by Jillian Hart
“Some people,” he agreed. He forked soiled bedding from the adjacent stall into the wheelbarrow, and the yearling filly he’d tied in the aisle watched him curiously as he worked.
“I’ll have this done in a jiffy, girl.” He kept his voice low and friendly. Tonight she was interested in him, someone fairly new. The sweet little thing had been well-treated. She didn’t shy when he’d approached and she showed no fear now of the pitchfork or his swift movements as he tossed the last of the bedding into the barrow. “Are you going to let me teach you all about a bridle tomorrow, pretty filly?”
Her brown eyes sparkled, liking the sound of his voice. He leaned the pitchfork safely against the wall out of her reach and curled his hands around the worn wooden handle of the wheelbarrow.
“At least you’ve been well-treated here,” he told her as he puffed on by. A full load of dirty straw was a heavy one. “I have a feeling that’s the only reason Braden and I are staying.”
The filly nickered once as she reached out with her nose to try to grab the hat off his head. Her whiskery lips clamped on his brim, but he was quicker, dodging her just enough that his Stetson escaped any teeth prints.
“That’s the truth,” Braden called out, his boots pounding closer, and fresh straw landed with a rustling whoosh in the filly’s stall. “Any serious trouble from that woman and we’re gone. So don’t get too attached to this place. Or, more importantly, to anyone here.”
“What makes you say that?” Shane set down his load to heave the end door open.
“I got eyes.” The force of Braden’s frown could be felt all the way down the aisle.
“I’m not attached. I’m not going to get attached.”
“See that you don’t. Final warning.”
“Don’t need for a warning.” Shane gripped the handles and put his back into setting the wheelbarrow in motion. The front wheel squeaked across the threshold. Stinging pellets of ice slapped across his nose and cheeks and bulleted against his coat.
The instant he was free of the door, where did his gaze inexorably go? To the big window where Meredith now stood beside the dining-room table, gathering up her books and slate, chatting away with her older sister, laughing and full of life.
His chest hitched. Surprised, he shook his head, forced his attention away from her and swiped ice off his brim. Braden didn’t know what he was talking about. He and Meredith were worlds apart. More than social status divided them.
He manhandled the wheelbarrow across the crackling ice, his boots sliding out beneath him as he went. Perilous going. Keeping himself upright and in control of the wheelbarrow ought to be enough to keep his mind off the girl but it wasn’t. Ice skidded down the back of his neck, needled through the layers of his clothes and numbed the tips of his fingers while he worked, emptying the contents of the wheelbarrow into the manure pile, one forkful at a time.
His teeth were chattering when he finished. Only a single lantern burned in the end aisle of the stable. Braden had gone through and carefully put out all the others, making the horses safe for the night. Shane stowed the fork and the wheelbarrow in the stable, and after waiting for Braden to lock up, led the way back to their quarters. The ice was softening, the downfall changing to freezing rain rather than ice, making the going so treacherous they skated the last ten yards to their front door.
“I’d best go fetch our meal.” He didn’t want Sadie coming out from the main house and risking a fall on his account.
“I was young once, too.” Braden almost cracked a smile before he turned stoically into the bunkhouse and kicked his boots against the door frame to beat off chunks of ice.
It was worth the inclement weather and the near fall into a berry bush for the chance to see Meredith’s smile one more time. He didn’t figure she would be in the kitchen—she wasn’t. But she was nearby. He could hear the low alto of her voice through the kitchen door. That was enough.
He took time checking through the heavy basket to make sure nothing was missing. He made sure there were two servings of pork roast, mashed potatoes and dinner rolls and went in search of the dessert. Molasses cookies, just as he’d asked for. Two dozen of them, just as Meredith had promised.
Happiness he didn’t understand accompanied him through the storm. Rain tapped off his hat as he reached the bunkhouse door. He spotted her in the dining-room window, ready to draw the curtains. He couldn’t be sure but he thought he saw her smile. A truce, she’d said.
