Western Winter Wedding Bells

by Cheryl St. John, Jenna Kernan

  “Jesus holding a lamb in the crook of his arm and a staff in the other,” she answered. She looked at the dusty pile of multicolored glass someone had long ago swept into a corner. “We could lay it out and put all the pieces together, then trace over them.”

  “But every artist’s work and materials reflect a unique color and style,” he said. “Even if we find someone to make it, the finished window might not look like the rest.” He thought a moment. “We could have a mason brick up the opening.”

  Her expression made it obvious the idea didn’t appeal to her. “Only as a last resort,” she said. She brushed her mittens together and told him how much she had in the bank. “How much will the work and material cost?”

  The roof alone would be ten times the remainder of her fundraising money. After starting his business, he still had over half of the money from the sale of his father’s ranch. He intended to send JoDee to university if she agreed and still have money left over. “That’s almost enough,” he hedged.

  “I can add more of my own,” she assured him.

  “We’ll see when we get there.”

  “But you’re going to do it?”

  Her hopeful expression melted his hesitation. That and his own connection to this place. “I told my mother last night, so she won’t hear it elsewhere first. Richard will find out as soon as we make our first step. He won’t be happy.”

  “I’m sure he won’t.” She touched the back of a pew and rubbed her palms together distractedly. “I know it was unfair for me to even ask you to take this on, but I had nowhere else to turn. Will it cause a problem in your family? I don’t want it to, but I need your help.”

  “I don’t care what Richard thinks,” he assured her. “I’m doing this because it’s the right thing to do.”

  She placed her mittened hand atop his bare one. “Can I thank you now?”

  He glanced down at her white mitten against his skin and then back at her earnest face. Unexpected heat pooled in his belly. “Thank me later. After you’ve seen how it turns out.”

  “All right.” She smiled and drew her hand away. “What’s first?”

  “I’ll get a ladder and do some measurements on the roof.” He glanced upward. “And then I’m going to wire a fellow over in Tommy Creek and ask him to take the roofing job. That will have to be finished before we get snow.”

  “He’ll expect to be paid up front,” she said.

  “Let me worry about the cost and the hiring,” he told her. “If there’s a problem later, I’ll let you know.”

  He could tell she didn’t want to, but she said, “All right.” She glanced around. “What can I do?”

  “We’ll start tomorrow. Round up as many volunteers as you can get to work on the grounds in this cold weather. Maybe take turns. The whole inside can be cleaned up, and then we’ll get started on cleaning the whitewash off that wall. This afternoon, I’ll make sure the heaters and the vents are safe and order a load of wood.” He had to do the same for his mother anyway.

  With her new assignment, Chloe’s face brightened. “I’ll have a crew here early in the morning.”

  The congregation who met in the schoolhouse wasn’t large, but each person felt strongly about the work on their old church and those who were able showed up the following day.

  Owen had both heaters glowing and radiating warmth, though every time someone opened the doors to carry out debris or clear the air, heat escaped and the air chilled before the burning wood could again do its job.

  “I worried I’d never see the day that Red Willow First Church held services in this place again,” Agnes Matthews said. She’d brought a big tray of warm cinnamon rolls and cleaned a spot on the communion table that had been pushed to a side wall before uncovering them.

  “Mighta had a crew together sooner if they’d known you were bringing your rolls,” Ernie Paulson said, taking off his glove to pick up a sweet.

  Others gathered around and Chloe gestured for Owen to come get one. He knew almost everyone, except Willa and Annie White, a mother and daughter who’d moved to Red Willow from Kansas the summer past. Willa’s son, Morris, had hired on as the town’s newest doctor and brought his family with him.

  “Morris stitched up my finger back a spell,” he told Willa, and she admired the neat scar on his index finger.

  Owen took charge and assigned three men the outdoor task of trimming shrubbery, raking leaves and supervising a burn pit to dispose of debris.

  By midmorning there was so much dust raised, Chloe could barely see across the sanctuary, but eventually the air cleared and they began scrubbing.

  Owen brought a tin of liquid that smelled awful and showed them how they’d be using it with steel wool to remove the whitewash the following day.

  Nearly everyone showed up the next day, and two additional helpers even joined them.

  Around noon, they took a break to eat their sack lunches.

  Chloe was enjoying the sense of accomplishment and listening to Melvina Pierce’s story of a raccoon on her laundry porch the previous morning when the door opened. A draft swirled around her ankles where she sat on a wooden folding chair with the others.

  Richard Reardon stood in the opening, the collar of his tailored calf-length black coat pulled up around his neck.

  “Hey, shut the door!” Ernie Paulson called out.

  Richard ignored him and strode into the sanctuary.

  Annie White got up and hurried over to close the door, then returned to her seat.

  With his jaw set, Richard strolled along the east side of the room, surveying the work in progress where Owen had been removing rotted wood. Conversation had been cut short, and the workers cast the man uneasy glances.

  A nervous feeling churned in Chloe’s stomach.

  He turned, his gaze narrowing on the opposite wall, where evidence of their progress could be seen on the whitewash removal.

  Her gaze shot to Owen. He continued eating his sandwich, without obvious concern.

