The Blue Ribbon Brides Collection

by AlLee, Jennifer L. ; Breidenbach, Angela; Franklin, Darlene

  “He has the money to buy both.”

  “That he does.”

  Mr. Thayer peeked around the corner. “Levi, after you finish here, lock up, will you? I need to get on home. The power’s been flickering on and off, and Bertina is nervous.”

  “Of course.” Levi caught the keys the store’s manager tossed him.

  “That’s the signal I need to be going.” Mr. Olander pulled on his greatcoat. He grabbed his gloves and hat from off Levi’s desk. As they walked across the empty-but-for-them showroom, he slid his hands in his gloves and said, “Looks like the snow has picked up.”

  Levi frowned. The wind howled, blowing thick clouds of snow across the street and limiting visibility to less than a block. The trolley trudged slowly down the snow-laden street.

  “Think it’ll taper off soon?” he asked.

  They stopped at the large window to the left of the door. Mr. Olander touched the glass and looked at the sky.

  With a humph, he tugged his hat down over his ears. “Levi, I suggest you go check on Reba,” he said in a grim tone, still staring out the window. “I’ve seen enough snowstorms to know this one is going to blow through the night.”

  Levi nodded.

  Mr. Olander looked back at him. “You mind me asking a personal question?”

  Levi braced himself for a question about why he and Reba hadn’t married yet.

  “During the summer when you were home from SDSU, you remember how you’d come over every Tuesday morning for coffee and Berliners?”

  “Yes,” he said hesitantly. “Uh, I was really there for the company. Mrs. Olander’s jelly doughnuts were a fortunate bonus.”

  “A bonus they always are.”

  Another gust of wind rattled the window.

  Mr. Olander’s gray brows drew together. “You would always tell us about what you were growing at the Extension Office. When you showed me all the equipment in the showroom, whether you were talking about buggies, plows, or tractors, you had that same gleam in your eyes. You never had that gleam when you talked about your business classes. Did you get those degrees in accounting and agricultural business because you wanted them or because you felt obligated because that’s what the family wanted you to do?” He patted Levi’s shoulder. “Mull on it for a spell.”

  Levi dipped his chin enough to convey he would.

  Mr. Olander looked as if he wanted to say more. His blue eyes grew watery, his voice tightened. “I’m a farmer because my father was a farmer. I never thought I had a choice. My son joined the navy because he wanted to be a sailor. It wasn’t until he died in the sinking of the USS Maine that I realized I would rather he die doing what he loved than live doing what he hated.”

  Throat too tight to speak, Levi nodded.

  “The, uhh …” Mr. Olander cleared his throat. “The missus is buying fabric over at Fantle Brothers. Good thing we’ve already booked a hotel room. This is not a night to be traveling.” He hurried outside to his automobile.

  Levi watched as the wind continued to howl and the snow fall. He enjoyed plowing the cornfields. He enjoyed bringing in the harvest. He didn’t so much enjoy milking or breeding or castrating. For all that he could tolerate about cows and sheep, hogs were a blight on his senses. But farming was a job, a good job. Like his father and grandfather, he was supposed to be a farmer.

  Out of obligation?

  His degrees were to help the family. He couldn’t walk away from his duty. While his brothers and parents agreed he should move to Sioux Falls to court Reba, they expected him to return. Family stayed together.

  Like her mother and grandmother before her, Reba was supposed to become a farmer’s wife, yet she’d chosen to walk away from what was expected of her. Her mother considered her a rebel. Her father considered her brave. If he was being honest with himself, last summer he would have agreed more with her mother. Now he wasn’t sure. If his father wasn’t a farmer and he could choose any job he wanted to do, what would he do? What would he do because he wanted to do it and not because it was what anyone else wanted or expected? What brought him joy?

  Spending time with Reba did.

  He couldn’t make a living doing that.

  Move her, Lord, or move me. Change her or change me.

  Of all the words his mother had advised him to pray, these were his most fervent of late. Something had to change. But what? As long as Reba felt fulfilled by making hats and managing her millinery, things wouldn’t change.

