Summer's Freedom (23 page)

She whirled to hide the tears that blinded her. With her back turned, she added, “The thing that makes it so terrible is that you and Galen are the only men I’ve ever trusted. And neither of you trusted me in return.”

Before he could say another word, she bolted for the car. When she reached it, she burst into huge sobs, gripping the steering wheel. She had come here to sort things out with him and had botched it completely. Never in her life had she been so confused.

G
alen left Sunday morning. Sunday afternoon, the new neighbors moved into the other half of the building, which never went unrented for long. It was a young married couple, a fact Maggie viewed with more than a little irony.

The letter came Monday morning, the only thing the postman delivered. Before she even lifted a hand to pull it out of the box, she knew who it was from by the deeply colored sky visible on the edges of the envelope. For an instant, she hesitated, then withdrew it.

At first glance, there was no difference in the drawing. A single hawk circled above her name and address, written in the familiar bold hand. As her trembling hands carried the slender envelope closer, she saw that Moses with his many toes graced one corner. Curled deeply in the hollow between his paws was the kitten Buddy. And on the left of her name stood Maggie in a meadow, her hands lifted around a ball of string that trailed below her name to attach itself to the flying bird—a kite.

Again, he’d quoted Longfellow on the bottom of the envelope. “Love is sunshine, hate is shadow, Life is checkered shade and sunshine, Rule by love, O Hiawatha!”

Her throat tight, she carried the letter inside and sank down onto the nearest seat. It was impossible to simply tear it open, her hands shook so terribly, and she had to wait for them to calm a bit.

Finally, she turned it over and slipped loose the glued flap to pull out a single sheet of paper.

Dear Maggie,

This is the last card I have to play. When I wrote you from prison, I couldn’t afford the luxury of emotion. Now there are no such restrictions.

And I find I have no words to tell you how I feel. For days I’ve sought the perfect phrase—I’ve combed every poetry book I own, reread every passage in every love story that I know of. Nothing fits because you are unique.

So humbly, I draw.

Love, Joel.

Below, he’d sketched a radiant ball of light. Around it curled broken prison bars. In the center of the light was Maggie’s face.

* * *

Maggie found him on a hill with a prairie falcon she recognized as the one that had snagged a field mouse for Joel one sunny afternoon. Since he was unaware of her, she watched him for a long time, his letter pinched between her fingers in the pocket of her skirt.

Never had the perfect balance between size and grace been more carefully achieved. Never had colors been so beautifully arranged, from the bright, clear blue of his eyes to the palette of blacks and reds that made his hair.

It was no accident that he loved these birds, these fierce and beautiful birds of prey. Like the hawk he’d mourned with Maggie in their lilac-scented backyard, he had failed to thrive away from the sight of the open sky. And like all birds of prey, he killed only in defense of his own.

As she watched, he untied the jess on the falcon’s leg and moved his arm to launch the bird into the azure sky. The falcon circled, higher and higher, testing the currents of wind. Joel lifted his face to watch it, and Maggie saw his throat work with emotion.

The bird beat its powerful wings, and with an amazing display of speed, flew away. Maggie followed its flight until it disappeared, then looked up to find Joel’s eyes upon her.

She climbed the hill, unabashedly letting her tears flow hot over her face, tears of joy and release. In the knee-high yellow grass at the top of the hill, she stopped. “I was wrong to judge you so harshly,” she said. “I don’t care what your name is.” She swallowed to give her throat room for words. “I love you.”

With a quick sound of joy, he swept her into a rib-crushing hug. Against her neck, he breathed, “I missed you.” He pressed his lips to her neck, her jaw, her eye, finding at last her mouth, which he claimed in joy.

Maggie met his passion eagerly, feeling the light burst once again within her. Pulling away a fraction of an inch, she said, “I can’t believe I considered actually letting this go.”

