Homespun Bride

by Jillian Hart

  She heard her cousin’s hurried gait well before the door opened on a chorus of wind.

  “That rain is cold.” Matilda shut the door behind her, dripping water on the floor. There was a rustle as if she were shedding her sodden wraps and her shoes squished wetly on the floor coming closer. “I need to sit by the fire and warm up. Papa said maybe we’re in for a spot of good luck. This could be a warming spell that brings us an early spring.”

  “I hope so.” Noelle prayed her voice sounded normal and feared that it didn’t. “Then you can take me for rides in the buggy. How did your driving lesson go?”

  “Fine. We rode up to the waterfall and back. It’s roaring with all the snowmelt and rain.”

  “The waterfall has never frozen in the winter, not in my memory.” Her love for Thad was like that, she realized, never ending, always replenished. Alive in her heart when it was the last thing she needed or wanted. “Would you like me to bring you some tea?”

  “Please. I can’t remember the last time I’ve been this cold.”

  Tea. Yes, that sounded like something soothing to do. She rose from her chair, ignoring the ache that burned her eyes and tightened her throat. She didn’t want to talk to anyone, not even to Matilda, about Thad’s proposal. They would pity her, and that was the last thing she wanted. The last thing she needed.

  She skirted the end table and headed across the parlor. Grief lodged so tightly within her she could hardly function. Her pulse thudded in her ears so loudly that the strike of her shoe on the floor muted. There was Thad at the edges of her memory and glued to her soul.

  Who could be better than you? he’d said with complete sincerity. I love you, he’d said with utter honesty. This is our second chance. His tender plea filled her mind again and again. This is our second chance.

  If only it could be. She had to stop thinking about this. About the tender love in his voice, even when she turned him down. And the defeated cadence to his gait as he walked away from her. What she could not think about was the future without Thad in it. Without a prospering ranch, and happiness, buckets of happiness. She could almost see it, vivid, so vivid, those fields of green dotted with grazing horses. The two-story house where drying laundry snapped on a clothesline and children played in the yard—

  She froze in midstep, confused. Where was she? She’d forgotten to count her steps. She didn’t know if she was about to walk into the window or if she was on a collision course with her aunt’s whatnot shelf.

  “Where did you get that book?” Tilly broke the silence.

  “I-it was a gift.” Outside the symphony of the rain crescendoed to a roar, confusing the sounds in the room, confusing her.

  “From whom?”

  She turned toward Matilda’s voice, using it like a compass. “Just someone.”

  “Thad came by, didn’t he? Angelina was right. Too bad he didn’t propose, too. Wouldn’t that have been something?”

  A rush filled her ears. The sound of her heart breaking all over again. She spun on her heel, careful to keep track of her orientation. She guessed how many steps would take her through the archway and into the dining room.

  “Noelle?” Tilly called out. “He really didn’t propose, did he?”

  Her step faltered right along with her heartbeat. She reached out a hand to catch the corner of the dining table and caught air.

  “Noelle? Are you all right?”

  Two more steps and she tried again. There it was, the beveled, polished edge. She gripped it with relief. Her knees were wobbling so she lowered herself into the nearest chair, glad that her cousin hadn’t noticed how lost she’d been.

  How lost she would be from this day on.

  Chapter Seventeen

  In the warmth of the town’s dress shop, Noelle ran her fingertips across the skein of fine crochet thread. Her mind should have been on deciding if the yarn had the right weight and feel for the lace tablecloth she wanted to make for Matilda’s hope chest. But when she heard the name “McKaslin,” she couldn’t seem to concentrate on anything other than what the shop owner was telling Aunt Henrietta.

  “—should have been helping his brothers with the spring planting,” Cora Sims was saying over the thump, thump of fabric being pulled off the bolt to be measured. “That boy is trouble waiting to happen. He’s on a bad path for sure.”

  “It’s all in the upbringing.” Henrietta’s voice echoed across the length of the shop. “I haven’t had one bit of trouble with my children. I’ve taken a firm hand right from the start and made it clear there were standards to be upheld.”

