Bride Blunder (17 page)

Amos Geer didn't consider himself a coward. Far from it. When trouble reared its head, he faced it. When his family needed something, he set out to get it. When tragedy struck, he called on the Lord and plowed ahead until he overcame the challenge or learned enough from it to make it worth the trial.

But for the first time since Pa's death, Amos found himself tempted to avoid something, ignore the warnings clanging in his mind. Wish it away, or at the very least, borrow an ostrich's trick of burying his head in the sand until trouble passed on.

I could do it, Jesus. I could set my feet to walking, take Midge to the mill, and leave the questions knocking on the back of my brain right here on the road. All it would take is not asking anything more. Not taking the chance that I'll hear what seems most likely, given everything Midge tells me so far.

Only problem was he couldn't. Lead might as well coat his feet for all they moved. It certainly felt as though something that thick and heavy clogged his chest, strangling the contentment he'd enjoyed the past week as his courtship progressed.

You don't give us a heart of fear, Lord. But then again, You haven't given me the wife I desire either.

He looked at her, reading the obstinance and impatience dotting her thoughts as clearly as those pert little freckles sprinkled her nose and cheeks.
I assumed she belonged to You.

Please, please don't let me be wrong this time, Lord.

“Well?” She huffed the word out. Midge obviously didn't want to speak about the important things any more than he did. Most likely, they both knew where such a conversation would lead.

Can it be that my prickly little Midglet doesn't want to divide us any more than I do?

Some of the weight eased from his chest, though not much. “Let Marge handle her visitor as she sees fit. This is more important.” He walked her over toward a bench outside the church.

“What is?” The closer they came to the church, the heavier her steps became. “Amos?” Fear didn't color her voice, but hesitance shaded each syllable, telling him as clearly as if she'd shouted it that she didn't want this conversation.

He sat her down on the bench, noticing she sank onto it as though relieved.
Relieved I didn't take her inside the church?
His suspicions solidified more with each passing moment, coagulating into a clot of foreboding.

The way she fidgeted through every sermon—even more restless than usual. Her constant moodiness on Sundays. The way he'd never heard her refer to God, never seen her volunteer to pray, never spotted her with Bible in hand. Everything pointed to the one thing he'd never thought to see, never thought to look for in a woman raised by such an obviously religious family.
But the Reeds didn't raise Midge, they adopted her.

“You're right.” Amos didn't sit beside her, instead standing in front. He had two reasons for the posture—first, it kept her attention on him, making it overly difficult for her to hop up and rush away, and second, he knew good and well he couldn't sit calmly with his thoughts in such turmoil.

“Of course.” She raised a brow as though prompting him to continue. When he didn't, she sighed. “About what this time?”

“I was nosy when it came to learning everything I could about you. Whatever watching couldn't tell me, I tried to pry out of you. If that didn't work, asking others usually did.”

“No need to admit it. I already knew.”

“The thing of it is,” Amos continued, pacing a few steps away and back as he tried to best phrase what wore at his mind, “I never thought to investigate the most important aspect of your character. When it came down to the crucial matters, I made assumptions. Assumptions I'm starting to think were wrong.”

“Dangerous things—assumptions.” She reached up and fiddled with the battered locket she always wore. “I suppose now that you've spent time with me, you've found flaws in my character that lead you to believe I would make you a poor wife?”

“Dangerous things—assumptions.” He managed a small smile. “I've not unearthed any flaws to make me stop courting you, Midglet. But questions have risen to the surface, and I can't ignore them or pretend the answers won't matter.”

“If you've not found the flaws, you've not looked hard enough.” The slight movement of her jaw told him she ground her teeth in between sentences. “It's only a matter of time, so perhaps the wisest course of action would be to part ways now?”

“Fatalism is every bit as unattractive as hypocrisy.”

“Seems to me fate's never been pretty.” She stood, her nose almost touching his chin when he didn't step back. “So there's no reason for you to be surprised.”

He put a hand on her shoulder and pressed her back onto the bench. “Why don't you let me be the judge of that?”

“Me?” Daisy's squeak made Marge wince.

Well, if she felt like being completely fair, it wasn't so much the squeak as the reason for it. But Marge didn't feel like being fair.
Honestly, what's the point of it anymore? If I spend my time trying to give everyone else a fair shake, I'm the only one who winds up exhausted and with nothing to show for it. In the end, being fair doesn't end up fair at all!

“Yes, you.” Since Gavin seemed to have decided not to say a word, Marge confirmed the awful truth.

