Gingham Bride by Jillian Hart Page A

asked.
    “I’ll be fine knowing my friends are right where they are supposed to be.” It was hard forcing her boots to move; the first step away from her friends was the hardest. “Have fun, you two.”
    “Yeah,” Earlee called out. “But not too much fun! Hey, Fee, wait up. You’re going too fast.”
    “Am I?” She was. She’d charged through the snow and onto the broken path by the road like a runaway bull. Her skirt hem and the bottom half of her coat were caked white, and she was huffing as if she’d run miles. Goodness, she was more upset than she’d thought. “Sorry. I’ve got to stop by the dressmaker’s shop. That might take some time, so if you want to head home, I’ll understand.”
    “Ma needs me, but I can spare a few minutes. Besides, poking around the dress shop is fun. There are so many pretty things to look at.” Earlee sighed wistfully.
    Fine, so she sighed, too. What Earlee hadn’t said was that there were so many beautiful things in that shop, things they could never hope to afford. “It is nice dreaming a little, isn’t it?”
    “Being wealthy isn’t what’s important in life. It’s not what makes you rich. I know that. But it would be something to be able to own one of those dresses.”
    “It would.” It didn’t hurt to dream a little, to wonder what if, right? “If you could have any dress, which one would you pick?”
    “The white one in the front window display, with the tiny rosebud pattern. What about you?”
    “There’s a yellow gingham dress hanging on one of the racks. That’s the one I would pick.” They turned the corner and tapped down the boardwalk. The town passed by in a blur of lamplit windows and merchants out sweeping the snow off their walks. She dodged a boardinghouse worker with a broom, preferring to think about the possibilities of her daydream, of being someone else with a different life, whose greatest worry was choosing between the exquisite dresses in Miss Sims’s shop instead of where she would go, where she would sleep, if she would be safe when she left on tomorrow’s train.
    “Do you think your pa is going to try to find you another husband?” Earlee’s question came quietly, with great understanding. “Was that why that man was staring at you?”
    “I don’t know for certain, but I’m afraid so.” She gripped her book bag more tightly, but she was too frozen inside to feel anything.
    “I think I’ve seen him somewhere before. Like maybe around town, but I couldn’t say for sure. Now, if he were Lorenzo’s age and half as cute, I’m sure I would have noticed.” She flashed her contagious smile, obviously wanting to lighten the mood.
    Fiona couldn’t help grinning, but it felt like a fake one and it died quickly. Miss Cora’s shop was down the next street. It would be hard to tell the kindly lady that this was the last piece she could sew for her. It was time to tie off the loose threads of her life in this small railroad town.
    “Look. I think that’s him.” Earlee nodded once at the red sleigh and black horse parked just up Main. “He’s going into the bank, so he must be from around here. We just haven’t noticed him before.”
    That didn’t explain the icy ball of dread sitting in the middle of her stomach. She had a bad feeling, and she walked faster down the next street. She didn’t feel safe until the man’s horse and sleigh were out of her sight.

    A nicker rang out from the back of the stables the moment Ian set foot in the Newberry livery stables.
    “She’s one fine horse.” The owner met him with a pitchfork in hand. “She kept lookin’ me over like I wasn’t good enough to take care of her. But after I gave her some of my best warmed oats, she at least deigned to let me rub her nose.”
    “She’s a character, all right.” He’d missed his girl, his best friend. “I raised her from a foal.”
    “That right? There are few bonds closer, except for the human kind.” The burly man nodded with