Patchwork Bride (12 page)

“You’ve done a good job with her, Shane.” Braden ducked between the fence boards and into the corral, a coiled lasso in hand. “She’s come along very well, but you would do better if you kept your mind on your work.”

Guilty. Shane winced, because he couldn’t deny it. “I know. If I’m distracted, the horse will be, too.”

“Right. When you’re done here, come help me saddle
up the white gelding. You’re doing good work, Shane. I’m handing over half the two-year-olds to you. We’ll see what you can do on your own.” With a wink, Braden strode away, his compliment a strange contrast to the frustration and sense of loss Shane had been wrestling with.

Keep your mind on your work and not on the woman, Connelly.
He whistled to the filly, watching her gait change as she slipped into a graceful canter. As much as he loved his work, he could not get lost in it. Meredith remained as if she were a part of him.

Concentrating on her schoolwork proved haphazard at best. Meredith rubbed at the dull ache in her forehead, turned the page of her spelling book and stared at the word on the top of the page.

“Time for lunch.” The teacher’s handbell jingled merrily, and all around her students burst out of their desks, conversation erupted and footsteps pounded down the aisle to the front door, where warm sunshine beckoned.

Finally. She closed her book, blinked to refocus her eyes and gave thanks that she had an hour to rest her weary brain. It took an astonishing amount of energy to keep her mind on the day’s tasks.

“At least we don’t have school tomorrow.” Scarlet stacked her books on her side of the desk. “A day off.”

“For you, not for me.” She hopped to her feet, glad to leave her work behind, and grabbed her book bag from beneath her seat. “This time tomorrow, I’ll be halfway through my teachers’ examinations.”

“Me, too.” Earlee hooked her bag over her shoulder. “While you all are playing, Meredith and I will be finding out if we have what it takes to be teachers.”

“As if the answer isn’t already perfectly clear.” Fiona smiled sweetly.

“Yeah, you two are the smartest in our class. You will do fine.” Lila rolled her eyes. “The rest of us will be the losers because you both will leave us behind to get your own little schools. You will have your own careers.”

“You make it sound so romantic.” Kate sighed as she fished her book bag out from under her desk. “I have no idea what I’m going to do after we graduate.”

They hadn’t taken a step down the aisle before they heard a familiar, sharp-toned voice.

“Don’t even look at me.” Narcissa’s words were pitched to rise above all the other sounds in the emptying schoolhouse. “Does it look as if I want to be friends with you? What is your name?”

“R-Ruby.” It was the new girl, seated in the last desk of the row, looking miserable with her head bowed. Meredith had been so involved with her worries and her work that she had forgotten about the morning’s addition to their school.

“I’m going to call you Rags. Look at that dress.” Narcissa sneered, pleased with herself as she turned up her nose. “C’mon, girls. Let’s go.”

A few giggles and twitters filled the air as Narcissa and her group of friends clomped down the other aisle, leaving behind the lone girl with her head still down. A blush stained her fair face as she closed her tattered spelling book, clearly a volume handed down many
times. She wore a faded red calico dress, which did not look as if it had been made for her because the fabric was bright red where the seams had been let out. The cuffs of her sleeves did not reach her wrists. The several patches on her skirt were made from a different fabric and were impossible not to notice.

Meredith stopped in mid-aisle. Kate lifted one eyebrow in silent question. Lila gave a little nod. Earlee and Fiona smiled. Scarlet, ever bold, turned on her heels and marched back to the new girl’s desk, shoes striking like a hammer in the otherwise empty classroom. “Ruby?”

“Y-yes?” The girl didn’t look up at them. Her face was still red as she kept her hands busy with a battered bag she had in her lap.

“Would you like to sit with us at lunch?”

Meredith saw the surprise and then gladness on the new girl’s face. Ruby was really very lovely with porcelain features and wide, unguarded eyes.

