“Thanks,” the kid mumbled.
The distant jangle of harness and creaky wheels brought J.T.’s head around. Everyone from town who either owned a buggy or rented one of his was already inside. In fact, the only person he hadn’t seen yet was Miss Richards, and he knew she didn’t have one. Besides, the woman hoofed out to the river and back every morning, so she surely wouldn’t mind the shorter hike to the church. Not that he’d been paying particular attention to her comings and goings. Anyone out and about in the early morning would have noticed. She was hard to miss, after all, with her free-swinging arms and purposeful strides.
“I wonder where Miss Richards is,” he mused aloud. He’d expected her to be there by now. The service was fixing to start.
“I reckon that’s her coming up in the rig.” Danny pointed down the hill. “I saw it sittin’ out front o’ her shop when we passed it this morning. Some slicked-up old feller was climbin’ up the stairs to fetch her.”
Jealousy walloped J.T. in the gut and nearly knocked the breath out of him. He strained forward with narrowed eyes, trying to make out the faces of the man and woman in the approaching coal-box buggy. Miss Richards had been in town less than a week, for pity’s sake. When’d she find time to snag a beau? The fact that the driver had snowy white hair didn’t make him feel any better. Plenty of women married older, more established men. His mother had. Older meant more security and wealth. Pretty women,
fashionable
women, liked that sort of thing. Although he had a hard time picturing the fiercely independent Hannah Richards bending that stubborn streak of hers enough to pander to the whims of a man she didn’t respect. Yet if that man offered her the life she wanted without having to work in a shop six days a week . . .
A sharp ache speared through his temples. J.T. forced himself to unclench his molars, but the tension refused to leave. It simply ran down from his head into his neck and shoulders.
“Ma’s calling me, J.T. I gotta go.”
“What? Oh, yeah. Go ahead, kid. I’ll be there in a minute.” He chucked Danny under the chin and sent him off. “I just need to get this last buggy settled.” Along with his curiosity.
J.T. hung back as the buggy drew near. His tongue would probably get him in trouble again, if he gave it a chance. It always did around the pretty dressmaker. Probably the reason the Lord gave him horse duty.
Miss Richards was wearing a smile brighter than a summer sky and patted the arm of the old man beside her in a familiar way. Too familiar. The spry codger scrambled down to help her alight, then scampered back as she moved up the church steps. The fool was grinning like a giddy young buck. J.T. met him at the edge of the churchyard, legs braced.
As the buggy came closer, it lost some of its luster. The decrepit thing wasn’t exactly the stylish gig one usually employed to impress a gal. Oh, the fellow had given it a spit shine, but thick dust remained in the crevices of the folded-down top, and the faded blue stripe on the side combined with the missing spokes in the wheels gave the thing an air of disrepair. It had probably been around since the War Between the States.
“Whoa there, Jackson.”
The mule pulling the rig came to a stop, and J.T. grabbed hold of his harness. Something about the beast jiggled a memory, but he was more concerned with taking the man’s measure than that of his animal.
“Beautiful day, ain’t it?” The old geezer made no effort to tame his irritating grin as he hopped to the ground. “A good day for turning over a new leaf. Yep, Miz Hannah and me is bound to cause something of a stir this morning.”
Hannah? Her given name flew off the fellow’s lips like it was accustomed to nesting there. And what kind of stir was he talking about? J.T. ground his teeth. If he hurt or embarrassed her in any way . . .
“Best not stay out here too long. You’ll miss the fun.”
The man winked at him. Winked!
But then something about his voice registered. J.T. pushed his hat back to examine the man more closely. His white hair had been hacked in a ragged line above his shoulders and was held in place by a faded black bowler hat. A tightly trimmed beard clung to his face, matching the well-groomed mustache higher up. The white shirt he wore looked new under a jacket that might have fit him a decade earlier, and his pants had so many crease lines, J.T. imagined him pulling them out of the bottom of a forgotten trunk moments before leaving the house. He smelled like soap and liniment with a touch of mule. ’Course it might just be the mule that smelled like mule. Either way, the fellow had no business courting a woman like Miss Richards. He was old enough to be her grandfather.