Awful to her, at least. Not so awful for Daisy, whose charmed life showed no signs of slowing down. Lose a fiancé, come to visit her cousin, find one she didn't even know she had....

I wonder what it must be like to have so many options.
A rueful little bubble of laughter swelled up, but Marge didn't let it out. If she let out any emotion, everything might come pouring forth in one massive flood.

“But I had already accepted Trouston's proposal!” Daisy protested as though tacking on some facts could possibly change others. “You couldn't mean to propose to an engaged woman.”

“I didn't know you'd accepted another proposal.” Gavin's annoyance came through loud and clear. In fact, even though he didn't roll his eyes, Marge could see his resisting the impulse.

She almost didn't blame him. At least, she wouldn't blame him if the entire wretched mess wasn't
all his fault!
Imagine proposing to a woman using a name she shared with another single woman in the same household and expecting the occupants to read his mind as to which woman he wanted.

Except I did know which woman he wanted. From the very start.
That pesky propensity toward fairness wouldn't leave well enough alone.
As a matter of fact, Daisy thought the same thing. Why else would she tear apart her desk to unearth the list of wedding invites and make sure Gavin hadn't been writing to her? We both knew which cousin would be his first choice....

She closed her eyes, hoping to blot out the truth. Or, if not the truth, at least the appalled look on Daisy's face.

“Oh, Marge. I'm terribly sorry.” Her cousin's voice sounded ... defeated. “I'd so hoped one of us would find happiness with our fiancés. Instead, neither of us will be wed.”

“Let's not be overly hasty.” Gavin cleared his throat. “While you have my ... condolences ... that things didn't work out with Mr. Dillard, that by no means invalidates my engagement.”

“But ... we aren't engaged.” Daisy's blink might as well have been a hammer's blow to Marge's heart. “I never accepted you, Mr. Miller. Marge did. Mistakenly, but...”

“Mr. Miller's proposal wasn't mine to accept.”
Really, this conversation is worse than a Cheltenham tragedy—or a farce.

“Marge, we've discussed this.” Gavin sounded as though he scarcely held on to whatever thin layer remained of his patience. “I used your name, you accepted, I accepted your acceptance—no matter the technicalities of intent, you remain my fiancée.”

“We have discussed this.” She snapped out the words, refusing to pretend a calm she didn't even remotely feel. “Intent comprises far more than a technicality when it comes to a proposal. Daisy was your intended fiancée.”

“This is why you haven't married him?”

“Yes.” For once, she and Gavin had the same answer—at the same time.

“Yet you still offered to wed her, once it became clear what happened?” Daisy's mouth hung open in what, even to Daisy, classified as an unappealing manner. She probably realized it, because she closed her jaw after just a moment. “Why?”

That did it.
Even my cousin can't fathom why Gavin would make such a sacrificing gesture?
“Thank you.” She kept the irony from her response and straightened her shoulders, ignoring Daisy to look Gavin in the eye. “I've been wondering the same thing for weeks and am no closer to understanding it.”

His roar was immediate—and deafening. “Have you both gone daft? Do all women lack sense, or is it limited to those bearing the name Marguerite?”

“Well, we Ermintrudes happen to be renowned for our good sense.” She half stalked, half hobbled into their midst, making Marge wonder how she hadn't noticed the old woman's approach. “But on behalf of womankind, I'd say it's men who bellow insults at the two women to whom they've offered proposals who may just be lacking their wits.”

A spurt of laughter escaped Daisy, though she quickly stifled it. “I agree, and though it didn't seem to be the case, I meant to ask Marge why she refused to wed you. Now, of course, I needn't ask. You're not nearly so agreeable as I remember!”

“I presume that you, of course, are Daisy.” Ermintrude glanced from the newcomer to Marge as though looking for similarities. She'd find precious few, Marge knew.

“None other. I'm pleased to make your acquaintance, Mrs. Miller.” Daisy bobbed an informal curtsy. On the prairie. For the grandmother of the man who'd mistakenly proposed to her cousin. The same grandmother who now eyed her as though she were a prime candidate for Bedlam.

“Afraid I can't claim the same, missy. Your arrival throws a spoke in the works.” As usual, Ermintrude didn't stop to sweeten her thoughts with a coating of diplomacy. “My grandson made great strides with that one”—she poked her cane toward Marge—“until you showed up. Now that's all gone out the window.”

Somehow Marge managed to keep her expression impassive, while on the inside she vehemently agreed with the old woman who'd come to be her friend.
Absolutely. Now that Daisy's here, things can be rectified. Gavin will court the woman he always wanted, and I'll gracefully bow out and focus on teaching.