  Noelle bit her bottom lip, remembering the uproar at last night’s dinner table when Angelina had announced she wasn’t going to finishing school like her sisters and wanted to take to the cattle trails instead. Since she heard Matilda choking as she struggled not to laugh, she wasn’t the only one amused by wonderful Henrietta.

  “This is the color I want,” Tilly said when she was able. “Light blue.”

  “A light blue tablecloth sounds lovely to me. We need ten skeins.”

  “I’ll count them out,” Matilda said eagerly. “Mama’s busy with Miss Sims.”

  “Is she ordering more spring dresses for your sisters?”

  “Yes. She’s taken charge as usual and I don’t think Angelina is going to be very happy. Mama’s chosen two different pink fabrics for her.”

  “Pink for Angelina? That’s wishful thinking on your mother’s part.” Noelle tried to imagine the shop full of new spring fabrics so soft and bright and pretty, but her imagination was not the same these days. Nothing was, not one thing, since she’d let Thad walk out of her life over a week ago.

  Thad. The thought of him still hurt in the broken places of her soul, where she’d banished her love for him, although it still lived.

  The noise of the rain on the roof, the shop conversations and the background din from the streets outside faded away. Regret filled her until she was brimming over. Thoughts of him carried her away to the steadfast comfort of his hand on hers as she swirled over the ice of the pond at Thad’s side. Once again, she heard the deep rumble of his cozy chuckle in the stable with the new foal nipping at her skirt ruffles. Once again she felt the bright dreams of lush fields and grazing horses standing at Thad’s side.

  It’s not possible. Stop thinking of him. She squeezed her eyes closed, but that did not begin to stop the colors of her heart. Her heart did not see reason. Nor did it understand that there could come a day when Thad realized he had made a mistake. That the dreams they’d once shared were not something she could give to him as his wife.

  Is that the real reason? a logical, sensible voice asked at the back of her mind. It was a question she could not let herself answer.

  “Did you want to get that, Noelle, dear?” Henrietta bustled her way to take the basket of goods. “I’ll be glad to get this totaled up, if you and Matilda want to go browse at the cobbler’s.”

  “Yes, thank you.”

  Although she kept a good memory of the shop, she was glad when Matilda guided her around a new fabric display and on toward the door. The bell jangled overhead as they scooted outside into the cool spring air. The damp stung her face as she bundled up against the rain.

  “Oh!” Matilda squeaked with surprise. “There he is.”

  Thad? Noelle turned toward the sounds of the street, wondering where he was, if he was well, if he looked happy, if he had all that he’d wanted. Love blazed up from the locked-away chambers of her heart, and she longed for him the way gray skies longed for blue.

  “He tipped his hat to me!” Matilda’s whisper was tremulous. “Oh, he smiled at me from the street, where he sat on his wagon seat, and as his horses drew him past, he reached up with his hand and tipped his hat brim. He was smiling just a little, nothing flashy or bold, just polite. Oh!”

  Her pulse turned hollow. Emmett Sims, not Thad. Disappointment weighed her down like a blacksmith’s anvil. And it made no sense whatsoever because it wasn’t as if she wer
e holding out a single hope that—No, not one single hope that there was any way Thad would love her enough—

  No, it’s not what you want for him, Noelle. She kept her spine straight, gathered up her resolve and smiled at her cousin’s joy. “Perhaps Mr. Sims fancies you more than you’ve thought.”

  “Perhaps. We shall have to wait and see is all.”

  “I’m not fooled you know, by your reserve. Inside you are floating like a cloud.”

  “How did you know?”

  “I’ve felt that way myself.” She tucked away that memory, too, not of being young and in love, but of all the ways she loved Thad more now. And always would. “I’ve lost count. Where are we on the boardwalk? Is that the bakery?”

  “Yes. I can smell the cinnamon buns.”

  “I think we need to celebrate, don’t you? Henrietta needs to go to the post office before she catches up with us. We have plenty of time. We’ll have iced cinnamon rolls and tea, which ought to put us in a much better mood for shoe shopping.”

