Homespun Bride (20 page)

“Noelle? Are you crying?”

“N-no.” She would make that the truth. She set her chin and blinked hard against the heat behind her eyes. “I don't know what else to say to you, Thad. I c-can't marry you.”

“You haven't told me why, darlin'.”

His tenderness tore her apart. Fear left her helpless. Truly in the dark, she reached out in prayer.
Help me, Lord. Don't let my words hurt him.

There was no answer, not one in her heart, not one in the darkness. Outside the house another gust of wind slammed against the house, rattling the windowpanes, jarring her soul.

“Tell me, sweetheart, just tell me the truth.”

“Which truth?” She squeezed her eyes shut. Torn, so torn. Saying no to him was like ripping out her soul. “We're simply not suited, Thad. Not anymore. You said it yourself. You've changed. I've changed. It's too l-late.”

“No. No it's not. I won't believe it.”

“Please, I—I can't marry you.”

“But this is our second chance.”

Her eyes were luminous and her face filled with such sweet longing that for one blissful moment he thought she was going to say yes. To tell him that she loved him truly and forever, as he loved her.

He knew he'd thought wrong when she seemed to withdraw from him. The longing slid from her face, her lovely expressive face that would always be so dear to him.

“No.” Her rejection came quietly. Tenderly. She bent forward and her hair fell in a curtain to hide her face and her emotions.

They were not secret to him.

The psalm book lay on its back on the floor between them. He lifted it carefully, dusted it off so it was as good as new and laid it on the small table beside her chair. Although she'd said no to him, the great abiding love he had for her did not fade.

It would never fade.

“Guess I'd best get going, then.” While he didn't say it as a question, he meant it as one. He watched her carefully. She nodded once, that was all, as if trying to shield her heart from his.

He climbed to his feet, holding his soul still against the pain he knew was coming. Like a lethal blow, there was no pain at first, just the shock filtering through him like cracked ice in his veins. He took a step backward, waiting, hoping, praying she would reach out to him. That she would stop him before he made it to the door.

She didn't. He opened the door and forced his feet across the threshold. It took all his self-restraint to keep from looking back at her one last time. To keep from reaching out to her when he knew she was hurting, too.

How had this all gone so wrong? He closed the door with a click and let the wind batter him. Snow lashed at him like a boxer's glove, and still he could not move off the porch. He'd left his heart behind in that room, and he couldn't leave without her.

What was he gonna do? Stand here forever? He had to get moving before the shock wore off. Before the pain set in and the sorrow with it. It was bound to be bad—he'd experienced this before. He'd ridden away from her once, and he knew the emptiness of living his life without her love. How was he going to manage it a second time?

He started down the stairs, and her words stuck with him.
We're simply not suited, Thad. Not anymore.
Not suited? And what did that mean, anyhow? His boots crunched in the slush and snow on the walkway. Big, fat flakes fell from a gray sky as he crossed the yard to the stable.
You said it yourself. You've changed. I've changed.

I haven't changed that much. He stopped stock-still between the house and the stable, realizing that wasn't true. Not true at all. How about that? The hardness from years of unhappiness and a tough life on the trail had fallen away somewhere, sloughed off him like a too-large, worn-out coat.

He was no longer bitter and unbelieving. He was no longer thinking God had stopped noticing the troubles of an average man. He no longer believed life was about hard work and that relationships ought to be, too. He'd found himself again—the man he used to be—because of Noelle. Because of her love and God's grace.

Why had she said no? Why had she turned him down? He'd thought she'd loved him. He'd thought she wanted him to love her.

“Hey, Thad!” Eli called above the rush of the storm. “I saw you comin'. I've got Sunny for you.”

“Thanks, Sims.” Thad seized the reins from the younger man, nodding. “You'd best get inside before this gets much worse.”

“Will do. Looks like we're in for a hard blow.” Eli waved his hand and took off.

Sunny wheeled around, eager to get home and out of the weather. Thad grabbed the saddle horn, ready to mount up, and realized the house was in his view again. There she was, standing in the window, veiled by the bleak snow. His heart turned over. His soul filled with longing.

