Angel's Embrace Page 30

  Everyone laughed, now that their lovestruck moment had passed. Solace rolled her eyes, while Lily wore a wistful look, gazing openly at them.

  Grace, however, banged her plate with her fork. “Are you gonna cut that pie, Billy? Or do I have to help myself?”

  Billy felt a welling up, a rightness about this day, as he sliced into the thick, spicy-sweet filling Beulah Mae still made like nobody else. He wouldn’t tell Asa that, of course.

  But then, Asa was exchanging Billy stories with Beulah Mae, who laughed and batted her big brown eyes at him, and then told a better Billy story. As he lifted a slice of pie to his lips—no fork, because pumpkin pie was made just so he could eat it this way—Billy felt all the important pieces of his life falling into place.

  It was a miracle, delicious and sweet. And it had his name all over it.

  Beulah Mae was more than a fabulous cook: She was the undisputed queen of how the housecleaning should go, which suited the other ladies fine. While he and the men trimmed bushes and repaired broken windows, he could hear feminine voices inside—the swish of scrub brushes and the clanging of pans being washed in the kitchen. The scent of lemon wax brought back memories, too, and the sense of order Mama had insisted upon in her home.

  By nightfall, it was another miracle, what they’d accomplished: The Bristol home place was getting its shine back, along with its pride. While the ladies occupied the beds, Billy, Michael, Reuben, and Asa stretched out on quilts beneath the trees. He slept like a baby—like a boy come home, to awaken as a man. But not alone anymore.

  The fragrance of bacon and coffee and biscuits drifted out from the kitchen as the sun brushed the sky with shades of pink and peach. Billy savored breakfast around the big table in the dining room, which was a little the worse for wear, but still a place for gathering these people he loved. Their chatter filled the room, shooing away the sadness and sense of neglect that had gathered here with the dust.

  And by the end of their second day, fresh paint graced most of the rooms, and Reuben had rebuilt the front steps. The salvageable furniture was arranged much as it had been when he was a boy, on freshened rugs and glossy wood floors. The kitchen gleamed, and the food the Malloys had brought filled the pantry shelves.

  “It’s been a wonderful surprise, and I thank you all,” he said when they’d loaded their wagon and carriage to leave. “You’ve brought this place to life again. I could never’ve done all this, even with months of—”

  “We wouldn’t have it any other way, Billy.” Michael stepped up to grip his hand, his eyes alight with love and sadness. He gazed out over the pasture, where the Morgans already looked right at home. “Come and see us when you can, son. Bring your family.”

  “Y-you, too,” he replied, knowing Michael wasn’t just talking about Mama and Carlton. “I hope you hear about Joel soon. I know his leavin’ bothers you.”

  “I believe, because you spent so much time with him when he wouldn’t listen to me, he’s got half a chance,” Malloy said with a sigh. “I’m betting he sends us a telegram from someplace far away. He’s always seen the grass on the other man’s side as greener.”

  “If you’ll keep him in your prayers, Billy, I’m sure God will listen.” Mercy hugged him tight, pouring all her love and hope for him into an embrace that made him reel. In many ways, she’d been his mother, the woman he’d looked to for love and advice during the most impressionable years of his life. “Take care of yourself, Billy Bristol, because when I leave, a big piece of my heart’s staying here with you.”

  He closed his eyes, nodding because he couldn’t talk.

  Then she turned to Eve, who stood beside him with Olivia. “Don’t be strangers, you two. I can’t wait to see the family portrait you’re painting, Eve!

  “And you, little girl,” she added in a higher voice, touching the baby’s chubby, pink cheeks, “you’re taking another chunk of my heart! What’ll I have left, unless you come to see me real soon?”

  Eve, too, seemed moved by the Malloys’ departure. As the carriage started off, followed by the rumbling buckboard, she stood beside him waving, until they disappeared down the tree-lined lane. His arm found her waist and she leaned into him, watching until the vehicles had rolled down the road.

