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Ruth Fielding Homeward Bound / A Red Cross Worker's Ocean Perils by Alice B. Emerson
"And you once said, Heavy Stone, that you did not believe a poilu could love a fat girl!"
Helen said it in something like awe. While Ruth's tea-urn bubbled cozily three pair of very bright eyes were bent above a tiny, iridescent spark which adorned the "heart finger" of the plumper girl's left hand.
There is something about an engagement diamond that makes it sparkle and twinkle more than any other diamond. You do not believe that? Wait until you wear one on the third finger of your left hand yourself!
These three girls, who owned all the rings and other jewelry that was good for them, continued to adore this newest of Jennie Stone's possessions until the tea water boiled over. Ruth Fielding arose with an exclamation of vexation, and corrected the height of the alcohol blaze and dropped in the "pinch" of tea.
It was mid-afternoon, the hour when a cup of tea comforts the fagged nerves and inspires the waning spirit of womankind almost the world over. These three girls crowded into Ruth Fielding's little cell, even gave up the worship of the ring, to sip the tea which the hostess soon poured into the cups.
"The cups are nicked; no wonder," sighed Ruth. "They have traveled many hundreds of miles with me, girls. Think! I got them at Briarwood--"
"Dear old Briarwood Hall," murmured Jennie Stone.
"You're in a dreadfully sentimental mood, Jennie," declared Helen Cameron with some scorn. "Is that the way a diamond ring affects all engaged girls?"
"Oh, how fat I was in those days, girls! And how I did eat!" groaned the girl who had been known at boarding school as "Heavy Stone," and seldom by any other name among her mates.
"And you still continue to eat!" ejaculated Helen, the slimmest of the three, and a very black-eyed girl with blue-black hair and a perfect complexion. She removed the tin wafer box from Jennie's reach.
"Those are not real eats," complained the girl with the diamond ring. "A million would not add a thousandth part of an ounce to my pounds."
"Listen to her!" gasped Helen. "If Major Henri Marchand could hear her now!"
"He is a full colonel, I'd have you know," declared Jennie Stone. "And in charge of his section. In our army it is the Intelligence Department-Secret Service."
"That is what Tom calls the 'Camouflage Bureau.' Colonel Marchand has a nice, sitting-down job," scoffed Helen.
"Colonel Marchand," said Ruth Fielding, gravely, "has been through the enemy's lines, and with his brother, the Count Allaire, has obtained more information for the French Army, I am sure, than most of the brave men belonging to the Intelligence Department. Nobody can question his courage with justice, Jennie."
"You ought to know!" pouted the plumper girl. "You and my colonel have tramped all over the French front together."
"Oh, no! There were some places we did not go to," laughed Ruth.
"And just think," cried Helen, "of her leaving us here in this hospital, Heavy, while she went off with your Frenchman to look for Tom, my own brother! And she would not tell me a word about it till she was back with him, safe and sound. This Ruthie Fielding of ours--"
"Tut, tut!" said Ruth, shaking her chum a little, and then kissing her. "Don't be jealous, Helen."
"It's not I that should be jealous. It is Heavy's friend with whom you went over to the Germans," declared Helen, tossing her head.
"And Jennie had not even met Major Marchand-that was! 'Colonel,' I should say," said Ruth. "Oh, girls! so much has happened to us all during these past few months."
"During the past few years," said the plump girl sepulchrally. "Talking about your cracked and chipped china," and she held up her empty cup to look through it. "I remember when you got this tea set, Ruthie. Remember the Fox, and all her chums at Briarwood, and how mean we treated you, Ruthie?"
"Oh, don't!" exclaimed Helen. "I treated my Ruthie mean in those days, too-sometimes."
"Goodness!" drawled their friend, who was in the uniform of the Red Cross worker and was a very practical looking, as well as pretty, girl. "Don't bring up such sad and sorrowful remembrances. This tea is positively going to your heads and making you maudlin. Come! I will give you a toast. You must drink your cup to it-and to the very dregs!"
"'Dregs' is right, Ruth," complained Jennie, peering into her cup. "You never will strain tea properly."
"Pooh! If you do," scoffed Helen, "you never have any leaves left with which to tell your fortune."
"'Fortune!' Superstitious child!" Then Jennie added in a whisper: "Do you know, Madame Picolet knows how to tell fortunes splendidly with tea-grounds. She positively told me I was going to marry a tall, dark, military man, of noble blood, and who had recently been advanced in the service."
"Goodness! And who could not have told you the same after having seen your Henri following you about the last time he had leave in Paris?" laughed Helen. Then she added: "The toast, Ruthie! Let us have it, now the cups are filled again."
Ruth stood up, smiling down upon them. She was not a large girl, but in her uniform and cap she seemed very womanly and not a little impressive.
"Here's to the sweetest words the exile ever hears," said she softly, her eyes suddenly soft and her color rising: "'Homeward bound!' Oh, girls, when shall we see America and all our friends and the familiar scenes again? Cheslow, Helen! And the dear, dear old Red Mill!"
