Romance: New Adult: One Game at a Time - A College Football Romance (Bad Boy Romance) (Sports Contemporary Short Stories) (37 page)

Chapter Four

There were more people at the party than Hettie expected. She sat in a garden chair, watching them all. They talked and laughed, milling around the garden, admiring Liz’s
fine
work in such
an arid
atmosphere. The grass under their feet was green. Bushes and trees had
been planted
. Liz and John had placed stone tablets along the garden area and around the
yard,
so visitors didn’t need to step onto the grass or disrupt the vegetation.

“Aren’t you hungry, Hettie?” John asked, stepping over to where she was sitting. “You spent a lot of time preparing this food for everyone. You must have some, too.”

Hettie nodded. “I will. Don’t worry.” She smiled, reached over to the small white table next to her and picked up a
thinly
sliced carrot stick. She took a quick bite and chewed, still smiling at him. He nodded and laughed.

“Good for you.”

“John! Who is this lovely young lady?” An older man had approached and was leaning
toward Hettie
to take her hand. Hettie lifted
it,
and the man kissed it gently. “You are a refreshing breeze here in this dusty town, young lady.”

Hettie blushed. “Thank you, sir.”

“You must call me Charles!” The man announced. “And what might your name be?”

“This is Hettie,
Charlie,
” John answered, giving Hettie a look over the older man’s shoulder that made Hettie drop her eyes to keep from giggling.

“Hettie! It’s good to meet you!”

“Charlie runs the Little Boar
Inn,
” John explained, stepping a little closer so that the older man needed to edge away from Hettie. “Hettie is here to meet with James.”

Charlie raised his thick eyebrows and stood up straight, looking up at John. “Oh, I see!” He paused. “I take it this was an idea that came from Liz?”

John nodded.

Charlie looked back down at Hettie. “Well, young lady, let me tell you a few things about our Sheriff.” His voice had changed but not in
an unfriendly
way. “He is a good man. He’s taken good care of this little town, even after Annie was
…
killed, poor girl. It was a
terrible tragedy
and it hurt James
greatly
. But if he lets you in, you have a good chance of being with a good husband.” Charlie leaned back down and said in a low voice, “I do believe you are beautiful enough to catch his eye, I must say. If he doesn’t
give you the chance
, you will not have trouble finding a husband, should you want one.”

“All right there, Charlie.” John laughed. “Let’s
go talk
to Mary and Liz. You can quiz them about the social next month to see what plans they have made so far.”

The two men
made off
into the small crowd. Hettie watched them. Charlie seemed an amusing old man. As he and John walked off, he began talking excitedly about the social next month. Apparently, social gatherings were something this little town enjoyed frequently. With so few people populating the area, most knew each other. She had been greeted by each person at the party with open
arms
though she was a stranger and an outsider. She had the sneaking suspicion Liz had warned them all ahead of time that she would be there and had bolstered their opinion of her with her
own
opinion before they even met her.

She wondered if they had
been told
why she was here. John didn’t seem to have any trouble mentioning it. She had to assume they all knew what her purpose was. They were still kind and hospitable to her. She took that as a sign that they all cared about their sheriff as much as Charlie had implied.

She was brought out of her thoughts when she saw James come around the corner of the house. He
was dressed
in blue jeans, a well-fitting flannel shirt and had brushed his hair, from the looks of it. She pulled in a breath and held it for a moment. He was certainly a good-looking man. He stopped for a moment when he saw her. Before he could continue walking, Liz caught sight of him.

“James!” She called out. Everyone turned to look at him as he approached.

They all began to greet him. Hettie was amused to see the crowd gravitate toward James, wishing him well, almost hiding him from her sight. She caught his eyes straying to her while he responded to the people, smiling at them, removing his hat, shaking hands.

Hettie didn’t get up.

After a short time, the crowd dispersed somewhat, going back to what they had been doing. Liz and James stood to the side, talking in low voices for a few moments. Hettie tried not to watch them but was curious about their conversation. Neither seemed upset. Liz appeared to be
apologizing,
and James responded by nodding and pulling his sister into a hug. When they pulled away from each other, they
smiled,
and Liz moved off to find John, leaving James to gaze at Hettie.

She saw him looking and smiled at him, finally getting up.

“Hello,
” Hettie said, approaching him. “I would have come over
sooner,
but you would think it was your birthday the way everyone gathered around you.”

At first,
he didn’t say anything to her. Then he looked down at his hands, where he was clutching his hat firmly. “I must apologize for my behavior the other day,
Hettie.
”

“You must not worry about that.” Hettie shook her head. “I realize you were very surprised to see me. I hope that you aren’t upset with Liz about it. I am a grown woman and can take care of myself.”

“I am not upset with her.” James shook his head. “I am more upset with myself. I don’t
generally
treat
strange,
beautiful women that way.”