  Richard stepped beside him. “So, little brother. You’ve joined forces with the people trying to impede Red Willow’s progress.” He turned his accusatory gaze from Owen to the workers gathered around the heater and back to his brother. “No reply?”

  “What was the question?” Owen asked.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “I’m replacing the windowsills.”

  “I mean what are you doing helping that woman in what’s going to be a useless effort? Surely you have something more productive you could be working on.”

  Chloe winced at being referred to as that woman.

  “Since when did you take an interest in my work?”

  Annie and her mother finished their sandwiches and tossed their paper wrappers into the heater. One by one, the others took their cue and moved away from the stove and returned to their tasks until only Chloe and Owen remained.

  “I don’t give a whit about your work,” Richard said. “What I want to know is what the hell you are trying to do. You know this is where the town wants to put the new hotel.”

  “And by the town, do you mean everyone? Including these people in here? Because I don’t think these townspeople want to see a hotel replace their church.”

  “I mean the council. We’ve been talking about it for months.”

  “Undoubtedly you’ve been talking about it for months,” Owen replied, without raising his voice. “That doesn’t mean it’s the right thing to do. It’s just what you want to do.”

  Richard’s face reddened, and he pressed his lips into a straight line before replying. “You’re never going to have this place ready by Christmas.” He turned to include Chloe in his prediction. “What do church ladies know about replacing roofs and repairing structural damage?”

  “There’s actually very little structural damage,” Owen answered without rising to his brother’s bait. “Nothing a mason can’t repair in a week’s time. And so far the church ladies have been doing a great job.”

 
Owen’s calm response impressed Chloe as much as his skill as a carpenter and woodworker. The man was unflappable.

  “The church can’t afford everything that needs to be done,” Richard reaffirmed and fixed Chloe with a stare. “You’re wasting his time and everyone else’s. You might as well bake cookies and sew costumes for the Sunday school pageant and leave city planning to the people who know what they’re doing and can afford to carry out their strategies.”

  “We’re carrying out our strategy just fine, thank you,” she said, hating that her voice quivered when she got angry. “Now unless you want to pick up a brush and rags and help, I’d suggest you leave us to our work.”

  Richard leaned over her. “You, little missy, are going to be sorry.”

  Chapter Four

  Chloe’s chair slid backward, catching her by surprise and causing her to jerk to keep her balance. Stifling a yelp, she glanced at Owen, who had merely moved her seat away from Richard and now stood filling the space with his imposing form. “And you can deal with me if you have a complaint worth hearing.”

  “How typical of you to mix yourself up in this fanciful dream. You never had a lick of business sense in your foolhardy head.”

  “When I want your assessment of my character, I’ll ask for it,” Owen told him. “And I don’t recall asking.” Owen picked up his leather tool belt and hooked it around his waist, effectively dismissing Richard.

  Chloe took her cue from him and went back to her task of cleaning the shards of glass and laying them out like a puzzle on a freshly scrubbed section of floor at the back of the room.

  She carefully kept her focus on her task until the door opened. This time it closed again. She glanced up to find Richard gone.

  Several feet away, Owen worked at prying a board out of the wall beneath a window as though nothing had ever happened. She’d expected Richard would be unhappy. She’d hoped Owen wouldn’t be the target for his displeasure, but she’d been fooling herself. Part of her regretted placing Owen in the middle of this controversy, but the other part of her was overjoyed with his support and willingness to take a stand.

  By midafternoon, Chloe had the pieces of colored glass arranged on the floor in their original places. She acquired a long piece of paper from the newspaper office and fastened it to the floor over her eight-foot puzzle. Once that was secure, she took a stick of charcoal and rubbed the design on, one section at a time. The lead separations in the glass divided colors, so she was able to trace the size each piece had been and label the drawing on the paper with the correct color.

  She had no idea if her effort was going to be useful, but it was the only way she could think of to recreate the window to its exact proportions.

  Owen took a break and paused to watch her laborious endeavor. After several minutes he said, “I think that’s going to work.”

  She sat back on her heels and looked up at him. “Yes?”

  He nodded. “We’ll have a scale drawing along with a piece of each color of glass. Hopefully, the design will be clear enough for someone to create a new window.”

  “But who?” she asked. “How do we find someone?”

  He hunkered down and touched his fingertips to the paper thoughtfully. “Gather newspapers, like the New York, Washington and Philadelphia papers—there’s always a stack at the barber’s—and read through all the advertisements. Make a list of the trades-men who sound like what we might need or those you think might be able to lead you to the right person. Send them all telegrams.” He glanced at her. “Tell Jim Gold to put it on my account.”

  His cinnamon-colored eyes were bright with an excitement that hadn’t been there before. “This was a smart idea, Chloe.”

  His brother might think she was a useless meddling female, but Owen thought she was intelligent. His unexpected praise warmed her cheeks. “I’ll go pick up newspapers before the barber closes and I’ll read through them this evening.”

  “I’ll be having supper at my mother’s later,” he said. “Why don’t you join us, and we can look through the ads together?”

  At the invitation, her heart leaped with pleasure, but she hesitated. “Lillith wouldn’t be expecting me. I wouldn’t want to impose.”

