In The Beginning by Gail Daley (top 100 books of all time checklist .TXT) 📕

need to buy in town to begin farming. Once Samuel and Martin got the tricorns settled and fed, they spent the day examining the outbuildings and the orchards.

Everyone was tired by the time evening came. Chloe made sure the children had a bath while Jeanne cooked dinner. For now, Martin would take his meals with them, although he would sleep in the smaller house. His wife and children were waiting at her parent's house to learn if the job would be permanent. Chloe of course, had quarters next to the children's rooms.

"Go ahead and take your bath while I cleanup in here, Chloe," Jeanne told her. "Samuel and I will take ours last."

The bathroom was a marvelous tiled affair, with a huge ceramic tub and an overhead shower. The water, Samuel had told her enthusiastically would be drained out into a ditch used for watering the kitchen garden attached to the house.

Back in her room, Jeanne prepared for her wedding night, reflecting how different her situation had been from Bethany's. She was sure of Samuel's love and her own, he wasn't a stranger, and they had experimented enough that she was confident she could please him and herself.

She was brushing out her hair when he entered the room, and she turned to look at him. After his shower, he hadn't bothered with clothing except his pants. His dark gold hair was damp, touching his heavily muscled shoulders. A hard abdomen led down to his lean hips where the waist of his pants was only partially fastened. Jeanne felt a spurt of desire as she stood up and came toward him.

Samuel dropped his dirty shirt on a chair and his boots on the floor next to them, never taking his eyes off her.

"I never thought we would get here, did you?"

He took her face in his hands and looked down into her eyes. "It was going to happen," he said. "I didn't know how, but I knew we would be together someday."

Jeanne smiled. "Gran always finds a way. I should have talked to her before."

She ran her hands over his shoulders, liking the feel of his smooth bronzed skin under her hands. Samuel returned the gesture, sliding his palms over the sides of her breasts and down her back to cup her buttocks. He bent his head to kiss her throat and Jeanne tilted her head back so he could reach her better. Her fingers slid over his hard-muscled stomach to his waist and opened the buttons on his pants. He was hard and ready when he sprang out into her hands.

Jeanne chuckled, and pushed his pants down over his hips. Samuel pulled her nightgown up and over her head, and she leaned against him, enjoying the skin to skin feel.

"I like it better without clothes," she whispered, pulling him toward the bed.

Samuel grinned down at her. "I bet its going to be better in a nice soft bed too."

Kissing and fondling they made their way over to the mattress, finally falling together on it, where they came together with a sweet, hot mingling of flesh.

To Speak Of Many Things

WHEN GISELLE AND IRIS arrived back home without Jeanne, Michael, as Giselle had predicted, had a fit.

Calmly sipping the tea Margo had brought her, Giselle waited until her son had stopped yelling, before she attempted to explain matters to him.

"Are you done?" she asked, when he paused for breath.

"Where is my daughter?" he roared.

"Your daughter Iris is sitting over there," she pointed to where Iris, who was making a good attempt at being invisible, was sitting. "I believe Bethany went out to the racing stable."

He glared at her. "You know those two aren't the daughter I'm referring to! I can see Iris and I had breakfast with Bethany this morning! Where is Jeanne?"

"By now she and her new husband are in Azure City setting up housekeeping on my farm there."

"Mother, you know I had plans for Jeanne. Plans that would keep the ranch, the mine and the railroad holding safe for the family."

Giselle set her cup down and added more tea to it. "I know you did, and I agreed with most of it. However, Jeanne didn't want to marry the man you picked out for her and forcing her would have been wrong. You know that."

"I wasn't going to force her," he protested. "Any more than I forced Bethany or Iris. If she didn't like the first man, we could have found another—"

"Jeanne had already found her man," his mother told him gently.

"So why not bring him to meet me? What is wrong with him?"

"As far as I could tell, nothing is wrong with him except his family, and he gave them up to be with her."

Michael's eyes narrowed. "What is his name?"

"The marriage license reads Tomas Clancy."

"Stop stalling mother."

She took another sip of tea. "Your daughter Jeanne was married to Samuel Johnson two weeks ago in Junction City."

"What?" her son howled. "Are you out of your mind? You just handed all our holdings over to Ira Johnson!"

"No, I have not. I have—"

"Mother," he said, carefully controlling his voice, "I see that you wanted Jeanne to be happy. I do too, but once Johnson finds out about the marriage—"

"If he finds out before matters here come to a head, I have a power of attorney, signed by Jeanne, turning all her shares in your properties over to her sisters. In the event of anything happening to any of us, she revokes any interest in the ranch, the mine and the railroad shares. I have the same signed by Samuel as her husband. His has a rider that under no circumstances is control ever to be turned over to his father or his brother."

Michael St. Vyr made a disgusted sound. "Do you actually think that will stop Johnson? Don't play the fool Mother."

She nodded. "That is why Jeanne and Samuel are going to be living under assumed names." She shrugged, "The boy isn't his father, Michael. Jeanne trusts Samuel, and