Eternally Yours by Patricia A. Rasey, Patricia A. Rasey

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Craylen Wayne Rollins is a self-made man, though heir to one of New Jersey's wealthiest men. What he wanted was a night of pleasure; what he hadn't bargained for was a women of virtue in his bed, thus earning him a bride he did not want. Cray wants revenge. Ariel Marie Montgomery is a helpless victim of her mother's deceptions, wanting nothing more than to forget the mishap and to marry the fiancé she left behind. What she hadn't counted on was the attraction she felt for her to-be-husband who hates her and believes her to be a conniver. Life couldn't possibly be worse ... that is until they find her mother murdered on the night of her wedding.

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Atlantic City, New Jersey
November 1870

"Go help someone who gives a shit," rang threw her thoughts assiduously as a lone tear ran down her cheek unchecked.

Ariel Marie Montgomery sat in a gray Queen Anne styled chair looking out the large, curtained window of the private railroad car, barely noticing the landscape as it flashed by. The trees, houses, and ocean all but a blur. She cared little for where the ornately decorated car took her. Her life, as she knew it, was over.

"Go help someone who gives a shit," troubled her once more. She placed her face in the palms of her hands, shielding all from view, though the only other occupant of the train, her mother, sat to the back of the car reading L.M. Alcott's Little Women, paying her little attention.

"Go help someone who gives a shit." Tanner McCabe's parting words to her. How could she still care for him after all he did? How could she still love him? But the fact remained, she did, and probably always would. How did one stop loving? The hole left in her heart ached for healing.

She glanced back out the window, noting the blur of the many trees being quickly replaced by that of the vast ocean. Her destination neared, her new home–Atlantic City, New Jersey. Oh God, she nearly cried aloud. How was she ever to get through this?

In the passing months, her life had turned completely around. No longer did she cherish the dream of being Mrs. Tanner McCabe, but cowered at the idea of being Mrs. Craylen Wayne Rollins III, a man she scarcely knew. Her wedding was a scant three months away.

Garbed in a midnight-blue street dress, Arieltoyed with the Russian-sable muff lying atop her lap. She thought of the days gone past when Tanner had excitedly talked of their life together, raising horses and being blessed with children. She could still see his white teeth flashing in his devilishly handsome face, tanned by heritage. His blue-black hair flowing nearly to his waist as he proudly wore the traits of his ancestors. His grandmother, a full-blooded Apache, was the reason her mother had forbidden the two her blessing.

"Over my dead body!" she had said.

But her love for Tanner had been based on a lie. He hadn't been faithful. Oh, she knew he loved her all right, but the wait for marriage had been too much for him to endure. He took another to his bed, one who was unwilling, and conceived a child–her nephew, Joey. The shock of that news had come on the heels of another revelation; that she and Cheryl Donovan were half-sisters.

They had the misfortune of having the same father.

Charles Montgomery was a monster. His miserable life was taken abruptly when he faced the sharp end of a knife, stealing his life's blood. Justice had been served. She would no longer have to endure the groping of the vile man in the middle of the night who had stole her innocence at such a tender age. Pity that her life should take a turn for the better only to spiral downward like a splinter of wood in a whirlpool a year later.

Craylen Wayne Rollins III, her husband-to-be.

Her mind traveled back to the night they shared the same bed, sealing their fate, the night she thought her vivid dreams seemed all too real. Her body reacted wantonly to the man in her honeyed dreams only to discover it wasn't a fantasy at all, but a flesh and blood man–one who pulled the strings of her desire to a fevered pitch. Had it not been for the untimely arrival of her mother, her mother's maid, and his parents, she would have freely given herself to him.

A flush crawled up her skin, heating her face. Was she truly a product of her father's sins? Did she have no more control over herself than to give herself without regard to a man she never even met? She remembered little of the night that changed her life, much of it still remaining a cloudy haze.

Her last coherent thought before waking up beneath Craylen's ministrations was of her mother's maid, tucking her in for the night. Could Vanessa have made a vital mistake and placed her in the wrong room? More than likely she was correct in thinking her mother involved. It certainly wouldn't have been beneath Adelaine to see to it her daughter was in Mr. Rollins' bed when he had expected a whore. After all, the end result would be what Adelaine had sought all along. Ariel Montgomery would never become the wife of Tanner McCabe.

"Darling?" Her mother disrupted her musings. "Do you see we are almost there?"

Ariel's stomach settled to her knees at the pitch of excitement lacing her mother's words. Apprehension clawed at her already raw nerves, as she glanced out the window and spotted the depot slipping into sight. She was certainly in no hurry to see her future husband as she was sure he shared the same trepidation.

Upon leaving the hotel room in Bridgeport, he had made himself perfectly clear by saying, "You'll rue the day you decided to trap me into marriage."

The wheels slowed their relentless clacking as they neared the bright red station. The train whistle blew, sending steam billowing from the large stack. Ariel gripped the wooden arms of the chair, whitening her knuckles, as the scenic view before her rolled to a slow stop and the whistle sounded once more.

Copyright © 2003 by Patricia A. Rasey