It's too late,
she'd said.

Too late.

Swift pain like a dagger's tip to his heart stole his breath and weakened his knees. He took a stumbling step, leaning on the horse's shoulder for support, and somehow he scrambled into the saddle.

The wind gusted, driving cold that hit like bullets. The snow had turned to rain, soaking him down to the bone. She'd said no to him. He had to respect that, although it tore out his heart.

“C'mon, Sunny. Take us home.”

The mustang obliged, heading swiftly down the road. Lucky thing, since the sorrow was setting in. It wasn't easy riding away from his dreams a second time.

 

Noelle listened to the rain sing against the parlor window. The wind lifted and fell like a cello's haunting tones. The limbs of the hawthorn tree outside the window rubbed against the eaves with a tuba's low notes. The fire in the hearth crackled in counterpoint to the gusts of wind and beat of rain. It was a haunting symphony, one that spoke of sorrow and regret.

Regret for the lost years between them. Regret that she never had a voice in Thad's decision to leave. Regret at the years she'd wasted. Regret that there would be only wasted years ahead without real love.

She swiped the last of her tears from her eyes. She knew for certain that she would love only Thad forever.
I'm hoping for a wife one day. Someone who sees life the way I do. You work hard, try to do what's right and at the end of the day rest up for another hard day on the ranch.
Her blindness separated them more successfully than her parents' had. There was no solution to that.

She heard her cousin's hurried gait well before the door opened on a chorus of wind.

“That rain is cold.” Matilda shut the door behind her, dripping water on the floor. There was a rustle as if she were shedding her sodden wraps and her shoes squished wetly on the floor coming closer. “I need to sit by the fire and warm up. Papa said maybe we're in for a spot of good luck. This could be a warming spell that brings us an early spring.”

“I hope so.” Noelle prayed her voice sounded normal and feared that it didn't. “Then you can take me for rides in the buggy. How did your driving lesson go?”

“Fine. We rode up to the waterfall and back. It's roaring with all the snowmelt and rain.”

“The waterfall has never frozen in the winter, not in my memory.” Her love for Thad was like that, she realized, never ending, always replenished. Alive in her heart when it was the last thing she needed or wanted. “Would you like me to bring you some tea?”

“Please. I can't remember the last time I've been this cold.”

Tea. Yes, that sounded like something soothing to do. She rose from her chair, ignoring the ache that burned her eyes and tightened her throat. She didn't want to talk to anyone, not even to Matilda, about Thad's proposal. They would pity her, and that was the last thing she wanted. The last thing she needed.

She skirted the end table and headed across the parlor. Grief lodged so tightly within her she could hardly function. Her pulse thudded in her ears so loudly that the strike of her shoe on the floor muted. There was Thad at the edges of her memory and glued to her soul.

Who could be better than you?
he'd said with complete sincerity.
I love you,
he'd said with utter honesty.
This is our second chance.
His tender plea filled her mind again and again. This is our second chance.

If only it could be. She had to stop thinking about this. About the tender love in his voice, even when she turned him down. And the defeated cadence to his gait as he walked away from her. What she could not think about was the future without Thad in it. Without a prospering ranch, and happiness, buckets of happiness. She could almost see it, vivid, so vivid, those fields of green dotted with grazing horses. The two-story house where drying laundry snapped on a clothesline and children played in the yard—

She froze in midstep, confused. Where was she? She'd forgotten to count her steps. She didn't know if she was about to walk into the window or if she was on a collision course with her aunt's whatnot shelf.

“Where did you get that book?” Tilly broke the silence.

“I-it was a gift.” Outside the symphony of the rain crescendoed to a roar, confusing the sounds in the room, confusing her.

“From whom?”

She turned toward Matilda's voice, using it like a compass. “Just someone.”

“Thad came by, didn't he? Angelina was right. Too bad he didn't propose, too. Wouldn't that have been something?”

