Captive Bride (30 page)

“My home,” Huiann explained. “You will be hidden there. You will be able to work to earn money, for passage home if you like or for any other purpose.”

“Earn money how? More fucking?” A hard-eyed woman glared at her. “All lies. Why would the white man’s police help us?”

Huiann wanted to slap her. She was making the other women nervous, the way one hen could get a whole flock clucking and scurrying about. She understood the woman’s mistrust, but did the woman believe anything could be worse than the hell she’d already been enduring?

“They expect nothing. Some men are decent. Some men want to help. And the work you will be doing, if you choose to, is sewing.” She held up her hands.

“Please, everyone, calm down and stay seated. You will be out of here soon.”

But even as she said it, she felt their panic affecting her. It was easy to feel trapped, packed into the back of a wagon with over a dozen other bodies. The smell and closeness choked her. What if something went wrong?

What if Alan had been misled by the police and they really intended to throw the prostitutes in jail? What if she was bundled along with them, locked up, imprisoned?

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Alan would never let such a thing happen. He would plead her case and get her out. Besides, nothing of the kind was going to occur. It was only her imagination running wild.

The wagon rumbled over stone paving and then bumped over rough dirt roads. The women chattered and fretted and Huiann breathed into the cuff of her sleeve, trying to shield herself from the horrible stench of the refugees crowded around her. She swallowed bile that rose from her queasy stomach.

At last the hellish ride ended. The wagon pulled to a stop and the door opened. Alan stood framed in the doorway, reaching out his hands for her. He lifted her by the waist and placed her on the ground. “Are you all right?”

“Yes. Fine.”

He gave her a quick hug, but there was no time for more, as the policemen began to help the women out of the wagon. Huiann had prepared four rooms to accommodate a dozen women. Now more pallets would have to be made up and she’d already used all the bedding Alan had brought from the store. They needed more blankets and some sort of mattresses, no matter how thin. And more food. The big pot of rice and vegetables she’d made would be emptied in one meal. They hadn’t planned on housing and feeding this large of a group.

The sad-eyed man whom Alan had introduced as Officer Crowley seemed as eager to be rid of the women as he had been to save them. He spoke briefly to Alan before he and his men left, the rattling wagon flanked by mounted officers disappearing into the night. There would be no help from a team of 280

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policemen who wanted to distance themselves from this rescue operation.

Dora came from the house to greet the refugees and Huiann looked around in dismay at the forlorn group of women standing in the yard. Some were dressed in skimpy nightshifts, others were completely naked. She met Alan’s gaze—he stood like a giant among the flock of small women—and his expression was equally bemused. He raised his eyebrows and shrugged.

She smiled, gathering strength from his kind, caring presence, and clapped her hands together. “Ladies, please listen. You may be free, but you’re not out of danger. Someone may try to find you and take you back. To keep that from happening, you have been brought here. We’ll do our best to shelter and feed you, but in order to help pay for all your needs, we ask you to work here as seamstresses. You are not prisoners. If any of you wish to leave, it is your choice, but you must not reveal the location of this house for the sake of those who want to live in peace and safety.” Huiann glanced around at their faces and could see some understood her words and were quietly translating to those who didn’t. Then a face caught her attention and she froze. She’d never seen Madam Teng without her hair severely twisted in a bun, and it had taken her a moment to recognize the woman with her gray-streaked hair straggling around her face. She appeared a thousand years older than the last time Huiann had seen her. Teng’s gaze met hers and she pressed her hands together and bowed low over them.

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“On behalf of all here, I thank you for your extreme kindness and generosity. Bless you and thank you.” Madam Teng remained bowed low.

“You are welcome. All your past is forgiven and forgotten here. Every woman has a chance to begin again.” Huiann urged them toward the door. “Inside now. Welcome to your new home.”
Chapter Twenty-Two

Huiann stood on the beach watching a lone gull circling in the slate-gray sky. Its raucous screech hung in the air, competing with the steady rush of the surf against the shore. How peaceful it was to be away from the constant chatter of too many women living together. She and Alan had their own bedroom and a sitting room, but even there the hum of female voices was never far away.

