Patchwork Bride

“You’re watching me,” she called out above the twists and gusts of the wind. “You think I’m a bad driver and I’m going to get stuck in the mud again.”

“No, but I am keeping track of the mud holes. I don’t see a thing you can get mired down in, at least not yet.” He let Hobo fall back alongside the buggy. “You’re doing pretty good for it being your first day driving.”

“You may be fibbing.” The look she threw him from beneath her brown hood was a challenge.

He laughed. He liked the dazzle in those interesting gray-blue eyes. “I’m trying to be encouraging. Keep to the positive. Avoid the fact we nearly had to go in search of a pair of oxen to free your buggy.”

“Thanks for not mentioning it.” When she grinned, she was like a sunbeam on this dismal day.

“You still don’t figure on letting your mama know about this?” He couldn’t resist asking, not that it was his business.

“What she doesn’t ask about, I won’t have to tell her.”

“And what if she notices the mud?”

“That’s the flaw in my plan. I’m hoping Mama doesn’t notice. She could be busy and not even hear us driving up.”

“She will be watching, Meredith.” The little girl wrinkled her nose. “Nothing gets past Mama. You ought to know that by now.”

“That won’t stop me from trying.” She laughed. At heart she was not a deceitful daughter but one apparently amused by her mother. “If Mama revokes my driving privileges, then I won’t learn enough about driving to make it on my own come June.”

“Why June?” Call him curious. He couldn’t help it. Something tickled in his chest like a cough, but maybe it was interest.

“That’s when the summer school term begins.” A ringlet bounced down from beneath her hood to spring against her cheek. “I’m studying for the teachers’ exams. If I pass, I hope to get one of the smaller county schools just north of here.”

“A schoolteacher.” A fine ambition. He couldn’t say why that pleased him either. He wasn’t looking to settle down, not with his long apprenticeship hardly more than half over.

“But Mama doesn’t know,” the little girl added impishly. She was a bit of trouble, that one. “And no, Meredith, I won’t tell on you, but it’s likely to kill me.”

“I wish you had never overheard me talking with my friends. You can’t keep a secret to save your life.” Meredith wrapped an arm around her sister’s neck and hugged her close, an affectionate gesture. “I’ll never forgive you if you blurt it out and ruin my plans.”

“It won’t be easy.” The girl rolled her eyes and huffed out a sigh, as if her life were truly trying indeed.

“It seems you keep a lot of secrets. The mud incident, the teacher’s exams.” He swiped rain from his eyes. “It won’t be as easy to hide an entire job when summer comes.”

“Oh, I know. I don’t want to deceive Mama. That’s not what I mean to do. I want my own life is all.”

“I’ve known that feeling.”

“How can you? You’re a man.”

“True enough, but why do you say it like that? Like being a man is a bad thing.”

“Not bad, exactly. I’m just exasperated.” She blew the curl out of her face, but it just sprang back. Did she dare take both hands off the reins? No. Sweetie was as gentle as a horse could be, but doom had a tendency to follow her around. She had no intention of letting anything else go wrong.

“Meredith often gets exasperated,” Minnie explained with a little girl’s seriousness. “Mama says it’s because nothing is quite to Meredith’s liking.”

“That’s not true,” she hotly denied, as she always did. “Okay, so maybe it’s true sometimes. It’s just that boys have it easier. They can do what they want.”

“That depends.” Shane’s voice dipped low, butter-smooth and warm with amusement. “My mother thought I should join my father in business and one day follow in his footsteps. Carry on the family legacy.”

“Drifting from town to town?” The quip escaped before she could stop it. What was wrong with her?

“I wasn’t always a saddle tramp.” Those crinkles around his eyes deepened, drew her closer and made her want to know more.

She shouldn’t be curious, not one bit, not one iota. The dashing, mysterious, slightly dangerous young man was not her concern. Although it was easy to imagine him lassoing wild horses, fighting to defend the innocent or performing some noble act. Beneath the stubbled jaw and traveling coat, he might be full of honor, a real-life hero with the rain washing away the mud on his boots.

She tried to imagine what her best friends would say. Earlee, the most imaginative of the group, would pen him as an intriguing hero of a fantastic tale. Lila, ever the romantic, would compare him to the most handsome boy in their high-school class, Lorenzo. Kate and Scarlet would heartily agree and start dropping hints about the status of their hope chests, the reason they met every Saturday afternoon to sew for a few hours. A sewing circle of friendship and of hope, they tatted doilies, embroidered pillowslips and pieced patchwork blocks for the marriages they would all have one day.

Yes, this chance meeting was going to be a huge topic of conversation come Saturday.

The rain turned colder, falling like ice, striking the great expanse of prairie with strange musical notes. Beauty surrounded her, but she could not take her eyes from the handsome wanderer.

“What did you do in your former life?” Was that really her voice, all breathless and rushed sounding? Her face felt hot. Was she blushing? Would he notice?

“Back home, my father and grandfather are lawyers, although now they have many partners to manage the firm.” He let his horse fall back, to keep pace beside her. “As the oldest son, I am a great disappointment traveling around on the back of a horse.”

“I think it takes courage to follow your own path.” Courage was what she was trying to find for herself.

“Could be courage. My father called it stupidity. My mother said it was stubbornness. She was none too happy with me when I left, since she was in the middle of planning my wedding to a young lady of their choosing.”

“You ran out on a wedding?”

“I never proposed, so I didn’t see as I had an obligation to stay for the ceremony.” Dimples belied the layer of sorrow darkening his voice.

“Your parents had your whole life mapped out for you?”

“Mapped out, stamped and all but signed and sealed.” Understanding layered the blues in his eyes and softened the rugged, wild look of him. “Something tells me your parents adore you. They want the best for you, and that’s not a bad thing, as long as it’s what you want, too.”

“Tell that to Mama.”

“Sounds like our mothers are cut from the same cloth.”

The howl of wind silenced and the veil of rain seemed to vanish as he leaned over in his saddle, close and closer still. The sense of peril returned, fluttering in her stomach, galloping in her veins and did she turn away?

Not a chance.

“No one I know has a mother like mine.” Strange they would have this similarity between them. “Is yours overbearing, impossible, full of dire warnings and yet she’d throw herself in front of a train to save you?” she asked.

“Yep.”

“Does she drive you beyond all patience with her meddling and fussing and trying to do everything so your life is easier?”

“That would be an affirmative.”

“And you love her so much you can’t bear to say no and disappoint her?”

“In the end, I did say no and it broke her heart.” No way to miss the regret. It moved through him, deep like a river, reflecting on his face, changing the air around them. “It was hard for her to let go, but I wouldn’t be the man I wanted to be unless I made my own life. She’ll come to see that in the end.”