Hettie smiled at the compliment and looked down. “Thank you, James.”

“Shall we sit and talk?” He asked, holding out his hand to the chair she had been
sitting in
. She returned to
it,
and he pulled a similar chair nearby to sit close to her.

“How are you enjoying it here so far?” James asked, picking up a few of the same carrot sticks she had been eating from and taking a few bites.

“
Actually,
I find the atmosphere very refreshing. I know it is much warmer than my home in
Virginia,
but I like it. I would rather be warm than cold, wouldn’t you?”

He laughed. “I better. I live here.”

She laughed with him. “Yes, I suppose so. And now I do, so I better learn to like it if I don’t.”

“But you do?”

She nodded. “I do.”

He looked around at the crowd and then back at her. “Would you like to go for a walk?”

Hettie looked up at the darkening sky. “Do you think we will
be caught
in the dark?”

James glanced
around
them. “There’s a lantern. We’ll take it just in case.”

“I would like to go for a walk then. But you carry the lantern.”

His
wide
smile made
him, even more,
appealing to Hettie. She tried not to let any
kind of
reaction come across her face. She couldn’t help smiling
back,
though.

They stood
up,
and she followed him to fetch the lantern and then down the garden path. “We’ll just walk around the house and land here,
Hettie,
” James said. “We won’t stray far from the path, I promise.”

“Good,
” she responded. “I do like to stay on the proper path.”
The one ordained by God,
she thought but didn’t say.

He gave her a look that made her wonder if he’d known just what she was
talking about
.

“I want you to know that I’m not some big brute who likes to go around yelling at strangers
…women
or men.” His voice was
low
and gentle. Hettie found that she enjoyed listening to the sound of it when he talked. “I have been through a lot in my
life,
and it’s hard for me to…get by sometimes. I do hope you can understand what I mean by this.”

I do.
Hettie didn’t speak the words aloud. She just looked at him with encouraging eyes. She nodded to let him know he should continue.

“When…when my wife
was killed
, it took a lot out of me. It took away the life
in
me for a long time. I only focused on the job. I keep the peace. It’s what I have to do to make sure the people here are safe. Safer than I…I had to work a lot harder to keep everyone safe. To make sure.” He stopped.

Hettie looked at him. “James, is it all right if we sit on the steps
of
the house to talk? I’m a little weary
from
being on my feet most of the day.”

“Oh, of course!” James nodded and they turned in the direction of the front of the house. He didn’t continue
talking,
and when they sat, it was Hettie who talked instead.

“James, Liz told me what happened with your wife and I’m so sorry to hear it. I’m sorry that you
were so broken
from it. I know how depressed you have
been,
and I understand it. I lost my mother in a tragic way, as well. She
was killed
when I was twelve. It took my father a long time to stop mourning. There’s just something you need to remember. When someone dies, you don’t want to let go. But
eventually,
you have to. You have to let God have it. It’s the only way to save your soul. I don’t know why your wife had to die or why my mother had to die. But God knows. And we have to trust Him.” She stopped and tilted her head, putting one of her small hands into one of his.

He looked
closely
at her. “Liz told me that you lost your
mother,
” he confessed. “She said that it should make me think about how we have something like that in common. She thinks we would be good for each other.”

Hettie felt a twitch in her
chest,
and she swallowed, smiling. “Do you
think we
would be good for each other?”

“I didn’t think so.” James wrapped his fingers around hers so that she couldn’t pull away. “I have thought about it and prayed about it for two days. I haven’t been able to see past the loss…the
mourning
. The anger I still feel…it eats away at me.”

She nodded. “Those kinds of emotions only hurt the one who feels them. There’s simply nothing we can do about the circumstances. We must rise above.”

They were quiet for a moment, sitting on the steps with their hands together.

“For
years,
I have been taking two steps forward and another
back,
” James said. “I feel like I’m not making any progress.”

“If you are taking a step forward then you are making progress. As long as it isn’t two steps back.”

James smiled.

“If you want to, James, I will stay here with Liz and
John,
and we can have a few more talks.”

“You
want
to see if you
really
want
to stay with me?” James asked.

She giggled. “No, I was thinking the opposite way around. I was brought here for you.
This must
be your decision. I had already made mine.”

“Do you think you could love a man like me?”

“From what I’ve heard, you are a wonderful man whose heart has been kept in a prison of his
own
making for some time now.” She reached up and placed one hand on his cheek. He closed his eyes for a moment and then opened them to look into hers. “Don’t you think it’s time to let it out now so that it can heal?”

“You will stay and help it heal?”

“I surely will, James.”

James leaned forward so that he was inches away from her. “I don’t think it will take very long.”

Just before Hettie leaned in for the first of many soft kisses, she replied, “I will wait as long as it takes.”