A rush filled her ears. The sound of her heart breaking all over again. She spun on her heel, careful to keep track of her orientation. She guessed how many steps would take her through the archway and into the dining room.

“Noelle?” Tilly called out. “He really didn't propose, did he?”

Her step faltered right along with her heartbeat. She reached out a hand to catch the corner of the dining table and caught air.

“Noelle? Are you all right?”

Two more steps and she tried again. There it was, the beveled, polished edge. She gripped it with relief. Her knees were wobbling so she lowered herself into the nearest chair, glad that her cousin hadn't noticed how lost she'd been.

How lost she would be from this day on.

I
n the warmth of the town's dress shop, Noelle ran her fingertips across the skein of fine crochet thread. Her mind should have been on deciding if the yarn had the right weight and feel for the lace tablecloth she wanted to make for Matilda's hope chest. But when she heard the name “McKaslin,” she couldn't seem to concentrate on anything other than what the shop owner was telling Aunt Henrietta.

“—should have been helping his brothers with the spring planting,” Cora Sims was saying over the
thump, thump
of fabric being pulled off the bolt to be measured. “That boy is trouble waiting to happen. He's on a bad path for sure.”

“It's all in the upbringing.” Henrietta's voice echoed across the length of the shop. “I haven't had one bit of trouble with my children. I've taken a firm hand right from the start and made it clear there were standards to be upheld.”

Noelle bit her bottom lip, remembering the uproar at last night's dinner table when Angelina had announced she wasn't going to finishing school like her sisters and wanted to take to the cattle trails instead. Since she heard Matilda choking as she struggled not to laugh, she wasn't the only one amused by wonderful Henrietta.

“This is the color I want,” Tilly said when she was able. “Light blue.”

“A light blue tablecloth sounds lovely to me. We need ten skeins.”

“I'll count them out,” Matilda said eagerly. “Mama's busy with Miss Sims.”

“Is she ordering more spring dresses for your sisters?”

“Yes. She's taken charge as usual and I don't think Angelina is going to be very happy. Mama's chosen two different pink fabrics for her.”

“Pink for Angelina? That's wishful thinking on your mother's part.” Noelle tried to imagine the shop full of new spring fabrics so soft and bright and pretty, but her imagination was not the same these days. Nothing was, not one thing, since she'd let Thad walk out of her life over a week ago.

Thad. The thought of him still hurt in the broken places of her soul, where she'd banished her love for him, although it still lived.

The noise of the rain on the roof, the shop conversations and the background din from the streets outside faded away. Regret filled her until she was brimming over. Thoughts of him carried her away to the steadfast comfort of his hand on hers as she swirled over the ice of the pond at Thad's side. Once again, she heard the deep rumble of his cozy chuckle in the stable with the new foal nipping at her skirt ruffles. Once again she felt the bright dreams of lush fields and grazing horses standing at Thad's side.

It's not possible. Stop thinking of him. She squeezed her eyes closed, but that did not begin to stop the colors of her heart. Her heart did not see reason. Nor did it understand that there could come a day when Thad realized he had made a mistake. That the dreams they'd once shared were not something she could give to him as his wife.

Is that the real reason? a logical, sensible voice asked at the back of her mind. It was a question she could not let herself answer.

“Did you want to get that, Noelle, dear?” Henrietta bustled her way to take the basket of goods. “I'll be glad to get this totaled up, if you and Matilda want to go browse at the cobbler's.”

“Yes, thank you.”

Although she kept a good memory of the shop, she was glad when Matilda guided her around a new fabric display and on toward the door. The bell jangled overhead as they scooted outside into the cool spring air. The damp stung her face as she bundled up against the rain.

“Oh!” Matilda squeaked with surprise. “There he is.”

Thad? Noelle turned toward the sounds of the street, wondering where he was, if he was well, if he looked happy, if he had all that he'd wanted. Love blazed up from the locked-away chambers of her heart, and she longed for him the way gray skies longed for blue.

