Sixteen Brides (31 page)

Day snarled, but he stayed put. His eyes roamed the room, landing on Caroline and making her shudder. Sally reached for her hand. She took it, but found herself wishing it was Matthew’s. When she looked his way, he was watching her. She couldn’t interpret his expression exactly, but she felt better all the same.

Will didn’t know what the courts would decide, but he and another armed citizen were going to take Lowell Day and Charlie Obermeyer to the nearest jail a day’s ride to the east. “My guess is neither one of ’em will see the light of day for a good while to come” was all he could say.

Caroline wasn’t convinced that Will’s assurances were quite enough to remedy her nerves and her nightmares. But then Zita said something profound. Not that Zita realized it was profound. That was the way with her. As they all watched the wagon taking the criminals to jail disappear into the distance, the little woman said, “Let’s see if we can get Martha to make fresh coffee. There’s no reason to give those two snakes any more power over our days than they’ve already had.” She looked up at the blue sky and, taking a deep breath, said, “It is
such
a beautiful day.”

Caroline thought about that for a very long time. It seemed like just another instance of Zita being cute and clever, but Caroline finally decided there was real wisdom behind it. After all, if a body let people from the past ruin today, didn’t it do just what Zita said—give snakes more power than they deserved? In a sense, it let them win. Caroline thought back to the old man—her very own father-in-law—scratching at her bedroom door. To Lowell Day’s hands groping her body in the barn. She would always shudder at the bad memories, but even as she acknowledged that truth, she was deciding that Caroline Jamison’s life was not something to be handed over to men like that—that every moment she let them run through her memories was a moment she could have been enjoying life.

Starting right now, she was going to do everything she could to stop giving evil men from her past power over her present. As she sipped coffee with her friends, Caroline managed a smile.

“Mama, I’ve told you this before. Hanging pictures on the walls doesn’t turn a barn into a fancy parlor.” Ella reached up to pull the red ribbon out of her hair. “I don’t really even want to go. After what Jeb said they’re saying about us in town—”

Jeb and Matthew had been camped at Four Corners for the better part of the past week while they dug the fruit cellar. Jeb was trying to talk the ladies into a spring house, too. He had ideas for somehow making a spring house water the garden, and while Ella was intrigued by the man’s ingenuity, she couldn’t help but wonder what Elizabeth Jorgenson would think if she knew the man she wrote to every single week was spending more time helping women homesteaders than he was preparing his own place to welcome a wife. And surely that was Jeb’s intention. Why else would a man be reading love poems like the ones in that book they’d delivered to his door?

“You leave that be!” Mama said, and slapped her hand away. “It’s a
dance
, Ella. All the ladies will dress up.” She twirled about in her new skirt. “It’s what women do.”

Ella caught a glimpse of Caroline and Sally just now coming through their door into the main room. Caroline was wearing her gold silk dress—complete with parasol. The matching hat shimmered against her dark curls. Sally looked like a redheaded blue bird in her dress as she waltzed across the floor. “I’m gonna dance that cowboy’s boots off tonight!” She stopped in midstep and peered at Ruth. “No offense, but do you
have
to wear black? It’s a celebration, not a funeral.”

“It’s my best dress.” Ruth sounded offended.

“More’s the pity.” Sally shook her head. “I’m sorry, Ruth, but don’t you think part of starting fresh out here might include putting off widow’s weeds? Seems to me it’d be a nice surprise for Jackson when he rides in with them cowboys tonight. Why, it’d do him a world of good to see his mama celebratin’ his homecoming that way.”

Caroline had retreated into her bedroom while Sally was speaking. She reappeared in the doorway holding up a lavender-and-white-striped dress. “What about this?”

“It’s lovely,” Ruth agreed, “but it won’t fit.”

“Might be I could make it fit.” Sally reached for the dress. “You’re about the same height.”

“There is no corset in the universe that will draw my waist up to match hers.” Ruth pointed at Caroline.

“There’s darts I can take out. It won’t take but a minute.” Sally was already opening her sewing basket and drawing out a tiny pair of scissors. “Be right back. I want the morning light.” She stepped outside.

“You’ll have to wear it now.” Caroline smiled. “You don’t want to hurt Sally’s feelings.”

“I don’t have a bonnet,” Ruth protested. “I’ll look ridiculous in a lavender-and-white dress with a black bonnet.”

Caroline disappeared back into her room and returned with a matching bonnet. “Any more excuses?”

Sally came back inside and handed Ruth the dress. “No darts. Try it on.”

Matthew ran his hand along the edge of the notched piece of lumber. He’d hurried to give Martha what she wanted, but he wasn’t happy with the results. Standing up to stretch, Matthew added the last board to the pile in his wagon and drove up to the mercantile to begin assembling the portable dance floor that Martha expected to be the talk of Plum Grove. It would take him and Will the better part of an hour to lay it out, and that was just the beginning. Martha wanted an arbor and a row of lanterns so the dancing could go on half the night if folks stayed. She expected they would.

