Wishes Read online

  Nellie’s eyes darted to the pantry. “I don’t think we should discuss this now. Maybe we should go into the parlor.”

  “I do not want to go to the parlor.” Terel unpinned her hat. “I am famished. I couldn’t even have luncheon because all anyone wanted to speak to me about was you and how you’d behaved with that man. I really couldn’t bear it.”

  “Terel, please, let’s go to the parlor. We can—”

  “Look at the flowers! Nellie, why didn’t you tell me I had flowers? Who are they from? Johnny? Bob? Not Lawrence, possibly?” Terel picked up the bouquet and searched for the card, then opened it. “It says,” she read, “ ‘to the most beautiful woman in the world.’ How lovely. It must be Lawrence.” She closed the card and then saw that it said “To Nellie, with love from Jace.”

  Terel had to read the card three times before she really understood. She flung the flowers to the floor. “He has been here, hasn’t he?” she cried. “He has been in this room. After all Father and I said to you, you continue with your licentious behavior. How could you, Nellie? How could you?”

  “Terel, please,” Nellie pleaded. “Couldn’t we—”

  “And brandy, too,” she said, holding up the empty glass. “This has gone too far. Wait until I tell Father. Nellie, I never knew you were stupid. Don’t you know that the people who love you know what’s best for you? Don’t you understand what he wants from a woman like you? He wants to get you drunk and—”

  Terel’s back was to the pantry, but Nellie was facing it, and to her horror Jace stepped into the kitchen, ready to do battle with Terel. Nellie shook her head violently, then sprinted across the kitchen. Terel fumbled with her handkerchief while Nellie pushed Jace back into the pantry. Her body was in the kitchen, but her outstretched arm was hidden inside the pantry.

  “—and have his way with you,” Terel finished.

  At that Jace snorted.

  “Are you laughing at me?” Terel asked in horror.

  “No, of course not. I would never laugh at you. I—” Nellie couldn’t say any more because Jace had taken her hand from his chest and begun nibbling at her fingertips.

  “You don’t know men like him, Nellie,” Terel was saying. “He is a…well, he’s a seducer of women.”

  Jace was biting the inside of her wrist, and she could feel the tip of his tongue on her skin.

  “Nellie! Are you listening to me?”

  “Yes,” she said dreamily.

  “You cannot trust men like him, and Father was right when he forbade you to see him again.”

  Jace paused in kissing Nellie’s hand for just a second when Terel said that, but he continued. Besides kissing Nellie, he wanted to hear what the lying bitch had to say.

  “Father told you about his flirting, and I myself saw him at church. He merely wants as many women as he can get. I don’t know why he chose you as one of his…his conquests, but he has. Nellie, don’t you know that we care about you and want what’s best for you?”

  Nellie could barely nod. Her sleeve had been pushed up to wash dishes, and now he was kissing the inside of her elbow.

  “All the man wants from you is entry into Grayson Freight. He wants to be Father’s partner. He would have tried to seduce me, but he knew I know too much about men to fall for his scandalous ways. I would never have let him humiliate me in public as he did you. So, knowing he couldn’t get me, he went after you, and Nellie, you believed every word he said to you. Tell me, did he tell you you were beautiful?”

  Nellie looked into the pantry at Jace. He looked up from her arm and nodded. “Yes,” Nellie whispered. “He told me I was beautiful.”

  “There, you see. That proves he’s a liar.”

  At that Jace dropped Nellie’s arm and started out of the pantry, but Nellie put her hand on his chest and gave him a pleading look while Terel turned around to get a glass out of a cabinet.

  “Terel, why don’t you go upstairs and lie down? I’ll bring your luncheon on a tray.”

  “Yes, perhaps that would be better. It has been a very trying day. You can’t imagine the gossip I’ve had to listen to about my own sister.”

  Nellie started to pull away from Jace, but he wouldn’t let her, so she stood where she was and gave Terel a weak smile. Sighing, Terel left the room.

  Immediately, Nellie turned to him. “Mr. Montgomery, you cannot—” she began, but she couldn’t say more because he pulled her into the pantry and into his arms.

