Sterling's Reasons (28 page)
Sometimes that’s all we have.”
He rolled to the side and propped his head on his hand. “We’re doing something else other than planning our future here, you know.” He watched her eyes darken as his lips roamed her face, felt the silkiness of her hands as they roamed over him. Found him.
On a groan, Sterling turned on her side and rubbed his lips with hers. “Say the words, Joe. Say you love me.”
He was afraid. Afraid of jinxing everything they had found. Everything she brought him. He was happy before. It was gone in a second. His entire life had been changed in the time it took to draw a breath.
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She saw it in his eyes. He still needed a little more time. She’d give it to him.
That and anything else he needed or wanted. “Okay, Joe. For now. Just show me.”
He grabbed her to him and hugged the breath out of her. Rolling over, he pulled her to lie on top of him. It was there, in his eyes, in the way he looked at her.
She closed the distance between them.
The next morning she awoke and immediately sensed he wasn’t there beside her.
Sitting straight up in the bed, her eyes darted to every corner of the room. He was gone.
Throwing back the covers, she got to her feet. Rushing into the great room, Sterling stopped at the sound coming from the front porch. Relief had her leaning on the wall and shaking her head at her own nonsense.
He was on the porch swing, his fingers roaming over the strings of his guitar.
She padded, barefoot, to stand behind the screen door and listen.
Joe was shirtless and wearing jeans and boots. His hair was uncombed and his growth of beard was lengthening. It was early. The dew freshened the leaves, the grass. The world looked renewed. She breathed the sweet morning air and listened to the words he sang, while the hands she loved so much moved gently and with feeling over the musical instrument.
His voice was deep and smooth. It was filled with peace, toned with feelings.
His words brought fresh tears to her eyes and an extra rush of love to her heart.
“You’ve lived in my mind, you’ve lived in my heart, forced by fate to be apart.
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I don’t have to learn what loving you is, because, lady, I’ve loved you for years.”
He set the Yamaha against the porch post and leaned back in the swing.
Sterling pushed the screen door open and walked out. Wiping the tears away, she reached out to touch his shoulder.
“I didn’t mean to wake you.” He’d wanted to. When he’d awakened he had forced himself to keep from gathering her in his arms again. She needed to sleep, to recover, to be ready to join him completely.
“You didn’t. That’s a beautiful song.”
He nodded. “I wrote it this morning.” And adding, after a moment’s pause,
“It’s for you.” He looked up at her. “It’s been a long time, too long, since I’ve even been able to pick up the guitar. And I didn’t think I’d ever feel like writing a song again. But I woke up this morning and you were lying there beside me, your head resting on my shoulder and the words came.” He grinned at her and held his hand out.
She knew that. She had only to listen to the words to know it. She waited just a second before she launched herself into his lap. The swing moved in a wide arch before one side of it crashed from its hooks. The two of them were jolted to the floor and they rolled away, laughter ringing across the air.
He framed her face with his hands. There was freedom in his eyes. She saw it. She tasted it as he kissed her. She listened with her heart as he whispered the words against her lips. “Lady, I’ve loved you for years.”
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Epilogue
The smell of old books and leather accompanied the odor of ink and Pledge.
The lawyer sitting behind the huge cherry desk was dressed in a dark-brown suit, beige shirt, and nondescript tie. His hair was gray. His eyes were watery.
His complexion was red. He cleared his throat and drew the attention of those seated in the room.
Sterling had counted nearly twenty people. They were from all walks of life, some young, some old. The clothes ranged from stuffy business suits to jeans; the hairstyles from punk to Fifth Avenue.
She slipped one hand in Joe’s free one. His other hand trapped their very active year-old son on his lap. She leaned over to whisper, as the old man began reading the legal jargon. “Vultures. Still all vultures.”
Joe bent close to her ear. “If I know John, and I did…very well, he’s left his entire fortune to charity. I wish I had brought a camera so I could capture the indignities and the shock we’ll see today.”
