The Bride of Willow Creek

by Maggie Osborne

  Angie had played no role in his life for so long that he’d naively assumed his indifference would continue with her living in his house. But seeing her every day in all her moods and all her womanly ways, watching her step into his life and share the burdens he was accustomed to carrying alone . . . being exposed to her dimpled beauty and his growing need for her was changing something deep inside him.

  He wanted her to respect him. He wanted her to admire him.

  He wanted her.

  Chapter 12

  The Wednesday mending circle helped Angie decide between the two ball gowns she’d brought from Chicago. After an hour of heated discussion and vacillation, the satin-and-brocade was chosen over the faille-and-velvet.

  Abby Mueller carefully ironed the lace ruffles that flared over puffed sleeves and repeated in a lacy outline framing a deeply pointed waist, while Tilly Morgan worked at the kitchen table, creating a hair ornament out of bits and scraps.

  “Eardrops, but nothing at the neck,” Molly advised.

  Dorothy Church nodded. “Bare throats are fashionable. Bracelets are good though.”

  “Bracelets look so silly worn over long evening gloves, don’t you agree?” Frowning, Tilly tried to choose among the sprays of rosebuds she’d placed in a row for comparison.

  Stepping back, Molly eyed Angie’s hair. “You tuck the hand and fingers of the glove inside the wrist, as you would for dinner, then shake the bracelet down,” she explained absently.

  Abby stopped ironing. “Molly Johnson! How would you know about ball gloves and formal dining?”

  Molly laughed. “I know more tidbits of useless information than anyone you’ve met.”

  “But you’ve obviously been to balls and social suppers,” Abby said to Angie. “Is Molly correct?”

  “I believe she is. Molly, stop looking at me like that. I don’t want some outlandish hairstyle. Just a simple upsweep.”

  Bending to rummage in the trunk she had dragged into the kitchen, Angie located slippers, a bag to match the white satin-and-brocade, and a lacy white evening fan.

  Molly snapped open the fan and peeked over the top. “Remember when ladies used to send gentlemen messages through the secret language of the fan? Here’s the come-hither look.”

  “My mama was too busy raising eight children to teach me any language of the fan,” Tilly said, rolling her eyes.

  Dorothy smiled. “Your come-hither look isn’t too subtle, Molly. Give me the fan. Now watch. You’re supposed to appear disinterested and let the fan speak for you.”

  They all burst into laughter. Shaking her head, Abby exchanged the cool iron for a hot one. “You don’t look indifferent, Dorothy, you look madder than a wet cat. Maybe that fan says come-hither, but you look like you’d stomp any man who dared try.”

  While Molly brushed out her hair, Angie listened and enjoyed the easy banter of the women in her kitchen. It touched her that they wanted to share in the preparations and the excitement of the hotel’s grand opening. And there was not a hint of envy or resentment that Angie would attend, but they would not.

  Right at this moment, she decided there was no place on Earth she would rather be than here in her crowded kitchen with these women and the smell of coffee and the sound of laughter and the warmth of the afternoon sunshine falling through the back door.

  “If you’ll pin up the back of her hair,” Dorothy said to Molly, “I’ll crimp her bangs. As soon as the iron is hot.”

  Abby glanced up from pressing Angie’s gown. “Did I see Winnie Govenor coming out of here not long ago? Are the Govenors in town for the grand opening?”

  “Good heavens.” Tilly looked up from the table. “You have to be the only person who didn’t hear about Sam Holland and Herb Govenor getting into it over at—” Abruptly she stopped speaking and turned a stricken look toward Angie.

  Angie drew a breath and folded her hands in her lap. “There was a fight.” To her relief no one inquired as to the cause. No one spoke at all until Molly stepped into the silence.

  “Angie’s a grown woman. She isn’t going to swoon at the mention of the Govenors.” Impatient hands tugged at Angie’s hair. “Everyone here knows what’s going on. And everyone here dislikes the Govenors because of it. But if you ask me, Winnie Govenor isn’t all that bad. She’s just cold and distant and misguided.”

  “Other than that, she’s a swell person,” Tilly murmured sarcastically. A splendid creation, fashioned from rosebuds, dried leaves, and a broken strand of pearls, was taking shape beneath her nimble fingers.

