Journey to Love (Angels of Mercy) Read online

  “Tucker loves me!” she blurted. “Or he at least cares enough to help me search for Mama, instead of worrying about how proper it is! If Judd were alive, he’d have opened those letters and let me—”

  “You can manipulate Billy with guilt, but don’t try that trick on me.”

  Mercy, too, crossed her arms, restraining her rising irritation. “Judd would not have opened them because they’re addressed to you, young lady. The last time you ran off, he told you we wouldn’t come after you again.” Mercy paused, but Christine was packing in too much of a frenzy to listen. “I’m sticking with Judd’s story,” she continued, turning toward the door. “You’re jumping to some dangerous conclusions, Christine. But I won’t waste my breath begging you to stay.”

  “You still don’t understand!” Christine pleaded. “All I ever wanted was for my mother to be safe. No matter why she abandoned us at the depot, I just hoped she’d come back so we could be a family again. I—I just needed her to love us again.”

  The heartfelt words found their mark, for Mercy Monroe was no stranger to loss and heartache. She turned in the doorway, but the girl’s theatrical nose-blowing reminded her that Miss Bristol was an accomplished actress. Maybe she was due for one of those lessons only life could teach her.

  “Just leave me alone so I can pack, dammit!” Christine snapped.

  “That’s enough of that, young lady!” Aunt Agatha’s index finger was pointed like a pistol. Her pumps beat a purposeful tattoo on the plank floor as she approached her student. “Maybe it was a mistake for me to intercept those letters. But I felt it was the best decision at the time, and Mercedes honored my position as your headmistress,” she said. “I’m sorry if you don’t believe we had your best interests at heart, Miss Bristol. I hope you won’t come to regret the way you’ve treated us today.”

  Heartsick at this exchange, Mercy carefully descended the stairs—a more difficult task in this elegant, hooped gown than in her usual calico. How she’d longed to brag on Christine’s rare talent today, while her friends admired her wedding dress. How she’d hoped to prove to these neighbors that she and Judd had done the right thing, sending this headstrong young lady off to school as though she were their own daughter.

  “I’m sorry this came back to bite you on your wedding day, dear.” Aunt Agatha’s hand rested on her shoulder as they paused at the bottom of the stairs. “I didn’t realize you’d kept those letters—”

  “They weren’t mine to throw away.”

  “—and I never intended for this to become another wedge between you and Miss Bristol,” she said with a sigh.

  “We can’t control that, any more than we can control Christine.”

  Mercy almost got the words out without a hitch in her voice, but her aunt’s apology was making her lip quiver. “Maybe those letters will help her find her mother, even now, and some good will come of all this. I can’t imagine how she must feel, seeing her mother’s face on a WANTED poster.”

  Mercy stood in the open doorway, watching neighbors arrive in their wagons and the happy way Michael greeted them . . . telling herself Christine’s leaving shouldn’t upset her. After all, these same friends were present the first time Miss Bristol had taken off. They’d always believed the young woman was a willful, ungrateful guest, so their opinions wouldn’t change.

  But still . . . it had started out to be one of the most beautiful days of her life, and now Mercy felt herself unraveling.

  “She’s a fool to throw away her opportunity with Madame Devereaux. If she leaves now, on the farfetched pretext of finding her mother, the offer might not be repeated.”

  “She’s sixteen, Aunt Ag. She doesn’t see it that way.”

  The woman beside her let out a dignified snort. “Frankly, she’s not seeing much except her romantic fantasies of that Mr. Trudeau,” she said in a spinsterish whisper. “He’s probably married and has a family by now.”

  “Which is just the sort of comeuppance she deserves,” Mercy replied, more harshly than she intended. “Lord knows life isn’t a bed of roses, just because we want it to be. What bothers me more is Billy’s reaction.”

  As though on cue, a buckboard came from the barn. Billy sat relaxed in the driver’s seat, because Michael had taught him the finer points of handling the reins. It was hard for Mercy to believe he’d turned fourteen last week. What a picture he made in his handsome new jacket, with a fresh white shirt and his auburn hair shining in the sun.

  And what a knife he’d stuck in her heart, when he went along with his sister’s plea to leave.

