Lone Star Romance Collection

by Cathy Marie Hake

  Chapter 19

  On Christmas Eve morning, Patience was still in bed, though it was well past nine, dreaming of Lee. It was such a beautiful dream. Lee was in his best suit, standing in a mist of clouds, reaching his hand out to her. He was smiling and telling her to … Hmmm. Patience couldn’t quite make out what he was trying to tell her.

  Patience tried to run closer; but as dreams sometimes went, her legs felt heavy and she was unable to get to him as fast as she wanted. Finally, she could hear him better. He was saying …

  “Wake up, Patience!”

  Wake up? That was a strange thing for him to say!

  “Patience Anne, are you going to sleep all day?”

  Patience was jolted awake by her mother’s voice; Lee’s voice drifted off into dreamland. Sleepily, she blinked and saw not only her mother but Susannah and Rachel standing by her bed.

  “What are y’all doing here?”

  Susannah giggled in her delightful way, and Rachel put her hands on her hips and shook her head. “Patience, as much as you longed for this day to come, I can’t believe you have to ask that! We’re here to help you get ready!” Rachel explained.

  Patience sat up then. Suddenly, her heart filled with gladness, and her stomach fluttered with excitement. Of course! How could she have forgotten?

  It was her wedding day!

  Susannah ran to the window and pulled back the gingham curtain. “And look, Patience! It snowed last night! Just enough to make everything pretty and white!”

  Patience crawled out of bed and looked at the snow-covered landscape. The sun was glistening through the iced-over trees, making them sparkle like jewels. It was all just perfect.

  “It never snows at this time of the year,” she commented.

  “Well, Caleb would say that God likes to give wedding presents, too,” Rachel said as she joined the women at the window.

  Patience stared out and tried to blink back the tears that came to her eyes. “God has already done so much for me. I feel like I don’t deserve any more!”

  “Now, I won’t hear talk like that, young lady!” her mother said from behind her in a brisk voice. Prudence’s hands came to rest on Patience’s shoulders, and she felt a warm feeling of contentment run through her that she was sure she’d never get used to. “You deserve all God has for you!”

  Patience and her mother had come a long way since that confrontation in the jail two months earlier. With the pastor’s help, they were able to work through their feelings and past fears and come to a closer relationship. They still had a ways to go, but God was surely working a miracle.

  “Okay, enough dillydallying! We’ve got work to do!” Susannah said, stepping away from the window.

  “We sure do,” Rachel chimed in. “Your mother has fixed you a good breakfast, so you can get in there and eat. But you need to hurry because we’ve got to do your hair….”

  “And get that dress and veil on! With all those buttons, it’s going to take awhile!” Susannah finished for her.

  Patience laughed with delight. “Okay, okay! Boy, you two are bossy!” she exclaimed as she grabbed her robe and followed them into the dining room.

  After breakfast, they all went to Rachel’s house so that they would be near the church. The three women worked for over an hour brushing, teasing, pinning, buttoning, and tugging. Patience stood or sat patiently as they did their jobs, wishing they would hand her a mirror so she could see the progress.

  But as usual, Rachel liked to wait until everything was finished so she could make a grand production of it.

  And finally she was ready. Patience stood in front of Rachel’s oval floor mirror and stared at herself with awe and disbelief.

  Her dress was made of the finest silk that Adelaide Hayes was able to buy. It was her gift to Patience. Rachel and Susannah had worked together on her dress, and they’d done a superb job.

  The gown was high at the neck and the bodice fashioned of the most delicate lace. The bell-like sleeves were puffy and fell inches above the elbow with an undersleeve fitted all the way to her wrist. The skirt was full, but smooth, gathered at the back and fastened by a large pearl-edged bow. The dress fit her figure perfectly.

  Her hair was loosely knotted at her nape and parted down the middle, tendrils of blond curls framing her face. She wore a circlet of roses with a long lace veil attached to the back like a crown around her head.

  Patience felt like a fairy princess.

