Homespun Bride

had guided her along the boardwalk with care, and earlier, in the shop, helped her around the displays in the dress shop. Her words came back to him, haunting him, always haunting him. You’ve changed. I’ve changed. It’s too l-late.
    Now he heard a different meaning. When he’d feared that she had meant they were no longer suited, that she no longer wanted a life as a simple rancher’s wife, perhaps that wasn’t what she’d meant at all. No, maybe she’d been speaking of something else entirely.
    Oh, Noelle. His heart crumpled with love for her. Tender affection swept through his soul like a flash flood, leaving him sure. Absolutely sure. His vision blurred for a moment as he watched her take a sip from her teacup and then lower it into its saucer by touch.
    Understanding rained through him like a March squall. The last years of his life, so tough and lonely, suddenly made sense to him. He knew now where the good Lord had been leading him all along—home to his precious Noelle.
    “Thad!” Aiden called from the front counter. “Are you coming or not?”
    “Coming.” He tucked his heart back into his chest, went to collect Finn and followed his older brother out the door.
    * * *
    “I am insulted. That’s what I am.” Aunt Henrietta bored through the parlor like a runaway train on a mountain grade. Crystal lamp shades clinked and chattered as if in fear. “The nerve of the territorial governor! Suggesting that I perhaps tend to my realm of home and children instead of complaining about modern progress!”
    “Clearly the governor is in error.” Noelle’s fingers stilled. She counted the stitches of her new project—a patchwork quilt—with her fingertips. “You’ve spent a lot of time composing letters trying to make a difference for us all.”
    “I hardly expected them to listen to a woman, but I did not expect being insulted.” There was a thwack, thwack as Henrietta beat one of the decorative pillows on her best sofa before dropping onto it. “For the first time in my life I think it’s a pity that woman do not have the vote. If I did, I would vote such a man out of office.”
    “Well, you should,” Noelle said as kindly as she could. She recognized the touch of drama in her aunt’s tirade. “He clearly does not appreciate a woman with good sense.”
    Across the hearth, Noelle heard Matilda struggling to hold back a chuckle.
    “Precisely. It gives me pause. I may have to admit those suffrage women in town have a good argument.” There was a clicking of steel needles—Henrietta, gathing up her knitting.
    Matilda apparently could not hold back her amusement any longer. “But Mama, you don’t approve of women wanting to vote.”
    “I don’t. But in light of this uncomplimentary letter, I do not know what the world is coming to. Perhaps I should give an ear to their cause. Clarissa Bell is in my prayer group. I shall speak to her today. Yes, that is exactly what I shall do.”
    Noelle carefully slipped her needle into the quilt block she was sewing. It was hard to be certain above the music of the spring storm, but she thought she heard a horse in the driveway. Perhaps it was Cora Sims arriving early for an afternoon of sewing. With any luck, maybe her nephew, Emmett, had driven her.
    She slid her work into the basket at her feet. “Is Robert still in the stables?”
    Henrietta humphed. “Out working with that mare the way Mr. McKaslin taught him. He refuses to give up on that animal. If he gets hurt again—”
    Noelle rose from her chair, thinking of Thad. Her spirit lifted as it always did. Always would. “If Thad says so, then Robert should keep the mare and work with her. It will be all right.”
    “Mr. McKaslin has not been coming up to the house lately.” Henrietta’s voice turned thoughtful over the ambitious click-click of her knitting needles. “And here I had believed him to be most enraptured with you, the poor man. Utterly besotted. Did you see it, too, Matilda?”
    “Yes. He’s very sweet on you.”
    Sweet on her? Her heart broke all over again. She headed straight for the door before anyone could guess at her feelings. Or her failures. “Me, marry? I’m on the shelf and have been for long enough to gather dust. Far too long to try to tidy me up and marry me off now.”
    “You’re young and as lovely as could be.” Henrietta rose to her defense. “Mr. McKaslin is a man of character, and so he is deserving of you. He ought to propose to you and consider