The Bad Luck Wedding Dress (22 page)

The honest man.

He’d never made her any promises. She’d known that from the moment she said “I do,” and that was why she’d resisted having this conversation. She’d wanted to pretend for a little while, to make believe that her dreams had come true. She’d had three days and that was more than she would have had if they’d talked on their wedding day.

Abruptly, the fight drained out of her.

She drew a deep, shuddering breath. “You’re right, Trace. I apologize. I’ll keep my feelings to myself from now on, and I hope you’ll find that more … convenient.”

Lifting her chin and squaring her shoulders, she swept regally from the room. In the doorway, she paused. “Thank you for my fabrics. I’ll take them to the shop first thing tomorrow. I believe our honeymoon is over, don’t you agree?”

A muscle ticked in the side of his jaw. “I’ll fetch the girls after school.”

“Good. I’ll make certain their rooms are ready.”

“Look, I intend for Mrs. Wilson to stay on,” he said, his voice betraying a slight bit of exasperation. “You won’t have to worry about cooking and cleaning and that sort of stuff.”

She offered him a false smile. “That’s convenient.”

Halfway up the stairs, she heard his curse. It was virulent, vivid, and distinct, and it gave her pause.

Jenny clutched the bannister as emotions gave way to thought. Wait a minute. Perhaps she was being hasty here. He might not love her, but he wasn’t indifferent toward her. Trace felt more for her than sexual desire alone. He cared for her. He’d shown her in many different ways. If she gave him time, gave them both time, could that caring deepen to love?

She continued up the stairs, her mind whirling. Out of the blue she recalled a conversation with one of her mother’s more recent suitors. The man broke horses for a rancher in central Texas.

“Horses are no different than people,” he’d told her. “You can’t teach a kid to read if he don’t know his letters. You have to teach a horse basic fundamentals first. You don’t teach one to stop from a run. You do it by steps. First, you teach him to walk and stop; then trot, walk, and stop; then lope, trot, walk, and stop. Finally, unless you ruin his mouth or something, it all falls into place and he’ll stop from then on.”

Was there a lesson in there for her? Could she compare marriage to training a horse?
Trace already has the stud part down.

Continuing up the stairs, Jenny didn’t feel as badly as she had before.

She entered their bedroom and the bed drew her gaze like a magnet. She crossed the room, her heels clicking against the hardwood floor. She reached out and brushed the downy satin of the coverlet.
We’ve been getting along fine
, he’d said.
This marriage is working
.

Trace was right. Her ill-timed confession hadn’t changed the situation. She hadn’t lost his love with her declaration. A woman can’t lose something she never possessed.

That horse trainer had said something else. “If you push a horse too hard, too young, you’re likely to ruin his legs. If a horse doesn’t have good legs, he don’t got nothin’ ‘cause he needs good legs for the long haul.”

Jenny wanted Trace for the long haul.

“I just have to be patient.” Patient and persistent. She knew how to be persistent.

All her life she’d fought for what she wanted. Fortune’s Design was proof of that. Well, her marriage deserved no less.

Despite her many unanswered questions, one thing she’d figured out on her own. Trace’s love for a woman had hurt him in the past, and he’d learned to protect himself. Making this marriage a success was not an impossible task, just a difficult one. A challenge.

Jenny was good at challenges. She’d follow the horse trainer’s example. She’d start slow, be patient, and work on one step at a time.

Her gaze swept the length of the bed and she grinned. She had her own version of a corrective bit.

After all, she wasn’t Monique Day’s daughter for nothing.

When Trace finally entered their darkened bedroom late that night, having spent the intervening hours shut away in his first-floor office, he was surprised to discover his wife in their bed. Well, hell. If she thought to banish him to one of the girls’ youthfully short mattresses, she had another think coming.

A lamp flared. Jenny sat up, the sheet slipped down, and Trace damn near fainted dead away. “What the hell?”

“Midnight-blue silk shot with gold and silver threads,” she said in a smokey whisper. “I thought you should see what a superior fabric can do for a lady.”

“Hold on a minute. I don’t understand. What is this?”

Today’s lesson, McBride. Walk and stop
. She smiled a siren’s promise. “Why ruin the part of our marriage that’s working? Come to bed, Trace.”

TRACE WAS still off balance the following morning as he hitched up the buggy to go for his daughters and bring them back to their new home. He could not for the life of him figure his wife out. She’d been hot enough to melt diamonds in their bed last night when he’d expected her to be cool as November well water. And now this morning she was acting … friendly.

