Read Online Where the Heart Leads by Jeanell Bolton - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Jeanell Bolton
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one with the headstone inscribed
Bethany Mary Hansson McAllister
Beloved Wife and Mother
She sings with the angels
He stood up, brushed the grass off his knees, and glanced around at the church he’d grown up in, the church in which he and Beth were married the week after they graduated from Eisenhower Consolidated.
They’d met when the high school students from the Bosque Bend end of the county had been transferred over to the newly constructed consolidated school. It had been a hard adjustment for him, especially since he’d had the flu and started a week late. His first day back, he’d been standing in the center of the front hall and trying to make sense out of the list the office secretary had given him when a beautiful girl smiled at him and asked if she could help.
She’d guided him to his classroom, then hurried off down the hall with a smile and wave of her hand. He saw her later that day in the cafeteria. She’d smiled at him again, and he knew he was in love.
He’d walked Beth out of class that day, and the next, and next. The fourth day, she’d actually waited for him when he was a few minutes late getting out of class. That weekend, he’d taken her out to the ranch. After dinner, while everyone was watching television, he’d drawn a pencil portrait of her.
That sketch hung over Delilah’s bed now, like a guardian angel. He didn’t want Delilah to ever forget who her mother was. Especially since she had just turned one when Beth was killed.
He picked up a blade of grass and twisted it between his fingers, remembering the happy times.
Within a month of meeting, Beth and he were a couple. They spent a lot of time in the backseat of his car, but held off on doing the deed because Beth had taken a church pledge to wait till she was married, an abstention which they more than made up for during their summerlong honeymoon in the C Bar M foreman’s house.
Come fall, they’d packed their bags and set up housekeeping in Austin to attend University of Texas. Beth majored in vocal performance while he crammed a six-year architecture degree into five. When he graduated, Uncle Al hired him into his Dallas architecture firm.
A shaft of slanted sunlight played across the close-mowed lawn, and Rafe heard footsteps approaching. He slapped his Stetson on his head and stood up.
Better get outa here. Didn’t want to run into any of Bertie Fuller’s cronies and set them to talking again—although he doubted they’d ever stopped. Damn, he wished there had been another house available for Moira.
He glanced around.
It was Travis. He must have driven up when the organ swelled on that last chorus.
Travis nodded toward the lavender blossoms in the grave vase. “Thought this was where I’d find you. You had a good woman, bro. I was almost as much in love with her as you were.”
Rafe gave his brother a searching look as they started walking toward their vehicles together.
“You’ve got a good woman yourself, Trav.” He’d never forget how Rocky had sat up with him the night after Beth was buried, when he finally had to acknowledge she was really dead. It must have been hard on Rocky—she’d known Beth since high school—but she’d plied him with hot tea and let him talk it out.
So what was Travis’s problem?
“What’s going on with you and Rocky?”
“I dunno. Maybe it’s that we’re hitting the four-year mark. Maybe it’s that all she talks about is the ranch.”
“Rocky and her mother are the last of the blood Colbys. Part of the C Bar M is hers.”
Travis snorted out a laugh and paused beside his car. “Maybe half an acre. You’ve been overpaying them ever since Rocky’s mother moved her kids to town after her old man met up with a rattler that was meaner than he was, but you know as well as I do that her great-granddaddy screwed up big time. Every time he gambled away a parcel of acreage, our great-granddaddy bought it up.” Travis gave his brother a knowing glance. “And while
Bethany Mary Hansson McAllister
Beloved Wife and Mother
She sings with the angels
He stood up, brushed the grass off his knees, and glanced around at the church he’d grown up in, the church in which he and Beth were married the week after they graduated from Eisenhower Consolidated.
They’d met when the high school students from the Bosque Bend end of the county had been transferred over to the newly constructed consolidated school. It had been a hard adjustment for him, especially since he’d had the flu and started a week late. His first day back, he’d been standing in the center of the front hall and trying to make sense out of the list the office secretary had given him when a beautiful girl smiled at him and asked if she could help.
She’d guided him to his classroom, then hurried off down the hall with a smile and wave of her hand. He saw her later that day in the cafeteria. She’d smiled at him again, and he knew he was in love.
He’d walked Beth out of class that day, and the next, and next. The fourth day, she’d actually waited for him when he was a few minutes late getting out of class. That weekend, he’d taken her out to the ranch. After dinner, while everyone was watching television, he’d drawn a pencil portrait of her.
That sketch hung over Delilah’s bed now, like a guardian angel. He didn’t want Delilah to ever forget who her mother was. Especially since she had just turned one when Beth was killed.
He picked up a blade of grass and twisted it between his fingers, remembering the happy times.
Within a month of meeting, Beth and he were a couple. They spent a lot of time in the backseat of his car, but held off on doing the deed because Beth had taken a church pledge to wait till she was married, an abstention which they more than made up for during their summerlong honeymoon in the C Bar M foreman’s house.
Come fall, they’d packed their bags and set up housekeeping in Austin to attend University of Texas. Beth majored in vocal performance while he crammed a six-year architecture degree into five. When he graduated, Uncle Al hired him into his Dallas architecture firm.
A shaft of slanted sunlight played across the close-mowed lawn, and Rafe heard footsteps approaching. He slapped his Stetson on his head and stood up.
Better get outa here. Didn’t want to run into any of Bertie Fuller’s cronies and set them to talking again—although he doubted they’d ever stopped. Damn, he wished there had been another house available for Moira.
He glanced around.
It was Travis. He must have driven up when the organ swelled on that last chorus.
Travis nodded toward the lavender blossoms in the grave vase. “Thought this was where I’d find you. You had a good woman, bro. I was almost as much in love with her as you were.”
Rafe gave his brother a searching look as they started walking toward their vehicles together.
“You’ve got a good woman yourself, Trav.” He’d never forget how Rocky had sat up with him the night after Beth was buried, when he finally had to acknowledge she was really dead. It must have been hard on Rocky—she’d known Beth since high school—but she’d plied him with hot tea and let him talk it out.
So what was Travis’s problem?
“What’s going on with you and Rocky?”
“I dunno. Maybe it’s that we’re hitting the four-year mark. Maybe it’s that all she talks about is the ranch.”
“Rocky and her mother are the last of the blood Colbys. Part of the C Bar M is hers.”
Travis snorted out a laugh and paused beside his car. “Maybe half an acre. You’ve been overpaying them ever since Rocky’s mother moved her kids to town after her old man met up with a rattler that was meaner than he was, but you know as well as I do that her great-granddaddy screwed up big time. Every time he gambled away a parcel of acreage, our great-granddaddy bought it up.” Travis gave his brother a knowing glance. “And while
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