Brides of Iowa (23 page)

“Part of me is afraid of what folks will think and part of me doesn’t care what they think. Maybe I’m still trying to figure out what I feel.” Out of the corner of her eye she saw Tessa smile.

The young woman laid her free hand on Pearl’s arm. “Remember the day we sat at your kitchen table and I told you how confused I was about my feelings for Gideon?”

Pearl chuckled at the memory and halted the swing so Susan could scramble aboard. “Seems to me I recall you asking if anybody ever tried to kiss me.”

Tessa giggled. “Yes, I suppose I did. But do you remember what you told me about how to sort out my feelings?”

Pearl shrugged. “I probably told you to take it to the Lord.”

“Mm-hmm, that’s exactly what you told me.” Tessa picked up Pearl’s hand and squeezed it. “I can’t tell you what to do, but God can.”

Pearl sighed. “When did you get to be so wise?”

Tessa’s laugh filled the air between them. “Between my mama first and then you, I had two wise teachers.”

Perhaps taking her own advice given through the heart of a friend wasn’t such a difficult thing to bear. “How about a cup of tea.”

“No thanks, we have to get home. Gideon will be looking for his supper soon.” The younger woman hugged Pearl and bent to put Susan’s shoes back on. “Tell Grandma Pearl she needs a new bonnet.”

Susan chortled and shook a chubby finger at Pearl. “G’ma need a new bonnet.”

Pearl captured Susan’s finger and gave it a kiss. “You come back to see me real soon, punkin.” Looking at Tessa and reading her eyes, Pearl added, “And I’ll think about the bonnet.”

After Pearl waved good-bye from the front porch, she walked back to the kitchen to push the kettle over the hottest part of the stove. New bonnet, indeed. It wasn’t enough that she’d be making a spectacle of herself, dressing in her best dress to be seen on the arm of the dapper and distinguished Hubert Behr. Her friend thought she should have a new bonnet to mark the occasion.

She scooped tea leaves into the china teapot and waited for the water to heat. The truth was she wanted that new bonnet. But the sudden desire for the bonnet didn’t surprise her as much as the unexpected quiet longing that tugged from deep within her. She’d never loved another man in her whole life but Jacob Dunnigan. She couldn’t remember another boy in school who even remotely drew her attention. From the day Jacob kissed her out behind the old willow tree when they were children, she knew he was the one she would one day marry.

She fingered a gray tendril by her ear. After being a widow for fifteen years, this desire to be with another man—to be with Hubert—so startled her, she felt like she needed to ask Jacob’s advice in the matter.

The kettle began to boil, and she poured steaming water into the teapot and set the tea to steep. She sat and propped her elbows on the kitchen table with her forehead in her hands. No, Jacob couldn’t tell her what was right or wrong, but God could. She folded her hands and closed her eyes.

“You are a doddering fool!”

Hubert Behr pulled the end of his bow tie loose and began retying it for the fourth time. When his thumbs got in the way again, he sighed and yanked the blue silk cravat from his neck and tossed it on the dry sink.

What was he thinking, asking Pearl Dunnigan if he could call on her? One thing was certain, he was supplying the town gossips with a new topic to occupy their tongues.

He could only imagine what people would say when they saw him parade into the hotel dining room with Pearl on his arm. Sitting together at the church potluck supper was one thing, but asking her to accompany him to a public place for dinner looked like … well, it would look like they were courting.

“Courting!” Hubert blew out a stiff breath. He hadn’t courted a woman since—“Since Lucinda.”

A familiar jolt shuddered through him again. He wasn’t sure if it was still the pain of Lucinda’s betrayal or the guilt he bore for driving her away that kept him from seeking female companionship all these years. Twenty years to be exact.

Should a man of his age even be thinking about enjoying the company of a lady? He stared at his reflection in the mirror. “Why not?” Was there a law written somewhere that forbade him to take a lady to dinner? The gray in his mustache and muttonchops reminded him he was no longer of the age when one commonly courted a woman.

“But isn’t that what I intended when I asked Pearl for permission to call?” Hubert remembered Pearl had blushed to the roots of her hair, but it was her smile and her demure reply that made him feel like a schoolboy. He shook his finger at his reflection looking back at him from the mirror. “She said, ‘Yes, Hubert, I believe I’d like that.’ That’s what she said.” He nodded as if reconfirming Pearl’s agreement.

“And what will Everett think?” His son’s latest letter lay on the table. Hubert crossed the room and picked up the single sheet of paper. Many years had passed since Everett had willingly revealed his emotions to his father. Doing so now indicated the young man cared what Hubert thought. Despite the years and miles that separated them, Hubert had never stopped caring about what Everett thought. He’d loved his son from a distance. Holding the missive in his hands brought a fresh wave of joy. The letter was tangible evidence that the desire of his heart—the restoration of the relationship between him and Everett—was truly coming to pass.

Hubert fingered the corner of the page, reflecting on the long list of missed opportunities that had escaped during the years his son was reared by his wealthy grandparents. If he could turn back the calendar, he’d do things so much differently. “Lord, You know it is my biggest regret not having been a godly influence in my son’s life. If only I’d not let my own faith grow cold during those early years, Everett might have grown up in a Christian home.”

Hubert sighed and turned his gaze to Everett’s carefully penned words.

“Dear Father…”
He scanned down the page to the last two paragraphs.