  He kissed her. At first Nellie was so shocked that she just stood there, her eyes open, his strong arms around her as he pulled her close to him.

  “Nellie,” he whispered as he moved to kiss her neck, “don’t you understand that I’m not interested in your father’s company? It’s you I’m interested in.”

  She barely heard him as his lips moved down her neck. His big hands were on her body, and Nellie could feel her knees growing weak. He moved back to her mouth, kissing her gently at first; then, as Nellie relaxed against him, his kiss deepened. The tip of his tongue touched hers. At first she started to draw away from him, but he held her close.

  It was some minutes before Nellie began to truly react to his touching her. She had no idea how much longing and desire were pent up inside her. She was a loving woman who had had no outlet for her love. Her hands moved from her sides to encircle him and pull him closer, and her breath came harder and faster as he continued kissing her.

  “Nellie,” he whispered, and he began to run his teeth and lips across her neck. She moved her arms up to bury her hands in his hair. She kissed his cheeks, his neck, running the tip of her tongue along his skin and feeling the whiskers. He smelled good; he felt good; he tasted good.

  Within minutes Nellie could no longer see or think. She was all feeling, a great, huge, red mass of feeling.

  “Nellie,” Jace said, trying to pull away from her but finding it very difficult, “we have to stop.” He lifted his head to look at her. Her face was flushed pink, her eyes closed, long, thick lashes against her soft cheek, and her lips were soft and full and parted invitingly.

  “Nellie,” he said again, and this time the sound was a groan. “I can’t bear any more. We have to stop.” He kissed her once gently, then pulled away. “I think your family might be a little shocked if they found us making love on the floor of the pantry.”

  Slowly Nellie opened her eyes and looked up at him. They were intimately pressed together, his leg between hers, and she remembered how wantonly she’d just behaved. “I…I’m sorry, Mr. Montgomery,” she mumbled, releasing him. “I didn’t mean…” She didn’t know what to say.

  “Quite all right,” he said, smiling as though nothing had happened, but there was a glow of sweat on his brow.

  Nellie was quite suddenly very embarrassed, and she started backing out of the pantry, her face red.

  “Nellie.” He caught her arm and pulled her close to him, but she pushed at him and gained her freedom.

  “Mr. Montgomery, I am truly apologetic for…for my conduct,” she muttered, moving into the kitchen. It was better not to look at him. If she didn’t look at him again, perhaps she might forget how she had just behaved.

  “Please look at me,” he said, and when she wouldn’t he took her by the shoulders and put his face close to hers. “You aren’t going to believe what your sister said about me, are you? I haven’t looked at any other woman in town except you. Those two overdressed fillies in church sat by me, I didn’t sit by them. And at your father’s office I’ve never been anything but polite to the ladies.”

  She pulled away from him. “Mr. Montgomery, I have no idea what gave you the idea that your social life is my concern. You are free to pursue any and all of the pretty young women in town.” She began slicing bread and beef to make a plate of food for Terel.

  He could see that she didn’t believe him. Damn that little brat Terel, he thought. Nellie believed everything she said. “I’ve never made any advances toward your sister, nor have I—”

  “Are y
ou implying that my sister was telling a falsehood?”

  “If the shoe fits, wear it,” he said before he thought.

  She glared at him. “You may leave now, Mr. Montgomery. And I do not believe you should return.”

  “Nellie, I apologize. I didn’t mean to say that about your sister, even if it is true. I meant—” He didn’t continue because Nellie was looking at him with a great deal of anger. “Nellie, please walk out with me. Just leave everything here and walk with me. Let me show you how much you mean to me.”

  “As you just did in the pantry? No, Mr. Montgomery, I think not. I know what I am. I am an old maid who happens to have a rich father. You need not bother wasting any more of your time on me now that I have seen through you.”