  “I think you’re right.” Matilda took a better grip on her arm. “Come with me.”

  As Noelle turned on her heel to let her cousin guide her to the door, she thought she felt a feather brush against her soul like a touch from heaven. But there were no other footsteps squishing anywhere close by on the rain-soaked boardwalk. Just the sucking of mud at horse hooves and wagon wheels and the concerto of the rain falling.

  Strange. Shrugging, she followed her cousin into the shelter of the bakery.

  “Thad?”

  He ignored his older brother’s voice as he watched Noelle step inside the bakery across the street. Affection tied him up in knots, for he could still see her through the gray sheets of rain and the street traffic and the bakery’s window. She was feeling her way for a curving chair back and, after three tries, found it and, with care, settled onto the seat.

  “You and Finn are both useless,” Aiden quipped from the row filled with buckets of nails. “Both of you aren’t doing a thing to help me. I should have left you two at home.”

  “Don’t go tossing me into the same stall as Finn.” Thad couldn’t seem to rip his gaze away from the bakery shop window. “I’m not the lazy one.”

  “Hey!” Finn’s voice rose up from the back corner of the store. “Watch who you’re calling lazy!”

  Aiden came close to peer through the window, too. “You’ve been watching her since you spotted her enter the dress shop. Tell me again how you think her saying no was for the best.”

  A dagger through his gut wouldn’t hurt as much as Noelle’s rejection. No, nothing in this life could hurt him like that. But it was a private pain. “Between Finn, helping you with the ranch and working on mine, I haven’t had a whole lot of time to ponder it.”

  “Perhaps you’d best start right now, since you’ve got time to stand idle at the window.” Aiden strode off, hiding a small smile.

  Think about it? He’d been doing nothing else but going over the last two months in his mind. He was sure he had won her back. He was sure she’d felt the same way. She loved him. He knew that. She hadn’t bothered to deny it. Yet something worried at him that he could not shake and could not look at because it hurt too much.

  He hadn’t given up on her. He would never give up. Seeing her again hurt enough to bring him to his knees, and yet, could he look away? No. He could not turn his back and walk away from even the sight of her.

  She looked subdued, without the joy he’d seen in her when they’d been together. Across the street, the bakery owner was serving a pot of tea. Two plates of enormous cinnamon rolls were on the table. Noelle was exchanging pleasantries, smiling sweetly to the older woman who ran the place. Her fingers nimbly searching for the flatware and the sugar bowl, unaware that as she spooned sugar into her cup half of it landed on the tablecloth.

  He remembered, too, how Matilda had guided her along the boardwalk with care, and earlier, in the shop, helped her around the displays in the dress shop. Her words came back to him, haunting him, always haunting him. You’ve changed. I’ve changed. It’s too l-late.

  Now he heard a different meaning. When he’d feared that she had meant they were no longer suited, that she no longer wanted a life as a simple rancher’s wife, perhaps that wasn’t what she’d meant at all. No, maybe she’d been speaking of something else entirely.

  Oh, Noelle. His heart crumpled with love for her. Tender affection swept through his soul like a flash flood, leaving him sure. Absolutely sure. His vision blurred for a moment as he watched her take a sip from her teacup and then lower it into its saucer by touch.

  Understanding rained through him like a March squall. The last years of his life, so tough and lonely, suddenly made sense to him. He knew now where the good Lord had been leading him all along—home to his precious Noelle.

  “Thad!” Aiden called from the front counter. “Are you coming or not?”

  “Coming.” He tucked his heart back into his chest, went to collect Finn and followed his older brother out the door.

  “I am insulted. That’s what I am.” Aunt Henrietta bored through the parlor like a runaway train on a mountain grade. Crystal lamp shades clinked and chattered as if in fear. “The nerve of the territorial governor! Suggesting that I perhaps tend to my realm of home and children instead of complaining about modern progress!”

  “Clearly the governor is in error.” Noelle’s fingers stilled. She counted the stitches of her new project—a patchwork quilt—with her fingertips. “You’ve spent a lot of time composing letters trying to make a difference for us all.”

