Note: Just a reminder...in 'No Common Woman' Michelle Lacaise legally changed her name to Shelly LaBaron.

Chapter One

Exert from the Epilogue in "No Common Woman"

Ester spoke up. "We've been so busy wanting to know about everyone else that I just realized…we never asked how you and great grandpa met. Now, with everything you've told us today, you just have to tell us yours and Great Grandpa's story, especially since he was so much older than you! I want to know how on earth the two of you got together in the first place!"

"Yes, please!" William begged.

Their great grandmother looked up at the sky and could tell it would soon be dark. "Not tonight," she stood up and turned back towards the house she, her youngest son and his family lived in. "We have all day before your parents come to pick you up tomorrow. I will tell you then."

"Promise?" William asked as he and his sister started walking with their grandmother.

"I promise" came the reply.

~oOo~

"You promised," William climbed onto the couch in his grandmother's living room and sat next to his sister. "Please, tell us about you and Great Grandpa."

"Please," Esther also begged, more than eager to know what her great grandmother had done to change her great grandfather's mind.

Ellen May L. Barkley chuckled at the children's enthusiasm and nodded. "All right, all right, I'll tell you." She then began the story.

~oOo~

The sound of the wind could be heard blowing outside the living room windows as Nick sat down in "his" chair and stretched out his legs, keeping an eye on the orange flames that danced around in the fireplace. It had been a long day, started at five am with everyday chores and then off to attend the wedding of Jarrod and Shelly's oldest child, seventeen year old Michelle Ann Barkley. Nick might have asked if he could slap both Jarrod and Shelly for allowing their daughter to marry so young, only problem was…the young woman had already graduated from college and had been teaching school for the past year! That and her husband, twenty-three year old Bryon Landers, had just recently graduated from law school and was working for Jarrod's firm.

Nick couldn't help but sigh, as he began thinking over the past eighteen years. One by one his siblings had married and moved away. Jarrod and Shelly had produced seven children including a pair of twins. Three years after Jarrod's wedding, Heath had surprised everyone when he'd met up with *Bridget Wells again and married her. That union had produced five children; two boys and three girls. Sadly, one of the girls had died before she ever reached a year old. Audra's marriage to Will Marvin had come two years later. As much as she loved children, she and Will had only been blessed with one living child, a boy who was eight years of age. Their other child, a girl, had been a stillborn. The birth of that child had almost killed Audra and Will had put his foot down and said that, if she wanted more children, he'd go along with adoption. So that's what the couple had done, and a set of twin girls had been added to the couple's family.

When it came to Eugene, Nick shook his head. His youngest brother had up and disappeared for a number of years only to finally write the family from England. His baby brother had explained that he'd been shanghaied, but had finally escaped. He explained that while he had originally planned on traveling back to the United States, and to California, he had met an English girl and decided to marry her and remain in England instead. None of the family had exactly been thrilled with his choice to stay in England, only they were grateful to at last know what had happened and that he was happy. The last they heard, Eugene and his wife had four children.

Nick could hear his elderly mother in the hallway talking to Silas' stepson, Charles. Silas had surprised everyone when he met and married Eloise Washington, a former slave like himself. The union had given him three stepdaughters and two stepsons, the youngest, Charles, had worked with Silas until the old man passed away. After the funeral, Victoria had approached Nick with the idea of keeping Charles on. Since he was as good a man as Silas had been, Nick had not argued.

"He needs a wife is what he needs." Charles' voice brought Nick out of his thoughts and put a slight frown upon his face as he listened closer and realized the gentleman and Victoria were talking about him.

A wife….inwardly Nick sighed. He had shut that door tightly, locked it and then threw the key away the moment Jarrod and Michelle had become engaged. He had meant every word he meant to his mother that night out on the verandah. Sure enough, people had watched and waited to see who his next girl would be, saying surely he couldn't swear 'them' off forever. However, slowly, as the days and weeks turned into months and years they went from trying to guess who would be Nick's next catch to calling him the most confirmed bachelor in California. No, no matter what anyone said, Nick continued to tell himself there was no need for him to worry about 'that' subject'. He could, as he told his mother, count himself blessed if he died leaving a legacy of someone who did the best he could for those around him.

~oOo~

Victoria, who had entered the living room, looked at her middle son who had unintentionally fallen asleep. She couldn't help but sigh. Like Charles, she longed for the day a woman would come into Nick's life and come into it for good. More than anything she longed to see him with a good wife and companion before she, Victoria, passed away. Not that she wanted to cross over any time soon, she didn't. However, at seventy-three years old she wasn't getting any younger.

"Leave it alone!" Nick's words, spoken five years before, still rang in her ears now and then, every time she thought about the various women whose paths had crossed Nick's in the past eighteen years and her desire to see this son married. Many of the women would have made Nick a good wife…if he'd only taken a look. She sighed and wondered what it would take for him to look seriously at a woman again; what it would take to get him to walk down the aisle. For what felt like the millionth time, Victoria prayed that someone would come into his life and fill the void. Even if he continued denying there was such a thing, Victoria had seen the longing in his eyes at Heath's wedding, then Audra's and now Michelle's Ann's. Deny it all he wanted to, Nick Barkley was lonely and wanted a wife.

Coming out of her thoughts, Victoria looked at the clock on the wall and then walked over to where Nick sat sleeping. "Nick," Victoria tapped her son on his shoulder.

"Huh?" Nick blinked his eyes and sat up. He sat up and rubbed his eyes. "Sorry, didn't mean to doze off." He stood up and stretched. "Guess I should go sleep in my own bed. Don't want Brett and his family to find me sleeping in the chair now do we?" Brett Long was an old friend of his who had written to tell him that he, Brett, had bought the ranch that lay on the south side of the Barkley ranch. His friend wanted what children he and his wife still had living with them to meet Nick and his mother, along with the rest of the family if possible.

"Probably not," Victoria smiled as she turned to go up to her own room. "They'll think all our rooms must be in the process of being remodeled, and that we're not in a position to entertain guests for any amount of time."

"Well, we wouldn't want that now would we? I mean, it's not like him or any member of his family is going to change our lives any." Nick chuckled, not knowing that was exactly what was about to happen.

~oOo~

*Actual character off the episode "Explosion"