But today was for them alone. She looked down at her left hand and the band of gold Alan had placed there earlier today. Her wedding had been nothing like she and her sisters had imagined as girls. There was no procession with a band and all their friends and neighbors marching behind. No carriage ride to a temple, no Buddhist priest or scarlet gown and veil.

And her groom certainly looked nothing like the man she’d pictured as she’d once stood on the deck of a ship steaming toward America.

Alan came up beside her and took her hand. She tipped her head back to look into his face. A thread of excitement stitched from the pit of her belly down to her sex. He looked so handsome in his suit, the breadth of his shoulders filling the jacket and making her long to see his beautiful body naked.

“Are you happy?” He slipped his hands around the waist of her lawn dress—periwinkle blue sprigged with tiny white flowers, perfect for an unusual kind of Bonnie Dee

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wedding. He cocked his head, peering into her face in that particular way he had, as if reading her like a book.

“Very happy.” She gestured at the sky and sea and sand. “It is a beautiful day.”

“I know the wedding was nothing like what you would’ve had back home. A civil ceremony isn’t very romantic.”

She rested her palm against his chest, feeling his heartbeat through his vest and shirt, both of which she intended to take off soon.

“You—” She was still frustrated at the way English sometimes eluded her and she had to settle for the few words she knew to describe a much more complex idea. “No need to worry. I am…
Content
is a word?” His smile broke like a wave on the sand. “Yes.

Content is the perfect word.” Alan kissed her. She molded to his body like crepe, sliding her hands up his chest and around the back of his neck, feeling his starched collar and the soft curl of his hair.

At last he pulled away. “Maybe we should go to our room.”

“Soon,” she promised. “But walk on beach first.” Alan had rented them a small room in a beachfront boarding house for a couple of nights. Huiann appreciated a reprieve from their busy household. But right now she didn’t want to be indoors. The lonely stretch of sand before them beckoned her.

“A walk it is, then.” He took off his jacket and tossed it across a driftwood log away from the tide line.

Picking up a stone, he shied it at the water. He was so handsome with his hair nearly golden in the sunlight and his shirtsleeves a crisp white against his dark vest.

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The breeze loosened locks of her hair from the bun at her nape. She took out the pins and combed it out with her fingers. She wanted to feel the sand and water on her feet so she sat on the driftwood to take off her shoes. Alan knelt before her to help her work the buttons free.

A flock of gulls swooped down to fight over a dead fish a little way down the beach. They screeched and flapped their wings, attacking each other with sharp beaks.

Huiann laughed and pointed. “Jiau and Chan.” She named two of the women who fought constantly.

Ironically both of their names meant something similar—charming, graceful girl—yet they argued and pecked like these angry gulls.

Alan slipped off her stocking and rubbed her foot, thumbs digging delightfully into her arch. “I don’t know how you put up with all those women every day.”

“You do not like to live with so many women.” Although some of the refugees had left to find different work, fifteen remained. The factory was producing well, but the living space was crowded.

Poor Alan must miss his old life sometimes.

He shook his head. “I’d like more privacy, but it’s all right. We’ll build a separate home on the property when we can. Your business is growing and a little inconvenience is a small price to pay.” He brought her foot to his mouth and kissed the top of it before setting it on the ground. The sand burned hot beneath her heel, but the imprint of his lips burned even hotter. A pleasurable heat built in her belly, and Bonnie Dee

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she guessed that they would not wait to return to their room before coming together.

Alan removed his shoes then pulled her to her feet.

They held hands and ran along the water’s edge, dodging in and out of the surf. Huiann laughed and held her skirt high, but the hem was soon drenched and dragging, as were Alan’s trouser legs. Her heart felt as buoyant as the swooping gulls. She stopped to gaze at the endless gray and blue waves. “So much water. So far to cross.”