“He tipped his hat to me!” Matilda's whisper was tremulous. “Oh, he smiled at me from the street, where he sat on his wagon seat, and as his horses drew him past, he reached up with his hand and tipped his hat brim. He was smiling just a little, nothing flashy or bold, just
polite.
Oh!”

Her pulse turned hollow. Emmett Sims, not Thad. Disappointment weighed her down like a blacksmith's anvil. And it made no sense whatsoever because it wasn't as if she were holding out a single hope that—No, not one single hope that there was any way Thad would love her enough—

No, it's not what you want for him, Noelle. She kept her spine straight, gathered up her resolve and smiled at her cousin's joy. “Perhaps Mr. Sims fancies you more than you've thought.”

“Perhaps. We shall have to wait and see is all.”

“I'm not fooled you know, by your reserve. Inside you are floating like a cloud.”

“How did you know?”

“I've felt that way myself.” She tucked away that memory, too, not of being young and in love, but of all the ways she loved Thad more now. And always would. “I've lost count. Where are we on the boardwalk? Is that the bakery?”

“Yes. I can smell the cinnamon buns.”

“I think we need to celebrate, don't you? Henrietta needs to go to the post office before she catches up with us. We have plenty of time. We'll have iced cinnamon rolls and tea, which ought to put us in a much better mood for shoe shopping.”

“I think you're right.” Matilda took a better grip on her arm. “Come with me.”

As Noelle turned on her heel to let her cousin guide her to the door, she thought she felt a feather brush against her soul like a touch from heaven. But there were no other footsteps squishing anywhere close by on the rain-soaked boardwalk. Just the sucking of mud at horse hooves and wagon wheels and the concerto of the rain falling.

Strange. Shrugging, she followed her cousin into the shelter of the bakery.

 

“Thad?”

He ignored his older brother's voice as he watched Noelle step inside the bakery across the street. Affection tied him up in knots, for he could still see her through the gray sheets of rain and the street traffic and the bakery's window. She was feeling her way for a curving chair back and, after three tries, found it and, with care, settled onto the seat.

“You and Finn are both useless,” Aiden quipped from the row filled with buckets of nails. “Both of you aren't doing a thing to help me. I should have left you two at home.”

“Don't go tossing me into the same stall as Finn.” Thad couldn't seem to rip his gaze away from the bakery shop window. “I'm not the lazy one.”

“Hey!” Finn's voice rose up from the back corner of the store. “Watch who you're calling lazy!”

Aiden came close to peer through the window, too. “You've been watching her since you spotted her enter the dress shop. Tell me again how you think her saying no was for the best.”

A dagger through his gut wouldn't hurt as much as Noelle's rejection. No, nothing in this life could hurt him like that. But it was a private pain. “Between Finn, helping you with the ranch and working on mine, I haven't had a whole lot of time to ponder it.”

“Perhaps you'd best start right now, since you've got time to stand idle at the window.” Aiden strode off, hiding a small smile.

Think about it? He'd been doing nothing else but going over the last two months in his mind. He was sure he had won her back. He was sure she'd felt the same way. She loved him. He knew that. She hadn't bothered to deny it. Yet something worried at him that he could not shake and could not look at because it hurt too much.

He hadn't given up on her. He would never give up. Seeing her again hurt enough to bring him to his knees, and yet, could he look away? No. He could not turn his back and walk away from even the sight of her.

She looked subdued, without the joy he'd seen in her when they'd been together. Across the street, the bakery owner was serving a pot of tea. Two plates of enormous cinnamon rolls were on the table. Noelle was exchanging pleasantries, smiling sweetly to the older woman who ran the place. Her fingers nimbly searching for the flatware and the sugar bowl, unaware that as she spooned sugar into her cup half of it landed on the tablecloth.

He remembered, too, how Matilda had guided her along the boardwalk with care, and earlier, in the shop, helped her around the displays in the dress shop. Her words came back to him, haunting him, always haunting him.
You've changed. I've changed. It's too l-late.