That grandfather whacked him on the back and chuckled. “Come on, Tucker. I ’spected Miz Hannah not to recognize me since she didn’t know me when Alice was alive, but not you.”
All at once the wool fell away from J.T.’s eyes, and shock supplanted the agitation that had blinded him. “Ezra?” he croaked.
“Yep.”
How could he have been so stupid? Of course it was Ezra. Just because he hadn’t seen the man look this good in a month of Sundays didn’t mean he shouldn’t have recognized him.
“It’s . . . ah . . . good to see you. We’ve missed you at services.”
The man’s grin sobered. “Alice always put great store in church-goin’ and I know she’d be disappointed in me lettin’ it slip, but I just couldn’t stomach sitting in there without her by my side. So’s when Miz Hannah done made me this purty new shirt and asked me to escort her this morning, I figured it was God’s way of telling me it was time to come back.”
Ezra stuck out his chest and ran his beefy hands over the fancy stitching that formed a
V
around the buttoned area of his shirt, then leaned forward toward J.T.’s ear.
“You know, that gal fully expected me to show up looking as I have the last several months and was ready to sit beside me anyhow. She’s something else, all right. Why, if Alice didn’t still hold sway over my heart, I’d seriously think on giving you young fellers a run for your money in courtin’ the lady.”
J.T. shook his head. He had no intention of competing with the old man or anyone else for the fair Miss Hannah. God would lead him to the right woman one day. He just had to be patient and not get distracted by a complicated piece of muslin who frustrated and confused him at every turn.
Hannah slid onto a bench at the back of the church just as the singing began. She still couldn’t get over the change in Ezra. He must have soaked and scrubbed for hours to make such a transformation. If Jackson hadn’t been hitched to the buggy in front of her shop, she’d never have believed that the tidy gentleman who came to her door was Ezra Culpepper. His change probably had more to do with entering God’s house than with her request to wash his hands, but she didn’t care what motivated it. Ezra had made an effort to rejoin the living, and she planned to delight in watching the living accept him back.
Adding her soprano to the congregation as they moved into the second verse of “How Sweet, How Heavenly,” Hannah found herself praying that the idea of love and unity the hymn expressed would penetrate the hearts of the people gathered so that they would look past their prejudices and welcome Ezra back into the fold with warmth and joy.
“ ‘When each can feel his brother’s sigh, and with him bear a part,’ ” she sang, her voice growing stronger as the lyrics resonated in her soul. “ ‘When sorrow flows from eye to eye, and joy from heart to heart.’ ”
A gravelly voice joined hers as Ezra sat on her left, away from the aisle. His fingers gave away his nervousness as they worried the brim of the hat now in his lap. “ ‘When, free from envy, scorn and pride, our wishes all above,’ ” he intoned slightly off-key. “ ‘Each can his brother’s failings hide, and show a brother’s love.’ ”
Boot heels thudded softly against the floor, and suddenly Hannah’s wishes were no longer all above. Jericho Tucker strode past her to sit with his sister—across the aisle, two rows up. Memorized words from the hymn continued to flow from Hannah’s mouth, but her mind wandered elsewhere—two rows forward, to be precise.
He folded his lean frame into a space that seemed much too small for him. The backless benches that served for pews were better suited for the children who used the building as a schoolroom than for a man of his height. In order to avoid the ample hips of the woman seated in front of him, he had to jut his left leg out into the aisle. Apparently accustomed to such an awkward position, he hung his hat on his bent knee as if it were a fence post and then glanced over his shoulder.
Hannah’s heart swelled painfully in her chest. He’d likely intended to look at Ezra, since her seatmate was the one who had drastically altered his appearance, but Jericho’s gaze collided with hers instead and lingered. Her singing trailed off midstanza as she tried to interpret his look. He didn’t smile. Yet neither did he frown. He just stared at her as if the answer to some incredibly vital question lay in the lines of her face.
If he found any answers there, they must not have pleased him much, for his mouth thinned and he turned away.
Dragging her focus away from the back of his head, she looked down to her lap, at the Bible lying there—reminding her where she was. She lifted her chin and faced forward, determined to return her concentration to the God they were praising instead of the man across the aisle. She inhaled a deep breath and launched into the final verse of the opening hymn.
