The Bad Luck Wedding Dress (The Bad Luck Wedding series)

by Geralyn Dawson

  Puzzlement colored Jenny’s voice. “What’s going on? How did you know about the trouble? Did someone telegraph you, Monique? Were you visiting Mother in Dallas, Papa?”

  Richard Fortune’s voice was gruff with emotion. “I came for your wedding, and stopped by Monique’s on the way, thinking we might all spend Christmas together.”

  “My wedding!”

  Monique gave her daughter another quick, fierce hug then stepped away. “My telegram said three weeks and he read three months.”

  Keeping his arm around his daughter, Richard frowned. “In my defense, allow me to point out the fact that few people choose to conduct a large, formal wedding in three weeks’ time. I believe I can be excused the oversight due to the unusual circumstances. And, since your mother has ignored all of my correspondence for some time now—”

  “Almost three months,” Monique interjected.

  “—I had no way of knowing I’d made an error.” He gave Jenny’s hands a squeeze, saying, “I beg your forgiveness, Jenny. I’ve long dreamed of escorting you down the aisle. While in my opinion your mother is more at fault than I, it is conceivable that—”

  “Hush, Richard,” Monique snapped. “We haven’t even found out if she’s well.”

  “Of course she’s well. Look at her.” He looked more closely and frowned. “Oh, my. You are well, are you not, child? You look tired. Are you feeling all right?” He tossed a fatherly glare toward Trace. “My daughter obviously needs to rest. What are you doing standing there? Hurry, boy. Let’s get her inside.”

  Trace opened his mouth to bark right back at Richard Fortune, but his intentions changed when he saw the expression on his wife’s face.

  Amazement. Delight. Unadulterated joy.

  As Jenny stood on her tiptoes and pressed a kiss to her father’s cheek, Trace swore to himself he’d never allow a day go by without showing his daughters how much he loved them.

  The girls led the way toward the house, Jenny following, flanked by her parents, with Trace assisting Tye and bringing up the rear. In all the excitement, neither the girls nor Jenny’s parents got around to mentioning the other surprise awaiting them inside.

  Wearing a passably attractive dress, Ethel Baumgardner, her youthful face ravaged by signs of tears and worry, stood wringing a handkerchief in Willow Hill’s front parlor.

  Jenny stiffened visibly. “Miss Baumgardner?”

  “Oh, thank God you are all right! You are all right, aren’t you? Oh, please forgive me. You must forgive me. I never meant for you to be hurt.” The Dallas dressmaker burst into a flurry of tears. “I just wanted to make you leave here. I never thought Mr. Bailey would go to such extremes. I am so sorry. So very, very sorry.”

  Trace breathed a curse under his breath as Jenny asked, “Sorry? For what?”

  The dressmaker simply stood there, destroying her handkerchief and opening and closing her mouth like a fish.

  Monique interjected. “The telegraph office in Dallas is run by the husband of the woman who trims my hair upon occasion. I discovered the truth and forced the witch to come along and confess. We never expected to arrive and find you missing!”

  “What truth?” Jenny asked.

  Trace’s mind worked a little faster than his wife’s at the moment. “She sent the fake telegram to Bailey about Mary Rose’s being burned. And I’ll bet she’s responsible for a few other things, too. The paint and dead roses that decorated your house. Some of those nasty notes you received.”

  Guilt blazed across Ethel’s face, reflecting the accuracy of his deduction.

  “I didn’t mean for anyone to get hurt,” she said. “I just wanted you gone. I’m not as good as you are. I was trying to protect my livelihood.”

  After a moment of shocked silence, Jenny took a menacing step toward her. “Do you know what you’ve done? Look at my brother-in-law. You almost got him killed, Ethel. I almost lost my baby because of you!”

  “Baby!” the McBride Menaces gleefully exclaimed.

  “Oh, my.” Monique gasped. “My baby’s having a baby? Richard?” She clasped his hand. “Richard, quickly. Tell me my hair isn’t gray!”

  Jenny took it all in with a dazed look upon her face. Seeing her confusion, Trace laid a hand on her shoulder. “Honey, you need to go on upstairs and rest. I’ll take care of this.”