“Oh, yes. I would like that very much.” She swept into the aisle with her bag in hand. She had the friendliest smile. The dress she wore didn’t fit much better when standing. The tops of her patched shoes were visible, as were her white stockings. “I’m afraid I’ve never been to a place like this before, so I don’t know what to do with myself.”

“You’ve never been to school?” Meredith had to ask, curious.

“No, I learned at home. My family used to live up near the Canadian border. There was no school nearby.” Ruby blushed again. “I resolved not to make a fool of myself, but I think I just did it again, didn’t I?”

“Not at all,” Meredith assured her.

“Not a bit,” Earlee seconded.

“Not even a little,” Lila chimed in.

“Come on. We always eat lunch in the shade of the maple trees,” Kate explained.

“And when we’re done eating, we work on our sewing projects,” Fiona continued.

“And talk,” Scarlet finished, leading the way down the aisle.

“You all sew?” Ruby’s face lit up as she followed them. “I’m not very good. What are you all making?”

“A quilt.” Meredith plucked her lunch pail from the shelf above the hanging coats. “What’s your current project?”

“Me? I’m afraid I don’t have one right now.” Ruby blushed again, perhaps embarrassed, hiding her face as she chose a battered tin pail from the shelf. “I did it again. I can’t believe I said that. I’m just really nervous.”

“It’s okay.” Earlee gestured at her own dress as they all trooped down the front steps and into the sunshine. “I get nervous like that, too. I’m letting out a dress for one of my younger sisters.”

“Do you live in town?” Scarlet wanted to know.

“No. My pa took up a claim on a farm.” Ruby shrugged shyly. “This is such a big town. I’ve never been around so many people.”

A big town? Meredith bit her bottom lip to keep from pointing out that Angel Falls, while a nice place to live, was a small settlement and their school humble enough to house all classes in one room.

“You must have lived in a very small town,” Meredith said as they settled on one of the benches beneath the circle of maples. The younger children were cross-legged on the grass, pails scattered about, nearly done with their lunches. Some of the boys were already playing kickball.

“There was only a mail stop and a general store,” Ruby explained as she took a spot on the bench next to Earlee. “It was a day’s drive from the ranch Pa worked on, so we didn’t go there very often.”

“This must be a big change for you here.” Lila empathized.

Meredith took the last space on the edge of the bench and tugged the lid off her tin while Ruby answered.

“Have you told your mother about the test tomorrow?” Scarlet leaned close to whisper.

“No. I’ve been dreading it, so I put it off.” As if she didn’t have enough eating her up inside with Shane on her mind. “It appears as if I’m out of time. I have to tell her before I leave to take the test in the morning.”

“What if she forbids you to go?”

“I don’t know.” Meredith looked unhappily down at the meal Cook had prepared and Sadie had packed. Delicious aromas lifted from the cloth-wrapped food, but she wasn’t hungry. Her stomach was tied up in far too many knots.

“You will think of something,” Scarlet encouraged.

“I had better.” Her plans for her entire future were at stake. Good thing Shane had taught her how to hitch up the buggy. If worse came to worst, she could drive Sweetie to town on her own.

Bless him for that. She plucked a leg of fried chicken out of the pail and did her best to join in with her friends’ conversation.

N
ot being pals with Meredith was like slow agonizing torture. The instant he’d spotted her tripping down the steps, her school day done, he read her unhappiness. Her head was down, her walk sedate. He hated seeing her like that. When she waved goodbye to her friends as they all parted ways, they promised to send prayers her way. Battered with regret, he hopped from the seat, boots striking the sun-kissed grass, seeing the crinkle of tension at the bridge of her nose and bracketing her rosebud mouth.

“Hi! Can we take Maisie home today, too?” Minnie reached him first, hand-in-hand with her best friend. The little girls giggled, twin braids bobbing,

“Sure thing, shortcakes.” With an eye on Meredith, he helped the little girls into the backseat.

