Margaret Brownley, Robin Lee Hatcher, Mary Connealy, Debra Clopton

by A Bride for All Seasons

  White fluffy clouds chased across the sky, playing peek-a-boo with the sun.

  Yellow flowers grew in wild abandon along the fence, lifting brown-bonneted faces to the sky.

  Daniel’s grave wasn’t yet marked with a headstone, but the mound of fresh dirt made it easy to find. Someone had stuck a small wooden cross in the center of the soft soil.

  Mary-Jo spread the blanket on the ground next to the grave and set the picnic basket on it. She dropped to her knees.

  Eddie’s gaze was cast down, the toe of his shoe digging into the dirt. Her heart went out to him. He was trying so hard to be brave.

  His trousers were still too short, but today his shirt was pressed and his hair neatly combed. She had even trimmed his bangs so they were no longer in his eyes.

  “Do you want to go first?” she asked. When he failed to respond, she gave him a nod of encouragement. “Say goodbye to your pa.”

  He stared down at the mound. “This is dumb. You can’t talk to someone you can’t see.”

  She straightened the little wooden cross. “Don’t you talk to God?”

  “That’s different. God can see and hear everything. Pa can’t.”

  “I reckon, then, you’re gonna have to ask God to give your pa a message.”

  The frown on his face made him look older than his eight years. “Do you think He would do that?”

  She shrugged. “Why not ask Him?” If that don’t beat all. She sounded like she was an expert on God or something. Some expert.

  Eddie dropped down on his knees and pulled off his cap. Head lowered, he began. “God, tell Pa I’m sorry I didn’t say good-bye.”

  “Go on,” she coaxed after a long silence. “Tell your pa everything you want him to know.”

  Eddie rubbed his nose with the back of his hand. “Tell Pa it’s okay that he didn’t take me fishing. I don’t like fishing that much anyway. Amen.” He replaced his hat. After a long silence he glanced up at her. “It’s your turn.”

  She hadn’t planned on talking to the Lord herself. She had no idea what to say, but since Eddie was waiting she clasped her hands and closed her eyes. Maybe something would come to her. She wanted to do this right, for the boy’s sake.

  “God, tell Daniel . . .” Words caught in her throat. It seemed strange to say good-bye when she hadn’t even had a chance to say hello.

  She swallowed, but the lump remained and everything hit her at once. The coffin—two coffins. The lies, the unfairness of it all.

  “I . . . I am so angry I could scream.” She lifted her voice until she practically shouted to the heavens. “How could you do this to me, God? First Charles and now Daniel—” Words spouted out of her like water from a primed pump.

  But after a while she fell silent. And she felt as though an awful weight had been lifted.

  A hand on her arm startled her and she opened her eyes. Eddie stared up at her, his peepers round as wagon wheels.

  Oh dear, what had she done? “I’m s-sorry,” she stammered. She felt terrible for making the poor child witness her shouting at the Lord. “Sometimes . . . it helps to tell God how you feel.”

  Eddie pulled his hand away. “I reckon He knows now. Pa too.”

  She sucked in her breath. “Yes, I reckon they do.”

  “Who’s Charles?” he asked.

  Hearing the name fall from Eddie’s lips made her wince. “He was a . . . friend. He died during the war.”

  “My uncle fought in the war too,” he said.

  “Did he now?”

  Eddie gave an earnest nod. “Maybe he knew your friend.”

  She didn’t have the heart to tell him that his uncle and her fiancé probably fought on opposite sides. “Maybe.” She reached for the picnic basket. “Time to eat.” She pulled out bread and cheese and slices of sausage. For a man without a wife, Dan’s kitchen was well stocked.

  They ate in silence for several moments before Eddie spoke. “What’s gonna happen to me?”

  She took her time answering, hoping to find the right words. “I guess you’ll live with your uncle and go back to school and grow up to be . . . someone really special. Maybe a lawyer like your pa.”

  “I hate school.”

  “I don’t believe that. A bright boy like you?”

  “I got a four on my math test. That’s ’cause it takes me too long to figure out the answers. Miss Madison says I have to take it again.”

