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Brad spent the afternoon in his hotel room, cursing, arguing with himself, and chain smoking. He told himself that he was an idiot, that he should’ve told the Duchess that he had to leave, that it wasn’t fair to Jemima or to himself to drag out a long goodbye. They had no chance, no future, and no good purpose was served by going over to her house at night.
Except that she had asked him to come, and apparently, he was her slave, like those three pitiful farm boys.
So he’d gone down to the desk and paid for an extra night on his own dime, like a moron, because the paper had only paid the room until noon. And settled in, and binge-watched the news, and ignored more emails from Delores, mostly to keep himself from speculating about what Jemima wanted.
Just to say goodbye, he was sure: but what form would that goodbye take? The possibilities were many and delightful, and sometimes he closed his eyes and let himself imagine them.
The afternoon wore on. Delores sent more emails, hinting that his recent successes did not make him immune to disciplinary action. She informed him that he’d ruined her secretary for any useful work, and suggested that he might want to see some of the packages being sent to his desk by anonymous admirers.
Brad ignored them, as well. He stretched out on the bed with the TV remote in his hand, flipping idly from channel to channel. He had scooped all the other news outlets with his exclusive interview with Jemima, and he was gratified to see that even Wellman at Channel 1 hadn’t been able to do much better than awkward interviews with her random acquaintances.
He shook his head and smiled. He had to give them one thing: the Amish were a tight-knit people.
His smile faded. He tried to imagine what was he was going to say to Jemima that night. He could tell her that she was beautiful, that she was amazingly generous, that he genuinely admired the way she lived out what she believed. That it was a shame that they weren’t...
He crushed out his cigarette in the ashtray. No, he wouldn’t go there.
The sky began to darken. Brad called room service and had a dinner tray brought up from the kitchen, a big platter filled with chicken and dumplings and fresh green peas and carrots. When it arrived, he sighed and looked down at it affectionately: he was going to miss farm portions when he went back.
The evening news came on. He noticed that Channel 1’s coverage of Jemima’s trial included his participation. He was surprised to see that somebody had grabbed a clip of him leaving the courtroom.
Wellman’s smiling face reappeared on the screen. “It’s unusual for a reporter to become part of the story,” he smirked, “but Brad Williams of the Ledger newspaper has become an integral part of this remarkable tale. We’re going to ask people on the street what they think of it.”
He stuck a mic into a young woman’s face. Brad sat up and scowled. It looked like Wellman had been shooting on the square in downtown Serenity.
The girl giggled. “I think it’s romantic!” she chirped. “He’s so handsome!”
Brad raised his eyebrows sardonically.
The reporter moved on to a young woman standing nearby. “What’s your opinion? Have you heard about Jemima King’s trial?”
“Oh yes.” The woman looked like a college student and was quite pretty. “I loved that he came to testify for her. I think that was wonderful. He can come and do a story on me any day!” she laughed.
Brad shook his head and turned the TV off. Great. He was apparently the flavor of the month on the gossip circuit, which would explain some of Delores’ recent emails. He made a mental note to tell her that she needn’t think he was going to play into that if she was planning it.
The pool lights switched on below, and the ice maker down the breezeway kicked in with a thrum as somebody lifted the hatch and raided it.
Brad checked his watch. It was a little past 9 p.m., so he went to the bathroom to shower and shave and dress.
He might not know what he was going to say, but he was sure of one thing: he wanted to look his very best when he saw the Duchess for the last time.
Brad pulled his truck up to the spot where he always parked: a little wide space in the dirt road, next to a high bank. He switched off the headlight and pulled the keys out of the ignition.
He took a deep breath and peered through the windshield. It was a beautiful September night, crisp, but not too cold. The moon was a big silver dollar riding high in a dark blue sky, and was so bright that he could walk through the dark without a lantern.
He opened the door and got out. The pale silver light was enough to show the way.
He followed his now-familiar path: over a low split rail fence, into the overgrown field. The last crickets of summer chirped thinly from the bracken, and overhead, the sky was full of stars.
He threw a long leg over the low fence to the King farm, and hopped over, and through the bushes to his usual place. And Jemima was standing there, waiting for him.
He stopped to look at her. The white moonlight touched her with silver: it outlined her little cap, and her hair, it painted the delicate planes of her face, touched her nose, underlined her lips.
He tried to speak, and found that his carefully-considered speech had flown off to the sky. That he had no words.
So he just held out his arms.
To his amazement, Jemima King, the Amish millionaire, the girl whose beauty had enchanted the whole country, came running into them, threw her little arms around his neck.
And kissed him.
He stood there, too stunned for the moment to register anything except the luxuriant feel of velvet against his lips.
Then she pressed her cheek against his and held him. “You were so good to come to court,” she whispered. “I will always remember.”
He blinked. A heavy sensation in his chest made it hard to talk. Oh, right. He was leaving.
He tried to smile. “No worries, Duchess,” he said, though his voice sounded odd, even to him. “I owe you. I’m glad things have turned out okay for you. You deserve to be happy. Have you – have you decided which of those three guys you’re going to marry?”
She was still holding him, looking out over his shoulder. She shook her head.
He tried, for the sake of being kind – and he told himself that it was kind – to make a joke, to show her that she needed to get on with her life, just as he needed to get on with his. But for the first time in his life, he couldn’t summon the right words.
She clutched his shirt. And just as she always did, she astounded him.
“Do you think I should marry one of them?” she asked.
He looked up at the sky in disbelief, then down at the ground, and then down at her. The correct answer, of course, was: Yes, you should. They’re like you, they can give you what you want, they’re part of your world, they understand you.
But instead—like a moron—he shook his head.
Now she was trembling in his arms, like some beautiful, fragile bird. She whispered in his ear, something so soft he could barely make it out.
“Why not?”
Brad set his jaw, squeezed his eyes shut, and willed himself to do the right thing. He opened his mouth to say the right words, the kind words, the words that made sense.
Instead, to his horror, he heard himself saying: “Because I love you, Duchess.”
Once the words were out, it was too late, too late to take them back, too late to tell her he’d made a hideous mistake, too late to do anything except receive the sweetest, wildest kiss of his entire existence, one that turned his brain to popcorn, made him forget everything, all his objections, all the obstacles, and even his own name.
Everything, in fact, except a brief confusion: he wondered why she was sobbing. But then she put her tiny fingers in his hair and kissed him again, and every question he had ever had flew away to the smiling moon.
THE END
