With Love from Bliss (Saskatchewan Saga Book #2) (32 page)

Difficult though it would be, she needed to explain to Connor her ridiculous posture as a flirt, confess her bitter and revengeful feelings toward him, and ask for forgiveness.

Forgiveness and peace! They were such new gifts; they were to be guarded by all means.

She was graciously excused by the family and Connor quickly consented to drive her home. In the buggy, the horse walking along sedately, the only sound being the rig’s creak and the plop of hooves, Kerry’s dusky complexion—that went so well with her dark hair and eyes—was drained of color. Connor watched her, concerned.

“I don’t know where to start,” she faltered.

“First, tell me why it’s necessary to tell at all. And why to me?”

“Because it concerns you. You are at the heart and center of it all, why I’m here in the first place, why I—” Kerry’s anguish made it difficult to continue. “Why I behaved like such a . . . such an
easy
woman—”

If she had been looking, she’d have seen the little smile that tugged at Connor’s mouth. Never would he have described her hesitant attempts to get his attention as the work of an “easy” woman. An inexperienced woman perhaps. An innocent, uncertain girl to be more exact.

“When I’m done,” she said, “you’ll need to forgive me, if you can.”

“I assure you I forgive you now. After all, Kerry, you didn’t hurt me in any way. Did you?” His question was gentle. Acquainted with sin, he was also acquainted with forgiveness and its healing qualities. If that were needed, he would gladly cooperate.

“If I haven’t hurt you already, I soon would have. And the terrible part is that I would have been glad about it,” Kerry admitted, ashamed.

Connor looked puzzled now. “Perhaps you had better tell me,” he said.

Where to start?

She turned to her string bag, opened it, and searched until she found it—the picture of Connor Dougal.

“I’ll start here,” she said, holding it up for him to see. See and frown.

“Where did you get that?” he asked. “I don’t believe I’ve ever seen it.”

“It was sent to my dearest friend in all the world, Frances Bentley. She was as dear as a sister to me. I don’t suppose that name means a thing to you—”

“Not a thing. I’ve never heard it before. Never saw the picture, never heard the name.”

“Franny corresponded with someone . . . with this man,” Kerry held up Connor’s picture again.

Connor’s eyebrow quirked. He was alert now.

“And,” she went on doggedly, “he asked her to marry him—”

“Hold on a minute! This sounds like some fairy story!”

“It’s all too terribly real.”

“All right. But if it’s so troubling, why can’t it just be forgotten?”

“Because—now that I know how wrong I was and how innocent you are—I need to ask you . . . with all my heart . . . to forgive me!” Already wept out from the morning’s purging, Kerry found a fresh supply somewhere, and again the tears puddled, pooled, and ran. Again Connor’s handkerchief was proffered, and again it served its purpose.

“
‘I have eaten ashes like bread,
’
” Kerry sniffled, finding the Scripture to be painfully descriptive.

“Come now,” Connor said comfortingly, “dry your tears. As near as I can tell, I’m supposed to have done something terrible to this dear friend.”

“You, or . . . somebody. But I blamed you. That’s why I’m here, Connor—”

As yet Kerry didn’t have Dudley’s explanation, which would come later through Gladdy, but she knew enough to tell Connor about the letters sent in his name, the proposal, the final rejection, darling Franny’s collapse.

“It was Dudley, I suppose,” Connor said thoughtfully, “and he sent my picture. It may have been taken at his father’s funeral. And the chain and charm—where do they fit in?”

“They were Franny’s father’s. She sent them to you—to Dudley, as it turns out—as a token of her commitment. She was preparing to come to Bliss. You’d have loved Franny,” she finished brokenly.

If Kerry had dared look up, she would have seen an expression on the clean-cut face at her shoulder that would have caused her to catch her breath. When finally Connor spoke, there was such a depth of feeling in his words that Kerry did indeed turn her gaze upward, did catch her breath, did become wonder-eyed.

“Perhaps I can love Franny’s friend,” he said quietly. “Perhaps she can learn to love me.”

The song of a distant meadowlark, winging from Saskatchewan’s endless sky, touched the moment with piercing sweetness.

“Perhaps,” Kerry whispered, but he heard.

He heard, and his eyes lit with hope and happiness. “Thank You, Lord!” he lifted to that same broad sky, recognizing a wiser and bigger hand than his own in all of this.

Perhaps the sound of the horse’s hooves and the turning wheels stirred the surrounding greenery, for a rich paean of song poured forth from the bush’s birds, all primed and practiced, it seemed, to celebrate the moment.

“‘The time of the singing of birds is come,’” Connor quoted jubilantly, and he drew Kerry’s head to a place of rest on his shoulder.

“Song of Solomon, chapter two, verse twelve,” Kerry murmured, not a bit surprised that Connor Dougal would describe this special moment with Scripture.

Ruth Glover
was born and raised in the Saskatchewan bush country of Canada. As a writer, she has contributed to dozens of publications such as
Decision
and
Home Life.
Ruth and her husband, Hal, a pastor, now live in Oregon.