A/N: Sorry I've been so M.I.A guys. Life has gotten pretty crazy for me and I've been extremely stressed out. But I promise to finish this fic. I've got all the chapters finished besides the last one. I just gotta proofread and make sure I am happy with them first before I post. Thank you for your patience and for sticking around. It really means a lot to me.
August 1916
Abigail told Henry everything and asked him for help and advice. Once he knew the full story and how many kids were involved, he explained to Abigail, that as mayor, she had the power to grant all the kids what is known as a "Pardon" and this would be sealed from their long term records considering their ages. The couple nineteen year olds that were involved might not be so lucky, but they could still be granted "Pardons" as well. Abigail was relieved and Henry immediately helped her file the paperwork needed.
Once the teens had all been released back to their parents, whom were incredibly grateful to Abigail, things went back to relatively being normal, aside from the saloon still dealing with the Prohibition and Lucas doing what he could to find his way around it to reopen. It didn't take long (less than 48 hours to be exact) before he did open and served other drinks, nonalcoholic for now. But it didn't take a genius to figure out that Lucas was planning something.
Though other things went back to normal, Abigail could not say that her relationship with Becky had. They hardly spoke to each other and when they did, it was only to engage in conversation around Cody so he would not feel something was off between them. He and Abigail even began to notice that Becky would call her "Mother" while she was upset. Cody thought it silly for them to pretend, considering he already knew from the other kids in town exactly what had happened with all the older kids and that his big sister was involved. It was easy for him to realize that his mother was not happy about it.
One morning at breakfast, after two days of him trying to come up with a way to bring it up, he finally gained the courage to do so.
"Mom? How long are you going to be angry with Becky?" He finally broke an awkward silence.
"I am not angry with her, sweetheart. I am just disappointed." Abigail admitted as she poured herself a glass of orange juice. Her eyes looked across the table at her daughter who looked at her guiltily.
"Alright. How long are you going to be disappointed in her?" Cody corrected himself. "It's been two days and she apologized. She knows what she did was wrong. Don't you, Becky?"
"It was illegal. But I don't understand how it was wrong." Becky said. "We didn't hurt anybody and we were just trying to have some fun."
"Can't you have fun WITHOUT alcohol?" Cody wondered if this was the only way adults could enjoy themselves and he found himself wishing he would never grow up….like Peter Pan.
"Of course you can." Abigail's reply instantly countered Cody's suspicions.
"Then why do people drink?" Her son asked.
"Because it is fun." Becky answered before Abigail could. "It makes you feel silly like a little kid and grown up like an adult all at the same time."
"It can also hinder your judgment." Abigail warned them. "Yes, drinking CAN be fun. As long as it is done responsibly and with someone around who can keep everyone safe."
"Like someone who is not drinking?" Cody wondered.
"Yes, exactly." Abigail replied. "You both know that I grew up with only brothers." Her children both nodded. "You also must know that your Uncle Garret did something similar to Rebecca when he was 14 and one of his close friends drowned in the river when they all decided to go swimming."
"What?" The siblings perked up with concern.
"What happened?" Becky asked.
"Well…all eight of them were so drunk that they didn't even think about the fact that their friend, Danny, didn't know how to swim. The current of the river began to pull him away and the others were too drunk to get to him and save him. One of the boys got close, but he nearly drowned trying."
"Oh my goodness." The 16 year old girl couldn't believe her ears.
"You see? There was no one with them who was sober. No one with them who had a clear mind. If there was…maybe Danny could have been saved. Maybe they wouldn't have even gone swimming at all. Someone with a clearer conscience would have realized how strong and dangerous the river's current was and could have stopped it from even happening in the first place…Do you understand?" She asked them gently. "Somebody could have been hurt by the fire the other night. Or the fire could have grown and caught Mrs. McCormick's cabin on fire. Being as drunk as you all were…no one would have been able to help if anything like that had happened. Yes, I am upset that you broke a couple of laws in the process, but my disappointment in you runs deeper than that. I am disappointed because a girl as smart as you are should have thought about the safety, or lack thereof, of your actions. I value your safety above all else and I know that you are smart enough to think next time, before you act so foolishly just to please your friends." Abigail looked between both kids before she spoke again. "I am not sure what is going to happen with this ban on alcohol. But if it is ever lifted and the both of you decide to drink…I will hope you will be more responsible or at least let me know so I can keep an eye on you and make sure neither of you end up like Danny…or even Uncle Garret. He still has never forgiven himself for what happened to his friend and I don't want to see the two of you going through something like that, okay?"
"Okay." Cody nodded. "Promise."