  Prudence walked up to stand beside her. There were tears in her eyes as she looked at her only daughter through the mirror. “I’m so proud of you, Patience. You really make a beautiful bride.”

  Patience smiled radiantly at her mother and hugged her. “Thank you, Mama,” she whispered, squeezing her tightly.

  After a moment, Susannah announced that it was time for them to go. She was in a pretty gown of green and was to be Patience’s maid of honor.

  A flutter of nervousness ran through Patience’s stomach as she followed the women to the church. She felt a little like she was still walking around in her dream from this morning. It seemed to take forever to reach the church, although it was only a few steps away.

  Bernard Touchet was waiting for her at the door. The dapper man that she had, just yesterday, agreed to call “Daddy” was to walk her down the aisle to her future husband.

  Theirs was a relationship far from resolved, but they had made a few small steps on understanding what had happened years ago.

  He’d explained to Patience and Prudence that he’d been pressured by his parents to marry someone else. And when Prudence had told him she was pregnant, he’d gotten scared and married the other girl. Because his wife was from South Louisiana, where his parents were originally from, he’d gone down there to live. He knew that he was running away from Prudence and their child, and he had never forgiven himself nor forgotten what he’d done.

  He’d started his own rice farm, and he and his wife had planned to raise their children in the large plantation house that he built for them. But when his wife and his child died in childbirth, Bernard began to look for Prudence and Patience.

  Unfortunately, her parents would not tell him where she was, and no one else in the town of Shreveport knew.

  Off and on, he’d taken time off from his work to look for Prudence. His break came when he read in the paper about the Jenkins gang being arrested in Springton, Texas. It had told the details, commenting that Prudence Primrose had been kidnapped and then released by them.

  Bernard had sold his farm and come to Springton in hopes of apologizing to Prudence. He knew it would not be easy for her to forgive him, but he hoped for some sort of place in both her and his daughter’s life.

  Prudence was still standoffish with him, but Patience knew that deep inside her mother still loved him and would soon be able to forgive him. Despite all that had happened, Patience couldn’t help but want him in her life.

  She’d so yearned for a father and now she had one. Life was too short to stay mad at one man and one woman’s mistake.

  That was the reason she asked her father to walk her down the aisle.

  From inside the building, Patience could hear the strains of the wedding march beginning. Her mother kissed her on the cheek and allowed Jessie Stone, the pastor’s son, to walk her into the church and show her to her seat.

  Next, after throwing Patience a reassuring wink, Susannah walked in.

  Rachel took the bride’s hand and squeezed it. “Now it’s your turn, Patience. Don’t be nervous. You look beautiful,” she told her with confidence.

  Patience nodded her head and took a deep breath. “I’m ready,” she told her father as she took his arm.

  Slowly, they entered the church and began to walk down the aisle. She was so glad that the town had never found out about the incident at the jail. And where her father was concerned, they all assumed that he’d been thought dead from the war and they had been unable to find him. Patience and her mother did nothing to deny nor confirm
the rumor. They all felt safer letting the townspeople think that than to allow her mother to feel more shame. And if anyone was a little confused about their last names being different, they were much too afraid of Prudence to ask.

  Patience looked forward, to the front of the church. The preacher was standing there in the center, and then her eyes fell to the handsome man standing beside him.

  Lee was dressed just like in her dream. So tall and handsome robed in his dark suit. He was staring at her with such a look of love that it nearly took her breath clean away.

  She wanted to laugh when Billy, his best man, nudged him with his elbow and, when Lee glanced at him, wiggled his eyebrows and nodded in Patience’s direction.

  Lee just looked back at Patience and smiled proudly.

  She was the luckiest woman in the world!

  Lee felt as though he was the luckiest man in the world. What a woman she was! And she was his!

  His heart was pounding hard in his chest as his eyes swept over his bride. She looked so beautiful in her white gown. The only color was the red Christmas flower in her hands.

  It seemed fitting that they marry on such a holy day of celebration. Every year, from this day on, they would not only celebrate Christ’s birth, but they would rejoice in their marriage as well.

