Romancing the Bride

by Melissa Jagears

  Once he seemed satisfied that the county folk would heed his warning, he flipped a paper and picked up another. “As for Bryant Whitsett. In light of his cooperation and McGill’s being his superior creating an imbalance of power, six months in the Wyoming Territorial Prison.”

  “Thank the Lord,” Ava breathed.

  Jacob turned and nodded at Bryant’s eldest daughter sitting directly behind them. She was due to have her baby any day now. He’d tried to convince her to stay home, worried about how today’s verdict coupled with her mother’s precarious position might affect her, but she’d insisted on attending.

  He’d hoped Bryant could serve his time in the county jail so Leah could visit him if she recovered, but he couldn’t argue against such a lean sentence.

  “Marshal, I’ll leave you to arrange for their accommodations. Court is adjourned.”

  The crowd erupted with talk and movement.

  Stepping around Bryant’s seat, Jacob grasped the man’s arm and put his mouth near his ear. “Say your goodbyes to your daughter before I have to put you in the prison coach. I’m not sure you’ll get another chance.” Unfortunately, they would have no time to see Leah before they had to leave.

  Jacob walked Bryant over to Ava, who hugged him as tight as her extended abdomen would allow.

  He then gave orders to Nolan and Frank for escorting the remaining prisoners outside and returned to Bryant.

  His friend’s glassy eyes didn’t seem focused. “What did the doctor say this morning?”

  Jacob’s throat clogged. He’d already informed Bryant twice today. “It’s still possible she might not make it—but then, he’s just figuring that using medical knowledge. We’ve got prayers at our disposal.” He clasped his friend’s shoulder and started him through the crowd. “And if, God forbid, she doesn’t make it, don’t you forget about Jennie and Ava. They need you.”

  Bryant barely nodded—whether he did so out of real conviction or not, Jacob couldn’t tell.

  Nolan limped back through the crowd. “Are you ready to go? Frank already has the other four secured in the coach.”

  Jacob grabbed Bryant by the elbow to escort him as one would a prisoner. “We’re coming.”

  Outside, Annie stood beside the coach, her eyes beseeching. They’d said their goodbyes earlier after visiting Leah, knowing he’d likely be leaving immediately after the ruling, but it seemed that hadn’t been enough.

  He passed Bryant off to Frank. “If you would excuse me a minute.”

  Jacob pulled Annie back behind the coach and wrapped her in his arms. “How am I going to leave you?”

  “You have to do your job.” She tried to smile, but failed. “We’ll manage.”

  “I don’t know if I can.” He dipped his head, placing his forehead against hers.

  “While you’re gone, we’ll get the ranch ready—”

  “Don’t bother yourself with moving back.”

  Her brows scrunched. “You don’t want the ranch?”

  “Not as much as I want you.”

  She closed her eyes and he let his gaze linger over every freckle and eyelash.

  “There’s no need to wear yourself out moving boxes and furniture without me. Just be waiting when I come back.”

  “Marshal?”

  Nolan’s question was an unfortunate reminder of how little time they’d had together this week.

  “I’m coming.” Though he likely hadn’t said it loud enough for Nolan to hear, he forced himself to step away from his wife.

  “Wire me the moment you know when you’ll arrive home.” Annie squeezed his hand. “I’ll be waiting.”

  He held on for a moment longer. “Nothing could please me more.”

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Annie dumped the dirt she’d swept off her cabin floor over the porch railing and inhaled clean, country air. The place looked as if she’d never left.

  Except for Jacob’s favorite rocking chair in the parlor corner, his rifles above the mantel, and his dishes stuffed inside her cabinets. Though he’d told her not to worry about moving back while he was away, she’d wanted things to be ready for him to relax after such an unpleasant task as escorting his best friend to prison.

  And of course, she wasn’t at all the same woman who’d left this place only a handful of months ago. A different ring encircled her finger, and a new love grew in her heart.

  Her breathing hitched every time she glanced at the clock. She’d be back in Jacob’s arms again come dusk if the stage was on time.