For some reason, friendly made him nervous as hell. That and the fact she reminded him of her mother today.

She told him at breakfast she’d decided to wait one more day before reopening Fortune’s Design. She wanted to help the girls settle in, she’d said. If he didn’t know better, he might think that he’d imagined yesterday’s fight.

Trace put his worries from his mind as he halted the buggy in front of the Rankin Building. He’d missed his girls. They’d never before spent this much time apart, not since leaving Carolina.

Calling a hello toward the open windows, he hopped to the ground, then lifted Jenny down beside him. Three petticoated whirlwinds burst through the front door and he grinned, opening his arms wide.

They went to Jenny first.

She caught his disgruntled look, and between kisses, smiled at him and said, “It’s the novelty of having a mother, Trace. Don’t fret.”

He didn’t. Not really. But he was fiercely glad when the Menaces flew into his arms.

Two hours later, the novelty of being reunited had long worn off. Trace winced as a flash of calico came sailing down the polished mahogany bannister. “I knew I should have built a one-story house.”

Maribeth hopped to the floor. “Papa, I love this house. I love my bedroom and the playroom and this bannister is the very most fun.” She flew into his arms and gave him her hardest hug. “But the secret passageway… oh, Papa … that’s the best of all.”

Grinning, he stroked her hair. “You like that, do you?”

She nodded fiercely. “It’s so much fun. The secret entrance in the playroom is hidden real good. I never would have found it if I hadn’t gone through the tunnel first.” A tiny frown of worry touched her brow. “But why did you put it there, Papa? Do you expect we’ll have to hide from Indians or something?”

He laughed. “No, Meri-berri. The only person you’ll need to hide from is me if the Menaces make an appearance anytime soon. The passageway won’t do you a lick of good, ‘cause I know all its secrets. Even a few you have yet to figure out.”

“Then why did you build it?”

He shifted his gaze away from his daughter and stared into the past. “The home I grew up in had one. We played for days on end, everything from pirates to ghosts to patriot spies. It’s one of my best memories of childhood, and I wanted you girls to have that, too.”

“Who is ‘we’? Your sisters? They’ve always sounded too prissy to play pirates.”

Tye’s image rose in Trace’s mind. A replica of himself with a patch over one eye, a red sash at his waist, and a wooden sword in his hand. Maribeth was three years old when they left South Carolina. She didn’t know his twin brother ever existed, and he planned to keep it that way.

“Not my sisters,” Trace finally said. “Just a boy who used to be my friend.” Determined to change the subject, he asked her, “What are your sisters doing?”

“Katrina’s playing on the swing out back and Emma’s helping Miss Fortune in the kitchen. Papa, about Miss Fortune?”

“Yes.”

“Can we call her Mama?”

The innocent question raised his hackles. Why, he couldn’t have said, but the instinct to pull his daughter close and hold her tight and safe all but overwhelmed him.

Maybe it was fear doing this to him. They’d called another woman mother, one who didn’t deserve the title, and she’d hurt them terribly, whether they knew it or not. Neither Mari nor Kat remembered Constance and Emma’s recollections were few, thank God.

Otherwise, they wouldn’t have been so persistent about wanting a new one.

Jenny had been more of a mother to them in the past few months than their real mother ever had. Constance had been too busy reigning as queen of Charleston society to be bothered with her family. And he, fool that he was, had been too busy building a career to notice.

Well, he’d learned his lesson the hard way, and this time he intended to put his family before everything else.

“I reckon you can call her Mama if you want, Maribeth. If it’s all right with her, that is.” Trace couldn’t see what it would hurt. After all, wasn’t that one of the reasons why he’d married her? He’d wanted her to act like a mother to his children.

It was one of the few reasons he’d admit to. Even to himself.

A movement in a nearby doorway caught his attention, and he turned his head to see Jenny blinking back tears as she gazed at Maribeth, her face softened with a look of tenderness and love. In that moment, he knew a sense of rightness that did much to assuage the uneasiness he felt. Jenny wasn’t Constance; he knew that.

But they had a saying here in Texas that he took to heart. Man is the only animal that can get skinned more than once. Trace had no intention of proving the tenet true. He’d go along with this pretense of home and family, but he’d always keep his guard up.

“Maribeth?” Jenny said, emotion choking her voice. “I’d be ever so proud if you chose to call me Mama.”

