Patchwork Bride (17 page)

For what felt like the eight hundredth time, she blinked furiously until her vision cleared. It took a few attempts until the blurred colors of her quilt block took shape again. The purple stood out brighter than all the others, a reminder of everything she needed to forget.

Just put him behind you, Meredith.
She willed every
thought, every image, every memory of Shane from her mind and concentrated on poking the needle through the fabric, feeling the contact of the tip against her thimble. She pulled the thread through in a muted rasp that echoed in every corner of her bedroom. She’d never felt empty like this, as if hollowed out of all feeling. She was as spent as if she’d run a hundred miles without rest.

Footsteps bounded down the hall, light and bouncy and cheerful. Minnie skidded to a stop in the open doorway, bits of leaves in her hair and shavings of bark on her dress.

“Whatcha doin’?” Minnie tromped in and bounced onto the edge of the bed.

“Stitching a block.” She placed her needle again. “Have you been playing in your tree house?”

“Yes, but it wasn’t any fun today, so I came in.” Minnie sighed dramatically. “Aren’t you going to ask why?”

“No, because it has to do with the man I refuse to think about, so you will just have to tell me about something else.” She only had to hold her composure for a few more hours. Once the house was dark and she was in bed, she could cry if she wanted to. No one would know. She tugged her thread gently, tightening the stitch. “Judging by the delicious smells wafting up here from the kitchen, you succeeded in talking Cook into baking a chicken pie for supper.”

“I asked her to make more molasses cookies for Shane, so he could take some with him.” Her bottom lip wobbled. “I know you don’t want to hear his name, but I’m sad he’s leaving. He was so nice to me.”

“He
was
nice to you.” She couldn’t refute that. Meredith pinned her needle into the fabric and set the hoop aside. The window seat creaked slightly as she stood. She brushed stray curls out of her sister’s blue eyes filling with tears. “Who wouldn’t be charmed by you, sweetheart?”

“There’s no one like him. Just no one.” Fourteen was a tough age, still so very much a child. Minnie swiped her eyes to keep the tears from falling. “I thought he was going to stay a long time and train all our horses.”

“He was never going to stay for long, and I think Mama’s interference made their stay much shorter.” She eased onto the bed beside her sister and drew her close. “Sadie said that one day when we were at school, Mama went outside and told Braden and Shane all the qualities she expected to see in a Worthington horse. They were to be dignified in all respects. No biting or running away with their drivers. Sadie kept track of the clock. The lecture went on for over an hour.”

“That’s because Papa was really hurt by a horse once, remember?”

“Yes, I remember. God spared him, but Mama has never forgot it.” She wanted Minnie to see this was for the best. Maybe it would bring back Minnie’s smile. “I think it’s easier for the horsemen if they move on to a quieter place.”

“Do you think Shane will miss us?”

“It would be impossible not to miss you, dear one.” She squeezed her sister tight, treasuring her like the precious gift she was. “Now shouldn’t you be getting ready for supper? If Mama sees the leaves in your hair, she’s not going to be happy.”

“I have leaves in my hair?” This seemed to be news to Minnie.

“What do you expect when you climb around in trees like a monkey?” Meredith gave Minnie a final hug.

“I’m not a monkey. Tilly, did you hear what she called me?”

“I heard.” A tray rattled as Tilly swept into the room. “Look what I brought. Supper. I talked Mama into letting us have a picnic up here. She’s feeling under the weather.”

“Disappointment, I expect.” Meredith grabbed her comb off the bureau. “Knowing Mama, she already had the wedding planned and the invitations composed.”

“She’s taken it hard, it’s true.” Tilly set the tray on the bed, scooting it carefully into the center of the mattress. “Meredith, how are you doing?”

“It is not a mortal blow. It just feels like one.” She took the comb to Minnie’s hair. “I will survive, so there’s no need to talk about it again. There, the leaves are out. Minnie, do you want to say grace?”

“I love saying it!” Minnie busily settled in front of the tray, crossed her legs, settled her skirts and steepled her hands. “Hurry. I’ve thought up a good one.”

Over the top of her head, Meredith shared a smile with Tilly. Having them here was the best balm she could ask for. She settled onto the feather mattress, careful not to tip the tray and jostle the juice glasses, and settled beside Minnie on the duvet cover. Tilly did the same on the other side, and together they bowed their heads, folded their hands. Minnie cleared her throat.

