Her Winding Path_Seeing Ranch series

by Florence Linnington

  And now, he knew he was anything but.

  Was it possible for a person to be this anxious?

  Tom fiddled with his collar, taking note of the sweat sliding down the back of his neck. Had he remembered to put his handkerchief in his pocket? How would it look if he wiped the sweat away? Would everyone know how nervous he was?

  Feeling against his pockets, he looked for the handkerchief. Suddenly, though, the church’s doors opened. The pianist strung up a tune and Gemma breezed in, a big smile on her face and a bouquet of wildflowers in her hands.

  Every bit of Tom started buzzing. This was it. The big moment was here. He’d waited months, and finally, finally, Ida Rose would be his.

  Gemma reached the end of the aisle, where she bit her lip in excitement as she took her place. The pianist switched the song, going into the traditional one Tom had always heard at church weddings. The people in the pews stood. In the front row, his mother wiped tears away from her cheeks, her face glowing with pride.

  And then, like a vision descended from Heaven, there she was. She floated in surrounded by a cloud of white. Tom knew it was only her dress, but the way Ida Rose wore it, it seemed like so much more. The only color was in the roses in her hands, the pink in her cheeks and lips—and the deep brown in those eyes he had already fallen in love with a hundred times over.

  Ida Rose came to her place across from him, the slightest smile resting at the corner of her mouth. Everything around her blurred, completely went away. She was the only woman in all of existence.

  Someone took her flowers and she and Tom clasped hands. There were words, ones coming from the reverend. But what was he saying?

  Tom could hear nothing, see nothing. Except for her, of course. The woman who had come to mean everything to him.

  “The ring,” someone hissed in his ear.

  “Huh?” Dazed, Tom blinked and noticed Mitch staring at him. “Here.”

  “Oh.”

  Mitch pressed the simple band into Tom’s finger. “Put it on her finger,” he whispered.

  “Uh-huh,” Tom dumbly agreed. Slowly, feeling that this had to be a dream, he lifted Ida Rose’s hand and slid the ring on. It nestled against the engagement diamond, a perfect fit.

  “Now kiss her,” Mitch instructed.

  The commandment broke the spell. Tom’s head was finally clear. This was no dream. It was really happening. Ida Rose was his wife.

  Pulling her gently to him, he lowered his mouth to his. Her lips parted, and with that one kiss, he gave her everything he had. Though he could say it again and again, no words would ever fully convey how much he loved her. Actions couldn’t do the same either.

  But maybe, just maybe, his touch could.

  The church erupted in applause. Tom let Ida Rose go and she grinned up at him, her face shining with joy.

  “Hello,” he said.

  “Hello yourself,” she giggled.

  Hand in hand, they rushed down the aisle and out into the churchyard. The tables under the trees were already filled with dishes of food and blankets were spread across the grass. Tom kept Ida Rose close to him as people spilled forward, offering their congratulations. The men shook Tom’s hand and the women kissed Ida Rose’s cheek.

  He kept his arm around his new wife’s waist the whole time, never wanting to let her go again. Finally, the stream of people slowed down enough that he was able to grab her hand and pull her around side of the church.

  “What are you doing?” Ida Rose squealed. “The party is back there.”

  “I just wanted a moment alone,” he answered, stopping only once they were safely hidden away from everyone else.

  “You will have me alone for the rest of our lives.” She pressed her palms against his chest and gave him her best, most dazzling smile.

  “Doesn’t matter.” He kissed the tip of her nose. “I wanted you right now.”

  With a pleased sigh, she wrapped her arms around his neck and sank into his chest. From somewhere on the front lawn, a fiddle began to play. A guitar joined in. The band was warming up.

  “Remember the party at the hotel?” Tom asked, taking her hand and swaying to the music.

  Ida Rose laughed. “Very well. And I thought you did not dance.”

  “Only with you.” He spun her around, putting the lessons Mrs. Garrison had been giving him the last couple of weeks to good use. “I thought you were the most beautiful woman on Earth that night. I thought you could never get any lovelier. I was wrong.”

  Ida Rose’s cheeks turned pink. “You are only thinking that because you just married me.”

  “What if I am?” he challenged, pulling her in closer.

  They swayed back and forth, dancing across the grass. Nearby, the people they loved most in the world laughed and chatted. All around them, the grass was green and the sky was blue. The world was perfect.

  “I wish our fathers could have been here today,” Ida Rose whispered.

  Tom looked up at the sky, where a thick trail of puffy, white clouds were slowly rolling by. “Don’t you think they’ve been here all along?”

