“I sure feel like it right now,” she said. “I could lie here all night if you’d keep that up, but we’ve got to get up in the morning. But five more minutes, please.”

“For five more minutes. Then I get to walk you to the end of the staircase and have a good-night kiss,” he said.

Lily thought that she might just drag him up the stairs, throw him down on her bed, and make wild, passionate love with him until morning if he’d massage her feet for ten more minutes, but she didn’t say that. She simply nodded, and wondered if the second kiss would affect her as much as the first one had.

When the five minutes had passed, she stood up, folded the quilt, and laid it on the back of the sofa. Mack tucked her hand in his and led her to the bottom of the stairs. She expected a quick kiss, but he looked deeply into her eyes, ran the palm of his hand down her cheek, and traced her lips with his fingertips.

“You are so beautiful,” he murmured.

She moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue just as his mouth closed over hers. It started out as a sweet kiss, but then his tongue touched her lower lip, asking permission to enter. She opened up to him and the kiss deepened into more. Her knees went weak so she wrapped her arms around his neck. When the kiss ended, she leaned into him and laid her cheek on his chest. His heart was beating as wildly as her own—the two of them keeping time together.

“Wow!” he muttered. “How about another foot rub?”

She tiptoed and kissed him on the cheek. “That might lead to more than kisses.”

“I’m willing if you are.”

“Don’t tempt me,” she said. “Good night, Mack.” She took a step back and started up the stairs.

“Good night, Lily.” His deep drawl followed her up to her room. She closed the door behind her and fell backward onto the bed. The springs squeaked and the slats creaked, but she didn’t care. All her hormones screamed for more than just a long, passionate kiss. Every nerve tingled, and it would take more than sucking on a lemon to wipe the smile off her face.

Lily picked up the journal and went over to Holly’s room. She rapped on the door, and Holly yelled, “Come on in.”

“Want to see what happens next?”

“Sure,” Holly said. “It’ll take my mind off Rose and Ivy.”

Lily opened the journal and began to read.

Jenny Medford O’Riley, May 1889:

“No!” Holly put up a palm. “Matilda can’t be dead. What happened to her son and to her new daughter, Lily?”

“I don’t know, but let’s keep reading,” Lily said.

Mama gave me this journal when I left Georgia. She said it was possible that she’d never see me again and that I should write in it sometimes, like she and her mother had done in the past, so it could be passed down through the ages, and our future daughters would know us better. I’ve read about the grandmother I never met, and Mama’s struggles. So now it’s my turn to write about my life. My daughter, Rachel, is two years old. I’m twenty-three, as is my husband, Danny O’Riley. We left our home and came west when we heard about the government giving away land here in Indian Territory. We were able to stake out our hundred and sixty acres last month. We’re living in a tent right now, but by winter, we will have enough logs cut to build us a fine cabin. At that time we will have shown improvement on the land, and it will be ours. The work is hard and we’ve struggled sometimes to have food on the table, but our love will carry us through these next years. When we’re old and gray, we’ll tell our grandchildren the stories of how we survived our first winter in Oklahoma. Although it’s late for a garden, I’ve put one in. We have a stream not far from our tent. The water there is good for the garden, but not fit to drink, and it’s backbreaking work to carry full buckets to my garden, but I’m determined that we’ll have harvest food for the winter from it. There are days when I’m lonely for female companionship, and I miss my mama so much, but no one said life is easy, and at the end of the day, Danny and I have each other.

“Wow!” Holly said. “I can’t imagine life with no water in the house.”

“Like she said, it was hard. Imagine living where you only got to see other girls maybe once every few weeks when you could go to church,” Lily said.

“That would be worse than having to live by a man’s rules.” Holly yawned. “I don’t even want to imagine having to live like that.”

“It’s past your bedtime.” Lily picked up the journal and headed to her room.

“’Night, Mama,” Holly whispered.

“Good night to you, darlin’ girl.” Lily felt like dancing across the hall to her bedroom. That was the first time Holly had told her good night without prompting in months.

As she got ready for bed that night, Lily kept going over the last words she’d read at the end of the day. Jenny and Danny had each other. Lily had her kids, and tonight she’d had an amazing kiss from Mack, but she wanted more than that. She wanted a relationship so that at the end of the day, she could go to sleep cuddled up next to her husband. When she woke up in the morning, she wanted to have more than just pillows in bed with her. Why now? she asked herself. She’d been content with her lot for five years, and now she wanted someone in her life.

Your life has taken a turn for the better. Her mother’s voice in her head was so clear that she almost dropped the journal.

“I hope so, Mama,” she whispered as she put the journal back into its place in the secretary. When she tried to close the flap, it wouldn’t lock in place. She lowered it again, removed the journal, and felt all the way to the back side of the shelf. Her hand closed around something soft and furry, and she jerked her hand back like she’d been shocked. If that was a dead mouse in there, she was marching down the stairs to get Mack. There were two things she hated in the world—and dead or alive, a mouse was both of them.

Lily laid the journal on the bed and got a small flashlight from the drawer of her nightstand. Her hands shook as she adjusted the beam toward what she figured was a shriveled-up rodent. She thought of what Polly had said about saving nickels and dimes and turning them into bills when she saw the light-blue velvet bag.

She was surprised to see how solidly the bag was stuffed, and that it was heavy. When she undid the drawstring and wiggled the roll of bills out, she couldn’t believe that it was as big as her fist. A note was wrapped around the roll. Lily slipped the rubber band off, and the fifty-dollar bills spread out in her hands. She unfolded the note to read:

My dear Lily,

If you find this and are reading this, then I’m with your father in eternity. Polly will explain about the money. Take it and go on the vacation I never got to go on. Your dad hated the idea of being out in the water so far that he couldn’t see land. Going to Germany on a boat when he was in the army made him never want to do it again. Now that he’s gone, the desire to travel has left me. I just want to stay right here in this house where all his memories are. I hope someday Wyatt learns to appreciate you and the kids. If not, then shoot the sorry bastard. I never have liked him.

Love,

Mama

With tears rolling down her cheeks, Lily counted the money. Seven thousand dollars—enough to take her and the kids on a cruise—and Mack, if he wanted to go. But the note meant more to her than all the money in Texas.