She drank her own toast to the last drop. Then she shrugged her pretty shoulders and put her serious air aside. Her eyes sparkled once more as she exclaimed:
"On my own part, I was only reminiscing upon the travels of this old tea set. Back and forth from the dear old Red Mill to Briarwood Hall, and all around the country on our vacations. To your Lighthouse Point place, Jennie. To your father's winter camp, Helen. And out West to Jane's uncle's ranch, and down South and all! And then across the ocean and all about France! No wonder the teacups are nicked and the saucers cracked."
"What busy times we've had, girls," agreed Helen.
"What busy times Ruth has had," grumbled Jennie. "You and I, Nell, come up here from Paris to visit her now and then. Otherwise we would never hear a Boche shell burst, unless there is an air raid over Paris, or the Germans work their super-gun and smash a church!"
"Ruth is so brave," sighed Helen.
"Cat's foot!" snapped Ruth. "I'm just as scared as you are every time I hear a gun. Oh!"
To prove her statement, that cry burst from her lips involuntarily. There was an explosion in the distance-whether of gun or bomb, it was impossible to say.
"Oh, Ruth!" cried Helen, clasping her hands. "I thought you wrote us that our boys had pushed the Germans back so far that the guns could scarcely be heard from here?"
"Must be some mistake about that," muttered Jennie, with her mouth full of tea-wafers. "There goes another!"
Ruth Fielding had risen and went to the narrow window. After the second explosion a heavy siren began to blow a raucous alarm. Nearer aerial defense guns spoke.
"Oh, girls!" exclaimed Ruth, "it is an air raid. We have not had one before for weeks-and never before in broad day!"
"Oh, dear me! I wish we hadn't come," Helen said, trembling. "Let us find a cave vo?tée. I saw signs along the main street of this village as we drove through."
"There is a bomb proof just back of the hospital," said Ruth, and then another heavy explosion drowned what else she might have said.
Her two visitors dropped their teacups and started for the door. But Ruth did not turn from the window. She was trying to see-to mark the direction of the Boche bombing machine that was deliberately seeking to hit the hospital of Clair.
"Come, Ruthie!" cried Helen, looking back.
"I don't know that I should," the other girl said slowly. "I am in charge of the supplies. I may be wanted at any moment. The nurses do not run away from the wards and leave their poor blessés at such a time--"
Another thundering explosion fairly shook the walls of the hospital. Jennie and Helen shrieked aloud. They were not used to anything like this. Their months of war experience had been gained mostly in Paris, not so near the front trenches. A bombing raid was a tragedy to them. To Ruth Fielding it was an incident.
"Do come, Ruthie!" cried her chum. "I am frightened to death."
"I will go downstairs with you--"
The sentence was never finished. Out of the air, almost over their heads, fell a great, whining shell. The noise of it before it exploded was like a knife-thrust to the hearts of the frightened girls. Jennie and Helen clung to each other in the open doorway of Ruth's cell. Their braver companion had not left the window.
Then came the shuddering crash which rocked the hospital and all the taller buildings about it!
Clair had been bombed many times since the Boche hordes had poured down into France. But never like this, and previous bombardments had been for the most part at night. The aerial defense guns were popping away at the enemy; the airplanes kept up a clatter of machine-gun fire; the alarm siren added to the din.
But that exploding shell drowned every other sound for the moment. The whole world seemed to rock. A crash of falling stones and shattered glass finally rose above the dying roar of the explosion.
And then the window at which Ruth Fielding stood sprang inward, glass and frame together, the latter in a grotesque twisted pattern of steel rods, the former in a million shivered pieces.
Smoke, or steam, or something, filled the cell for a minute and blinded Helen Cameron and Jennie Stone. This cloud cleared, and struggling up from the floor just outside the doorway, where the shock had flung them, the two terrified girls uttered a simultaneous cry.
Ruth Fielding lay on her face upon the floor of her cell. A great, jagged tear in her apron and dress revealed her bared shoulder, all blood-smeared. And half across her body lay a slab of gray stone that had been the sill of the window!
Ruth Fielding in the Great Northwest by Alice B. Emerson
Alice B. Emerson was a pseudonym used by a number of writers hired by the conglomerate Stratemeyer Syndicat to make popular kids books, especially for young girls. These include the Beth Gordon and Ruth Fielding series.
Alice B. Emerson was a pseudonym used by a number of writers hired by the conglomerate Stratemeyer Syndicat to make popular kids books, especially for young girls. These include the Beth Gordon and Ruth Fielding series.
