Her Loving Husband's Return
Loving Husband Trilogy #3
James Wentworth has a secret. He lives quietly in Salem, Massachusetts,
making few ties with anyone. One night his private world is turned
upside down when he meets Sarah Alexander, a dead ringer for his wife,
Elizabeth. Though it has been years since Elizabeth's death, James
cannot move on.
Sarah also has a secret. She is haunted by
nightmares about the Salem Witch Trials, and every night she is awakened
by visions of hangings, being arrested, and dying in jail. Despite the
obstacles of their secrets, James and Sarah fall in love. As James comes
to terms with his feelings for Sarah, he must dodge accusations from a
reporter desperate to prove that James is not who, or what, he seems to
be. Soon James and Sarah piece their stories together and discover a
mystery that may bind them in ways they never imagined. Will James make
the ultimate sacrifice to protect Sarah and prevent a new hunt from
bringing hysteria to Salem again?
Part historical fiction, part
romance, part paranormal fantasy, Her Dear & Loving Husband is a
story for anyone who believes that true love never dies.
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Prologue
In seventy years so little has
changed. Then, the gate was taller than the tallest person, electrified, eager
to shock to the death. Looming above the fence were eight high-standing towers
with armed guards with submachine guns who looked down upon the people as
though they could be, should be shot for amusement’s sake. They were at one
with the enemy across the Pacific Ocean, many decided. They had to be. They
were traitors. They were spies. How else can we separate the good ones from the
bad ones? How else can we know the loyal ones from the conspirators? We must
round them up like cattle and pen them here where they’re safe from us and us
from them.
Looming
above the barracks, higher than the gates, beyond the guard towers, were the
mountains. Always the mountains. They encompassed everything within their
distance—one vast, jagged, granite wall stretching toward the heavens from the
deepest valley in the Americas, cascading Vs flecked with icy snow, unmistakable
even through the wintry clouds. The mountains were everything everywhere. If
the gates, the guard towers, and the armed military police weren’t enough to
remind you that you were a prisoner here, the mountains shouted your
helplessness. You are here, the mountains said, and we will trap you here
forever.
I
remember when the bus stopped near the guard station, a lonely shack at the
edge of the camp, one window on either side, misshapen rocks slapped together
with mortar, a pagoda-style roof. The guards spoke to the bus driver and barked
directions as though the people inside were orange-clad prisoners linked by
irons, but they were only families—fathers, mothers, children, grandparents. I
remember the anxiety in those inside the gate, their quick-scanning eyes wide
as they drew as close to the barbed-wire fence as they dared, searching those
on the other side for missing family or friends. I remember the fear in those
outside as they stepped off the bus and shivered in the bitter desert cold.
Their clenched hands grabbed hold of family members and they stared without
seeing the nighttime landscape of brush and tumbleweed that promised blinding
dust storms, the horizon flat until the mountains. Always the mountains. The bewildered people outside clutched their bundles of
luggage, all that was left of their former lives. The people from the buses
were herded inside, shouted at, tagged and numbered. Already they were losing
themselves. When the gate slammed and locked behind them they looked toward the
outside as though they would never be free again.
So, yes, I have been here before.
I have walked this arid wilderness. I have heard the sand blow a maddened howl
in the night. I have seen the white-glow moonlight reflect the saw-toothed
horizon. Through it all, the mountains have remained the same. After all, what
is seventy years to a mountain range that has watched millennia pass away? Now,
the gates are taller since they guess we can jump anything less. Now, the gates
have silver coating, the barbs deemed no longer necessary since they guess the
barbs cannot pierce our preternatural skin. Now, the military police carry guns
with silver bullets, which we secretly laugh at. Now, I am the one who has been
carted away, considered too unpredictable to be out among polite society. Yet
the barracks, the mess halls, the natural barrier of the mountains between us
and everyone else in the world…so much of it is the same. There are nights when
I cannot make the distinction between then, when I was here from compassion,
and now, when I am the one encaged. But do not worry for me, my love. Now, with
this silver-coated gate and these imposing mountains between us, I am reminded
all too strongly how I cannot be without you. Soon, Sarah. I will hold you in
my arms soon. Be patient this little longer, my love, and I will return to you.
I will.
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Meredith Allard is the author of
The Loving Husband Trilogy, Victory
Garden, Woman of Stones, and
My Brother’s Battle. She is the executive
editor of
The Copperfield Review, an award-winning literary journal for
readers and writers of historical fiction. She lives in Las Vegas,
Nevada.
Find Theresa and her books
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