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WATCH FOR ME,
WAIT FOR ME
By Thea Devine
(work in progress, 2015)
Summary: The
disappearance of two wagons full of gold, the death of her father
five years before, and now the reappearance of the overseer's son, and the
loss of her beloved plantation after the War are all a combination
of events that send Christie on a quest to discover the
truth behind her father's death and the missing gold.
How futile was this, Alex
wondered, crouching by the rusted stove and poking the ashes. Long dead ashes.
Long dead life.
He had lived fifteen years
in this hellhole: he'd worked the fields, and he'd willingly played big brother
to the imperious daughter of the Big House.
But when Christie Rayburn,
the plantation princess, put up her hair and let down her dresses, Alex
Cordell, the overseer's son, walked away from Redlands and never
looked back.
He moved the guttering
candle to the rickety table. There wasn't much else here: stripped
beds in the corners. A cupboard. An iron kettle. Moldering straw on the floor.
Not much of a life. And
nothing of his father.
His father had taken
everything with him on that ill-conceived save-the-gold wagon train that had
ended in a long fall into a gorge.
Alex shoved at the
cupboard in anguish; it tipped over, splintering to smithereens. In the debris
was an envelope affixed to one of the slats.
He carefully removed it
and unfolded it, stunned to see it was a map. The map,
he realized suddenly. To the secret location Asa Rayburn had never revealed to him, the guide he'd hired to lead a
gold-laden wagon train there.
His father had known. Cagey
old bastard.
But why leave the map?
“Don't move."
He froze. His back was to
the door but he knew that voice.
"Get away from the
table, Alex."
He edged away slowly,
cautiously, and turned to face her. God, she was so thin, so determined. She
looked as work-worn as any farmer's wife.
“I should have killed you
five years ago."
She meant it. Because he
had killed her heart when he’d left all those years ago, and killed her spirit
when he'd brought the news of her father’s death.
"I want my gold."
They had been over and
over this five years earlier. "There was no gold."
“If I had the gold, I
could save Redlands ." Her
voice was like ice, but he heard the thin thread of desperation underneath.
"No one found any
gold. No one found anything. No one could get down into the gorge,
Christie. This is not a new story."
"So you say,"
she said scornfully. "I never believed it. I think you were there. you
took what you wanted and you left my father to die. And now you're just going
to let Redlands be sold into
the hands of strangers."
As if he felt the same way
about Redlands as she
did.
“My father died too,” he
reminded her through clenched teeth, and girded himself to deal the next blow.
"I can't help you."
Her body sagged almost
visibly. "You could if you wanted to." She raised the rifle. He knew she could use
it; he had taught her.
"I never believed
you." She took aim. "Get off my property."
"Christie --"
Blam! The shot hit just at his
feet.
"Get out!"
Blam! She blasted the table
and shattered the top.
"Get out of my house!"
Damn, it was hers -- until the auctioneer arrived
at dawn -- and that was the gulf between them: even if she were impoverished
and in rags, she would always be the lady of the manor, and he would always be
the overseer's son.
And, in her eyes, a thief.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Thea Devine's books defined erotic historical
romance. She's the author of nearly thirty books of historical and
contemporary erotic romance, and a dozen novellas. She is a Romantic
Times Romance Pioneer honoree, and was voted the 2015 RWA/NYC Lifetime
Achievement Award. Visit her at www.theadevine.com.
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