“Don’t be silly. You’d never be in the way.”
“Don’t be too sure now,” he cautioned. “Before we came to this country, after Megan died, my sister lived with us—me and the kids. She was a wonderful woman—been dead these past five years. But she was a wonderful woman. And I remember wishing she’d just go home.
“I loved her, but I wanted her to just go home and leave us alone.” He lit his pipe and pulled on it. “I don’t ever want anyone feeling that way about me. So I think for now, we’ll leave things the way they are.
“You might see me a bit more often at the dinner hour,” he added with a chuckle. “Be too far to walk to Annie’s.”
“Do you know where they’re going to live? Daniel won't tell me a thing.”
“I’m sworn to secrecy. Can’t even tell Annie!”
“She doesn’t know?”
“Says she doesn’t care, either. As long as he’s happy.”
“Oh, my Lord! Maybe she is a simpleton. Imagine trusting a man with something like that!”
Owen began to laugh, then got up to answer the knock on the door. “Well, speak of the devil!”
“Annie home?” Daniel asked.
“Upstairs. Should be down in a minute. You’ve missed supper, boy.”
“That’s all right. I can only stay a minute, anyway.”
As he entered the parlor, Evelyn jumped up and grabbed his arm.
“Tell me,” she pleaded in a whisper. “Please tell me where you’re going to live.” As he shook his head, she pouted. “You told Owen.”
“Owen knows how to keep his mouth shut.”
“Oh, please. I won't tell her. But if you tell me, I’ll tell you what her dress looks like.”
“See what I mean? Evelyn, I love you, but you’ve never kept a secret in your life.”
She stomped her foot, pleaded and begged, and finally she sulked. But he remained adamant. In two days, all the world would know.
She sighed. “That means you won't tell me?”
“In two more days, you’ll know everything.”
“All right. I guess if nobody else knows, either...”
He gave her a noncommittal smile. He didn’t tell her John Patrick and the younger twins had helped him build a platform for the tent he’d erected on a wide shelf of the leeward knoll overlooking the meadow. Didn’t tell her Molly had helped him with small decorative touches, and Brian had helped him build a small rope corral for his few horses. Or that, in a moment of uncertainty, he’d told Jesse every single detail of his plan. Least said, he told himself, soonest mended.
He turned at the sound of Annie’s footstep on the stairs. As she held out her hand, he could see she’d been crying. “Aroon, do you feel all right?”
“Yes, I’m fine.”
“Been crying?”
“Just a little. You know they say the bride is supposed to have the jitters.”
“No second thoughts?”
“Silly!”
“Come out to the porch for a minute.”
Annie stepped out into the soft night. Daniel wrapped his arms around her and she leaned back against his chest.
“I just stopped by to tell you I love you,” he said. She lifted a beaming face to him and he bent to kiss her, whispered her name. She turned toward him, pressed her head into the hollow of his shoulder and lifted her arms up around his neck.
“I love you, Daniel.” Her voice had the soft sound of a laughing brook. “I miss you so much.”
“Two more days, aroon. Two more days and we’ll be together.” When he pulled himself away from her lips again, he said, “We’ll get married at the house. The preacher should be there at two o’clock. All right?”
Her smile was radiant.
“Mother said you can come any time. The guest room’s ready for you. Owen can use my room—I’ll bunk with Jake.”
He thought of the pelts and books he’d transferred to their temporary home, wondered if she’d bring the teddy bear. Owen had given him a key to their cottage and his brothers were ready to move her bed to the tent as soon as she arrived at the ranch. Maybe he’d tell Brian to bring the bear as well.
He lost himself in her eyes, stood and gazed into them until Lowell arrived to take Evelyn home. Stepping off the porch, Daniel took her hand in his, slipped the ring off her finger. He’d made it for her—three strands of copper, silver and gold, entwined in the Celtic symbol of eternity. He kissed the place where it had rested, then looked up into her stricken face.