Becky just sat for a bit in silence, looking at her mother guiltily before she finally spoke again. "I honestly don't think I ever WILL get drunk again. I spent too much of my life being ill and the next morning made me feel like I was that sick all over again. Alcohol may be fun WHILE you are drinking it, but the aftermath does not feel so good….At all." She admitted. "Trust me, Mom. I won't ever do it again. I promise….Also…it tastes really gross." She and Abigail giggled as they both nodded in agreement. "I am sorry, Mom. I really don't like being in trouble. Can you forgive me?"
"Oh, Becky, darling. Of course I can." Abigail said before standing up and walking around the table to give her daughter a hug who had stood up as well.
Cody smiled, proud of himself for aiding in their reconciliation by finally bringing it up.
Later that night, Abigail went to visit Henry at the fishing creek by his mansion. He brought bait and two fishing poles, insisting to Abigail that Night Fishing would be fun, though she disagreed with the idea. She joined him anyway, knowing that in the morning she would regret every mosquito bite she might receive. But he was worth it to her. And a part of her wanted to bet him that the fish would not bite after sundown. The thought of proving him wrong just for fun made her giddy and she held onto the anticipation of a playful argument with him. She thought it was silly to look forward to something like that, but it only made her smile grow the closer she got to the creek that night after dinner.
"I can't believe I am actually out here doing this." Abigail chuckled to herself as she held the fishing rod in both her hands on her lap.
Henry turned his head to smile at her, the only light on them shining from the two lanterns Henry had brought with him. "Isn't it peaceful?" He asked her.
"Yes, actually. It is." The woman admitted, looking out at the reflection of the moonlight and the stars on the water. The sounds of the crickets and the toads in the distance only made the night more peaceful. The sound of the soft breeze pushing small ripples into the pond made Abigail long for childhood again in a way that even she could not understand.
Henry noticed a small smile grow on Abigail's face and he couldn't help but smile too. "What?"
"This reminds me of the morning we met." She admitted, turning her head to smile at the man to her left.
"Me too." He told her, never taking his eyes off her as she looked at the water again.
"I really thought we were going to be best friends that day." Abigail told him.
"Really? You thought that?" He asked her, never having heard that from ANYONE before.
"Didn't you?" She looked at him again. "I know you wanted MORE….but didn't you feel that we really connected?"
"I never really understood what connecting to someone felt like before. I guess I really ruined the start of a good thing, didn't I?"
"It's alright, Henry." She let go of the fishing rod with just her left hand so she could place it on his forearm beside her. "We are here now and we have a chance to redo all of this."
Without so much as a thought in his head, he leaned over to gently kiss her, her hand remaining on his forearm. He blamed her touch for causing him to feel that urge to kiss her like an electric jolt that ran up his forearm and into his brain directing him to do it. He was not complaining, however.
The butterflies in Abigail's stomach ran wild enough to almost make her feel sick, but she loved it. She smiled so wide that it broke the kiss and she allowed her forehead to rest against his for a moment.
"I am sorry, Abigail." He told her, his eyes still closed. "I don't know why I felt the need to kiss you."
"Don't apologize, Henry." She told him, closing her eyes again too and they kept their heads together for a moment, just taking in every emotion they had in that second. "I love it when you kiss me like that."
"I've NEVER kissed you like that." He chuckled a bit.
"Yes, you have." She corrected him and her eyes finally opened as she looked at him, still without pulling her head away. "I wish you would do it more often." She told him honestly.
Henry opened his eyes, the way she looked at him causing him to have butterflies now. He was about to say something when Abigail's fishing line began to tug at her hand. She looked away from him and laughed before reeling in the fish that she had caught. Henry helped her bring it in and carefully removed the hook from its mouth before gently placing him back in the water to swim away again. "There you go, little guy." He said in a soft tone, unaware that Abigail watched his every move with love in her eyes. "That's one." Henry began to count how many fish they'd catch tonight to prove to her that fish DO bite at night.
"We aren't going to keep them?" She asked him.
"No, no. They belong in the water." He told her. "If there's no need to kill, why do it?" He asked genuinely. "I just fish for fun, but I always let them go."
"You don't keep them for food?" She wondered, the love in her eyes growing at his words.
"I've got plenty of food at home and if I don't, then I go to the cafe or the saloon." He told her. "I feel the same way about hunting, which I DON'T do. A fish's mouth will heal pretty quickly. But a deer or a moose or a duck with a gunshot wound might not recover as well. Some have enough strength to run off in the moment, but they still die later. I could never do that."
Abigail reached over to place a hand on his cheek, forcing him to look at her before she kissed him. "I always knew you were putting on a face." She told him when she broke the kiss, keeping her hand on his cheek. "Everyone thought you were this hard, stubborn brute of a man when, inside, you are so gentle." She slid her hand from his face down to rest over his heart. "Why have you been hiding that?"
"When people know your weaknesses, they use them against you." He answered. "And you are mine."
"Your what?"
"My weakness."
"Oh, Henry." She gently rubbed his chest before kissing him again. "I wish you would let us tell everyone. I want to feel like this, always."