  Spencer’s gentle murmurs sounded from the porch’s edge, where he’d curled up near a batch of new kittens, trying to coax the mama out with some pork fat.

  Annie checked her timepiece again. “It’s time to head into town. Why don’t you grab the linens and hop into the wagon?”

  Without complaint, Spencer scrambled up and ran to grab the basket she’d set on the porch earlier.

  Though the laundress’s hand had healed, Corinne was still behind at the laundry. Celia was too glued to Leah’s side to be of much help to the young woman, so Annie had volunteered to take care of Doc Ellis’s sheets and bandages.

  Thankfully Leah had managed to stay awake for a few consecutive hours yesterday, so the doctor expected her to survive—she would face limitations, but she’d be alive.

  However, that hadn’t convinced Celia to come home and rest any.

  “Can I bring these?” Spencer held out an armful of bloodwort. The pungent plants’ tightly-bunched white flowers weren’t pretty enough to call attention away from the fact they were wilting from being picked earlier in the day.

  Annie fluffed his hair. “I’m sure Leah will enjoy them, but I don’t think she needs so many.” Though if Spencer insisted on bringing them all, the doctor could dry some for good purpose.

  “I’m giving most of them to Celia. She’ll need flowers to go in all those vases at Mrs. Whitsett’s house. Her flowers are probably all dead by now.”

  “Good thinking.” Whenever the doctor’s wife had sent Celia away to rest, she’d chosen to unpack the boxes Bryant had thrown together the night of the stampede instead. “Did you get your bedroll?”

  Jacob would likely be exhausted after his travels, so they’d decided to stay in town tonight though his house was practically empty now.

  Spencer helped her put everything into the wagon, and Annie happily listened to his chatter on the drive into town.

  At Doc Ellis’s, Spencer ran into the side office without even so much as a knock.

  Annie scurried in after him, and the door swung shut loudly behind her. Spencer was nowhere to be seen. She tossed an apologetic look toward the white-haired doctor. “I’m sorry if—”

  “Mama! She’s awake!”

  Well, if Leah hadn’t been awake a second ago, she was now.

  The doctor inclined his head toward the front patient room. “She’s been trying to stay up long enough to see you.”

  Annie fought back the warmth in her eyes. Just days ago, the doctor wasn’t sure Leah would ever awaken again. Stepping into the plain white room, she smiled at her friend despite wanting to wince at the discoloration and ugly stitches marring Leah’s face. Celia was sitting quietly in a straight-back chair beside the bed, an open book in her lap.

  “Annie.” Leah’s voice sounded gritty and painful. But at least she had a voice. With the damage done, the doctor hadn’t been sure she’d speak again.

  Giving her a bright smile, Annie took Leah’s extended hand and sat on the empty chair beside her while Spencer tried to stuff handfuls of bloodwort around the lifeless coneflowers he’d brought in a few days ago.

  “As happy as I am that you stayed awake to see me, you should be sleeping as much as you can. We’ll have plenty of days to talk.” She squeezed Leah’s hand and closed her eyes. God, may it truly be so.

  “Don’t worry. I’m fine.” The gravel in her voice, the circles under her eyes, and the deep bruising indicated otherwise. “I’ve been talking to Celia for an
hour now, though she’s been insisting I rest my voice.”

  “As you should.”

  “But our talk’s too important.”

  “Oh?” Annie looked across at Celia, who was staring at the wall.

  “She seems to think she can’t be forgiven.”

  Celia did look at Annie then. “She says she doesn’t want me to move in with her and help while Bryant’s away. Says I have duties with you.”

  Yesterday, she’d asked about helping Leah while she recovered—one of the first unselfish requests she’d made in a long time—and Annie had thought it a good idea.

  She turned to Leah. “She has my permission to do so. We can handle things without her.” Since Celia hadn’t helped around the house in quite some time, she knew that for certain.

  She’d also insisted on regularly checking up on her daughter to make sure she wasn’t being a burden rather than a help—but with her daughter’s recent behavior, she wasn’t much worried.

