A Gown of Spanish Lace (33 page)

In the semidarkness Ariana could barely see his face. When he drew near enough she saw he was pale and drawn. Something had happened. Ariana felt her heart beat faster. Was it just his disappointment that the lace wasn’t right?

He said nothing—just reached out his hand to her. In his palm was the bit of lace. Ariana took it and turned it over in her fingers.

“It doesn’t matter if it doesn’t match,” she began. “Don’t feel badly if—”

Ariana looked more closely.

“It looks—very close,” she said and looked up at Laramie.

He still was ashen—silent. She could not understand.

“Ariana…it doesn’t just…match the cuff,” he said softly in a choked, forced voice. “It
is
the cuff.”

Her eyes widened. She looked into his face with disbelief.

“It
is
the cuff,” he repeated. “Look. It has the tiny buttons.”

Ariana’s gaze went back to the bit of lace. She turned it over and over. First unbelief, then delight, filled her eyes.

“Why, that’s wonderful!” she exclaimed. “Who would have ever believed it? Who would have ever imagined? The real missing cuff. Isn’t it wonderful! Isn’t God good!”

She threw her arms around Laramie’s neck. Her warm tears of joy fell on his cheek.

Gently he pushed her from him. “Ariana…listen to me.”

She looked at him, shock in her eyes. What had happened? What was wrong?

“I found the cuff…in my mother’s box.”

She nodded.

“My…
mother’s
.”

She looked puzzled.

“It matches your mother’s dress. Exactly.”

She took one tiny step backward, still staring at him.

“You don’t mean—?” she began, but she did not finish.

He nodded.

“But it can’t be,” she almost screamed at him. “It—can’t be.”

“Ariana—”

She looked at him for one moment, her eyes wild and denying. His own tears were tracing the pattern on his cheek where Ariana’s tears had been such a short while ago.

“It has to be,” he said simply, looking away from the pain in her eyes.

“I don’t want a brother,” she cried. “I—want—” and then she turned from him and ran toward the house.

Dear Ariana,

I am leaving. I hope someday to return when I can think of you as a sister. I have decided that it is too hard for us to see each other now. I will pray for you. I will love you always, but that love must change now. Perhaps someday we will be able to say that God has worked it for good.

Love, Laramie

Ariana held the letter in a trembling hand, tears flowing freely down her cheeks. Across the room she could see the lovely gown of Spanish lace—its second cuff now securely in its place.

“I will never wear it,” she whispered to herself. “Never! I loved him so.”

She stirred and looked at the gown again, brushing at the tears on her cheek with the back of her hand.

“If only I had
known
he was my brother. We could have…have shared so many things. Learned to love each other…in a different way. But this? This is so…cruel. I will never be able to…to accept him as a brother. Never. I love him far too deeply.”

Ariana began to weep again.

Her eyes fell back to the final words of Laramie’s note. “Perhaps someday we will be able to say that God has worked it for good.” That seemed impossible. Impossible. God seemed…seemed so far away. So…beyond her reach.

Trust
, came the quiet message to Ariana’s heart—but at the moment she found it beyond her capability.

Chapter Twenty-three

The Diary

For the first week Laramie just drifted in a daze, except for the pain deep inside that constantly reminded him he was still alive. Even when he would rather not be.

It had all been so unexpected. Though looking back, Laramie wondered why he hadn’t begun to put some of the pieces together much earlier.

The wagon train. The massacre and burning. The fact that both of them were without their real parents. Yes—it should have made him wonder. Yet who would have thought?

Laramie looked at the small chest with a mixture of love and hate. It had held one too many secrets. One that had torn his world apart.

“It was best that we know,” he told himself over and over. “It would have been a dreadful thing if…” But secretly, Laramie wondered.

He found it hard to pray—so he read. At least he could still manage to concentrate when reading his mother’s Bible.
Our mother’s Bible
, he corrected himself. Perhaps someday—with a lot of help from the Lord—he and Ariana would be able to read it together.

No. No, he concluded. I just can’t—can’t think of her as a sister. I just can’t.

After a week had passed, Laramie mentally took stock.

“I’ve got to get out of these doldrums,” he told himself. “I’ve got to go on with my life.”

At first he had a hard time deciding what he would do, and then he remembered the rancher. The man had said if he ever wanted a job—well, he needed a job now. Laramie saddled up his mount, tied the bundles to the pack saddle, and headed off.

When he rapped on the ranch house door, Laramie was welcomed.

“Hopin’ ya’d come on back,” said the big man. “ ’Bout given up on ya. But it couldn’t have been at a better time. Foreman jest quit. Fixin’ to have his own spread. None of those yahoos I got out there is worth their salt. I was afraid I’d have to be my own foreman. Hate the thought of all thet ridin’.”

He stopped for breath and looked at Laramie. “Ya want the job, it’s yers.”

Laramie nodded. It was the only contract needed.

“The foreman has his own bunk,” the man went on. “Thet little shack down the lane. Throw yer bedroll in there.”

Laramie was thankful to be on his own. He much preferred it to bunking in with a bunch of card-playing, snuff-chewing, booze-drinking cowhands.

“Maybe I’m jest a coward,” he chided himself, “but I sure don’t feel ready to socialize yet.”