As if the thought pained him, Joel pressed her head into his shoulder. “I was so afraid that you would, that I would have lost you.” His chest expanded with a breath, and he eased his hold to look at her. “I don’t believe we’ve been properly introduced,” he said.

“You don’t have to do this,” Maggie protested.

“My name is Mitchell Joel Gray. Everyone but my mother and the state of Colorado has always called me Joel.”

She nodded. “Joel, then.” She smiled. “Samantha is going to be thrilled. She’s been mad that you moved and took the cats ever since she got home.”

“She’s back home?”

Maggie nodded.

“That means no more making love, then.”

“No. I’m not going to pretend to be something I’m not. I’m in love with you, I’m grown, and sometimes sex is a part of a relationship like that.”

He said nothing for a moment, measuring her. “It’s also sometimes a part of marriage.”

“Is that what you want?”

The dimples in his cheeks flashed deeply. “Well, I don’t want to spend another seven years getting to know someone else,” he joked. “Of course that’s what I want,” he said, suddenly sober.

“And children? More of them, I mean? Will you want to do that?”

“Do you want more children?”

The tears sprang to her eyes again. “Oh, yes, Joel. And I can’t think of anything I’d like more than being your wife.”

“You’re sure you feel okay about my past?”

Maggie nodded. “I may still have some things to work through about that. It may not always be easy for you.”

“As long as I’m with you, Maggie, I really don’t care.”

She laced her fingers with his as they started down the hill. “We’ll tell Samantha tonight at dinner.”

“I’ll bring Moses and Buddy to visit.”

Maggie stopped and faced him, suddenly very sure. “Bring them to stay, Joel. And bring your clothes. I don’t want to ever spend a night without you again.”

“I can see,” he said, his neon eyes glittering, “that we aren’t going to have time for a big wedding.”

Maggie laughed. “No time at all.”

As he wrapped her in his arms again, a hawk called in the clear blue sky. Maggie opened her eyes to watch it, feeling her heart soar in the endless depths of the sky. “I love you, Joel,” she whispered, and laughed. “You, too, Mitchell Gray.”

~~###~~

For Denise West,
who loves and endures no matter what.

BARBARA SAMUEL O'NEAL

Barbara Samuel (also known as Barbara O’Neal) is the bestselling author of more than 40 books, and has won Romance Writers of America’s RITA award an astounding six times, and she has been a finalist 13 times. Her books have been published around the world, including France, Germany, Italy, and Australia/New Zealand, among others. One of her recent women’s fiction titles,
The Lost Recipe for Happiness
(written as Barbara O’Neal) went back to print eight times, and her book
How to Bake a Perfect Life
was a Target Club pick in 2011.

Whether set in the turbulent past or the even more challenging present, Barbara’s books feature strong women, families, dogs, food, and adventure—whether on the road or toward the heart.

Now living in her hometown of Colorado Springs, Barbara lives with her partner, Christopher Robin, an endurance athlete, along with her dog and cats. She is an avid gardner, hiker, photographer and traveler who loves to take off at dawn to hike a 14er or head to a faraway land. She loves to connect with readers and is very involved with them on the Internet.

You may read more about Barbara’s books at her main website, find her at her A Writer Afoot blog and on Facebook.

Visit Barbara on the Web!