“Dear God,” she began primly. “Please bless this
food we are about to eat and especially please bless Shane because he’s leaving and Meredith and me are gonna miss him. I think Meredith will miss him more, so please help her to be a teacher so she won’t be so sad. Amen.”

“Amen.” Meredith opened her eyes only to find they were blurry again. “That was sweet, Minnie.”

“You said a very good prayer.” Tilly reached over to hug Minnie with one arm, Meredith with another, sisters not only by blood but of the heart.

I
t had been a rough and sleepless night as Shane halted Hobo and dismounted on the lawn outside the Worthington home. Dawn hinted at the horizon, turning the darkness to gradients of shadow, allowing him to make out the trunk of the maple and the branches beneath Meredith’s window. His boots scraped against the bark and the leaves shivered as he pulled himself up limb by limb into the arms of the tree. His pulse drummed frantically against his rib cage, pounding in his throat and making him halfway dizzy.

“That’s a female for you,” Braden had said last night when they’d shared supper at the table in the bunkhouse. “Contrary. Not one of them make a lick of sense. They rip your heart out as easily as a basting seam in a dress they’re sewin’ on. It’s why I’m a bachelor at thirty-five and proud of it.”

He could see why permanent bachelorhood would be tempting. A lizard skittled out of his way and out of sight as he heaved onto the final limb and rose carefully to a standing position. The last thing he wanted was to wake the entire house with a crash and a boom and be
caught in a crumpled heap on the ground outside Meredith’s bedroom. Her parents weren’t likely to be understanding. The bough beneath his soles groaned with his weight as he caught hold of the lip of the windowsill.

Being this near to her calmed him. The curtains were closed, but she was behind the glass, beyond the fall of muslin, close enough that he could wake her with a few words. The comfort of knowing she was close invited memories he could not stop—Meredith’s laughter, Meredith’s dimples, the fall of her hair in the sunlight. The way she filled him with love overflowing.

Please watch over her, Father.
He set the small jewel box he’d bought in town. There. It was done. He ought to climb down and meet Braden outside the kitchen, because Sadie was packing them meals for the road, but he lingered. This would be the closest he would ever be to Meredith again.

“Psst. Connelly.” Braden rode into sight below, saddle packs loaded. “Time to go.”

The hardest step was the first. He tore himself away, ignoring the cruel pain. The next step down the tree was easier to stand. He swung off the lowest branch and hit the ground, leaves rustling, his heart bleeding. He could not endure looking back. The grass crunched beneath his feet, an owl gave the final hoot of the night, serenading him as he swung up into the saddle.

Goodbye, Meredith.
He gathered Hobo’s reins in wooden hands. Every bit of him went numb as he pressed his heels to the gelding’s side and rode away from the only woman he would ever love.

Meredith woke with a start and the strangest sensation she was not alone. Dawn had yet to chase the
darkness from her room as she threw back the covers, put her feet on the floor and followed the tides of her heart to the window. The muslin curtains whispered against her fingertips, soft cotton fluttering against her cheek as she drew them open. The faintest pre-dawn glow shone in the east, illuminating the underbellies of clouds and casting the view in silhouette. The maple shivered in the soft breezes and the faint
clip-clop
of steeled horse shoes chimed above the birdsong from the fields.

Shane. Her hand flew to the window, the glass cool against her palms as she searched the small section of the driveway visible from her room. Nothing moved in the shadows of the road and she waited, knees knocking. Need riveted her in place, and she could not move. She was driven by the need to see him one more time, the wish to memorize what she could of him and the longing to turn back time. If only she could relive the past knowing what she knew now. Maybe she could have kept her affections casual and her eyes wide open.

Maybe. Then again, perhaps she had been fated to fall in love with him. She feared God had led her to Shane for some reason she could not guess. She had made a mess of it. She couldn’t have stopped herself from seeing the good in him—there was so much good. If only the man he had pretended to be was the real Shane Connelly. Maybe then their story would have had a different outcome.

A shadow moved on the distant driveway. Two riders on horseback! Her gaze fixed on the one nearest to her, his familiar wide shoulders set, tall in the saddle, and
her feelings soared. For a single moment she forgot their differences. Affection rushed through her stronger than any force, diminishing her anger and betrayal. Love clung stubbornly, like roots to the earth, refusing to let go.

