Love Finds You in Groom, Texas (33 page)

“Hopefully spend it with Jake.”

Jake. She just realized…this was Monday. He’d probably already left for work.

Anne went into the kitchen and was surprised to find Maggie seated at the table, looking a little misty-eyed. “What’s wrong, Maggie?” she asked.

“Oh, fiddlesticks. I hadn’t planned for you to see me like this.” Maggie swiped at her eyes with the back of her hand. “Sorry, Anne.”

“You’re upset.”

“Yes.” She nodded. “I… Well, I don’t want you to leave.” A lone tear trickled down one of Maggie’s cheeks. “It’s going to be so quiet around here when you leave. Nothing will be the same. There’s going to be a giant hole in my heart. I know because I’m already feeling it and you haven’t even left yet.” She looked up at Anne. “I’ve grown to love you…all of you.”

“I love you too, Maggie.” Anne knelt beside her and allowed herself to be wrapped in Maggie’s comforting embrace.

Immediately she was transported back to an instance with her mother, many years ago. She’d arrived home from school with her feelings hurt about something or another and Mama had wrapped her in her arms, just like Maggie was doing now.

The same sense of peace swept over Anne. She rose, knowing in her heart of hearts that everything would work out. If God could stop a train in Groom, Texas, to introduce her to the love of her life, He could certainly give her a sense of direction about what was coming next.

“Would you like some help around the house this morning, Maggie?” Anne asked. “It’s the least I can do.”

“Not just yet, honey,” Maggie said. “My feet are still aching from all the work we did over the weekend. I think I might actually sit on the sofa for a while and read the paper. Why don’t you go out for a walk? Check on Frances, if you will. She’s due to deliver any day now.”

“I’ll do that.” Anne walked outside, pausing as the fresh aroma of newly cut hay greeted her. Off in the distance, John and the other brothers were baling hay. She watched the process for a moment and then went to check on Frances. She found her in the stall, looking uneasy.

“Won’t be long now, girl,” Anne said. She stroked the horse’s side, noticing at once the tightening there. “Not long at all.” Anne waited a couple more minutes and then left the barn, heading back for the house. She’d almost reached the porch when Jake pulled up in the truck. He took one look at her and sprang from it, rushing her way.

For whatever reason, the tears started again the moment she saw him. And try as she might, she couldn’t seem to keep them away.

“Anne?” Jake looked concerned as he approached. “Are you all right?”

She didn’t even try to hide her tears. What would be the point in hiding her feelings now? “Oh, Jake.”

He pulled her into his arms. “Shh, now. No tears. Not today.”

“How can we possibly make this work?” Anne asked. “Dallas is several hours from here, and I don’t know that Uncle Bertrand would approve of me taking the train back and forth.” She paced back and forth, finally turning to him once more. “And the girls… I just don’t know that I could leave them to come and go. It would be so hard on them. They’ve lost so much already. Their parents… their home…everything they held dear. I’d hate to see them hurt again.”

Jake brushed a hair out of her face. “I would never expect you to come back and forth without your sisters.” He paused. “But, Anne, this doesn’t have to be as complicated as all that. If you’ll just—”

“I don’t see any other way. Yes, Uncle Bertrand has softened. That much is apparent. I daresay he’s smitten, both with your mother and this town. But even with that…”

“Anne.”

“I honestly don’t know, Jake. I’ve thought about it from every angle, but—”

“Anne.”

“Even if I have my uncle’s permission to court you, nothing will be the same once I leave.” She paused, finally noticing the hopeful glimmer in his eyes.

“That’s the very thing I want to talk to you about,” he said. “Now, if you don’t mind, I have a little something I’d like to say.”

Jake felt his excitement grow as he faced Anne. Inside he quivered, but on the outside he managed to hold it together. “I’ve come up with a plan.”

“Are you thinking about making trips to Dallas, then?”

“Anne, I really think that—”

“Because I honestly don’t know if my heart could handle it if I don’t see you every single day. This whole thing is just too much to take. Too much to think about.”

“Then do me a favor and stop thinking.”

“W–what?” She looked perplexed.

He paused, mortified by the words he’d just spoken. “I’m sorry. Didn’t mean that quite the way it sounded. And if I ever picked a good time to say the wrong thing, it was now. Figures.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, I have the answer to the problem. It’s been the right answer all along, and the only one that makes sense. You’re not going anywhere and neither am I.”

“I’m not?”

“No.” He pulled her close and whispered, “Don’t you see? The reason the Lord brought you here wasn’t for a temporary visit. And it wasn’t so that I could trek back and forth to Dallas. I have no desire to go to Dallas. Never have.”

“But…”

“Who was it that once told me the only buts were the ones left behind after a fella finished a good cigar?”

She sighed. “Me. But you’re not a smoker.”

Emily let out a whistle from the front porch. As they turned to face her, she waved. “Papa used to smoke cigars. Tell him, Anne.”

Jake shook his head. “Anne, you’re not listening to me. We can stop all of this right here and now and just do the most obvious thing.”

“O–oh?”

He knelt and took her by the hand. Emily and Kate began to whoop and holler from the front porch. Anne looked as if she might faint.

“Maggie!” Emily let out an ear-piercing squeal and then yelled, “Maggie, get out here! He’s doing it! He’s proposing!”

Anne’s eyes grew wide. She looked at Jake and whispered, “Is that what you’re doing?”

He nodded and gave her a little wink.

“Oh my goodness.”

“Please wait just a minute, Jake,” Emily called out from the porch. “I want to get my writing tablet so I can take notes. And Maggie’s on her way. I can hear her.”

