“I didn’t just like you, you realize. I was already head over heels over heart in love with you, woman. Being around you that week only cemented the fact. Just the sight of your sweet face sent me right over the moon…and trying not to stare at your lips whenever you spoke or let my gaze rove south on your luscious body, don’t even get me started…”
“Marsh…” I muffled my laughter against his neck.
“You think I’m kidding, angel? Jesus, come here, let me touch you…” He caught my ass in a firm grasp. “God, yes, that’s better…”
“Much better,” I agreed, rocking against him, letting the juncture of my thighs brush the increasing swelling between his. Before I lost all focus, I said, “But later that night, Tish and Case got married in the hospital room.”
Marshall studied my eyes. A beat of deep awareness passed between us. “We could get married right here, right now.”
Yes, I said without words, tears filming my vision. Marshall understood; he knew me.
With extreme and tender care, he resituated us to sitting positions, the covers billowing around our knees. He gathered my hands, kissed each, and then brought our joined hands to his heart; he spoke with a husky, formal tone. “I, Marshall Augustus Rawley, take you, Ruthann Marie Gordon, to be my lawfully wedded wife, to love and to cherish, to hold and kiss and keep safe and make passionate, unending love with. In sickness and health, for richer or poorer, for all time that exists, I will be yours.”
My throat ached at the beauty of his words; I mustered my voice. “I, Ruthann Marie Gordon, take you, Marshall Augustus Rawley, to be my lawfully wedded husband, to love and to cherish, to make happy and bear your children, and to see our dreams fulfilled. In sickness and health, for richer or poorer, for all the days between now and forever, I am yours.”
The air seemed to sigh around our bodies as he whispered tenderly, “That was perfect. I now pronounce us husband and wife.”
I invited, “You may kiss the bride,” and Marshall rolled atop me for a warm, open-mouthed one.
Later, snuggled together, he whispered, “We have to warn them.”
Lulled almost to sleep, it took me seconds to realize what he meant. “You mean about Fallon. How can we make them hear us, from here?”
I could tell he was collecting his exhausted thoughts; it was very late. “We have to leave them a message, one that won’t get destroyed in the intervening decades. Something we could…bury.”
“You’re right. And it has to be here, near this homestead. Case and Tish know the foundation is here, and what’s more, they know it’s where you first felt the past pulling at you, that night we rode Arrow. If they’re going to look anywhere, it’s here.”
“Good point. It’s our best shot.”
“Fallon scares me so much. They don’t know him and they wouldn’t know who to look for. Tish doesn’t even know that Fallon and Franklin are the same person. What if he’s been there all this time, hurting them… oh God…”
“It doesn’t seem like he’s able to stay in the twenty-first century for long periods of time,” Marshall quickly reminded me. “But all the same, I’ll feel better thinking they have something to go on. We can bury something tomorrow.”
“What if they don’t find it…”
“We have to trust them,” Marshall said, infusing his voice with confidence, for my sake. “If anyone can find it, it’s Case and Tish.”
Chapter Five
Jalesville, MT - March, 2014
“THEY SHOULD BE HERE ANY MINUTE,” I TOLD AL, SETTING aside my pen. A small but potent rush of anticipation momentarily overrode my otherwise low mood; an hour ago Camille had texted they were ninety miles east of Jalesville. “The whole family is coming. The kids are on spring break.”
“I’d also allege your sister knows you need her,” Al responded from his desk, pausing in his work to study me over the top of his bifocals, a pair he’d only just acquired. A recent dusting of late-winter snow bleached the outside light filtering through our front windows, a cloudy-bright day easing now toward its demise. Quiet music on the local radio station and the faint ticking of the old wall clock were the only other sounds in the small space we shared this late Friday afternoon.
Since arriving home from Robbie Benson’s funeral in Chicago I’d returned to work at Spicer and Howe, Attorneys at Law. The daily familiarity of working with Al Howe, of mundane paperwork and the smell of law books and ink and old carpet, soothed my nerves like a sort of balm. Al had hired a new part-time receptionist, one of the Nelson family’s daughters, and her cheerful chatter allowed me the ability to lay eyes upon the desk where Ruthann had worked, without falling to shattered bits.
Case kept our music shop open, located a few doors down from the law office; he continued to give guitar lessons and even occasionally played at The Spoke, sometimes with Garth’s accompaniment. We ate dinner at Clark’s every Friday, the entire Rawley family reliably in attendance, all of us working hard to contend with the dual storm clouds hovering on our collective horizon – that of Marsh and Ruthie’s continued failure to return, and the Yancys’ lawsuit, currently pending. Our first appearance as defendants before a judge was scheduled for next Wednesday, March nineteenth, a meeting I dreaded. Despite our adherence to as regular a routine as possible, the formidable tension holding all of us in a state of inertia was at times unbearable.
At each work day’s end I hurried home to Case, who usually arrived first and had supper waiting in our cramped doublewide; after eating, we spent most evenings designing our new cabin. Both of us wanted to say ‘fuck it’ and get the foundation dug and the building process rolling, but we realized that if the Yancys prevailed –