He watched as his daughter ran to his wife and, laughing, threw herself into the woman’s arms.

Yes. He’d always keep his guard up, and if she ever tried to hurt them, there would be hell to pay. Hell by the name of Trace McBride.

It is always good luck to make a wish under a new moon
.

CHAPTER 13

THE NEXT FEW WEEKS passed swiftly as the McBride family settled into life in their new home. Trace completed the sale of the End of the Line and placed an advertisement in the
Democrat
announcing the opening of his office. Jenny divided her time between Fortune’s Design and the house, most often managing to make her way home by the time the girls returned from school.

Emma, Maribeth, and Katrina adored their new house and were quick to invite school friends home. Proudly, they pointed out their individual rooms. Embarrassment prevented them from mentioning that sometime between their “good nights” and “good mornings,” they invariably ended up snuggled together in one of the sisters’ beds.

Trace spent his days at his desk. Situated on the ground floor of the three-story house, the office had a separate entrance for business callers. Trace often gave potential clients a tour of the house, effectively displaying his professional talents. When he worked alone, he usually left the connecting door open so family members could wander in and share the events of their days if they so desired, which they regularly did.

After much discussion and debate, the McBride family decided their new home needed a name. They eventually settled on Willow Hill, with Katrina being the lone dissenting vote. She’d had her heart set on Kat’s House and refused to understand why it wouldn’t be appropriate.

Jenny took on the task of furnishing the home, and as pieces began to arrive, Trace was impressed by her sense of style and the way she managed to stretch their budget. “You do have a knack,” he told her one morning as she directed the placement of a rosewood parlor set before leaving for work. “If you ever want to give up the dress business, you could team up with me and decorate the houses I design.”

She beamed with pleasure at his compliment, then proceeded to prove to him why they wouldn’t make good business partners. Three potential clients left their cards at his office door during the two hours he spent with Jenny upstairs in their bedroom. She arrived at her shop to find four clients waiting anxiously beside the front door.

Customers had returned to Fortune’s Design in droves, and now her problem was one of finding enough hours to work. After careful thought she decided to spend school hours at the shop, then bring work home with her so she could spend time with her daughters in the afternoons. Many of her evenings were spent in “horse training.”

She was feeling fairly confident that they’d progressed to trot, walk, and stop.

A week following their one-month wedding anniversary, she sat at her worktable discussing a new design with Rilda Bea Sperry when the shop’s welcome bell sounded and Jenny nearly fell off her stool in surprise. “Miss Baumgardner?”

The Dallas dressmaker wore a smart rust-sateen walking dress that was an out-and-out copy of a Fortune’s Design. Jenny’s tempered flared. How dare that woman wear that dress to her shop!

“Good afternoon, Mrs. McBride.” Ethel Baumgardner’s muddy brown eyes gleamed maliciously as she glanced around the shop. “What a quaint little place you have here. It’s too bad the light is so poor. That must be one of the reasons your stitches are so often uneven.”

Jenny rose slowly to her feet, shocked at the woman’s audacity.

“I’m in town to deliver the Harvest Ball gowns I’ve made for so many of Fort Worth’s ladies,” Ethel continued. “You know the dance is tonight. Or maybe you don’t know. I don’t believe you had any commissions this year, did you? Anyway, I wanted to see your little shop.”

Rilda Bea scowled and said sotto voce, “Don’t let her get too close, dear. I do believe she sharpens her nails rather than files them.”

In a tight voice, Jenny said, “Miss Baumgardner, as you can see I am with a customer. Unless you are here to order a dress, I’d like you to leave now.”

“Order a dress?” Ethel laughed as though it were the joke of the month. “Not hardly. I simply wanted to see Fortune’s Design while I still could. You made a fine try at reviving your reputation, Miss Fortune, but after this latest trouble, there is no way your business will survive.”

“That’s Mrs. McBride.” She wasn’t about to ask what trouble, not that her lack of curiosity deterred good old Ethel.

She offered a patently false smile and said, “Of course, you might not have heard about it yet. I wouldn’t know myself if I hadn’t happened to be in the telegraph office when the note arrived. Mrs. Bowden, the operator’s wife, is a customer of mine also. Anyway, poor Mr. Bowden was so shocked he simply couldn’t keep the news to himself.”