  “I hardly expected them to listen to a woman, but I did not expect being insulted.” There was a thwack, thwack as Henrietta beat one of the decorative pillows on her best sofa before dropping onto it. “For the first time in my life I think it’s a pity that woman do not have the vote. If I did, I would vote such a man out of office.”

  “Well, you should,” Noelle said as kindly as she could. She recognized the touch of drama in her aunt’s tirade. “He clearly does not appreciate a woman with good sense.”

  Across the hearth, Noelle heard Matilda struggling to hold back a chuckle.

  “Precisely. It gives me pause. I may have to admit those suffrage women in town have a good argument.” There was a clicking of steel needles—Henrietta, gathering up her knitting.

  Matilda apparently could not hold back her amusement any longer. “But Mama, you don’t approve of women wanting to vote.”

  “I don’t. But in light of this uncomplimentary letter, I do not know what the world is coming to. Perhaps I should give an ear to their cause. Clarissa Bell is in my prayer group. I shall speak to her today. Yes, that is exactly what I shall do.”

  Noelle carefully slipped her needle into the quilt block she was sewing. It was hard to be certain above the music of the spring storm, but she thought she heard a horse in the driveway. Perhaps it was Cora Sims arriving early for an afternoon of sewing. With any luck, maybe her nephew, Emmett, had driven her.

  She slid her work into the basket at her feet. “Is Robert still in the stables?”

  Henrietta humphed. “Out working with that mare the way Mr. McKaslin taught him. He refuses to give up on that animal. If he gets hurt again—”

  Noelle rose from her chair, thinking of Thad. Her spirit lifted as it always did. Always would. “If Thad says so, then Robert should keep the mare and work with her. It will be all right.”

  “Mr. McKaslin has not been coming up to the house lately.” Henrietta’s voice turned thoughtful over the ambitious click-click of her knitting needles. “And here I had believed him to be most enraptured with you, the poor man. Utterly besotted. Did you see it, too, Matilda?”

  “Yes. He’s very sweet on you.”

  Sweet on her? Her heart broke all over again. She headed straight for the door before anyone could guess at her feelings. Or her failures. “Me, marry? I’m on the shelf and have been for long enough to gather dust. Far too long to try to tidy me up
and marry me off now.”

  “You’re young and as lovely as could be.” Henrietta rose to her defense. “Mr. McKaslin is a man of character, and so he is deserving of you. He ought to propose to you and consider himself blessed with you for his wife.”

  Dear Henrietta, so loyal and true. She could not understand. Noelle lifted her cloak from the tree, fighting the sorrow. Grief suffocated her. She slipped the wool fabric around her shoulders. “I’m too set in my ways to adjust to marriage. I rather like being a prickly spinster.”

  “That you could never be!” Henrietta sounded deeply amused. “Trust me when I tell you Thad could not take his eyes off you.”

  Suddenly Matilda was at her side. Noelle startled. She had been too upset to hear her cousin’s approach. Everything was wrong, everything was amiss, since Thad had asked her to marry him.

  Since she’d had to say no to him.

  It was for the best. She tied her hood snug beneath her chin and opened the door with determination. She’d done the only thing she could do, and it was the right thing.

  But her life without him was dark. It was like being blind all over again.

  Outside on the doorstep, the wind gusted with a spray of wet. Raindrops fell like striking lead, ricocheting off the earth, making it hard to hear the horse’s progress up the road. Bleakness washed over her like the heart of the storm. She gripped the porch rail, letting the rain strike her. Would Thad be working in this gale anyway? Would he be working on that house of his? Or in the fields turning sod with his brothers?

  Wherever he was, she hoped he was happy. She would gladly give all of her happiness through her lifetime to him.

  Matilda joined her at the rail. “If you married Thad, I could help you. It’s not far at all to his new place at the falls, and I can drive now.”

  “Oh, Tilly. You’re like a sister to me. I don’t want that life for you, always having to help.”