A Garden By The Lake

A Garden by the Lake by Peggy Rockey

Challenge Prompt: Leftovers | Word Count: 500 words exactly | Genre: Romance
Due Date: 11/7/18
Warning: Adult Themes


"When are you going to let me take you away from this life and make an honest woman out of you?" Sebastian asked Isolde, pulling on his pants and removing an uncounted sum of money from his pocket.

"Just as soon as you're ready to bring me home to that nice ranch of yours out by the lake," Isolde responded with the same answer she always did. She was still lazing on the bed, naked torso draped with sweat stained sheets, limbs bathed in sunlight streaming through a high, narrow window.

"Ah, Izzie.”

Only Sebastian ever called her by that name, and Isolde thrilled when he used it. She could hear the affection, the possessiveness he felt for her when he called her by the pet name, and she longed to belong to him alone. Only Sebastian had ever made her feel this way in the twenty-seven years of her life.

“Why can't you just agree to be my mistress and let me set you up in a nice little cottage outside of town?"

"And just what do you suppose I would do with myself when you aren't there?" She pouted, wondering why he didn't know how much his proposal tempted her. How it hurt even more. Sometimes she wished he would just buy the damned cottage and move her into it, knowing her pride would never allow her to ask it of him, no matter how much she denied wanting it.

"You could plant a garden and learn to sew and cook and do other useful things," he suggested with a shrug.

Isolde rolled her eyes, seeing no reason to tell him she was quite proficient in such things. She rose from the bed and strolled across the room, unashamed of her nakedness.

"Sure and I could just see myself, pullin' weeds and shooin' away the rabbits from my vegetables.” She pulled on her dress, hooking the buttons while looking at her reflection in the faded mirror to make sure the bustle hung just right over her bottom.

Sebastian's throaty laugh delighted her. "That would be a sight to see!”

"You could buy me a gun and teach me to shoot," Isolde suggested with a mischievous grin, fantasizing about challenging his wife to a duel. They wouldn’t be relegated to this life of leftovers if his wife were dead, Isolde thought, with irreverence, though she daren’t speak it aloud.

Sebastian read the thought in her face, though, and he pulled her into his arms and held her. He fisted his fingers into her thick, blond hair. "Someday,” he whispered the unspoken promise in her ear. As he kissed her deeply, she tried not to let her heart believe, though it had been lost so very long ago.

Isolde put on her best unassuming smile and pushed Sebastian out the door.

An hour later, she was still dreaming about a ranch overlooking the lake, with a garden full of flowers and hope, when the next knock sounded at her door.