That sounded mighty fine to him. He was looking forward to it. He stomped the ice off his boots, stumbled through the front door and into the bunkhouse.
Chapter Eight
“I’m sorry,” was all that Tilly had said the moment they’d spotted Shane seated on the high front seat of the buggy, driving two of the draft horses kept for farm work up to the house. “I know I promised to drive, but with the roads in a worse condition than ever, I just don’t feel up to it.”
“It’s all right. I have set my mind to endure the man.” Meredith had closed the front door behind them, seized her sewing basket and clomped down the steps into the cold rain. Framed by a silent, steel-gray sky, he’d tipped his hat at her as solemn as a judge except for the mischief sparkling in his eyes of midnight blue.
Mama had waved them off with dire warnings about the road conditions. The moment Shane extended his hand to her to help her onto the seat beside him, summer washed over her. She settled her skirts, taking care to smooth the blue flannel fabric so it wouldn’t wrinkle. When Shane leaned close to tuck a warm blanket over her, she took the length of wool from him and tucked it in herself. Just because she’d declared a truce did not mean she wanted him any closer than he had to be.
The ride had been a bumpy and a muddy one, and with Shane sharing the seat with them, she and Tilly didn’t take time to chat. Fiona’s little rental house came into sight and the usual excitement trilled through her. She couldn’t wait for the wagon wheels to stop turning and had the blanket off her before Shane could lend her his hand. As his strong fingers wrapped around hers, the sense of summer returned.
Surely, a flitting sense of whimsy, that was all. Nothing to worry about.
“Have a good time, Miss Meredith.” His dimples ought to be against territorial law for the effect they had on a girl.
“I intend to, Mr. Connelly.” She shivered in the wind, waiting for him to hand down the food hamper and her sewing basket. She hardly had time to think of him again because the front door flew open and Fiona rushed out to meet her.
“Meredith! We were beginning to worry.” She wrapped a shawl around her shoulders, hurrying through the mash of melting snow, ice and thawing ground. “But you’re here safe and sound after all. Thanks to your very capable driver.”
“He’s just doing his job.” Honestly, she had to set her friends straight about the man before they started planning her and Shane’s life together. She waved to her sister, let Fiona wrestle the food hamper away from her and they tripped up the steps together. “Don’t get any ideas. Shane is here only for a few months. Maybe less if their work is done sooner.”
“He’s gallant.” Fiona tumbled through the doorway into the cozy front room. “Did you all notice Meredith’s new driver? He’s escorting her around again today. On a Saturday.”
Before she could get a word of explanation in, Scarlet called out from one of the chairs set in a circle around the tiny sitting area. “Fortunate for you, Meredith. I wouldn’t mind a handsome driver of my own.”
“Wouldn’t we all?” Kate glanced up from her embroidery work. “I love my dad, he’s such a dear to drive me all the way to town and back, but I wouldn’t mind my own driver. Let’s say he could be a tall handsome stranger with dark eyes and a mysterious past.”
“Oh, I could write a story about that.” Earlee squinted as she threaded a needle.
“That’s the only way I’m going to have a happy ending considering the boys at school. We don’t have much to pick from,” Kate quipped. “Aside from Lo
renzo, who else would you marry?”
“Luken Pawel,” Lila answered immediately, setting down the calico dress she was basting. “What? You all don’t need to look so shocked.”
“You’re always going on about how Lorenzo is utterly too-too.” Meredith shrugged out of her coat and sat in the chair by the door to unbutton her muddy shoes. “I thought you only had eyes for him.”
“Aside from Lorenzo, she said,” Lila clarified, eyes twinkling. “If he and his family moved back east, I would have to set my sights lower, to be sure. It would take me a while to get over the heartbreak, but I would eventually move on. There are other handsome men in town.”
“Not that handsome.” Kate giggled as she pulled a long strand of green embroidery thread through her hoop, fussing with it so it would lie just right. “Face it, the pickings are slim.”
