by Jillian Hart
Shane. Hope and joy leaped through her, lifting her spirit as she laid her palm to his. Once again Shane Connelly helped her into the wagon, the last man she would have expected to come to her aid.
“I can’t believe you’re here.” She settled on the seat, adjusting her skirts, more breathless now because she was at his side. “Mama forbade you to drive me to town.”
“But not to fetch the day’s order of grain from the feed store.” With a casual flick of the reins, he sent the horses moving forward again. “And had the order not been waiting, I would have helped you anyway.”
“Why? You will probably lose your job.”
“True. I know what it feels like to have to make a tough decision. It’s not easy to do what you know is right and leave your family behind.” The sun threw playful shafts around him, hiding him from her sight, but she could read his voice, sensing the layers of regret, of sadness, of resolve.
“It was hard for you to leave them, wasn’t it?”
“The hardest thing I’ve ever done.” His confession ached with emotion and made him larger than life, larger than any one man could be.
“I may have left them behind, but I didn’t stop loving them.” He shrugged, as if he’d been torn apart, too. “I wish my parents could have helped me find a middle ground. It wasn’t as if I was running around behind their backs causing trouble. I simply wanted to learn to train horses.”
“And I to teach.” They were so alike. Amazing that he had come into her life when she’d most needed someone to truly understand. She wondered about God’s hand in this and dared to say the words troubling her most. “I don’t want this to cost me my family, the way following your heart has cost you yours.”
“I don’t want that for you either.” He stared at the road ahead, but he was honest and he did not offer her false comfort. “Your family has one thing mine never had. Love. Your folks aren’t going to be happy with you. They may never understand, but I’m sure they will always love you.”
“Thanks, Shane.”
He turned away and said nothing more. A terrible stinging plagued her eyes, and she blinked hard to keep back the tears. It occurred to her how sad it truly was that she had found her soul mate, the one man she’d always hoped she would find, and she could not count him as a friend.
Chapter Thirteen
“How did you think you did?” Earlee asked as they walked down the street toward Main, leaving the schoolhouse behind them. “The exam was hard. My brain hurts from thinking so much.”
“Mine, too.” Meredith rubbed her forehead, wishing she could soothe away her other troubles as easily. The sun was past its zenith, the afternoon was halfway gone and she dreaded what lay ahead. Even thinking of going home made her stomach tangle up in impossibly hard knots. “There were several questions I completely missed. I just know it.”
“Me, too.” Earlee lifted her face to the sun and let the wind breeze over her, tangling her pure golden locks. “I’m hoping what I got wrong isn’t nearly as much as what I got right.”
“We’ll find out in two more hours.” She was aquiver at the thought. Pass or fail, she still had to face her mother. The sunlight seemed to drain a few notches in intensity as she fell silent, watching the grass blades shiver in the breeze ahead of her feet.
“Can I ask you something?” Earlee broke the silence as they crossed the vacant lot at the end of the block. “I don’t want to pry or anything, but I noticed something serious between you and your driver guy.”
“Shane? There’s nothing between us.” This she knew for sure. She didn’t even have to deny it. He’d made it perfectly clear—twice now. “He was helping me out this morning, that’s all.”
“But you like him. Really like him.”
“I do not.” There came the denial rushing like the updraft of a giant tornado. Heat blushed across her face like a sunburn. “Maybe that’s a sign I do.”
“I think so!” Earlee’s good humor was a gentle one, laced with understanding. “Are you finding that it’s complicated if you like someone? And that it’s confusing?”
“I want to deny that, but I don’t dare. I’m going to be honest with myself.” She took a deep breath, hitched the strap of her book bag higher on her shoulder and stopped at the corner to check for traffic. “I like Shane in a way I’ve never liked anyone before and yes, it’s confusing and complicated and horribly painful. I don’t care for it.”
“Me, neither.” Earlee clapped her hand over her mouth, as if surprised she had revealed so much. “Oops. I was going to make this be a hypothetical discussion, but I let the cat out of the bag.”
“I’ll say.” After a donkey and cart ambled by, she stepped into the road. “Who are you sweet on? I haven’t noticed you talking with any boy at school.”
“Oh. He’s not in our school.” Earlee blushed harder.
That explained it. Meredith searched through her mind, thinking of suitably aged bachelors in town. “Let’s see. There’s Austin Hadly, the minister’s son.”
“No. He’s cute, but not the one. Not that he has ever noticed me.” Earlee had turned bright red, clearly uncomfortable. “And if you try guessing, it will take you an eternity. He no longer lives in town.”
“But he used to?”
“Yes.”
They’d reached the other side of the street where the boardwalk led them past the milliner’s shop and the post office.
“I need to check for our mail.” Earlee hesitated, gesturing toward the small shop bearing the United States flag.
“You are trying to get out of answering the question.” Meredith wasn’t fooled, but she thankfully didn’t probe. “I know how it feels. I’m not ready to talk about what I feel for Shane, not even with my best friends.”
“Thanks for understanding. Some things feel that if you talk about them out loud, then they will somehow vanish or change on you.” She knew her face was still red because she could see the tip of her nose. Strawberry red. Completely embarrassing and far too telling. “Shane likes you. You know that, right?”