  “Don’t worry, Mr. McBride,” Ethel Baumgardner said. “I’m leaving town. I’m leaving the state. I’ve decided to take my skills to California.”

  “Sounds like a good decision, ma’am,” Tye observed. Trace heard the weakness in his brother’s voice and knew he’d best get both his wife and his twin upstairs.

  “I’ll expect you gone within the week, Miss Baumgardner.” Trace caught Jenny’s gaze and cocked his head toward the stairs while he offered Tye a supportive arm. “You’ll find it best to meet my expectations.”

  Then he dismissed the dangerous dressmaker from his mind as he helped his brother to his room. Later, once they were settled, he’d make certain the woman paid for her sins. Right now, his family was his main priority.

  He then checked on Jenny. Despite his insistence, she refused to go to bed, although she did promise to take things easy. “We might as well get something settled from the beginning, Trace. I will not do anything to endanger our child. I know my body’s limits, and I will not exceed them. You’ll have to trust me on this. I won’t be coddled for months on end.”

  Trace decided not to force the issue today. He’d damn well coddle the woman if he wanted to, but he wouldn’t argue about it now. When she shooed him from their bedroom, he left after only a token protest.

  Pulled to Tye’s doorway by a force he wouldn’t name, he observed from the hallway as the doctor tended his brother’s wound. When he realized he’d lifted a hand to rub a sympathetic pain in his own shoulder, he gave a self- mocking grimace. His emotions were in a jumble as he watched the physician stitch the cleaned and medicated wound closed. As the doctor wrapped fresh bandages around Tye’s shoulder, words seemed to pop right out of Trace’s mouth. “Remember that doctor in the Fifth Regiment, Tye?”

  Cautiously, Tye replied, “Yes.”

  Trace referred to the physician who’d attended him the day his thigh was sliced open by a Yankee bayonet. It would have been his neck had his brother not come out of nowhere and saved him. “He was a ham-handed sonofagun. Not at all like Doc Draper, here.”

  Tye nodded, and the doctor made a remark about the difficulty of practicing medicine during the war. Trace was inordinately relieved when Jenny arrived bearing a tray filled with sandwiches. The girls followed with fruit and lemonade. She addressed Tye. “Are you up for a little company or would you prefer peace and quiet?”

  “Come in, please, all of you,” he said, waving them inside. “Bright faces always make me feel better.”

  “Mama said we’re having a picnic on Uncle’s floor,” Katrina said. “I’ve never heard of a picnic indoors before. Have you, Papa?”

  “It’s a new one on me, Katie-cat.”

  The girls hovered around Jenny until she and the doctor excused themselves to conduct a consultation. When she met her husband’s gaze with a nod, he knew she intended to ask the doctor about the safety of continued marital relations considering yesterday’s troubles.

  Trace said a quick, silent prayer that the answer would be what they both desired.

  When Tye finished his sandwich and set his bed tray aside, Maribeth approached him, her gaze intent. “Mama told us about you being shot, Uncle. Does it hurt? Was it gushy?”

  “Maribeth!” Emma exclaimed. “Where are your manners?”

  “I’m just asking. How will I decide if I want to be a doctor or not if I don’t ask questions?”

  Katrina sniffed. “You can’t be a doctor. You’re a girl.”

  “I can too be a doctor. I can be anything I want. Papa always says so.”

  Katrina folded her arms and gave her father a look. Trace smiled and said, “If Mari wants to be a doctor wh
en she grows up, I’ll do everything I can to help her.”

  The youngest child thought about it a moment and said, “That means you must help me too. You must build me a theater, Papa. One with red velvet seats. I’m going to be an actress.”

  “An actress? I don’t know, Katie-cat, that’s not exactly the fixture I’d hoped for you.”

  “But you’ll build me a theater, if I want it,” she said matter-of-factly. “I know you will. I’ll talk you into it.”

  He laughed. “I guess I can’t argue with that. Tell you what. If I agree to build you a theater, I can promise it’ll be the grandest theater on this side of the Atlantic.”

  She threw herself into his arms. “Oh, Papa, I love you the very, very, very mostest.” Relishing the sensation of his daughter’s fierce hug, Trace instinctively looked toward his brother. Tye’s gaze was anguished, and in that moment, Trace wanted the question settled once and for all. Shoulder wound or not, it was time the brothers had it out over Katrina.

