Nellie looked away as Jace escorted her to a table. She took a seat and looked out the window. She didn’t want to see Jace’s face when he saw the pretty girls.
“Nellie, how wonderful to see you!”
Slowly, she turned away from the window to look at the girls standing by their table. They looked like a bouquet of flowers in their lace-trimmed gowns, snippets of fur on their jackets, jewels in their ears, saucy little hats perched on their pretty heads.
She knew what they wanted: to be introduced to Jace. She took a breath. Better to get it over with. “May I introduce you?” she asked softly. She introduced them, but she still couldn’t bear to look at Jace, to see the way he looked at them. One of the girls slipped off her gloves, and Nellie could see the lovely way she moved her little hands.
Vaguely, she could hear Jace and the girls talking, but she wasn’t really listening. It had been a wonderful afternoon, being on the arm of this man and pretending that he was hers.
“Will you excuse us?” she heard Jace say. “Nellie and I are hungry.”
Nellie prayed for the floor to open and swallow her. People her size pretended they never ate.
“Oh,” one of the girls said, looking curiously at Nellie.
“Mr. Montgomery, are you the man Terel said is going to work for her father?”
Nellie at last stole a glance at Jace and, instead of the enraptured expression she expected to see, she saw annoyance.
“I have agreed to work for
Nellie’s father,”
he said emphatically, “only on the condition that Nellie walk out with me.”
Nellie didn’t know which of them was more stunned, herself or the three girls. In unison they turned to look at Nellie, and their expressions showed that they had no idea why a man like Jace would want a woman like Nellie.
Silently, they floated back to their table, and instantly their pretty heads were bent together as they looked at each other, then at Nellie, and back again.
Turning toward Jace, Nellie was once again speechless.
“This is the strangest town I have ever seen,” Jace said, partly in anger, partly in puzzlement. “You’d think no one had ever seen a man and woman walking out together before. Is Colorado so very different from Maine?”
She started to tell him that the difference was not in states, but in women. What people found odd was that he wanted to be seen with Nellie. But something told her to be quiet. If he didn’t know she was an undesirable, dried-up old maid, she wasn’t going to be the one to tell him. He’d find out soon enough, so why end it sooner than need be?
“Perhaps Colorado is different from Maine,” she said. “Tell me more about Maine and your boats.”
“Gladly,” he said, smiling, for he missed the sea.
A
fter a lovely tea, of which Nellie ate very little, they went back outside.
“I must go home,” Nellie said, not meaning it. At the moment she felt as though she never wanted to go home again.
“You would look pretty in that,” Jace said, looking in the window of the store next door, Chandler’s largest, most expensive department store, The Famous.
Nellie never gave much thought to her clothes. She was too busy taking care of the house and cooking, and if she did have time off, she helped Reverend Mr. Thomas with charity work. Now, looking at the lovely clothes in the window, she did wish she had something pretty to wear.
“Like to go inside?” Jace urged.
“No,” she answered, backing away. She couldn’t bear all those slim, smug shopgirls, and the idea of purchasing a dress made her fear jinxing the day. “No, I must go home. Father will—”
Jace pulled out his big, gold pocket watch and looked at it. “Imagine that. We have been gone only ten minutes. Plenty of time yet.”
“Ten…” Nellie began, then laughed. “All right, Mr. Montgomery, it looks as if we have another fifty minutes. Where shall we go?”
He slipped her hand in the crook of his arm. “Anywhere I am with you, I seem to be happy.”
Nellie blushed, but she also felt a warm pleasure spread through her. “Fenton Park isn’t far away,” she lied, knowing it was half a mile. She’d worry about the rib roast and the unmade apple pie later.
They walked slowly, Nellie relaxing more with each step. Jace was very courteous to her, and he didn’t desert Nellie as she feared he would.
At the end of Second Street Nellie halted. Fenton Park was in front of them, but between them and the park was a four-foot-high stone wall and then a deep ditch. “I meant to go down First Street,” Nellie mumbled, feeling stupid. “We’ll have to go back.”
“What’s a little wall? I’ll lift you up, and you can climb over.”
Nellie felt like laughing at him. Did he also think he could lift houses? Draft horses?
“Too undignified?” he asked, looking at her face.
She might as well say it. “Mr. Montgomery, three men couldn’t lift me over that wall.”
One minute she was on the ground, and the next he had his hands about her waist and she was being lifted. Jace was very strong from many years of hauling anchors and lashing down sails, and Nellie wasn’t even especially heavy to him.
