Innocent Journey

By Fleeta Cunningham

INNOCENT AS A GEORGIA ROSE… Meg Brown vows her life and dreams won’t follow the narrow aristocratic Southern pretensions of her parents. She’ll never be a debutante nor make a dynastic marriage. Her brother escapes to the Air Force and is sent to Vietnam, while a distant college offers her freedom of another kind. There, too young and reserved for most social activities, Meg is involved with her colorful roommates and their friends. Two men challenge her deeply held values. Ferrel, with his dancing blue eyes, exemplifies the “if it feels good, do it” philosophy of the era. Cass, a grad student of hard experience, regards everything with world-weary cynicism. One offers Meg friendship that survives the hardest test and lasts forever. The other leads her to a breaking point where everything she believes about herself comes to a shattering halt. Only one thing will keep her going—the infant conceived on the worst night of her life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: The Wild Rose Press
• Release date: Dec 5, 2016
• ISBN: 9781509210343

Fleeta Cunningham

A fifth generation Texan, Fleeta Cunningham has lived her entire life in Texas, both small towns and big cities. Drawing on all of them, she writes about the unique character--and characters--of the southern states. After a career as a law librarian for a major Texas law firm, writing a monthly column for a professional newsletter and other legal publications, she returned to her home in Central Texas to write full time. Fleeta has been writing in one form or another since the age of eight. When she isn't writing, she teaches creative writing classes, makes quilts, and designs miniature gowns for her huge collection of fashion dolls.

Book preview

Inc.

Cass picked up a random stack of books and dropped them into a carton. Well, you’re a rich little girl. And you are your parents’ only daughter. Generally they’re your best friends at a time like this. If you can keep it together until graduation, I’ll bet your daddy can arrange a nice trip for you to visit some kindly, understanding doctor who’ll relieve you of the problem. You shouldn’t be too far along by then. It’s even legal now. You won’t have to leave the country. That’s one of the advantages of having a well-to-do family. No embarrassment over these little slips.

That sick feeling washed over her again. "No, Cass, I’m a rich little Catholic girl, remember? That’s the difference between me and someone else. No amount of legislation or embarrassment could make me think of doing that. I’ll always believe abortion is nothing but murder. You’d have me kill my child because it’s an inconvenience?"

Cass put the books aside. His hands on her shoulders put her back in the chair she’d left. He sat on the arm beside her. Meg, we can talk about that. I have all kinds of authorities, books by respected people, who agree that, this early, there’s actually no life involved. It’s just like getting rid of a tumor or a cyst. A simple medical procedure, perfectly safe and perfectly legal.

Praise for Fleeta Cunningham and…

ELOPEMENT FOR ONE

Well-crafted story… exciting plot… interesting characters… The love between the two main characters is precious, from beginning to the final, exciting conclusion… I am now determined to read the rest of the series.

~The Romance Studio (5 Stars)

BLACK RAIN RISING

One of the most fantastic books I’ve read this year… grabbed my attention from the first sentence… A memorable, entertaining, and well-written story… An author of increasing distinction who will never disappoint her readers.

~Two Lips Reviews (5 Lips, Recommended)

HELP WANTED: WIFE

Ms. Cunningham writes a sweet romance story where the two cantankerous characters both agree to smooth out the rough spots and try together again.

~Long and Short Reviews (5 Stars) Terrific Read

Innocent Journey

by

Fleeta Cunningham

Discerning Hearts, Book One

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.

Innocent Journey

COPYRIGHT © 2016 by Fleeta Cunningham

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author or The Wild Rose Press, Inc. except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

Contact Information: [e-mail]

Cover Art by Rae Monet, Inc. Design

The Wild Rose Press, Inc.

PO Box 708

Adams Basin, NY 14410-0708

Visit us at www.thewildrosepress.com

Publishing History

First Mainstream Historical Rose Edition, 2016

Print ISBN 978-1-5092-1033-6

Digital ISBN 978-1-5092-1034-3

Discerning Hearts, Book One

Published in the United States of America

Dedication

To the ones we loved, the ones we lost,

the ones who survived,

and all the hippies, the peaceniks,

the revolutionaries, the soldiers,

who became doctors, lawyers, bankers, executives,

and now are the retirees, the grandparents,

and the old fogies we swore we'd never become.

