If I Wait For You Page 24

  Hundreds of mourners attended the judge’s funeral on a day when the sun shone so brightly it hurt the eyes. West managed to keep the lurid details from becoming public until after Judge Reynolds was laid to rest with all the dignity the old man would have wanted.

  Sara looked over to her husband giving him a small, sad smile. “All these people,” she said, glancing at the long line of carriages that bordered the cemetery, the horse’s heads adorned with black plumbs. “I wonder what they will think when they realize they have honored a murderer.”

  “I always thought him a fine man.” West shook his head, knowing he sounded like a fool. “It is such an ugly story with a horrible end,” he said finally.

  “I’m not so noble that I will let sentiment continue to mar my name,” Sara said with a touch of warning.

  “Of course not.” West seemed genuinely surprised she would think he would not move the highest mountain to clear her of all wrong-doing. “This whole business will be sordid and taint us, no matter that we’ll be telling the truth. There will be people, you know Sara, who will continue to believe in your guilt no matter how clear the evidence is against the judge. We have been protecting you, but once the details are released, there will be no doubt about who you are.”

  Sara frowned and chewed her lip. “I know. But it will be worth it, won’t it? We will have children some day, and I refuse to have the name Dawes forever sullied. My father was not rich, but he was a good man.”

  West smiled down at his wife’s fierce expression. “Darling. Your teeth are bared.”

  Sara refused to give in to his banter. “I’ve spent enough time running away from who and what I am. I am Sara Dawes and I refused to be ashamed of that. I want to shout it, to tell everyone I meet that I am the Sara Dawes.”

  “Bravo.”

  She folded her arms and looked away from her grinning husband. “Hmph.”

  “I have always loved you for who you are,” West persisted. “But I have to say being secretly married to New Bedford’s most notorious woman has been a bit exciting. Now that it will be all in the open and you are vindicated, where will the titillation be?”

  Sara gave him a long, mischievous look. “In never quite knowing whether I actually did receive that note of yours.” Then she spun around and helped herself into their landau.

  West heaved himself up beside his wife who was obviously trying to suppress a face-splitting grin. He leaned over to his wife, who continued to ignore him, and whispered in her ear, “There was no note.”

  Sara spun around so quickly, her nose struck his with enough force to make her eyes water.

  “There’s no need for tears, darling. All turned out well enough. There was no need to ask you to wait. I knew you would. And you see, I was right.”

  Sara glared at him. “I am not crying, you fool. And I did not wait. Not a second. It was only sheer luck that you came home before my wedding.”

  West captured her mouth with his, and she was instantly soft against him, all pretense of anger vanquished. “The luckiest of happenstance.”

  She pulled away from him. “You wrote the note.” There was only the tiniest of questions in her voice.

  “I did.”

  “Because if you hadn’t, nothing would change. We’d still be married and glad of it.”

  “I wrote the damned note.”

  “I know you did,” she said adamantly, but she bit her lip.

  Three weeks later, a package arrived at the Mitchell house, salt-stained and rumpled. In it was two letters, both addressed to Sara.

  “I pray this letter finds you well, Mrs. Mitchell. And I also pray you forgive my delay in forwarding you the enclosed missive. Just this past week I discovered the letter tucked in the bottom of my sea chest where it has languished all these years. In the tragedy of the storm, it was quite forgotten. Yrs Truly, Captain Richard Crowley.”

  Sara knew what the second letter contained—West’s note—and she found herself afraid to open it. She let it sit before her, yellowed and torn at one corner, for a long moment before opening it.

  Sara, my love, please wait for me. I love you with all my heart. Never doubt that. My only regret is that I could not say the words aloud.

  West

  A tear slipped down her face as she held the note to her heart. She’d known he written it, but to hold it in her hands, to read his words, nearly broke her heart all over again.

  West found her, sitting on their bed, her cheeks still wet from tears, re-reading the short missive. “The letter,” he said simply.

  “The letter.” She sighed and shook her head, giving him a smile that tore at his heart. “I can hardly think of how I would have felt if…Oh, God, West.”

  He understood. What if he’d come home after she’d married Gardner. What if she’d read that letter as Gardner’s wife, not his?

  “You waited long enough, love. Just long enough.”

  Dear Readers:

  Thank you so much for purchasing this book. I’ve wanted it published for years, but the whaling theme made various publishers uneasy. Still, I believe in this book and, while it may not be politically correct today and distasteful to our modern sensibilities, whaling was an enormous part of our country’s history. If I Wait For You is one of the most romantic love stories I’ve ever written and I’m grateful I was able to finally get it out to readers. At the time I wrote it, I wanted to write a trilogy featuring each of the brothers. Jared, in particular, still tugs at my heart. I so want to give him a happy ending. If you want that, too, let me know when you review the book or shoot me an e-mail from my website, www.janegoodger.com. Maybe Jared will finally find his true love and we can heal his broken heart.

  Happy Reading!

  About the author:

  Jane Goodger lives in Rhode Island with her husband and three children. Jane, a former journalist, has written numerous historical and contemporary romances. When she isn’t writing, she’s reading, walking, making sea glass jewelry (WickfordSeaGlass.com), playing with her kids, or anything else completely unrelated to cleaning her house. You can visit her website at www.janegoodger.com.