“Thanks ever so much.” Minnie beamed at him, as cute as a button.

“You are ever so welcome.” He winked to make her beam brighter. Hard not to grow fond of the kid. He would miss Minnie when he had to move on. He never
had a young sister, but he reckoned it would have felt something like this.

He felt Meredith’s approach. Every step she took closer seemed to move through him like meter through a poem, the rise and fall of the cadence like that of his heart.

Don’t let her know you are broken up, too.
He tucked his feelings down deep and drew himself up to his full height. He was a disciplined man, but his resolve wavered as she glided to a stop before him. She did not hold out her hand, and he did not reach for her.

She pushed past him, gripped the side of the buggy and handily hoisted herself up, skirts swinging, lunch tin clanging, school bag dangling. Her silence said everything. She didn’t need him, didn’t want him. He couldn’t say it didn’t hurt. She smiled warmly at the little girls on the seat next to her, laughing at something Maisie had drawn on her slate.

Hardening his heart, he took his seat and the reins and sent Sweetie into the street. He was the driver, nothing more. That was what he had told her he wanted. If he felt the sting of her gaze on his back, he did his best to ignore it. If she was unusually quiet, he told himself it was not the sound of her voice he missed.

The streets were busy now that the warm weather had decided to stay. He had to wait at the intersection, enduring Meredith’s glares and her silence. It felt as if ten years had gone by before the long queue of horses, wagons and buggies ahead of him dwindled, and he could finally turn onto the main street.

In front of Maisie’s house, the little girls said good
bye. Meredith didn’t so much as glance at him. He knew because he kept her in the corner of his eye.

There was no doubt she was mad at him. But that was not the reason she worried her bottom lip. Maybe she was anxious about her examination tomorrow. She had so much on her shoulders. A friend could help her by listening, maybe getting her to grin. He was not a friend, so he could not. He hated that no smile touched her rosebud-shaped mouth.

That he should even notice her mouth. It gave the sweetest smiles on earth and, he reckoned, perhaps the sweetest kisses.

Definitely don’t think about kissing her, Connelly.
If being friends was banned, then kissing would be absolutely prohibited. But as Minnie waved, hanging out the window, and he nosed the mare down the street, he could think of nothing else. Meredith’s kiss would be soft as sun-warmed silk, as sacred as the most cherished of hymns. If he were allotted only one kiss in his entire lifetime, then hers would be the one he would choose.

He took the back roads to the church, where the oldest Worthington daughter was waiting on the top step. Tilly gathered her things and offered him a cordial smile that did not touch her eyes. She hopped in beside Minnie, hardly taking his hand. She didn’t look any happier than Meredith did. But he was the driver and nothing more, so he gathered the reins and guided Sweetie toward home.

“How did the Ladies Aid meeting go?” Meredith’s words penetrated his senses. Of all the noises in town
and on the street, he could not shut out the sound of her voice.

“It was okay,” Tilly said in the way women did when things weren’t all right.

“What happened?” Meredith’s question held tender sympathy, and that was what he liked about her the most. That she held a beautiful capacity to care.

He halted Sweetie at the end of the street, checked to see the way was clear and chirruped to her. The wind gusted through full leaves of the trees lining the road, and the music of children’s laughter blotted out the older Worthington sister’s answer. His every sense strained to hear Meredith’s response, but the outside world seemed to work against him. A shout rang out from the main street, and several horses began to bay angrily. A woman came out her front door three houses up and began shouting for her children, her angry calls completely drowning Meredith’s side of the conversation. Disappointment twisted through him, leaving him more frustrated than he’d started out.

Maybe he shouldn’t be listening in. He knuckled back his hat brim, let the breeze fan his face and gazed up at what he could see of the blue sky beyond the buggy’s fringed top.

