Heart of Mercy (Tennessee Dreams) (11 page)

Duly embarrassed, she straightened her shoulders and composed herself. “I’m sorry. What I mean to say is, if your hesitation is due to the boys and all their energy, I will see to it that they contain themselves when you come home from work. I’m sure they’ll settle down; they’re just young, is all. But I keep a neat house, and I’m a good cook, and I’ll—”

“Please, Miss Evans.” He raised both hands, palms out. “I’m simply not the man for the job. After giving this arrangement much thought and prayer, I’ve reached the conclusion that our marrying would not be in everyone’s best interest. Don’t get me wrong; you’re a lovely woman—beautiful, even—but I’m a bachelor who prefers to remain as such. I’m sorry to have strung you along. I thought it could work between us. Were it not for those boys, perhaps it might have.”

She jerked her chin up. “Were it not for those boys, I would not have asked you, Mr. Beauchamp.”

He gave a soft smile. “Therein lies the problem.”

“But—”

He shushed her with a gentle touch to the arm. “You’re a fine Christian woman, Miss Evans, but you know as well as I we’re no match for each other. God no more intended for us to be together than He intended for the sun and moon to collide. I think there must be somebody in this town far better suited to you.”

“There isn’t.” She hated her mawkish tone. Good grief, did she have no dignity?

“I’m sure there is,” Mr. Beauchamp said.

She studied his face. Kindness, pure and simple, filled his brown eyes, and for the first time, she thought she could learn to care for him—never love him, maybe, but care for him. Surely, that would be enough. Wouldn’t it?

He nodded, then glanced over his shoulder. “In fact, I believe I see a suitable prospect coming up the street as we speak.”

She followed his gaze, and her heart jostled.

Riding tall as a tree, his cowboy hat drawn low over his eyes, Sam Connors reined in his coal-black horse at the foot of Doc’s drive and tipped his hat at them. “Afternoon, folks. Am I interruptin’?”

“Yes,” said Mercy.

“No,” said Mr. Beauchamp.

“I’ll be going now, miss.” The kindly postmaster leaned forward and added quietly, “I’ve been praying for you, and I think you’d do well to take Mr. Connors up on his offer.”

“His offer? You know? But how—?”

With another crooked-toothed smile, he plopped his hat on his head, turned around, and started down the walkway to the street, where his horse and carriage waited. Confusion swirled in Mercy’s head like a miniature typhoon as she watched him nod to Samuel Connors before climbing into his carriage and driving away.

There sat Samuel Connors, wearing a grin. Had he somehow convinced Mr. Beauchamp not to marry her? Why, that arrogant rat!

She marched down the walk, prepared to give the man what for, but when he climbed down off his steed and held out a bunch of flowers tied with a yellow ribbon, the steam drained right out of her, at least for a moment.

***

Had he completely lost his mind? Sam figured so when he saw her tramping down the walkway, the hem of her skirts in her hand, vengeance in her eyes. The sight of the flowers seemed to give her pause, but then that fiery look came back all the fiercer. For a Christian woman, she sure did have a streak in her.

“What do you think you’re doing?” she demanded.

He glanced around to see if they had any company. It wouldn’t have surprised him had he seen a few neighborhood doors fly open the way her voice shot to the treetops.

How to answer her with his throat suddenly closed up tighter than a bank safe? While gathering his wits, he mustered a small grin and thrust the flowers under her nose, but she made no move to take them. Heck, she didn’t even give them so much as a peek.

Give me strength, Lord.
As prayers went, this one ranked low, but it was a start. After digging up his Bible and reading from it last night, particularly the verses his uncle had recommended, he’d been seized with a hunger to figure out God’s plans for his life. He had a strong suspicion they included Mercy Evans, but convincing her of that wouldn’t be easy.

He dropped the flowers to his side and considered his next words. Might as well just come out with it. “Have you given any more thought to my proposal?”

“Mr. Connors, I thought I made it plain that—”

“And have you prayed about it?”

“What?”

He could hardly fault her for her disbelief. It wasn’t often he did the preaching. Shoot, he hadn’t even darkened a church door since last Christmas. “Because I have. Prayed and also read God’s Word. Last night, I memorized Jeremiah twenty-nine, verse eleven:
‘For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the L
ord
, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you hope in your latter end.’
I think my
‘latter end’
involves marryin’ you and helpin’ raise those boys. Harold Beauchamp is not your man. He doesn’t even like kids that much. He told me so, just this mornin’.”

