Romantic - Enemies to Lovers - Forbidden Love
•✦───✧✦✧───✦•
In the peacetime following World War II, Jean Ward loses everything and is sent to live with her best friend, Clyde Mayberry, and his brood of brothers on his family's cattle ranch.
For a...
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•✦─Late Autumn, 1943─✦• Sally Jean, age 5
Sally Jean missed her Daddy terribly. Though, no matter how much she missed him, she knew her mama missed him that much more.
Mama had caught the sadness like Clyde had talked about, Sally Jean was sure of it.
The woman hardly smiled and didn't want to read fairytales to Sally Jean like she used to after supper. The only things she'd seemed interested in were waiting for the postman to deliver the mail and praying.
She did an awful lot of that, waiting and praying. She did it so much that sometimes she would forget to eat or to feed the baby.
Sally Jean always had to remind her, and even had to wake her in the mornings when she slept through Anne's cries.
It began to become tiring, enough so that Sally Jean came to Mrs. Mayberry for help.
Mrs. Mayberry was the first person Sally Jean would run to when she had a problem.
She was a kind woman with a backbone made of steel and a tongue as sharp as a sword and stood tall with long, blonde hair that she always kept pinned back from her face. If you didn't know where she was, it was best to check the kitchen, the dairy barn, the coop, or out back with a tub of water and a load of clothes. No matter where she was, however, she always had a cream-colored apron tied around her.
She'd been a good farmer's wife and bore her husband six healthy boys, though always secretly wished for a girl. She doted on Sally Jean as if she was that little girl, happy to have another female in a house full of males.
"Mrs. Mayberry?" Sally Jean asked when she entered the Mayberry home. She was swaddled up in Daddy's old coat, the hem reaching all the way down to her shins.
"In the kitchen, Sally Jean!"
The floorboards were creaky as Sally Jean walked across them, following a trail of muddy bootprints left by one of the boys that led into the kitchen.
Mrs. Mayberry was kneeling on the floor when she entered, following the other end of the mud trail with a wet rag. She sat back on her haunches with a smile when she spotted Sally Jean.
"Hey, sugar, what can I help you with?"
Sally Jean's face crumpled. "Mama's got the sadness!" she cried, trying to wipe away her tears. The sleeves of her coat were so long that she couldn't get her hand out, swiping at her face with the scratchy fabric.