Father, I’m feeling a tad lost. Please guide me. Even the smallest sign will do.
No answer came on the summer-like air scented with green growing grass. They’d left the town behind them, where fields grew green and lush and the river roared on one side. Meredith was talking about an unnamed teamster Tilly was sweet on. The rushing roar of the upcoming falls drowned out the girls’ conversation again.

Maybe that was sign enough. He didn’t want to admit it, but perhaps he ought to work harder to close off his feelings and keep his desire to right what was wrong for her under control.

“What are you going to tell Mama?” Minnie asked, her words audible as soon as they’d left the falls behind them.

“I don’t know,” Meredith said, her lovely alto made him come to attention, spine straight, shoulders set. Maybe this was none of his business and he oughtn’t be eavesdropping, but did that stop him?

Not a chance.

“I’m going to take the exam, whatever she says.”

Yep, he wanted to help her. He wanted to be more than a friend to her. He wanted to be the man she turned to. But it wasn’t meant to be. Just the driver, he gripped the reins more tightly and kept his attention on the road. Only on the road. Now and then an occasional note of her voice rose up to him like a little piece of music.

He’d never been so glad to see any building as he was the sight of the Worthington estate. Relief rolled through him. He pulled the mare to a stop. Tilly was out of the buggy before the wheels stopped turning. Minnie leaped out on her own, hollering a thanks to him. Only Meredith moved slowly, reluctant to face her mother, he reckoned, and not to prolong the presence of his company.

He could have wished her good luck, assured her he would say a prayer for her. He could simply reach out to squeeze her hand.

He did not. He sat straight as a fence post on the seat listening to her go. It was the little things that got
to him now—the rustle of her skirts, the tiny intake of her breath that was nearly a sigh and the tempo of her gait on the walkway as she left him behind.

“Get a move on,” Braden drawled, peeking around the garden gate. “We get the two-year-olds saddle broke, and I’m thinking it’s time to reevaluate. Maybe make the decision to move on.”

“Because of Mrs. Worthington?” He kept his voice quiet so it wouldn’t carry to the house as he drove Sweetie toward the barn.

“That woman sat down with me today and gave me a lecture.” He shook his head, looking as if he’d had enough. “I won’t be impolite to a woman, but I was sorely tempted. She decided to have a say in how the horses are being trained.”

“Does Mr. Worthington know about his wife’s involvement?”

“He’s about to.” Braden, voice pitched low, pushed away from the gate. “I’ll be waiting in the small corral.”

“I’ll be there.”

He drove Sweetie into the shade of the barn. Looked as if he didn’t need to worry about being here for much longer. He swung down and freed the reins through the loops on the dash. The wind gusted, carrying the faint murmur of women’s voices from the house. Meredith’s.

“Mama, no. Please. I have to do this.” The gentlest plea he’d ever heard sailed over, wrapping its way around him. Heaven knew how anyone could say no to her.

“A Worthington daughter does not work.” The
mother’s pronouncement rang with unyielding certainty and loud enough to clearly carry all the way from the parlor, across the flower garden and to the barn. “I expect you to deport yourself in a way that’s appropriate to this family. A common schoolteacher, Meredith. Really. Where do you get your ideas, my precious girl?”

Whatever the woman’s flaws, there was love there, too. He could not fault the mother for that.

Work was waiting, so he led the horse into the barn by the bridle bits. His sympathy for Meredith remained throughout the afternoon and long into the night, keeping him from a sound sleep.

The last thing she wanted to do was to disappoint her parents. Meredith set her morning cup of tea onto its saucer with a clink and tried to will the fog from her brain. After an upsetting evening with her parents, she’d tossed and turned most of the night and had awakened tired and groggy. Not the way she wanted to start this day, of all days. She listened to the mantel clock ticking off the minutes, knowing every moment that passed brought her closer to acting on her decision. Mama was so not going to like it.

“Meredith, why aren’t you eating?” Her mother’s tone jarred her out of her thoughts. “You haven’t touched your breakfast.”