“You went to see Mr. Beauchamp?” She pressed her hands to her temples. “Mr. Connors, I—”

“Sam, just call me Sam.”

A low growl came out of her. “I don’t know what to make of you.”

He smiled. “You’ll learn over time.”

“What? No. I’ve already told you, our families—”

“—will have to learn to mind their own business,” he finished. “We shouldn’t let a long-ago feud kept alive by our relatives rule the way we live our lives.”

Her eyes rounded like two brown billiard balls. “Your father killed my daddy.”

He closed his eyes and put his face to the sun. The truth stung. “I know.” He lowered his face and met her gaze. “I doubt anyone from my family has ever apologized for that, so I’d like to do that now. Truly,
truly
, I am sorry for what my father did. We may never fully learn what transpired between them that day.” He swallowed hard at the sight of her, several strands of hair framing her cheeks, her dark eyes filled with tears to the point of brimming over. The emotion seeping out of her made him want to draw her close, but he didn’t even dare touch her arm, for fear of frightening her. He couldn’t believe he’d had the nerve to broach the subject of marriage again, but he’d been compelled to at least try, spurred on by his uncle’s remarks.

Maybe he’d been wrong to go see Harold Beauchamp this morning, but the man needed a little reality drilled into him if he thought marriage to Mercy was going to be easy. He didn’t have a clue how much work it took to raise two boys. Granted, neither did Sam, but he’d had plenty of practice keeping up with his energetic young cousins. He almost grinned, remembering the gray pallor Harold’s face had taken on when Sam had painted a picture of life with two young boys who were likely to live at home for at least fifteen years more.

By the time Sam had finished talking to him, the poor man had confessed that he wasn’t Mercy’s best choice, no matter that he liked her well enough. It was those kids and their seemingly inexhaustible energy that worried him. He didn’t think he had what it took to work ten hours a day, then come home to a bustling household of rollicking boys—not when he’d grown accustomed to the simple solitude bachelorhood afforded. He’d admitted to long having admired Mercy Evans; that, when the opportunity to wed her had presented itself, he’d seized it—with no thought for the boys’ welfare. Now he regretted it, he’d said, especially after speaking with Sam.

In the end, they’d shaken hands, and Beauchamp had actually thanked Sam for talking some sense into him. He’d told him he would visit Mercy mid-afternoon to announce his change of heart, so Sam had kept an eye out for the fellow driving past his shop, then planned his arrival right around Harold’s delivery of the bad news. He could only hope his plan wouldn’t backfire.

Unfortunately, it appeared to be doing just that, even as he tried to make her see things his way.

10

G
ladys Froeling, her father’s oldest sibling and only sister, had always been Mercy’s favorite relative. She admired her lively spirit, her youthful demeanor, her dynamic personality, and her love for the Lord. Add to that her refusal to involve herself in the Evans-Connors feud, and Gladys had Mercy’s deepest respect. Despite her rather unsophisticated, if not primitive, air and appearance, the woman didn’t lack for wisdom, and Mercy often sought her out for advice on everything from the art of baking bread to stitching a quilt, from important financial decisions to the meaning of a Scripture passage. Today, however, she came to her for an altogether different reason. She’d spent the past two days praying good and hard over Sam Connors’ marriage proposal, and now it boiled down to one thing: seek out Aunt Gladys’s no-nonsense advice and follow it. It almost seemed as if her very future lay in the old woman’s hands.

Mercy veered the buckboard to the far right side of the road to allow an oncoming carriage to pass on the narrow dirt track. She feared the front wheel might drop into the gully, but with careful manipulating of her horse, Sally, they managed fine. The drive up Thoroughfare 69 and then west on the winding Jones Bend Road had never been a short, easy jaunt, but today’s perfect temperatures and gentle breezes made the drive to the farm pleasant, especially with the company of two youngsters sitting on either side of her on the buckboard, eager for conversation.