Plum Grove’s Main Street was no longer inhabited by jackrabbits and the occasional human. The grassy expanse had begun to give way to wagon ruts and a steady stream of wagons, buggies, and riders. On most days the air was filled with the sounds of hammers and saws as more buildings sprung up along Main, which was looking more like a real street every day. The town even smelled different. It used to be a man could step outside the mercantile and breathe in the pure air of unpopulated prairie. Now the air was just as likely to smell of grease from the dining hall kitchen—or manure.

Plum Grove wasn’t the only thing changing. As he and Will laid out the dance floor and then raised the standards and created the arbor, Matthew enjoyed having people stop and admire his handiwork. He’d stopped wanting to avoid people. In fact, he liked visiting.

He wouldn’t linger in the shadows tonight and grit his teeth and think of dancing with Linney as a debt he must pay. Tonight he would delight in Linea Delight Ransom. He smiled at the thought. Delight had been Katie’s maiden name, but Matthew liked the other meaning, too. He did delight in his daughter. And while “delight” was probably too strong for his improved outlook on life at the moment, who knew but that the future might just hold other “delights,” as well.

He wondered what Caroline would wear tonight. And what it would be like to dance with her. Guiding her around the dance floor and smiling down into those dark eyes of hers just might be another . . . delight. The thought stopped him in midstep as he carried a piece of lumber from wagon to dance floor. Not because of guilt. But because there wasn’t any.

Of course, no one asked
her
to dance. Ella pretended she didn’t care. Seated next to Mama up here on the boardwalk in front of Haywood Mercantile, she had a grand view of everything. She and Mama clapped their hands to the music as Bill Toady led the new musicians in reels and waltzes and jigs until the dancers were out of breath and begging for a break. The accordion player began a slow dance.

Linney and Martha were serving up a white cake so light someone quipped that they’d better hold it down lest it fly away. Ella stood up. “I’ll get you some cake, Mama. And coffee?”

“I can get my own.” Mama hopped up. Suddenly she leaned close. “There he is!” She pointed up the street to where Jeb Cooper had just come out of the livery. Reaching into her bag, she brought out a tiny perfume bottle, and before Ella knew what hit her, she’d been sprinkled with lavender water.

“Mama!” she scolded and waved her hands in the air. “Put that away.”

Zita made a show of lifting her own chin, touching first here, then there with the tiny glass applicator before she tucked the little bottle back into her bag. “I’m going to see if Martha needs any help,” she said, and gave Ella a little shove in the direction of Jeb Cooper.

Ella went for cake and ended up in a line that brought her face-to-face with Jeb as he stepped up behind her.

“Evening,” he said. He glanced toward the front of the line. “Good cake?”

“So I hear.”

“And coffee?”

“Yes.” T he little woman in front of Ella glanced back . . . and up . . . and looked away quickly.

Ella reached up to feel the red bow in her hair. She should never have worn this thing. It looked ridiculous. The woman in front of her was likely trying not to laugh. She spoke to Jeb. “I’m getting some for Mama. And me. We’re sitting over there by the mercantile. Mr. Toady made an announcement earlier. He wants to start a town band.”

“That’s a wonderful idea.”

“Do you play music as well as you sing?”

Jeb shook his head.

“Do you dance?”
Oh, Lord, just open up the earth and swallow me now. It sounds like I’m asking him to dance.

Jeb bobbed his head from side to side. Noncommittal. He shrugged. “Only when I have to. Weddings and such.”

Ah. Weddings.
Of course he would be thinking of weddings these days. She gulped. “Well, have a nice evening, Mr. Cooper.”

Jeb grinned. “You too, Mrs. Barton.” He dropped out of line and went to speak with Matthew Ransom.

“That’s a bear of a man,” the little lady in front of her said.

“Who? Jeb? Oh yes,” Ella stammered. “I suppose so.”

“Is he a friend of yours?”

“Oh no . . . no.” Ella shook her head. “Mr. Cooper was part of the crew who helped when my friends and I built our house.”

The woman’s eyes grew large. “You’re one of those women from Four Crosses, aren’t you?”

“Four
Corners
.”

“Yes, that’s it. And you brought those cattle rustlers into town tied to your kitchen chairs.” The woman beamed. “Please. Tell me your name.”

“Ella. Ella Barton.”

“Mrs. Barton . . . you’re my hero.”

And so the evening went. The conversation kept flowing. The music was lively. All in all, everything was just grand. Ella remained on her boardwalk perch with Mama and observed the festivities. She saw Sally waltz with Pete Mills, and Ruth dance with Jackson, who’d ridden in with the cowboys from the Graystone Ranch and looked more grown-up than ever. Matthew guided Caroline out onto the floor, and they were so beautiful together they made Mama sigh. Husbands and wives, friends and neighbors laughed and clapped and enjoyed life under the prairie sky.

The sun set; the stars came out. The dining hall served a buffet supper, and the mercantile did a brisk business. And all the while, Ella smiled and joked and pretended she didn’t mind that Jeb Cooper was essentially ignoring her.

What made it even worse was that Jeb did dance. With Mavis Morris, of all people. He was terrible at it, but somehow Mavis had gotten him out there on the dance floor. He stumbled and lost count and finally gave up, just when Ella was about to slip around back and wait in the buggy.