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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•✦─Summer, 1960─✦• Sally Jean, age 22
"Okay, okay, now listen to mine: Take me away to the meadows that bloom To a place that isn't four walls and a room Where the trees are so green and the clouds are so fair To a place I can breathe the fresh floral air Let me live with the clovers and dance in the rain And never once again feel that cold, frosty pain With the sun on my skin and your front on my back Let us lay in the flowering fields of lilacs We can waltz in the starlight and dance in the streams Let us stay in this place that exists in my dreams."
"Oh, that's real pretty, Delores."
"Yeah, Lore, you should make that into a song."
"Yeah, that's a right good idea, Paula. That would sound like such a beautiful song."
"They grow in bushes."
The group of cheery women swivel their heads towards where Jean lies in the green grass, her hands resting on her stomach and eyes closed as she soaks up the summer sun through her freckled skin.
"Pardon?" Delores asks.
"Lilacs," Jean says. "They don't grow in fields. They grow in bushes."
Delores looks down at the poem in her hands, lips pinching together. "Well, they could grow in fields, couldn't they?"
"Yes, I suppose, but that's an awful lot of work. Someone would have to plant them, as they don't spread easily enough to cover an entire field. Either way, it's stupid to say 'fields of lilacs.'"
"Well, geez, who made you the expert on lilacs?" Delores asks bitterly.
"My mama had a bush that grew at the front of our house," Jean reveals, smiling softly, her eyes still closed. "She loved those flowers. It was her favorite color, that purple."
She can picture her mama clear as day with her frayed, straw hat and her worn day dress that matched her blue eyes, pruning her lilac bush and answering any questions Jean's curious, little mind could come up with.
"LADIES! YARD TIME IS OVER! LINE UP!"
The memory of Mama is violently slashed down the middle by Matron Jones's loud, rough voice. Jean frowns as she sits up, opening her eyes. "That woman's got the voice of a bulldog," she grumbles.
Paula laughs under her breath, covering her mouth. "Oh, Jean, don't let her hear you say that!"
"I'm not that daft, Paula. That would be Delores you're thinking of," Jean jokes, snickering when Delores shoots her a glare.
"Oh, I wish you'd hurry up and leave already," Delores groans.