  Ida Rose sucked in a long breath. “I suppose so. That is what I would like to believe, anyway.”

  “It’s funny… my father and your father growing up together.”

  “I think about it all the time.”

  “And now, here we are, drawn into each other’s lives.”

  “I know,” she murmured. “How could it be a coincidence?”

  Tom looked down into his wife’s eyes. “It’s not.”

  Through all the challenges—the earthquake, his mother’s memory losses, the bandits, the belief that they were cousins—something had been guiding them. A loving, wise hand. It had to be that way. Their whole path had been riddled with challenges, each that could have easily been the end of them.

  And yet, the end had never come. They had struggled, fought, loved, and prevailed. They had learned lessons. They had come out on top. Tom could see now that there was nothing that was not possible. Especially with Ida Rose by his side.

  Now, that… that was a realization to dance to for the rest of time.

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  Preview of next book…

  Her Western Heart

  Preview: Chapter 1

  New York 1880

  “Your eyes are the color of those little mushrooms that grow in the fall. Has anyone ever told you that?”

  The pale and gangly man leaned forward, intruding upon Gemma’s space. She forced herself to smile. “No, I must admit I have never heard that before, Mister… um...”

  “You can call me Charles,” he prompted, extending a sallow and bony hand.

  Gemma shook the hand the slightest amount, forcing herself to focus on calm and even breaths.

  He is just another suitor, she reminded herself. Here one moment, and then gone the next.

  As she had the thought, her eyes flitted around the ballroom. If half the people in it were as bored as she, they did not show it. Their faces were all masks of cool, calm platitude, their eyes frozen solid and emotionless.

  Gemma’s insides felt as if they were shriveling right up. Next to her, Charles was talking, but his words were nothing more than a distant buzz.

  Gemma calculated the number of steps to the front door. If she were to slip out and take a walk down the street, how long woul
d it be before her parents noticed her absence? Was it possible to steal just twenty minutes to herself?

  Then again, perhaps she could have more fun if she stayed inside....

  “It is rather interesting that these activists, as they call themselves, can argue all men are born equal,” Charles was saying. He chortled to himself. “Now, how can all men be just that? We look different, we have different degrees of intelligence...”

  “Would you like to see the upper balcony?” Gemma interrupted.

  Charles’ eyebrows rose in surprise. “The balcony?”

  “Yes. I can show it to you, if you like.”

  A smile twitched on his thin lips. He looked like a little fox, eager to catch a rodent it’d had its eyes on all night. Gemma kept her face passive. She wasn’t the only one in this house who could pretend.

  “I would like that very much.” Charles licked his lips eagerly and extended a hand. “Shall we?”

  Gemma led him from the ballroom, past the quartet and the linen-covered tables, through the marbled hallway, and up the curving staircase. The upstairs was dark and quiet, not even a mouse scratching behind the walls. As she lifted her skirts, her mother’s words from earlier in the evening echoed in her head.

  Please be good tonight, Gemma. We cannot afford any more disasters.

  Was that how her parents saw everything she did? Was she the perpetrator of one endless disaster after another?

  Her teeth ground together. It didn’t matter. Her parents were in the wrong to force such a rapid stream of suitors on anyone.

  Gemma was twenty years old, a million moons away from anything even close to being a spinster. Yet, her parents acted as if the entire city of New York would fall into the ocean if she did not marry soon.

  “Here it is!” she sang as they reached the end of the main hallway. “It has a wonderful view of the park.”

  “Then what are we waiting for?” Charles scurried forward and yanked on the crystal doorknob. The glass door flew open and he stepped onto the balcony.

  “Gorgeous,” he grunted right away. “Your father has really outdone himself, Miss Campbell.”

  “I’m glad you think so,” Gemma replied as she kicked the door shut.

  Before he could so much as turn back to her, Gemma had closed and locked the balcony’s door. She had just enough time to see the outline of surprise on his face, barely lit up by the gas lamps along Fifth Avenue, before she’d turned around.

  Banging sounded on the glass behind Gemma, but she was the only one who could hear it. The string music and the idle chatter from downstairs could muffle even the loudest cry.

  With her first genuine smile of the evening lifting both her lips and heart, Gemma picked up the hem of her pink silk dress and descended the stairs. Her mother had asked her to play nice tonight, but honestly, how could she be expected to be good when everyone else on Earth was so awful?

  “Gemma!” The call greeted her as soon as she stepped back into the ballroom. Within the blink of an eye, Abigail had her white-gloved hand on Gemma’s wrist. “Where have you been?”