Sterling muffled a giggle, since the reading of the will had started and all persons in the room had grown quiet. Every one of them was waiting to hear their name and the amount of their inheritance. None of these people had seen fit to attend the funeral, though.
She was going to miss John Ramsburg. Her only consolation was that he enjoyed every minute of his adult life. He had taken that life and squeezed it dry.
And at seventy-three, he had just lain down and gone to sleep. Bless him. She hoped he wasn’t in heaven arguing with the angels or fighting St. Peter for his
Joey Light
right to stand at the Pearly Gates and decide who comes in and who doesn’t, but she wouldn’t put it beyond him.
She became aware of sharp intakes of breath, hushed sounds of surprise and indignance. She made herself pay attention to the boring, droning sounds coming from the attorney.
He read the list of names and the amounts, which ranged from one dollar to five. Each and every relative had been mentioned and then scalped. Sterling smiled. It was what Ramsburg called comeuppance. Then Sterling heard her name mentioned.
“And to Mr. and Mrs. Joe MacDaniels and their son, Johnny, I leave my entire estate, to be used for the pursuit of happiness of others and the continuation of their very own personal joy. Since I am being divorced from life, it is only fitting there should be some sort of a settlement. Sterling, you wanted to know my secret. You always wanted to know who had given me that second chance. I never knew his proper name. He found me alongside the road when I was fifteen. I had been hitchhiking and was picked up by some so-called friends.
After they beat me up and robbed me of the twelve dollars I had in my pocket, they left me on the side of the road. Another passerby stopped, took me home, gave me time to rest and recover. When I left his small shack by the railroad tracks I knew him only as Bill. He couldn’t read or write. He was poor and had nothing but an old harmonica that he made great sounds come out of. Three states away, I finally had time to rest. When I undressed, I found that a small pouch had been roughly sewn into the lining of my old jacket. It contained several hundred dollars. The old man had no use for the money. He was happy just the way he was, but he wanted me to have it, to have a chance to be better than those who had beat me up. I began to make my fortune and I went back for Bill, but he was dead. I never had a chance to say thank you. So keep looking, 224
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Sterling. Keep helping in the same tradition; and now you have a secret of your own. And I’ll see you later.”
The lawyer stopped and glanced up. People squirmed in their seats. He didn’t hear shrieks of joy, only the indignant grunts of the rest of the people in the room.
Sterling and Joe turned their surprised faces toward each other and smiled.
Sterling dabbed at her eyes with a lacy handkerchief. Bless him. Bless all those like him.
Joe slipped an arm around Sterling. “I think we better make a hasty exit. The natives are getting restless.”
She was determined not to show a tear to this crowd. “So, he finally chose to let me in on the mystery. And all that money. I begged him not to do it. I never thought he really would. I don’t know if I like all that responsibility.”
“Learn to live with it.” Joe offered her his hand.
She stood up and made her way through the milling people, all of whom were ignoring the lawyer’s final statements. She bent over to Joe as they walked through the doorway. “I’m going to miss that man. I’m glad our little Johnny was able to spend some time with him. They sure had a lot of good times together.”
The sunlight hit them and little Johnny dipped his face to hide in his father’s jacket, gurgling happily. Joe stopped her with a hand on her arm. “Shall we take the BMW or the Mercedes convertible?”
Catching up with his little game, she hugged his arm to her. “Since we’re going to the cabin for a few days, I suggest we take the Jeep. You still haven’t gotten that road straightened out…”
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About the Author
Joey Light is an award winning, internationally published author. Her first computer was a laptop; yes, a college lined notebook and a pen on her lap after her four young sons were fast asleep. Entertained by TV westerns, Ms. Light found she wanted to see more of a female aspect as the good guys chased the bad guys. So she created beautiful, feisty heroines and threw them smack in the middle of the stampede or a jail break. It was all just for fun. Now she writes about contemporary men and women, real only in her mind until she observes someone reading it on the subway. Ms. Light says receiving the first copy of her debut novel was like seeing her child for the first time. She couldn’t stop looking at it, holding it, feeling it, and loving it. Let Joey Light take you away for a while to a place where anything can happen…and does.