  It seemed so natural, to be standing on the porch together, as though this were their home and they were already a family. Billy liked the feel of that. He turned to say something about it, but Eve’s kiss met his mouth before he could get the words out. Then rational thought left him altogether.

  He pulled her close and continued the kiss, reveling in the way she felt so soft and sweet. Olivia let out a happy squawk on her shoulder, and behind them they heard solid footfalls.

  “Beulah Mae needs your help in the house, little girl,” the old cook said. “You come with me, sweet pea, ’cause this ole lady ain’t held a baby for way too long now. Got somethin’ for ya, too!”

  Billy’s cheeks tingled. He stepped back enough to let his former nursemaid take Olivia, smiling at the joy on that old brown face. “No doubt she’s a Bristol, Mama said.”

  “That’s why, when I found your matched cradles in the attic, I got one down for her,” Beulah Mae replied softly. “Seemed like the right thing to do.”

  “Are you serious, about stayin’ on? Can’t pay you much, ’til I get my horse business—”

  “Won’t be doin’ it for the pay, honey.” The old woman’s eyes shone with relief. “This still feels like home to me, and I’s happy to help out. Got no family left, and I knows you’ll take care of me, just like you stepped in when Miss Eve and this sweet child needed ya. You’re just made that-a way.”

  Once she went inside, they heard kissy noises and silly talk—songs sung by a mellow voice that made memories well up from deep inside him.

  “You are made that way, Billy,” Eve repeated. “But don’t think you have to take care of Olivia and me, just because—”

  Billy hushed her with a long kiss, wondering why he’d waited so long to share these feelings he had. But in matters of the heart—as with everything—there was a season.

  “I want to,” he whispered. “I want you, Eve. We’ll take our time, though, workin’ Wesley out of our systems. It’s gotta be right for both of us.”

  Eve threw her arms around his neck, and Billy felt a power bubbling up inside him, but coming at him from all directions, as well. She was an angel, this pretty woman, and her embrace raised him up. Her wings weren’t spotless, because she’d been splattered on one of life’s muddier roads. But Eve Massena had now chosen a higher path—and she wanted him to go with her.

  When he kissed her again, he knew that path had led them both home.

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Two months later, October 1876

  Billy stepped out onto the wide, shaded porch and grinned at his guests. “Well, folks, I think the bride is finally ready.”

  He felt that an idiot grin had taken over his face, but he didn’t care. It was no sin to be happy—certainly a good sign that this wedding was meant to take place, because it was at the right time and with the right woman.

  To everything there is a season . . .

  As Florence Massena played a showy fanfare on the piano in the parlor, he took his place at the bottom of the porch steps. He smiled at Mama, arrayed like a peacock in a new gown of brilliant blue and a matching hat with feathers in its band. Standing beside Carlton, holding her granddaughter—who wore the long beaded gown his sister Christine was christened in—she looked happier than he’d ever seen her.

  And that was saying something.

  A time to plant, and a time to pluck what is planted . . .

  “You nervous, son?” Malloy came up beside him with a Bible, placing a hand on his shoulders.

  “Nope. This is how it’s s’posed to be.”

  Billy smiled at Gabe, who’d come in from St. Louis to be his best man—again. He looked scholarly in his frock coat and new spectacles, but his grin brought back the boy Billy
had met ten years earlier. “You don’t suppose Emma has somehow found out, and will show up when the preacher asks for objections?” he teased quietly.

  “Well, in a way she is here,” Billy replied. “After she and her daddy left their place, we found her weddin’ dress hangin’ in her room . . . like she didn’t want any reminders of me. But since Mercy had made it—and Eve thought it was the prettiest thing she’d ever seen—”

  A heartfelt ahhhhhh! made him look up. Lily, Solace, and Grace, dressed in identical gowns of cornflower blue, scattered the last roses from the gardens, along with maple leaves of brilliant reds and golds, as they came across the porch. When she went to stand beside Temple, Solace flashed him a wink.

