“Did you think that I could?”
“I wanted you to.”
“Did you?” She cast a skeptical glance.
He offered no assurance.
Her words rushed out. “Stay here and teach. You can still write, and you’d still be changing minds—tiny minds that will grow and may someday change the world. I know it’s not what you’re used to.”
“What I’m used to?”
“I mean, it would be different. But we’d be here together.”
He peered earnestly from behind his wire eyeglasses. “Ana—”
Ana found she’d been gripping Eduardo’s lapel. She released her grip and withdrew her hands gently. She took a step back. “I’m sorry. It’s not fair to ask.” Her eyes darted from his fixed gaze and sought someplace safer to settle. “I don’t know what I was thinking. Sometimes I just say things.” She took a deep breath and forced a smile. “It’s been so long.”
“Ana.” He took her face in his hands and he took in every feature, the moist eyes that met his, then pressed his lips to hers. “Yes,” he said, and then kissed her again.
“Yes?” She lifted her eyes, apprehensive from having endured for too long without hope.
Eduardo said, “Yes, I will.”
Ana found herself gripped by emotion. Her eyes shut to hide tears. She struggled for a long moment, then lifted her chin with feigned cheerfulness. “You’ll stay and teach. Good.”
With a suddenness that caught her off guard, Eduardo took her face in his hands and said, “And I will marry you, Ana.” His words burned with the fierce passion of days past, when his ardor could only find voice in his zeal for his country.
A light unbidden sob came from her throat as Ana surrendered herself to Eduardo’s enfolding arms. Was this joy? She had been so long without it.
“You will?” She was certain, and yet she looked up for assurance.
Eduardo’s eyes warmed as he nodded and studied her eyes and her brow as he kissed it, and her cheek. And her mouth.
Carlotta’s sweet laughter rang out from the schoolyard. Eduardo slid his hand down to Ana’s and clasped it. Together they walked hand in hand down the steps of the school to Carlotta.
Also by J.L. Jarvis
THE TYPEWRITER GIRL
Emma Madding walks up to the door of a remote waterfront cliff house in upstate New York and into the life of recluse Benjamin Stark. A typewriter girl, she is hired to transcribe his weathered journal and the memories his scarred hand can no longer write down. Stark is a rugged adventurer now back from the Klondike Gold Rush, where he found gold—and tragedy, too.
With the public hungry for gold rush stories and guidebooks, he agrees to chronicle his adventures. But for Emma and Benjamin, working together draws emotions that neither can allow. Benjamin tries not to love Emma, for the truth of his past will drive her away. Emma longs for love, but she has her own secret. Love conquers, but cannot protect. Forced apart, the two lovers must battle a world fueled by money and power.
WATERMARKS
High above town, reclusive young widow Allison Kimball arrives at her wealthy family’s mountain resort home to find tucked into her carpetbag a love letter. So begins a series of secret epistles and midnight trysts with a man known only by his cryptic signature, “D.” Their love story unfolds to reveal a truth that will threaten to tear them from their world and each other.
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Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28