  He pulled up alongside Michael and Asa to talk, while the arriving neighbors cast speculative glances at them. As Mrs. Reid began to play her prelude on the pump organ, everyone started toward the benches. Clyde and Nell Fergus, dressed in their stiff Sunday best, chose seats to the left of the center aisle while the Clark family sat to the right. Other homesteaders filled in behind them, still watching the conversation at the wagon with interest.

  Asa glanced up, a wide grin splitting his dark face when he saw her. He came toward her at a trot, despite his age. He, too, wore new clothing made for this occasion, and his eyes shone as he approached, as though Mercy were his pride and joy.

  “Reckon we’d best get you into the kitchen, Miss Mercy, so’s we can have us a proper processional!” he said with a rich chuckle.

  “It’s time for me to take my place, too,” Aunt Agatha said. She squeezed Mercy’s hand, her eyes wide with love and longing. “Forget about Christine and her shenanigans. This day belongs to you, and I won’t sacrifice a single moment of my happiness by worrying about her.”

  “Easier said than done,” Mercy murmured.

  As her dear aunt strolled toward the bridal arch Michael had built, Mercy noticed Billy was driving the wagon in this direction. “I never thought Billy would be drawn into this, Asa. You and that young man have been my mainstays since Judd died.”

  “I wouldn’t worry about him, Miss Mercy,” the slightly built Negro assured her as he steered her into the kitchen, out of sight. “He asked Michael’s permission, nice and proper, to take that horse and wagon. Whatever his sister’s up to, Mr. Billy’s just lookin’ out for her. Keepin’ Christine from disruptin’ this fine day!”

  Mercy wished she could share her hired man’s optimism, but she was focused on Billy’s grim expression. “What if he doesn’t come back, Asa? What if he goes on Christine’s goose chase to find their mother—”

  “That’s your bride’s nerves talkin’. Billy’s got a good head on his shoulders—he wouldn’t just up and leave,” the old hand answered with a purposeful nod. “He loves you and Michael too much, after all this time.”

  Billy’s face, still in transition from being a boy to becoming a man, looked as distressed as she’d ever seen it. He slid down from the wagon, but his actions lacked their usual energy. He couldn’t look at her as he went up the stairs.

  More noteworthy, however, was the set of Michael’s jaw as he approached the house. With a brief word to the preacher, he strode toward them and stopped in the doorway.

  “Not making any promises,” he murmured, his hazel eyes alight with his mission, “but I’ll speak my mind—as I know you have, honey. It’s all we can do.”

  Nodding mutely, Mercy listened to his quick footsteps ascending the stairs.

  “Let’s get out of the doorway,” she said. “No sense in everyone staring at us, wondering what’s going on.”

  Malloy glanced into Billy’s room, where he sat on the side of his bed, fingering the quilt Mercy had made. It had been Christine’s Christmas gift, but she’d refused it—and the fact that her younger brother loved it was just another way these Bristol kids were as different as dogs from cats.

  But his pitch was for Billy’s sister, the young woman who’d always felt herself above Mercy’s humble life. He didn’t have an ice cube’s chance in hell of changing Christine’s mind, but Mike wanted her to know exactly where she stood if she made a shambles of the
ir wedding ceremony. Or if she dared to belittle the woman he was about to marry—the woman who’d given these kids a home when their mother took off with a con artist after the war.

  “I hear you’ve found some upsetting letters,” he began in a low voice when he found Christine in her room. “Posters that show your ma’s misadventures these past three years.”

  Christine looked up from cramming one last dress into her trunk. “I don’t see where that’s any of your business.”

  “It’s my wedding you’re disrupting. And it’s my bride you’re once again insulting with your thoughtless behavior.” He held her gaze, struck by how womanly she looked in her fine gown. “Another day or two won’t make much difference in locating your mother, honey. If you’ll stay for our celebration today—look those letters over and plan your strategy—I’ll do everything in my power to help you out.”

  “And what can you do to—”

  “I know people all along the stage and railroad route, remember?” He wanted to slap the smirk off her face, but he leaned against the doorjamb. “A few telegrams to men with Wells Fargo and the Union Pacific Railroad could save you a lot of time and trouble. You’ll be searching for a sly needle in a very vast haystack.”