Now he heard a different meaning. When he'd feared that she had meant they were no longer suited, that she no longer wanted a life as a simple rancher's wife, perhaps that wasn't what she'd meant at all. No, maybe she'd been speaking of something else entirely.

Oh, Noelle. His heart crumpled with love for her. Tender affection swept through his soul like a flash flood, leaving him sure. Absolutely sure. His vision blurred for a moment as he watched her take a sip from her teacup and then lower it into its saucer by touch.

Understanding rained through him like a March squall. The last years of his life, so tough and lonely, suddenly made sense to him. He knew now where the good Lord had been leading him all along—home to his precious Noelle.

“Thad!” Aiden called from the front counter. “Are you coming or not?”

“Coming.” He tucked his heart back into his chest, went to collect Finn and followed his older brother out the door.

 

“I am insulted. That's what I am.” Aunt Henrietta bored through the parlor like a runaway train on a mountain grade. Crystal lamp shades clinked and chattered as if in fear. “The nerve of the territorial governor! Suggesting that I perhaps tend to my realm of home and children instead of complaining about modern progress!”

“Clearly the governor is in error.” Noelle's fingers stilled. She counted the stitches of her new project—a patchwork quilt—with her fingertips. “You've spent a lot of time composing letters trying to make a difference for us all.”

“I hardly expected them to listen to a woman, but I did not expect being insulted.” There was a
thwack, thwack
as Henrietta beat one of the decorative pillows on her best sofa before dropping onto it. “For the first time in my life I think it's a pity that woman do not have the vote. If I did, I would vote such a man out of office.”

“Well, you should,” Noelle said as kindly as she could. She recognized the touch of drama in her aunt's tirade. “He clearly does not appreciate a woman with good sense.”

Across the hearth, Noelle heard Matilda struggling to hold back a chuckle.

“Precisely. It gives me pause. I may have to admit those suffrage women in town have a good argument.” There was a clicking of steel needles—Henrietta, gathering up her knitting.

Matilda apparently could not hold back her amusement any longer. “But Mama, you don't approve of women wanting to vote.”

“I don't. But in light of this uncomplimentary letter, I do not know what the world is coming to. Perhaps I should give an ear to their cause. Clarissa Bell is in my prayer group. I shall speak to her today. Yes, that is exactly what I shall do.”

Noelle carefully slipped her needle into the quilt block she was sewing. It was hard to be certain above the music of the spring storm, but she thought she heard a horse in the driveway. Perhaps it was Cora Sims arriving early for an afternoon of sewing. With any luck, maybe her nephew, Emmett, had driven her.

She slid her work into the basket at her feet. “Is Robert still in the stables?”

Henrietta humphed. “Out working with that mare the way Mr. McKaslin taught him. He refuses to give up on that animal. If he gets hurt again—”

Noelle rose from her chair, thinking of Thad. Her spirit lifted as it always did. Always would. “If Thad says so, then Robert should keep the mare and work with her. It will be all right.”

“Mr. McKaslin has not been coming up to the house lately.” Henrietta's voice turned thoughtful over the ambitious
click-click
of her knitting needles. “And here I had believed him to be most enraptured with you, the poor man. Utterly besotted. Did you see it, too, Matilda?”

“Yes. He's very sweet on you.”

Sweet on her? Her heart broke all over again. She headed straight for the door before anyone could guess at her feelings. Or her failures. “Me, marry? I'm on the shelf and have been for long enough to gather dust. Far too long to try to tidy me up and marry me off now.”

“You're young and as lovely as could be.” Henrietta rose to her defense. “Mr. McKaslin is a man of character, and so he is deserving of you. He ought to propose to you and consider himself blessed with you for his wife.”

Dear Henrietta, so loyal and true. She could not understand. Noelle lifted her cloak from the tree, fighting the sorrow. Grief suffocated her. She slipped the wool fabric around her shoulders. “I'm too set in my ways to adjust to marriage. I rather like being a prickly spinster.”

“That you could never be!” Henrietta sounded deeply amused. “Trust me when I tell you Thad could not take his eyes off you.”