Samantha Thomasohn loved weddings … until this one.
A footprint of melted snow glimmered on the wooden floor of the crowded church. Samantha snuck a look up and down the family pew, lifted her blue skirt, and placed her black leather boot over the wet spot. With the tip, she wrote, “No.” Then, carefully, she enlarged the word. She’d been eighteen for a week, and so far nothing good had happened. She wanted seventeen back, and her mother. What if this melancholy feeling never went away? An itch developed under her white stocking, near her ankle. One more annoyance to add to her memories of 1838.
“Samantha, stop fidgeting.” Zack’s blond eyebrows pinched together in a frown. Only two years older, this brother —who looked so much like her, right down to the light-blond hair and slight build—always managed to make her feel amiss.
Samantha sighed. It was more than Zack making her feel out of sorts. This morning, at her father’s insistence, she’d shed the black mourning dress she’d worn for only five months.
Zack elbowed her. Oh, it was fine for him to sit there all pious. He did not have to share quarters with the soon-to-be new Mrs. Thomasohn, a woman unknown to the family a mere two months prior. No, Zack would leave the wedding celebration, take his bride home to their farm, and the burden of dealing with a new stepmother would fall to Samantha. Thank goodness her papa hadn’t indulged in a three-day wedding celebration like Zack. Of course, marrying in blustery, late February took some of the punch out of the fifty-year-old man.
The population of Hickory Corners stood. Zack took her elbow. Did he worry she wouldn’t stand? Dare he think she might faint! Samantha clenched her teeth tightly and tried to breathe. Today couldn’t be happening. It was all a dream, except there really was a woman walking up the aisle and a silly grin on a groom’s face.
Across the aisle Betsy Larkin—er, Betsy Walker—leaned against her new husband. The sweet voice of Elsa Gerhard sounded from behind. Any other service, Samantha would listen and enjoy, but now the perfect harmony didn’t belong. Today wasn’t perfect, didn’t deserve perfection, and Samantha wanted to scream. Elsa chirped on. Looking behind her, Samantha tried to send a warning glance to her friend. Instead, she caught the gaze of Jacob Stahl, and he winked.
How dare he! Fresh! Quickly Samantha turned to face the front, hoping he’d not noticed her face redden. This day couldn’t get any worse. What if somebody had seen?
The bride stepped to the altar wearing the white silk that had arrived at the store months ago and been deemed too fancy by most of the female clientele. Cecilia hadn’t batted an eye at the price tag or color. Samantha had refused the offer of a new dress. There’d be whispers as to why she wore her old blue linen. There’d be more whispers speculating why she’d shed the black.
Love? Could it happen in two months as her father claimed?
Looking over at Betsy and Ty, Samantha knew it could. And, if anything, Elsa sang even better since becoming Mrs. Gerhard.
The congregation sat, and Samantha stared at Cecilia’s back. Brown hair coiled under a white veil. She looked so different from the woman who had been ushered into town a few months ago by river men. Then, grieving her husband, Cecilia’s long hair hung in a tangled mess over garments too thin for the Ohio cold. Two hundred miles to the east and Cecilia might have called Fort Harmar home. One hundred miles to the west and Fort Washington would have been the lucky spot. Cecilia James settled in Hickory Corners, took a room at Elsa’s boardinghouse, and started helping out Virginia Alexander, the dress shop owner.
Samantha’s father, Silas Thomasohn, took a shirt over. At the time, Samantha puzzled over the fact. Her mother, Rachel, had patched his sleeves until last year. After her death, Samantha took over the job. The basket, the needles, the worn thimble all belonged to her mother. Touching them inspired beloved memories.
It took her father five shirts to woo the widow. The day after the wedding announcement, Samantha tucked the last of her mother’s personal belongings into the old cedar chest and tried to hide the fact that with every fiber of her being she didn’t want a stepmother.
