Patchwork Bride (6 page)

“As if I could be jealous of her.” Narcissa dropped her tone, so it wouldn’t carry to the crowd she had been with. “Lorenzo is as good as my beau. I don’t see him hanging around with your circle. Meredith isn’t so much.”

“If you can’t say anything nice, then maybe you shouldn’t say anything at all.” Fiona led the way up the stairs. “C’mon, Meredith.”

“Poor Lorenzo.” Meredith followed her friends, her shoes slipping on the icy step. She was aware of Narcissa’s glare, the quick glance up and then down at her
new hat, her elegant traveling coat and the new dress Mama had finished the other day with the ruffled and embellished hem finer than even Narcissa’s.

She had learned a lot of lessons living in this small town, ones she had never learned at finishing school where Mama had wanted her to turn out so fine. Clothes did not make the person, material possessions did not matter, certainly not in the way that God cared about. As she shrugged out of her wraps in the crowded vestibule, she was aware of each rustle of the green velveteen gown, every ivory button, every inch of imported French lace.

“This time she’s probably telling the truth,” Scarlet said as she hung up her practical brown coat. “You know, one of these days, she’s going to snare him.”

“Poor Lorenzo,” Fiona agreed, hanging up her old dove-gray coat with care. She smoothed the wrinkles from her plain gingham dress. “It’s important to be with someone kind you can trust to be good to you.”

“You would know all about that,” Scarlet answered, gathering up her book bag, adorable in her blue flannel plaid dress, trimmed with wooden buttons and matching ribbon. “Your wedding is three weeks away. Are you getting excited?”

“Nervous. Marriage is a big change. But I’m excited, too.” Fiona reached out, taking Meredith’s hand. “You are off in a daze again. Are you still worried about your homework?”

“I’m always worried about my schoolwork.” At least that was true, and a good way to avoid admitting her most cherished goal had not been on the forefront of her mind. Shane had.

Right now he was battling the road and weather conditions right along with Sweetie, his shoulders as unbowed as his spirit as he guided her on the long trip home. His work was harder because Papa would not let his girls be seen in the serviceable but plain sled with the right runners for this weather, a vehicle made for hauling hay to the animals.

I wish I were a simple country girl,
she thought, because then Shane would still like her and she would not feel as if she stuck out here, among her friends and the place she loved.

“Meredith.” Lila, keeping her voice low, opened her bag and pulled out a comb. She began to fluff at her sleek cinnamon-brown hair. “Love your dress. Is that the one your mother just finished?”

“No one can embroider like Mama.” She felt self-conscious of the fluffs and the flourishes and the rose embroidery in matching silk thread that adorned the bottom tier of the skirt. It was lovely, but it didn’t fit the image of the one-room schoolteacher she wished to be—the woman she wanted to be. She set her book bag on the desk, which she shared with Scarlet, and gestured toward the empty seat where the rest of their friends should be. “I guess both Kate and Earlee are having trouble making it.”

“Kate has a long way to travel on worse roads,” Scarlet agreed. “I notice none of Earlee’s sisters and brothers are here. They have to walk all the way in.”

“I wonder how Earlee is?” Lila asked, leaving unsaid what they were all thinking. Her lot in life was the hardest among them. If she was on the road right now
attempting to reach town, then perhaps she would be meeting Shane on the way.

Shane. Even the thought of him weighed on her.
It doesn’t matter what he thinks of you,
she told herself, but she knew that it was a lie.

It mattered, and much more than she could explain.

Meredith Worthington was a piece of work. Shane blinked hard against the snowflakes diving at his face and eyes, swiped them away with the cuff of his coat sleeve and tightened his trip on the trace. Not even the weather of the morning’s hardship could drive her from his mind.

The morning’s traffic to town had broken the crusted ice and churned up doughy mud that grabbed hold of his boots with every step. A mean wind sliced through his layered garments, cutting clean through to his bone marrow. A sky cold as steel and as light as snow made the world one ball of white, except for the mud tracking ahead of them.

Sweetie nickered and stopped in her traces, her harness jingling. The mare shook her head, snow flying off her mane, as she surveyed the road ahead. She remembered the exact spot and direction she had become stuck the day before. Nervous, she didn’t want to take another step forward. He patted her neck, hoping to give her comfort.

“You’re scared of that happening again, but I’m with you this time.” He kept confidence in his voice so the mare would hear it. “Trust me, girl.”

The mare nickered, leaning into his touch. Her
brown eyes and curled lashes searched his, tentative and worried. She must have been frightened, held captive by the buggy she could not budge. She was trying to let him know it.