“What? Shane? No.” She shook her head hard enough for curls to tumble down from beneath her bonnet. The silk ribbons of her hat bobbled and swayed. She blushed furiously. That was telling, too. “He doesn’t. He’s told me so.”
“Then either he isn’t being honest with you or he isn’t being honest with himself.” She took a step toward the post office, knowing how it felt to wonder if a guy liked you and fearing that he didn’t. “You should see the look on Shane’s face when he thinks no one is watching.”
“What do you mean?”
“He gazes upon you as if you are his dream come true. As if you are his princess at the end of a fairy tale. Don’t shake your head like that. I’ve seen him.”
“You, my dear Earlee, have a romantic streak a mile wide.” Meredith looked wistful for one brief moment before shaking her head, as if discounting her wish, and wrapped her arms around her middle. “This isn’t a dime novel or one of the lovely stories you pen. There is going to be no happy ending for Shane and me.”
“I’ve seen the way you look at him, too.” It was simply the truth. “A change comes over you. You look softer and somehow more like yourself. I’ve never seen you so beautiful, Meredith.”
“Now I’m really blushing. You and your imagination, Earlee.” She swept at the curls always falling into her eyes, and it would have been simple as pie to put words to page and describe the love brightening the blue of her eyes and denial negating it. “Oh, I guess my ride home is here after all.”
“She says, and then she turns around to see the handsome man in the fine buggy pull to a stop behind her.” Earlee lowered her voice, buoyant with happiness for her friend. In her stories, love always found its match and that love was always true. Every now and then it was affirming to see the seeds of it in real life, the proof that true love could exist and even prosper. “Your Shane is here.”
“Shh!” She blushed again. “He might hear you.”
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“I guess I’ll head home on my own.” She didn’t bother to disguise her gladness. “Have a very nice drive.”
“Sure, considering the roads are much better these days. Just a little soupy in places.” Meredith adjusted her bonnet bow beneath her chin. “And don’t say it. I know what you’re thinking. I can see it written all over your face.”
“I wasn’t talking about the roads.”
“You couldn’t be more wrong.” She rolled her eyes, full of denial, turning just enough to spot Shane at the edge of her peripheral vision.
“The moment he is near, your spirit turns to him like he is the sun and you are the earth. Definitely like every romance I’ve ever read. Be honest with yourself. You’re in love with him.”
“I have to go.” Love? That was a very powerful word and it hardly applied. It was ridiculous, that was what it was, but that was Earlee finding the beauty in anything—even if it didn’t exist. She loved her friend, but she was sorry to say Earlee was exceptionally wrong in this instance. Somehow she scooted her feet forward toward the buggy where Shane waited, his face shaded by his Stetson and his unseen gaze a touch to her cheek, her mouth, her lips.
Now I’m being fanciful, she thought, waving goodbye to Earlee, who glowed happily, apparently sure she had things all figured out, before spinning around and hurrying down the street to the post office.
“How did it go?” Shane hopped down, not in the placid, doing-my-job way Eli Sims, her former driver, had done, but with a deliberate gentlemanliness that felt suspiciously like a courting man—although it could not be.
Whatever romantic fanciful tendencies Earlee had, perhaps they were as contagious as diphtheria. Meredith shook her head, hoping to scatter those thoughts right out of her mind, squared her shoulders and stepped into the buggy’s shadow where Shane stood waiting for her.
“I have no idea if I passed or failed.” She was talking about the test, but as he helped her into the buggy, dizziness swept over her, scrambling her senses.
“I’m sure you did very well.” His words came as if from a great distance as the cushioned seat bounced slightly when he eased down beside her.
She gulped, surprised at the slight brush of his elbow against her sleeve as he took up the reins.
“There’s no sense of you sitting in the back all by yourself and me being up here by my lonesome self.” His baritone held a note she hadn’t heard in it for a long time. Not since the first day they met. His combination of amusement and warmth and manliness could lull her into believing that Earlee was right. That he was attracted to her. Her heart fluttered, as if with wings.
“What are you going to do when you pass?”
“I suppose I will find that out in a little while. The superintendent said he will have the exams graded by three o’clock.”
“We don’t have to head straight back to the house.” He knuckled back his hat like a Western hero. “We can wait her in town, if you like.”
“Sure, but you are here to do a job, not to be friends.” She longed for him to argue the point. “Waiting with me certainly is not part of your job description.”
“I figured I’m fired anyway, so why not?” There was a deeper nuance to his words, a layer of affection that he could not hide.
If only she did not feel it, she thought. It was hard not to care for him in return. Shane snapped Sweetie’s reins and led them rambling down the road through town.
Earlee nearly died when she saw the letter in the small bundle the postmaster handed across the counter. Finn McKaslin, Deer Lodge Territorial Prison, was written in a clear script in the upper left-hand corner. She couldn’t believe it. He’d actually written back. She ran her fingertips over the letters of his name, atremble with too many emotions to describe easily. She knew good and well what her parents would say if they knew she was corresponding with a man in prison, but hadn’t Reverend Hadly preached on Sunday to see God’s goodness in all those we met, and to wear a mantle of kindness?