  She knew precious little about school, but she did know that a four meant he’d flunked. “Addition?”

  He shook his head. “Multiplying.”

  “I have an idea.” She reached into her reticule for the deck of playing cards. “I may not be good at spelling or grammar, but I know ’rithmetic.”

  Eddie watched her separate the jokers and face cards from the numerical ones, a doubtful look on his face. “My teacher says that playing cards are sinful.”

  “Did she now?” She separated the cards into two piles. “It’s not the cards that are sinful, it’s what you do with them. And right now they’re going to help you turn that four into a one.”

  For the next hour or so they worked on multiplying numbers. Eddie was a fast learner and was soon shouting out answers almost before she turned over the cards.

  “Sixty-four!” he yelled when she held up two eights.

  “Okay, now times these . . .” Just then a gust of wind swept across the prairie and through the cemetery, blowing a whirlwind of dust and leaves and scattering cards in every direction.

  “Oh no.” Her lucky cards! “Quick.” She jumped to her feet and Eddie lunged for an ace. Together they chased the cards around the cemetery, dodging in and out of headstones.

  “Get that king,” she yelled.

  “There’s a card over there,” he yelled back.

  She tripped over a gravestone and fell facedown in the grass. Eddie hurried over to help her up and soon they were laughing hysterically. It was as if someone had pulled a cork and all the tension of the last twenty-four hours poured out of them.

  “Miss Parker!”

  The male voice thundered across the graveyard, followed by its marching owner. Sheriff Garrett stormed up to them and scowled at the playing cards in their hands.

  “Why, Sheriff Garrett . . . Are you trying to raise the dead?”

  He glared at her, his face dark as a thunderhead. “And are you trying to corrupt my nephew?” He snatched the cards out of Eddie’s hand and shoved them into hers.

  Without giving her time to explain, he turned to Eddie. “Why aren’t you in school?”

  Eddie stared at his feet and said nothing, and so she answered for him. “He just lost his pa.”

  “Yes, he did, Miss Parker. That’s why I’m having a hard time understanding what the two of you found so . . . funny. In the vicinity of my brother’s grave, no less.”

  The boy turned pale, and Mary-Jo felt a maternal need to protect him. “It was my fault. We had . . . something important to do.”

  “Important?” He glanced at the cards in her hands. “The boy doesn’t need anyone helping him get in trouble. He’s quite capable of managing that himself. Right now, the best thing for everyone is for you to leave town.” He motioned to the boy to follow and stalked away.

  Eddie’s gaze clung to hers and the pleading expression he gave her stabbed at her heart.

  “It’ll be all right,” she said softly, giving him a gentle shove in the sheriff’s direction. Clutching his cap, he took one last glance at her before following his uncle through the cemetery and out the gate.

  Eddie had to run to catch up with the sheriff’s long strides. Fists at her sides, Mary-Jo watched with gritted teeth. The sheriff was cold as a fish on ice. Just like Pa.

  Her father wasn’t a family man in any sense of the word, and he often said he ended up with one through no fault of his own. Loving Pa was like knocking on a door when no one was home.

  She hated to compare the sheriff to her gambling father, but Tom treated his nephew in much the sam
e way Pa treated her. Eddie wasn’t just running to catch up; he was knocking on the door of an empty house.

  DREADING ANOTHER NIGHT IN TOWN, MARY-JO WENT back to Daniel’s house. Eddie was staying with his uncle at the boardinghouse, so she knew it would be vacant. Since Daniel went and got himself killed, the least he owed her was another night’s shelter.

  Still, she felt like an intruder. She moved from room to room, imagining how her life might’ve been different if Daniel were still alive when she saw a torn pair of Eddie’s trousers. Just opening the top drawer of the desk in search of a writing implement to mark the fabric made her feel guilty. So anxious was she to close the drawer she almost missed the letters with the Hitching Post’s return address.

  She lifted the stack from the drawer. It touched her to know that Daniel had kept all her letters just as she’d kept his. She couldn’t decide whether to toss these or keep them. All she knew was that she didn’t want anyone else reading them. She threw the stack into the wastebasket to burn later, but the string broke and one letter drifted to the floor.

