Finally a Bride (24 page)

“Thank you, Carly….” Rachel’s words were already slurring together as sleep claimed her. “I’ ppreciate … you.”

Carly left to take a final glance around the kitchen then hurried upstairs. Hopefully Jacqueline would have the younger girls dressed by now. At the top of the stairs, she tapped on the door. Childish squeals echoed from the other side.

“Come in.”

Pushing the door ajar, she peered in. “I came to fix the girls’ hair.”

“I was just getting ready to do Abby’s.” Jacqueline cast a quick glance at Carly, then grabbed Abby, who attempted to chase after Emmie. “Oh, no you don’t. Hold still and let me fix your hair. You don’t want to look like a scarecrow, do you?”

“I do if it means I can stay home from church.” Abby kicked at Emmie’s ball as it rolled toward the bed. Emmie screeched and ran after it.

“Abigail Louise Davis! You don’t mean that.”

Abby nodded, pulling her hair free from her big sister’s hand. “Uh-huh. I told that preacher I don’t like church. It’s boring.”

Her deep blue eyes sparkling with humor, Jacqueline shook her head while braiding Abby’s hair so fast, her hands almost blurred. She glanced up. “My sister is a heathen, Miss Payton.”

Carly couldn’t help the grin that pulled on her lips. “Won’t you please call me Carly?”

Jacqueline lifted her brow and gave her a schoolmarm look. “Only if you’ll call me Jack.”

“Ma don’t like that name,” Abby said.

“Well, it’s my name, and I can have folks call me what I want.” Jack tugged gently on her sister’s braid. “Hold still while I tie the ribbon.”

Arms crossed, Carly leaned against the door and watched Jack patiently tie the ribbon on the wiggly girl. What would it be like to have a sister? She’d heard her ma had birthed another baby when Carly was two, but it hadn’t lived. Glancing up at the ceiling, she offered a quick prayer that God would watch over Rachel and see that her baby was delivered safely.

“Is Papa back yet?” Jack asked.

“No. Your friend Tessa came to the door just after you came upstairs after breakfast. Said something about the mercantile being robbed.”

Jack’s eyes widened. “Truly? When did that happen?”

Carly shrugged. Emma toddled over to her and lifted her hands, and she picked up the child. “I don’t know. Miss Morgan said the family came downstairs early and found the back window broken and a number of things missing.”

“That’s horrible.” Jack tapped her sister’s shoulder. “You’re done. Now try to keep your dress clean.”

Carly picked up a small brush off the chest of drawers and brushed Emma’s hair then set the girl down. “It looks like you have things under control here, so I’d better change into my church dress.”

Jack nodded and stood, smoothing out the skirt of her delft blue dress. Her pretty auburn hair wasn’t piled up on her head like it had been last night but rather was tied with a blue ribbon and hung down her back to her waist. The gangly wild child had grown into a beautiful young woman.

In her room, Carly shed her apron and calico and donned her yellow gingham church dress. She stared at her hair in the tall oval mirror that hung on one wall. She had never gotten used to pinning it up as Tillie had shown her, but the ladies at her old church always wore theirs that way. Turning sideways, she looked at her long braid. Dare she try wearing it hanging down as Jack had?

Finally she shrugged. What did it matter? She wasn’t trying to impress anyone—and yet the moment that thought fled her mind, a picture of Garrett Corbett in his Sunday best replaced it. From the parlor window, she’d seen him walking to the social the night before. He had probably been relieved to see that she hadn’t shown up.

Snatching up her brush, she shook out her braid and brushed her hair. It wasn’t as long as Jack’s, having been kept short while in prison, but it had finally grown to the middle of her back. She tied a ribbon and looped it into a bow at her nape, then turned sideways to see how she looked. Some might actually think she was pretty. She pinched her cheeks, then found her Bible.

With one hand on the doorknob, she considered the day’s importance. Today she would either be received by folks in the town—or rejected. If they hated her, what would she do?

She breathed a prayer, “Please, Father, let them accept me.”