Flower power, love beads, Jesus boots, and peace,

sisters and brothers.

Titles by Fleeta Cunningham

Available at The Wild Rose Press, Inc.

Bal Masque

Close Encounter with a Crumpet

Double Wedding, Single Dad

Till the World Is Safe for Dreams

Cowboy After Five

~*~

The Santa Rita Series:

Don’t Call Me Darlin’

Black Rain Rising

Elopement for One

Half Past Mourning

Cry Against the Wind

Help Wanted: WIFE

The Shame of Merline Gates

Male-Order Catalogue

~*~

The Discerning Hearts Series:

Innocent Journey

Journey Beyond the Dream

Serpentine Journey

Journey to Reunion

Prologue

Mom, would you be really upset if I tried to find Cass Haynes?

Meg Brown dropped marshmallows into the mugs of cocoa. She kept her back to her daughter while she worked to put a bland expression on her face to mask her dismay. She’d always known that Sharon would ask, but now? Did it have to come so soon? She turned and passed the steaming mug across the kitchen bar.

If it’s something you have to do, Sharon, I suppose I could live with it. She tried to sound offhand, even disinterested, to disguise the sudden pain that grabbed her heart.

Sharon appeared to take her words at face value. It’s just that in biology today we were talking about heredity and genetics. Some conditions can be passed on to children, and the parents never realize until it’s too late. Sharon’s grey eyes clouded for a moment. If there’s something in the family that I don’t know, maybe I should find out before I think about having kids.

And there’s very little I can tell you about Cass Haynes or his family. Meg took her own cup and sat at the bar next to her daughter.

Sharon’s feathered russet hair fell forward, closing her mother out. It’s not your fault, Mom. I mean, you’ve told me all you know. You always answered my questions. There’s just a lot of blank space you can’t fill for me.

Meg read her daughter easily after seventeen years. She put her small, plump hand over Sharon’s longer, thinner one. "It’s not just the heredity question, either, I suspect. It’s natural to be curious about a father you’ve never seen. Any girl in your situation would have fantasies or dreams about someone so important and yet so vague. That’s part of it, too, isn’t it?’

Well, I’d like to know something about him, Mom. What he’s like, who he is now, if I’m like him at all. If I have grandparents or aunts or uncles. Or brothers and sisters. Meg had to look up at her tall daughter to see the shadows in her eyes. I’m not very much like you, not what you’d call a second edition, am I, Dr. Brown?

Meg smiled but only with her lips. I suppose it’s pretty obvious that you take after his bloodlines more than mine, though my brother Raif had greyish eyes, a little like yours, and so does my mother. But your coloring is more Cass Haynes’ than mine, and you certainly didn’t get all those extra inches from our family genes, recessive or otherwise.

The worry still came through Sharon’s words. But you really don’t mind, Mom? I mean about me looking for him and everything? I won’t do it if it’s going to bum you out.

It’s not my first choice for a research project, dolly, but if you really need to do it, I won’t tell you not to. If I did try to stop you, you might put it off for now, but sooner or later, you’d start looking. I wish you’d wait a few more years, but you’ve always done things about two years ahead of when you should. Meg pushed the silky hair back from Sharon’s face. The girl was so young. Impulsive and impatient, too. Many things could hurt her, things Meg was certain she hadn’t given Sharon the weapons to fight.

I’m a little like you in that way, aren’t I? You’re the one that started the girls in the family trekking off to college before they turned sixteen and graduating before twenty.

For a split second Meg had a rueful mental image of her own departure from her parents’ home. She shook off the memory. At least you’re satisfied with living at home while you’re in college, not off in another state and living virtually alone.

You’d have stayed home, too, if you’d had a parent on the faculty and a fifty per cent tuition break, like I do.

Dolly, you do realize that this search of yours could go terribly wrong? Meg couldn’t hold back her anxiety over Sharon’s plan.

