Edge of Time (Langston Brothers Series) (22 page)

All else melted away.

Stepping a bit closer Craig slid his hands around her waist watching the ever darkening shadows dance across her face. “Marry me?” No flowery words of love and longing came readily to his lips but his deep voice wrought with emotion said all that was needed. The ensuing darkness made it impossible to see her face or gain even a small glimpse of her expression. With bated breath Craig stared into her shadowed
eyes
silently pleading that he hadn’t seriously erred in choosing the moment to tread upon this particular limb.

A small barely audible sniffle escaped her lips
and her hands
shook
.
“No, Maris
sa, Please don’t cry. Don’t cry.
”
H
e cupped her face in his hands, brushing the tears a
way with his thumbs. “I’m sorry. This was a poor time to propose.
I didn’t mean to upset you.” Craig was devastated. He’d pushed too hard, and now he had no one but himself to blame for the rejection. Still… he just couldn’t believ
e that she felt nothing for him.
From the very beginning they’d seemed drawn together by some unknown force.

She sniffed again leaning her cheek ag
ainst the warm flat of his palm.
“That’s not i
t. I’m just so happy.
”

“Happy?” He
bent down, looking directly into her eyes
. “You mean...?

“Yes,” she cried,
t
hrowing her arms about his neck.
“I’m
saying yes.” Craig laughed alou
d
, sweeping
her off the
wooden planks
, turning a wide circle.

Marissa pressed breathless kisses to his lips
, and Craig fought to accept that he’d truly won her. She lifted her head, fixing eyes like melted chocolate on his.
“I love you,” she whispered.

“I know,” he grinned, finally allowing her fee
t to touch to the ground.

“We should tell Genie and Carolyn.” She grasped his hand, tugging him back toward the house.

“Wait.
”
H
e pulled
her
back with a low laugh. “I have something for you.”

“You do?”
Surprise and excitement brimmed in her expression.

“The other reason I came loo
king for you this afternoon after
you disappeared.” He shoved a hand into his
inner breast
pocket and withdrew an exquisite engagement ring. “I was preparing to plead and if necessary
demand
that that you marry me.” Slowly he slid the thick band, inlaid with a diamond of no meager size and offset with two sapphires
on
to her finger. “It was my mother’s.”

“It’s beautiful.” Amazed
eyes raised to his. “Oh, Craig, thank you. Thank you so much!” She threw her arms around his neck again, burying her face against his sho
ulder.

“Marissa, I must know, why did you change your mind tonight?”

She eased back, resting her palms against his chest, toying with one of the gold buttons. “We were shot at tonight.” She shook her head, disbelieving. “I still cannot quite fathom it, but,” her eyes flicked upward, the swirl of emotions reflected within real and vulnerable, “
I could have lost you, and I realized that no matter how complicated my life is… I don’t want to spend a moment of it without you. Whatever lies in my past… you are my future, Craig.”

Craig stared down at her for a long moment, rubbing a stray hair between thumb and forefinger. He sensed a wealth of other meaning beneath her words. He resisted the urge to delve deeper, this woman would be his wife, God willing he’d have a lifetime to unearth her scars.
Running a hand up to cradle the back of her neck he pressed firm lips to her neck, tasting her sweetness. “Come home with me tonight.”

With her breath hot in his ear and full breasts crushed against his chest he wanted nothing more than to rip the clothes from her body and bury himself in the inviting heat of her. Again! Now! Her lips were wet on his neck and the way her fingers feathered the hair at his nape. Her touch was caring, loving and it was driving him crazy. His lips moved to her ear and the moan she emitted as he gently nipped was more than he could bear.

“What?” her voice was breathless as she dissolved against his chest.

“Come home with me tonight.”

“No,” she moaned the word against his lips.

“What do you mean
no
?” His hand found the curve of her buttock and he grasped her almost roughly against him.

“I want to do this right,” her breath was tantalizingly hot and wet in his ear. “I want our wedding night to be perfect.”

Groaning aloud he dragged himself away from her. “I think we already ruined the concept of a wedding night.”

“Please, Craig?
Nothing in
my
relationship with Brian
was
ever quite right
. With you I want to follow
tradition. “Please, Craig?”

“Er...” Though he wanted to continue arguing the point, Craig understood that she
needed
for them to have one magical night of perfection. Wedding night. Silently he vowed to make that night as special for her as possible.

Edge of Time
230

Ten

Genie and Carolyn were both ecstatic when told of the engagement.