  Snow and wind battered the windows. The lights flickered.

  Levi rushed to the telephone on his desk. He grabbed the receiver. No sound. He clicked the base. “Hello?” Nothing. The lines were down. He snatched his greatcoat, hat, scarf, and gloves. Knowing Reba as he did, he knew she wouldn’t have left the millinery … not when she had work to do.

  Reba jolted awake at the pounding on the boutique’s front door. As her eyes adjusted, she looked down at what she’d been sleeping on. Mrs. Lister’s hat! Well, what remained of it. Wonderful. She shivered. How strange. She’d never had a problem with the potbellied stove not warming both rooms. With a gentle slap to her cheeks, she stood, yawned, and gave her head a shake. How long had she been asleep? She checked her watch and gasped. Ten minutes after six. She’d started working on that hat right after lunch.

  The pounding on the door continued.

  She grabbed the key from her desk and hurried into the boutique. “I’m coming,” she called the moment she noticed the white sky and almost horizontal sheets of snow beating the window. No wonder the millinery was cold; no telling how close to zero degrees it was outside. She stopped at the door. “Levi?”

  He unbundled his snow-covered scarf from around his face. “Hurry up and unlock the door,” he said, his words muffled by the wind and the glass.

  She turned the key.

  Levi burst inside and slammed the door closed. Snow fell from him, pooling at his feet. “G–g–gather w–w–what you n–n–need,” he said, shivering.

  “Warm up first.” She pulled him over to the stove then added more coal. Shouldn’t take long to warm the room. “What’s going on?”

  His eyes widened. “Do you n–n–not see the b–blizzard outside?”

  “Please don’t patronize me.”

  “The trolley stopped running,” Levi snapped. He knelt closer to the stove, removing his gloves. He laid them and his scarf on the top of the stove to dry as he warmed his hands. “You won’t make it back to the boardinghouse on foot without freezing first.”

  Reba looked to the window even though the snow was too thick for her to see anything outside. She’d been in a blizzard before. The best course of action was to stay put and bundle up. “I have enough coal to keep the boutique warm for the rest of the week. I can scoop snow into my lunch pail. It’ll melt, and I’ll have water. I keep a stash of emergency rations as well. There’s a couple old blankets in one of my trunks in the workroom. Father may have packed a cot, too. Let me go—”

  Before she could take a step away, Levi stood and grabbed her arm. “You’re not staying here.”

  “Where am I supposed to go?”

  “The Cataract.”

  “The Cataract?” Reba shook her head. “No. If I’m going to be snowed in anywhere, I’ll stay here. Here I can get work done.”

  “Would you stop being so stubborn and let me help you?”

  “It’s more likely all the rooms are already filled with people stranded by the storm.”

  “I stopped there first to book rooms for you and me. There’s no way I’ll make it to my boardinghouse, either.”

  Reba felt her mouth gape. The price of a room at the Cataract, plus meals—One night or two wouldn’t break the bank, but she’d heard of blizzards lasting days. There were too many better things for her to spend her savings on.

  “I’ll be fine here,” she insisted. “I grew up on a farm. I know how to survive a blizzard. Sometime in the night the snow will stop falling. There’s a snow shovel in the back room. I hav
e an oil lantern and candles in case the power goes out.” She shrugged. “I don’t need to stay at the Cataract.”

  Levi studied her. “I love you too much to allow you to stay here alone.”

  What? He couldn’t stay here through the night. It wasn’t appropriate. “Be reasonable,” she cautioned. “People would find out, and we will have to marry.”

  He shrugged.

  Reba gritted her teeth. She refused to allow a storm, a man’s stubbornness, and propriety to force her into a marriage she didn’t want. At least not now. “Fine. I’ll go, but only after I’ve packed up some supplies.”

  The Cataract Hotel

  The next afternoon

  SIOUX FALLS’ WORST IN MANY YEARS—or so it was, according to the Daily Argus Leader. Twenty-one inches in fifteen hours. Yet for all the storm’s wrathful glory, it only made page eight. Of all the days to put an advertisement in the paper, today would have been it. Right below a photograph of the snow at Ninth Street and Dakota.

