He smiled again. In silence, she and Albert watched the man in the eagle-feather hat mount his mule and steer it southwestward toward deep and gloomy canyons.
She watched him until he was a mere speck. Watched and said nothing. Because what could be said at this point?
She heard the heavy steps of boots on the platform and turned her head. Gordon came around the corner with his saddle bags thrown over one shoulder. He was resplendent in black frockcoat, cream-colored vest, and a waterfall of lace at his throat and wrists.
As happened every time she saw him after an absence, if only minutes, her heart skipped a beat, her stomach dropped away, her breath caught. Her gaze followed him the way sunflowers turn their heads toward the sunlight.
She stood.
His musketeer’s rapier gaze swept over her, lingered at her face. “Your hair!”
Her fingers apprehensively touched a tendril that she had curled artfully at her temple. The rest of the mass was caught on top her head in a crown of lustrous curls. “Ye think I am ready for society?”
“Mattie, I think the question is whether society is ready for you. With your spunk, I feel certain you will continue to set it on its ear.”
A faint train whistle reminded her that their odyssey together was drawing to an end. A plume of black smoke curled up from the foothills.
“Ye don’t think my eccentricities will be too much for Sin City.”
“It is your eccentricities that make you exceptional.”
Soon the Southern Pacific Rail would chug into view. And then a rail coach would carry Gordon Halpern back East, where a flourishing portrait-painting career awaited.
He surprised her by reaching out to remove a pin from her carefully coifed hair. Then another. “What are ye doing?”
And another. “Do you remember asking me what qualified one as deserving to live—and I told you I didn’t know?”
Her hair tumbled around her shoulders. “Aye.” The thunder of metal wheel against rail and the roaring clank of engine forced her to speak louder than normal. Where was this conversation going?
He leaned his head near hers to make himself heard. His voice was low but distinct enough for her to understand every word. “This journey has taught me what that quality is. It’s a nobility of spirit. Few have it. You do.”
“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell ye!” she practically yelled. “Not just about me. About all of us.”
The train wheezed to a halt. She was still shouting. “Call it a wild heart if ye will. It makes us more than we would be otherwise. It makes us more than we appear to be!”
The engine hissed and spewed. The conductor was the first to step onto the platform. A tiny, old woman with a cane and carpetbag in hand got off. Next, two cowpunchers and an infantryman, most likely returning from leave.
And it was time for Gordon to leave. Apparently, he still didn’t understand what she was saying. That she was trying to tell him how much she admired his honorable endeavors, his tremendous courage, and deep loyalty. No matter what the appearances were, he was constant. When things seemed at their worst, he was most ready to give of himself.
“Mattie, I am a man of dour moods and fastidious habits. And tend toward physical expression when angry.”
“Can ye not see that our disparate personalities mesh well into a union of complements?”
“I see that I could destroy your genuineness by trying to sophisticate you.”
She turned her face up to his. “Do ye truly think anyone could do that to Mattie McAlister?”
She waited for an answer. She felt as if her skin was the only thing holding her together, a delicate husk. The fist of logic and reasoning squeezed her heart dry of life blood. Waiting to hear the words spoken—that he believed in the power of love—it was as if she had stood for thirty years with a rifle pointed at her breast.
She could see that he was struggling with himself. “Don’t change yourself, Mattie. I want to remember you the way you look today. Wild. Uncommonly beautiful.”
Well, if she had to beg him, then he wasn’t worth her love. “Good luck with ye, Halpern.”
His fingers grazed her cheek. “There is nothing that can stop you from having all that you want and deserve. Don’t compromise. Make them accept you as you are.” His fingers lingered on her cheek, her jaw, as if he would say more. He didn’t.
She did. “Good luck with your portrait painting back East.” She stepped back, away from his touch, where she was safe from cracking apart, and turned to go.
His hand easily encompassed her wrist.
She looked over her shoulder at him. “What?”
“Don’t you know it is the West I really want to paint? I want to paint this vastness, this wildness.” He took her hand and drew her gently to him. “Ohhh, Mattie, it is you I want to paint. To paint your mouth, with its whimsical grin. And your mischievous-looking eyes, where I see the beauty reflected inside you.”
Head tilted back, her lips parted in surprise. “Are ye saying ye want me? Me, wild, wanton Mattie McAlister?”
He lowered his mouth to just above hers. His breath on her lips was her life, if only for just this moment. “Oh, Mattie, my Mattie. You are simply extraordinary.”
From the corner of her eyes she could see that the old lady was watching, as was the conductor.
“All aboard!”
His fingertip traced her bottom lip. He kept touching her, as if he could not get enough of her. “I want your resiliency. I want your resourcefulness. I want your indomitable spirit, even in the face of defeat.”
“Then you want to stay? With me?” She still couldn’t believe it. “Ye are certain?”
“Remember what you told me? That we must choose it to be so time and again until we realize that it could truly be no other way. I want you as mine, Mattie McAlister.”
“1 want you two to make up your minds,” Albert said. “The train is leaving.”
The conductor called “All aboard!” for the last time. The train whistled its warning. Then it lumbered away without its passenger.
Gordon Halpern was embracing a thoroughly disreputable-looking woman and kissing that beguiling beauty with a passion that brought a “humph” from the old woman and a “sonofabitch” from the grinning gap-toothed boy.
T H E E N D
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Parris Afton Bonds is the mother of five sons and the author of more than forty published novels as well as articles and short stories. She is the co-founder and first vice president of Romance Writers of America. Declared by ABC’s Nightline as one of three best-selling authors of romantic fiction, the award winning Parris Afton Bonds has been interviewed by such luminaries as Charlie Rose and featured in major newspapers and magazines as well as published in more than a dozen languages. She donates her time to teaching creative writing to both grade school children and female inmates. The Parris Award was established in her name by the Southwest Writers Workshop to honor a published writer who has given outstandingly of time and talent to other writers. Prestigious recipients of the Parris Award include Tony Hillerman and the Pulitzer nominee Norman Zollinger.
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Table of Contents
Published by Paradise Publishing
The author wishes to express gratitude to
Author’s Note
§ CHAPTER ONE §
§ CHAPTER TWO §
§ CHAPTER THREE §
§ CHAPTER FOUR §
§ CHAPTER FIVE §
§ CHAPTER SIX §
§ CHAPTER SEVEN §
§ CHAPTER EIGHT §
§ CHAPTER NINE §
§ CHAPTER TEN &se...
§ CHAPTER ELEVEN §
§ CHAPTER TWELVE §
§ CHAPTER THIRTEEN §
§ CHAPTER FOURTEEN §
§ CHAPTER FIFTEEN §
§ CHAPTER SIXTEEN §
§ CHAPTER SEVENTEEN §
§ CHAPTER EIGHTEEN §
Parris Afton Bonds is the mother of five sons and the author of more than
Please, keep me from being sent to Fiji’s Debtors Prison ~ click links below and buy my ebooks:Indian...