Overall, the boys had adjusted to their loss and all the changes it had brought far better than Mercy had expected. Of course, they had the resilience of youth on their side. If only her heart had the same durability. Not a day had passed since losing her best friends that Mercy hadn’t shed a wheelbarrow’s worth of tears—not in the boys’ presence, of course, but certainly into her pillow. She always ended her crying sprees by giving thanks to God that the children had survived, and then opening her Bible and reading its words of comfort, always seeking strength, guidance, and wisdom from its feathery pages. In her mind, she always reached the same conclusion. God didn’t
cause
tragic circumstances, but He did
allow
them—and for reasons she would probably never fully grasp. What she did grasp, though, was His absolute love and care for her and the boys. She also recognized her desperate need for His grace, and so she pressed on in her quest to honor and obey Him, even when she couldn’t understand His purposes and plans.

The Froeling farm sprawled across a huge parcel of land, most of which had been left untended since the death of Mercy’s uncle Chester some ten years prior. Plenty of people had offered to buy the property, but Aunt Gladys, sturdy, stubborn, and strong, refused to sell. “This here’s my home, and ain’t no amount of money on earth goin’ to make me give it up,” she’d say. Even her own children couldn’t talk her into buying something smaller and closer to town.

Mercy didn’t blame her for wanting to hold on to the farm. Though seventy-five, she still had all of her mental faculties and could work circles around most people half her age. Who was she to try to convince her aunt to leave the old homestead when it was all she’d known for the past fifty years or so, ever since her husband had inherited it, shortly after their wedding?

“Who lives here?” asked John Roy, pointing at the three-story house at the end of the long drive, nestled amid the vast, rolling hills of blue green.

“This is the home of my aunt. Her name is Gladys, but I like to call her Gladdie.”

“We been here before,” Joseph chimed in. “We comed with Mama and you one time.”

“Yes, you did. I’m impressed you remember that. It was in the springtime, strawberry-picking season. We went home that day with a few buckets full of luscious fruit, and your mama and I cooked up a mess of strawberry jam in my kitchen. I still have several jars in my pantry.” The recollection stirred a semi-sweet tangle of emotions in her chest. “I bet you’ll remember my aunt, as well. She’ll step out on her porch almost any second to see who’s coming up her drive.”

As Mercy guided Sally toward the watering trough, both boys scooted forward on the seat to watch for the first peek at her aunt. True to Mercy’s word, the screen door pushed open with a whine to reveal a short, round, white-haired woman, apron tied around her waist, hand shielding her eyes from the sun. She waved excitedly, then hefted her skirts above her chubby ankles and bustled down the steps like someone twenty years her junior.

“I remember her,” Joseph said. “She gots a great big red cookie jar settin’ on her counter, and she lets us have as many as we want.”

Mercy laughed. That very cookie jar was a fond memory from her own childhood. “Indeed she does, but don’t go thinking you can eat your fill. Two apiece should suffice.”

No sooner had she set the brake on her rig than both boys leaped to the ground.

“Well, lookie here, would y’? Two handsome boys come t’ pay me a visit. What on earth did I do t’ deserve sech a fine surprise?” Gladys opened her arms and welcomed the boys into a big embrace, then raised her round face to Mercy, who smiled down from her perch.

“Hi, honey! You come on down and tell me what brings you clear out here.”

Mercy set the reins over the brake handle, swiveled her body, and stepped down with as much decorum as she could manage. She had yet to figure out a ladylike system for climbing off a buckboard in ankle-length skirts. On the ground, she huffed a breath and dusted herself off. “Do I really need a reason to visit my favorite aunt?”

“Pshaw! Don’t let Gertie or Aggie hear of my bein’ y’r favorite, or they’ll come at me with a broom handle.” The boys stepped aside, and Gladys wrapped Mercy in a tight hug that nearly stole her breath. Then, quick as lightning, she set her back for a good looking over. “My mama’s corset, you’ve been in the sun. Them cheeks are brown as oak leaves. Where’s your hat, missy?”

Most women wore wide-brimmed bonnets to ward off the effects of the scorching Tennessee sun, but there was just no hope for Mercy. Somehow, the rays always managed to find their way to her olive skin, deepening its tint the more. Besides, some days, she set off in such a hurry, she forgot altogether about snatching up a bonnet from the hooks by the door.