“That’s because we’ve known everyone forever,” Earlee added. She tied a slipknot at the end of her needle and thread. “This is a small town, and we’ve grown up with the same guys. It’s hard to foster any romantic feelings over the boy who spilled ink on your favorite dress, or put a salamander in your lunch pail.”
“James Biddle did that.” Scarlet set down her crochet hook. “I was seven and I may have forgiven him a long time ago, but forgetting is another thing. If Lorenzo moved away, then I would simply pine for him and grow old as a spinster. We may as well face it, girls. There is a shortage of decent, solid bachelors in this town. If you’re picky about looks, then it’s even slimmer pickings.”
Meredith took a moment to gaze at the circle of best friends. Five of them had been together since their first day of Sunday school when they were just little girls. When her family moved to town over five years ago, she had been welcomed into their midst with loving arms. She felt as if she had always been a part of their friendship, the kind of bond that would always endure. As she slipped into the last available place beside Earlee on the horsehair sofa, overwhelming gratitude breezed through her.
God had been looking out for her the day He led her to their circle, and she felt His presence greatest when they were assembled together.
“We all can’t have handsome strangers ride into our lives the way Fiona and Meredith have.” Kate debated the placement of her needle before pulling it through her hoop.
“Whoa there.” Meredith pulled out her latest patchwork square and her threaded needle. “Don’t put me in the same category as Fiona. There’s a big difference. She’s about to be married. I am trying to make peace with a man my father hired. There’s a big difference between the two.”
“Make peace?” Fiona returned from the kitchen with two cups of steaming honeyed tea. “Are you two getting along now?”
“I’m trying, but he’s an impossible man,” she quipped. She smoothed her sewing on her knee and studied it as if it held all the importance and Shane Connelly none. Here it comes, she thought, the place where her friends begin imagining what isn’t there.
“That’s what I thought, too, when I was getting to know Ian.” Fiona set one of the cups on a nearby footstool that served as their coffee table. “He was impossible and maddening and wonderful. And that part of things hasn’t changed.”
“But your feelings toward him did,” Lila pointed out, returning to one of the long skirt seams of her new dress. “The same thing could happen with Meredith.”
“I wouldn’t hold my breath if I were you.” Meredith pawed through her basket for a stack of small fabric squares she had cut out over several sewing circles past. She considered the different colors of calico and chose a blue piece to add to her square. “He isn’t at all interested, just like I’m not interested in him. He’s said so.”
“Not interested in you?” Fiona straightened, taking care not to spill the cup she held. “I don’t believe that for a second.”
“Believe it. He said he can’t be distracted from his work.”
“Oh, Meredith. I’m sorry.” Fiona’s dear face wreathed with concern. Her sympathy was mirrored on the rest of her friends’ faces. Needles stilled. Sewing projects were set aside.
“So that explains what you said about him.” Fiona nodded, as if it were all making sense to her. “Well, he doesn’t sound like the nicest man.”
“Yes, that’s what I thought, too. But I think he really is all right. We’ve called a ceasefire of sorts.” Meredith blushed, feeling too many curious and caring gazes on her. She carefully pinned her piece into the block, eyeing the quarter-inch seam allowance. “Like I said, he’ll be gone soon, and that’s enough about me. Fiona’s wedding is coming up. Are you starting to get nervous?”
“Not one bit. I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life.” Her beloved friend wasn’t fooled, judging by the way the sympathy on her face changed to understanding. “A few more weeks, we’ll all be graduated, I’ll be married and then Ian will be able to move in here as my husband. Let me take this tea in to Nana and I’ll be right back.”
Fiona swept from the room to open one of the doors that opened from the sitting area. Meredith caught a glimpse of a well-appointed bedroom. Ian had moved his grandmother out to live with them, and Fiona cared for the elderly woman who was in fragile health. Never had her friend looked so happy. Becoming engaged was a definite improvement to Fiona’s life and Meredith knew the marriage would be a great blessing for her.
“The right man will come along one day for each of us. I have to believe that.” Earlee’s head was bowed over her work as she stitched a simple princess collar to the child’s dress—she worked on her family’s sewing as often as she worked on projects for her hope chest.