The ceremony began. “No” dried into nothingness on the church floor. A silent cry unheeded by all. Samantha’s brothers stared forward, unperturbed. Even Raymond, who’d hurried home from Ohio’s Willoughby Medical University, seemed calm about the nuptials.
If only Mama had lived.
Up front, Noah Tidewell, the minister, looked to be enjoying himself. A tuft of white hair nodded in agreement to every word he said. He acted like it was every day a local businessman married a woman twenty-two years his junior. Only nine years older than me, Samantha thought, closing her eyes. Cecilia James—oh, and with the minister’s words it became Thomasohn—claimed the same birth year as Samantha’s oldest brother, Trevor.
Samantha tried to sneak a glance back at Jacob. He stared at her instead of straight ahead. The nerve of the man. Her stomach tightened. He’d traveled home with Raymond, intent on helping Doc. It had been a year since she’d last seen Jacob. Her memory had him patting the top of her head, as if she were a child, and going off with her brother. Just one scant year later, his chestnut hair was a bit longer, his shoulders a shade wider, and his manner a whole lot brasher.
Raymond intended to finish school and switch places with Jacob. Both men agreed that Doc’s eyesight impaired him more than the crippling arthritis. Samantha suspicioned that Jacob was out of money, and thus his college days were over. The Stahls thought little of education. They were of the land. Samantha often heard Gunther Stahl question Jacob’s choice of professions. When the Stahl men came into the store, they seemed to think that she heard nothing as they jawed about prices, crops, and Jacob.
Doc certainly never winked at women during church. Jacob must have learned a few things at college besides how to mend bones. His mother would be none too pleased. The Stahl family always set the perfect example of how one should behave during church services. Samantha shifted uncomfortably. Why was Jacob behind her instead of in front of her? Had the Stahls finally overflowed their favorite bench? Zack said if many more Stahls were born, they’d need to change the name of the town to Stahls’ Corners.
“I do.”
It was over. Done. Samantha had a stepmother.
“And you’re seventeen, Dear?” Cecilia asked the first time they’d met. “Why aren’t you married?”
Because I won’t marry the first person who asks, Samantha had thought, and because I’m happy where I am.
Never mind that no one had asked. It hadn’t mattered until today, when suddenly Samantha wasn’t happy.
The minister called for a prayer. Samantha bowed her head. She’d been continually praying Cecilia would disappear. Instead, today, the woman would be moving into the upstairs of the mercantile. Obviously God wasn’t listening to Samantha Ann Thomasohn.
Zack cleared his throat. A sound designed to inspire reverence. If she ignored that first hint, she’d get nudged again.
I will not cry.
Silas Thomasohn beamed as the congregation stood. Well-wishers surged forward. Zack touched Samantha’s elbow, meaning to usher her up front. Always the brother to make sure appearances were met, Zack usually had the shovel ready before the snow flurried. Shrugging off his hand, Samantha tried to turn down the middle aisle.
Zack’s fingers gripped her elbow. “Papa is expecting you.”
She’d sensed Jacob’s presence before she saw him. Was it a scent? A feeling?
He easily removed her from Zack’s grip. “Samantha, Mrs. Crabtree was hoping you’d open up the store so she can get a few staples before heading out to your brother’s.”
The slight beard and mustache were new. Samantha didn’t like facial hair, much. And, she certainly hadn’t liked the wink. Still, Jacob was offering her an opportunity to escape.
“That can wait—” Zack began.
With a jerk, Samantha freed her elbow and clutched at Jacob’s sleeve, noticing for the first time how he towered over her. At five feet, three inches, everyone towered over her—just not with Jacob’s bearing. Oh, pshaw, the wedding had befuddled her. “I’ll go right away. Thanks for fetching me.”
The sting of winter greeted her at the church’s door. Samantha breathed deeply till it almost hurt.
“I’ll help you.” Jacob’s voice came right at her ear.
