Pleasance's First Love: A Six Brides for Six Gideons Novella (Book 3) (Grandma's Wedding Quilts 6)

by Kristin Holt

  “Silly plan?” She sounded absurdly calm. Maybe a little confused—when truth be told, she was a lot confused. Fran had already admitted to being the one to pass along Jacob’s news through their mothers, wanting to make sure Pleasance knew Jacob sought a bride.

  “He couldn’t ask you to come home, so he paid all that money to the matrimonial bureau, to have them do the work for him. Tried to tell him…” Tuck forced his eyes open. Unfocused, they shifted, finally found her face. “Just write…”

  Stunned, overloaded, Pleasance didn’t know what to do. This couldn’t be right. It couldn’t.

  Tuck must be confused.

  But his words made a sick sort of sense. Every bit of anger and frustration she’d ever felt for Jacob came flooding back, churned and frothed, and coalesced. How could she be terrified, hurt, and confused? How could a body feel so many conflicting emotions at the same time?

  She’d stood in his arms, confessed that she’d written to the catalog bride company, requesting a mate exactly like Jacob. He could have told her about his part, told her, himself, how desperate he was to have her home. Told her he hadn’t been able to ask.

  If he couldn’t tell her this, after they’d patched up their differences, the man obviously couldn’t be truthful about other things.

  How could she promise her life to a man who wouldn’t tell her the truth?

  First, he would not respect her wishes, and then, withheld the truth?

  “You love him,” Tuck said, anxious.

  “Yes.” She did. She’d loved Jacob from the beginning. She feared she’d always love him. But love, with a man like Jacob, would never be enough.

  Chapter Thirteen

  In the kitchen, Jacob poured himself coffee he didn’t want. Light flickered from the lamp upon its stand, high on the wall. As Pleasance had asked, he’d put more water on to heat.

  Tuck had, indeed, been shot from behind.

  He sensed the opposing forces closing in. The helplessness…

  His closest friend had been shot, and could have died. Only by the grace of God had he lived, so far.

  Worse, until Jacob understood the threat, he had to accept that could’ve been his sister. Or his beloved. Whoever had attacked Tuck could’ve come to the house instead.

  What could anyone possibly want with his southernmost property boundary? That section of land was too rocky, too steep of an incline to be good for anything much.

  The kitchen door swung open, and sensing Pleasance, he turned to embrace her. He needed the solace of holding her in his arms. He needed to feel her safe and alive and whole.

  Pain contorted her beautiful features. She held back, ignored his open arm.

  He knew how much Tuck, wounded, had terrified her. He set down the coffee mug. “Pleasance?”

  “What were you trying to prove?” She barely caught her breath. “Am I here so you can recreate the situation when I left you? Is that it? You’re trying to hurt me?”

  Blindsided, he shook his head.

  What had just happened?

  Fran? Oh, no. No, no.

  Tuck. Tuck had said something, just now…

  “No, sweetheart. I’d never try to hurt you.”

  “I confessed what I’d done, in writing to you under my stage name. You had ample opportunity to confess what you’d done. You started the whole thing. But did you tell me? No. Why?”

  How could he answer that? He stuffed his hands into his pockets, knowing if he reached for her, she’d reject him. “I’m sorry.”

  “You did it, didn’t you?” Accusation rang in her voice, but hurt trumped lesser emotions. “You set it up. You joined that matrimonial bureau, made sure Fran knew what you’d done, that you were supposedly looking for a bride.”

  She made him sound vindictive. “Pleasance—”

  “I have to go.” She spun, her skirts flaring.

  This could not be happening. Not again. Panic had him following her. “You’re going to leave me now, when I need you most?”

  “Do not blame this on me, Jacob Gideon. I told you everything, days ago. You were never going to tell me, were you?”

  He’d never seen her so angry. Not years ago, in her mother’s back garden, and not now. At least she waited for an answer.

  If only he had one.

  He couldn’t find the words to beg her to stay, or to forgive him.

  He’d never known how to be enough for her, to be what she needed.