Time would do that, she told herself. There would come a day when he would be a vague memory. If time was kind, then she would forget every detail about him—his dimpled smile, his easy humor, the feel of his hand cradling hers, even his name. A lump rose in her throat as he rode out of her sight, disappearing down the road, gone to her forever. Still she yearned for him like winter missed spring and she almost didn’t see the small jewel box glinting in the first light of dawn.

Heart pounding, she opened the window. The warm sun on her face felt out of place on this morning of loss, the scenery of the green grasses and trees and the merry splashes of purple and yellow flowers discordant. Those colors grew into blurs as she blinked hard to clear her vision and lifted the trinket from the sill.

What had he left her? Trembling, she opened the lid. Inside the exquisite box of ivory lay a piece of gold jewelry. The telltale ticking told her it was no locket, but a timepiece. Something every teacher needed.

She was not the sort of girl who cried over a man, but tears fell anyway, one by one, pieces of her soul she could not hold back.

“Meredith!” Minnie’s voice came as if from a mile away instead of next to her on the buggy seat. “Meredith? We’re here.”

At school. She felt fuzzy, as if she were looking at
the world through a mirror, that it was only a reflection of little substance. She gathered her bag and lunch and didn’t bother to wait for the new driver to help her down. He was a gangly boy from Angelina’s grade who’d had to drop out of school to help earn a living for his family. Nice enough, but she could not stand to have him help her. It would only be another reminder of Shane.

“Meredith!” Kate called as she climbed out of her father’s buggy. “Can you believe it? Two more days of school and then we’re done. We’re free.”

“Unbelievable.” It didn’t seem real—not the morning, not the fact that Shane’s departure was a rip in the fabric of her life that left everything in tatters, and surely not the fact that her school days would end. She’d been dreaming about the day, hoping and planning for it, yet now it struck her like a falling anvil. She would no longer see her dearest friends every day.

“Bye, Pa!” Kate called out cheerfully, waving as her father drove off, horse and buggy joining the busy traffic on the road. “I studied and studied last night and I’m ready for the tests today.”

“Tests?” Her schoolwork had completely flown out of her mind.

“Arithmetic and history.” Kate fell in stride beside her. A boy ran across their path, chasing a red ball. Little children’s squeals of delight pealed until someone yelled, “Tag! You’re it!”

“Meredith, are you all right? You seem distracted. It wouldn’t have anything to do with a handsome black-haired, blue-eyed man?”

“I wish it didn’t.” Dimly she realized they were
climbing the stairs clomping into the vestibule. She plopped her lunch pail on the shelf along with all the others and her feet felt leaden as she continued on into the schoolroom.

“…Mama sent a telegram straightaway to our dear friends the Kellans…” Narcissa informed her group at the front of the room, talking loudly enough for her voice to carry. “They are very close friends to the senator and his wife, you know—”

“Ignore her,” Kate advised on the way to their desks. “She’s eaten up with jealousy because Shane wouldn’t give her the time of day.”

“He’s gone.” The statement came flat and, emotionally, as hollow-sounding as she felt.

“Who’s gone?” Lila looked up from her history text. Concentration furrowed her brow and she tossed a lock of brown curls out of her eyes.

“Shane.” The starch went out of her knees and she collapsed into her seat. His manly image silhouetted by the dawn tormented her. He’d ridden away and now there was no mending what had happened between them.

Not that she wanted it, not that it could be. Not after what he’d done. But she could not seem to help the tiny thread of wishing within her that would not break.

“You mean he left?” Kate slipped into her desk, her bag thudding against her desktop. “Just like that? After spending lunch with you yesterday?”

“Like a
courting
man?” Scarlet emphasized, walking up to their group. “Everyone saw it, Meredith. He’s in love with you.”

“It was not love.” Love did not masquerade as
something else. She fumbled with her books. Her fingers did not seem to work properly. The texts tumbled and slid over the desk, falling onto Scarlet’s side.

“How can you say that?” Scarlet gently pushed the books back.

“Even I saw it.” Ruby, two desks behind, left her seat to join the discussion. “And I’m an official objective observer. I hardly know you all, but I recognize true affection when I see it. The way that man looked at you.” Ruby paused and placed her hand to her throat. “It was like a dream come true. I would give anything to have a good man look at me like that.”

