by Bush, Holly
Jake held her face in his hands and stared at her. “You’re my other half, Julia Shelling. I’ve felt like I’m missing a limb without you beside me. It’s as if I can’t draw breath without you.”
“Make love to me, Jake.”
Jake shrugged out of his shirt and and he watched her every move as she pulled off her jacket and unbuttoned her skirt. She put one foot on the edge of the bed and rolled down her stocking. Julia pulled the ribbon from her hair and dropped the straps of her chemise. She pulled the sheets back and stretched out with her head on the pillow.
Jake pulled off his dungarees and lay down beside her. He ran his hand down her hip and kissed her fingertips and touched her face and hair. She ran her fingers through the coarse hair on his chest and over his corded forearms.
“You are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen, Julia Shelling,” Jake said. He rolled onto one elbow and loomed over her cupping her cheek with his hand. “I said and did some pretty stupid things over the last month. I hope you can forgive me. I love you, Julia. I’ll always love you.”
Tears rolled down the side of Julia’s face and into her hair. “I don’t ever want to be apart from you or Jillian again. I’m sorry I left without telling you. I love you so very much.” She reached up and kissed her husband’s lips softly. “I love you for making me go to Boston and coming for me there and standing up for me to my family. I love you because you’re the best father a ten-year-old could ever dream of. I’m so glad I married the wrong man.”
Jake rolled onto his back and pulled Julia atop of him. He held the back of her head, kissed her hard and let his loose hand wander up and down the length of her, skimming the side of breast. Jake slid inside her with a groan. “It’s been a while, Mrs. Shelling. I don’t know if I can . . .”
Julia moaned and ran her hand up her husband’s arms and around his broad shoulders.
“Whatever suits you is fine with me, Mr. Shelling. Just fine.”
Hello Readers,
I hope you enjoyed Julia and Jake’s story! Please share your thoughts about Train Station Bride with your friends and family, and with others on review sites and social media. Jolene’s story, Contract to Wed, will be available in February, 2015, and will be available for pre-order in December 2014.
Please visit my website at hollybushbooks.com to read an excerpt from my other Prairie Historicals, Romancing Olive and Reconstructing Jackson, and Victorian Romances, Cross the Ocean and Charming the Duke. Red, White and Screwed, a Women’s Fiction title is a new category for me and I’m hoping you’ll give it a try! Find these books at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, and Itunes. Thank you for your purchase!
Contract to Wed
Prologue
Boston, October 1891
Jolene Crawford Crenshaw sat on one of two chairs just feet from the burial plot. Graveyard attendants held the ropes suspending the casket above a deep hole in the ground, and began to let loose their ends, inches at a time. Jolene watched the casket disappear as it was slowly lowered into the ground. Her husband’s mother shuddered when the box was no longer visible above the grass, then lurched forward, and sobbed aloud.
Jolene sat back in her chair and stared straight ahead while her brother-in-law knelt on the ground to embrace and comfort his mother. Jolene listened to the drone of the minister’s final words. The netting on her hat whipped against her face as mourners moved away and the wind was free to chill her.
“Come, Jolene,” her sister Jennifer said. “Turner’s brother will attend Mrs. Crenshaw. Come away, dear.”
Jolene looked up at her younger sister giving direction to her and very nearly corrected Jennifer aloud. But that would not do. No one must think her as anything but a grieving widow. She nodded at Jennifer and stood, and allowed her father, William Turner, to wrap one arm about her and hold her other arm, as if she were going to crumble at any moment. They were stopped, almost immediately, by Evelyn Prentiss. She clutched Jolene’s hand.
“My dear. I am so terribly sorry about this, especially considering . . . well, I’m just terribly sorry.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Prentiss,” Jolene said. “We are bearing up as best we can.”
“Of course you are,” she said and looked away for a brief moment. “Where is Jane? Where is your mother today?”
“Not feeling well, I’m afraid,” her father said. “We didn’t think this chilly weather would be good for her. She is, of course, devastated that she was unable to attend.”