“I am so proud of you, Marissa,” Genie said, having slipped into Marissa’s room later that night. Carolyn, of course, had no idea that her “cousin” from Atlanta was no real relation, so both time-travelers were careful with what they said in front of her. “It took me a full year to come to grips with being here forever, and you’ve only been here for a few months.”

The older woman’s revelation surprised
Marissa. “You seem so happy and composed I didn’t realize it had taken you so long to accept.”

“Well
,
I wasn’t always like this. Life is what we make it and it took me a year to realize I could be happy here.”

Marissa nodded.
“
I
t took me right up to the moment I accepted him to realize that I could make my life here and be happy.” She lifted the delicate white gown Genie had pulled from the back of the closet. “Are you sure you want me to wear this?”

“Of course!” Genie exclaimed, her eyes dancing. “I hope you don’t mind, but I really have come to think of you as my niece. I wore that dress to marry Jim, Carolyn wore it to marry Alfred, and now it’s yours to marry Craig.”

Tears welled in Marissa’s eyes at the unconditional kindness the other woman had shown her. “Thank you, Genie. Thank you so much. I don’t know what I would have done without you.”

“You are very, very welcome, Marissa.” The women embraced warmly
.
“Are you excited?”

Marissa nodded and beamed through sparkling eyes.” I don’t think I have ever been so happy. I had every intention of swearing off men, but Craig just wouldn’t take no for an answer.” For a moment her expression sobered and she turned to Genie with a question heavy on her heart. “But I still feel like I’m lying to him. He doesn’t even know where I’m really from. I stop myself from making reference to things that to me are common knowledge or everyday sayings that he has never heard of, things that don’t even exist yet. What if I slip up and say something stupid
. What if he
think
s
I’m crazy?” Marissa rolled her eyes toward the ceiling. “I guess what I need to know is, did you ever tell Jim? And if so, how did he react?”

The older woman let out a long breath and her pale eyes clouded as
though she had drifted faraway.
“Oh, Marissa. I’m afraid that it is not a question I can fully answer for you. I didn’t tell Jim until after we’d been married for almost 17 years. I was always afraid he wouldn’t believe me or, like you said, think
me mad
.”

“But didn’t you feel as though you were being dishonest? Lying to him?”

Again Genie
cocked her head, t
houghtful. “No.” She shook her head. “No I never did feel that I was lying. I told him about my family. Memories from my past, I just omitted details that would have put me through the door of
an asylum
.” Pain clouded
her pale eyes as she continued.
“I told him a couple of years before the war started. I was hoping to get an early start on convincing him
not
to join the military.” A wan smile crossed her lips. “I should have known better. He was a proud southerner. It took a long time for him to believe what I was telling him, if he ever really did, despite the future artifacts I showed him, but in the end it didn’t matter what I knew or what I told him. He refused to accept that the south had lost and, in the end, he died anyway.”

Without a word Marissa stretched a hand out to cover that of her friends.

After a moment Genie’s face b
rightened with a dazzling smile.
“Enough of this depressing talk.” She squeeze
d Marissa’s hand.
“There is a wedding in our very near future and we still need to find you something to wear to the engagement party.” The wedding was scheduled for the following Sunday and while Craig would have marched her straight to the nearest justice of the peace his grandmother had insisted on a proper church wedding and at least one week to prepare.

With her wedding only a week away Marissa couldn’t help but think of how drastically her life had changed. What if she had actually married Brian? Would she have been thrown back in time regardless and still met Craig, her soul mate? The thought of Craig as her soul mate put a smile in her face. What she felt for Craig surpassed any measure of love she had ever dreamed possible and now she was forced to realize that Brian had probably never trul
y loved her. For that matter,
had
she ever really loved Brian?

Rifling through
the
third trunk in the space of an hour, Genie finally pulled a simple but e
legant creamy gown from a trunk.
“What about this?” The gown was champagne in color, the arms would be left bare
,
with only thick satin straps to cover the shoulders, the neckline was modest with just a splashing of lace and the skirt fit snuggly against the hips before flaring just above the thighs.

“It’s perfect,” Marissa grinned reaching for the satin dress. “Now we have to decide what to do with my hair.”

*     *     *

Floating on air—or so it seemed,
Marissa descended the stairs the evening of their hastily arranged engagement party. Craig waited at the bottom, looking particularly dashing in his sharp dress uniform complete with red sash and intricately handled saber. His sandy blond hair was combed neatly beneath his cap and the handsome angles of his face were clean shaven. His won
derful eyes assessed her and
her cheeks gre
w hot at his perusal.