He tossed his bedroll on the bunk, unpacked his few belongings, turned his horses into the corral, and went to look for some kind of a broom. The small shack was a mess. He planned to clean it thoroughly before claiming it as his own.

Ariana stumbled through one long day after another. She previously had quit her position in the little school, so there wasn’t even that to think about. Besides—it was the Christmas break. She wouldn’t have been teaching anyway. She would have been getting married.

Now there was no wedding to think about. She didn’t even want to think about Christmas. It was going to be very empty—meaningless.

Ariana shook her head. No, she mustn’t think like that. She mustn’t. Christmas would still have the same meaning as always. It was Christ’s birth they celebrated. Nothing in her circumstances had changed that.

But as Ariana looked at the pocket watch she had purchased for Laramie, she found it hard to feel in the Christmas spirit.

She had to do something. Something to take control of her life again. She couldn’t just stay in her room and weep and mope. That was not honoring to her Lord.

Two days before Christmas, she donned her nicest gown, bathed the puffiness from her eyes, and joined the family at the breakfast table.

Everyone seemed to hold a collective breath. Dared they speak? What topics were safe to address? What meaningless comment might start the tears flowing again?

Ariana managed a wobbly smile. She reached over and took her mother’s hand.

“I’ve made a decision,” she said simply. “I’m coming home with you.”

Everyone at the table looked surprised. Four pairs of eyes turned toward her to see if she was in her right mind.

“It only makes sense,” she went on calmly. “With the gang gone, there is no reason for me to hide myself away here. I’ve resigned from the school. They already have a new teacher engaged. I…I’ll just go on home with you.”

Gradually those at the table began to see that she was thinking quite clearly. Quite capable of making a decision. Her mother squeezed her hand. Her father beamed his pleasure. Her aunt Molly looked about to weep, while her uncle Jake just cleared his throat noisily.

“We’ll miss you, dear,” said Aunt Molly.

“It will be so good to have you home again. I’ve been so lonely,” her mother admitted.

“You leave on the third,” Ariana went on. “I will have no problem being ready.” Her eyes clouded.

“There is only one thing I haven’t figured out,” she went on.

Her mother’s hand tightened on hers. She was afraid there might be tears again.

“The little roan,” went on Ariana, and though her voice cracked slightly, she did not begin to cry.

Her uncle Jake was quick to speak. Perhaps he feared a fresh outburst of tears as well. “Happy to keep him here—until such time as you can get him,” he said, and then cleared his throat again.

Ariana smiled softly in appreciation. “Thank you, Uncle Jake,” she said evenly.

The matter seemed to be closed.

Laramie settled into his new responsibilities. For the first months, through the last of winter and into spring, he spent his days in the saddle from sunup to sundown. He wanted to discover the lay of the land—to survey the entire ranch and know thoroughly each draw, each hill, each valley. He checked the water supply, the grass supply, each head that grazed, each new calf that arrived. He could not manage well what he did not know well, he reasoned, and his boss took great pleasure in watching him take the job so seriously.

“Make a good rancher,” he informed his elderly wife. “Too bad he don’t have a spread of his own.”

“He’s young,” his wife reminded him. “He has lots of time fer thet.”

As the days lengthened, Laramie felt well enough in control to assign the range riders the tasks that needed to be done.

That gave him more free time—something he did not welcome.

He resumed his worship in the small church, and the preacher’s daughter took up her role of flirting again. Laramie tried to avoid direct contact with her. He was sure she was a fine young woman, but he just wasn’t interested.

He began to look for things to do. They were not always easy to find. He spent more time reading his mother’s Bible. The lessons he learned helped him get hold of his life again—but he still could not forget Ariana. He still was not able to think of her as his sister. He began to wonder just how long it was going to take.

One day, in his loneliness, he drew out his mother’s little chest. Would he find healing there? Would he find the link that would finally enable him to think of Ariana as a part of his family?

Listlessly he turned over each hankie, each button, each little memento. There was nothing. Nothing that changed the feelings in his heart.

He had emptied the little chest and was about to put all of the contents back in place when he noticed that a bit of the lining was coming loose.

He wasn’t skilled in mending and fixing, but he wondered if there was some way he could repair it so the little chest wouldn’t continue to come apart.

He ran one finger along the spot and felt something he had not noticed before. He lifted the box for a closer look. To his amazement there was a little clasp hidden from casual view. He pushed on it. Wiggled it gently and pushed again. Then he lifted it—up and in. To his surprise the bottom of the chest flipped upward on a small spring. There was a false bottom to the small chest.

Laramie could not believe what greeted his eyes. The whole bottom of the small box was covered with bills. Money. Stacked thick—though crisp with age. Strange money. He was not familiar with it. But it was money, of that he was sure.

“I don’t believe this,” he said to himself. “Mama had a whole stash here.”

He looked over his shoulder. He did not wish to be observed. The door was closed. He moved to pull the curtain over the one window. Then he sat back down at the table and began to lift out the crinkled bills.

At the bottom of the pile he discovered a small book. Was this her record of account? Laramie lifted the book and flipped the pages. No. There were no numbers. Simply writing. Some sort of—record. Or journal. He laid the book aside and began to count the money.

There were thousands of dollars. Enough for a ranch of his own. Enough to give Ariana—