That is not the reason you’re glad Finn to wrote you, Earlee Elizabeth Mills. She pushed through the door, held it for elderly Mrs. Finch and headed straight for the bench situated next door in front of the bakery. Ignoring the hustle and bustle of the horse-and-buggy traffic, the rattling commotion of teamsters hauling their loads down the street and the clip-clip of shoes on the boardwalk behind her, she carefully tore open the envelope. The parchment crackled like dried leaves she shook so hard.
The same clear intelligent handwriting covered the page. She leaned over the words, to shield it from passersby, and began to read.
Dear Earlee,
I can’t believe you actually wrote to me. I don’t have a whole lot of spare time, being as this is a hard labor prison, but even here Sunday is a day of rest. I spent my free mornings in service and the afternoons writing to family and friends. Honestly, it’s family. It doesn’t matter how many letters I send out to friends, not a single one comes back. Not that I blame them. I messed my life up good, but I’ve never understood the meaning of friendship before or wished for it so much.
Poor Finn. Sympathy filled her. She glanced up from the letter, trying to imagine his life. Hard labor sounded awful, and so did his loneliness. She didn’t know what she would do if something caused her to be parted from her friends. She felt so sorry for him, the young man she remembered as tall and broad-shouldered, muscled but not brawny. Before his trouble with the law, she’d had a crush on him with his bright blue eyes and dark fall of hair a little too long for fashion. The rumble of his deep voice could make a girl dream.
Now all his prospects in life and his chances were gone. It was good he saw the error of his ways and she felt the remorse in his words. She glanced across the street where sunlight reflected in the windows of the land office. Her throat ached from the lump of emotion settling there. She firmly believed there was good in everyone, and that everyone was worth a second chance. Maybe it was the dreamer in her or the writer wanting to pen a happier ending for him. She bowed her head and went back to reading.
Although your note was short, I was much obliged to hear about how you’re doing and the town’s news. Your letter was entertaining, I found myself smiling, and I thank you for that. I can’t tell you what your gift of kindness means to me. How did the hunt for the calf turn out? Did you finish the dress for you sister in time for the Sunday service? I understand if you feel uncomfortable and decide not to write me, but I hope you do.
Hoping to be your pen friend,
Finn
She stared at his name, the confident swish of the letters and his vulnerable request on the page. He wanted to be pen pals. She thought of his friends who’d forsaken him and she pulled out a sheet of parchment, a bottle of ink and her pen. After loading the tip, she used the back of her slate for a lap desk and began to write.
Finn,
Yes, the calf story ended well. I didn’t see the capture firsthand, but I heard about it from Scar let Fisher, who lives next door to the Hoffsteaders. Late at night a clatter in the alley woke the Hoffsteaders from a sound sleep. The intruder in their backyard was threatened with a mop, since the family rifle was at the gunsmith’s for repair, and the sheriff called. When the law arrived and one of the deputies lit a lamp, instead of the thief Mr. Hoffsteader had cornered on the porch, they found the runaway calf lounging on the swing. Mrs. Hoffsteader was beside herself because of the hoof prints in her flowerbeds and on the swing’s cushion.
She lifted her pen from the paper, considering what to say next. She hoped Finn would smile at the tale, because it sounded as if he had little in his life that would make him do so. That was what she wanted to give him—a smile and a moment to forget his hardships. She bit her lip, gazed out at the street, watched an ox tied to a nearby hitching post attempt to eat a flower off a lady’s hat, and let her pen guide the way.
I finished my sister’s dress in time for Sunday school. That will teach her to daydream while she’s ironing. I had to learn the hard way, too. I r
uined two perfectly good dresses until I learned to keep my mind on the iron. The newest battle in my household is over who will do the barnyard chores. We have the cutest little batch of piglets born this spring, four dozen fluffy yellow chicks and twin calves that are too adorable for words. Add that to the new litter of kittens in the barn, and every morning the nine of us are squabbling over who gets to take care of what.
I won this morning and had the sweet privilege of feeding the calves. They have finally learned to drink from a bucket. Every time they spot a pail, their adorable brown heads rise up, their chocolate eyes glitter and they bawl in excitement. They run over on their spindly legs with knobby knees. They are so cute that it’s no work at all to take care of them.
Well, I hope I haven’t bored you. If I have, I’m sorry. If not, please write back and tell me about your life. What is it like to be so far away from home? What do you miss the most?
I’ll save all my best prayers for you, Finn.
Your pen friend,
Earlee Mills
There. She screwed the cap on her ink bottle and stretched the kink out of her neck. The letter didn’t feel like enough, so she bowed her head for a quick prayer. Please, keep him safe, Father. Help him to find the better side of Finn McKaslin I know is there.
When she opened her eyes, the sunshine appeared brighter. Maybe it was a sign. Encouraged, she folded the letter in careful thirds. She would get this addressed and posted so it could go out on the afternoon train. A warm, fizzy feeling filled her, the way soap bubbles floated weightlessly on the air. That was exactly how she felt as she dug in her bag in search of her spare pennies to pay for the stamp.