Page 21 of Charlotte

Lottie leaned closer until their shoulders touched. “And the rest?”

Delly looked toward the path where Mr. Simms had disappeared. Her face changed again, not into softness exactly, but into something that had not been there in Chicago. Something uncertain and awake.

“Partly because I need to know whether I am right.”

“About marriage?”

“About everything.”

Lottie thought of Mr. Peterson’s lowered voice, the hidden hand, the almost-smile, the line about a home needing a woman’s laughter. She thought of the sermon and the lost sheep and the way his face had gone still when Preacher Sutton said being found was not failure.

Perhaps Delly was not the only one who needed to know whether she was right.

Lottie rested her shoulder more firmly against her sister’s. Neither of them said anything for a while.

Below the churchyard, Wild Rose Ridge went on shining in the June sun, rough and bright and full of unfinished things. The meeting hall waited for books. The town waited for brides. Delly, impossibly, seemed to be waiting for a husband.

Somewhere down the path, Mr. Peterson carried questions Lottie did not yet know how to ask. She had come west, believing every love story deserved a happy ending. Now she understood some stories did not begin with happiness at all.

Some began with courage.

Chapter Four

June 20, 1886 — Sunday afternoon and evening

Charlotte Bellamy had been in Wild Rose Ridge for one full day when her sister married a man before supper.

This was alarming for several reasons.

First, Delly did nothing before supper unless it had been considered, weighed, revised, and possibly written twice in a notebook.

Second, the man in question was Jebediah Simms, the large camp healer with the dark beard, rough hands, and a way of looking at Delly which made Lottie’s chest ache. Her sister did not seem to notice it, of course. Delly rarely noticed anything not counted, cataloged, or argued into submission.

Yet, Lottie noticed. Mr. Simms looked at Delly as if her very presence pleased him, and Lottie had spent years quietly hoping someone might someday look at her that way.

Third, Delly had spent the last five years warning Lottie against rash decisions, romantic impulses, strange men, western towns, unsupervised correspondence, and marriage, in general.

Now she was marrying a frontier man she had met yesterday. Lottie found out about the news in the meeting hall, where she had gone with Cornelia Montgomery to discuss possible shelving for the town’s first lending library. They had made little progress beyond agreeing the meeting hall was dry, the trunks were heavy, and the town possessed more enthusiasm than lumber suitable for shelves.

Cornelia had just said, “We may need to borrow brackets from the schoolhouse,” when Mrs. Beck burst through the door with her feathered hat trembling.

“There you are!” Mrs. Beck cried. “Come at once. Your sister is to be married.”

Lottie dropped the book in her hands.

Cornelia caught it before it struck the floor. “Which sister?”

“I have only one,” Lottie said, and rushed toward the door.

Mrs. Beck turned as if leading a parade. “Mrs. Schulte says there is to be no fuss because Miss Bellamy requested no fuss, which of course means a modest amount of necessary fuss. Mrs. Hanford is seeing to hairpins. Ella has lace. Clara is providing a small cake. Val says Preacher Sutton is ready, though I do think ministers’ wives are expected to look less amused at moments like these.”

Lottie lifted her skirts and hurried after her. “Where is Delly?”

“At the hotel. Mrs. Schulte captured her before she could escape.”

“Captured?”

“Lovingly.”