Wishes by Jude Deveraux Page A

just walked out.
    “I do care about you,” Nellie said. “I’ve been so busy lately that I just forgot the flower. It doesn’t mean I no longer care for you.”
    “You like Father and me better than him?”
    “Of course I do.”
    Terel clasped Nellie to her. “You wouldn’t run off with him and leave us, would you?”
    Nellie pulled away and smiled at Terel. “A fat old maid like me? Who would have me?”
    Terel sniffed. “We want you. Father and I want you.”
    Nellie was beginning to feel hungry. She moved away from Terel and replaced the tray on her lap. “You should eat your lunch and perhaps take a nap. You’re probably tired from all the worry.”
    “Yes, I guess I am, but Nellie, don’t go.”
    Reluctantly Nellie sat on the edge of the bed. Hunger was gnawing her stomach.
    “He really is gone?” Terel asked, her mouth full. “You don’t have him lurking downstairs somewhere, do you?”
    “No.” Nellie was getting hungrier by the second.
    “Oh, Nellie, you don’t know what a curse it is to be young and beautiful as I am. Men have the most awful motives for wanting to be near you.” She broke off a piece of bread Nellie had baked just that morning and gave her sister a hard look. “Have you been invited to the Harvest Ball?”
    Nellie could feel her face flushing. “Yes,” she whispered.
    Terel set her luncheon tray on the table by the bed, then put her hands over her face. “I have not been invited. I am the only person in town who is not going.”
    Again, Nellie pulled her sister into her arms. “You may have my invitation. I don’t guess I’ll be going now, and besides, what would I wear to something like that?”
    “I can’t take your invitation. The Taggerts don’t think I’m socially acceptable. Me! Everyone knows the Taggerts are little better than coal miners. Oh, Nellie, I wish…”
    “You wish what?”
    Terel pulled away, sniffing. “I wish I were the most popular girl in Chandler. I wish I were invited to every party, every outing there was. I wish no one in Chandler would consider giving a party without me there.”
    Nellie smiled. “Then that’s what I wish, too.”
    “Do you really?”
    “Yes, I really do. I wish you were the most popular girl Chandler has ever seen, and that you had more invitations than you could possibly accept.”
    “Yes, I’d like that,” Terel said, smiling.
    “That would make you happy?”
    “Oh yes, Nellie, I would be very happy if I were popular. That’s all I’d ever ask out of life.”
    “Then I very much hope that you get your wish,” Nellie said. “Now, why don’t you take a nap? I have some work to do.”
    “Yes,” Terel said, smiling and stretching out on the bed. She was wrinkling her dress, but it didn’t matter to her; she didn’t have to iron it.
    Nellie quietly took the tray and left the room. In the kitchen, when she was alone again, she thought more about Jace. If he wasn’t after her for her father’s money, then she had insulted him greatly. What had he said about courting? Something about having the woman he was courting call him a liar.
    The more she thought, the hungrier Nellie became. She tried to control her appetite by sheer force of will, but with every thought she had her hunger increased. Jace had said she had choices, that she was choosing her family over herself. Of course she was choosing her family over herself! Wasn’t that what a person was supposed to do? Didn’t the Bible teach that a person had to give to receive?
    Nellie slammed bread dough on the table. What a selfish man Mr. Montgomery must be to not realize that life’s greatest joy was in giving to others. Look at how she and her family gave to one another. Her father gave his love and support to his two daughters, and Terel also gave love. In return for their love Nellie cooked for them, kept the house clean, waited on them, ran errands, listened to them, cared about them, and—
    To stop the flow of thoughts, Nellie began to eat.