“The woman named Pearl…”
Everett’s question gnawed at him. He barely knew Pearl when he decided to purchase the mercantile, so he really couldn’t say she was the reason for his decision. But after many months of filling her grocery orders and sitting across the aisle from her in church, listening to her laugh when she played with Gideon and Tessa Maxwell’s little daughter, hearing her kind words for friends and neighbors, and finding himself included in that circle, it happened. So gradually he couldn’t tell where or when it began. But there it was—the dawn of attraction, like a soft inhalation of fresh air in spring. The realization came upon him so quietly he was mesmerized by its onset until it enveloped him like a glove. The thought quickened his breath.

In hindsight, he suspected her blue eyes were probably the first thing that caught his attention. Watching her eyes when she spoke, he saw tenderhearted compassion and the kind of joy that one can know only through a relationship with God. Her eyes spoke to him even when she didn’t say a word.

He ran his finger over the carefully inked words of Everett’s letter
—“the woman named Pearl …
” His pulse accelerated at the thought of telling Everett about the lady who so captured his senses, he couldn’t direct his fingers to tie his own cravat. But what should he say? It would take a sheaf of paper to tell Everett about the woman named Pearl.

Hubert pulled his watch from his pocket and his heart caught. Time to go pick up Pearl for their dinner date.

T
he fireflies danced a captivating waltz in and out of the silhouetted garden, but Pearl shifted her eyes discreetly toward the front window overlooking the sprawling porch.

“They’re staring at us.”

Beside her on the swing, Hubert chuckled. “How can you tell when a firefly is staring at you?”

She lowered her voice to a whisper. “Not the fireflies. My boarders. They keep looking at us through the curtains.”

“Well now, I suppose they’ve never seen such a handsome couple.” Merriment threaded Hubert’s voice, and she resisted the urge to poke him.

Pearl clasped her hands in her lap. “Every time I glanced up yesterday in church, Mrs. Pettigrew and Miss Frick were paying more attention to us than they were to the preacher. What do you suppose they’re all saying?”

Hubert patted her hand under cover of the gathering twilight. “Does it make you that uncomfortable? Would you prefer that I not come and sit with you on your porch?”

Pearl jerked her head toward him. “No! I would not prefer that.” Warmth crept up her neck. She certainly didn’t want Hubert to think her forward. “But it does appear that we are the center of attention. It must seem odd for two people of our age to be seen …”

The word she started to say faded on her lips. What word should she use to describe their recent activities? Going to dinner at the hotel, taking strolls along the creek at the edge of town, and watching fireflies from the porch swing? Every Sunday for the past three weeks, Hubert had picked her up in his buggy for church, and instead of glancing shyly at each other from across the aisle, they now sat together. The picnic they enjoyed several days ago didn’t go unnoticed, and Pearl was certain the town gossips had plenty to discuss over the back fence while they hung up their wash.

Being the talk of the town wasn’t one of her ambitions. Lately, however, a feeling she couldn’t label or explain away followed her like a shadow. After being so in love with her Jacob since childhood, marrying in their teens, and spending twenty-six years working side by side with him, how could her head possibly be turned by another man?

Hubert quietly cleared his throat. “I believe the word is
courting.
”

Pearl’s breath caught and her heart stuttered. A firefly pirouetted through the lilac bush, and Pearl followed its path as it laced its way across the yard. Would voicing her agreement with Hubert’s assessment be a betrayal of all she and Jacob had together? Jacob was her first love—her only love. Did it blur the lines between right and wrong to welcome Hubert as more than a friend? When her heart looked heavenward, God’s comforting nod of approval caressed her spirit.

“Yes,” Pearl whispered. “I believe it is.” They sat in silence for a few minutes, the gentle swaying of the swing keeping time with her heartbeat.

Hubert reached into his pocket. “I had another letter from Everett. He wants to know who you are.”

“Mercy sakes, what are you going to tell him?”

Hubert’s thick eyebrows rose slightly. “The truth. That you are a lady whose company I immensely enjoy.”

A smile rose up within her chest and found a home on her lips. “Then I suppose you can tell him the feeling is mutual.”

The fading light of the evening cast a soft glow over the pleasure on Hubert’s face. He stroked his mustache with one finger and answered her smile. The late spring evening suddenly became unseasonably warm.

“Uh, why don’t we go inside and read Everett’s letter? I made molasses cookies this afternoon. Would you care for some of that tea you like to go with them?”

Hubert’s deep, throaty chuckle tickled her ears. “You do know the way to my heart, my dear. Your molasses cookies and Earl Grey tea are my favorites.”

Pearl composed herself as they rose and made their way inside. Crossing through the parlor on their way to the kitchen, she noticed two of her boarders peering at her and Hubert over the top of their books. She held back the sigh that gathered in her lungs.

“Miss Frick, Mr. Hogan, would either of you care for some molasses cookies?”

The prune-faced dressmaker pursed her lips and scowled. “No thank you.” The woman’s gaze flitted over Pearl for a fleeting moment before hiding behind her book again.

Mr. Hogan snorted and flicked a glance at the spinster in the adjacent chair. “I’d like to, Miss Pearl, but I’m full up.” He patted his ample belly and gave Hubert a nod, waggling his eyebrows.

“I’ll set out a plate on the kitchen table if you change your mind.” Pearl stepped into the kitchen and checked the glowing coals in the stove before setting the kettle to heat.

“So, how is Everett?” Although they’d kept company for several weeks, she still knew little of Hubert’s life prior to his arrival in Willow Creek three years ago, other than the fact he recently retired from the Pinkerton National Detective Agency. Perhaps his investigator background made him wary of revealing too much of his personal life, but Pearl found herself wishing to know more about this man to whom she felt drawn. “Didn’t you tell me he mentioned in his last letter that his grandfather was ill?”