“You miss home.” Alan rubbed her back, his palm spreading more heat through her.

She smiled. “No. I do not think about going home. I
am
home.”

He leaned to kiss her. One long, slow kiss led to another more rushed and hungry and his erection grew hard between them. As fire glowed within her, cold water lapped around her ankles.

Alan took her hand and led her toward tall rocks that lay tumbled in a haphazard pile. In the shelter of the rocks, they embraced again, hands grasping, unfastening and reaching for uncovered bare skin.

With her drawers around her knees and her skirt hitched high, Huiann pressed against the flat surface of one of the boulders. Alan lifted her up, fumbled his cock free from his breeches and brought it to her entrance. They came together with breathless urgency under the sun and sky.

Huiann moaned and clutched the back of his vest as he plunged into her. The unyielding rock behind her pressed her firmly against him and her legs around his waist locked him to her. He nuzzled her neck, grunting with every thrust, which spurred her frenzied heartbeat.

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She arched her hips to meet his thrusts, gripped handfuls of his hair, pulling his head close so she could whisper to him how good he felt inside her.

The constant roar of the surf combined with her rising need until the two were one. Incoming waves swept through her, each higher than the last, until finally a huge breaker crashed over her and swept her out to sea. Her head fell back against the rock and she cried out, as wild as a gull’s call.

Alan pounded into her with rising intensity. She clenched around his straining cock, urging him to fly with her. He gave a strangled groan as he released.

She clamped her knees even tighter around him, holding him to her. “As the sunlight heats the earth and gives it life, so precious you are to me,” she said in Wu.

Alan lifted his head and looked into her face with eyes like sunlight on the waves. She felt she could see into his very soul and wondered if he saw the same thing in her eyes. Could he see her love and her spirit reaching out to him?

He smiled and brushed her wind-whipped hair away from her face. “My wife.”

“My husband,” she replied, trying out the new word.

Alan let her down to her feet and tucked his cock into his fly. He adjusted his clothes while she smoothed her rumpled dress—a fine way to treat a brand-new frock, wading in the salty ocean then snagging it on a rough rock.

She leaned into him, feeling the heat of his body pressing against hers. “On the ship I thought about what my life here would be. I never dream of you. But Bonnie Dee

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here you wait, perfect for me. I think Grandmother Mei watch over me and bring me to you.”

“I think she did too.” He wrapped his arms around her. “I think we’ve earned our happiness and now we’re being blessed.”

“Blessed.” She liked the sound of it.
Good fortune
smiles on us now.

She looked at the sky, as wide and endless as the possibilities of life, and her hope rose with the seagull gliding far above.

Author’s Note

Although card and tile games similar to mah-jongg have been played in China for centuries, the game we are familiar with wasn’t known by that name until the twentieth century.

In 1867 the Pacific Mail Steamship Company began regularly scheduled runs between Hong Kong and San Francisco. Between 1870 and 1883 an average of 12,000 Chinese were arriving in San Francisco each year.

In 1870 California passed a law against the importation of Chinese, Japanese and Mongolian women for the purpose of prostitution.

The Chinese Exclusion Act, passed by Congress in 1882, was the only U.S. law ever to prevent immigration and naturalization on the basis of race.

About the Author

Bonnie Dee began telling stories as a child. Whenever there was a sleepover, she was the designated ghost tale teller, guaranteed to frighten and thrill with macabre tales. She still has a story printed on yellow legal paper in second grade about a ghost, a witch and a talking cat.

Writing childish stories for her own pleasure led to majoring in English at college. Like most English majors, she dreamed of writing a novel but didn't have the necessary focus and follow-through at that time in her life. A husband, children and work occupied the next twenty years, and it was only in 2000 that she began writing again. Bonnie enjoys reading stories about people damaged by life who find healing with a like-minded soul. When she couldn’t find enough books to suit her taste, she began to write them.

You can see her backlist at http://bonniedee.com or join her Yahoo group for updates on new releases at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/bonniedee/.