Noah leaned over the hitching post at the back of the church property and retched. After a few moments of misery, he dabbed his mouth with his handkerchief. No amount of preparation ever eased his stomach before preaching a sermon, and this was by far the most nerve-wracking situation he’d ever encountered.

He glanced around, glad that no one had shown up early, then strode toward the water pump. The cool liquid tasted delicious but didn’t sit well in his belly. He gazed up at the sky through the canopy of trees overhead. “Father, I ask that You settle my stomach. Help me to rectify the damage I did last night, and enable me to share the message that You’ve laid on my heart.”

A wide yawn slipped out, and he covered his mouth. He’d slept little last night. The fight with Billy and then the disagreement with Jack weighed heavily on him. Doubts swirled through his thoughts like debris in a tornado. Would anyone recognize him as the former town bully? Would the church people be angry that he’d gotten in a fight? Would they be receptive to his message? Would they even show up?

Clutching his well-worn Bible against his heart, he opened the church door and stepped inside. Immediately the peace of God flooded him and calmed him. The morning sun peeked through the storm clouds overhead and glimmered through the stained-glass window, creating colorful patterns of light that danced on the floor and walls. Closing his eyes, he murmured a prayer of thanks to the Lord for His presence.

He opened all the windows, then sat down on the front row, read several psalms, and scanned his sermon again. By the time he was done, buggies were driving past the windows and parking in the lot next door.

Noah blew out a breath and went to greet his parishioners at the front door. A man he didn’t recognize walked up to the entrance with his wife and two adolescent boys. The man smiled at him, but when the woman glanced up, her happy expression turned to shock. She halted so fast, one of her boys ran into her back.

“Hey, Ma, whatcha stoppin’ for?” The boy backed up a few steps, nudging his brother with his elbows. Both youths glanced at him in unison, and their mouths dropped open.

Noah smiled. He’d seen his ugly purple eye in the mirror this morning, as well as his puffy cheek and eyebrow. He probably looked like some kind of monster that children conjured up in their creative minds. “Good morning, and welcome. I’m Noah Jeffers, the visiting minister.”

“Uh … we’uns is the Cauldwells,” the man said. “I’m Jethro, and this here’s my wife, Maisy, and our boys Samuel and Josiah.”

“Ah, good Bible names, I see. It’s a pleasure to meet y’all.” Noah held his hand out to the man.

Mr. Cauldwell glanced up, frowned, and then shook Noah’s hand. “D’you have some kind of accident or somethin’?”

Noah winced. He’d hoped word had gotten around town, so all he’d have to do was repent to the crowd and not have to explain things. “No, sir. I mean, I suppose it was sort of an accident.”

“Either it was or it weren’t. Which is it?” Mrs. Cauldwell pushed her wire-rimmed glasses up her thin nose. Behind her boys, another couple waited to enter.

“Since I’m going to have to explain myself, if you wouldn’t mind being patient for a short while, I’d prefer to give the details just once, rather than having to tell each person as they enter.”

Mr. Cauldwell glanced at his wife, then nodded. “I reckon we can wait. C’mon boys.”

Mrs. Cauldwell followed her husband, but the boys stopped in front of him. The older one leaned toward him, his brows wiggling. “That’s a mighty fine looking shiner, Reverend. You oughta be proud of it. I hope you gave the other guy what for. Anybody who’d fight a preacher deserves a thrashing, right, Sammy?”

His brother nodded his agreement; then both sat on the third row with their parents. The next couple had similar expressions of surprise on their faces. He’d seen them around town but had yet to meet them.

“I’m Noah Jeffers. Welcome.”

The man nodded a greeting, but his wife huddled close as if she feared Noah. Just the thought made him wonder again if he shouldn’t pack up and leave. What was God thinking in giving him a church to pastor?

“I’m Earl Hightower, and this here’s Myrtle, my spinster sister.”

Noah wasn’t sure why the man felt the need to inform him his sister was unmarried since she had to be at least ten years his senior. He smiled. “A pleasure to meet you both. Come in and have a seat.”