“Sorry.” She gathered knife and fork and stared at her plate. The food was delicious. Her stomach growled. She couldn’t very well take her test without breakfast, so she cut into the stack of pancakes and took a bite.

“That’s better.” Mama approved with a nod. “A good girl doesn’t mope if she doesn’t get her own way.”

“Although you’ve been known to, my dear,” Papa quipped lovingly from the head of the table.

“I certainly have never moped, Robert.” A tiny hint of amusement snapped between them. “I’ve been disappointed, perhaps, but a Worthington does not sulk.”

Papa’s chuckle was his answer as he turned back to his morning paper.

If it was only her mother who was against her becoming a teacher, then she knew she could have taken her pleas to her father. Papa had a hard time denying his daughters anything. But he’d sided with Mama on the subject, saying no girl of his would work. If she defied them, what would happen? She loved her parents. She didn’t want to risk losing their regard. But neither could she let this opportunity pass her by.

I really hate being eighteen,
she thought. Too young to be on her own, too old to let her parents decide the course of her life. She forked another bite of pancake into her mouth. The good food turned to sand on her tongue, nearly impossible to swallow. The clock had progressed another five minutes. If she wanted to get to the schoolhouse in plenty of time, she had to leave soon. Her palms went damp at the thought.

“You keep looking at the clock, Meredith.” Mama and her eagle eye. She didn’t miss much. “Do you have someplace to be? You know there isn’t school this morning.”

“I want to take the exam. You know this, Mama.”

“And you know I forbid it. Don’t think your father will take you to town with him on his way to work.
He and I have already discussed that. Matilda will be staying home with me this morning to finish reading for our book club. And since you are not allowed to drive, I’m sorry to say you have no choice but to spend your morning helping Sadie in the vegetable garden.”

Was there any way to make her mother actually listen? Why was Mama’s way always the right one, regardless of the consequences? “Times are changing. A lot of women are working. Earlee wants to be a teacher, too. Lila works in her parents’ store.”

“If your friends jumped off a cliff, would you jump, too?” Mama demanded. “I think not. Don’t compare yourself to those girls, Meredith.”

“Why not? They are my friends.”

“They are not like our family. They don’t have our responsibilities—”

“That is
such
an old-fashioned way to think.” She pushed away from the table, torn apart by her wish to do as her parents wanted and by her own conscience. China rattled with the force of her feet hitting the floor. She drew herself up tall, hands clenched, pulse pounding. She felt as if she were tearing apart from the inside out. Why couldn’t they understand? She wished more than anything that they would take a moment to see her—just Meredith—and not the daughter they intended to mold her into.

“Where are you going, young lady?” Mama’s chair scraped. She was on her feet, her face blushing with anger. “You come right back here and finish your meal.”

Her feet seemed to be moving of their own accord, taking her to the front door where she’d left her book
bag packed last night. Ready to go, she unhooked her coat from the tree. She glanced over her shoulder across the long stretch of the parlor, and into the dining room where her family watched her, shock frozen on their faces.

She had never denied them before. Papa’s newspaper had sagged to the table. The disapproval in harsh lines on his face hurt more than any punishment could. Tilly’s fork had stopped midair and her sympathetic look was what gave Meredith the courage to slip one arm into her coat. Tilly understood. Minnie was the first to move, bowing her head to drag a strip of bacon through the syrup puddle on her plate, her shoulders slumped, upset by the discord in their home.

I’m upset, too.
Meredith jabbed her other arm into the sleeve and quickly buttoned her coat. At least she would be able to hitch up Sweetie. That was the only saving grace. She had prayed with all her might last night and still the dream remained in her heart. God had not taken it from her. She grasped the bag’s straps, twisted the handle and opened the door.
Please, give me strength now, Father.

Mama’s footsteps shot like bullets on the hardwood floor. As Meredith seized the doorknob, she glanced over to see her mother throw up the dining-room window.