  Christine rolled her green eyes, planting a hand on one hip. “So why are you just now offering such help, Mr. Malloy?” she demanded. “No, thank you! I’ll take my chances with Tucker Trudeau.”

  Malloy let out the breath he’d been holding. No sense in taking her bait. Reasoning was clearly beyond her right now. “Your anger’s a double-edged sword, Christine. It cuts the ones you love, and it’s wounding you, too. If you’ll stop and think—”

  “You have no idea!” she shrieked. “No one here understands that every time I look in the mirror, I see my mother. But Mama isn’t here! I may never hold her again. Because you people have kept me from finding her.”

  Mike eased toward her. The folks outside didn’t need to hear their discussion get out of control. He’d try another angle—give her a few moments more—but then the woman downstairs deserved to reclaim her wedding day.

  “More than anything in this world, I miss my mother’s love,” he whispered. Even now, five years after her passing, his voice shook when he spoke of it. “I was fifteen—younger than you—when I told Ma I was damn tired of being her baby boy, tied to her apron strings. I took off to fight in the war, against her wishes. When I came home, I found out she’d been dead and buried just a week, Christine.”

  He pushed his hair back with a hand that shook. But he didn’t care if she saw his raw edges, or the way his eyes still filled with regret over a foolish mistake of his youth.

  “I’ll always be sorry for the thoughtless, impatient things I said as I left her,” he went on. “And I was angry at God for not giving me one more day—one more conversation—to set things right with the woman who’d raised me to be better than that. Fighting in Mr. Lincoln’s army wasn’t dishonorable or wrong, but how we do things usually outlives what we tried to accomplish. I thought I was being such a man, but I was the world’s biggest fool.”

  “I’m sorry for your loss, Mr. Malloy,” Christine replied, too politely. “And I’m sorry you chased me down three years ago when I went to Atchison to find Mama. Days later I learned I was that close—” She held her index finger an inch from her thumb, waving it in his face. “—to finding her, before she and Richard Wyndham took off for parts unknown. I was right to track her to the Kansas border. But you hauled me back here like some stupid, senseless little girl.”

  “Ah, but when I see the dresses you’ve designed for this wedding—because Mercy sent you off to her aunt’s academy,” he added pointedly, “and when I feel the love you lavish on our children, I believe I was right!”

  Mike gave her a final, assessing look. “The choice is yours, Christine. Stay and share our joy today—be the envy of every lady out there who sees your dresses. And then accept my best efforts at finding your mother. But if you go, you’re on your own. And whatever happens to your brother will be yours to live with, too.”

  Her narrowed eyes and the impatient tapping of a kid-slippered toe sent him back downstairs with a sigh.

  Chapter Three

  “You can lead the horse to water, Miss Mercy,” Asa remarked as they watched Michael stride toward the bridal arch. “But even the Lord can’t make it drink. You did the best you could with Miss Christine. She’s gonna be a challenge all her days!”

  Mercy nodded, noting the slowing of the organ prelude poor Mrs. Reid had played at least three times.

  “My family said the same thing about me as I was growing up—and especially when I left Philadelphia to homestead here with Judd,” she confessed. “But I was never so bullheaded about things!”

  Then she blinked. During this episode with the Bristols, she’d forgotten—

  “Asa, what about the children? I asked Billy to watch them!”

  “And you haven’t heard a peep, have you?”

  The wiry Negro stepped between her and the door, his coffee-colored eyes wide with purpose. “Miss Solace is asleep in her basket with Nell Fergus, and the Clarks have put Joel and Miss Lily between Gabe and Miss Emma. All you have to do is be the most beautiful bride there ever was and walk toward that groom of yours. You hear me?”

  He was smiling, but his tone brooked no argument. Where would she be without this faithful hired man? She simply wouldn’t have survived Judd’s death last September, or Solace’s birth this past March.

  Mercy reached out, and Asa stepped into her embrace. While she’d been born into a wealthy Philadelphia family and he had served out his slavery as a cook on an Atlanta plantation, none of that mattered now. Pioneering on these plains had made them equals, and hard times had made them fast friends.