“Hurry, if you please,” Jake said, shifting to the other knee. “I can’t stay in this position forever.”

His mother came out to the porch, wiping flour-covered hands on her apron. “What’s all the fuss about out here?” She took one look at her son on bent knee and immediately began to weep. “Praise the Lord and pass the potatoes. He’s really done it!”

“Not yet,” Jake called out. “But I’m trying to.”

“Well, don’t let me stop you. I’ll just sit right here and watch.” She waved a hand then took a seat on the swing and pulled Kate next to her.

Emily returned to the porch that same moment with her pad in hand. She began to scribble. “Okay, start over. Say it all again.”

“Oh, for pity’s sake.” Anne slapped herself in the head with her one free hand.

“Have you got a ring?” his mother called out.

Jake shook his head. “No. Didn’t think that far ahead.”

“Hold that thought. I’ll be right back with your great-grandma’s opal ring.” She looked at Anne. “Will that work for you, honey?”

Anne nodded and gave him a little wink, which sent his heart sailing straight to the clouds.

Seconds later his mother came rushing across the yard with the ring in hand. “Could stand a bit of cleaning, but we’ll take care of that later.” She passed it to him then went back to the porch.

Jake looked into Anne’s eyes, doing his best to keep the focus on the two of them and not their audience. His hand trembled in hers. “I would be honored if you would do me the great honor of becoming my wife.”

“I would have posed it as a question,” Emily called out. “Don’t you want to give her the option of saying yes or no?”

Jake groaned as he turned to Emily. “Give me a chance. I’m not done yet.” He gazed into Anne’s eyes, and for a moment he was reminded of the first time he’d laid eyes on her, when she was wearing that beautiful lavender dress. She had looked like a princess then. The past ten days had proven that she actually was one. In every conceivable way, she was his Guinevere…a stranger from a foreign land who had been dropped from heaven into his world.

“Annie, I hope you don’t think this is too impulsive. I assure you, it is not. I’ve given it a great deal of thought and even more prayer.”

“Prayer is the solution,” his mother called out. “It’s the only answer for the problems we face in life.”

Jake sighed. The only problem he happened to be facing at the moment was the obvious one. If things kept going the way they were now, he might never get this out.

“I’ve been praying,” Anne whispered. She gave his hand a squeeze.

“Me too.” He spoke the words, his heart fully alive. “Will you marry me, Anne? Will you live at O’Farrell’s Honor in the house I plan to build right over there?” He pointed to the east field.

“You always said you wanted the field west of Joseph’s place when you got married,” his mother corrected him.

“The west field,” he echoed. “Will you? Because if you don’t, I’m pretty sure we’re going to be written up in that book of Emily’s as evil villains. And I’m really, really sure my brothers are never going to let me forget it.”

“No doubt.” Anne giggled.

“Say yes, Annie!” Emily called out.

Anne’s hands trembled in his. She turned to face her sister. “Emily, if you don’t mind, I would like to answer this one myself.”

“All right, all right,” Emily huffed.

Anne turned to face Jake and, with tears streaming down her face, whispered her response to his question. “I can’t think of anything I would love more.”

With joy flooding his soul, Jake slipped his great-grandmother’s opal ring on Anne’s finger and rose to kiss her. Though he couldn’t be certain—what with his eyes closed and all—Jake was pretty sure his mother and the girls did a little celebratory dance on the porch. He only wished his father could have been there to join them.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Hoping for a career as a door-to-door salesman? Wishing you owned a mercantile? Interested in carpentry work, or do you have a hankerin’ to work for the railroad? Are you ready to take on a slew of children in a classroom? Considering life behind the pulpit? There are jobs aplenty in the Texas Panhandle. No matter which occupation you choose, the Panhandle is the perfect place to begin a new career. Here in Texas’s far north corner, we’ve got both the inner zeal and the encouragement of our friends and neighbors. What more do you need to succeed? —
“Tex” Morgan, reporting for the
Panhandle Primer

After Jake’s proposal, Anne’s hands trembled so hard that she could barely see the ring. “I…I…”

“It’s all right,” Jake whispered in her ear. “You don’t need to say anything.”

“Oh, but I do. This is all too…perfect.”

“Yes.” He paused and gazed into her eyes. “It’s the right thing to do, Annie.”

She nodded, unable to think of one intelligent thing to say. Then Anne gestured for her sisters and Maggie to join them in the yard, and before long they were all in a tearful embrace.

“I don’t believe it.” Maggie dabbed her eyes. “Jake, you really caught me off guard. This is the best news ever.”

“Do you know what I think?” Jake turned to face them. “None of this was a coincidence—the track being out, you girls choosing not to go to the hotel with the others, ending up at O’Farrell’s Honor…. God has arranged every step of this. How can we ignore the obvious? The Lord couldn’t have made it any plainer if He’d written it down for us to read.”

“I wrote it down,” Emily said. “Every word. And now my story’s coming true!”

Anne slipped her arm around Jake’s waist. “And I’m so glad… about all of it. Living here in Groom is going to be a chance for all of us to start over.” She’d no sooner gotten the words out than she clamped a hand over her mouth. “Oh, Jake.”

“What?”

“Uncle Bertrand. You don’t suppose he’ll try to take the girls back to Dallas with him, do you?” She pulled Emily and Kate close.

“I don’t want to go, Annie.” Kate began to sniffle.

“I’ll bury him in the backyard if he tries to make us.” Emily crossed her arms at her chest. “I’ll do such a good job of it that no one will ever find his body.”