"I don't want them to use us against you." He told her. "The next time you make a decision as mayor that they don't like, they are going to blame it on me or say that I have influenced you in some way. Your reputation will suffer if they know about us."
"I don't care about my reputation."
"But you care about the town and being a good mayor for them, don't you?"
She sighed. "Yes."
"Then we have to keep it to ourselves. I am only trying to protect you."
"I know, Henry." She rested her forehead against his again. "It's just hard not to tell everyone how much of a good man you are and how much respect you truly deserve from them. And how much I want you with me everywhere I go….Being with you like this just feels right and like something is missing when you're not there. I want you to be my family."
"I don't deserve a family." He told her.
"Everyone deserves a family, Henry. Especially you….Becky, and Cody, and I…we can be that for you." She felt her own heart pounding so hard that it almost seemed as though it fell into her stomach. She moved her hand from his chest down a bit lower to grab the fabric of his suit jacket, squeezing it into her fist. "We can make you feel loved and happy. We can make you feel like you belong somewhere. All of those negative thoughts that you have about yourself will go away and you will see just how important you are." She softly smiled at the thought of him with the little orphan girl from last Christmas. "You can be a father to them. Cody would love to have a father and Becky adores you. Don't you want that? Don't you want a chance at being the man they look up to? The man that I rely on?"
"Abigail…" His heart raced and though he reveled in everything that she said, he couldn't picture them loving him that way. His mind always went back to Christopher when he first met him and the disappointment on his face when he saw what kind of a man his father was. His mind went back to when Beatrice left him and he couldn't help but wonder if Abigail would do that to him. Once she found out that he wasn't good enough….she would.
"Oh, look! Look! You caught something." She pointed to his fishing rod which was now shaking in his left hand and she let go of his jacket to let him reel it in.
"When are you officially heading back to your parents' place?" He asked her after placing his fish back into the water.
"Saturday." She told him. "I wish you could come back with us. Since Mother's gotten some of her strength back, she says she'd like to meet you again. I suppose you are quite busy with work though."
"Yeah." He nodded, thinking about how stressful it's been and how things are not going well with the payroll.
"That's alright. I will try to visit again as soon as I can get another one of my brothers to stay with my parents for a bit."
Henry frowned. "You said visit."
"Yes?"
"When you say that, it sounds as if you've forgotten that this is your home." He told her.
"That isn't what I meant, Henry." She sighed. "Will you write to me again when I go?" She wondered.
"I will try." He told her with slight disappointment in his tone. "Though I prefer to hear your voice."
"Oh, Henry." She softly smiled before laying her head on his shoulder beside her. She looked at the ripples in the calm water, truly thinking about how she hadn't felt like this since Noah was alive. She took in a deep breath, the smell of the pond in front of them masked with the smell of the oil from Henry's lanterns gave her a feeling of tranquility that she hadn't felt since long before the mining accident. "I love you." She told him, not even expecting the words to actually leave her mouth, but they did and she didn't mind. She knew he might not say it back, but it didn't matter. She wanted HIM to know that he was loved and that he was worthy of love and she knew that he probably hadn't heard anyone say that to him and actually mean it in years or even decades. So in that moment, she decided to tell him whenever the feeling took over her. And in this moment, it had.
She was correct in thinking that he would not say it back, but she didn't mind. They spent the next hour counting how many fish they could catch in the moonlight and just enjoyed each other's company before soon packing up and going in opposite directions to head home. Henry, to his mansion, and Abigail, to her cafe.
They spent the rest of the week seeing each other as much as they could. After a few more days, Abigail began to realize that they had spent several nights together without having sex and it meant a lot to her. To him, as well. They each began to realize that what they had may have started from sex, but it was not the only thing that made them enjoy each other. Henry found himself thinking about her even more than he had in the years before now and he noticed how elated his whole being would feel at the thought of her.
Friday night came faster than they hoped it would and Henry had his cook make a nice meal before sending him and the housekeepers home early before Abigail arrived at his house for a late dinner.
She came in a dress that had champagne colored organdy sleeves, see-through to show her arms and shoulders, as the bodice around her waist and breasts was made of taffeta fabric, lavender in color. The skirt of the dress was also lavender, covered by the champagne organdy fabric ruching at her hips with an opening in the center to show off the lavender taffeta underneath. It was elegant yet not too expensive nor over the top for a casual dinner. Her hair was down with a part that went to her right side and it was pinned at her temple with the purple amethyst hair clip that Henry had bought her in Fulton Hills.
As soon as Henry opened the door in his dark blue suit, he froze at the sight of her. Abigail patiently waited while he looked her up and down, examining her in that dress. She smiled to herself, wondering how long it would take for him to realize she was actually standing there and not just a photo for him to look at. She felt her butterflies flutter in her stomach again as he looked at her, as if for the first time.