Nellie did laugh when she was on top of the wall. What a day, she thought, what an incredible, unbelievable day! No standing over a hot stove or hanging wash; instead she was walking with a divine man who treated her as though she were beautiful.
She stood on top of the wall and began to walk along the rim, her hands out for balance. Her childhood had ended one day when she was twelve years old, on the day her mother had died. For sixteen years there had been no foolishness, no wasted hours in her life.
Jace stood back and watched her walking on the wall. She seemed to grow younger and happier by the minute. He made a leap, and in a moment he was on the wall with her, and when he held out his hand to her she took it. “If we fall, we go together,” he said, liking the idea of tumbling down the ditch together. “This way.”
Nellie, holding his hand, followed him south along the wall toward Midnight Lake. A gust of wind came and she almost fell, but he caught her in his arms and pulled her close to him. Nellie had never been held by a man, and she could feel her heart pounding.
With one swift movement Jace pulled the pins from her hair and threw them away. Nellie’s long, chestnut hair flowed to her shoulders.
“Beautiful,” he whispered, and he put his cheek next to hers.
Nellie thought perhaps her body might stop functioning.
He pulled away, his face inches from hers. “I’d kiss you, but we seem to have an audience.”
Nellie looked across the ditch to the park to see half a dozen young couples playing croquet, only now they had paused to look at Nellie and Jace on top of the wall. “Take me away before I die of embarrassment,” she whispered.
“Your wish is my command.”
For a flash Nellie thought of what her father would say when he heard of this, but she pushed the thought from her mind.
Now
was all that mattered.
Jace got down first and then lifted his arms to help Nellie down. She had a moment of doubt that he could hold her, but she was beginning to trust him. He took her weight easily, and for a moment he held her to him.
“People are watching,” she said, pushing him away while blushing and laughing.
He took her hand and began to run with her, down one side of the ditch and up the other, then through the trees east of the lake, then further until they were at the edge of the park. Jace stopped, Nellie beside him, her heart pounding from the run, and looked out across the rolling countryside to the mountains. In the distance was a train, and they could hear its faraway whistle.
I’m falling in love, Jace thought. Falling in love with this woman who looks at me as though I’m twenty feet tall. She looked at him through her thick lashes, and he felt as though he could do anything. Julie had looked at him like that. And when he was married to Julie he
could
do anything. And since her death he had been able to do nothing.
But now, with every minute he spent with Nellie he was feeling more alive.
Nellie was trying to tie up her hair, but she had no pins or string.
“Leave it down,” he said, looking at her and wanting to touch her, but it was too soon yet. He knew he needed to go slowly with Nellie. And he was willing to go as slowly as needed.
“All right,” Nellie said softly, and she put her hands at her sides.
He led her up a little hill, then pulled her down to sit beside him, and when Nellie was seated he turned and put his head in her lap. Nellie was, for a moment, too shocked to respond.
“Mr. Montgomery,” she at last managed to whisper, “I don’t think…” She trailed off. Somehow, in the lessening afternoon light, it seemed right that this heavenly man should rest his head in her lap. The whole afternoon had been magical, and this was just part of the magic. Tomorrow she would be back to cooking and cleaning, but today she was going to participate in the magic.
He closed his eyes, and, tentatively, she put her fingertips to his temple to touch the soft hair there. He didn’t open his eyes but gave just a bit of a smile, enough to make the dimple in his cheek show. She ran her finger along that dimple.
“Did you get your dimple from your father or your mother?” she asked softly. For this moment she could pretend she was like any other young woman and this man was hers.
“Father’s family,” he said, not opening his eyes. “Montgomerys now and then have dimples, and sometimes the girls get red hair.”
“And your mother’s family? What are they like?”
Jace smiled as Nellie’s hand softly stroked his hair. “Talented. All the Worths are reeking with talent. My mother sings, her sister paints, my grandfather sings, my grandmother and her father paint.”
“And what do you do?” Nellie was growing more bold as he lay there, his eyes closed. When Terel was small Nellie had held her and cuddled her, but as Terel grew older she’d wanted to be independent and hadn’t allowed Nellie to mother her. Today Nellie was beginning to remember how pleasant it was to touch another human being. She ran her fingers through his hair, feeling it curl as she mussed it. She touched his eyebrows, his chin, felt the whiskers just under the surface of his skin.
“A little of both,” Jace said, his voice husky. It was difficult for him to remain quietly in her lap, difficult not to take her in his arms. Not yet, Montgomery, he told himself, not yet.