Ruth, Helen, and Tom watch a moving picture company film scenes near the Red Mill. As they watch, the starring actress, Hazel Gray, falls into the river and is swept downstream. Ruth and her friends rescue Miss Gray and take her to the Red Mill to recover. The next day, Ruth meets the producer, Mr. Hammond, who promises to read Ruth's scenario when she impulsively confides that she is planning to write one. Soon after the friends return to school, the East Dormitory burns and is a complete loss. All of the girls housed in that building, including Ruth and her friends, lose all of their possessions. It is soon learned that Dr. Tellingham allowed the insurance to lapse, and there is no money to rebuild the dormitory. In the meantime, Ruth submits her scenario to Mr. Hammond and is thrilled when he accepts it. After her scenario is accepted, Ruth gets a wonderful idea about how she can help the school raise money to rebuild the dormitory. In the Italian garden scenes, the seniors and juniors were used. Ruth calls a meeting of all of the students and suggests her idea of writing a moving picture scenario that will be filmed on the campus. The proceeds from the film would go towards rebuilding the dormitory. In this way, all of the girls would contribute to the fund, since they would be the extras in the film. This idea is met with enthusiasm, and Ruth soon gains Mr. Hammond's approval.
22-year-old Evelyn Carter is attempting to start over in California while avoiding her past. She will be embarking on a new career path as a private school teacher. She is smart, attractive, and doesn't put up with nonsense. Who wouldn't notice her? However, what happens when she attracts the attention of someone unwilling to let her go? Who wants her and nothing else after falling in love at first sight? A 25-year-old billionaire CEO and single father, Lucian Carrington. He takes what he wants and he is also a very dangerous man. All it needed was one look at a stunning woman to realize she was HIS, even though he doesn't believe in relationships because they always end. Preview: Miss Carter, you will be mine. I say firmly. "Release my arm, Mr. Carrington, before I force you to." She says, seeming to smile at me. I give her a sly smile. Squeezing my wrist with her other hand, she twists it uncomfortably. I gave a painful hiss. "Don't underestimate me, Mr. Carrington." "This is the only time I will allow you to walk away from me, Miss Carter." She glared at me as she turned. "Mr. Carrington, I am no possession of yours." I was left standing there when she opened the classroom door and left.
"I'm going to tell you what I have in mind," he murmured. "First you're going to strip down until you're completely naked," he whispered against her ear. "Then I'm going to tie you up so you're completely powerless and subject to my every whim." "Mmm, sounds good so far," she murmured. "Then I'm going to insert a plug to prepare you for me. After that I'm going to spank that sweet ass of yours until it's rosy with my marks." She shivered uncontrollably, her mind exploding with the images he evoked. She let out a small whimper as he sucked the lobe of her ear into his mouth. God, she could cum with just his words. She was already aching with need. Her nipples tingled and hardened to painful points. Her clit pulsed and twitched between her legs until she clamped her thighs together to alleviate the burn. "And then I'm going to f**k your mouth. But I won't cum. Not yet. When I'm close, I'll flog you again until your ass is burning and you're on fire with the need for relief. And then I'm going to f**k that ass. I'm going to take you hard and rough, to the very limits of what you can withstand. I won't be gentle. Not tonight. I'm going to take you as roughly as you can stand. And then I'm going to cum all over your ass. Are you ready to be completely and utterly dominated?"
Katie was forced to marry Dillan, a notorious ruffian. Her younger sister mocked her, "You're just an adopted daughter. Count your blessings for marrying him!" The world anticipated Katie's tribulations, but her married life unfurled with unexpected serenity. She even snagged a lavish mansion in a raffle! Katie jumped into Dillan's arms, credited him as her lucky charm. "No, Katie, it's you who brings me all this luck," Dillan replied. Then, one fateful day, Dillan's childhood friend came to her. "You're not worthy of him. Take this 50 million and leave him!" Katie finally grasped Dillan's true stature—the wealthiest man on the planet. That night, trembling with trepidation, she broached the subject of divorce with Dillan. However, with a domineering embrace, he told her, "I'd give you everything I have. Divorce is off the table!"
She thought she was the love of his life, and he became the love of her life that fateful day she had seen him at the pack's party. Selene Grace was only a replica of Alpha Leo's real mate, and when he spotted her, Leo immediately claimed her as his Luna in order to suppress the rumors of him being mateless. Being unable to conceive turns Selene's marriage into a nightmare, and as if that wasn't enough, Alpha Leo finally reunites with his long time lover and mate, rejecting a pregnant Selene as a result. 5 years later, Selene, a now successful doctor, receives an invitation to the moon shadow pack in order to rid the pack of a deadly disease which has struck it. Will Selene return back to the pack which had caused her so much pain, and what would she do when she realizes that she is mated to the Alpha who had betrayed her in the past?
Her fiance and her best friend worked together and set her up. She lost everything and died in the street. However, she was reborn. The moment she opened her eyes, her husband was trying to strangle her. Luckily, she survived that. She signed the divorce agreement without hesitation and was ready for her miserable life. To her surprise, her mother in this life left her a great deal of money. She turned the tables and avenged herself. Everything went well in her career and love when her ex-husband came to her.
My boyfriend called, "Baby!" as he jumped out of bed and scrambled to pull his pants off the ground. "Please, I can explain my love." Shutting my eyes, I inhaled deeply and tried not to cry when I realized that my dream of the man not being my boyfriend had been dashed. "What?" I asked, "What do you want to explain?" How did you lie about having a business meeting while you were in bed enjoying yourself with my best friend, even though I told you I was in serious pain, is that it?" I stood there, my heart pounding, and tears streaming down my face...