Authors: Jane Prescott
She could sit and wait for the men to sort it all out. But that wasn’t Margaret Olander’s way.
She put out the fire, wrapped herself up tightly in her best waterproofed coat, and ventured out into the yard. She was nearly immediately pushed to the ground by the winds. Determined, she trudged through the wet and muck to the lone, nervously prancing horse.
She brushed his nose quickly to reassure him that she was okay, and then mounted the horse. The ride would be much harder than it had been on the day of Sven’s accident, so this was no race. Instead, she trotted the horse in the direction the strangers had been headed.
It was a few miles of difficult riding and the road was in danger of becoming a river itself from all of the unabsorbable standing water filling it. She eventually reached a point at which the road had, in fact, washed out much as she’d worried. It was difficult to see in the dark, but she couldn’t see Tom or Henry.
The water was flowing south. She reasoned that if anyone were caught in the flood, they would be swept in that direction. Maggie turned the horse aside into the drenched field in that direction, keeping a watchful eye on the encroaching, newly formed river to her right. As she continued on, she saw a stand of trees and the other two horses tied up there. She spurred her horse forward even as lighting twisted in the distance and spooked the roan with its accompanying thunder claps.
She let the mare lope towards the standing horses and once there, immediately saw what they were trying to do. The young girl was there, clinging desperately to a log. Henry and Thomas had formed a chain, Henry on land, Thomas partially in the water, and were using rope to secure themselves as best they could. Thomas had hold of the girl and was aiding her in getting back.
The situation was already resolving itself, so she rode on. There were, after all, two others to be concerned about.
She found her second washed ashore a distance beyond. The old woman was laying on her back, her eyes open and her mouth wide. There was no need to get off her horse to check on her, for it appeared her neck was snapped, in addition to her probable drowning. She road on.
There was a boy, in fact, also washed up. He was young, much younger than she had expected when seeing him ride the horse. She couldn’t tell his condition, so she got off the horse to look.
A quick check and she could see he was breathing, but unconscious. He looked to be much lighter than her; perhaps only a boy of 11 or 12. Though heavy, with a great deal of effort she was able to drag him towards the horse.
It took even greater effort to lift him up and place him over the back of her horse. Where she found the strength, she never knew. When he was safely on the back of the horse, she mounted the horse herself and rode slowly through the storm back along the way she’d come.
It seemed to take forever to return home. The others had ridden on without her and when she was very close to her destination, Henry came riding back to her in alarm. “What have you done?” He shouted at her, surprised that she had gone on. When he saw the boy across the back of the horse, he clammed up and rode beside her home. They hardly spoke, but she did quickly let him know that the older woman had died.
Instead of returning directly to their own home, they rode the short distance down the road to Sven’s house, which Tom and his rescue had apparently done. With help, she was able to get the boy into the house, while Sven and Henry put the horses in the barn.
Inside the warmth of the house, Rose handed her a change of clothes and pointed her upstairs. After she’d changed, she came down to find that the boy was awake and alert, but crying. Both of their rescues were.
After she descended the stairs, Henry took her aside into the shadows and whispered in her ear. “The woman was their grandmother. They’re brother and sister.” After he whispered, he discretely kissed her gently on the neck so that none could see it.
“What was that for?” She asked.
“For disobeying your husband and saving a child’s life.” He told her.
“Oh.” She turned and gave him a kiss on the neck as well.
“And that?” He queried with a raised eyebrow.
“For being silly, thinking you can give me orders husband or no, and for saving that woman’s life.”
He smiled in return. “I shall know better in future.”
“There’s a good husband.”
###
The Christmas wedding of Thomas Woodson and Marian Fuller was well attended. Marian’s little brother, Charles, was there, of course; the two survivors of the flood were accompanied by many Olanders, including Sven, Rose, Henry, Maggie, and the toddler Hilda. Sven and Henry’s parents attended as well, having taken the newly-built train in from Rochester.
At the invitation of Maggie, one Inga Snell and her husband Robert were there as well. In the past two years, Inga’s English had improved greatly from daily practice and through letters exchanged with her old friend Maggie. Members of the Fuller family, a surprisingly large clan with farms of their own in the next town west of Jonkoping, helped fill the church along with most of the families of the two towns.
The wedding took place in the Jonkoping Lutheran Church with a massive feast planned for the reception at Sven and Rose’s barn. The Woodsons would live with Sven and Rose until spring when yet another house would be built on land recently purchased five miles down the road from the Olanders.
“It makes for a cozy arrangement.” Mr. Robert Snell suggested, cutting his pork chops and looking about him on the farm. A group of local farmers had brought instruments with them, and it was expected that after they’d eaten the tables would be cleared away from dancing. “You can all live nearby and call upon one another for help as needed. It’s a good system and will serve your families well, I should say!”