Look for these titles by Joey Light
Now Available:
High-Riding Heroes
After a most unusual inheritance, Victoria Clay is bound for Glory! Glory Town,
Oklahoma, that is.
High-Riding Heroes
© 2012 Joey Light
To her shock, Victoria Clay was willed one half of Glory Town, a restored Oklahoma village where tourists gather to experience the excitement of the Wild West. Captivated by the spirit and splendor of the tourist town, Victoria is determined to embrace her new life in the “Old” West.
Wes Cooper resembles the gunslingers that wow the tourists every day—but Wes is the real thing. Hired to teach the men how to shoot and rope and ride, he isn’t going to leave Glory Town until his job is done. Too bad Victoria resents his every decision.
Sparks fly between Victoria and Wes as they battle for control of Glory Town…and the sharp desire that burns between them.
Enjoy the following excerpt for
High-Riding Heroes: Late. Late. Some things never change. Adjusting the bonnet on her head with one hand and running, the long, full skirt of her period costume fisted up in her other hand, Victoria rounded the corner of Main Street. And collided with a solid wave of cowboy.
His hands shot out to grab her arms and right her. Still clamping the bonnet tightly over her curly hair, she looked up. And up. She blamed her sudden shortness of breath on the run. Certainly, it wasn’t due to the tall man who stood smiling indulgently as he cupped her elbows to keep her steady until she found her feet.
“Whoa there,” he laughed. “Excuse me,” she said impatiently, not unaware of the muscled forearms her hands rested on. Or the humor that sparkled in his beautiful dark eyes.
“Someone chasing you?” he teased. He idly wondered if he had wandered into the middle of one of the skits being put on for the tourists. He’d never seen such curls. A thick, brown mass of them surrounded her face and cascaded down to her shoulders. Green eyes. Emeralds that refracted the sunlight. A freckle or two had popped out on her nose.
“Not exactly. I mean, not yet. They will be. I’m on next. I have to catch the stage and get robbed,” she added breathlessly.
As quickly as she had tossed herself into his arms, she was sprinting out of them again. He was instantly sorry. He would have liked to hold on to her just a moment longer. He watched as she ran across the dusty road.
So she was one of the reenactors. This job might be gravy yet, he said to himself as he turned to watch her scramble to the front of the saloon. His last view of her before she disappeared into the stomach of the coach was dust flying from her boots and a nicely rounded bottom covered in yards of swaying skirts designed with tiny rosebuds. Whew!
He’d heard men mention the term bowled over from time to time. Knocked off his pins. Shot into orbit. Had his breath knocked from him. Knocked him dead. Stolen his heart. Changed his life. Foolishness. All of it foolishness. Until now. Now he understood the term. One look. One collision and he felt, well, he didn’t know what the words would be. Affected? Extremely interested?
Curiosity aroused? Attracted? Intrigued? Fascinated?
In one brief encounter he had met a lady with zest. With a love of being alive shining from her eyes. Gusto. He shook his head. Ridiculous.
Wes folded his arms over his chest and leaned back against the porch post.
He had been on his way to a meeting with the owner of Glory Town, but now he decided to watch. He’d been to Glory Town plenty of times but he hadn’t seen this woman before. He would have remembered.
The voice coming over the well-hidden loudspeaker asked that the street be cleared to set the mood for the stage holdup. It was explained as the creaking, rocking stage was driven out of town by the dusty driver that it would come around the back of town and pull in from the other end with the bandits close on its heels. The tourists were challenged to use their imaginations and picture the event happening miles from any help.
“Please stay on the sidewalks, folks. We don’t want anyone getting hurt here at Glory Town, except the bad guys.”
Wes looked around. The smart pop of cap pistols darted the air as boys and girls adorned in blue and red cowboy hats chased each other up and down the boardwalk. People from all walks of life lined up on the sidewalk to enjoy this latest display of frontier living. Babies watched from strollers beneath sun shades, and old people rested on benches or merely sat on the edge of the sidewalk.