  She stooped to pick it up and frowned; the handwriting was not her own and yet it looked somehow familiar. Curious, her gaze followed the fine script across the page. The writer gave a glowing account of her many accomplishments. Mary-Jo’s lips puckered. What a braggart! Whoever this woman was, she didn’t have a modest bone in her body.

  She frowned. Obviously Daniel had considered another mail-order applicant, but why would he choose her over a woman nothing short of a human dynamo?

  She glanced at the signature on the second page and froze. The letter was signed Mary-Jo Parker clear as day. Falling to her knees, she retrieved the letters from the wastebasket and quickly riffled through them. Her name was on every last one.

  She now knew why the handwriting looked familiar. Whoever wrote these letters to Daniel was the same person who wrote Daniel’s letters to her. And unless she missed her guess, that person was Mr. Hitchcock himself.

  Horrid realization swept over her, and it all began to make sense. The owner of the mail-order catalogue edited and, in some cases, rewrote the letters she and Daniel exchanged.

  Fury rushed through her and her body shook. She thought Daniel had lied in failing to tell her about his son and previous marriage, but she was wrong. It was that deceitful Mr. Hitchcock who had done the lying. She had a good mind to give him what-for. While she was at it, she just might wring his dishonest neck!

  The day went from bad to worse. Garrett knew nothing about taking care of an eight-year-old and even less about taking care of a problem child like Eddie. After leaving the cemetery, he realized it was too late to take the boy to school. Instead, Garrett stopped to pay the shopkeeper for the stolen apple and made Eddie apologize. After heading back to the office, he ordered Eddie to sit while he finished paperwork.

  It would have been easier to tame a bronco. Eddie wiggled back and forth and swung his legs. He finally occupied himself by tossing his rabbit foot in the air and catching it with his cap. Eventually he fell off the chair altogether.

  Garrett grimaced with irritation. “Put that thing away!”

  Eddie stuffed the rabbit foot in his pocket and tried to catch a fly that was buzzing around his face.

  Deputy Sheriff Barnes finally offered to take the boy to the ice-cream parlor, but Garrett still couldn’t concentrate. Thoughts of Miss Parker kept interrupting, making it impossible to have a clear thought. He tossed his pen down and rested his head in his hands. What had he been thinking, yelling at her like that? On church property, no less.

  That morning he and Barnes had to deal with one problem after another. Between them, they’d made three arrests before eleven a.m., mostly for fighting. Barnes blamed it on the full moon. It was either that or spring fever.

  By the time Garrett was able to stop at the house and thank Miss Parker for staying with Eddie the night before, she wasn’t there. Worried, he headed for the schoolhouse, hoping to find his nephew there. It was only by chance that he happened to spot the two of them in the cemetery. Relief was soon followed by anger.

  It didn’t seem right for the boy to be laughing so soon after his father’s death—not just laughing, but running around with playing cards in his hands.

  That memory was followed by another. He remembered how Miss Parker looked with the boy, a lacy petticoat showing beneath the hem of her skirt. She sure did look pretty when she smiled and the thought made him grimace. He had no right thinking such thoughts of his brother’s fiancée with Dan not even cold in the grave.

  He buried his face in his hands. Still, he shouldn’t have yelled.

  Dan wouldn’t have. He fought injustice with quiet, firm resolve in the hallowed rooms of the courthouse. That was where he and his brother differed. Most of Garrett’s fights had been in ditches and cotton fields, behind blaring guns and cannons.

  Dan knew how to save a client from the gallows, but he didn’t know how to raise a child like Eddie. That was one area Garrett had in common with his brother.

  The door sprang open and Garrett’s thoughts scattered. Miss Parker stormed into his office looking madder than a newly plucked hen. She flung a pile of letters onto his desk. Never had he seen so much rage pour out of such a pretty package.

  “Of all the low-down, despicable . . .” On and on she railed.

  He tried to make heads or tails out of her rants. “Are you saying that this . . . uh . . . Mr. Hitchcock wrote these letters to Dan?” he asked when he could get a word in edgewise.