  A time to weep, and a time to laugh . . .

  That tomboy had undergone the ultimate torture, wearing such a fancy dress for him today. She’d never let him forget it, either! Already, she had her eye on one of his Morgans . . .

  It was now Lily’s turn to shine, to grace this gathering with her special light. She stood proudly, clasping Grace’s hand, and as they listened to the piano’s familiar introduction, Mercy came out from the parlor to sing with them.

  Billy beamed: “Whispering Hope” was one of his favorite songs, and he already missed hearing it in the Malloys’ sunlit parlor on Sunday afternoons.

  “Soft as the voice of an angel . . . breathing a lesson unheard . . .”

  Lily sang the solo with a gentle clarity that floated over them, her face radiant with confidence, as Grace and her mother hummed along.

  He let his gaze wander with the music, to where Asa was standing beside Beulah Mae. The old man’s white-sprigged head barely came to her shoulder, but she didn’t seem to notice—and was secretly clasping his hand behind her big, billowy skirts!

  “Whispering hope . . . oh how welcome thy voice!” came the chorus. Everyone around him smiled at the waltz-time rhythm, soothed by the three-part harmony Mercy and her girls had been practicing ever since they’d realized Gracie had an ear for it. It was a brief song, so they repeated the chorus with extra fervor, slowing at the end.

  “Making my heart . . . in its sorrow rejoice.”

  Sighs of pleasure rose around him, and Billy realized then that this beloved song was all about what he and Eve had gone through together: how they’d made mistakes and apologies . . . endured gossip and hostility. And yet because they’d never lost hope, they were here today. Surrounded by families who wished them all the best.

  Mercy came down the steps with the girls, to stand proudly beside Michael. The smile she gave him—the tracks of happy tears on her radiant face—well, Billy couldn’t help himself. He stepped over to hug her, hard, for all the ways she’d made this day happen for him and Eve.

  Mercy squeezed him back, and then turned toward the doorway. The piano was louder and more glorious, announcing the bride.

  Billy’s jaw dropped.

  Eve Massena, in a gown of flowing ivory with layers of fabric so soft they drifted on the autumn breeze, caught his eye and held it, straight-on. The biddies in church had tried to make mincemeat of her when she wanted the ceremony there: a harlot covering herself in bridal white, they’d called her.

  But Eve had circumvented convention by inviting Reverend Searcy and their families here—where everyone felt welcome, no matter what color their skin, and where love overruled petty gossip. It was far more beautiful out here on this perfect autumn day, anyway.

  But not like she was beautiful. The little beads on her bodice caught the afternoon sunlight and shimmered as she walked serenely toward him, her footsteps matching the piano’s beat. Her glossy brown hair was swept up into her veil, which cascaded down her back instead of over her face.

  And he liked that. She wasn’t feigning innocence, nor was she hiding from anybody. She was just Eve, and she was just about to be his.

  Billy stepped up to take her hand, to steady her on the stairs as she let the full skirts of her gown billow ahead of her feet. They turned, and as Eve slipped her hand under his elbow, her mother came out, accompanied by Reverend Searcy.

  In his dark frock coat and monocle, the preacher looked much the same as when he’d chided Billy and Wes for playing hide-and-seek around the church pews. When Florence Massena had taken her place beside Mama, he cleared his throat ceremoniously.

  “Dearly beloved, we are gathered here to celebrate the uniting in Holy Matrimony of Miss Eve Maureen Massena and Mister William Henry Bristol,” he began. He stood three steps up from the ground, where he could survey the guests. “Matrimony is a sacred act, holy in the eyes of God, and not to be entered into lightly. Therefore, if anyone here knows any reason this man and this woman should not be joined in marriage, let him speak now . . . or forever hold his peace.”

  The breeze whispered in the leaves, like the rustling of angels’ wings.