Never mind the streak of pain that came every time she imagined Gavin speaking the wedding vows to her cousin or the dull, throbbing ache that seemed to have taken up permanent residence in her chest. That would ease in time, as did the pain of every sort of loss. Yet there seemed to Marge an odd creaking from the vicinity of her heart as all three of them made their way toward the house.

It wasn't until after they'd given the coach driver something to eat and sent him on his way that Marge managed to identify what it was.

Pandora's box ... with Daisy here, even hope has left me behind.

“Why should I let you decide?” Midge sat down despite the defiance of her words.
Why wait for the inevitable?

“Because we don't always make the same decisions, you and I.” This time, he sat beside her, his knees angled toward hers in a silent display that he didn't intend to leave just yet. “You might like mine better.”

“I'm used to depending on myself.”
Which means I shouldn't like the fact you're still here. It shouldn't matter.

“Most people admire self-reliance.”

“Not you?” She raised a brow. “Strange, since you seem remarkably self-reliant and capable in most things you do.”

“Ah, but that's not true.” He leaned back, but somehow his shoulders filled even more space.

“I've watched for long enough to know.”

“Depending on yourself again? What you see and what you hear shapes everything you believe?” Amos held himself too still to be as comfortable as his stance indicated.

“What I see, hear, touch ... everything I experience. The things that happen around me, things people do to show who they are. I watch and listen and learn.” The more tension he exhibited, the more comfortable Midge felt. “And you do the same thing. It's part of why I avoided you for so long.”

“Afraid of what I'd see when I looked at you?” He pinned her with the question—asked in his words and his eyes.

“Not afraid.”
Uneasy, yes. Uncomfortable, yes. But afraid?
Midge Collins was no coward. “Just ... aware.”

Amos kept silent precisely long enough to make her wonder if she'd won that easily, only to come back with the last thing she'd expected. “Aware of me, but not aware enough to know what I truly rely on?”

It fell into place so swiftly Midge felt as though she should hear a
thud.
“God. You're going to say that you rely on God more than you rely on yourself. Am I right? Is that it?”

Of course it is. That's what all Christians say, even while they do all the day-to-day work of taking care of themselves and their loved ones. God doesn't do it, and they don't expect Him to. People see to the details of life. I do. Saul does. Amos does. The only difference lies in who gets the credit. I don't give mine away.

“Yes.”

This time, Midge let the silence spin out between them, deepening, widening until it became a heavy, noiseless gulf. An uncomfortable ocean she didn't have the means to cross, because she didn't share his belief in the benevolence of a God who let people suffer every day. Even good people who deserved better. Maybe even especially the good people who deserved better.

“What are you thinking?” Amos broke through the barrier she could not, for all the good it would do.

“You don't want to know.” Midge gave him the truth and waited for him to refute it, insisting that he wanted to hear whatever she preferred not to reveal.

“There's some truth to that. No one wants to know things that make someone special seem farther away.” Somehow his acknowledgement of what was happening helped bridge the gap.

Midge looked at him for a long moment. “Then don't ask.”

“I already did.”

“You already know the answer.”

“It's not the same as hearing it from you, Midge.” He seemed determined to make this as difficult as possible.

“Fine.” The fact she sounded like a petulant twelve-year-old gave her pause, so she modified her tone. “Fact of the matter is I don't believe in prayer because it's never worked for me, and I've seen it fail the people I care about. Logical people form theories based on observation.”

“Now you sound like the daughter of a doctor.” His wry grin salved some of the sting from his words.

Though, in truth, the sting came not from his opinion that she sounded like Saul's daughter but from the irrefutable fact she wasn't. “I'll take that to mean it sounds like good sense.”

“To an extent, but it leaves too much unaccounted for when you rely on your own sense. Or senses, as the case may be.” He stretched his legs out as though settling in for a long conversation—which, come to think of it, he most likely was.

“Personally, I prefer to leave things unaccounted for, with room for potential error, rather than assign credit where none is proven due.”

“You speak of faith as though it's a fallacy.”

“Do I?” She leaned back against the bench, resigned to following the conversation all the way through to its natural end. To their natural end. “Although I never thought of it that way, it's a good way of putting it.”

“No, it's not.” He straightened up, planting his boots in the dirt. “You're discounting the way faith has different roles to play, Midge. Faith doesn't merely exist to serve.”

“Did I say such a thing? Faith offers comfort to those who can't or won't understand the true nature of the world around them, Amos. False comfort. I want no part of it.” There. She said it. Any moment now he'd stand up and walk away, just like she'd always known he would.