Agatha Linus hurried through the door. Her sister was still making her way across the street at a snail’s pace. “Sorry I wasn’t here earlier to practice the hymns, Reverend Jeffers. But I had to wait so I could help Bertha down the stairs. She doesn’t handle them too good these days, what with her rheumatism being so bad and all. Should I play the two songs we decided on when we last talked?”

“That sounds perfect. Thank you, ma’am, and maybe I could come by your house this week and look over those stairs. Might be something I could do that would make things easier for your sister.” Noah smiled at his organist, relieved that she had arrived.

“Wonderful! We’d love to have you visit again—and this time you won’t need to chop wood.” Agatha took her place on the organ bench and began to softly play a hymn.

Noah walked outside to the middle of the road, where Bertha Boyd rested on her cane, huffing hard. “Might I assist you into the church, Mrs. Boyd?”

“I’d be grateful … Reverend. This walk … seems longer … each time I … make it.” She held one hand to her chest and struggled to catch her breath. The skin on her cheeks and throat jiggled with each breath she took.

Holding out his arm to her, he smiled. Bertha Boyd talked more than any woman he’d met and was the biggest woman he’d ever seen. Like Jack, the top of her head barely reached his shoulders, but Mrs. Boyd was a half-dozen times bigger around than the woman who refused to leave his mind. He’d learned a long time ago that Mrs. Boyd had the gift of gab and lived to gossip. Breathing hard, she leaned her weight on his arm and waddled into the church. She collapsed in the pew closest to the door and waved a thank-you.

“I say any Texan has a right to defend himself, pastor or not.”

“A minister shouldn’t oughta be fightin’.”

Noah’s attention was pulled back to the door by the raised voices. Two men he recognized as the bank tellers wrestled each other to get in the door first.

“Good morning, gentlemen.” He considered asking them to lower their voices as they entered God’s house but chose to take another route.

Both ceased the shoving and gazed up at Noah. One man smiled, and the other scowled. Behind them, a family with a large number of children waited quietly.

“Jess Jermaine, Reverend.” He slipped in the door. “A pleasure to meet you.”

The other man hurried in, head down, and slunk to a nearby pew.

“Don’t pay him no never-mind. He’s a passa—uh, passa—”

“Pacifist?”

Mr. Jermaine shook his head and removed his hat. “Yeah, that’s it. He thinks nobody should ever fight.” Mr. Jermaine leaned closer. “But he’s from Boston. Them city folks don’t know that a man who doesn’t defend himself in Texas just might’n live to see the sunset. You did the right thang last night, Pastor.”

Remorse again gutted Noah. If he hadn’t fought Billy Morgan, people’s minds would be on God this morning and not whether the pastor should or shouldn’t have defended himself.

A familiar-looking man almost as tall as he held out his hand for his wife to enter. Noah recognized the blond woman as one of the boardinghouse brides the Corbett brothers had brought to town a decade ago. She’d lost the marshal’s hand, but it looked as if she’d been highly successful in attracting another man and raising a large brood of children.

The woman smiled, her blue eyes shining. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Reverend. I’m Leah Howard.”

Noah shook her fingertips. Then she motioned for her children to come in. They were like stair steps, from a young woman about Jack’s age to a baby she held in her arms, an even combination of boys and girls. The man watched them scurry past, a proud smile on his face.

“That’s quite a family you have there.”

“Yes sir, we’ve been blessed by the Lord, for sure.” He held out his hand. “I’m Dan Howard. I own the livery.”

“Of course. The day I arrived, you were receiving a load of hay, so your assistant helped me. Isn’t that him?” Noah nudged his chin toward the tallest boy, still standing in the aisle.

“Yep, that’s our oldest son, Ben. He’s a good help.”

“How’s my horse doing?”

Mr. Howard smiled. “Good. We feed him ever’ day, give him fresh water, and put him in the pasture each morning.”

“I wasn’t questioning your care, Mr. Howard. I’ve neglected to exercise him like I should and feel bad about that.”

“Davy, my thirteen-year-old, is real good with horses. He’d be right pleased to ride yours around town if’n you’d like him to.”