she confided. “I’m giving it up.”
“That’s a shame,” he said. “Some of my favorite people were missionaries. They’ve always held a special place in my heart.”
She snorted. “I suppose you paid them not to sing ‘Bringing in the Sheaves’ in your presence, too?”
“No,” he said. “My mother would have boxed my ears if I’d been impudent enough to try.”
Julie looked up at him.
“Didn’t you know, Julia Jane? My mother and father were missionaries.” There was a twinkle in his eyes. “The joke was on me from the moment I met you. I suppose it couldn’t have been otherwise. I was meant to fall madly in love with a flame-haired missionary.”
She smiled at him, and this time the twinkle was in her eyes. “Can we sing ‘Bringing in the Sheaves’ before the ceremony?”
“Of course.” He surprised her. “It’s always been my favorite hymn.”
“Since when?” she demanded.
“Since you walked into the Silken Angel singing it . . .”
Epilogue
“I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints—I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life!—and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.”
—ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING, 1806–1861
William Burke Keegan and Julia Jane Parham were married at the Coryville Presbyterian Church by the Reverend Simon Winston later that evening, surrounded by the friends they cherished.
James Cameron Craig stood up for the groom, and Elizabeth Sadler Craig stood up for the bride. The Treasures—Ruby, Garnet, Emerald, and Diamond Craig—were allowed to stay up past their bedtimes to witness the ceremony and feast on cake. Delia, Miss Kittredge, and Helen Glenross were there as well, along with Lan Chu and Gan Que, Irina and Chava, and Kathleen O’Flaherty.
The newlyweds spent another two days honeymooning at Craig House, then bade the girls and James and Elizabeth good-bye.
Mr. and Mrs. Will Keegan returned to San Francisco, rented a house on Nob Hill, settled into a blissful married life, and continued rescuing girls from the horrors of slavery and prostitution—not just in San Francisco, but throughout California. Li Toy was gone, but the tongs and other madams and procurers were eager to fill the void she’d left. Will and Julie’s work would endure as long as crime and corruption ruled the city and the government turned a blind eye to the plight of the Chinese.
And on a beautiful sunny day eleven months after their wedding, Will and Julie Keegan and James and Elizabeth Craig, the Treasures, Delia, Miss Kittredge, Helen Glenross, and Kathleen disembarked from a steamship in Hong Kong into a crush of relatives. Will’s father, Reverend Francis Keegan; his sisters, Molly and Colleen, and their families; James’s parents, Julia and Randall Craig; and Julie’s father, Commodore Lord Nelson Parham, home on leave from the Royal Navy, and Lolly were all there to greet them
Will and Julie had kept Julie’s promise to her friend. Su Mi had brought them to each other, and to the families they had left behind in Hong Kong. And they had brought her home to her mother and her ancestors.
Julie had given her heart, and then herself, to Will Keegan, the man who loved her and would cherish her and keep her safe.
As she would do for him.
Until death did they part, and beyond . . .