Rum Spring by Yolanda Wallace Read Free Book Online Page B

excitement. Adrenaline coursed through her own veins. If you’re not careful, Mahoney, she’s going to break your heart.
    “Is everything okay?” her mother asked when she and her father stuck their heads in the room thirty minutes later.
    “Everything’s fine.”
    “So it went well?”
    “It went great.”
    “Then go to sleep. She’ll still be here in the morning.”
    “Hey, Dad?” Dylan called out when he started to close the door.
    “Yes?” He stuck his head back in the room.
    “Did you get lucky?”
    He grinned and turned to watch her mother walk down the hall. “Not yet. Give me a few minutes,” he replied in a conspiratorial whisper. “What about you?”
    Dylan looked down at Rebecca’s sleeping form. “Give me a few years. Then ask me again.”
    Rebecca stood under the shower spray until the hot water turned tepid. She loved the way the water felt as it pelted her head and streamed down her body. At home, she had to fetch water from the well and heat it on the wood stove in the kitchen in order to have a hot bath. At Dylan’s house, all she had to do was turn on the tap.
    “Running water is my new favorite thing,” she said as she pirouetted in the shower. “No, kissing Dylan is my new favorite thing. Nothing is better than that, not even a sewing bee. Perhaps I should start a list of my own. Kissing Dylan would come first. Running water would be a close second.”
    Laughing, she shut off the water and toweled herself dry. When she pinned her hair up, she felt her demeanor start to change. She felt herself grow quiet. She watched herself become plain. Her black dress and stockings were laid out on the bed. When Dylan saw her wearing them instead of the worldly clothes she had sported all weekend, would Dylan still think she was gorgeous?
    Rebecca wrapped a towel around her body and gathered her things. When she opened the door that separated the bathroom from the guest room, she discovered she wasn’t alone. Dylan was placing folded clothes in a dresser drawer. How long had she been there? Had she heard Rebecca musing to herself?
    Dylan looked up after Rebecca gasped in surprise. Her eyes slowly traveled up Rebecca’s body. Rebecca watched Dylan’s eyes darken, the emerald orbs filling with an emotion Rebecca didn’t recognize. Rebecca’s skin prickled from the heat.
    “Hello, beautiful,” Dylan said, her voice husky and low.
    “Hello.” Rebecca felt the loose knot holding the towel closed begin to loosen. She hurriedly grabbed the towel before the halves separated and fell to the floor.
    Dylan cleared her throat and turned away. “I didn’t mean to scare you. Mom washed and dried the clothes you bought yesterday. I was just putting them away for you. I want you to think of this as your room. Whenever you’re here, this space is yours. Even when you’re not, it will still feel like yours to me.” She pushed the drawer shut and cleared her throat again. “I’ll let you get dressed.” She headed for the door.
    “Dylan?” Rebecca waited for Dylan to face her before she continued. There was so much she wanted to say but she didn’t know where to start. Or where to end. “Thank you.”
    “I don’t know what I did, but you’re welcome. When do you have to be back?”
    “Services don’t begin for a couple of hours yet, but I want to get home in time to feed the horses. I love taking care of the animals. Especially the babies.”
    “I can totally see you doing that. You’re going to make a great mother someday.”
    “So will you.”
    “I don’t know about that. But with you around, I can learn from the best. I’ll wait for you downstairs. I’ll take you home after we grab some breakfast. Next week, maybe you can stay longer.”
    “If you’re not tired of me by then.”
    “Not a chance.”
    The time had come for Rebecca to leave Dylan’s world and return to her own. She had thought the transition into Dylan’s world would be harder than the one out of it. Who would