The True Love Wedding Dress

by Barbara Metzger, Connie Brockway, Casey Claybourne; Catherine Anderson

  Faith nodded, but in truth she was far from feeling all right. Being around this man wreaked havoc with her common sense. She wasn’t a young girl, fresh out of short skirts and her hair still in pigtails. She’d been married for five long years and had hated every minute of it. The last thing she wanted was to be under a man’s thumb again.

  Only somehow she sensed it would be different with Patrick. The touch of Harold’s hand had never set her heart to pounding. And to her recollection, he’d never made her laugh. More important, he never would have thought to buy her ice cream simply because she loved it.

  “Let me get you a clean spoon.”

  Faith shook her head. “No, no. Thank you for offering, but I’ve had enough.”

  “But you’ve hardly touched it,” he pointed out.

  Faith felt a sudden need to escape the restaurant and get some fresh air. Luckily, Charity had gobbled down her ice cream with unbridled enthusiasm, and they were able to leave.

  After paying their bill, Patrick joined them on the boardwalk. Her stomach jittery with nerves, Faith hurried Charity along in front of them, anxious to get back to the ranch where she might find some time alone to get her feelings sorted out. And sort them out she would. Her reactions to this man were beyond silly; they were downright ludicrous.

  Up ahead of them, in front of the general store, there sat a large crate. As they drew closer, Faith saw that it contained puppies, darling little things with brown and white splotches and huge, floppy ears. A sign tacked to the side slats of the crate read, FREE TO A GOOD HOME.

  “Oh, aren’t they sweet?” Faith said.

  Charity had long wanted a dog of her own. With a squeal of delight, she dropped to her knees and leaned over the crate. One of the puppies jumped up to lick the sticky remains of ice cream from the child’s face. Charity laughed. “Oh, Maman!” she cried. “Please say I can have one. Please?”

  “Oh, darling, I’m sorry. Perhaps one day soon.”

  Patrick gave Faith an inquiring look. “Why can’t she have a pup now? There’s plenty of running room out at my place. It’ll give her a playmate.”

  Faith was stunned by the offer. “But a puppy must eat.”

  His lean cheek creased in a grin. “Yeah, I reckon so. Most dogs do.”

  “No, Patrick. You’ve already done so much.”

  Ignoring her protests, Patrick crouched beside Charity. “Which one do you want, sweet pea?”

  “This one,” Charity cried. “He likes ice cream.” Patrick nodded. “He’s the boldest and friendliest, too. If I were doing the choosin’, he’s the one I’d pick. Gather him up.”

  “Truly?” Charity’s eyes went wide with excitement and incredulity. She hugged the puppy close, beaming an adoring smile. “You mean he’s mine?”

  Patrick chuckled. “It’ll be good to have a dog around the place. He’ll be your responsibility, though. You’ll have to bathe him and brush him and feed him. Dogs are a lot of work.”

  “I won’t mind.”

  “Best go put him in the wagon, then,” Patrick suggested.

  As Charity scampered away, Faith blinked away tears.

  “Don’t cry,” Patrick ordered. “I’d rather take a beating than watch you cry.”

  Faith gulped and wiped her cheek. “You’ve already taken on two extra mouths to feed, Patrick.” She almost added, What are you trying to do, make me fall in love with you? But she caught herself before the words escaped and settled for saying, “This is too much.”

  “Don’t be silly. All kids should have a dog.”

  Three mornings later, Faith was upstairs putting fresh linen on the beds when she heard a feminine voice call out downstairs. “Hello? Faith? Hello? Is anyone home?”

  By the time Faith got downstairs, Charity and her puppy, Spotty, were becoming fast friends with a lovely young woman who held a stack of papers and a wooden box clutched in her arms. The moment Faith saw the woman’s red hair, she guessed her to be Patrick’s sister, Caitlin.

  “Hello,” Faith said shyly as she entered the kitchen.

  Caitlin set her burdens on the table and came across the room to grasp Faith’s hands. “Ah, and now I understand! No wonder Patrick looks like a sick calf whenever he talks about you.”

  A sick calf? Faith smiled in bewilderment. In another twenty years, maybe she would understand all these people’s odd sayings. “You must be Caitlin.”