  Her pretty blue eyes flashed with indignation. “That’s exactly what I’m saying!”

  He scratched his head. “But why would he do such a thing?”

  “Obviously, he wanted to make me sound better. Not only did he hide my lack of learning and Pa’s gambling, I have no doubt he deleted any mention of Eddie in Daniel’s letters to me.”

  Garrett rubbed his chin. “So then Dan didn’t lie to you.”

  She lifted her chin. “And I didn’t lie to him.”

  “I guess it’s settled then,” he said.

  She stared at him, incredulous. “Settled? Nothing is settled. I want you to arrest Mr. Hitchcock for fraud.”

  “I’m afraid I can’t do that.” He glanced down at the return mailing address in New York. “It’s out of my jurisdiction. You’ll have to contact the district attorney in his home state.”

  She rose to her full height and whirled about. “That’s exactly what I intend to do! I’m leaving on the morning train, but you can be sure I’ll write the district attorney the first chance I get!”

  With that she stomped out of his office, slamming the door behind her.

  Guilt rushed through him for having misjudged her. Had she given him half a chance, he would have apologized.

  He had just about decided to chase after her when Barnes returned with Eddie. The deputy sheriff took one look at the letters scattered across Garrett’s desk and frowned.

  “What’s all this?”

  “Long story.” Garrett gathered up the letters and stuffed them in his drawer. He had no desire to work and decided he might as well call it a day. He motioned to Eddie. “Come on, let’s go.”

  Eddie folded his arms across his chest. “I don’t want to go with you. I want to go with Miss Parker.”

  Barnes shrugged and sat at his own desk. “Looks like you got your work cut out for you, boss.”

  Garrett grunted and studied the boy. He was the spitting image of his father, not just in appearance but in mannerisms. Dan had the same jutting-jaw look when defending a client, the same way of narrowing his eyes.

  “You know Miss Parker is leaving town.”

  “Only because you’re forcing her to,” Eddie said, pushing his bottom lip out farther.

  “I’m not forcing her.” Okay, so he hadn’t exactly made her feel welcome. He tried to put the memory of flashing blue eyes and unleashed rage out of his mind. The woman was a regular wildcat, that was for sure. But he’d also seen those same eyes
soften when she looked at Eddie.

  “I can’t make her stay, but I’ll tell you what. If you come back to the boardinghouse with me and mind your manners, we’ll go to the train station tomorrow morning and bid her good-bye. How’s that?” That would also give him a chance to apologize.

  “Promise?”

  “Promise.”

  MARY-JO ARRIVED AT THE TRAIN STATION EARLY. HAD it only been forty hours since she first arrived in town? Hard to believe. In some ways it seemed like a lifetime ago.

  Everywhere she looked, families stood around in secure little knots. One man perched a small boy on his shoulders and she couldn’t take her eyes off the two of them. Loneliness cut through her. If God was good enough to ever bless her with children, that was the kind of father she hoped they would have, knock on wood.

  “Miss Parker!”

  Hearing her name, she turned and smiled. Never did she think she’d seen a more welcome sight. “Eddie! What are you doing here?”

  “We came to say good-bye,” he said.

  “Who’s we?” she asked.

  “That would be me.” Sheriff Garrett stepped from behind a post and laid a hand on Eddie’s shoulder. “I . . .” He cleared his throat.

  “You really ought to do something for that throat of yours, Sheriff.”

  Today his eyes matched the color of bluebells growing along the station fence. “I want to . . . apologize for my behavior yesterday in the cemetery. Eddie explained you were helping him with schoolwork and saying good-bye to his pa.”

  The sound of a whistle announced the arrival of the train. The platform vibrated beneath her feet. “And he was helping me collect my lucky playing cards.”

  The train screeched to a stop with a hissing sound. All around them, people started to scurry.

  “I’m sorry we met under such trying circumstances,” the sheriff offered. They stared at each other for several moments before he broke eye contact to glance at the train. “We won’t keep you. We just came to say good-bye.”

  “Good-bye.” She smiled and added, “Good luck.” The sheriff might not believe in luck, but judging by the dark look on Eddie’s face, he sure was going to need it.