“So would I,” Earlee chimed in breathlessly, cheeks rosy from her long walk to school. “Perhaps you could write to him. He could court you through letters. It would be so romantic.”

“It’s not going to happen.” She swallowed hard, determined to keep her feelings buried. She was perfectly able to manage a tiny disappointment in love. And if a voice inside her argued it was no small affection she felt, then she simply did not have to listen to it. She slipped out of her cardigan and draped it over the back of her seat. “Earlee, you’re right, it would make a nice story, but Shane is gone. Please, let’s not mention him again.”

“I’m so sorry you were hurt,” Ruby, as sweet as spun sugar, emphasized. “I’ve heard the best way to get over one beau is to find another. I noticed Lorenzo looking this way.”

“He’s wondering where Fiona is,” Lila informed her. “He’s always been sweet on her.”

“And we’ve all been sweet on him,” Kate spoke
up, earning a bit of light laughter. “Oh, there’s Fiona now.”

While her friends greeted the latecomer, who looked a bit windblown from her horse ride, Scarlet leaned close and squeezed Meredith’s hand.

“I’m sorry, too,” she whispered. “I prayed for the two of you.”

“Some prayers are not meant to be answered.” It didn’t make her sad. Really. She was determined to control her feelings. She would make it true. Shane was gone and that was the way it should be.

Even if a little voice within her wanted to argue.

“…in spite of the fact he rode that awful horse, the one with all the scars—” Narcissa’s words rose above the growing hubbub in the classroom “—
I
recognized him.”

I never noticed Hobo’s scars,
she realized. She’d been so intent on the man, she’d been blind to the horse, the one beaten with a whip on a wintry road until Shane had come along and saved him.

Don’t be a fool, Meredith. Keep control of your feelings.

She carefully removed her sewing from her book bag, doing her best to listen to Fiona’s tale of her morning, of how close she was getting to Ian’s grandmother and that it was hard to believe come Sunday she would finally be his wife.

“And he can move into the house and you won’t miss him so much,” Earlee said.

“I do. He’s away so much, I hardly get to see him. He’s lucky to have a job at the mill, but it’s hard being apart. I didn’t know it was possible to love someone
so much there’s no room to breathe. That’s how full of love you are.” Fiona blushed, a little shy.

“No one deserves it more.” Meredith swallowed hard against overwhelming emotions—a mix of gratitude for her friend’s happiness, a rush of loss of her own, the enduring bond of friendship that she treasured so much. She set down her sewing and twisted around to make eye contact with everyone, hoping they could read the meaning behind the question she asked. “On Saturday?”

“Yes,” Lila agreed, catching her eye.

“Absolutely,” Scarlet chimed in.

“I can have Pa swing by and pick her up,” Kate volunteered.

“It’s agreed?” Earlee asked.

“Agreed,” Fiona finished as they all turned to Ruby, who looked confused by what was going on. “Would you like to join our sewing circle? We meet every week in the afternoon.”

“I’m not a very good sewer.” Ruby looked crushed.

“The friendship is the important part of the gathering.” Meredith spoke from the heart, with love for the friends who had once welcomed her into their midst and with admiration for the young women they had all grown to be. “It’s one of the greatest blessings of my life. Join us. We would love to have you.”

“We could give you sewing tips,” Lila encouraged.

“And you wouldn’t have to sew. I often bring my embroidery,” Kate offered.

“And I tat or crochet,” Scarlet added. “I would teach you to do it. It’s easy.”

“And I am really good at sewing dresses,” Earlee chimed in. “I’m always making something for one of my six little sisters. I could give you tips, too.”

“Please say you will come,” Fiona urged, her dark ringlet curls framing her face.

Ruby nodded, overwhelmed at being included.

Miss Lambert rang her handbell, calling for students to take their desks and quiet down. Because it was time to break apart, they settled back into their seats, opened their books and prepared for the day—one of the last days they would all be schoolgirls together. As Meredith gently placed her quilt blocks and squares back into her bag, she braced herself for the pain of seeing the purple color that reminded her of Shane. There were other colors, ones her friends had helped her choose in the mercantile. She heard again the conversations she’d shared with her friends and with her sisters as she’d sewed each square.

Life was like a patchwork quilt, she realized, seemingly haphazard pieces thrown together, but there was a great grand order to the colorful squares and a beauty that defied all, for it was stitched together with love.