  “I am.” Placing a palm over her slightly swollen waist, she grinned impishly and added, “And this is Ace Junior. My husband says it’s going to be a girl who looks just like me.” She laughed and patted her tummy. “But we’ll show him.”

  “Your husband wants a girl?”

  “Ace says we need another female around the place,” Caitlin said with a laugh. “Even my cat is a male.”

  After Charity’s birth, Harold had entered the birthing chamber, given the baby only a cursory glance, and then informed Faith that she would be expected to do better the next time.

  “Well, enough about the baby,” Caitlin said with another chuckle. “Given half a chance, that’s all I want to talk about. Patrick stopped by after your shopping trip the other day. I’m here to show you how to cut out shirt and dress patterns.” She pointed to the stacks of folded paper on the table. “The latest fashions. Later today, my husband, Ace, or my brother-in-law, Joseph, will bring over my sewing machine. I’ll teach you how to use it, and you can keep it here until you’ve replenished your wardrobes.”

  “Oh, I—” Faith gulped. “I’ve only ever done needlework. Seamstresses were hired to make our dresses.”

  Caitlin snapped her fingers. “Simple as pie. You’ll see.”

  Faith wasn’t so confident, but she was soon visiting with Caitlin around straight pins clenched between her teeth while they cut out pattern pieces on the kitchen table. It was Charity’s job to lay table knives in strategic spots to hold the patterns and material anchored when Faith and Caitlin ran low on pins.

  “I brought my recipes, too,” Caitlin said as they worked. “I’ll leave them here so you can copy them. There are extra cards in the box. Feel free to use as many as you like. When Patrick has a spare moment, you might ask him to make you a box to keep them organized. He made mine for me.” Her eyes went soft with affection. “It was his birthday present to me one year. I’ve treasured it ever since. I never open it without thinking of him.”

  Faith smiled. “It was kind of you to come, Caitlin.”

  “Not at all. I’ve been dying to meet you.” Caitlin glanced after Charity as the child scampered from the room with Spotty at her heels. “I wanted to see what sort of woman had finally managed to capture my brother’s heart.”

  Faith stopped cutting to glance up. “Pardon me?”

  “He’s in love with you,” Caitlin said simply. Her cheek dimpled in a smile. “Oh, he isn’t quite sure about that yet,” she said with a shrug. “Men never are, until it hits them square between the eyes.”

  “In love with me?”

  Caitlin sobered and gave Faith a woman-to-woman look that spoke volumes. “My brother has suffered in ways you can’t imagine,” she said softly. “You can’t force yourself to return his affection. I understand that. But I do hope you’ll have a care for his feelings. He’s seen enough hurt in his life.”

  Faith was so stunned by this revelation that it took her a moment to reply. “I am indebted to your brother in ways I can’t begin to explain. I would never intentionally cause him pain.”

  Caitlin smiled and returned her attention to the patterns. “That’s good enough for me.” With a mercurial unpredictability that Faith was fast coming to realize was a part of Caitlin’s personality, the pretty redhead launched into the story of how her marriage had come about. “The last man on earth I wanted to marry was Ace Keegan!” she said with a laugh. “It wasn’t the best of beginnings.”

  “But you’re happy now?”

  “Deliriously happy,” Caitlin said with another laugh. “I love him with my whole heart,
and he loves me just as much. I honestly believe that Ace would lay his life down for me.”

  With a shrug, Caitlin changed subjects yet again and began giving Faith a summary on her recipes. “Just don’t, under any circumstances, try the sauerbraten,” she warned. “Right after Ace and I were married, I wanted to impress him and his brothers with something special. I can’t remember who it was now, but one of them took a bite and spat the meat out on his plate, telling everyone else not to eat any more because it had gone bad.”

  Faith loved sauerbraten herself. She laughed until her sides hurt.

  “I was crestfallen,” Caitlin said with a sigh.

  Ace arrived with the sewing machine right after they finished cutting out all the garments. When he entered the kitchen, Faith had cause to wonder if handsome men grew like weeds in Colorado. Keegan was as dark as Caitlin was fair, a tall, imposing figure of a man who wore a nickel-plated pistol on his hip and walked with a slight limp. He was, Faith decided, almost as handsome as Patrick.