Inga gave her husband a gentle push. “Husband! This is how it is in country life. It is the same in Norway, you know?”
The man laughed. “Well, all I know is finances and transport. And I can tell you that this new railway is going to lead to the small town of Sioux Falls, on into Dakota Territory. Who knows how far west the train will go?”
Maggie sighed, passing a basket of biscuits down the table. “This land has given us so much. But I can’t help but think of the people who were here before.”
“People? You mean Indians?” Snell scoffed.
“They’re people. Yes. We’ve built good lives here, but I am sure the people who dwelled here before faced the same trials we did. Storms, accidents, heat, freezing winter. There’s much history here, I think.”
“You have a wife who thinks deep thoughts.” Snell said to Henry. “Were she a man, she’d go far in this world.”
She looked to Henry, who lowered his head. “Mr. Snell,” he said quickly, “Margaret has gone far already in this world, farther than you or eye. Without her, two people would be dead and a third would be a lost soul.” He leaned over and kissed his wife on the lips, uninterested in whether it would scandalize the banker.
After the feast, everyone did their part to clear away the food and tables. Of late, Henry was doing more of the so-called “woman’s work” while Maggie could easily be found in the fields. Their neighbors noted it and decided they were eccentrics, a label Maggie didn’t mind nearly so much here in her new home. Here the word was used without the hate and malice.
The fiddles, drums, and banjos began to play and the Olanders, Woodsons, and their guests began to whirl around the straw covered dance floor, bundled up against the outdoor chill. Henry and Maggie danced, smiling and in love as she had always dreamed would be the case.
“Do you miss Virginia now?” He asked as he twirled her around in a little circle. She minded her steps, careful to recall the dancing she’d been taught by Rose.
“Never! No matter how cold it gets here. I’ll never go back.”
“That’s the spirit, my beautiful Maggie.”
“Besides,” she added with a coy smile as they danced. “I can’t go back if I wanted to.”
He looked confused. “Why?”
The song ended and she took his hand, leading him out into the fresh, glistening snow-covered farm. “What did you bring me out here for, my dear?”
She led him a short distance from the barn, practically gliding as she felt the light snow crunch beneath her feet. Through all the challenges and dreads, their lives were precisely as she’d hoped they might go, with one small thing missing. She wanted to be alone when she told him.
“That was my last dance, Henry.” She said, then pressed in close snuggle in against the cold. “For a good long time.
“You’re having a lot of fun with me!” Henry proclaimed. “Nothing but riddles.”
“I wonder- do you think you could add room to the house sometime next year? Not too far from our own.”
His eyes slowly grew as the meaning of what she was saying began to make sense him. His smile widened to joy. “You’re talking… you’re talking about child, aren’t you?”
She put his hand down on her stomach. “Henry Olander, meet your son or daughter.”
THE END
Retiring from his life as a smart thief, Ted Wilkins decided that going back to Texas was the best thing for him. He had landed huge deal yielding a very large amount of money, and he intended to purchase a ranch there and begin his life again. He wondered how his brother, Alex, was doing. He had not seen Alex in almost ten years, although they had communicated quite a lot while he was in the Middle East thinking up ways of making money off the Arab oil lords. He had finally gotten his break when he had managed to convince one of the old oil don's to give him his inheritance before he died and he had finally achieved what he had been looking for his whole life. He was now one of the richest men in the state and he would finally gain the respect of those who had treated him as a loser. There was only one thing left missing in his life: love. Ted had never had time for relationships while in the Middle East, although when he had been back in Texas, he’d had several flings and even married.
He had then gone out to the Middle East with the main aim of making enough money to make him and his wife live a comfortable life, but when he had been there he got wind that she had moved in with another man despite the fact that she had his child. He even began doubting if her son was his, and he decided that he would never give his heart to another woman again. Alex had already gotten married and even had a little daughter named Mia, a cute little girl who had the looks of her mother. They sent Ted photographs often and so he was kept up to date. Ted had lied to them, saying that he was in the military so that they would not have to worry about him. He even wore military tags around his neck to keep up this façade to people he knew. Now he was going back home and he wondered how things were going to be. Would they be the same as they always were?
*****
“I'm sorry I had to leave so suddenly, but I really need to get this inheritance issue sorted out,” Diana Blake said into the mouthpiece as she steered the rental through the Texas heat. “I promise you that I'll be back in Chicago as soon as I am done.”
“Why didn’t you call me? I would have cancelled the trip just to accompany you to Texas.” Her fiancée Mark Lindel complained.
“It was all at such short notice, with my mom’s death and the conditions of her will, but I promise that I'll come back as soon as I am done here,” she replied, imagining that she would be going to the Bahamas with her rich fiancée for the weekend instead of having to go to Texas to fulfill her late mothers wishes, which were to stay at the ranch where she to stay for a whole week if she was to inherit her life insurance money.