  It seemed to Billy the preacher waited a while, as though he anticipated a last-minute interruption of their nuptials. He felt Eve grinning at him, thinking the same thing—about how she’d been the one to cry out from the back of the crowd, the last time he’d tried this.

  “You were my angel of mercy that day,” he whispered, gazing into her shining eyes. “I had no idea what love was. No idea I was goin’ the wrong way—’til I met you again.”

  “Billy and Eve have asked Michael Malloy to grace us with today’s Scripture reading,” Reverend Searcy went on. “Let us listen to the word of the Lord.”

  How many times had he seen this man riffle through the pages of that well-thumbed Bible, at weddings and funerals, and at the close of every day?

  While he himself had learned to give a respectable reading, by following Michael’s example, Billy felt more blessed by the presence of God when it was this man’s voice delivering the message—this man paraphrasing the difficult passages, often from memory, so that every listener could better understand it.

  Malloy looked up at the crowd, his mustache curving inward with his grin. “We often overlook the Song of Solomon as a book that doesn’t seem to fit with the rest of the Old Testament,” he began. “But what better time to delight in love letters from God’s word than at a wedding? These passages are from the second chapter, reminding us that, yes, our Lord sanctifies even our physical pleasures in one another, when we abide in Him.

  “‘My beloved spoke, and said to me: ‘Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away. For lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone. The flowers appear on the earth; the time of singing has come, and the voice of the turtledove is heard in our land.’”

  He spoke eloquently, smiling at Billy and Eve. “‘Oh, my dove, in the clefts of the rock, in the secret places of the cliff, let me see your face, let me hear your voice; for your voice is sweet and your face is lovely. . . . I charge you, Oh daughters of Jerusalem . . . do not stir up nor awaken love until it pleases.’”

  Reverend Searcy’s puckered expression almost made Billy laugh out loud. It was a sure bet this preacher had never read those passages in public, so he and Eve shared a smile—promises that the physical pleasures would come in their own good time. And soon.

  “And from the Gospel of John, these familiar yet compelling words of Jesus about love, and where it comes from, and what it all means,” Michael went on. He flipped to the ribbon marker, but then lifted his eyes to survey the guests.

  “‘Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you,’” he began, as though assuring Billy and Eve of his approval. “‘Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.’”

  Michael paused, his expression solemn. “Every one of us would do well to remember this, because I assure you that my successes—my home, my marriage, my business—would never have borne fruit without guidance from the Master’s hand.”

  “
Amen to that,” Asa said softly.

  Mercy beamed at her husband, sharing her joy with Billy and Eve, too.

  “‘If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you,’” Malloy went on fervently. “‘As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in His love.’”

  He looked directly at Billy and Eve then, a father pronouncing his blessing on them. “‘These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.’”

  From there, for Eve, the ceremony was a blur. She could only gaze at Billy, at the love light in his beautiful blue eyes, and realize yet again how many wonderful things had come into her life because this fine man had rescued her—from disgrace, yes, but mostly from herself. Because Billy Bristol had believed in her, and because his family had loved her and Olivia unconditionally, she’d found a whole new life. A life as full and exciting as her renewed pursuit of painting.

  “—and by the powers vested in me, I now pronounce you man and wife,” Reverend Searcy said with thundering authority. “You may kiss your bride.”

  Billy swept her into his embrace and their mouths met with playful abandon—until muffled coughs brought them back to the ceremony at hand. Then she turned to Virgilia and took Olivia. Her red-haired daughter looked like a little cherub in the christening gown that had been her friend Christine’s. She’d never known a prouder moment.

  “It will be my distinct pleasure, on this sacred occasion, to christen Eve’s child—the grandchild of Florence Massena and Virgilia Bristol Harte, two longtime members of my congregation,” the preacher went on.

  Eve smiled tightly, wondering if someone here had slipped him a generous donation. He’d balked when she’d first asked him to baptize Olivia: wouldn’t perform that sacrament, in public or privately, because her daughter had no daddy.