"Love in the Great Pine Woods" by Gratiana Lovelace (2015-2016) (Completed)

Ch. 11 (PG-13, D): Turning the Other Cheek

"Love in the Great Pine Woods", Ch. 11 (PG-13, D): Turning the Other Cheek, 
December 23, 2015 by Gratiana Lovelace (Post #847)

(An original story copyrighted by Gratiana Lovelace; all rights reserved) [(1) story cover, left]

[From time to time, I will illustrate my story characters with: Richard Armitage as Sam Wakeforest, Marcia Gay Harden as Sam's older sister Tessa Wakeforest Shoop Delaney, and Emily Deschanel as Tessa's sister-in-law Olivia Delaney, Viola Davis as Pauletta Perkins, Cicely Tyson as Nellie Newton, and Anna Sophia Robb as Alice Trent, Kevin Spacey as Roger Delaney, Sam Heughan as Todd Wakeforest, Idris Elba as Dominic Perkins and others as noted.]

Authors Content Note:  "Love in the Great Pine Woods" is a mature love story with dramatic themes of love and relationships. It will mostly be at the PG and PG-13 movie levels. Specific chapters or passages may have a further rating of: L for language, D for dramatic emotions, and S for sensual themes. And I will rate the chapters accordingly. If you are unable or unwilling to attend a movie with the ratings that I provide for a chapter, then please do not read that chapter. This is my disclaimer. And as is my habit, I will summarize the previous chapter's events at the beginning of the next chapter.

Authors Recap from the Previous Chapter:  Sam stayed overnight at the hospital the night of his car accident on Wednesday, Dec. 2nd for observation--due to his concussion. They just didn't realize that they were under a different kind of observation when a member of the nursing staff saw Sam's fiancé Olivia sleeping with him fully clothed over night. And though Sam and Olivia want to marry soon--before the new year--their plans might change.

"Love in the Great Pine Woods", Ch. 11 (PG-13, D): Turning the Other Cheek

With Sam Wakeforest recuperating from his car accident in the hospital the night of Wednesday December 2nd--and then the next several days at Delaney Manor while he is still under observation for his concussion--his fiancé Olivia Delaney has not left his side. Olivia has caringly tended to Sam's needs--feeding him, chatting with him to keep him from being bored, and chastely lying abed with him over night soothing him to sleep. They kiss and embrace, but no more. They will wait to be intimate with each other until their wedding night--not the least of which is because Olivia is a virgin and Sam respects that and honors her virtue. They plan to wed in a few weeks anyway--before the new year of 1956, they hope.

However what is one person's chasteness is another person's scandalous behavior. And the nosy nurse who tended to Sam in the hospital cannot contain the juicy bit of gossip of seeing the uppercrust Olivia Delaney sleeping fully clothed with her fiancé Sam Wakeforest in his hospital bed. Though her nurse coworker encouraged her to be discreet, that word is not in the gossiping nurse's vocabulary--nor in her behavior, despite the fact that she could lose her job over breaching patient confidentiality.

But it is not until Friday, December 11th of the following week--after Olivia has returned to working as a teacher at the Orphanage part time and still tending Sam part time whilst he continues to recover as a guest at his sister Tessa's and brother-in-law Roger's home Delaney Manor--that Tessa Delaney notices a strange look from a woman across the street whom she does not know with two small children as Tessa walks to her dress shop, Elle. But Tessa ignores the odd feeling that it gives her. She is focused on tending to her customers, then closing up shop early today to stop at the grocery store's bakery to pick up their family's Sam's going home cake for their family dinner tonight. He has recovered from his car accident and they will be celebrating that as a family.

And then later in the afternoon, Tessa [(2) right] overhears something disturbing in the grocery store on her way home as she is picking up a cake to celebrate her brother Sam's return to health and returning home the next day. The woman whom she had seen earlier with two small children is way laying the minister's wife Mrs. Brent in the grocery story checkout line with allegations of impropriety between Sam Wakeforest and Olivia Delaney.