  “Assign one of your men to drive me to Leadville in the morning, to the train depot, or by golly, I’ll walk the whole way. It’s up to you.”

  He couldn’t spare a man, or better yet, two. She’d need safe passage. Whoever was bent on causing the Running G trouble wouldn’t spare her.

  “Will you stay, for Tuck?” He sounded pathetic, desperate, and he didn’t care.

  “No. He has Fran, he has you, and all the other hands. He doesn’t need me.”

  He’d known this moment would come, hadn’t he? All along. From the ill-fated beginning. Loving relationships were temporary, at best.

  Pleasance Benton and he were like oil and water—constantly repelling one another. At least they hadn’t married, or brought children into this madness. Family, he’d proved, was not forever.

  Maybe the Gideons were cursed. Perhaps this kind of love-hate had destroyed his parents.

  He’d been right to second-guess himself when she’d arrived. Sending for her had been the most foolish thing he’d ever done.

  “You know something, Jacob?”

  Sadness filled her eyes. “If you’d written to me, sent a letter through my mother—” She waved a hand. “I would have come home for you, simply because you asked. I wanted to build a life with you.”

  That kick to his vitals rebounded. He feared he’d be sick.

  “The one thing I can’t abide is you not caring. You honestly don’t care how this impacts me, do you?”

  “I do—of course I care.” He did.

  “No, Jacob. We’re right back where we started. I’m telling you what I need. Simple, easy things within your grasp, that don’t cost a penny. Understanding. Compassion. Willingness to see my viewpoint.” Tears streamed down her face and he knew he’d lost her.

  Forever, this time.

  No amount of pleading or cajoling would turn things around.

  As if he were caught in a nightmare, that last great fight circled back around.

  The two of them were doomed to repeat the same mistakes.

  But this would be the last time, wouldn’t it?

  “You’ve proved,” she continued, swiping with anger at that trail of tears, “it’s not possible. You can’t give what you don’t have.”

  Pleasance went through the motions of packing up her trunks and crates, locking every emotion away as tightly as possible.

  If she let herself feel, she’d fall apart.

  Halfway through her packing, a soft rap came at the door.

  “Pleasance?” Fran’s soft voice. “May I come in?”

  She met her friend at the door. Red puffiness about her eyes made Pleasance feel lower than low.

  Fran slipped inside, shut the door tight. “You’re really going?”

  She nodded. Firm in her resolve, she resumed packing. “Whip will drive me into the Leadville depot in the morning. I’ll wait as long as it takes for a train.”

  “Jacob and Tuck asked me to go with you. Home to my mother.”

  “Why?” Had they assigned Fran to spy?

  Fran wrapped her arms about her middle, shrunken somehow, half her size. As if Mr. Tucker’s brush with death had scared her—or more likely, reminded her of everything she’d lost when her husband had been killed. Or was exactly what it looked like. A woman in love with a man.

  To think of her friend finding love again, seemed like a gift…

  “They must find the outlaw who shot Tuck—” Fran cupped her hand over her mouth, fighting honest pain. Seconds passed. Finally, she managed to speak again. “They need a
ll the men out there. Leaving one or two behind to guard the house means one or two less to watch each other’s backs.”

  Cold, icy dread walked up her spine, leaving shivers behind.

  She didn’t like the idea of Jacob in danger. She didn’t like it at all.

  She paused, an armload of clothing from the chest of drawers…but it wasn’t clothing at all, was it? Her quilt top. The precious, pieced story of their courtship, the love they’d nourished for one another from the beginning.

  Her ill-fated, never-to-succeed romance.

  She must go.

  Right?

  As a point of honor?

  As the only way she could reach the hard-headed man who couldn’t comprehend that what she wanted mattered. If her wishes didn’t matter to him, if he couldn’t look her in the eye and tell her the truth…

  Fran took a halting step closer. “Pleasance?” she whispered, “Will you allow me to travel with you?”

  How could she say no? This was Fran. She’d watch what she said. Whatever she shared would end up back in Jacob’s ear. “Of course. We’ll see each other safely to Denver.”