“My mother tried to teach me to sing,” he said, “but I never had the discipline. I’d rather be on a boat. My grandmother taught me some about drawing, and I was able to use that to design a few boats for my father’s company, but mostly I just did what I could.”
Nellie suspected he was being modest. Just as she’d sensed his loneliness when she’d first met him, she now knew he was not telling her all the truth. “No doubt your father paid you a salary in spite of the fact that you are a wastrel.”
His eyes flew open. “I earned my keep. In fact, I designed a yacht that outran everything on the eastern seaboard. Neither of my brothers could design a rowboat, and I have some medals at home that—” He broke off, then grinned and settled back in her lap. “I’ll owe you for that, Nellie,” he said, smiling. She’d made him act like a bragging schoolboy. He picked up her hand and kissed the palm. “Now tell me about you.”
“There’s nothing to tell,” she said honestly. “I have no talents, no accomplishments.” Except eating, she thought. One day she ate three whole cakes.
“Music?”
“No.”
“Art?”
“No.”
“You can cook.”
“So can a great many women.”
He opened his eyes and frowned up at her. “You’re not telling me the truth. There must be something you like more than anything in the world.”
“I love my family,” she said dutifully, but when he kept frowning at her she sighed. “Children. I’ve sometimes thought I’d like to have a dozen children.”
“I would love to help you,” Jace said solemnly.
It took Nellie a moment before she understood what he meant, then she blushed furiously and pushed at his shoulder. “Mr. Montgomery, you are wicked!”
He leered at her, wiggling his eyebrows. “You make me feel wicked, Nellie.”
She laughed. The sun was setting, and the day was growing dim. She didn’t know how it was possible, but he was even better-looking in the fading light.
“Listen,” he said.
There was a church at the north end of the park, and in the stillness they could hear a Christmas carol.
“Choir practice,” Nellie whispered. “For the services on Christmas Eve.”
“Christmas,” Jace said softly. “Last Christmas I don’t even remember where I was, but I got drunk and stayed that way for two days.”
“Because of your wife?”
Jace sat up and looked at Nellie, looked at her lovely face, then put his hand on her cheek, then touched her hair. He looked down at her body, at her big breasts, her waist over hips that he’d like to put his hands on. He wondered if her thighs were as white as the skin on her neck.
It suddenly occurred to him that he hadn’t had a woman since Julie. In the four years of his wandering no woman had appealed to him. When he’d looked at women, all he saw was Julie, and every woman paled in comparison to her. But now, looking at Nellie, he wanted her so much that he found his hand was trembling.
“Let’s go listen to the music,” he said at last. He had to get her away from the quiet solitude of the park or he didn’t know if he could control himself.
Nellie had no idea what was going on in his mind, but she knew she didn’t want to leave the park. No man had ever looked at her as he just had, and although it frightened her, it also excited her. She was sure that today was a one-time event and that tomorrow there would be no strolls with a handsome man, so today she had to take all that she could.
“Nellie, don’t look at me like that. I’m only human, and a man can take only so much.”
She hesitated.
Jace rocked back on his heels and groaned.
The groan made Nellie laugh. She wasn’t sure what was going on, but the look on his face made her feel powerful—and beautiful. “All right, let’s go listen to the carols.”
He helped her stand, and it seemed that his hands were all over her body at once. Nellie’s heart leapt to her throat; her blood pounded in her temples.
“Let’s go,” Jace said, grabbing her hand and pulling her forward.
The pretty little white church stood out against the dark sky. The double doors were open, and golden lantern light spilled out into the cool night air. Jace put his arm around Nellie, and when she shivered he led her inside the church. They stood at the back and watched and listened as the choir leader took the men and women through Christmas carol after carol. Some of the choir members smiled at Nellie and looked in question at Jace, who stood protectively near her.
Nellie leaned against the back wall of the church and knew she’d never felt so good in her life. Her clothes brushed against his and, behind the cover of her skirt, he slipped his fingers into hers and squeezed.
They listened to the lovely music for some time, content just to be near each other, fingers entwined, and to do no more than listen.
It was when the choir leader directed the singers to change from carols to hymns that Nellie felt Jace stiffen.
“What is it?” she whispered.
“We have to go,” he said urgently.
Some instinct told her that under no circumstances should they leave the church. She tightened her grip on his hand and said, as though to an unruly child, “We must stay.”
Jace didn’t move but stayed where he was, and Nellie tried to figure out what had upset him so. The choir began to sing “Amazing Grace,” and at the first notes she felt Jace’s hand in hers begin to tremble.