  Dorothy wet a finger and tested the crimping iron to see if it was hot. “I think Mrs. Govenor would like to be more social and pleasant. She just doesn’t know how.”

  “I don’t know why you’d say anything nice about her after the way she treated . . .” Abby swung a look toward Angie, who pretended to be lost in private reverie. “She wouldn’t visit her daughter even when Laura was dying.”

  “In fairness,” Molly said briskly, “none of us believed Laura was dying until very close to the end. It’s possible the Govenors weren’t aware how grave the situation was.”

  Everyone looked at Angie and she abandoned the silly pretense that she wasn’t avidly listening. “I know about Laura,” she said, stating the obvious. She cleared her throat. “Her name is going to arise on occasion. Please don’t feel awkward on my account.” The words sounded stiff even to her ears.

  “It’s hard not to, now that we know Laura was living with your husband,” Dorothy said tartly.

  “Now just hush,” Molly said in a sharp tone. “We liked Laura, so let’s remember who she was, not what she did. And the same goes for Sam.” She frowned at the top of Angie’s head. “We don’t have to judge and we don’t have to take sides.”

  “Do you hate Laura?” Abby asked curiously.

  “I thought I did,” Angie admitted after a moment. “But I’m not so sure anymore.” How could she hate a woman whose children hugged her before they went to sleep? Even Lucy had given her a quick clumsy hug last night.

  As if on cue, Lucy and Daisy ran in the back door, bringing the scent of fresh air and licorice sticks. Immediately the women stopped talking, but the girls didn’t notice. They bounced around the kitchen, waving Angie’s fan, pulling on her long gloves, holding her pearl eardrops to their ears.

  “When do I have to wear a corset?” Lucy asked, fascinated by Angie’s heavily boned evening corset.

  “I believe thirteen is the usual age,” Tilly answered.

  “Well . . . that depends,” Abby said with a discreet cough.

  Daisy touched the ribbon hemming Angie’s corset. “Mabel Hooser wears a corset and she’s only eight.”

  Abby nodded. “My point exactly. Poor little Mabel already needs a corset.” She sighed.

  “Will Gramma and Grampa be at the party?” Daisy asked Angie.

  “I suppose so, but I don’t know for certain.” The possibility of running into the Govenors horrified her.

  “I think you and Gramma will be the prettiest ladies at the party,” Daisy said, leaning close to inspect the hairdo Molly and Dorothy were arranging.

  The comment gave Angie pause and surprised her. Because the girls had seemed eager to escape Winnie Govenor’s company, Angie had assumed they disliked their grandmother. But suddenly she saw another possibility. Maybe they’d just been tired of sitting in school all day and had wanted to play outside, where they could run and skip and work off the day’s energy.

  Lucy met Angie’s uncertain frown. “Miss Lily is having a ball tonight, too. She ordered a gown from Paris especially for her party. I wish we could see her in it.”

  “How on Earth do you learn about such things?”

  Lucy shrugged. “Germaine Jablonski heard about the gown from her second cousin, who heard it from someone who knows the daughter of Miss Lily’s second cook.”

  “I don’t think your grandmother would approve of this talk about Miss Lily,” Angie said, watching both girls carefully.
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  They laughed. “Gramma doesn’t approve of anything.” Daisy smiled with obvious affection. “That’s the way she is.”

  “She wants us to be ladies.” Lucy raised an imaginary cup and extended her little finger, managing to look graceful and ridiculous at the same moment. “Gramma said it’s easier to learn the rules of etiquette at our age than later when we’re grown.”

  Lucy’s simple statement revealed a crack in Winnie Govenor’s armor. The woman who had sold pies out of her back door had not made an easy transition to wealth or to the tangle of etiquette that accompanied social elevation.

  “We don’t mind. Gramma corrects us because she loves us,” Daisy said confidently. Not a hint of doubt shadowed her smile.

  “She wants it to be easier for us than it was for her,” Lucy added. The fascinated silence of the women in the kitchen clearly puzzled her.