  “So you’re the young woman who has my brother-in-law all moon-eyed,” he said as he took Faith’s hand in his. After giving her a bold once-over, he winked at his wife and said, “Pretty as a picture. That’s one mystery solved.”

  Faith blushed. “You flatter me, sir.”

  Ace Keegan threw back his ebony head and laughed. “Not the first time, I’m sure, and it won’t be the last.” He encircled his wife’s narrow shoulders with a strong arm. “How are you feeling, little mother?”

  “I’m fine,” Caitlin replied with a smile. “You worry too much. Pregnancy isn’t a fatal disease, you know.”

  “I just don’t want you to overdo.”

  “I won’t.” Caitlin shoved playfully at his chest. “Off with you now. Go pester Patrick while I show Faith how to operate my sewing machine.”

  That evening, Patrick invited Faith for a walk after supper. While Charity and her puppy raced off to explore, they walked in silence for a while, lost in their own thoughts. Faith’s were centered on the man beside her. Was it true that he was developing an affection for her, as Caitlin had implied? And if so, was he thinking of asking her to marry him?

  Faith had mixed emotions about the possibility. On the one hand, she was fearful of surrendering her life to someone again. But on the other hand, she had to admit that Patrick was like no other man she’d ever known. He seemed to genuinely enjoy her company, for one thing, and she truly enjoyed his. He had a way of making her laugh when she least expected it, and she looked forward to their suppertime conversations, which usually began over the meal and continued as they cleaned up the kitchen together after Charity was in bed.

  “Do you remember that night when you came to my room, and I said we’d have to share the stories of our lives sometime?” he suddenly asked.

  Jerked from her reverie, Faith sent him a bewildered look.

  “I’ve grown very fond of you in the time you’ve been here,” he said candidly. “At this point, I don’t know where that may lead, or if it will even lead anywhere. But I think it’s time for you to know a little more about me.”

  Faith felt she already knew all the things about Patrick that really mattered—that he was good and kind and generous.

  His voice thick with emotion and sometimes taut with anger, he began by telling her about his father. “Wasn’t a day went by that Caitlin or I didn’t get the back of Connor O’Shannessy’s hand,” he said gruffly. “And when a cuffing was the worst of it, we felt damned lucky. All during my childhood, he was work-in’ his way toward the bottom of a bottle. He wasn’t a happy drunk, to put it mildly. Mean as a snake, more like.”

  “Oh, Patrick.”

  He shrugged and gazed off at the darkening horizon as they walked along. “Many was the time that I crept out from my hiding place when he was tearing hell out of the house in search of Caitlin. For reasons I’ve never to this day come to understand, he preferred to beat on her rather than me.”

  “You took the beatings in her stead?”

  “Don’t go growin’ a halo around my head. After he died, I adopted his ways. Started drinking myself stupid and flying into rages. The last time I got drunk, I struck my sister. Slapped her across the face and knocked her clear off her feet.”

  Faith saw the aching regret in his eyes.

  “Caitlin has forgiven me, and I pray that God has, but I’ll never forgive myself. All she ever did to deserve it was love me.”

  Driven by compassion and a need to offer comfort, Faith reached to grasp his hand. “We all do things that we regret,” she assured him.

  His throat convulsed as he struggled to swallow. Then he hung his head, saying nothing for several paces. “Things went wrong in my head for a while, Faith. That’s no excuse, but it’s the only way I know to explain so you can understand.”

  He fell quiet again, as if trying to sort his thoughts. When he finally resumed speaking, his voice had gone hollow. “When I was only a little tyke, a family named Paxton came west and settled on a tract of land that adjoined ours. The man, Joseph Paxton, Senior, had paid good money for the parcel and had the papers to prove it. My father and others refused to recognize the validity of Paxton’s deed and ordered him off the land. Paxton was a peaceful man, not given to fighting. He started packing his family up to leave.

  “It was a swindle, plain and simple, perpetrated by my father and his friends. When one of them got shot in the back, they accused Paxton of the murder, and then, without a trial, they hanged him.”