  “When do we leave?”

  “At dawn.”

  “I’ll be ready.”

  “Jake?”

  “Here.” Jacob leaned forward in the chair where he’d dozed a little as he’d sat vigil by Tuck’s sickbed—and stewed over Pleasance’s betrayal.

  Now this was what trust was. A man awoke, a bullet’s furrow in his scalp, and knew his trusted friend would be at his side.

  Why couldn’t Pleasance understand this?

  “I remember,” Tucker rasped. “I remember the men who shot me. I remember why.”

  Jake dropped to his knees, reached for the drinking glass on the table, and helped Tuck raise enough to swallow.

  He waited. Tuck would speak when he could.

  “Mining.”

  What the—

  “That useless, rocky hillside? A mother lode of silver ore, thick as my arm.”

  Jacob’s eyes bulged, he opened them so wide.

  Firelight wavered, flickered over Tuck’s expression. The man was lucid, alert, himself.

  This wasn’t a dream talking. Not nonsense from the tap he’d taken to the brain box.

  “I came on ‘em digging, pickaxes and shovels. Loading saddlebags to carry out. Not much, just for proof, I guess.”

  “You know them?” Jake’s heart thundered at the possibilities—both for the mineral riches in his soil and the possibility of paying off the lien on his property…and to remove the threats posed by the men who’d nearly succeeded in killing Walt Tucker.

  Tuck fell quiet, not unusual for the man, so Jake let him be. Maybe one minute passed, perhaps two.

  “You’re not going to like this, Boss.”

  Who? One of their own? Cactus? Whip? He’d kill ‘em with his bare hands.

  “Harrison Sandusky. Couple of friends of his.”

  Harrison Sandusky… “How’s he related to the banker, Lycurgus Sandusky?”

  “Rotten son. Boy’s in his middle twenties, I’d say. Can’t hold a job nowheres. Came by here, maybe six months ago, lookin’ for work. I sent him away.”

  Jake grunted. No wonder. He’d probably already found the vein by then. Thought he’d make himself less obvious, attack from the inside.

  Attack.

  Jake had applied for a loan by then, and awaited Bank of Leadville’s decision. ‘Bout that time, the bank’s requirements turned into a circus act. Marry, Mr. Gideon. And a house shows your dedication and intent…

  “The bank wasn’t trying to turn me into a reliable, trustworthy loan applicant.” He swore, sharp and to the point. “That old goat, Sandusky, tried to make me overspend, find myself so low on cash I’d miss a payment. He intends to foreclose.”

  “I figure that’s why he leaned hard on the merchants.”

  Made sense. He grunted.

  Tuck’s eyelids drooped. “What now?”

  “I don’t know, yet.” Without proof, he couldn’t take on a powerful man like Lycurgus Sandusky, President of Bank of Leadville.

  And with Pat Kelly wearing the tin star in Leadville, things weren’t operating the same way as when Mart Duggan had been in town.

  “I don’t know,” he told Tuck, “but I’ll figure something out.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Pleasance arrived home at her parents’ residence…but it wasn’t home.

  Home was at the Running G, with Jacob.

  Her anger had carried her far enough to cross the threshold into her childhood home before she realized she’d made the biggest mistake of her life.

  She’d never felt so blue, so laid low in her life.

  She could have done more to heal the rift between Jacob and herself—should have done more. He deserved so much better than to be abandoned by the person who should love him most, stand with him against every challenge. Especially now, with trouble brewing.

  He’d needed her understanding and patience.

  He’d tested her, she’d known that. Where had her resolve to prove herself gone? Out the window, apparently. Because she’d walked away.

  How could she possibly fix things now?

  Broken bones eventually healed. Bruises faded. Hearts, when damaged by the thoughtless, didn’t heal so quickly.

  She knew Jacob intimately. And how badly she’d hurt him.

  Humility arrived in every possible form, shape, and size.

  She sat at the kitchen table with her mother the morning after she’d arrived by train, with steaming cups of tea before them. Her father minded the store, giving Pleasance time alone with her mother.

  “Pleasance, why did you come home?”