  “All right, girls. Picnic’s over.” He rose from the floor and gathered up the quilt. “Why don’t you take this stuff downstairs and put it away for your mother.”

  The younger two protested, but Emma shook her head forcefully. “Come on. We need to help Mama. It’s very important that she’s happy here.”

  The strange comment reminded Trace that he’d yet to have that talk with his daughter. As the girls exited the room he stopped Emma with a hand on the shoulder. “Want to walk with me for a licorice in a little bit, princess?”

  She frowned. “Maybe, Papa. If Mama doesn’t need me, that is.”

  She’s my next priority, Trace thought as he shut the door behind his daughter. But first, Tye needed to understand what was acceptable where Katrina was concerned. He went on the offensive. “Jenny seems to think you didn’t come here to break up my family.”

  Tye closed his eyes. “She’s right. I don’t want to tear anything apart; I never did. I’m hoping to put something back together.”

  Trace folded his arms and stepped toward the bed. Standing with his feet braced wide apart, he declared, “I’ll never, ever, give my daughter up.”

  “I’m not asking you to,” his brother replied tightly, his hands clenching the sheet. “I’ve seen how happy she is, how much she’s loved. It would be selfish of me to take her away from all of this. I’ll admit that I had some concerns, but now that I’ve seen her, seen you all, I know what’s right.”

  Silence hung between them, then Tye added, “She’s your daughter in every way that counts, Trace. I want you to know neither she nor anyone else will ever hear any differently from me.”

  Trace studied his brother’s face and admitted to himself he knew in his heart that Tye spoke the truth. Relief coursed through him, washing away his fears and turning his knees to water. He’d been prepared to fight. Hell, he’d been ready to wage a damned war. Instead, his brother waved surrender before the first shot was fired, and the six long years of fear dissolved like sugar in lemonade.

  Tye waited expectantly, but Trace didn’t know what to say. Besides, he knew if he tried to speak right now his voice was likely to crack like young Casey Tate’s. Under the circumstances, that would embarrass him like hell, so he nodded once and turned to leave.

  His hand was on the doorknob when his brother’s voice stopped him. “Trace, about that putting back together I mentioned? I’d like to talk about Constance.”

  Trace snapped to attention. “No need for that.”

  “There is a need,” Tye insisted. “I need to say I’m sorry, so goddamned sorry. There is no excuse for what I did. I don’t know why—”

  “Forget it.” His knuckles blanched white from the force of his grip on the doorknob. Trace swallowed hard before saying, “Let’s just put it behind us. We need to let go of the past.”

  Yearning filled Tye’s voice. “And the future? What does the future hold for us? Can you ever forgive me?”

  Forgiveness. The all-important question. Trace’s thoughts went to Jenny and the love she’d brought into his life, the lessons her love had taught him. He turned around. “Can I forgive you?” he repeated.

  He walked over to the bed and touched his brother’s arm. “I already have, Tye. I already have.”

  BY AFTERNOON the sun had chased the worst of the chill from the air and made the back stoop a warm, welcoming place to sit. Jenny had sent Emma there to shell peas, hoping the backyard swing would lure the girl and distract her from her worries.

  She must be fretful over the conversation she’d overheard between her new mother and her father pertaining to Katrina, Jenny realized. From the moment the doctor had left, the child had been underfoot, requesting one chore after the other. When Jenny had mentioned the problem to Trace, he’d confessed his own concerns and declared he’d not allow a twelve-year-old to put him off any longer. Jenny observed from the kitchen doorway as he approached Emma and asked, “How about that licorice, princess?”

  Jenny was dismayed, but not surprised, when Emma shook her head. “I can’t Papa; I’m sorry. I told Mama I’d help her.”

  “Your mama won’t mind,” he replied with assurance, giving his wife a wink. “We’ll bring her back a piece of candy and that’ll square everything. I have an important errand to run and I’d like to have you with me.”

  “Errand?” Jenny asked.

  “The house,” he said significantly. “I need to cancel something.”

  “Oh.” Jenny remembered. He’d started to sell Willow Hill. “You’d best hurry, Trace. I don’t want anything to interfere with that particular errand.” Glancing at Emma, she added, “Except for a detour to the candy store. I’ve a real craving for licorice today.”