“Aroon. No, sweetheart. Oh, Annie.” He tried to pull her close again but she pushed at him, staring at his hands. “I’m sorry, aroon. I thought you’d know.” He held the ring out to her. “I need to have it back, sweetheart, so I can give it to you. At the wedding. Sweetheart, how could you think...?”
But she was grabbing frantically for the ring. He let it go and she thrust it onto her finger, turning it round and round as she stared down at it.
“Oh, Annie, do you think I could ever let you go? It’s yours, sweetheart. I’d never take it from you. I’m sorry... I thought you’d realize... I’m sorry. I love you, aroon. I’d never take it back.”
She gave him a strained smile, then leaned against his chest again.
“I guess it... I guess I’m kind of silly,” she whispered. “But when you took it away, I felt so alone.”
“It’s all right, sweetheart. I shouldn’t have done it. I didn’t think.” He put his hand under her chin, raised her face to his once more and kissed her. “You keep it. I’ll find another one for us to use. I love you, Annie. I’ll never leave you.”
“I know. I don’t know why...”
“It doesn’t matter. You keep it safe.” He kissed the ring and said, “I love you, Annie.”
“I love you, Daniel.”
“Good night, aroon.”
He turned at the gate and saw her gazing down at the ring, turning it round and round on her finger. Her hair caught the sparkle from the stars, her face was like a white flower in the moonlight. When she looked up at him, the love in her eyes warmed him through.
Chapter 42
At dawn on his wedding day, Daniel walked to the meadow. He spent several minutes looking out over the valley full of flowers, then climbed the knoll to where the brook sang merrily—where he’d carried Annie after she fell asleep in his arms. There were two steps up to the platform on which the tent stood—he took them in one stride.
Annie’s bed was inside, his bear resting on her pillow. His pelts hung on the walls, his map sat atop the dresser. Their clothes mingled on pegs fastened to the wooden framework he’d constructed to support the walls. Until he could build their cabin, this would be home.
He gathered an armful of flowers for the vases his mother had given him. Then he stepped out once more. The day was beautiful, soft. A passing shower had dampened the field in the hours before dawn, so the flowers stood bold and proud, curtsying in the breeze. He picked enough of them to weave a garland for her hair, starting with a crown of daisies, then tucking in blue flax and penstemon, pink storksbill and evening primrose, adding tiny green leaves to fill the empty spaces. Annie needed a bouquet, too—Jesse had told him that. And Jesse had slipped her own wedding ring from her finger when he brought his newest problem to her.
He got to the ranchhouse just in time to greet her. Jesse rode her black filly Fancy, wore the black riding outfit he remembered. Adam had a carpet bag on the back of his saddle; Jesse took it and the garland of flowers, and ran up the stairs to Annie.
“Big day finally got here,” Adam said. “It’s about damn time!”
“Tell Annie that!” Daniel turned to Brian. “It’s your turn next, isn’t it?”
“Oh, no, not me! I’m the irresponsible kind.”
“Who’d want you anyway?” Adam gave him a punch on the shoulder.
Brian poked a finger at him. “Why, I’ll have you know—”
But his words and gesture were broken by Adam’s soft benediction. “My dear
God. Isn’t she beautiful?”
They looked up to see Jesse beckoning to them from the front door. She wore her own wedding dress—a sprigged muslin Evelyn had made, creamy white with tiny red roses and emerald green leaves scattered over it. Her hair was pulled up into a topknot, wisps of it playing against her temples and neck.
As Adam took the steps in twos and threes, his silver spurs jingling like coins in a pocket, and bent over the hand she held out to him, Daniel murmured, “She certainly is.”
Brian nodded silently as Adam returned to them.
“Annie sent you this.” He handed Daniel Annie’s ring. “Said if you lose it, she’ll have your head on a silver platter. Said she’d have Alec make it special, just for you.”
The woodsman laughed as he exchanged the ring for Jesse’s, then slipped it into the embroidered pocket of his shirt. “You know, brother, we really have had the luck of the Irish!”