  “I’ll send someone over to tell her now,” he said. “She enjoys a crowd around the table and always makes too much.”

  “If you’re sure…”

  He nodded with finality, then glanced around for someone to deliver the message.

  Chloe watched him go back to his task. She hadn’t enjoyed herself this much in a long time. Having a purpose made the days go so much more quickly, and the work was rewarding. She’d slept like a baby the night before and awakened eager to discover what the new day held.

  She experienced an overwhelming gratefulness toward the workers who’d come to do what they could. She was indebted to Owen, not only for his time and skill, but for being her champion. There was something decidedly compelling about the man, and the more time she spent around him, the more she noticed things she liked about him. Of course on the surface his wide shoulders, strong hands and handsome face were all attractive features, and she’d have to be blind to miss them. But there was so much more she’d never had the opportunity to discover until now.

  As much as she appreciated feeling useful, she liked the fact that Owen noticed her even more. She eagerly anticipated their meeting that evening.

  Lillith Reardon welcomed her neighbor with a warm hug. “Hello, dear. I’m delighted Owen asked you to join us for dinner. You look lovely.”

  Chloe had bathed and donned a two-piece visiting dress, the long jacketlike top made of an oriental cashmere print and an underskirt of bronze satin with a pleated overskirt trimmed in the matching cashmere. The dress was a couple of years old, but she preferred a smaller bustle than was currently fashionable and didn’t care for cumbersome trains.

  “Thank you. Owen assured me I wouldn’t be putting you out.”

  “Not at all. The more people at the table, the happier I am. It’s probably ill-mannered for me to usher you straight from the door to the table, but the meal is ready.” She took Chloe’s hand and led her to the dining room.

  Chloe had been in her house once or twice before, but never for a meal. Lillith’s warm greeting set her at ease.

  JoDee had already seated herself next to Owen and smiled when Lillith arrived with Chloe in tow. “Hello, Miss Hanley. It’s so nice you were able to join us.”

  “Please call me Chloe.”

  Owen stood and came around the table to pull out a chair for her. “Good evening.”

  Unused to the gentlemanly conduct, she shyly averted her gaze to the table settings.

  “Your church restoration was one of the topics of conversation after school this afternoon.” Owen’s younger sister was still in school, and probably at least sixteen years of age by now.

  “What are the students saying?” Chloe asked, as Owen resumed his seat.

  “Repeating their parents mostly. Mary Dunbar’s father thinks Red Willow needs a new hotel, but her mother claims she’ll be the first one through the doors for services when they begin.”

  “Goodness. It sounds as though your project is affecting more than one family,” Lillith observed. She removed covers from the serving dishes.

  “It wasn’t my intent to cause any hard feelings,” Chloe told the woman. “The church is important to our community. I couldn’t bear to see it torn down.”

  “You don’t have to explain anything to me,” Lillith told her, passing a platter of roasted chicken. “I have two babies buried in that graveyard, bless their souls.”

  Chloe remembered the inscriptions on the matching flat stones that marked those particular tiny graves. “Yes, of course you do. I’m sorry for your losses.”

  “It was a long time ago, dear. Before JoDee was born. But your grandfather was a comfort to me during some of the worst months of my life, and I’ll never forget him for that.”

  “He did have a way of pu
tting a person’s heart and mind at ease,” Chloe said.

  “At one time my husband remarked that he thought your father would follow in his footsteps,” Lillith told her. “It seemed he would, but then his interests turned to surveying. It was a shame he met such an early death. How old were you?”

  “Ten,” Chloe replied. She’d been just a girl when her father had fallen from his horse and died from exposure. Her mother had remarried a few years later, but it wasn’t long before she left the both of them, never to be heard from again. No one ever mentioned the subject, but Chloe suspected everyone wondered as much as she did what had prompted the woman’s hasty departure. Chloe had gone to live with her grandfather and her stepfather had moved on.

  “You were a blessing to your grandfather in his later years,” Lillith told her.

  “He took care of me,” Chloe said. “It was the least I could do for him.”

  “Your dress is pretty, Chloe,” JoDee told her. “It’s very sophisticated.”

  “I don’t much care for the ruffles and bustles that are all the rage,” Chloe told her. “They only get in the way.”

  “I’ve been trying to convince Mother I need dresses befitting someone other than a schoolgirl,” she said with a roll of her eyes.

  “You are a schoolgirl,” Owen said, speaking up for the first time. He’d taken large servings of the chicken and potatoes and was working his way through them.

  “I’ll be sixteen in three more months,” she said indignantly. “That’s hardly a child. I should have more fashionable dresses.”

  “She’s my last one,” Lillith said unapologetically. “And maybe I am trying to keep her young for a while longer.” She turned to her daughter. “You have years ahead to wear all the fashionable dresses you can buy. For now, just enjoy being a girl and not having to bind and tuck and lace yourself until you can barely breathe. We’re not in Philadelphia.”

  Chloe grinned at their disagreement. She understood JoDee’s need to exert herself as a young lady and not a child. It was probably doubly hard being the last of several children, and the only one still living at home.