Today on the Neverending Blog Tour, Love in the Rockies (Corbin's Bend Valentine's Day Collection) came up for my blog. So, I decided to make it easy on myself and promote my own novella in the collection. So, today I'm a guest author on Naughty Thoughts (hope I don't overstay my welcome).
When Jerry Douglas asks Elly Benson to marry him,
he wants their ceremony to be as close to Valentine's Day as possible. Though
Elly tearfully accepts Jerry's proposal without hesitation, as she readies
herself for her second wedding, the doubts and misgivings of any new
bride-to-be are exacerbated by the abuse she suffered during her first
marriage. When Elly recalls how quickly her uncertain stomach jitters grew into
tight knots of pain on her wedding day, she also remembers how and why she'd
fallen in love with and married Arthur, her first husband. A mistake she
regrets more and more with each passing hour.
Though she's lived with Jerry for four months now,
and been subject to his discipline more than once, her first husband had been
kind and careful with her, too, in the beginning. At least until she vowed to
love, honor and obey him. And their move to Corbin's Bend turned him from the
strict, but caring husband she thought she'd married into a monster she no
longer recognized.
Excerpt:
In a flashback,
Jerry wants to start a new tradition on Christmas Eve as he and Elly stand
before his parents' tree.
After placing a kiss on
Elly's head, Jerry handed her a small glass angel ornament. "Here." The
crystal wings and bell skirt were so fine and delicate she hesitated to take
the figure from his fingers.
"Go on. She's a lot
sturdier than she looks. Just grasp the hanging string. I want you to place her
on the tree."
"Me? Why?" Elly
asked, blinking up at him in wonder. These were the Douglas's traditions, and
as welcoming as Jerry's family had been, she was still an outsider.
"Because I want to
start a new tradition — tonight. Please?"
Elly carefully pinched
the slender golden cord between her thumb and index finger and set the
sparkling three-inch figurine on her palm before she glanced at Jerry in
surprise. "Did you make this?"
Smiling, he shook his
head while his mother, father, two brothers and single sister all took seats on
the couches positioned near the tree. Elly held the last ornament to be placed.
"He did have it
specially made, however," his mother announced with a grin.
"Mother...,"
Jerry warned.
Elly examined the fragile
angel more closely. "You did?"
"Yes, I did. Look at
her eyes."
They were two tiny green
stones that matched the color of Elly's irises. She smiled at him, when a
sudden sparkle from the angel's halo caught her eye. A garland of diamond-like crystals
crowned the celestial being's long crystal locks.
"She's got a halo of
shiny stars set in a silver circle," Elly said in wonder, staring at the delicate
winged figure.
"The eyes are
emeralds, the circle is platinum, the bar set stones are real diamonds, but
you're right about the halo, because you are my very own angel." Grasping
her free hand in his, Jerry dropped down to one knee. "Eleanor Ann
Franklin Benson, would you do me the honor of becoming my wife?"
The room grew snowfall
silent as Elly's tear-filled eyes gazed down at the man she adored.
"You're asking me to
marry you?" Her words emerged as a mere squeak of a sound.
"I told you I would
do things right when I proposed. Yes, my heart, I want to spend the rest of my
life with you at my side and under my wing. I want to love, hold, cherish and
protect you for as long as we both shall live. Will you say yes? Please?"
Elly's mouth opened and
closed, but no sound came out. Then she gazed at his smiling family gathered to
witness their baby lay his heart out on a line. The man, whom she loved most in
the world, knelt before her and his closest relatives to claim he wanted her. Her.
Overcome with emotion, Elly could only nod her head.
His smile broad, Jerry
rose to his feet, cupped her face in his hands and kissed her beneath the sprig
of mistletoe his eldest brother held above their heads.
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