  The pleading look left Jace’s face and was replaced with one of rage. “I have never been dishonest with you,” he said through clenched teeth, “and I do not like being accused of dishonesty.” He stepped toward her, and Nellie stepped back. The anger on his face was frightening. “Someday, Nellie, you’re going to have to make a choice—either your own life or your family’s. I’m willing to help, but not when I’m called a liar and told I’m courting a woman merely to get her father’s money. If you took a little time to get to know me, you’d find out I’m not like that. I’m—” He broke off. He wasn’t about to tell her what he was like. If she believed her sister, believed what someone else told her instead of what she knew to be true, that was her problem. He wasn’t going to defend himself to her.

  He took his hat from the table. “If you want to be an old maid, that’s your decision. It was nice meeting you, Nellie,” he said, and then he turned on his heel and left the kitchen.

  For a moment Nellie was too stunned to think. She stared at the empty doorway, unable to move.

  So, she thought at last, Terel had been right. He wanted only her father’s money. When he knew he wasn’t going to get it, when he knew Nellie had been told of his devious plan, he left.

  For a moment Nellie considered going after him. For a second it occurred to her that it didn’t matter whether he wanted her for her father’s money or not. Whatever had caused his interest in her, the afternoon and evening they had spent together had been the happiest hours of her life. She closed her eyes and remembered being on the wall with him, the way he’d made her feel light and pretty. She remembered his head being in her lap as they talked. She thought of the way he’d sung the hymn and how the tears had coursed down his cheeks. And today in the pantry. She had never before felt passion, and it was a new and heady experience. She folded her arms across her chest and rubbed her forearms.

  Money, she thought. All he’d wanted was her father’s money, and as Terel said, he was courting a fat old maid to get it.

  Behind her the kitchen door swung open. “She wants her lunch,” Anna said, sullen at having to do some work.

  Nellie came back to the present. “Yes, I’m coming,” she said, gathering up the tray and food.

  Terel was sitting on the bed reading, pillows propped behind her, her silk skirt wrinkled beneath her. Nellie put the tray across her lap and began hanging up Terel’s clothes.

  “There is no flower.”

  “What?” Nellie asked absently. She kept seeing Jace’s eyes. He had been so angry at her. Maybe she shouldn’t have accused him as she had. Perhaps she should have gathered a little more proof that his intentions were dishonorable. Maybe—

  “You always put a flower on my tray,” Terel said, as though she were on the verge of tears. “Oh, Nellie, you don’t care about us anymore, only about him.”

  Nellie took the tray off Terel’s lap, pulled her young sister into her arms and stroked her hair. My child, Nellie thought. Terel is the only child I’ll ever have. For a moment she felt like crying, too. Perhaps the only chance she’d ever have of having her own home and family had just walked out.

  “I do care about you,” Nellie said. “I’ve been so busy lately that I just forgot the flower. It doesn’t mean I no longer care for you.”

  “You like Father and me better than him?”

  “Of course I do.”

  Terel clasped Nellie to her. “You wouldn’t run off with him and leave us, would you?”

  Nellie pulled away and smiled at Terel. “A fat old maid like me? Who would have me?”

  Terel sniffed. “We want you. Father and I want you.”

  Nellie was beginning to feel hungry. She moved away from Terel and replaced the tray on her lap. “You should eat your lunch and perhaps take a nap. You’re probably tired from all the worry.”

  “Yes, I guess I am, but Nellie, don’t go.”

  Reluctantly Nellie sat on the edge of the bed. Hunger was gnawing her stomach.

  “He really is gone?” Terel asked, her mouth full. “You don’t have him lurking downstairs somewhere, do you?”

  “No.” Nellie was getting hungrier by the second.

  “Oh, Nellie, you don’t know what a curse it is to be young and beautiful as I am. Men have the most awful motives for wanting to be near you.” She broke off a piece of bread Nellie had baked just that morning and gave her sister a hard look. “Have you been invited to the Harvest Ball?”

  Nellie could feel her face flushing. “Yes,” she whispered.

  Terel set her luncheon tray on the table by the bed, then put her hands over her face. “I have not been invited. I am the only person in town who is not going.”

  Again, Nellie pulled her sister into her arms. “You may have my invitation. I don’t guess I’ll be going now, and besides, what would I wear to something like that?”