Meaning what, Mom? That I might not be able to find Cass, or he might be dead or something? Sharon leaned elbows on the bar, her eyes on the spoon stirring the dark dregs in her cup.

There’s that, of course. He might be dead. He may have gone back to Canada. Or for all I know, he could have moved to Europe and started a new life. But that isn’t what concerns me. Meg groped for clarity. What was the best armor she could give her intelligent but innocent offspring? Have you thought about the reception you may get if you do locate Cass? What do you think his reaction will be?

Meg stopped a moment to give weight to her words. Absently she shredded an empty sugar packet into scraps of red and white confetti. Cass may well have another family now, possibly young children. They don’t even suspect your existence, most likely. How will he treat you, if he sees you as a threat to them or to his marriage? What if he looks at you and says, ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ or ‘I never heard of you or your mother’? That could happen, Sharon.

For a moment Meg felt again like the painfully young, serious college student she’d been eighteen years earlier. He actually might not remember me, not even recall my name. Sharon, tides have ebbed and rivers risen since he last saw my face. Men prefer to forget their youthful indiscretions. For a moment Meg stared at the framed poster above the fireplace opposite. For half a breath she again sat in an audience, heard a shattering falsetto, and soared on a melody.

Sharon’s turbulent, troubled face called Meg back to the present. The stormy grey eyes hid behind half-closed black lashes. Don’t you think I’m somebody to be proud of? I wouldn’t disgrace anybody’s family, would I?

You’re a jewel for any crown, dolly, especially mine, and anybody would be proud to have you. Cass Haynes doesn’t know you, doesn’t have all the years of treasuring you, to make you real to him. We don’t know what kind of man he’s become, so don’t count on him welcoming you or even wanting you. Though I pray you never will be, you have to be prepared to be rejected.

Chapter One

Dear Sis,

I can’t begin to tell you how I feel. I’m free. For the first time in my life, I’m free. I know, I hear you. The Air Force is just one more set of rules and regs, with orders and commands to follow. But it’s more than that. I’ve made friends, great friends, and nobody here cares that the parents intended for me to step into the family business or that my mother is humiliated because I broke up all her plans. And then there’s Françoise. I’ve told you about her, though I’ve not shared that tidbit with the folks. She’s the most wonderful girl in this or any other country. And I have a huge, powerful bird to fly. My own friends, a girl who loves me, and a job I do as well as anybody in the service. You bet, Sis, at last I’m free. More later…

Raif.

****

"But Raif is going God-knows-where, Mary Margaret, maybe even that dreadful Vietnam. That’s bad enough. He just had to sign up before your daddy could arrange something better for him in Washington. At least it’s the Air Force, and he’ll be with gentlemen, young men of quality. Not in the fighting. But what will people think if you just go off to some strange school where we don’t even have family? In my time, it wasn’t proper for a girl your age to go off alone like that. We might go to finishing school or something, but we lived at home till we married." Lacey Brown’s perfect ash-blonde French twist and slender hands showed not a trace of the agitation her tone suggested. Nor did her flawless porcelain makeup or the perfect fit of her beautifully cut grey silk dress.

Exasperated at her mother’s comment, Mary Margaret managed to change her tone to one of slight surprise. Whatever makes you think the neighbors will be interested?

Before his wife could answer, Bobby-Lee intervened. I suppose, Lacey, she might as well go. Otherwise she’ll be moping around the house, no use to anybody. She’s too young to make her debut, and she won’t make any serious connections with the young fellows at the club until she does. Bobby-Lee selected a cigar from the polished humidor and savored it. In two or three years, once she comes out, she’ll be ready to make a decent match with one of the right families. We’ll be looking them over for a likely young fellow in the meantime. He puffed an aromatic cloud around his head. The boy, or actually his family, will expect at least some college in a future wife. Maybe she’ll get a little womanly polish out of that school, anyway.