Sure, it had taken him longer than she expected to realize the truth about her, but he'd figured it out. Eventually. More importantly, his newfound realizations would prove her right ... again. Amos would lose interest in her and prayer didn't work—two different things he wouldn't have agreed with, but Midge knew better.

“So it's not just prayer you don't believe in. It's God, too?” If words could drown in sorrow, his would.

“Don't be ridiculous, Amos. Of course I believe in God. Any reasoning person with the eyes to see the world has to know it didn't just sprout up willy-nilly or by chance. Complex systems don't simply appear, and there's far too much order to the natural world for it to be accidental. God exists.”

Confusion beetled his brows. “Then why don't you believe in prayer, Midge?”

“I didn't say I don't believe in God, Amos. He simply hasn't done anything to justify having faith in His goodness.” She stood up and started to make her way back to the house.
I'll visit Marge tomorrow. He may have a point about her having to handle things on her own.

“In a nutshell, you've decided God exists but that He's not worth having faith in?” Amos's voice called after her, letting her know it had begun. He wasn't following anymore.

Midge wondered why she felt none of the grim satisfaction she'd been expecting. “Exactly.”

“What are you doing?” Gavin waited until Daisy excused herself for a “private moment” before pulling Marge aside. As things stood, the only way he caught hold of her alone was lying in wait in the hall for her to wander back from showing her cousin to the necessary.

“I assumed Daisy and I would share the guest room.” She stared at him with a blankness he found unnerving. “It simply wouldn't be proper for one of us to sleep in the master bedroom—even while you continue to bunk in the mill.”

“That's not what I meant.” Although for a fleeting moment the thought crossed his mind that with Daisy there as an additional chaperone, it might be possible for him to move back into the house without provoking undue gossip. “What were you thinking, telling your cousin I meant the letter for her originally?”

“I thought it best to tell the truth. After all,” she declared, closing her eyes and pausing before continuing, “you're the one who told her we aren't married. Surely you knew she'd ask why?”

“Yes, but we could have told her the same thing we told the rest of the town—that we waited until you felt comfortable and certain you wanted to make a life here in Buttonwood.” That sounded weak when spoken aloud, but Gavin couldn't very well take it back now. “Or that until you had the school up and running, that took the bulk of your focus.”

“She's my cousin, I'm tired of half-truths, and this concerns her directly.”

Her remonstrance hit the mark, making him uncomfortable with the way they'd been deceiving everyone in town. “Half-truths are better than whole lies, particularly when one works toward making them more and more real.”

“I'm finished fooling myself, Gavin. Whole truths are best.” Marge made as though to move past him and return to the parlor.

“Wait. If you wanted to tell Daisy the whole truth, why did you leave out the most important part?” Her expression told him plain as daylight she didn't know what he meant. “You left out the fact that I'd proposed to you since we discovered the switch. You told Daisy all about the way I'd originally written to her but didn't say how I've courted you ever since.”

“She knows you offered to go through with the arrangement. Don't worry. Daisy doesn't think poorly of you for not marrying me. She knows you tried to stand by your word, even when you hadn't given it.” The confusion cleared from her features, replaced by that dull, vague look he found so disturbing.

“That's not the same thing, and you know it.”

“What do you want from me, Gavin?” For a split second, the blank mask fell away, revealing the conflict raging beneath. Fierce, proud, despairing—she embodied all these things and more as she rounded on him, enough to drive away a man's breath.

His lack of response settled her back to impassivity, making Gavin wish he'd thought more quickly.

“Daisy knows you initially proposed to her. She knows that once you discovered the mistake you stood prepared to do the honorable thing and marry me to uphold your word.” It sounded almost as though she ticked things off some sort of mental list. Knowing Marge, she most likely was. “She sees the house and mill, knows you from back in Baltimore, and understands that I wouldn't let you marry me out of a sense of duty. That doesn't reflect poorly on you.”

“None of that matters.” He reached for her hand, but she shoved it into one of those ever-present pockets hiding within the folds of her skirts. “What matters is that she doesn't know how I've pursued
you,
Marge.”

“That doesn't signify.” She shook her head, her smooth bun scarcely moving at all with the motion. “She needn't hear my tales of your thoughtfulness, Gavin.”

“So long as you remember them, I'm satisfied.”

“You owe me nothing.” She straightened her shoulders as though brushing away all his efforts, an impression verified by her next words. “You're free to woo Daisy, as you always wanted.”