  Anguish filled her soul. The tears came unbidden and wouldn’t stop. “He lied to me. He wouldn’t tell me the truth, even when he’d had the opportunity, when he knew how much it mattered to me that we had honesty between us.”

  “Lies?”

  “He knew Frances would be quick to tell you and Mrs. O’Kane that he wanted a catalog bride. He did it intentionally, knowing I’d be jealous. But he never told me he’d done it, even after I confessed having written to the company he’d employed to find him a bride. He could have been honest, and he wasn’t.”

  “What would you have had him do instead?”

  “Tell me the truth. I would have understood.”

  “Would you?”

  “Yes!” But in her heart, she knew that wasn’t so. Hadn’t she pulled up stakes and left, the moment she’d found out…exactly as Jacob had feared?

  “Why did you leave him?”

  Why, indeed?

  Anguish heaped more regrets onto the pile. Would it have hurt, so very much, to remain at the Running G, for a few more days? Let the high-riding emotions settle? Forgive a little more than she’d been willing to?

  Mother rested her hand over Pleasance’s. “Darling, I’ll share with you the only advice my mother gave me about building a happy marriage.” She paused, then spoke. “You can be right or you can be happy.”

  Truth.

  Mother was absolutely correct.

  I did this to myself.

  Pleasance loathed herself. “I wanted nothing more than to rebuild a life with him, and this is what I do, instead?”

  “Great loves like yours sometimes require a great price.”

  “I don’t understand. What does that mean?”

  “Come with me.” Mother stood. “I have something to show you.”

  Pleasance followed Mother into her parents’ bedroom, where Mama opened her cedar chest.

  “Ah, yes. Here it is.” Mama brought out a folded pieced quilt top.

  The colors immediately caught and held Pleasance’s attention. Tears welled, sudden and sharp.

  “Oh, Mama!” Joy presented as laughter as she traced the tiny stitches Grandma Mary had set in perfect quarter-inch seams. Her wedding quilt top, the original Flying Geese—Grandma Mary hadn’t given it to Jacob instead, but
in addition.

  “I thought…I saw the sugan Grandma Mary gave to Jacob. I thought she’d taken the quilt she started for me and gave it to him.”

  Mama nodded. “You saw the sugan?”

  She couldn’t quite meet her mother’s gaze. “I did.”

  “Was it well used?”

  In other words, had it sat in a chest somewhere, rather than been applied to its intended purpose. “He took it on every roundup, every time he slept in camp. He loved it. Does, still.”

  “Grandma would be pleased.”

  With Mother’s help, Pleasance spread out the quilt top, admiring how Grandma Mary had pieced the blocks together. With maturity, she could now see the exquisitely fashioned quilt top, the pieces precise and uniform and fashioned with perfect, tiny stitches, every last one sewn by Grandma’s hand. Its value increased significantly.

  Tears streamed down her cheeks. “I remember when Grandma told me there wasn’t much love in a sewing machine.” She sniffed, put her hankie to use, then hugged her mother against her side. “I finally understand. Grandma stitched immeasurable love into every hour’s work.”

  “Indeed, she did.”

  “I made a quilt top. For Jacob and me.”

  “You did? I didn’t know you’d taken to quilting.”

  “I missed him so badly. It started as a way to pass the time, and it quickly became my favorite project.”

  “What is it like?”

  “I’ll show you.”

  In the bedroom she’d slept in as a child, she unlocked the trunk where she’d packed away the special quilt top. With Mother’s help, she unfolded the wrinkled sheet and watched her mother’s face as she took in the image.

  Twelve blocks, each a Crazy Quilt square, pieced together with vibrant scraps of silk, many taken from the gowns she’d had made for her performances. Other bits of fabric had no significance other than she’d liked the shade or shine or print.

  Upon each and every one, she’d traced and then embroidered or inked a phrase from Jacob’s letters or her own, written to him. Signatures. Opening salutations, events, closing lines. Words of love, embroidered or inked and lovingly satin-stitched between colorful sections pieced to form scenes from their courtship.