“Well then, you have a good time, and don’t forget to call me when you get there,” Mark replied.
“I will, as long as there is damn reception in this God forbidden place,” she said, hanging up and tossing the cell phone onto the passenger seat.
She then recalled the incidents that had led to her trip to Texas. Diana had been brought up in Texas on a ranch, but had been mistreated by her step father, who was an emotionally abusive jerk. As a result, the moment that she had turned 18, she ran away to Chicago with her savings and began a new life there. She had abandoned her mother, who had never seemed to be able to protect her from her step dad, and went ahead and paid for her own college education with the few savings that she had and a couple of jobs that she held to help her get by. After graduation, she launched her own fashion house from scratch with the help of her best friend, Amanda. Slowly her company had begun to gain recognition in the Chicago fashion world, and she started to become successful very.
After an amazingly successful fashion event, she ended up hooking up with Mark, the spoiled son of one of the richest families in the state, and they started to see each other regularly and eventually got engaged. Although, for Diana, their whole relationship was more for convenience, since she wanted him to finance the expansion of her company. By marrying Diana, it was a way for Mark to show his parents that he had matured and was ready to run their businesses. Amanda had sworn never to go back to Texas, but after the death of her mother, she realized that one of the clauses of the will stated that she had to go back to the ranch house and stay there for a week before she got the ten million dollars life insurance money. She needed the money if she was to expand her business, and since she had been told that her step dad had died years ago, she decided that it would not really harm anyone to go back there, especially if it was only for a week. Her phone went off again interrupting her thoughts, and she reached over to it and picked the call.
“Diana, are you out of your mind, how could you just take off for Texas without even letting me know?” Amanda's voice crackled into the phone.
“I'm so sorry, I had meant to call you but it all happened so suddenly,” Diana apologized to her best friend.
“Well, you take good care of yourself, girl. I have to go, I have a date with this guy I met and I need to get ready; I'm so excited!” Her friend chattered excitedly. “I'll give you a call to let you know how everything goes. Love you!”
“I love you too,” Diana said, hanging up the phone and tossing it back onto the passenger seat as she thought how lucky her best friend was.
Unlike Diana, Amanda had one of those model-like hourglass shaped bodies that made men drool over her, and she was never at a shortage of dates. Men were always chasing after her, unlike Diana who’d had a hard time getting Mark to accept her. Diana was one of those larger, yet very shapely women, with voluptuous firm breasts and wide shapely hips, but the problem was that most of men, or ‘most eligible men’ as she would put it, referring to men with money, preferred skinny women, and that had left her in quite a dilemma. She therefore jumped at Mark when he had shown an interest in her, although she did not really have any feelings for him. Her phone went off, and she wondered what Amanda wanted this time. She reached over to get the phone but it slipped and fell onto the ground. Amanda looked at the main road, and seeing that it was clear, she bent under the dashboard and tried to reach for her cell phone, which slid under her seat.
Suddenly, she heard the blaring of a horn and when she sat up and looked ahead of her, there was a truck coming for a head on collision with its lights on and its horn blaring. She jerked the steering wheel, and the car careened onto the other side of the road. Unable to control the car, it dived off the road and across a ditch, landing on a patch of grassland. Dana moved forward, her head hitting the windshield as her foot hit the brake sharply. She could feel blood trickling from her forehead, and the last thing that she saw before she blacked out was a man pounding on her window.
*****
Ted wondered what was wrong with the driver of the oncoming vehicle, since the car had gotten off its track and onto his, and was coming directly for his truck. He put his hand down on the horn, but the other driver did not seem hear it, and Ted couldn’t even see the face of the driver. A head suddenly appeared, and the sedan swerved to the other side, lost control and plunged into the ditch. Ted watched as the car came to a stop, bringing his car to a stop and waiting for the other driver to give him a piece of his mind. He wondered who the hell wanted to kill him. Nobody seemed to come from the car, and his instincts took over. What if the driver was injured? He jumped out of the truck and made his way to the other vehicle. He peered into the driver’s window and there was a woman inside lying over the steering wheel. She seemed to have smashed her head on the windshield as she was bleeding, and he noted with disgust that she was not wearing her seat belt.