“We’ll keep to high ground as best we can,” he promised, putting all his understanding in his voice and gentle pressure on the bridle, waiting until she was ready before he whistled and led her through the muck. Snow crunched beneath one boot as he took to the shoulder, eyed a deep ditch, and felt thick mud ooze beneath his tread. Sweetie quivered with nerves as she picked up her pace, half in a panic as she clamored and slipped in the icy and slick mixture.

“That’s a good girl,” he praised, stepping fast to keep up with her. Something grabbed hold of his toe and with a sucking sound, his boot slipped right off. His stockinged foot squished in the freezing muck.

“Whoa,” he called out, holding on, ignoring the stunning cold of his exposed toes as each step he took made his sock wetter and icier.

Great. Just what he needed. Once he had the mare safe on firmer ground, he set the buggy’s brake and splashed back to tug his boot free. Bending over, vulnerable in the road, awareness snaked down the back of his neck. Unarmed and defenseless, he whirled in the road, sensing he was no longer alone.

“T
hat almost happened to me!” A little boy who couldn’t be more than six or seven broke through the veil of white. A knit blue cap crowned his head and matching mittens covered his hands, where he held on to a small bundle wrapped against the weather—schoolbooks, Shane guessed. The family was on their way to school. The boy skidded to a stop in the mud. “What are you gonna do about your sock, mister?”

“Probably take it off before I put my foot in my boot.” He liked kids, and this one with a single tooth missing and a dimple in his chin looked as likable as can be. “You’re mighty late for school.”

“We all are.”

We? Shane glanced as far as the snowfall would allow. Sweetie nickered, sensing what he could not see. A few seconds later shadows began to appear in the whiteness. A row of children stair-stepped year by year, a family of nine brothers and sisters, mostly sisters.

“Well, gotta go.” The boy grinned up at him, wiggled a tooth with his tongue that was getting loose
and plunged ahead into the mud, choosing the deepest puddle to wade through with more splashes than a rampaging buffalo could make.

“Edward! How many times do I have to tell you?” A slightly amused voice rose above the whispering wind and tapping snowflakes. “Stay out of the mud.”

“But I couldn’t help it, Earlee!” The little guy called over his shoulder as he splashed along, not repentant in the least. The storm closed around him until he was a shadow and then nothing at all.

“Pardon us, please,” a young lady, tall and willowy, halted next to him. Other children said a simple country howdy as they passed. The oldest one of the bunch squinted at him carefully. Blond curls peeked out from beneath her knit cap. “That’s Meredith’s family’s horse and buggy. You must be Eli’s replacement.”

“Lucky me.” He didn’t believe in luck, he believed in the Lord, but it was the only comeback he could think of. Eli was the fortunate one, blessed enough to be well away from Meredith Worthington.

“I’m Earlee Mills, one of Meredith’s friends. You aren’t from around here, are you?” She knocked a thick pile of snow off her hat and curly bangs, studying him with clear gray eyes.

“Nope.” He took a step back, boot in hand, sizing up this friend of Meredith.

She was obviously no debutante, he decided, noticing the old wool coat fraying at the hem and the simple calico dress, unadorned by any lace or ribbon beneath the coat’s snowy hem. Although mud obscured most of her shoes, what he could see of them looked worn and aged, as if those shoes had been handed down more
than once, as did the cap and mittens she wore, the red yarn fading in places.

“I don’t suppose it’s a good sign that you have Sweetie. Meredith’s first day of driving must not have turned out too well.” The other children had disappeared, but this young lady lingered, concern wreathing her oval face. “Oh, dear. Poor Meredith. Driving meant so much to her.”

“So I’ve heard.” This was Meredith’s friend? Something didn’t add up. Wouldn’t Miss Hoity-Toity want a more socially prominent friend? “You must live just up the road?”

“Quite a ways. Our farm is almost a mile beyond Meredith’s.”

“That’s quite a way.” A farm? No doubt about it, this was a country girl, unlike Meredith of the sad eyes and sharp retorts. “But you are friends?”

“Of course.” She took a step away from him. “Why wouldn’t we be?”

“No reason. Just fact-gathering.” He looked down at the muddy boot he held. “Meredith is an interesting character, isn’t she?”

“Interesting? She’s fantastic.” She glanced over her shoulder. Her brothers and sisters were out of sight, but she felt the pull of responsibility. She didn’t have time to figure out this stranger. “I didn’t catch your name.”

“Connelly. But I doubt Miss Meredith will use my Christian name if she talks about me.”