“ ‘Love is the golden chain that binds the happy souls above.’ ”
She tried to imagine those happy souls linked in heaven. She really did. But another image popped into her mind that was frightfully hard to dislodge. The image of a golden chain of love binding her to Jericho Tucker.
Mercy.
She couldn’t possibly fall in love with Jericho Tucker. The man never smiled. And judging by the number of scowls he sent her way, he probably didn’t even like her much. And nearly every time he opened his mouth, he riled her temper. Yet his acts of kindness, despite their disagreements, melted her ire and proved him a man of character.
Those strong shoulders and muscled arms didn’t hurt, either.
Ugh
. The back and forth was making her head spin.
Hannah straightened and ordered herself to stop analyzing Mr. Tucker. Romance at this juncture would only complicate things. She had a business to run and a reputation to build. She couldn’t afford distractions. God would let her know when the time was right to start thinking about a man, and it certainly wouldn’t be in the middle of worship.
Jericho Tucker could just keep those consuming glances to himself. She didn’t need him complicating things. What she needed was . . . was . . .
“Let us pray.” The preacher’s voice resonated from the front of the room, and her heart echoed the sentiment.
Yes, Lord. Thank you for the reminder. That is exactly what I need to do.
Hannah bowed her head, but the minute she closed her eyes, all she could see was the man across the aisle.
Around noon the following day, Hannah sat at her sewing machine stitching persimmon fabric into a swag. Since she’d finished the dolls for the James girls and had no orders to work on, she’d decided to do something to disguise the unattractive curtains hanging around her sleeping area. She smoothed out the wrinkles from where the material had bunched up in her lap and grimaced slightly at the way the color turned her skin sallow. Did it have to be orange?
Hannah sighed but set her foot back in motion on the treadle. Mrs. Granbury used to remind her girls that an ordinary seamstress could make a beautiful woman look exceptional, but only an exceptional seamstress could make an ordinary woman look beautiful. If the same held true for fabric, this exercise would be a true test of her skills. Thankfully, she wouldn’t be wearing the creation, so she didn’t need to worry about its effect on her complexion. Hannah finished the seam and tied off her threads. Trying to set her prejudice aside, she moved away from the sewing cabinet and held the cloth up at arm’s length, letting it drape over her arms as she eyed it with as much objectivity as possible.
Many people found orange to be warm and cheerful. Of course, most of them didn’t look bilious under its influence, but that was neither here nor there. God had painted many things in his creation this color— butterflies, sunsets, and the tiny wildflowers that grew along the path to the river. If the Lord saw beauty in such a color, she could, too. It certainly fit with the time of year, bringing to mind autumn leaves, pumpkins, and the creamy mashed winter squash her mother used to make on cold evenings. The cozy memory made her smile and opened a crack in her heart. Perhaps orange wasn’t so bad after all.
Her arms began to tire, so she dropped the swag onto the worktable and folded it into a tidy rectangle. She supposed in the right light it could be considered cheerful. And she needed all the cheer she could get to help her deal with the fact that she had no customers.
Yet.
Hannah pressed her fingers into the sore muscles of her lower back.
No customers,
yet
. That would change in time. It had to. She had spent most of her savings purchasing fabric and supplies. If she didn’t start generating some income, she’d be penniless by Christmas.
She had hoped that Ezra’s new shirt would pique a bit of interest, but people were more impressed by his physical transformation than the craftsmanship of his garment. Which was only right. Ezra deserved to bask in the welcome of his community after being on the outside for so long. She was happy for him. Truly.
If only she could contract that first custom order. She just needed one woman brave enough to sample her skills. After others saw the flattering effects her fine tailoring had on one of their own, surely they would flock to her door.
Needing to do something other than sit at her empty machine, Hannah grabbed a feather duster and ambled around the shop, swishing the feathers over windowsills, cloth bolts, and anything too slow to get out of her way. As she brushed invisible lint from the shoulders of her display dummies, she caught sight of Cordelia standing across the street, her face etched with yearning as she stared at the olive gown in the window. She fingered the fabric of her plain navy gored skirt and drooped like a flower starved for rain. Then she snapped her wilted posture to attention and marched toward the shop.