Jenny’s stomach went sour. She stepped forward to escort the woman from her shop, but before she could lay a finger on the troublemaker’s arm, Ethel Baumgardner fired her final salvo. “The telegram came from New Orleans. Mary Rose Bailey Pratt has been horribly injured, and that means the Bad Luck Wedding Dress has now struck all the Bailey girls. I’d be worried if I were you, dear.” She smiled like a cream-fed cat. “You’re next on the list.”

SEATED IN a woven rawhide chair in the Red Light Dance Hall and Saloon, Frank Bailey nursed a powerful case of anger along with his whiskey. The memory of the battle he’d waged—and lost—with his father early that morning festered like a thorn in his spleen. Damn that man for holding out on his promise. Damn if he wasn’t crazy like everyone said.

Big Jack was sure as hell acting crazy today.
I ought to just shoot him
, Frank told himself as he slammed back his drink. Twenty-five thousand dollars plus a prime section of land—that’s what his old man had promised if he’d come back to Fort Worth to live after his release from prison.

But Big Jack had reneged on his deal. This morning he’d signed over the land, but he’d left the money in the bank in an account with strings Frank didn’t want to untie. Marriage. A grandson. Politics. The thought of it made him shiver.

No matter what he told his old man, he’d never intended to stay in Texas. Damned if Big Jack hadn’t figured it out. Frank had railed at him, making every excuse he could think of to get that money released from the bank. “I’m a gunman, Pa,” he’d said. “I rob stages, and I’ve done time in Huntsville. You think I could get elected to anything?”

The old man had given a droll look and said, “Now that’s the dumbest thing you’ve said all day. This is
Texas
, boy. Of course you can get elected.”

Scowling at the memory, Frank poured the last of the whiskey into his glass and signaled the bartender for another. He didn’t want to get elected to anything. He didn’t want his father running his life. As funny as it sounded, he’d gotten a taste of freedom while in jail, and that’s why he’d intended to head north after doing his time. “I should have never looked back,” he grumbled to himself. But the lure of easy money had called him, and here he was under his father’s thumb once again. “Maybe I will shoot him, after all.”

He glanced toward the nearby faro table where Big Jack Bailey placed another bet. Or maybe he wouldn’t have to shoot him. As wild as his father was acting tonight, somebody else might end up killing him before the sun rose.

Big Jack seldom made the rounds down in Hell’s Half Acre, so when he did schedule a visit to Fort Worth’s tenderloin district, he made damn sure it counted. The clocks had yet to strike seven and already Big Jack had tossed back drinks at three saloons, enjoyed fistfights in two others, and danced a horizontal dance with a couple of girls at the Weatherford Tap. Now he’d settled into a game of cards here at the infamous Red Light, an establishment well known for violating every principle of decency and morality known to man.

“God, I love this place.” Big Jack’s voice filled up the hole in the noise left when the fiddlers declared a break.

Standing at the carved oak bar, his boot propped on the brass rail, one of the Lucky Lady’s cowhands looked up. “You must’ve won big, boss.”

The older man took the Havana from his mouth, leaned his chair back on two legs, and laughed. “Damn right, I did. Big Jack Bailey always wins. Right, boys?”

Bitter experience having proved the truth of that statement, Frank lifted his glass in mock salute.

The conversation between his father and the ranch hands flowed around him. He didn’t bother to listen until a man approached the table and spoke in a harried voice. “Thank God, I’ve finally found you.”

“Who the hell are you?” Big Jack’s voice boomed.

Appearing totally out of place in the Red Light’s surroundings, the wiry fellow adjusted his spectacles and withdrew a sheet of paper from his pocket. “Bob Bowden. I’m from the telegraph office. This came for you earlier this afternoon, and I sent a man out to your ranch. He learned you had come into town, and due to the nature of the message, we decided to track you down. We’ve had a devil of a time finding you.”

As Big Jack reached for the message, a lanky range rider observed, “Don’t know why you couldn’t find us. Big Jack doesn’t exactly leave a little trail.”

Frank idly watched as his father read the telegram’s contents. His interest sharpened when Big Jack’s complexion paled, then almost immediately reddened with rage. He swiped his arm across the table, sending everything atop it smashing to the floor. His voice rose in a roar. “It’s all that goddamned woman’s fault!”

Frank snatched the telegram out of his father’s hand and quickly scanned the page. It was from New Orleans. His youngest sister, Mary Rose, had moved there following her marriage to a railroad magnate.

The telegram was from her husband. M.R. injured in fire. Condition critical. Requests family at her side. Signed, Stephen.