“Why not?”

“She’s a tad angry with me, although I don’t know why,” he confessed.

Was that a twinkle in those dazzling blue eyes?
Something glinted deep in the iris, beyond flesh and all the way to the spirit. He was a charmer, and if she wasn’t mistaken, he held a spark for Meredith.

There I go, weaving stories again.
She took a step backward, slogging through the sludge. She was given to tales of romance and fancy. Her mind had always been prone to it. But she had not imagined the hint of warmth when this Connelly character had spoken her friend’s name. A warmth and a reserve, a strange combination. She would have to get the full tale from Meredith at a later time.

“I’m late, so I had better go. It was nice meeting you, Mr. Connelly.” She lifted a hand in farewell, the snow already closing around her. Aside from the echoing pattering footsteps of her siblings on the road ahead, she could have been alone as she walked on, cocooned by the storm. Perhaps that was why her thoughts turned to the letter in her pocket, the one she hoped to post after school. Although it was only two pages of parchment, it weighed down her pocket and the corners of her heart as if it were two hundred.

This was the consequence of harboring a secret crush. No one, not even her circle of best friends, knew she had started corresponding with a man. Last February a letter had come to her family addressed to her cousin, who was no longer living with them. Since she did not know where Euen had moved on to, she returned the letter with a note of her own to the sender, Finn McKaslin.

Even thinking his name sent little tingles of life through her soul. He was twenty-one to her eighteen, and she well remembered him from the days when he’d attended Angel Falls’s public school and all the times
she spotted him around town. Folks called him trouble and he was surely that, but she could see the pain in him, the heart and the tenderness. He was capable of so much, and she believed a great goodness lived inside the man. In spite of his mistakes, she cared.

While Finn had met a sad end, he had once been funny and full of life. Handsome didn’t begin to describe him. With his midnight-blue eyes, thick dark brown hair and his strong frame,
magnificent
would be a more fitting word to describe him.
Superb
would do nicely, too. Even
extraordinary.

The letter in her pocket felt heavier, and Earlee supposed she could not hide the truth from herself.
And certainly not from You, Lord.
She was ignoring one teeny-eensy fact. Finn was currently incarcerated in the territorial jail over in Deer Lodge. He had responded to her letter, he’d written her in return, asking for news of the town. She had written to him with friendliness only, but she couldn’t deny that in her soul, in places she did not dare look, were buried tiny seeds of hope for more.

“Earlee!” Her sister Beatrice called, her annoyance echoing through the storm. “Hurry up! We’re late enough. Don’t make it worse.”

“Coming.” She strode out, walking faster, forcing her thoughts to the school day ahead and the arithmetic lesson she was likely missing. Her friends would already be warm and tucked into their seats at school. Her steps lightened simply thinking of them.

If only she could get him out of her mind, then she could do a better job at her schoolwork. Frustrated,
Meredith blew a curl out of her eyes and stared at her slate, wishing she could make sense of the scribbles of the vocabulary words she was supposed to be learning. Too bad the letters were incomprehensible squiggles and lines her brain did not want to decipher. And why?

Because Shane Connelly would not vacate her brain.

I could never like a man like him,
she told herself. Why couldn’t she feel this way toward Lorenzo Davis? It would give Mama fits of bliss. She peered through her lashes across the desk, past Scarlet bent over her vocabulary list to the handsome young man who her mother had deemed the most acceptable boy in town. The Davis family had come from Connecticut and a respectable banking fortune, and since Papa owned the bank in Angel Falls, Mama had blessed the match.

The only problem was, Lorenzo, as cute as he was, had never turned her head, not seriously, and she had never done the same for him. No, if he had eyes for anyone, it was Fiona, but as she was marrying someone else, he was likely to be single for a long while.

Someone bumped her elbow, startling her out of her reverie. Had she been staring at Lorenzo? She hadn’t meant to. She noticed Scarlet inching her slate closer on their shared desk. A note was written there.

Lorenzo?
Scarlet winked, and the sparkle in her eyes put a nuance to the word.

No,
Meredith wrote on her slate. She was not sweet on the poor guy.

The horse driver guy?
Scarlet scribbled.

“Class, your attention please.” Miss Lambert stood to
ring her handbell. “It is three-thirty. You are dismissed for the day.”

Shoes thundered against the floorboards as several dozen students flew out of their desks, talking all at once. Meredith grabbed her book bag and shoved her slate into it. She moved fast, but she already knew it would be nearly impossible to evade Scarlet’s curiosity. Or Earlee, who had mentioned meeting Shane on the road this morning when they had been eating lunch.