  Faith’s heart twisted at the pain she saw on his face.

  “That wasn’t the worst of it. I won’t get into all the horrible details. Suffice it to say that they hanged the poor man in front of his family. I like to think that my father believed Paxton was guilty.” His mouth twisted in a bitter smile. “Why, I don’t know. He was a terrible man who did terrible things. But there’s still a part of me that wishes there had been a little bit of good in him somewhere. You know what I’m saying?”

  Faith understood better than he could realize. She often caught herself making excuses for her father, wanting to believe he had a few saving graces.

  “Ace Keegan, Caitlin’s husband, was Joseph Paxton’s stepson.”

  She gasped. “And he married the daughter of his stepfather’s murderer?”

  Patrick sighed. “That’s another story. But, yes, in answer to your question. He married the daughter of his stepfather’s killer. How he has made his peace with it I’ll never know, but somehow he has.”

  Faith recalled Caitlin’s saying that her marriage had had bad beginnings. Now she understood why.

  “Ace was only eleven years old the night Joseph Paxton was hanged. I’m sure you noticed the scar on his cheek and the way he limps. That’s because my father, Connor O’Shannessy, bashed him in the face with the butt of a rifle and then shattered his hip with a kick of his boot.”

  Faith knew she should say something, but words eluded her.

  “After my father died, Ace Keegan returned to No Name, hell-bent on clearing his stepfather’s name. In the process, he made some terrible accusations, all of them directed at my father in one way or another.” Patrick dragged in a shaky breath. “Deep down, I suspected that the accusations were true, but that didn’t make the truth any easier to swallow, and I detested Ace Keegan for forcing it down my throat. Came to a point where I was ashamed to hold my head up when I went into town because my last name was O’Shannessy.”

  “Your father’s actions were no reflection on you.”

  “Oh, yes. You’ve seen the portrait of him. I’m a dead ringer for my old man. ‘Just like your daddy,’ people used to say. ‘A regular chip off the old block.’ You can’t know how those words haunted me. I didn’t want to be like him, but I knew I was. I saw the resemblance when I looked in a mirror, and more times than I wanted to count, I caught myself acting like him. Talking like he did, walking like he did, laughing like he did. As time wore on, and Ace Keegan’s accusations became common knowledge,
the shame I felt became intolerable. I found numbness in a bottle. I wasn’t thinking of Caitlin or how my drinking might affect her. For a while there, I was bent on becoming just like my father and proving everyone right.”

  “You’re nothing like him,” Faith protested. “Nothing like him, do you hear? There’s a physical resemblance, yes. But inside, where it truly counts, you’re as different from him as night is from day, Patrick.”

  “Do you really think so?”

  “I know so.” Faith gave his hand a hard squeeze. “You’re a good man, Patrick, a fine man.”

  He curled his fingers warmly around hers. “So was my father at some point in his life. I don’t know what made him turn bad. Maybe the death of our mother. Who knows? But turn he did. When my sister was only sixteen, he sold her favors to a friend for six cases of whiskey.”

  A picture of Caitlin’s lovely countenance moved through Faith’s mind. “No,” she whispered. “Oh, dear God, Patrick, no.”

  “It wasn’t like he did it when he was crazy drunk and not thinkin’ straight. He planned it. Sent me away on a cattle drive to get me out of the way, then sat at his desk, swilling whiskey, while a man brutally raped my sister.” Patrick’s mouth thinned and drew back from his teeth. “Try living with that,” he said tautly. “Knowing a man like that sired you, that his blood flows in your veins.”

  Faith could only shake her head.

  “I needed for you to know,” he told her. “Like I said when I started, I’ve grown very fond of you, Faith, and of your daughter as well. That being the case, it doesn’t seem smart to keep secrets. We inherit certain traits from our parents. Bloodlines are the making of a man. Mine are nothing to be proud of.”

  “And you think mine are?” Faith thought of her father again, and the awful sick feeling returned to her stomach. “Think again, Patrick O’Shannessy. Bloodlines can determine our appearance, but they have nothing to do with who we are inside.”

  He gave her a searching look. “I’ll bet you have a pedigree that would put a champion racehorse to shame.”