  With a weary sigh, Reba laid the paper on the counter then sipped her coffee. She didn’t need the paper to tell her snow had piled six to eight feet high in the street overnight. She’d discovered that herself when she tried to leave the hotel after lunch. The thermometer outside the front door read zero degrees. While the snow had stopped raging an hour ago, she expected the temperature to be about the same.

  But at least the hotel had heat and electricity.

  “Would you care for a slice? Freshly baked.” The waitress offered Reba a slice of pumpkin pie.

  Reba lifted her coffee cup. “I’m fine with this, thank you.” Unlike the food in the Cataract’s café, the coffee was unlimited … and free. Since she was stuck here until the sidewalks were clear, she might as well enjoy the stay. Frugally, of course.

  Noon, Wednesday, February 10

  Reba sipped her coffee and looked from her third-floor window at the snow piled in the street, covering the trolley tracks. Mayor Doolittle had been up since five o’clock organizing snow removal, or so she’d heard someone say this morning in the café. Somewhere along Phillips Avenue was Levi with hundreds of other volunteers, helping the fire department shovel snow into wagons that would then be emptied into the Big Sioux.

  Her stomach growled.

  Coffee and toast for breakfast. Coffee and toast for lunch.

  Fortunately, this evening Levi would buy her dinner. Tomorrow the sidewalks would be all clear and she could return to the boardinghouse. Until the streets were clear for traffic, there was no reason to open the millinery. Since the boutique was normally closed Sunday through Wednesday, that meant she had a full seven days to focus solely on making hats.

  “The storm is God’s blessing in disguise,” she said before finishing the last of her coffee. It had to be. She’d had more rest in the last two days than she’d had since the millinery opened. Instead of waiting on customers today, she had all the time in the world to work on hat orders.

  After one final glance at the street below, Reba walked back to the bed strewn with silk flowers in a rainbow of colors. She smiled. “I can make this boutique a success.”

  She took her seat at the desk and continued making silk bows. Occasionally she glanced at the black telephone within arm’s reach. Levi had promised to call when he finished shoveling snow. More than occasionally her stomach growled, which led her to think about dinner, which led her to think about Levi, which led her to wonder if he would kiss her again. The last time was when they’d gone home for Christmas. After the hayride, he’d chased her into the barn. She’d been laughing, blissful and breathless, and he’d kissed her. While the cows mooed and their bells jingled.

  She’d never liked a cow barn until that moment. She’d never believed he was in love with her until that moment, either.

  Reba smiled.

  She’d never imagined their lives together until then. It could happen.

  Move him, Lord, or move me. Change him or change me.

  The words Mrs. Webber had encouraged her at Christmas to begin praying lingered in her mind. For her and Levi to have a future together, something—someone—had to change. They could find a compromise. She would find a compromise.

  With a whispered “amen,” she returned her attention to her needle, thread, and pink silk bow.

  As she worked, the sun lowered in the sky, casting shadows about the room. It wasn’t until twilight had descended that the knock knock knock sounded.

  Reba dropped the needle and bow and ran to the door. She opened it, and her breath caught.

  Levi stood there, grinning. His hair looked damp, but he smelled of bergamot cologne and wore his Sunday suit. “Been missing me?”

  Reba smiled. “I had other things to occupy my thoughts.”

  He glanced inside her room but didn’t step over the threshold. He whistled. “Looks like you’ve been busy.”

  “Thankfully, I had the leaves and flowers already cut.” She eyed him. “You seem pretty happy for having spent the last ten hours shoveling snow.”

  “I’ve never had such fun freezing my fingers and toes off. We started out on …” As he spoke about his day, he motioned with his hands.

  She’d never seen a man’s eyes sparkle, but his did. Like emeralds glistening in sunlight. She was growing fanciful. And she didn’t care. She almost giggled. He was happy. Joyful. Exuberant. The truth was obvious—Levi Webber loved living in Sioux Falls. She could see it on his face, hear it in his words. Before his self-determined six-month stay here ended, she would help him see he loved city life more than country living.

