Wishes by Jude Deveraux Page A

had asked her father for Nellie’s hand in marriage. Nellie would have married him—she would love to have children—but Charles and Terel had been so upset that Nellie had turned the man down. Her father and Terel had said the man only wanted to use her to take care of his children, that he didn’t really care for Nellie and she should wait for the “right” man to come along. Nellie hadn’t been foolish enough to believe the man loved her, and she had known that, at twenty-four, she didn’t have too many chances for marriage left, but she had given in to her father and Terel and refused the man’s proposal.
    Afterward, she had eaten so much that she’d gained twenty pounds. Her father didn’t say a word about her weight gain, but Nellie often felt his eyes on her. She seemed to disappoint him in every way possible. She was a burden to him, an unmarried daughter, and even when she had found a man to marry he was quite unsuitable.
    One day Terel brought home the news that the man who had asked Nellie to marry him had married someone else and bought the big old Farnon house on the river. Terel softened the news with a gift of a four-pound box of chocolate fudge—all of which Nellie ate in an afternoon.
    “And what is that building?” Jace asked.
    They were walking down Lead Avenue toward downtown Chandler, and she began to point out shops and businesses to him. They went past the Denver Hotel, Farrell’s Hardware, Mr. Bagly’s tailor shop, and Freyer Drags, then took a left on Third Street and kept walking.
    After a while Nellie began to get over her nervousness, for Jace was easy company. He seemed to be interested in everything, wanting to know how old buildings were, who owned what, what was for sale.
    “You sound as if you might be considering living here permanently.”
    “I might,” he said, looking down at her in a way that made Nellie turn away.
    On Coal, in front of Sayles Art Rooms, Johnny Bowen and Bob Jenkins saw Nellie and came running.
    “Is Terel with you?”
    “Is she at home?”
    “Could I see her later?”
    “What are you serving for dinner?” Bob asked, laughing.
    Nellie felt herself coming back to earth. For the last hour, basking in the glow of Jace’s warm eyes, she’d forgotten all about her beautiful young sister. “She’s—” Nellie began.
    “If you will excuse us,” Jace said sternly, looking down his nose at the young men, “Nellie and I have a previous engagement.”
    The young men were so astonished they couldn’t speak for a moment. “You that new guy working for Terel’s father?”
    “For Mr. Grayson, yes,” Jace said pointedly.
    Bob grinned. “Oh, I see, the boss’s daughter. Nellie—”
    Jace dropped Nellie’s arm and stepped toward the young men. Jace was older, larger, and much more self-confident. “I doubt, sir,” he said, “if you have the intelligence to see anything. Now, I advise you to scurry along, and do not again mistake Miss Grayson for her sister’s social secretary.”
    The men looked from Jace to Nellie and back again. Johnny, in the back, looked at Nellie as though seeing her for the first time in his life. He looked at her, not as Terel’s fat older sister who quietly served tea and cakes and long, glorious dinners, but as a woman. He’d never noticed what a pretty face she had. And although she was too big for his taste, she did have a nice shape.
    Johnny punched Bob on the arm. “We’re sorry to have bothered you, sir. Good day to you, Nellie.” He tipped his hat, and both men turned away, but Johnny glanced back over his shoulder at Nellie.
    “Insolent pups!” Jace muttered, clasping Nellie’s hand and curving her fingers about his arm. This entire town seemed to be full of lunatics, he thought. Were all the men blind, or just stupid? It was beyond his understanding how any man could be interested in that pinched-face, skinny-flanked, self-centered Terel when Nellie was in the vicinity.
    At the corner of Second and Coal