ANNIE WORE THE DRESS of jade green silk, her father’s delicate slippers, and she looked to Daniel like a fairy-child. Her blonde hair hung long and loose. The garland and his grandmother’s stick pin were her only jewels. She floated down the stairs with Evelyn and Jesse, to find him at the door with the bouquet. He took her hand and kissed it, then led her to the preacher.
Two large rooms in the Donovan home were used only for special occasions. One was the formal parlor, and it was there that they were married, before a fireplace of Connemara marble. Jesse and Evelyn stood at Annie’s side, while the family gathered behind them. Daniel had asked Lowell and Alec to stand with him, and the only other guests he’d invited were Tommy and Carolyn. Softly he and Annie exchanged their vows, gently did he slip the braided ring on her finger.
After the ceremony, family and friends drank a toast and presented their gifts. There were linens and china, blankets and canisters. Mugs and knives and a crystal vase. Annie couldn’t keep track of it all, so Evelyn bent to whisper, “Don’t worry, dear, I’m writing it down for you.”
But two gifts Annie could never mistake. From Jesse, an embroidered wall hanging with Katie’s Homeric blessing. When she unwrapped it, Annie’s eyes overflowed with emotion. Then from Alec came a gift in two boxes—one for each of them. Two halves of a single medallion, each with one initial engraved and surrounded by a braided circle—gold, silver, copper. Annie’s on a delicate chain, the initial “D”. Daniel’s on a heavier link, the initial “A”. The two pieces fit together as one. Neither of them could say a word. With perfect timing, John Patrick raised another toast, and the room resounded with laughter and cheers.
They adjourned to the dining room for the wedding supper. Molly and Irene had decorated the room in emerald green and white. White tablecloth, green napkins. White flowers in green vases. Huge green and white bows tied to the chairs the bride and groom were to occupy. The room was the epitome of May Day.
After dinner was eaten, the preacher and his wife departed, and the guests gathered again in the parlor. Daniel picked up his violin and played The Maid of Llanwellyn. Annie beamed at him, and remembered her first reaction to the song.
It was their first dance, their first date. She’d answered his knock on the cottage door and stared at him until the color rose to his cheeks.
“Evenin’,” he’d said in his deep gravel voice.
“Daniel,” she answered breathlessly.
“What do you think?” He turned around slowly, his shoulders shrugging as he came to face her again. She didn’t know how to reply. Gone was the woodsman she knew. Gone was the buckskin suit with its rawhide laces, the knee-high boots with their long fringe. But the man who stood before her made her heart beat fast and hard.
He wore serge trousers and soft black leather shoes that made his feet look small. His white shirt had full sleeves that made her think of the pirates she’d read about as a child. The shirt had a slit at his throat; the ends of a black bolo he’d borrowed from Tommy fell on either side of it. His mustache had been trimmed and shaped, and even the hair that usually hung down over his collar had been clipped. What will it be like to dance with him? He’s never been to a dance that I know of—not since we were kids. His soft, self-deprecating laugh helped her pull herself together.
“Do you hate it?” he asked.
“No, no.” She was still breathless, her heart beating fast. “But you look so different. Like an old Spanish pirate. Or an Irish one, if there ever was such a thing!”
“I’m sure there were. And maybe there still are—who knows what Conor’s been up to lately?”
As they strolled to the Town Hall with Evelyn and Lowell, he told her how his grandmother sent for him just an hour before they were to leave the house. He’d been trying to decide between his buckskin shirt and a maroon corduroy one—the former of which he felt would be too casual, the latter too warm—when Katie had presented him with the white shirt. He showed Annie the embroidered pocket; it was a derivation of the Donovan brand, the Celtic symbol of eternity surrounding a pair of embroidered “D”s. It had been years since she’d made a shirt for any of them but Adam, and he knew it had taken her many weeks to make his.
“For once, I didn’t have anything to say.”
Knowing him as a man who spoke only when necessary, Annie giggled. As they arrived at the hall, he stopped and stood before her, placing his hands on her shoulders.