  Outside, the organist struck the opening chords of the “St. Anthony Chorale,” and her pulse thrummed into a higher gear.

  She was getting married! She was the reason their friends had come so far, on a fine October day awash in autumn’s glory. In a few minutes, she’d take the name of Malloy—the name of that handsome man who’d coaxed her out of mourning and back into life again.

  With a quick vision of Judd smiling down on her, Mercy nodded.

  “All right,” she whispered. “I’m ready.”

  Asa tucked her hand inside his bent arm, and they stepped into the bright sunlight. The small crowd rose to watch her approach the white bridal arch, decorated with silk ribbons and satin roses.

  Mercy smiled resolutely, yet she felt a pang as they passed the wagon Billy had parked beside the house. She walked with the graceful sway Aunt Agatha taught at the academy, stepping and pausing . . . stepping and—

  “Hi, Mama!” Joel called out.

  “Me, too!” Lily chirped.

  A sun-bronzed boy and a blond princess in pink waved excitedly from their bench, where they stood between Emma Clark and her cousin Gabe.

  Mercy grinned and waved back. She memorized this special moment, this vision of the two exuberant cherubs God had entrusted to her and Michael.

  And Michael! He was gazing as though he couldn’t take his eyes off her; as though the neighbors and the homestead had disappeared with the morning’s mist, leaving only the two of them.

  How on earth had she won such a wonderful, stunning man? What a miracle!

  As Mercy stepped down the grassy aisle toward him, her heart fluttered wildly. He wore a new suit of brown serge, with a white shirt and a cravat the color of his eyes. His sandy hair glistened in the sunlight. And when his mustache lifted with that grin that always made her grin back, she remembered again what a wondrous turn her life had taken.

  He came toward her, too excited to stay beside the preacher. Mercy hurried the last few feet with her hands extended, until they squeezed each other’s fingers in sheer delight. A chuckle went through the crowd as they stepped into place, with Asa and Aunt Agatha flanking them. Mrs. Reid ended the bridal march with a flourish.

  “
Dearly beloved,” Reverend Larsen intoned, “we are gathered here to celebrate a very special sacrament of holy matrimony, when—”

  A loud, repetitive thumping came from the house.

  “Dang it, Christine, you gotta hold up your end!” Billy called.

  “I can’t! I’ll fall!”

  Mercy swallowed, knowing the folks behind her had turned to watch the Bristols’ departure. Michael’s hand tightened around hers.

  “It’ll be all right,” he murmured, willing her not to cry with his steady gaze. Then he looked at Reverend Larsen. “Please, go on.”

  Slightly flustered, the slender clergyman cleared his throat. “Dearly beloved, we gather here to celebrate the sacrament of holy—”

  “Mama! Papa!” Joel piped up behind them. “Where’s Christine and Billy goin’? Huh? Where they goin’ with that big ole—”

  “Shhhhh!” Emma Clark hissed.

  “Kwis-teeeeeen!” Lily wailed. “Me, too! Take Lily—”

  “Hush, now!” came a more dire warning from Emma’s mother.

  Mercy sighed, glancing from Michael to the anxious pastor. “We might as well wait. Until Christine has milked her moment of crisis, no one will be paying attention to us.”

  “Excellent point,” Aunt Agatha said. “Let’s turn and watch them go—if only to repay a moment of the humiliation that girl has caused you, Mercedes. As the poet Milton once wrote, ‘They also serve who only stand and wait.’ ”

  Who could argue with the headmistress of Miss Vanderbilt’s Academy for Young Ladies? The guests all turned to watch a large camel-backed trunk thump down the last few stairs to land at Billy’s feet. Christine, in a traveling suit of blue, scurried around to the far end, and the two of them hefted it into the buckboard.

  “Wherever she’s goin’, she’s stayin’ awhile,” Emma mused aloud. “Now, why didn’t Billy tell me he was takin’ her somewhere? I thought he’d be here for the weddin’ cake—”

  “If you’ll notice, Billy hasn’t packed anything,” her cousin Gabe whispered tersely. “And he’s telling the dogs to stay put. He wouldn’t leave Snowy and Spot behind if he was going anywhere for long.”