THE END

Chapter One

Joyce sat up in bed, stretching her arms up toward the ceiling and letting out a long breath. It was supposed to be one of the most beautiful days of the
year,
and she was
excited about
it.
She
and her aunt had a picnic on Glade Hill planned for the afternoon. She couldn’t wait. She hadn’t been able to sit down with her aunt Grace and have a talk for several weeks.

She slipped out of the bed and pushed her feet into her slippers. She pulled on her robe and stepped over to her desk to get her brush and tooth cloth. Her mother had told her when she was a child that if she brushed her hair every morning and night and rubbed her teeth with a small cloth, they would stay cleaner and look healthier. She had practiced those two traditions every day since she was ten years
old
when she and her family migrated from Ireland.

She pulled back her thick red hair after brushing it thoroughly with 100 strokes and tied it behind her head in a large bun. She pulled on her bonnet over it, then pulled it off and decided she was going without today. She didn’t have to wear
a bonnet
if she didn’t want to.

She put on her clothes and left the room, leaving the house with fifteen minutes to walk to the sewing shop in town where she worked. It wasn’t far from her room in the boarding house. On the way out, she picked up a ham biscuit from the kitchen. Each morning, one of the other tenants fixed ham biscuits and left them warm for anyone who wanted one. She delighted in
them
since they were the only meat she got until dinnertime.

Today would be different. Her aunt was sure to have ham or turkey biscuits, with some corn and cabbage on the side and possibly a few other tasty delights. Her aunt, Grace, made the best sugar cookies she’d ever eaten. They were another thing she was looking forward to today.

Joyce smiled as she walked down the side of the street. There didn’t appear to be many people on the road this morning. No horses, buggies, carriages, or wagons passed her on her way. She thought that was a bit strange but after a
moment
forgot about it.

Her coworkers were already in the shop, sitting around in comfortable cushioned chairs with their sewing work on their laps and their sewing baskets set either at their feet or to the side.

“Good morning, Joyce!” Several of them called out a greeting to
her,
and she smiled at them.

“Good morning, ladies.”

“Did you have a good sleep last night?” One of them, Ann-Margaret, asked curiously. Without waiting for an answer, she continued. “I didn’t. I heard a dog howling in the middle of the
night,
and it woke me up. I couldn’t get back to sleep! Can you imagine? Letting your dog howl all night long when other people are trying to sleep.”

Joyce went to a shelf and took down her sewing basket. “Did you go out and say something about it to your neighbor?” She asked as she strolled back to her seat.

“I wanted to, let me tell you that.” Ann-Margaret was shaking her head. “But I don’t like to wander about at night by myself. You don’t know who might be lurking in the shadows.”

“Yes, because there are so many wild dog or Indian attacks here, right, Ann-Margaret?”
One of her other coworkers winked at her. The rest of them laughed. Ann-Margaret gave her friend a smile.

“It’s dangerous whether you like to believe it or not, Jane.
I could have been attacked by a wild animal
. You just never know!”

“Or a mosquito could have bitten you!” Jane said, continuing to tease her. “How tragic! How awful!”

They all
laughed,
and Ann-Margaret joined in. “Oh, it may be silly to you, Janie. But I just don’t like it. I could even trip or walk into a hole and break my ankle.”

“Well then you would be useless as a horse with a broken leg, wouldn’t you?”

“All right now.” They heard the sound of their boss, Jack Carrigan, come from the back room. He stepped out and smiled at them all. “You can’t get work done if you are sitting around teasing Ann-Margaret about her fears.”

The women greeted their boss jovially.

“Good morning, Jack.” Joyce nodded at him. “I’m not late today, am I?”

He shook his head, moving
into the room
to survey the work his employees were doing. He was a large, round man with a pleasant demeanor and a quick hand to help anyone who needed it.
Like
his employees, the woman who worked
for
him were treated with a great deal of respect and encouragement. He paid them a decent salary and never tried to withhold any money from them. They did good
work,
and he liked to reward them for their efforts. “Not at all, Joyce. You just didn’t get here early!”

He grinned at her and she returned his smile, sitting to begin her work. She enjoyed the job and had been saving her money for some time now to do some traveling. She wanted to get out of the small Virginia town that had become her home after coming over from Ireland to New York. Her mother had detested New York and moved them South as soon as she could.

The morning went by quickly, as Joyce had hoped it would. She was pulling on a light shawl and heading out the door before she knew it.

Glade Hill was on the other side of the street and down just a bit from the sewing shop. She stopped on the way and took an apple from a cart, flipping the vendor a coin as she went. He snatched it from the air and grinned at her.

“Thank you, Joyce!” He called out, holding the coin up in the air. She nodded at him and took a big bite from the apple.