www.BarbaraSamuel.com
www.AWriterAfoot.com
www.BarbaraONeal.com

~~~

Please enjoy excerpts of some of Barbara's other Books:

Excerpt: In The Midnight Rain
Excerpt: Breaking the Rules
Excerpt: Jezebel's Blues
Excerpt: The Last Chance Ranch
Excerpt: A Minute to Smile
Excerpt: Light of Day
Excerpt: Walk in Beauty
Excerpt: Rainsinger

Additional titles, including those from other genre, are listed at the end of the excerpts or click
HERE
to jump there.

Barbara is very active writing new books and converting her backlist into eBooks. To find the most up to date information, please visit her website.

(Excerpt)

by
Barbara Samuel

1

T
he sky was overcast and threatening rain by the time Ellie Connor made it to Gideon at seven o'clock on a Thursday evening.

She was tired. Tired of driving. Tired of spinning the radio dial every forty miles—why did the preaching stations always seem to have the longest signal?—tired of the sight of white lines swooping under her tires.

She'd started out this morning at seven planning to arrive in Gideon by midafternoon in her unfashionable but generally reliable Buick. She'd had a cute little Toyota for a while, but her work often took her to small towns across America, and if there were problems on the road, she had discovered it was far better to drive American. Since she'd lost a gasket in the wilds of deepest Arkansas, this was the trip that proved the rule.

The gasket had delayed her arrival by three hours, but at last she took a right off the highway and drove through a small East Texas town that was closing itself down for the evening. She had to stop at a gas station to get directions to the house, but finally she turned onto a narrow road made almost claustrophobic by the thick trees that crept right up to its edge. It hadn't been paved in a lot of years, and Ellie counted her blessings—at least she didn't have to look at dotted lines anymore.

Something interfered with the radio, and she turned it off with a snap. "Almost there, darlin'," she said to her dog April, who sat in the seat next to her.

April lifted her nose to the opening in the window, blinking against the wind, or maybe in anticipation of finally escaping the car. Half husky and half border collie, the dog was good-natured, eternally patient, and very smart. Ellie reached over to rub her ears and came away with a handful of molting dog fur.

As the car rounded a bend in the road, the land opened up to show sky and fields. A break in the fast moving clouds overhead suddenly freed a single flame of sunlight, bright gold against the purpling canvas of sky. Treetops showed black against the gold, intricately lacy and detailed, and for a minute, Ellie forgot her weariness. She leaned over the steering wheel, feeling a stretch along her shoulders, and admired the sight. "Beautiful," she said aloud.

Ellie's grandmother would have said it was a finger of God. Of course, Geraldine Connor saw the finger of God in just about everything, but Ellie hoped it was a good omen.

April whined, pushing her nose hard against the crack in the window, and Ellie took pity and pushed the button to lower the passenger-side glass. April stuck her head out gleefully, letting her tongue loll in the wind, scenting only heaven-knew-what dog pleasures on that soft air. Handicapped by human olfactory senses, Ellie smelled only the first weeds of summer and the coppery hints of the Sabine River that ran somewhere beyond the dense trees.

The road bent, leaning into a wide, long curve that ended abruptly in an expanse of cleared land. And there, perched atop a rise, was the house, an imposing and boxy structure painted white. Around it spread wide, verdant grass, and beyond the lawn, a collection of long, serious-looking greenhouses. Trees met the property in a protective circle, giving it the feeling of a walled estate. Roses in a gypsy profusion of color lined the porch and drive.

Ellie smiled. It was a house with a name, naturally: Fox River, which she supposed was a play on the name of the owner, Laurence Reynard.

Dr.
Reynard, in fact, though she didn't know what the doctorate was in. She knew little of him at all, apart from the E-mail letters she'd received and the notes he'd posted in a blues newsgroup. In those writings, he was by turns eccentric and brilliant. She suspected he drank.

She'd been corresponding with him for months about Gideon and Mabel Beauvais, a blues singer native to the town, a mysterious and romantic figure who was the subject of Ellie's latest biography. Ellie had had some reservations about accepting Reynard's offer to stay in his guest house while she completed her research, but the truth was, she did not travel without her dog, and it was sometimes more than a little difficult to find a rental that didn't charge an arm and a leg extra for her.

As she pulled into the half-circle drive, however, Ellie's reservations seeped back in. E-mail removed every gauge of character a body relied upon: you couldn't see the shifty eyes or the poor handwriting or restless gestures that warned of instability. And arriving in the soft gray twilight put her at a disadvantage. She'd deliberately planned to get here in daylight in case the situation didn't feel right, but that blown gasket had set her back too many hours. At the moment, she was too tired to care where she slept as long as her dog was in her room.