  “But she doesn’t need to be helping me in a misguided attempt to earn my forgiveness.” Leah’s expression remained extraordinarily calm despite how long it took her to push those words out of her ravaged throat.

  Celia shrugged. “I don’t deserve forgiveness. Not even if I clean your house every day for the rest of my life.”

  Leah opened her mouth but the sound that came out was nothing more than a rasp. Then she started to cough and nearly choked.

  Moving quickly to prop her up on pillows, Annie helped Leah sit up farther as Celia fetched a glass of water.

  “It’s not that I don’t want her help.” Leah stopped to wheeze a bit and reposition herself to look at Annie. “But it’s more important that she’s not doing it to punish herself.”

  Annie looked between the two. “I take it you’ve told my daughter she’s forgiven, but she has no plans to forgive herself?”

  Leah’s head bobbed wearily. “I know how it feels—”

  “No, you don’t,” Celia interrupted. “You’ve not almost killed someone. You’ve not acted in such a way that your family can barely stand to be around you.”

  She popped out of her chair as if discovering it was made of nails and headed toward the small curtained window that looked out into the alleyway. “There’s nothing I could ever do to deserve your forgiveness.”

  “Forgiveness is a gift, Celia.” Annie rose slowly from her chair and directed Spencer out of the room before crossing over to her daughter. “You’re clearly sorry for what you’ve done, you seem to want to change your ways, and you’re helping here as best you can. Beyond that, what do you think you must do?”

  “More than that.”

  “Rejecting forgiveness only keeps a relationship broken.”

  “I deserve it.”

  “Like you deserve God’s wrath?”

  Her daughter stiffened and her face went blank. “Yeah. I deserve God’s wrath, too.”

  “Honey.” Annie tried to duck to look into her daughter’s eyes, but Celia only turned her head farther away. “All of us have wronged God. No matter how hard we work to be better, no matter how many good deeds we pile up—what we’ve done has to be accounted for.”

  Her daughter’s body didn’t even soften.

  “But Jesus offers forgiveness, and so does Leah. If you don’t accept it, who are you hurting? Them or you?”

  “She shouldn’t—” Celia cut herself off with a vehement head shake.

  “I’m sorry I’ve been badly modeling lately how one should accept a gift freely offered. I certainly didn’t do anything to deserve how Jacob treats us. I wasn’t even able to give him what I’d promised—until now anyway. But what good would it do us for me not to accept his love? What good will it do either you or Leah to refuse her forgiveness? What good does it do anybody to reject God’s offer to save? Jacob nor Leah nor God feel vindicated when we choose to suffer by refusing their gifts.”

  A tear rolled soundlessly down Celia’s cheek. “But I’m responsible.”

  A soft rumbling behind them interrupted the silence. Annie turned to see Leah’s bruised face slack with sleep. “You may be. But Leah isn’t holding it against you. She’s offering you a rare gift to drop your guilt and be friends.”

  Celia fidgeted while frowning out the window. “Just like Jacob treats me like a daughter though I refuse to listen to anything he says?”

  “Yes, just like that. We didn’t earn such love, now did we?”

  She drooped a little. “When I came home with Leah...” She sniffled. “He didn’t lecture me. Just hugged me and told me he loved me. And I think he actually does, and so, I can’t exactly hate him anymore.”

  “Good. And why don’t you work on letting him into your heart too? He won’t ever take the place of your pa, but he can be a pa to you in his own way.”

  Doctor Ellis stepped into the room and looked toward his patient. “Why don’t you two have a seat in the waiting room with Spencer? I’d like to be sure Mrs. Whitsett rests as long as possible.”

  “Of course.” Annie held out her arm for Celia to join her on the way out.

  Mrs. Ellis stopped in front of them with a pile of dirty sheets in her arms. “Celia, honey, go home and get some rest. Howard isn’t as worried about Mrs. Whitsett now, and I don’t think you’ve slept anywhere but a chair these last three days. With the other patients gone, we’ll be able to attend her just fine.”