Ted knocked on the window, calling out frantically, but there was no response. He tried the door of the car but it was locked from the inside. Glad that he had worn a designer jacket with leather padding on his elbows, he hooked his elbow and sent it smashing through the window, smashing it open. He then reached into the car and unlocked it, pulling the door open. Inside the car was an elegantly dressed woman, and he couldn’t help but notice how sexy her fleshy thighs looked under the short skirt she wore. She was a larger woman, but being a strong guy, he reached into the car and pulled her out. She had passed out and he studied her wound to see if she was badly injured. He dashed to his truck and came back with a first aid kit. He then swabbed the blood away and disinfected the wound. It did not look too serious, and so he decided that he would take her back to his brother’s house so that Imelda could take care of her. His brother’s house was only ten minutes away while the hospital was two hours away, although he could always call in for his chopper to come down and take her there if it became serious.
“What happened?” she said, opening her eyes briefly to reveal the sexiest emerald green eyes that Ted had ever seen before she blacked out again.
Ted carried her to his truck and belted her up on the passenger seat, before making his way back to her car. He looked around in the car, carrying her belongings to his truck and tossing them onto the back seat. Ensuring that there was nothing of hers left in the car, he headed off to his truck and drove off in a hurry. Imelda came running out of the house when she saw his truck driving in at a crazy speed. Ted did not wait to kill the engines, jumping out of the car and running up to the porch.
“Imelda, I need some help, I ran into some kind of trouble,” he breathed quickly.
“Oh no, Ted, I thought that you had changed. Alex and I don’t want Mia growing up around trouble, and if that is the case, you might have to move into a motel as you wait for your ranch house to be complete,” she creased her brow jokingly.
“Imelda, I'm serious, I met a woman who wanted to run me off the road, and she ended up in a small accident. I could not leave her there, and besides, judging from the way that she is dressed, I don’t think that she is from these parts,” Ted said, putting on a serious face.
“Oh no, that is serious, why didn’t you take her to the hospital?” Imelda said, her face suddenly flooding with worry.
“Nah, I don’t think it is anything serious, just a bump on the head, nothing that you can't fix,” Ted said, leading her to the truck.
“That doesn’t look too bad, why don’t you carry her to the guest bedroom while I go and get the first aid kit,” she said bustling back into the house as Ted opened the truck door and carried the hot beauty out of the car, thankful for his own size and strength as he carried her into the house.
Imelda was like a mother hen, and he trusted that she would take good care of the woman. For some reason that he could not understand, he really wanted her to get well. Maybe it was because he thought that something just might occur between them. He did not know her, but he was already smitten over her. As he laid her onto the bed, her blouse parted a little giving him a view of her cleavage. Her skin was creamy, unlike his tanned skin, and he could only imagine how the rest of her breasts would look without her blouse or bra. He studied her thighs as her skirt hiked up a little more than it was supposed to, and Ted felt his cock beginning to stiffen in his pants.
Meeting this stranger was probably no coincidence at all
, he thought,
it was fate
. This was definitely his type of woman; he just had an inexplicable feeling. Although, he still had no idea who she was. Imelda came bustling into the room carrying a first aid kit.
“Ted, that is bad manners, look at how you are practically undressing that young woman,” she scolded as Ted jumped away from the woman.
“Have you forgotten that I was away for a long time and practically forgot how a hot woman looks?” He joked with his sister in law.
“I think you should go and get yourself a woman to take care of your needs, Ted. That long dry spell is doing you no good,” she scurried over to the side of the bed and went about checking out the wound. “Now, get out of here. She needs some space in here. I'll call you when I need you. Go and check if Mia is awake yet.”
Reluctantly, Ted left the room and closed the door behind him, making his way downstairs to check on his sweet niece. He could not get the mysterious woman out of his head no matter how much he tried to concentrate on anything else. The child was still asleep and so he made his way to his truck and drove over to his new ranch to see how the construction of the mansion was going. The house was in the finishing stages, and if he could hit it off with this woman, maybe she would be keeping his new bed warm very soon.
*****
Diana woke up to a blazing headache. Her head felt heavy and drowsy, and she tried to remember what had happened. She remembered almost colliding with a truck before getting in an accident, and judging from the bedding that she was laying on, she was probably in a hospital bed. She forced her eyes open and scanned around the room. This was definitely no hospital because it looked like a very tastefully furnished room. Panic snaked its way through her. Could she have been abducted and taken hostage by some perverts or something? Lifting herself up, she got off the bed and made her way to the window, peering out. She could see a swimming pool out the back, and further on she could see barns, cattle and horses. There were also toys strewn out on the backyard, which made her feel a little safer. Whoever lived here had kids, which meant that the chances that they were abductors were very slim. She could hear the low voices of a man and a woman talking somewhere in the house, friendly tones. Sensing someone behind her, Diana turned around slowly and looked into the sexiest blue eyes that she had ever seen, eyes that she could look into forever without ever tiring. They also belonged to one of the most handsome men that she had ever laid her eyes on, and he stood there his huge frame draped in blue jeans, a brown shirt and matching Stetson and cowboy boots. She found herself blushing despite herself, her jaw dropping.