  Studying a point in space, Angie slowly nodded. She had made a very wrong assumption. Lucy and Daisy did not dislike their grandmother. They didn’t resent Winnie Govenor’s reprimands, and they believed their grandmother loved them.

  None of the women spoke after the girls ran outside again.

  Finally Tilly went to the door and leaned out to make sure the girls weren’t eavesdropping. “It sounds like Winnie makes a better grandmother than a mother.”

  Dorothy Church blew on the smoking crimping iron. “Maybe she wants a second chance. She can’t change the estrangement between herself and Laura, but maybe she hopes to correct her mistakes with Laura’s children.”

  Molly made a snorting sound. “If Winnie really wanted to do right by those girls, then Daisy wouldn’t be lurching around here like a drunken miner. Her foot would have been straightened years ago.”

  Angie was glad someone shared her opinion about Winnie Govenor.

  Tilly stood at the door and smiled back into the kitchen. “You know, I wish I could see Miss Lily’s Paris gown, too.”

  And suddenly they were laughing and chattering again and everything was all right.

  But underneath the banter and the bustle of preparation, Angie’s thoughts circled around a disturbing new way of looking at things. She had believed the Govenors wanted Lucy and Daisy only to punish Sam for ruining their daughter. But maybe, in their own strange way, the Govenors truly cared about their granddaughters. Lucy and Daisy thought so. And children had a gift for spotting hypocrisy and deceit.

  Nothing would change her opinion that Lucy and Daisy belonged with their father. But the situation had seemed more clear cut when the Govenors could be condemned as black-hearted villains on every level. Now a troubling gray area had appeared.

  Everything was ready. Angie’s cape lay folded over the back of a kitchen chair. She’d packed her evening bag with a fresh handkerchief, a small bottle of eau de cologne, and a puff to blot the shine from her nose and forehead after the dancing began. Her satin gown glowed in the lamplight. She had checked the mirror a dozen times to admire her fashionably crimped bangs and the single tease of a curl at the back of her neck. Tilly’s lovely hair ornament was well anchored at the crown of her head and completed her ensemble to perfection.

  Wetting her lips in nervous anticipation, Angie stood in the center of the kitchen, afraid to sit lest she crush her gown, afraid to touch anything lest she soil her gloves. Her gaze flew to the schoolhouse clock over the table just as Sam came in the back door, followed by the girls.

  Angie’s breath caught in the back of her throat, and her heart stopped. Sam wore a dark cutaway over a silver-shot waistcoat. His white shirt was one of the new pleated soft shirts, but the high butterfly collar was starched and as stiff as it should be. His dark hair was brushed to a glossy sheen, and he’d tied it back with a length of black ribbon.

  Stunned, Angie spread her hands. “You look . . .” Handsome didn’t begin to describe his appearance tonight. He might have stepped from the pages of a gentlemen’s magazine. Except for the black eye, of course. Astonishingly, Sam appeared as comfortable and at ease in formal wear as he did in his denims and flannels.

  He smiled but his gaze narrowed in intensity as he slowly scanned her gown, letting his interest linger at her small cinched waist, and again at the curve of breasts swelling above her neckline. When her cheeks started to burn and she thought her nerves would fly apart, he finally met her eyes.

  “You look beautiful,” he said in a low, gruff voice.

  Suddenly they were shy with each other, strangers again. If the girls hadn’t been present as a buffer, neither would have found anything to say.

  Lucy and Daisy gazed back and forth between them, eyes wide with awe and admiration.

  “You don’t look like you,” Lucy said to Sam.

  Laughing, he knelt in front of her. “Because of the black eye or because of the fancy rig I’m wearing?”

  “I don’t know.” Puckering her lips, Lucy glanced at Angie. “And Angie looks like a fairy princess.”

  Daisy ran her fingertips lightly across Angie’s satin skirt. “When I grow up, I want a dress just like this one.” She lifted shining gray eyes. “You’re as beautiful as Miss Lily tonight!”

  “Now that’s high praise indeed.” Angie could never have imagined that she would be pleased by a favorable comparison to a sporting lady.

  Molly came up the back steps, smiling broadly. “My, my, don’t you two make a picture!” She placed a hand on top of Lucy’s and Daisy’s heads and turned them toward the door. “Don’t forget to bring me a souvenir. And we’ll be here first thing in the morning to hear all the details.”