  “I can’t take your invitation. The Taggerts don’t think I’m socially acceptable. Me! Everyone knows the Taggerts are little better than coal miners. Oh, Nellie, I wish…”

  “You wish what?”

  Terel pulled away, sniffing. “I wish I were the most popular girl in Chandler. I wish I were invited to every party, every outing there was. I wish no one in Chandler would consider giving a party without me there.”

  Nellie smiled. “Then that’s what I wish, too.”

  “Do you really?”

  “Yes, I really do. I wish you were the most popular girl Chandler has ever seen, and that you had more invitations than you could possibly accept.”

  “Yes, I’d like that,” Terel said, smiling.

  “That would make you happy?”

  “Oh yes, Nellie, I would be very happy if I were popular. That’s all I’d ever ask out of life.”

  “Then I very much hope that you get your wish,” Nellie said. “Now, why don’t you take a nap? I have some work to do.”

  “Yes,” Terel said, smiling and stretching out on the bed. She was wrinkling her dress, but it didn’t matter to her; she didn’t have to iron it.

  Nellie quietly took the tray and left the room. In the kitchen, when she was alone again, she thought more about Jace. If he wasn’t after her for her father’s money, then she had insulted him greatly. What had he said about courting? Something about having the woman he was courting call him a liar.

  The more she thought, the hungrier Nellie became. She tried to control her appetite by sheer force of will, but with every thought she had her hunger increased. Jace had said she had choices, that she was choosing her family over herself. Of course she was choosing her family over herself! Wasn’t that what a person was supposed to do? Didn’t the Bible teach that a person had to give to receive?

  Nellie slammed bread dough on the table. What a selfish man Mr. Montgomery must be to not realize that life’s greatest joy was in giving to others. Look at how she and her family gave to one another. Her father gave his love and support to his two daughters, and Terel also gave love. In return for their love Nellie cooked for them, kept the house clean, waited on them, ran errands, listened to them, cared about them, and—

  To stop the flow of thoughts, Nellie began to eat. She ate anything she could find: five slices of beef, half a pie, a jar of peaches, the heel of a loaf of bread; and w
hen the kitchen was denuded of food, she moved to the pantry. When she entered the pantry she remembered Jace, remembered the way he’d held her, the way he’d kissed her.

  “I don’t care if he wants me only for my father’s money,” she whispered, and then, to keep from crying, she opened a jar of strawberry jam and began eating it with her fingers.

  It was while Nellie was in the pantry that Terel’s first invitation arrived, and by the time she awoke from her nap five invitations were waiting for her.

  “How?” Terel whispered when Nellie handed them to her.

  “Wishes,” Nellie said, smiling, glad to see Terel so happy. “You wished for it, and you got it.”

  Terel clasped the invitations to her breast for a moment, then opened her eyes wide, “What am I going to wear? Oh, Nellie, you’ll have to get my dressmaker and tell her to bring fabric samples and patterns.”

  “I can’t go, I have to prepare dinner. I’ll send Anna, or maybe you should go to her.”

  “I can’t. One of the invitations is for tea today. And you can’t send Anna. She’ll never get the message right. You’ll have to go yourself, Nellie. If only Father would put in a telephone!”

  “Terel, I haven’t time to—”

  Terel turned on her, “I thought you wished for me to be popular. I thought you really, truly wanted me to be popular.”

  “I do, but…”

  Terel put her arm around Nellie. “Please help me. If I meet a lot of people, perhaps I’ll find a man to marry, and then I’ll be out of your hair forever. Maybe this time next year I won’t be living here, and you won’t have to bother with my needs. Then you can have all the free time you want with just Father to care for.”

  Nellie didn’t like to think of living alone with her father. The prospect of a house without Terel was too gloomy to contemplate. “I’ll go,” Nellie said. “You get dressed.”

  It was hours later that Nellie was again in the kitchen. Her father would be home soon, and dinner wasn’t ready. She had managed to get the dressmaker to Terel and had helped Terel dress and do her hair before Howard Bailey came for her in his carriage. Now she was hurriedly trying to get the evening meal ready.