Mary Margaret didn’t expect her mother to give in easily and saw Lacey wasn’t ready to retreat from her position. But Bobby-Lee, Mary Margaret won’t know a soul at that school. Being so young and having no worldly sense at all, she’ll take up with just anybody… foreigners…or even black folks. Those schools admit just anybody who can pay the tuition and pass the entrance exams. No real standards, not these days. I couldn’t hold my head up anywhere if people found out our daughter associated with trash like that. Her mother was truly disturbed, Mary Margaret decided. The Limoges cup almost tilted in its saucer.

She thought some reassurance would make it easier for Lacey to back down. I’ve arranged to take a dorm room with Laurie Llewellyn. She’s been at St. Ambrose for a year, and her family’s delighted. It’s really a great school, and the faculty’s very distinguished.

A long sigh and a slight shrug answered her. Lacey set the pink cup and saucer on the ornate coffee table and picked up the silver pot. I suppose if the Llewellyns think it’s all right for Laurie, the school must be acceptable. Bobby-Lee, I don’t know the family very well, but they are the right sort of people, aren’t they? I mean, they belong to the club and all?

Smoke trailed Bobby-Lee as he posed in front of the marble fireplace. Why, you remember our boy Raif dated that sweet little Laurie a lot the last summer he was home, don’t you? He wouldn’t have taken her out if there was any question. He knows better. By the time he gets back from overseas, that young lady will be just about marrying size. I reckon Mary Margaret will be fine if she’s with the Llewellyn girl. He studied the carved ceiling above him for a moment. Who knows, having those girls together just might lead to something between Laurie and Raif in the future.

He’s in strutting-pigeon mode. Every time Bobby-Lee thinks he’s onto a promising venture, he starts puffing out his feathers and imagining he’s six-feet-six instead of five-feet-six. Now he’s seeing a Brown-Llewellyn merger in the making. Mary Margaret restrained the desire to tell him Laurie was engaged to a young man she’d met at school. If he saw some possible benefit in her association with Laurie, he was more likely to continue his support.

Well, just as you think best, my dear. I do reserve my doubts. Lacey closed the heavy cream silk drapes against the evening. She added a hefty dollop of brandy to her coffee and returned to the brocade loveseat. The evening resumed its normal progress.

****

Mary Margaret wouldn’t have arrived on the campus of St. Ambrose just one week shy of her sixteenth birthday if her brother Raif hadn’t had a single-minded determination to get as far from home as he could, and as fast as possible. Rather than wait for the draft or let his father manipulate a Washington desk job for him, he’d joined the Air Force the day he graduated from college. With a private pilot’s license already in his pocket, he felt sure he could learn to fly the huge silver birds he loved. Mary Margaret, five years younger than her brother but finishing high school almost two years ahead of her class, immediately applied to every distant college she could find. She chose exclusive St. Ambrose, a school with enough social clout to impress her parents’ friends and far enough from her Atlanta home to make visits difficult.

Campus life at first held little interest for a girl of sixteen. Too young for most of the social events and not inclined toward the athletic ones, she focused on her studies, maintained high grades, and set her sights on graduate school. In her fantasies, graduate school, in a faraway state, meant another two to four years away from home, far from her father’s dynastic dreams, and out of reach of her mother’s fogged view of reality.

The large corner dorm room she and Laurie shared became their sanctuary. Laurie, a serious biology student, was a good companion for Mary Margaret. More outgoing than Mary Margaret, Laurie had hosts of friends, male and female, who treated her reserved roommate as a younger sister.

The war in Vietnam intensified during Mary Margaret’s freshman year; she read of protests and demonstrations and worried indecisively over the pros and cons of the political maneuverings. War protests barely touched St. Ambrose, a college more in tune with the 1870s than the 1970s, but Mary Margaret wrote earnestly to her brother about the moral conflicts of waging war on a small backward country halfway around the globe.

Raif shot back breezy anecdotes about the guys in my flight crew and promised to send her a silk dress if he got to Hong Kong. He treated her concerns with brotherly superiority, disregarding her political quavering.