Mary Rose was Frank’s favorite sister. A deadly calm stole over him, a vivid contrast to his father’s thunderous fury.

Big Jack cursed. He ranted. He raved. He yanked the gun off his hip and shot it into the ceiling, splintering a beam. “What time does that evening freight leave out of town?” he shouted to the hushed dance hall crowd.

“Nine-thirty,” a dozen folks answered together.

Big Jack turned to Frank. “I should have known to expect trouble. The damned waiter at dinner set two knives beside my plate. That means death on the way every damned time.”

“She’s not dead yet, Pa,” Frank snapped. “Don’t anticipate.”

Big Jack glossed over his objection. “I won’t have time to get out to the ranch. I’ll have to wake up my banker to get me some cash.” He gestured toward the cowering telegraph operator. “You go with this fellow and send telegrams to your sisters in San Antonio and Waco. Tell ‘em to get themselves to New Orleans the fastest way possible. After that, I want you to find that engineer and make damn sure he doesn’t leave without us, you hear?”

Frank nodded.

Big Jack’s brow wrinkled as he stared at Frank. After a moment, he nodded as if reaching a decision. “I want you to stay here. Mary Rose doesn’t know you’re out of prison so she won’t be expecting you.” He lowered a significant look on his son. “The Bailey family has some business here in town that needs taking care of. You follow me?”

No, he didn’t. He shook his head.

Big Jack gave him a glare filled with frustration. “The dressmaker,” he muttered softly. “I warned her. You take care of her.”

Frank arched his brows. “Take care of her how?”

Rubbing his hand across his chin, Big Jack took a moment to think. “Permanently. I don’t care how you go about it. Do as you please. It wouldn’t hurt to make her suffer some, though. My girls have suffered a lot. Can you do that for me, boy?”

Frank folded his arms. If not for the news about Mary Rose, he’d have laughed. His pa had just handed him a gift. “Oh, I can do it, Pa. Although, for something like that I’ll expect a reward. A substantial reward.”

Big Jack drilled him with a look. “You’re a sonofabitch, Frank Bailey. An opportunistic sonofabitch. Damn, but it makes me proud. Sure, I’ll reward you. You do this for me, for your sisters, and you can have the money free and clear.”

“No politics?”

“No politics.”

Frank’s lips curled in an evil smile. “Consider it done, Pa.” He lifted his hat from the seat of the chair next to him and set it on his head. “You have a good trip, and give Mary Rose my love.”

“Just get the job done.”

Frank had a clear mental picture of the dressmaker’s curvaceous form. A chuckle rumbled up from the blackest part of his heart. “It’ll be my pleasure, Pa. My pleasure.”

TRACE CHECKED his watch and glanced impatiently toward the staircase. He wished his wife would hurry. He wasn’t looking forward to the Harvest Ball, but the sooner they arrived the sooner they could leave. If it were up to him, they’d skip the event, but Jenny was having none of it. She’d come home from the shop in a high temper, ranting and raving about bad luck, Big Jack Bailey, and “that dad-blamed Ethel Baumgardner.”

Trace, biting his tongue not to laugh, had offered to teach her to cuss.

Of course, once she calmed down enough to tell him the story he was not laughing. Big Jack Bailey had been quiet since the wedding. He’d told an acquaintance of Trace’s that by wearing the dress, Jenny had rightfully assumed ownership of the bad luck built into it. Would Mary Rose’s accident change his way of thinking? Was Jenny once again in danger? He needed to talk to Big Jack to find out.

He’d wanted to ride out to the Lucky Lady as soon as Jenny told him the story, but his wife had pitched a fit. In a froth over what the Dallas dressmaker had said and done, she told him in no uncertain terms she expected him to escort her to the ball as planned, and he darn well better act the besotted groom. She intended to give the people of Fort Worth something to talk about other than Mary Rose’s accident.

She had disappeared into the sewing room, and he hadn’t seen her since. Under the circumstances, Trace couldn’t help but be a bit nervous.

A door slammed above him, and since his daughters were in the kitchen with Mrs. Wilson, he knew his bride must finally be ready. He lifted his hat from the entry table, glanced toward the staircase, and froze.

“Good Lord, woman! What the hell are you wearing?” Trace knew the answer, of course. The dress all but screamed Miss Rachel’s Social Emporium. She’d obviously made a few—just a few—adjustments to a dress she’d made for one of Rachel’s girls.