Saving Grace by Unknown (best book reader .TXT) 📕

My heart began to thunder nervously again at the thought that the Doc, the man who'd known me all my life, heck, the man who'd brought me into this crazy world, was about to meet my new husband. I opened the front door to see Austin standing, leaning on the porch railing.

"Doc wants to see you now," I said to him quietly, blushing at the thought that I was now his wife. I felt a blush of wetness between my legs as my mind was pulled past the moment and towards the evening and all its possibilities. "Where's Cole?" I whispered as Austin brushed past me.

"Gone home to straighten things up. We'll meet him back there."

Home. My home. Our home now. I swung the door shut and listened for the familiar click of Doc's latch. It had always been a comforting sound.

"Doc, this is Austin."

"Pleasure to meet you."

"Pleasure to meet you too, I'm sure." The Doc replied, eyeing Austin up and down. "Congratulations are in order," the Doc said, not seeming too genuine.

"Why thank-you, good sir," Austin answered with a smile. "Grace has told how sudden this news has come to you and I appreciate it must be quite a shock but I assure you, I love this woman and I will take good and special care of her until the day that I die."

I must say that my heart did swell at the mention of the word love. I'd heard about it, read about it in some book or other that Rebecca had managed to procure, but didn't really believe in it myself, or know quite what it was supposed to mean. But my body seemed to. As soon as the word left Austin's lips I felt a tenderness, a warmth, a closeness like I wanted to hug him right then and there.

Doc's eyes softened immediately at Austin's eloquence and easy manner. He fancied himself a man of letters, the Doc did, even in this old wild west and always appreciated a man who could express himself as well as he could work with his hands.

"Well that all sounds fine, Mr. Owens,"

"Please, call me Austin."

The Doc couldn't help but crack a smile.

"Alright then, Austin. That all does sound fine. May I ask what brought you to these parts? Gold?"

"No sir. We received quite a large sum, by way of an inheritance and decided that we should try to find our fortune's in this world."

"We?" the Doc asked.

"Uh, that's right. Cole, a friend of mine. We rode to Dalton together."

"I see," the Doc said, looking like things weren't adding up. "Will your friend be staying in Dalton as well?"

"Well I suppose we haven't thought that far ahead. I myself was eager to get here as fast as I could after learning of my good fortune, so that Grace and I could finally be together."

That seemed to satisfy the Doc as he began nodding his head in approval. His brow furrowed slightly and he glanced at me before turning back to Austin.

"I'm sure you don't know this yet, but you've got quite a woman on your hands here. She can be quite a handful."

My mouth dropped open in shock at the Doc's honesty.

"Doc!" I gasped, barely able to believe I'd heard what he'd just said.

"Now Gracey," Doc went on, "a man oughtta know what he's getting into. I thought I'd give Austin a fair assessment so he knew he had a woman with some fire in her on his hands."

While it may have been true that I wasn't always agreeable, I wouldn't have gone so far as to call myself a handful. The nerve! Doc didn't seem to mind my outrage, however and just kept on talking. "You see Austin, and believe me I had many conversations with her father about this when he was still alive. He just never had the heart to discipline her the way he should have. Her mother passed early on an well, for her pappy Grace was just the apple of his eye. Couldn't say a bad thing about her or raise a hand to put her in her place, may his soul rest in peace."

Still somewhat stunned with disbelief, I listened carefully to Doc's words. It was true that my father hadn't ever disciplined me, but had it really been necessary? I thought that for the most part I had been a very well behaved child!

"There was the time when she let all the horses out of their stalls without first closing the gate on the corral in front of the barn. Well sure enough, they ended up in all kinds of different places and her father had a heck of a time getting them all back. But instead of a firm spanking for causing mischief he just chalked it up to 'being a kid' and that was that."

My mind drifted back to that time. I guess that had been something I may have deserved some consequence for but surely that was one occurrence, for the most part, I had been very good!

"Breaking dishes, playing hookey, even smoking a cigarette with some boys behind the schoolhouse," Doc went on, "not a single spanking from here till sundown. So all I'm saying, Austin, is that you might at some point have to set her straight."

I guffawed again at Doc's words, rolled my eyes and looked up at Austin who had been listening intently to Doc's reminiscence. He looked at me out of the corner of his eye, then turned back to Doc.

"Well sir," Austin began, "I do thank-you for your recollections for they certainly help me to form a better picture of the woman who I now call my wife. However, and on this point I would like to be perfectly clear,"

Finally! I thought. He was going to set Doc straight and tell him that I was my own woman and could do as I pleased.

"I was raised in the old way where men are men and women are women and sometimes