When she reached Glade Hill, she pulled open a small white iron gate that surrounded the bottom of the hill and went through. A stone path would lead
a winding
way up the
hill,
and she set about going up it, looking to the left and right to see where her aunt had decided to sit. She soon spotted her and left the path to walk over the grass to the blanket Grace had spread out for them to sit on.

“Good day, Joyce!” Grace stood up and approached, her arms spread out for a hug. They
met,
and Joyce hugged her mother tightly.

“Hello,
Auntie
!” She greeted her.

“How has your day been at the sewing shop?” They took the few steps back to the blanket and sat down. Joyce made herself comfortable and happily took a small bottle of Coca-Cola out of her aunt’s basket.

“It’s been fine. We’ve gotten a lot of work done. But I’ve been waiting for this picnic, auntie. I’m so glad to be able to see you and talk to you again. I’m glad you’ve come back from visiting.”

Grace nodded. “I must do what I can for our Irish old-timers, Joyce. Visiting them seems to bring them great
joy,
so I keep doing it.”

“Yes, I know, Grace. You have a
very strong
sense of loyalty.”

Grace smiled wide. “It is an Irish thing. You possess that quality, too. You just have different things you are loyal to.”

Joyce happily took a turkey and cheese roll from her aunt. “I do? Such as?”

“You are very loyal to your job. When was the last day you didn’t go to work?”

Joyce gave her a look. “If I don’t work, I don’t make any money. How will I save and get ahead then?”

“You are loyal to yourself as well.” Grace chuckled. “You want what you
want,
and
you
’re going to get it, are you not?”

“That is my plan. I must get out of this little town.”

“You will miss me?”

“I will.” She leaned forward and put her hand on her mother’s arm. “You are going to be the person I miss the most, auntie. You know that.”

“Your brothers and sister have missed you in the last month or two. You should
go visit
them.”

Joyce laughed. “Before I leave this place, I will visit them. Until then, they know where I am! And since they have their families now, I would only be intruding if I just went over there. Robert would think I am only there for a meal!”

The women laughed softly.

“I do have something I wanted to show you and discuss with you, Joyce. Something you might
want
to consider as you think about traveling and leaving here.”

“Oh?”

“Yes.” Grace reached back into her basket and pulled out the newspaper from a larger town some distance from them. It was one of the
towns
she had visited where they had relatives. They had relatives all over
town
and all over the state of Virginia, who had migrated down from New York to escape the blistering cold of winter and the crunch as people from around the world flooded into the main streets there.

Grace looked through the paper, snapping it open and folding it so that a particular page was displayed. “Look at what this says here.” She pointed to a small ad in the middle of the page.

Joyce read through it. “Auntie, are you suggesting I travel
to the West
to become this man’s bride? Why would I want to do that?”

“There are several good reasons why this would be for you, Joyce. First, I have been praying for a sign, something that will help relieve you
from
the burden of being in a place you don’t want to be in.”

“Auntie, I’m perfectly content…”

“Let me finish, my girl. Second, this man is wealthy. He will take good care of
you,
and you won’t have to work in a sewing shop for the next ten years, saving money to be able to go somewhere else where you will have to work again. And third, you have a chance to have a family of your own. I know you want that, do you not?”

“I do. You know I would like to have a family soon. I’m almost
22,
and I need to start my life. I know a lot of girls my age who have been married for several years. I don’t want to be a spinster.”

Grace laughed and shook her head. “A beautiful woman like you does not have to worry about that, Joyce.”

Joyce snorted. “How can you say that, Grace? I have not had any marriage proposals before. Not in my life!”

Grace blew a quick breath through her lips as if to dismiss the words Joyce had just said. “The only reason you haven’t been receiving any is because you have three protective older
brothers,
and there are too many relatives here. You have almost a dozen cousins
here,
and that’s
almost
all of the population your age that
aren’t already married
.”

Joyce nodded. “That is a good point, Grace.”

“
At least,
consider this proposal. You can have so much more, so much freedom
being married
to an older,
rich
man.”

“It doesn’t say he’s older.”

“Do you expect him to have wealth at your age?”

Joyce contemplated that thought. “I suppose not. But what if he’s
very old
?”

“You won’t know unless you write to him and find out.” Grace tilted her head and gazed at her niece. “Will you consider it? Will I be sending you on a train heading West
any time
soon?”

Joyce was quiet, thinking about the possibilities in the West. Things would be so very different. The climate, the population, even the way people talked and dressed. It would be quite a change.
A completely different
and new life.

“I will.” She nodded and her aunt grabbed her in a tight hug.

“I’m so pleased!
I will come over after you are home from work and help you write back to him if you like.”

Joyce smiled. Another chance to see her mother so soon was always welcome. She wasn’t going to be seeing her at all in her future.