Thanks to advanced placement and diligent summer semesters, Mary Margaret began her senior year the week after her eighteenth birthday. The war was winding down. Even Raif admitted it was almost over; he was more interested in the beautiful Eurasian girl he’d met than the politics back home, though he realized he’d have to make decisions about the future soon. Mary Margaret looked forward to a busy but routine year, finishing her senior thesis, deciding on graduate school, and persuading her parents to let her go on with her studies. The largest problem on her horizon was overcoming her parents’ intention to plan an elaborate debut and make a suitable match for her as soon as she graduated.

Then Laurie, spending a free afternoon playing bridge in the student union, met Tygre Lutierre, and the year took on dramatic alterations.

Our room is easily big enough for three, Laurie assured Mary Margaret. And Tye is about to suffocate over there in Dorm Three. She’s sharing a double room with three other girls, all art majors. Can you imagine? Why, poor Tye has to put up with drawing boards and easels, all that paint and stuff. Tye’s a theater arts dance major and needs her space as much as they do. She doesn’t even have a bookshelf to call her own. We can invite her to share, can’t we? We really do have more room.

So Tye Lutierre, the aspiring star from New Orleans, moved into the cozy corner room. Mary Margaret noticed how quickly Tye’s one-third of the room became half or more as the dancer filled every inch with her eclectic wardrobe, performance posters, and bits and pieces of props. At twenty, the girl was officially a junior, though she’d missed the previous spring semester with a bad case of mono. In the aggregate her class work also amounted more to classes taken on whim than application toward graduation.

****

"And where is the wunderkind?" Mary Margaret heard the New Orleans drawl through the crack of the open door as she returned to the dorm one blustery November afternoon.

Gone to the library and then to church for Saturday Mass, was Laurie’s reply.

Praying to St. Helicopter, I suppose, or whoever the patron saint of little flyboys is. Tye’s drawl held more than a hint of cynical disinterest.

Mary Margaret waited a tactful moment before opening the door. Wrinkling her nose at the combined cigarette and ammonia odor, she surveyed the general confusion of the room. Laurie stood beside Tye, pulling strands of ebony hair through an elastic cap with a crochet hook. Many tufts stood semi-erect, covered in a substance resembling dried detergent, as Laurie worked yet another lock through a hole in the cap.

Tye flicked ash from the tip of her cigarette and regarded the mirror. Hey, sugar, what do you think? Is this enough to make a difference, or do we need more highlights?

What experiment is this? Mary Margaret shed her coat and turned her attention to the two reflections.

We’re frosting Tye’s hair for the party tonight. Laurie brushed the thick paste over the newly pulled strand. It’s sort of a golden brown to give her some light tints. Pretty cool, huh?

Smells awful. Are you sure you know what you’re doing?

Don’t worry, baby doll. This is just a little routine I learned back home. A few more stripes on the Tygre. I’ve done it before.

Mary Margaret opened the window several inches to let the smoke and fumes escape.

Hey, shut the damn window! Tye pulled a dragon-patterned kimono over her black lace lingerie. It’s freezin’ out there.

And suffocating in here. Reluctantly Mary Margaret closed the window to a mere crack. I don’t know how you can stand the stench. Pushing aside a pile of garments that cluttered her bed, she kicked off short suede boots and settled against the headboard.

Oh, by the way, Mary Margaret, there’s mail. Looked like a letter from Raif for you. I left it on the desk somewhere. Laurie shifted a loose pile of papers, a notebook, and a half-eaten apple to hand the blue envelope to her roommate. With care Mary Margaret slit the flimsy paper and drew out several tissue-thin sheets.

The room and its occupants receded as she read her brother’s news. His girl, his beautiful, wonderful girl, had agreed to marry him, and he wanted sisterly advice. He needed objective thoughts on preparing Lacey and Bobby-Lee for their son’s marriage. Marriage to a girl who was half French—and half Vietnamese. He planned to break the news at Christmas while he was home on leave and wanted his sister’s support.

Anything special, sugar? Tye sounded impatient with the loss of Mary Margaret as audience.

Raif’s coming home on leave. He’ll be home for Christmas.

"The handsome Air Force pilot is coming home? Then you need to celebrate. You’re coming to Ferrel’s party tonight. That’s all there is to it. You come and see some people for a change, sugar, and escape this dreary dorm and that stuffy