“You are beautiful, Marissa.” Craig bent to kiss her cheek and ran a hand through the silken length of her hair that draped unbound over her shoulders.
“You’re certain I can’t convince you to elope?”

Marissa bit back a smile and shook her head.

“Pity.” Craig clapped a hand to his chest, feigning a dire wound.

Marissa laughed, stopping two steps from the bottom so that she’d be as tall as he. She reached for his hand, pulling him to her for a kiss. “Only six more days to wait.”

He sighed. “Ah, yes, six days…
More like six eternities.
” He took her hand and she descended the last two steps. He tucked
her
hand into
his arm.
“
Shall we be off then
?”

Forty minutes later
Craig escorted her into the impressive plantation house
owned by
his family
. She recognized the mansion from her own time and knew it was one of few such buildings to be spared by Yankee invaders.
“
This place is magnificent,” she murmured in awe. “You grew up here?”

“Yes. Now my grandmother
, my mother’s mother,
lives here with a few servants and when my father isn’t in Virginia serving as a presidential aide, he lives here with my two youn
ger brothers.” As if
on cue a huge golden lab lumbered happily across the yard toward Craig. “Hey boy, oh no, down! Down!”

Craig held his arms up to shield himself from the massive paws of the hulking animal. Planting a slobbery tongue across Craig’s cheek the beast sat back on his haunches looking markedly pleased with himself. Wiping a hand across his drool slimed cheek, Craig snorted in disgust. “Damn dog.”
He gestured between the dog and Marissa.
“This beast is Jake. Jake, this is Marissa, but you are not permitted to jump and slobber all over her. Understand?”

Laughing, she leaned down to scratch the ears of what was undoubtedly the biggest Labrador she had ever seen. “Isn’t your brother named Jake?”

“Yes,” Craig drawled casually.
“
T
here is a pretty good story behind that.”

“Would you care to share it with me?” Marissa grinned, enjoying the pleasant interlude before she was shoved front and center into the festivities. This was a moment with Craig, one she would cherish, one that would appear ordinary in any age.

“Five or six years ago, my brother Jake found this puppy down by the river and brought it home. My pa has a pretty soft heart when it comes to animals and as you can see we kept him. At first we named him Howler but no matter what we did we couldn’t get the dog to answer to his name.”

Absently he stretched a hand down to rub the dog’s ears. “So anyway, Jake and the dog were absolutely inseparable and after a while we started to realize that every time we called for Jake the dog would come running. One day my father had some really important men coming for dinner to discuss plantation business and somehow the entire venison roast, um, disappeared
and
Pa
had nothing to serve his guests for dinner.
Pa knew who to blame for the missing roast and was so mad he hollered for Jake, who was supposed to be responsible for his pet. My brother, who was about sixteen, came flying down the stairs looking guilty as sin. The dog came galloping in from outside as well. Even with meat juice all over his chops
he
didn’t look guilty at all. Ever since then we’ve just called the dog Jake, too.”

Marissa’s lighthea
rted laughter warmed his heart.
“Where are your brothers now? Have you heard from them recently?” Craig rarely talked about his brothers and Marissa seized the opportunity to learn more about them.

“As you know, Curtis was reported missing a few months ago, but the other two are somewhere in Northern Virginia. I haven’t seen or heard from them since I was reassigned to Charl
eston.” Craig’s drawl thickened.
“
Let’s not
talk about the war tonight.” He smiled down at her. “I want to think about my beautiful bride and the wonderful future we are going to have together.”

The evening was a whirlwind as Marissa was introduced to age-old friends of the family and accepted their good wishes with Craig. As the evening progressed, however, it became painfully obvious that in light of the vicious rumors which had been circulating, a fair percentage of Charleston’s “society” believed the good Captain Doctor Langston must be marrying as a matter of honor after having “gotten the girl in trouble.” After all, war or no war, this was planned to be an indecently short engagement.

Gotten the girl in trouble.
Marissa heard that particular phrase muttered more times than she cared to count over the course of the evening and the scrutiny piqued her ire to no small degree. She came from a world with very diff
erent standards
. On m
ore than one occasion
she physically bit
back
retorts to some snide
comment
or another
.
Fortunately
, Craig never left her side and he gave no cause for anyone to believe he was less than enamored of her—or she of him
.