Just because she had managed to change the subject at the time did not mean she was free from questions about the man. As much as she loved her dear friends, they had one-track minds when it came to boys. How long she could delay having to mention anything more about the horse driver guy was anyone’s guess. She grabbed her last book and launched out of the desk.

“Minnie!” She spotted her sister in the crowded vestibule where the girl was chattering away with her friend Maisie. “I’ve got to run up to Lawson’s. Tell Connelly to come fetch me there.”

“Why don’t you do it yourself?” Minnie tugged on her mittens. She beamed adoration for the horseman. “He’s so nice. I’m sure he will. He’s right outside waiting for us.”

“You have him take Maisie home first.” That ought to keep him busy for a while and delay having to face him. “Then you can swing by the mercantile.”

“I’m surprised you aren’t rushing out to meet the guy. Talk about handsome. Wow.” Earlee sidled up to her, coats in hand. “Here, I fetched yours, too.”

“Thanks, Earlee.” Resigned, she accepted the garment and slipped into it, making her way toward the
door. A glance over her shoulder told her that the rest of the gang wasn’t far behind. “I’m going to pick out more material for my quilt. I’ve changed my mind about the border fabric.”

“Hey, I can come with you. I’ve got an errand at the post office.” When Earlee smiled, the whole world shone. “Besides, I have to come lend a hand. You know how I love looking at all the fabric.”

“You and me both.” Snow pelted her face as she tugged up her hood. The steps were slick beneath her shoes as she trudged down to the yard along with a long line of students. Kids ran off screaming and laughing, snowballs filled the air and a long parade of horses, vehicles and waiting parents lined the road. Judging by the tap-tapping of her pulse, Shane Connelly had to be close.

Best just to keep walking and not look to the left or right. Straight ahead, that way she could ignore him. She didn’t have to remember how she’d acted this morning as long as she didn’t have to see his face.

“The horse driver guy is amazingly gorgeous,” Scarlet said. “He’s waving at you, Meredith.”

“So? It’s my plan to ignore him.” Forever, if she could get away with it.

“Why?” Lila fell in stride beside her. “He looks nice. Not as handsome as Lorenzo, but who is?”

“I suppose that’s in the eye of the beholder.” Fiona joined the group, pulling on her mittens as she waded through the snow. “I happen to think my Ian is the most handsome of all.”

“True love will do that to a girl,” Earlee commented with a dramatic sigh.

“Do what? Make her blind?” The words were out before Meredith could stop them, sarcastic and cynical even for her. What was the matter with her today?

There was only one answer. Shane Connelly. He was what had happened to her, stirring her up, twisting her inside out, making her sound like her mother. She could feel his pull like gravity tugging against her, and she set her chin, refusing to look at him. Did it stop her from wondering about him?

No. What was he thinking as she marched past? Was he glad she kept going?

“Meredith.” Lila laughed. “What has happened to you? You’ve gotten cynical.”

“Unrequited love can do that to a girl,” Scarlet answered before Meredith could.

“It’s not unrequited love.” Honestly. Where had Scarlet gotten such an idea? “For your information, Shane Connelly isn’t the slightest bit interested in me.”

“He sure has eyes for no one else,” Earlee commented with a sigh. “Look at the way he watches you. I could pen a story about this, with love triumphant and a happy ending.”

“Love triumphant?” Her shoe slipped in the snow, sending her off balance. She caught herself and remained upright, although she felt as if she were falling as she turned to catch a glimpse of the man.

Across the expanse of snow and distance, she spotted him standing tall and regal, the wind tousling his dark locks and whipping the hem of his coat. His gaze hooked hers, shrinking the distance, silencing the noise, arrowing straight to her soul. She felt touched, impossible from such a great distance, but she could not halt
the sensation. She felt exposed in places she never knew existed within her, the corners of her heart, the rooms of her soul.

“I think we have another romance on our hands,” Lila announced, hands clasped with glee.

“And another wedding to sew for,” Fiona added with a happy lilt, as if she were smiling all the way to her soul. “Who would have thought Meredith would be the next of us to marry?”

“I’m not marrying anyone.” Really. She was a practical woman these days and she would prove it, if only she could pull away from Shane’s gaze, from the sight of him offering his hand to her little sister and helping her onto the backseat. Minnie chatted with him a moment, and try as she might she could not rip her attention away. Through the tumbling flakes and the span of the road, she felt close to him and the sight of his smile traveled through her like music and hope.