Rightfully Mine

Chapter 1

I fell in love with John Gibson the first time I saw him.

It was right after Pastor Taylor started his Sunday morning sermon. John and his family walked right down the middle of the aisle and sat in the pew in front of my family.

Hardly anyone ever dared to be late to church. Not because Pastor Taylor would say anything, but some of the people in the congregation would. Not during church, of course, since that would be just as bad. No, they'd wait until after to speculate and whisper about whoever dared to be late as if it were a mortal sin.

I couldn't help but wonder if they bothered listening when Pastor Taylor preached about gossip. Or did they just not understand that's what they were doing?

Anyway, it was unusual that people were late and even more unusual that they sat where John's family did when they were. We were almost at the very front. Generally, people in their situation would sit in the back. But I was glad they didn't, because that's when I first saw John.

I guessed that he was my age or a little older - maybe ten. He had dark brown hair that stood up in the back, light brown, almost golden eyes, and the most adorable smile.

After his family sat down, John looked around the church, noticing all the people watching him. He met my eyes and gave me a goofy grin, and I couldn't help grinning back. That's the moment I knew that I was going to marry him one day.

Not for a long time, of course. I was only eight and Papa said I wasn't allowed to get married until I was eighteen. But one day, I just knew I'd be marrying John.

It must have been a sign from God that the message that morning was about love. It wasn't romantic love, of course. But still, I thought it was fitting.

Shortly after that, John joined our small school and I found out that he was only a year older than me and that he was Mr. and Mrs. Collier's grandson. The Colliers owned a ranch about ten miles outside of town and were almost the richest people around. Not that their money mattered to me, but I was surprised that John turned out to be so nice since the Colliers were always so crabby.

I didn't have the courage to talk to John after church, but he remembered me anyway and came over and introduced himself at recess. He wasn't like the other boys I knew. They were all pretty awful most of the time. They'd tease me and the other girls, call us names, and sometimes put mice in our desks.

I hated them all and John was nothing like them.

He was nice to everybody and he didn't mind when the girls wanted to join whatever game the boys were playing. And since the other boys wanted John to like them, they didn't give us a hard time either.

John and I had a lot in common. We both did well in school, but we also hated it. We both liked fishing, swimming, and climbing trees. We also both knew about horses. John just didn't know that. He seemed to like teaching me though, and I liked being taught by him, so I didn't tell him that Papa had done the same thing a long time ago. After that, we'd go riding together for hours. It was mostly just on Saturdays after our chores were done, but we'd go after school sometimes too.

I'd never had a boy as a friend before since I could hardly stand the other boys I knew, but John became my very best friend after only a few weeks. He could have sat with anyone for lunch, but he wanted to sit with me. He stood up for me when that horrible boy, Billy Arnold started picking on me again. He even got in a fight one time when Billy said something really nasty about my Mama being dead.

My Mama died when I was just a baby. Papa married Julia when I was about a year old and then my sister Jenny was born when I was two. I wish I'd known my real Mama, but I loved Julia, and I knew she loved me like I was her real daughter.