  “Thank you for keeping the girls.”

  “It’s my pleasure, Sam. You know that. If I’d had children, I’d have wanted girls as smart and sassy as these two imps.”

  The girls looked back. “I wish we could go, too,” Lucy said wistfully. Something in her expression flickered and changed, and Angie predicted that she would be more interested the next time clothing and fashion were topics of discussion.

  Angie tilted her head and her brow puckered. She had a feeling she had just witnessed a landmark step on the journey to womanhood. Oddly, her first thought was for Laura. It should have been Laura whose beauty and finery raised longing in her daughter’s heart. And Laura should have been the one to observe and recognize this significant moment.

  “There are many balls and late suppers ahead for you,” Angie promised softly. “Your time will come.”

  “Me, too,” Daisy said brightly. “After my operation.”

  “Yes. You, too.” Angie did not let her gaze drop to Daisy’s twisted foot.

  Sam lifted her evening cape from the back of the chair and dropped it lightly around her shoulders. “Well, Mrs. Holland. Now that we have universal approval, shall we go?” He extended his arm and Angie hesitated then wrapped her glove around his sleeve.

  “If there’s cake, please bring us some,” Daisy called before Molly closed the back door.

  They looked at each other and laughed, then Sam touched his fingertips to her cheek. “This is your first grown-up party, isn’t it?”

  “You always surprise me,” she whispered, her throat suddenly tight and hot. “This will be the only formal event I’ve attended without my father as escort and chaperon. So, yes, I suppose you could say that tonight is my first grown-up party.”

  “I thought so.” Leading her forward, he opened the front door and stepped back with a broad smile.

  “Sam!” Her hands flew to her mouth and her eyes widened. “Is that a carriage? For us?” The liveried driver saw her step forward and touched his fingers to his cap. “But . . .” she turned back to Sam. “Can we afford a carriage? And we’re only going six blocks.” She twisted her hands together. “This really isn’t sensible. Renting a carriage must be outrageously expensive.”

  He placed a finger across her lips. “Listen to me. I bartered a day’s work for this finery.” He touched his cutaway. “But Angie, an occasional extravagance like the carriage is as necessary as paying bills and sa
ving. It’s the occasional extravagance that makes life worth living. Without an extravagance here and there along the way, life is just a drudgery. And sometimes an event is special enough that it will become a memory. I want the memory of your first real party to be everything it can be. You’ve waited a long time for tonight.”

  “Oh Sam.” She looked up, blinking hard and searching his eyes. “You told me once that you don’t often see things from another person’s viewpoint. That isn’t true.” Oh heavens. She was going to embarrass herself by getting teary. Why was it that she never cried when the sky fell on her but usually turned weepy over a compliment or a kindness?

  Sam raised an eyebrow when he saw the moisture glistening behind her lashes. “Tears? That’s not what I had in mind for tonight. This reminds me. I have a question of the utmost importance that requires an immediate answer.”

  “What is it?” she asked, fumbling in her bag for her handkerchief.

  He looked from side to side, up and down the street, then leaned in to whisper, his breath warm in her ear, “Do you think anyone will suspect that I’m wearing pink underwear?”

  “What?” Her head jerked up and the threat of tears vanished in a burst of helpless laughter.

  “Because if they do, my manhood will never recover from such a blow.” Taking her arm, he led her out the door and toward the carriage. “I’ll have to leave the county in disgrace.”

  “Sam Holland, sometimes you are just the most amazing—” He handed her into the carriage and swung into the seat beside her.

  “You’re evading the question.” A grin hovered at his lips. His eyes sparkled in the twilight.

  He had turned her mood around, and Angie decided he was right. This was not the time to worry about the evening’s expense. What was done was done. And Angie had dreamed of a night like tonight for so many years, had tried to imagine a party she could attend on the arm of a man who was not a relative, had longed for the time when no one would gaze at her with pity as they had when she left a party early with her parents.

  She wanted tonight to be everything she had imagined so many times. And Sam, she thought with a strange ache in her heart, wanted to give her an evening to remember.