  “Bring me back some, too, would your’ Tye asked from the backyard.

  Both Jenny and Trace glanced up in surprise. “What are you doing out of bed, Uncle?” Emma asked worriedly.

  “Just enjoying the sunshine, honey,” he replied. Stepping closer, he sought his brother’s gaze and added with a chastising grin, “A house this fancy should have indoor facilities, Mr. Architect.”

  Trace shrugged. “The house is ready. The city is the hold up. The Fort Worth Water Department figures to dig out this far next spring. If you want to come for Christmas, I reckon our hospitality will be more hospitable.” He looked at Jenny and added, “That reminds me, I have a case full of money to return to a man. Don’t let me forget to do it today.”

  Pleasure at the invitation shone in Tye’s face as he nodded, and Jenny would have jumped for joy were she not so concerned about Emma.

  Sitting beside his daughter on the stoop, Trace asked, “Emmie, what’s the matter? I can tell you have something on your mind. Talk to your old papa, would you?”

  She shook her head, almost frantically snapping peas.

  “How about if Uncle Tye and your mother give us a little privacy? Would that make it easier? Do you want your mother to leave, Emmie?”

  “I don’t want my mama to ever leave!” Emma cried, the bowl sliding from her lap.

  Trace caught it before a single pea spilled. As he set it safely to the side, Emma’s hands began to tremble. Then her shoulders began to shake, and soon she was shuddering as tears rolled down her cheeks. She threw herself into her father’s arms. “I thought I’d killed her, Papa. Just like last time. I didn’t mean to do it, I promise I didn’t. Fairy’s promise. I’d never hurt Mama. Never!”

  What in the world? Jenny was astonished. So too was Trace, judging by the look he threw in her direction.

  Trace set Emma away from him and gazed into her face. “I don’t understand, Emmie. What do you mean just like last time?”

  “Last time,” she wailed. “My mother. My other mother.” She gasped for breath between her sobs.

  Trace pulled her into his lap, staring helplessly at Jenny, and then at Tye. Holding her tightly, he asked, “Sweetie? What are you talking about?”

  Her voice was a thin wail. “It was just like before. I was in th
e passageway, and I heard you and Mama talking about Katrina’s lie.”

  “Katrina’s lie?”

  “The one about her being Uncle Tye’s daughter and not yours. It was just like the other time when that funny-talking man and Mother talked about the lie. I told her I’d been listening. Then she went away forever. MissFortune, I mean Mama, went away yesterday! Right after I told her I’d been listening.” Sobbing, she buried her face against Trace’s shoulder.

  “Emma, calm down. I don’t understand what you’re trying to say.”

  “I wanted to tell Mama it was a lie, but she didn’t understand. She said to wait for you. Then when she didn’t come home, I remembered. That’s why I hated the passageway. I told my mother what I’d done and she got mad. She hit me, Papa, and I wished she wasn’t my mother. I wished she’d go away. I killed her! It’s all my fault. I thought I’d killed Mama, too.”

  Jenny’s heart was breaking. Her mother hit her? Constance hit her own child?

  “Oh, baby.” Anguish shimmered in Trace’s eyes as he gestured for Jenny to come sit beside him. He rocked his daughter, slowly stroking her auburn plaits as he spoke firmly, but with a hint of tears in his voice. “No, Emmaline Suzanne, it doesn’t work that way. You cannot wish a person dead. You are not responsible. Your mother died in an accident, and you had nothing to do with it.”

  “I was there when it happened, Emma,” Tye said softly, his own tormented expression a duplicate of his brother’s. “It was a horrible accident, but it had nothing to do with you. Don’t think that.”

  The little girl looked up at her father. “Is that true? Really?”

  “Have I ever lied to your’

  She nodded. “You told us you don’t indulge in strong drink, but I’ve smelled it on your breath.”

  Trace winced. “I guess that teaches me, doesn’t it? But listen to me, princess. I’m not lying this time, fairy’s promise. You are absolutely, positively not responsible in anyway for anything that happened to your mother—good or bad.”

  She studied his face with a seriousness beyond her years, and slowly, belief transformed her expression. Trace sighed. “You’ve thought this all these years?”