“Where are we going?”
“We’re almost there.”
She trudged on until he stopped, then she stopped, too, gauged the distance between them, decided she could make it, and climbed the remaining few feet. When she reached his side, he waylaid her by draping his arm over her shoulders.
“I love you, Jess.”
She was hard pressed to hide her smile, but she feigned a reasonable frown. “Couldn’t you have told me that down there?” She nodded toward the riverbed.
“Nope. I brought you up here to give you your wedding present.”
Certain he had lost his mind, she decided to humor him. She waited patiently, given the circumstances, for him to take a present out of his pants pocket.
Instead he put his hands over her eyes, led her five steps forward, and then said, “I hope this is something you can use.”
For a moment she was dumbfounded as she stared at the cliff face and then the rocky ground on the wide shelf of land. “I don’t see—”
And then, unable to utter another word, she moved forward, staring in disbelief at a partially exposed fossilized skeleton of a large-boned, obviously reptilian creature embedded in the shale and sandstone.
A pick, shovel, and broom she had not noticed until she looked over the mound of fossils lay close by. Jessica knelt down and ran her hand over the exposed vertebrae.
“It’s not as big as the one at the cave,” he said.
She looked up from where she knelt in the dust. “Someone’s been working the excavation. How did you find it? Do you think this was Jerome’s?”
“Nope.”
“How can you be sure? Perhaps—”
He looked down into the canyon. “I found it, Jess. I don’t know how I did it, but I did. Myra told me what she knew about where to look—”
“Myra?”
“Yep. Anyway, that’s where I’ve been for two weeks. I started looking back when you wouldn’t speak to me after you found out about the cave. Then, once we got everything settled, I went out searching again, and as I said, I don’t know how I did it except I ran into a streak of luck when I saw that strip of backbone peeking up out of the ground.”
“But you’ve dug out almost a quarter of it, if I’m judging correctly by the size of the femur.”
“I wanted to uncover as much as I could to surprise you with.”
She looked up and saw him standing there, wearing nothing but pants and boots, genuinely intent on making her happy, and couldn’t stop the tears that sprang into her eyes. “Oh, Rory.”
“Did I break something?”
She got to her feet and went to him. Her arm went about his waist. He held her close. “No.” She sniffed back a sob. “No, it’s perfect. Just perfect.”
He kissed her hair.
She wiped the tears from her cheeks and looked up into his eyes. “Maybe you should give up cattle and poetry and take up paleontology.”
He kissed her lips. “I’ll leave that to you.”
“How about a poem? Do you have a new one for the occasion?”
“The bones aren’t enough?”
“I love your poetry as much as I love you.”
“You are my poem, Jess. You’re all I need.”
The End
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Dear Reader
A cowboy poet. A women paleontologist. And dinosaurs—the very word excites the imagination of young and old alike. I chose to bring these elements together for Past Promises when I read about a schoolmaster in Colorado who, in the spring of 1877, discovered the gigantic bones of ancient saurian creatures, better known to us as dinosaurs. Like the Gold Rush of 1849, the discovery led to a “Bone Rush” among men in the scientific community.
If Jessica’s quest for dinosaur bones seems an unusual choice, you need to know that in the mid-nineteenth century in some places in the West, the ground was virtually littered with saurian bones. Little wonder, then, that the imagination of even the most studious scientist would be tempted by the offerings of the wide-open frontier. In this exciting time in history, the possibilities were free for discoveries of all kinds, even—as Jessica and Rory prove—a true and unexpected love!
I hope you enjoyed reading Past Promises as much I loved researching and writing it for you!
—With love,
Jill Landis
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About the Author
JILL MARIE LANDIS’S novels have earned distinguished awards and slots on such national bestseller lists as the New York Times and the USA Today Top 50. She is a seven-time finalist for the Romance Writers of America’s RITA Award in Single Title Historical and Contemporary Romance as well as a Golden Heart and RITA Award winner.
Some of her recent releases include the Irish Angels Series, inspirational historical romance from Zondervan, and MAI TAI ONE ON, TWO TO MANGO, and THREE TO GET LEI’D, the first three titles in her hilarious “Tiki Goddess Mysteries” set in Hawaii.
Jill Marie resides in Hawaii with her husband. When she’s not writing or sitting on the beach reading, she enjoys visiting with family and friends, raising orchids, working in her garden, occasionally quilting, but most of all dancing the hula.
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