  Finally, she was beside him. Bernard guided her hand to Lee’s arm, and Lee felt her sweetness and warmth as she held onto him.

  He didn’t think. He just bent down and placed a gentle kiss on her smooth cheek.

  A tinkle of laughter drifted over the congregation, and Caleb gave them a mock frown. “You’re supposed to wait until the end of the service for that!”

  Lee felt his face burn, and he smiled sheepishly at Caleb. “Sorry,” he whispered. He glanced at Patience and relaxed when he saw her trying to hold back a laugh.

  The ceremony was beautiful. There wasn’t a dry eye in the whole place by the time it was through. And when Lee finally got another chance to kiss his bride, every female heart went to fluttering as they dreamed of their own weddings, past and future.

  Epilogue

  After a two-week trip to New Orleans, a wedding present from Bernard Touchet, Patience and Lee returned to Springton. So many things had happened, they soon realized, while they were honeymooning.

  First, the Powell brothers—the outlaws that had shot Patience—had been arrested in Oklahoma, and it looked like there weren’t going to be any jailbreaks this time.

  Second, they found out that Patience’s mama and daddy had gotten married in a quiet ceremony at the pastor’s house. According to Prudence, it was so that they could live in the same house together to stifle any gossip. But Patience saw the emotions that passed between her parents and knew that it was a happy union.

  Third, Lee had a friend in the Rangers who was part of the crowd that welcomed him and Patience home. And he’d told them that he’d been down in South Texas for the last few weeks and reported that El Paso was “so cold that icicles were hanging from the cactus.” Somehow, that didn’t surprise the happy couple.

  But once everybody left them at the train station, they headed out to her mother’s old farm and began to move her things into his house.

  She was busy hanging her dresses in his wardrobe, and he was unpacking a box of books. “Remind me to give Bobby Joe his books back. He let me borrow a few of his, and I’ve forgotten all about returning them,” she said as she shook the wrinkles out of one of her best dresses.

  “Well, darlin’, I would hope that Bobby Joe wasn’t in your thoughts while we were honeymooning!”

  She rolled her eyes at his mock jealousy.

  They worked quietly for a few moments until Lee began to chuckle. “I don’t think this one belongs to Bobby Joe!”

  She looked over her shoulder to see what he was talking about and froze.

  In his hand was Emma Hadley’s book, A Young Lady’s Guide to Courtship and Marriage!

  She dropped the dress and ran over to take the book. “Give me that!”

  He held it high and shook his head. “Wait! I want to see what this says!” He opened up the book, still holding it over his head and out of her reach. “ ‘Batting your eyelashes and giving a gentle giggle lets a gentleman know that you have his complete interest. A gentleman always likes to feel as though he is the most important man in the room,’ ” Lee read aloud.

  He looked at her with disbelief. “That’s why you were batting your lashes? Because you read it in a book?”

  She had never been so embarrassed in her life! She could have sworn she threw that book away a long time ago! “Oh, give me that! And quit laughing!”

  “I thought you had something wrong with your eyes!” Lee exclaimed and began to chuckle.

  She finally was able to grab the book out of his hand. She whirled around, intent on leaving the room, when he grabbed her arm.

  “Ah, don’t leave, sweetheart! I was just joking!” He lifted her chin so she would look at him. He shrugged his shoulders. “Hey, it worked, didn’t it?” he said arrogantly.

  She rolled her eyes and hit him playfully with the book. “Oh, please! Is that your head I see swelling?”

  He laughed and with a flick of his wrist tugged the book away from her and tossed it across the room so that he could take her into his arms. Holding her close, he put his face near to hers so that their foreheads touched.

  “Why didn’t I realize that you were the one for me right away? Then you wouldn’t have had to read that book and follow that awful advice!”

  She sighed. “Because you thought Susannah was the perfect one for you.”

  “Nah … I think that I was just fighting my feelings for you and using her as a shield. But know this, darlin’, I thank God that He opened my eyes, and I’ll never let you go!”