“Amen.” Scarlet double crocheted, the lacy doily taking shape as she turned it, double crocheting again. “Isn’t that why we’re all sewing? We have hope.”
“Hope.” Meredith repeated the word as she took up her needle. Words from Scripture came to mind. Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. She had wishes for a happy future. Maybe one day a handsome, good man who would ride into her life at just the right moment with midnight-blue eyes and a dashing grin, the man who would capture all of her heart.
Why was she picturing Shane? She should not be remembering the scent of hay on his coat and sweet mystery she felt whenever their hands touched. He was still a stranger, a saddle tramp—he’d admitted that himself—someone simply passing through.
She wanted so much more in a man, in a husband, than that. Fiona took her place at the circle and the conversation turned to the wedding plans. While they sewed and talked, rain drummed on the roof and tapped at the windows, making their ring of friendship cozier.
He could see her through the small front window of the shanty, golden hair burnished by the lamplight, transformed by happiness. She might look like a country miss with her simple braid trailing down her back sitting in a typical country home with her sewing on her lap, but when Meredith relaxed and in laughter let her true beauty show, she was extraordinary. She shone like a single star in a sky without light, her luminous goodness a guide for a man alone in the dark.
He waited in the rain until the gathering was over. As the front door opened and the young ladies tumbled out into the cold, gray world, they brought their laughter and life with them. Bonnets and skirts swirling beneath their coats brought color to the dismal afternoon, and their merry farewells and promises to keep for Sunday school tomorrow rang like music. A pair of oxen and a wagon pulled up, loaded with fence posts from the lumber yard. A fatherly man tipped his hat in greeting before extending a hand to one of the girls and driving off with her. She kneeled on the wagon seat, facing backward, waving goodbye to her friends.
A pair of Meredith’s friends disappeared around the corner to the stable. A buggy waited in the shelter, perhaps the vehicle they had driven from town. Meredith waved gaily to them before grasping the last girl by the arm and pulling her to the wagon.
“We’re giving Earlee a ride,” she explained as she handed up the hamper and bas
ket.
“Fine by me.” He nodded at the familiar blonde. “We met in the road the other day.”
“We did. Thank you for letting me come along this afternoon. It will save me a good mile of walking.” She climbed onto the seat beside Meredith, casting her a secret glance. Females were such a mystery to him, he didn’t even try to guess what either of them were thinking. Braden was right. Horses were better. You knew where you stood with horses.
He gathered the reins, directing the matched bay Clydesdales around in a circle and back toward home. As he listened to the girls talk about someone named Fiona and a sweet grandmother, he kept his eyes on the road. He ought to be wondering about how Braden was fairing. They were not making the desired progress without the two of them working side by side. Worthington had him driving his daughters all over the county, or at least it seemed that way. When Meredith’s laugh trilled, warming the air, a piece of loveliness he enjoyed listening to, he had to admit he didn’t mind. But it was a distraction from his work.
She was a distraction, her voice stealing his focus and forcing him to listen to her. Maybe it wasn’t the girl that lassoed his attention, but what was missing in his life. He had been lonely this past few year, leaving all his family behind and some friends who hadn’t understood his decision. Moving place to place every few months didn’t make it easy to establish new friendships.
Maybe loneliness was the reason he felt drawn to her. Maybe it was as simple as that.
“This is where Earlee gets off.” Meredith turned to him, her shoulder brushing his arm, the brief contact sweet and comfortable as homecoming.
“Whoa.” He drew back, slowing the big animals, who pranced in place and huffed great clouds of breath in the cold. The girls exchanged goodbyes while he gave Earlee his hand. Shyly she avoided his gaze, thanked him and splashed to the ground. She waved, hurrying down an intersecting road, a small figure on the roll and dip of the vast high plains, leaving him and Meredith alone. As he picked up the reins and guided the horses on, he was acutely aware of the rustle of her skirts as she resettled them, the small sigh as she swiped rain off her nose, the faint scent of rosewater.