Evelyn Prentiss nodded. “I will wait a few days and call on her then.”
“She will be happy for the diversion, Mrs. Prentiss,” Jennifer said.
Her father turned to the waiting carriage, and handed her and her sister inside. Jolene leaned her head back against the tufted leather seat and closed her eyes. How long until she was in her own rooms, and able to shed this façade?
“Will you be checking in on Mother, before you go home to Landonmore?” Jennifer asked. “She has letters and telegrams that have arrived for you.”
“I won’t have time to visit with Mother,” she said. “I’ll be accepting visitors this afternoon, and imagine there will be a significant number of them.”
“There will be, I’m sorry to say,” her father said. “Even with Turner’s sometimes curious behavior as of late, his Boston connections are sterling. There will be some from Washington, as well.”
“What time should I arrive, Jolene? I’m going to stop in to see Mother, and then will make myself available to you. Are you coming Father?” Jennifer asked.
“If Jolene wants me there, I will,” he said and faced her. “What would you prefer?”
She would prefer that she was far, far away from the questions. That she was somewhere no one knew her. She could not take the pity, she thought, with some anger. She could not! Jolene took deep breaths to calm her racing heart and looked at her sister.
“You’ve no need to trouble yourself, Jennifer. Certainly there is something you would prefer to be doing other than holding my hand, and making dreadfully repetitive small talk.”
Jennifer stared at her incredulously. “Jolene,” she said softly. “You are my sister and your husband has just died. A young man, no less, a tragedy. I will stay with you while you make your greetings to Turner’s friends. Julia would as well if she were able to be here.”
Julia! Julia would as likely poison her wine as comfort her or share the burden of greeting guests. “Highly unlikely, Jennifer. Julia would pay me no kindnesses, as you well know.”
Jennifer shook her head. “That is not true.” She looked to William Turner for affirmation but he was determinedly staring out the window of the carriage.
The coach was silent until Jolene heard Jennifer sniffle and she watched her sister wipe her eyes. “Turner is with little William now, and of that, I am glad,” Jennifer said.
There was a buzz in Jolene’s ear so loud that she could not think for a moment. Did not remember that she was the grieving wife. She leaned forward and the muscles in her face were tight and pinched, and she was uncertain if she would be able to speak. But she found her voice, albeit strident and cruel, even by her own standards.
“Do not mention my son’s name in the same sentence as my husband’s ever again. In fact, do not ever say my son’s name again, you silly, ugly girl. Such sentimental drivel is, no doubt, why you are still unmarried.”
Jennifer blinked furiously and her lip trembled. She looked away and Jolene settled back in her seat. She was surprised when Jennifer spoke again.
“You may push away anyone that loves you, Jolene, for as long as you want. I love you, you see, and so does Julia. And I loved little William with all my heart. I will mourn him, and choose to think of him, and speak about him when I wish. I was not his mother, and could not imagine the pain you were, and are in, but grief is not a thing to guard jealously, as if you are the only one to feel it.”
The carriage rolled to a stop and Jolene barely waited for the servant to help her step d
own. Her hands shook and her stomach rolled over as she entered the marbled foyer of Landonmore. She yanked the black satin ribbons of her bonnet, and dropped it as she went up the stairs. She entered her sitting room, dismissed her maid, locked the door to her apartments, and tore at her black jacket till buttons flew and it was off. Jolene dropped to her knees, and struggled for breath.
She pictured her son, William, at three, running and laughing, his chubby little legs churning. She could still feel when he climbed onto her lap when they were alone and held her face still with his hands. He would say, “Mother! Look at me. Mother!” And Jolene would pretend to look elsewhere until they both dissolved into giggles.
Jolene crawled to a trunk near her reading chair, and pulled a key on a ribbon from in the folds of her dress. With shaking hands, she unlocked the trunk and pulled a worn blanket from inside. She buried her face in William’s blanket, and breathed deep. She rocked back and forth on her haunches and held the tattered wool to her nose.