He took her cape from the peg and handed it to her. How he knew the correct one, Samantha had no idea. His fingers brushed hers, and she shivered. The cape dropped to the floor. Samantha bent to pick it up and finally scratched at the spot just above her ankle. So what if Jacob Stahl thought her unladylike. Truly this day could get no worse. Her father remarried, and she acting clumsy in front of Jacob Stahl. As if he mattered. He shouldn’t have winked. He was her brother’s friend, not hers.
She felt so removed from everything. As if her world tilted and suddenly she no longer stood on firm ground. Taking a deep breath, and holding her chin steady, she marched toward the mercantile.
Jacob watched Samantha. He’d never seen her so tense. Looked like the little princess really disliked having Cecilia James as a stepmother. That Samantha had managed to stay single nigh until age eighteen was an answered prayer. He’d wait a bit longer, to let her get over the misgivings she had with her stepmother. When he took her hand in marriage, he’d know that she was leaving home to be with him and not leaving home to get away from Cecilia Thomasohn.
God would show him when the time was right.
Jacob believed in prayer.
So did Olivia Crabtree, who marched with Samantha toward the mercantile. She had Samantha all picked out for her son. Martin Crabtree had graduated from college last semester and was apprenticing with a lawyer in Capital City. To Jacob’s notice, Martin had no designs on Samantha.
Only God knew Jacob’s feelings. Samantha was sunshine and elegance, and Jacob was nothing more than an oversized bear. He admired her high-spiritedness and the way she so easily shone during the town’s spelling bees. He liked to see a woman add a sum in her head and challenge the town miser.
Jacob had fallen in love with Samantha the day she’d tricked Oskar Bedloe into paying his mercantile bill. She’d been fifteen, with blond hair pulled back in a knot that showed the graceful curve of her neck. Her cheeks had been flushed.
Jacob liked the thought that he could bring a blush to her cheeks. He’d make the wedding celebration at Trevor’s an opportunity. The cocoon of Samantha’s family was hatching open, exposing her to the world, and maybe he’d be the one to help her spread her wings.
But, first, he needed to get there. Jacob walked to the barbershop. The red-and-white-striped pole symbolized haircuts and surgery. The curtains were drawn. Doc’s hands could no more manage the scissors than they could the knife. So far, no one seemed interested in trusting their hair to Jacob. Pushing open the door, he took the stairs two at a time until he got to Doc’s rooms. For years, Doc had lived in one room while using the other for patients. Now both rooms were for patients, Doc being one.
“How was the wedding?” Doc’s deep voice belied his condition. A person might expect the man to jump out of bed and do a jig, so strong was the sound. Only when the listener saw his glassy eyes and gnarled fingers did the truth dawn.
Covering Doc’s feet with a blanket, Jacob answered, “Seemed like most weddings. It was too long.”
“I stood up with Silas when he married Rachel.”
“Really? I wasn’t aware of that.” Jacob adjusted Doc’s pillow and grasped the frail man by the arms. He pulled him to a sitting position and placed a water glass on the bedside table.
“Silas wasn’t a rich man then. No, his family came from New York. They were craftsmen. The money was Rachel’s.”
“The Gustefans are good people.”
“They are, and Silas was the peddler.”
Jacob blinked. “He was?”
“Yes, he’d come through twice a year. He always had a treat for Rachel. Got so she looked forward to his comings. Then, she looked forward to him.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“It caused a stir for awhile, then they built the store and started nesting.”
“He has such bearing.”
“Sometimes confidence comes from inside, not from your surroundings.”
“And is that my piece of advice for today?” Jacob smiled as he held the water glass up to Doc’s mouth. Doc often dispensed medical wisdom; today the topic had turned to something a bit more personal.
“Go after what you want.”
“Oh, I intend to.”
“She’s worth it.”
Jacob blinked. “And you’d be talking about?”
“Miss Samantha.”
“And how—”
“You talk in your sleep, Boy. Don’t think you’re ever going to be able to keep many secrets from a wife.”