  “Just tending to some… things.”

  Abigail’s eyes rolled. “Why are you so mysterious?”

  Gemma laughed. “Does it make me more entertaining?”

  “It does seem to make you more desirable. What is this, the fourth party your parents have thrown you this year?”

  “Something like that,” Gemma murmured, not caring to admit it was the fifth.

  “Come along.” Abigail pulled on her hand. “Penelope and I are facing a most unfortunate situation. We need your assistance right away.”

  Gemma allowed herself to be pulled along the perimeter of the ballroom floor. Passing swirling skirts and men all dressed like replicas of each other, they ducked and dodged waiters with silver trays. Penelope waited on a quilted settee in the corner of the room, her back rod-straight and her eyes darting around the space.

  Gemma plopped down next to Pen, with Abigail settling herself on the redhead’s other side.

  “I am here,” Gemma dramatically announced. “And I heard there was a dire emergency.”

  “Yes,” Penelope replied through the tight lips she always wore. Her eyes slid over to Gemma. “I am going to have to go change.”

  “Change?” Gemma dumbly repeated.

  “Yes.” She nodded at a brunette lady dancing nearby. “Look.”

  Gemma did, but didn’t understand why Penelope needed her to.

  Abigail leaned across Penelope’s lap. “Her dress looks just like Pen’s,” she hissed.

  She looked again. The colors were the same—all greens and golds—and the scooped necks were also similar, but other than that, Gemma didn’t see any cause for alarm. “I am not so sure...”

  Penelope harshly exhaled through her nose. “I ordered this dress from my seamstress in Paris. She assured Mother that she was making no other ones like it, that this dress would be special… And now, look!”

  Gemma instead looked for the right words. “Um, it is special, Penelope. You are delightful in it.”

  Tears filled her eyes. “I look a fool!”

  Abigail nodded eagerly. “It’s just awful.”

  Gemma chewed on the inside of her cheek. Most evenings, she would just stay silent and go along with whatever Penelope, Abigail, and whoever else was around them had to say. Most arguments were not worth the time and energy.

  But tonight was different. Perhaps it was the real pain in Penelope’s eyes, or the devilish excitement in Abigail’s, or the man locked out on the balcony right above their heads. Whatever the cause, Gemma Campbell was tired of being polite and agreeable.

  “It is just a dress, Penelope. Take care not to start a war over it.”

  Penelope’s and Abigail’s eyes went wide as dinner plates.

  “It is not just a dress,” Penelope snapped. “It is what my future husband might see me in!”

  Gemma inwardly groaned and leaned back against the cushions. To try was pointless, just as it always was. “Would you care to change into one of my gowns?”

  Penelope sniffed. “You have worn them all. Everyone will recognize it as one of yours.”

  “No,” Gemma shook her head. “I have a new deep red one which has not been worn.”

  “But I have red hair,” Penelope moaned. “It will look garish.”

  “It is better than nothing,” Abigail meekly offered.

  Finally, Penelope nodded. “True. You do not mind, Gem? If everyone sees me in it, then it will not be new when you wear it.”

  “I do not care.”

  She frowned. “I will never understand your approach to life. It is almost as if you care about nothing.”

  “Maybe I don’t,” Gemma sullenly agreed. “Go change. Hettie is up there. She will pull the dress out for you.”

  Gemma settled more comfortably into the settee as the two others headed upstairs. She tracked them for a moment, her eyes following their high skirt bustles and perfectly curled hair.

  A fist closed around Gemma’s stomach, refusing to let go. There was a chance that what Penelope had said could very well be true.

  Did Gemma care about anything? Other than books and the time she got to spend alone in the park, nothing had ever truly mattered to her. It was her moments alone that meant something. It was the dreams that she escaped to early in the morning hours or late at night, when no one else was awake that sustained her, that gave her true life.

  She closed her eyes as the music and talk pressed thick against her skull. Somewhere deep in her heart, there was a wild space, a land untouched by man, far away from parties and teas and governesses and strained banter. It was the place Gemma ran to, her own personal great, wide-open country.

  If only it were the kind of place her fingertips could touch.

  “Gemma Campbell.”

  Her eyes popped open at the stern voice. Inches away, Gemma’s father towered over her, his face red behind the bushy white mustache. Next to him, her mother loo
ked equally furious. And behind them?

  Mr. Charles Whoever-He-Was himself.

  Gemma swallowed hard. “Oh. Hello.”

  “Oh?” her father roared. “’Oh’ is all you can say?”