  “But if—”

  “If things change, we’ll let you know.” The woman’s grandmotherly smile was softer than any smile the townsfolk had given Celia in quite a while.

  Annie let out a long breath. If others were seeing the change in her daughter, perhaps the change would be permanent.

  But if her daughter wasn’t staying with Leah tonight, where would she stay?

  Annie pulled out her timepiece as they walked out of the doctor’s with Spencer. “We should be able to get back to the ranch in time to grab your bedding and return before the stage comes, if we hurry.” Oh why had she moved everything back already? She’d not thought this through.

  “Aw.” Spencer’s upper lip arched up to the side. “Do we really have to drive all the way there and back again?”

  “Perhaps you two would rather stay at the cabin?” She looked at Celia. Her daughter could certainly watch Spencer, but she had to be certain she’d take on the responsibility.

  Celia raised a shoulder in a half-hearted shrug. “We don’t need to go back at all. I can stay at the Whitsetts’. I—I do believe that Leah forgives me, but she still needs someone to help her. And I think it should be me.”

  She squeezed Celia’s hand, thankful her girl wanted to help with no prodding. “I suppose that could work.”

  “Can I sleep there too?” Spencer bounced out in front of them. “I don’t want to sleep on the floor.”

  “I don’t think—”

  “It’s fine, Ma.” Celia nodded matter-of-factly, as if she’d matured ten years in the last ten days. “He can come with me.”

  “Now, Spencer—”

  “Mrs. Whitsett told me I could come over any time I want, remember?”

  She pulled his wiggly form closer. “Yes, but you’ll have to do what Celia tells you to.” That was a command she’d not have thought she’d utter a few weeks ago. “We want to make sure Leah is coming back to an orderly house.”

  “I’ll put away all the toys I get out. They only have a trunkful.”

  “We’ll be fine, Ma.” Celia stepped over to put her arm around her brother. “You can go … welcome Jacob home. I know I haven’t been acting right toward him lately, and I know he didn’t marry you to take Daddy’s place—I just...” She dropped her head to look at her feet.

  “You missed your father. It’s understandable.”

  “But it’s not like Jacob had anything to do with his death. If he’d had the chance to save him, he would’ve.”

  Annie smiled, her eyes watering up. “Yes, he’d sacrifice a lot for our best.”

  “So what are yo
u standing around here for? Go find him and have a nice night without us.” She turned Spencer by the shoulders and prodded him toward the wagon. “Get your stuff so we can go.”

  After saying goodbye to them both, Annie watched Celia walk away with her arm around Spencer.

  Lord, I’m sorry for being angry at you for letting her run away. Though I’m so terribly sorry Leah endured what she did, if that was how you chose to turn my girl around, I’ll praise you for it. Help her accept both yours and Leah’s forgiveness so she can give you her best from here on out.

  And may you help me give Jacob my best too.

  She glanced about the near-empty street and wiped her palms against her skirts.

  Tonight’s plans were a blank now. With no children to attend to, no packing to be done, and a husband she couldn’t wait to see returning in just a few hours...

  Her stomach flip-flopped at just the mere thought of being able to touch him again.

  She’d told him she’d be waiting at the depot, but perhaps she could do better.

  Stretching his arms and legs in anticipation of getting out of the coach, Jacob stared out the window where the edge of Armelle had just appeared on the dusky horizon.

  No one walking on Main Street looked like Annie.

  Oh, how he’d missed her.

  He didn’t envy Bryant the months separated from his wife with only his guilt to keep him company.

  The man had slumped onto his cot the moment he’d stepped inside his cell, not even responding to Jacob’s last goodbye.

  Hopefully, the telegram with the doctor’s more positive prognosis had reached Bryant by now. Annie’s telegram from last night about Leah’s improving condition had certainly made his chest lighten. Surely after some days of thanking God for sparing his wife, Bryant would buck up.

  Lord, keep him safe and sane.

  The rattling stagecoach slowed, and Jacob braced for the stop, frowning at not seeing Annie near the depot.