  “That’s good, because I wasn’t planning on letting you go!” she said saucily, then gave him a kiss that made his head spin.

  TO LOVE

  MERCY

  by Cathy Marie Hake

  Prologue

  April 3, 1892

  Aboard the Anchoria in the Atlantic

  You’ll stay together?”

  Robert Gregor curled his hand around his father’s. “Aye, Da. You’ve my word on it.”

  “Dinna be grieving, boy-o. ’Twas my wish to see you to the New World. As for me, my destination’s heaven. God and your mama will welcome me with open arms.”

  The ship rolled gently, and sorrow as deep as the Atlantic washed over Robert. It didn’t come as a sudden shock but as a swell, carrying him from the security he’d known and leaving him adrift. Not yet. Please not yet. “We’ll see land in another day.”

  “That you will.” His father had a way of putting together words to intensify their meanings. He’d done it now, and Robert felt the tide of life shift in those moments.

  “Rob?” Duncan looked down from the upper bunk. His black hair stood up boyishly, making him look only half his age.

  “Go fetch Christopher.” Robert knew his eldest brother would be pacing the deck. A restless man, Chris avoided situations where he’d bare his emotions or soul to others. Had it just been the four of them, he’d have stayed, but the ship teemed with hundreds of folks with nothing better to do than mind everyone else’s business. Christopher left the crowded steerage compartment round about midnight, grief ravaging his features.

  Lord Almighty, must You take Da yet? Robert knew the answer. As a doctor, he’d witnessed births and deaths aplenty. Powerless to do anything but give comfort, he smoothed back Da’s thinning gray hair. “Save your breath, Da. The others’ll be here soon, and they deserve to hear your love.”

  Minutes later, Christopher shouldered past the neighboring berths and knelt by the bunk. Duncan came to a halt behind him and rested a warm, calloused hand on his shoulder. Robert saw the tension in their jaws, the sheen of tears in their eyes. The Gregors were stoic with others, but amongst themselves, they always loved, laughed, and wept unabashedly—except for now. Time gre
w short, and Robert knew his brothers’ hearts were breaking, as was his, yet they both stayed strong for Da’s sake. A man ought to slip from this world and into God’s arms with the peace of knowing those he left behind would fare well.

  “I’ve been blessed to have ye, lads.” Dad drew in another breath. “Stay close to the Almighty so we’ll meet again at heaven’s gate.”

  Each of them gave that promise without reservation.

  Da squeezed Rob’s hand. “My da’s watch—to Chris.” He stared at his eldest and whispered, “Time is a gift, dinna waste it.”

  Christopher nodded solemnly.

  “Bible—I’m wanting Duncan to hae it. He’s a man of deep thoughts and quiet truths fit to soothe the soul.”

  “I’ll treasure it, Da.” Duncan bent closer. “I’ll have a son and read to him as you read to us. He’ll know the Word of God, and Da—I’ll name him after you.”

  A smile chased across Da’s features. Aye, Da’d been right, Robert observed. Duncan just spoke words that gave comfort.

  Da then turned his head. “Robert—”

  Rob leaned down and looked steadily into his father’s eyes. “You already gave me my gift, Da. I know what you sacrificed for me.” The compensation Da received for the arm he lost while working in the zinc mine had paid for Robert’s medical schooling.

  Da smiled. “Mama’s ring. I kept it for ye, Son. Caring for bodies makes a doctor close off his heart so he doesn’t have to feel the pain. Dinna do that. Take a chance at love.”

  Within the hour, it was all over. Rob wrapped Da; Christopher pushed everyone away and cradled his lifeless form up to the deck; Duncan carried the Bible. During the voyage, they’d assisted with other burials, but this was different. All three of them stood in a sorrowful knot as Chris prayed.

  The Anchoria’s captain made a motion as he somberly said, “Lord, we commend the body of Micah Gregor to You and commit his mortal body to the deep until the day of Your return.”

  It was over. Those who had come up to pay their respects murmured their condolences, then wandered off to leave the brothers some privacy.