  It was the perfect plan. It would work, too.

  The two of them could actually have a future together … because he loved her and she loved him.

  She could have stood there all day, staring up at him, listening to him talk about the people he worked with and new friends he’d made, but her stomach growled.

  Levi laughed. “I suppose you’re hungry.”

  Reba gave him a mischievous grin. “A little.”

  He offered her his arm. “Let’s find some food, and then I’ll tell you about the invitation I received to the fire department’s St. Valentine’s Day ball. Be prewarned: I shall be asking to escort you.”

  “Be prewarned: I shall say yes.”

  Chapter 9

  “The sharp edges must be bound neatly and thinly with the mull muslin or sarsnet, so that they do not mark the velvet, and, for the same reason, any flaw or blemish upon the shape must be removed.”

  —Practical Millinery

  Noon, Saturday, March 27

  This is the third time you haven’t had my order ready. I like you, Miss Diehl, I do, but this is not how I expect a business to be run. Cancel my remaining orders and keep the deposit.”

  “Please, Miss Van Dyke, I’m—”

  At the click, Reba knew Miss Van Dyke was no longer on the line to hear her apology.

  She rested the handset in the receiver and looked to the bulletin board above her desk. For every order she’d filled in the last month, another one called to cancel. This time she didn’t feel the usual despair over a cancellation (over four to be precise). Instead, she felt angry.

  Reba jumped to her feet. She ripped Miss Van Dyke’s orders off the board. “I don’t need your orders!” she spat, not caring how vicious she sounded. No one was in the boutique to hear. No one had been in all week. She crumpled the papers and tossed them onto the open accounting book on her desk. She grabbed the bell that had fallen off the front door and threw it against the curtains blocking the workroom from the boutique. Stupid bell.

  Her gaze shifted to the manila envelope on her desk. Another six-month contract. Another looming deadline. Mr. Smyth wanted to know by Monday if she was going to renew the lease. He had another interested party.

  She needed to order more pins and more supplies. That cost money.

  She needed to put advertisements in the paper. More money.

  Hire a shopgirl. Hire an accountant. More and more money.<
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  Her chest tightened as if a giant were squeezing the air from her lungs. “I don’t know what to do, God.” Blinking away the sudden tears in her eyes, she picked up the phone. She cleared her throat. “Operator, put me through to …” She steadied her breathing while the operator made the connection. Please, let Father answer. Please, let Father answer.

  “Hello?”

  Reba released the breath she was holding. “Oh, Vati,” she said, falling back to her childhood name for him, “I—” Her voice caught. Tears flowed. She struggled to get out her words and to keep the cries in. “I don’t know what to do.” Gasp. “I have no customers.” Gasp. “They keep canceling orders. It’s not supposed to happen this way.”

  “Oh, sweetheart.”

  “Mr. Smyth brought the new lease by last week.”

  “You don’t have to sign it.”

  “But I do!” she exclaimed. “Don’t you see? I’ve invested so much in the millinery. I can’t quit now. I can’t give up because things are tough. I will never go back to the farm. But I don’t understand why God would guide me into starting my own business, only to let this happen. He promised an abundant life. He promised all things would work together for my good. I did what God told me, but there’s no abundance here. I’m miserable. Why won’t God fix this? I keep praying, but He’s not answering.”

  It sounded like he placed the receiver down on the kitchen table. The legs of a chair scraped against the floor. He must have sat down.

  After a long silence, he said, “Reba, what makes you think God told you to open a millinery?”

  She dried her cheeks with the back of her hands. “I laid my fleece out like Gideon did, and sign after sign confirmed this was God’s will.”

  “I see.” His I see was less I hear you and am impressed you heard from God and more I’ve heard this before, and I’m mulling what to say in response.

  Before he could start in with a lecture, she blurted, “I prayed that if God wanted me to do this, you’d be supportive. When I told you what I wanted to do, you said everyone needed a dream and that you’d do all you could to help me.”