“Aroon,” he said, “you are beautiful tonight. More than ever before.”
His hands were warm on her shoulders and she quivered as she looked back up at him, unaware of the throngs around them. He raised her hand to his lips as she felt the heat rise to her face, then he tucked her fingers under his arm and took her inside.
They danced their first dance together and Annie felt light as a fairy in his arms. So graceful was he, so strong, that she seemed to be carried across the floor, her feet hardly touching down. He’d shared her dances with his brothers, her father and his, and with Tommy, who teased her as he waltzed with her and made her blush. At the end of that dance, the musicians took a break and Daniel led her over to her father, then offered to get them refreshments.
“Having a good time?” Owen had asked her.
“Oh, yes. I can’t remember when I’ve had so much fun!”
“Daniel’s all gussied up. Sarah Taylor asked me who he was.”
“Did she want to dance with him?”
“You’re a tease, girl. I hope Daniel knows what he’s getting into.”
She sought him out, saw him speaking to the fiddler and taking his instrument. With breathless anticipation, she waited for the jig or reel to begin. Instead, the song was slow and lilting. Annie recognized the ancient Welsh air and turned to her father, her eyes snapping, her jaw set. Owen quickly turned her face away from the band.
“Don’t be foolish, child,” he said.
“He has no right!”
Her father put his arms around her and danced her into the crowd. “What has he done?” At her stony silence, he continued, “He’s learned a song from your country. Is that so bad?”
“But, Papa... it’s a love song.”
“Because he loves you. Is it such a crime?”
“Everyone will know.” Her face was on fire. She hid it against his shoulder.
“Who will know? Who will know but you and me? And Lowell? Perhaps Evelyn? No one will know, caraid. And he has meant no harm. You do him wrong to think so.”
“Papa,” she protested again, but he went on as if she hadn’t spoken.
“His song is a gift, Annie. Take it as such. And take his love, too. He’ll make you happy, caraid.” Moments later, he was singing in her ear:
Rich Owen will tell you, with eyes full of scorn,
Threadbare is my coat, and my hosen are torn,
Scoff on, my rich Owen, but faint is thy glee,
When the Maid of Llanwellyn smiles sweetly on me.
And now as the song ended once more, with her heart full of joy, Annie could think of no greater gift she’d ever received.
; WITH THE CELEBRATION over, Daniel took Annie’s hand in his, led her from the ranch house and across the fields. At the sight of the tent, she stopped for a moment, her heart beating so rapidly she could scarcely breathe. He pulled gently on her hand, leading her through the sunset field, then opened the flaps and lifted her in his arms. She touched his face.
“Aroon,” he whispered, “I love you.”
“Daniel.” It was all she could say. Inside, he lay her on her own bed and knelt beside it. She looked around in wonder. “How did you know?”
He knelt there with a tender smile on his face, until she reached for him. Then he, who considered himself the least sensitive, the least gifted of his family, made love to his young bride with such tenderness of tone and touch that she wept in his arms.
He cradled her head against his breast. “Aroon, have I hurt you?”
“Oh, no.” Soft, sweet denial.
“Then what, sweetheart?”
“Oh, Daniel... there’s too much happiness inside me. There’s just not enough room for all of it. I don’t know how else to let it go.”
“I love you, Annie,” he whispered. He held her close and watched her fall asleep, her slender hand pressed against his heart, her golden hair mingling with the copper on his chest.
Thank you, mother. Thank you for this day. Let me keep her for a little while. For now all is well. Now all is well.
Chapter 43
The door to the tent faced south; a flap in the side wall created a window. The rising sun glanced through to warm her face, and Annie wakened to find a happiness she’d never imagined would be hers.
Daniel lay behind her, next to the wall, and her body nestled in against his. She felt his breath upon her shoulder. One of his arms was under her head, the other wrapped around her waist. The security she felt as she’d fallen asleep was now multiplied a hundredfold and it washed over her in wave after wave, like the tide upon the shore. A single tear trickled from her eye, but she didn’t move to wipe it away.
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