Resurrection Read Online Free PDF

her voice rising a little before she managed to lower it to a more moderate tone, “I went back to live with my grandfather. He settled my affairs as best he could, considering his failing health, and when he died, I found the money in his personal safe, in a packet bearing your name.”
    Gil stared into Emmeline’s eyes for what seemed like an eternity, then opened the satchel and reached inside, bringing out a stack of bills tightly bound with string. “I would have understood if you’d spent this on yourself,” he said at length in a raspy voice. “What kept you from selling the land, Emmeline?”
    She smoothed her skirts and then patted her hair, which tended toward untidiness. “I knew it meant more to you than anything else in the world, and I couldn’t bring myself to let go of it. I kept thinking I’d come back out here to live someday.”
    Gil smiled at Emmeline then, and though she remained somewhat nervous, she was more at ease after that. “I thank you for that,” he said, “though I have to say you were only partly right. There isn’t a parcel of land on this earth that means more to me than you do, including this one.” Having said those pretty words, Gil had the good grace to turn away, so that Emmeline could blush in private.
    After she’d recovered her composure, she lifted her skirts and followed him, even though good sense dictated that she ought to leave immediately. She simply couldn’t trust herjudgment when it came to Gil Hartwell. But the fact that he was her legal husband didn’t mean she would fall into his arms and tell him all was forgiven. He had changed a great deal during their time apart, and so had she.
    “This money will come in handy,” he said, offering a nail keg for a chair. “As you can see, the place could do with some fixing up.”
    Emmeline looked around carefully, taking in the sunken roof, the broken fences, the weed-choked patch where her garden had been, long ago. She hadn’t been back to the ranch since the day her grandfather had come to collect her and taken her away to his house in town. She’d always known there would be too many memories here, and that it would hurt like everything to see the property gone to rack and ruin, after all her and Gil’s hard work. They’d had such dreams, such hopes.
    Gil was leaning against the trunk of her beloved apple tree, his arms folded, the stack of bills protruding from his shirt pocket. “You look so sorrowful,” he said. “What’s going through that mind of yours?”
    She lowered her head for a few moments, making busywork of smoothing her skirts so he wouldn’t see just how deep her sorrow ran. “I was thinking of dandelions,” she said presently, fixing her gaze on the creek and the fine horse grazing beside it, “and how they turn to ghosts and blow away in the wind.”
    “Scattering their seeds over the land,” Gil added gently. “Renewing themselves, the way all living things do.” He came to stand before her, and touched her cheek with the lightest brush of his fingers before tilting her chin upward. The sun blazed behind him, blinding her to all but the shape of him, but she did not close her eyes.
    “Tell me how to lift your spirits, Emmeline,” he went onwith quiet dignity. “I’ll ride out if that’s what you want. Hell, I’ll make myself a pair of waxen wings and fly off into the sun. Just tell me how to please you.”
    The words were out before Emmeline had even guessed she would say them. “Hold me,” she whispered. “Take me into your arms, Mr. Hartwell, and hold me tightly and don’t let me go ’til I can really believe you’re back.”
    Gil drew her slowly to her feet and into his embrace. It was bliss to nestle against him, as she had so long before, while her heart matched its pace to his. He smelled of old wood, summer grass, whiskey and hard work, and the scents lent substance to Emmeline’s memories, and brought tears to her eyes.
    He kissed her temple and spread his