Tous les chapitres de : Chapitre 241 - Chapitre 250

"Whoo wee, it's getting hot out here," Pete said. Then he stripped off his shirt, and he was leaning his long, lithe body back on the hood of the sedan next to Abegail.She looked over at the young man who had made love to her under the stars throughout the night just a few nights ago, and she began to melt. She hadn't any intention of giving into this temptation again. She'd only done it then because the world had moved too fast for her. She was a widow at thirty-three, displaced from her home, and two of her children and her lover died in almost simultaneous events. Her life was suddenly over, but she felt entirely too young just to fade away. She had been loved frequently and well, and she had clung to the first young, hard male body that had come her way. That had been Pete. And now, when she looked at his muscled torso in the light of day, she could hardly hold herself back. She had fully intended on giving herself to Wally Hollands when she reached Colorado if he wanted her stil

Abegail particularly loved to paint the stream that cascaded down the mountainside from the saw mill camp, and so she frequently rode up to a little glen beside the water in a grove hidden from the road about half way up to the saw mill. The stream gave a little twist here and went over a stone outcropping, and the little meadow area was rampant with colour in the spring, when the wildflowers were in bloom. It was a restful place for contemplation, and it was a perfect place to paint. It was also the perfect place to make love. And frequently, when Abegail went up to the hidden glen to paint, Pete sneaked out of the sawmill encampment and went down to the glen to fuck.Wally Holland was no dummy, however. He soon caught on to Pete's disappearances from the camp and followed him down the mountainside unobserved one beautiful spring day in 1919. He quickly regretted that he had done so. From a hidden spot at the verge of the grove of trees, he saw Abegail open her dress to Pete, and Pet

When the spring thaw settled in and Abegail came into Slater to retrieve her son, she left the post office and emporium permanently in the care of Martha and Thaddeus. And it was to the Water Creek Ranch on the hillock below Hahn's Peak that she returned, not to Bally House. That same spring, when Wally Holland left for Denver, he didn't return. He did, however, make good on his promise to take Abegail's paintings with him and they, indeed, did sell very well in Denver—and art dealers throughout the region started to take notice of this new talent hidden away in a remote Rocky Mountain valley. It wasn't long before George Vaughn had taken notice of Abegail's success and had both established her with an art broker in Chicago and featured her paintings in the upscale furniture department of Vaughn's department store. The arrangement was quite lucrative for both of them.Abegail had grown into a strong, independent woman, spurred by having lost nearly everything, including her husband an

And, indeed, when the two strapping sons had disappeared through the log arch leading out towards the road down into Slater, Fernand Wolf lowered the barrel of the shotgun and slowly sank to the floor of the porch. Abegail barely had the strength to drag the massive man back into the ranch house and onto his bed.She nursed him for two weeks before he was clear of whatever fever had attacked him. She had seen right away that it wasn't anything like the Spanish flu that had taken most of her family, and she reasoned that the ranch's well must have gone bad. She melted snow for drinking water, stripped him, sponged him off several times a day, wrapped him well in blankets, and applied all of the herbs she had learned to employ that might help make him well.Then on Christmas day, marked that year by Abegail only as a date on the calendar, Fernand Wolf showed that he was strong enough to rejoin the world by pulling Abegail down on his bed, rolling on top of her, and kissing and stroking

"Pete showed such promise at his work at the saw mill that I offered him the job of opening my company offices here in Denver. And he's made all of the difference. We would never have become the premier architectural and construction firm in Colorado without his drive and ambition."Abegail who had known quite a bit about Pete's drive and ambition in a different vein, recovered quickly, and, after saying a few niceties to Pete and learning that he had become quite the politician in Denver and was even contemplating running for public office—with the backing of his new wife's father, a political kingmaker in the western states—she turned her complete attention to Wally Holland and the plans he'd had drawn up for the Water Creek ranch lodge and the stable buildings.Her reaction to the situation must have pleased Wally greatly, as he warmed to both her and to his presentation of the plans.At length, after she had poured over the plans, Abegail sighed