Catherine slipped into the Bear Creek church after worship had already started. The voices of the congregation rose in mostly harmonious singing as the people stood in praise.
An empty pew at the back beckoned and she slipped in there.
She’d donned her mother’s dress again, and being out of her usual outfit had her feeling uncomfortable in her skin. But if she planned to be in society more, shouldn’t she get used to dressing this way?
Did she really plan to be seen in town more? The truth was, she didn’t have a real plan. Not yet. But if Matty hadn’t given up on her…
She couldn’t do anything about her shorn hair. It was the most noticeable thing that made her stand out from the other women.
Through the sea of people—enough to make her stomach constrict with nervousness—she spotted Matty’s blond head near the front of the sanctuary. Upon closer observation, she saw his family in the pew next to him. And behind him.
They were such a large part of the community.
Nervousness made her hands shake as she gripped the pew back in front of her. There was no use pretending to use the hymnal when she couldn’t read the words inside. The tune was something she’d heard her mother sing as a child, but she was too afraid to mess it up to sing loudly.
A young woman in the pew directly in front of Catherine turned to glance over her shoulder as the preacher gave the direction to sit down. Her eyes widened even as Catherine smiled tentatively at her. She whirled back to face the front. But moments later, she leaned to whisper to the older woman—her mother?—sitting next to her.
Surely the timing of that whisper was coincidental. It would be vanity to think the young woman was talking about her.
The preacher shared several pieces of community news.
Two rows up, a pair of heads twisted, maybe drawn by the movement behind them. Catherine recognized one of the two women. Luella McKeever.
Their eyes met for a fraction of a second before Luella whipped back to face the front.
Catherine must be imagining the whispers that seemed to be traveling through the entire sanctuary. Why would anyone care that she attended church?
But that didn’t stop her hands from trembling or the hot flush that no doubt turned her face tomato red.
She tried to regulate her breathing and focus on the preacher leading the congregation in a prayer.
But after his rousing amen she was sure that she heard whispers perk right back up.
Those long-ago doubts and insecurities rose like a tide. She fisted her hands in her lap and bowed her head, squeezing her eyes closed. She was imagining things. Giving things a meaning when they had none.
And she wasn’t eight years old anymore.
She was strong enough to maintain an entire homestead.
And Matty believed in her.
She raised her head and worked at releasing her fisted fingers, relaxing her hands. She had a right to be here, a right to hear the message just like anyone else.
She stopped looking at the other worshippers and focused on the man in the pulpit, delivering a reading from the Bible.
But with her eyes focused forward, she couldn’t help but see when Matty twisted in his seat. His eyes traveled over the gathered people until he met her gaze squarely.
The wide smile that spread over his lips loosened some of the tension coiling so tightly inside her.
Then, to her utter shock, he stood and edged his way toward the center aisle.
“`Scuse me.”
Though his voice was pitched low, in the quietness of the sanctuary, Matty’s words were plainly audible.
He moved past his mama, Seb and Breanna and then out into the aisle. Seb and Breanna craned their necks back until Penny must’ve hissed something at them and then they grudgingly turned to face forward.
And then Catherine couldn’t see anything other than the handsome cowboy who filled the aisle and her view. He scooted into the pew next to her.
Her face still burned at the commotion they’d jointly caused—more people had turned to look at them—but joy filled her. Her cowboy had come for her.
He closed his hand around hers. Their shoulders brushed.
“Hi,” he whispered softly.
The preacher called them to stand for another hymn. Matty’s strong baritone rang out from beside her, giving her courage to follow him in song.
When the preacher directed them to sit again and began his sermon, the crowd’s attention remained with him. Whether it was because they’d got a look at the newcomer and their curiosity was satisfied, or because of Matty’s presence beside her, she didn’t know.
But the courage she’d gained before he’d stood up and come to sit with her was enough.
Matty kept Catherine at his side after worship was over.
He didn’t know why she’d come, but joy filled him at her mere presence beside him.
They stood with the midday sunlight beating down on their bare heads. For a while they were surrounded by his family. His sisters-in-law all took turns hugging her, while his brothers welcomed her. The nieces and nephews and Jonas and Penny’s younger kids swarmed around, running through the adults and then off to play with friends.
Penny stood to one side as the rest of them filtered away, talking with friends or loading up.
“We’d love for you to come out and join us for the noon meal.” Penny’s face was shining. She placed a hand on Catherine’s arm.
Before Catherine could respond, Luella approached.
“Matty, can I talk to you for a minute?”
Catherine stiffened at his side.
“Morning, Catherine,” Luella greeted belatedly.
“Morning,” Catherine murmured.
He didn’t want to leave Catherine, not when she’d taken such a big step in coming—alone—to worship this morning. And he couldn’t imagine what it would look like if he abandoned her for Luella.
“Please. It’s important,” Luella said.
“I’ll keep Catherine company for a few moments,” his ma said. Curiosity shone in the depths of her eyes, but they’d had a few talks about what Catherine meant to him and he knew Penny wouldn’t let her come to harm, even from the town gossips.
He followed Luella toward her family’s wagon, though they stopped well out of earshot of both her family and his.
She clutched her hands together in front of her midsection. A sure sign of nervousness.
“Well?” he asked.
She frowned at him, but then must’ve thought better of it because she suddenly smiled. “I think… I made a mistake. When I told you not to come courting anymore.”
Her words caught him completely by surprise. “What?” He took off his hat, rubbed a finger up the bridge of his nose.
“I… We’d been courting for a while and you didn’t seem to be interested in moving any faster. I didn’t want to wait forever to get married. So I thought…” She swallowed nervously. “I thought if I ended things, it might spur you on to making a decision once you saw what you were missing.”
“So you broke things off…to get me to be more serious about our relationship?” It didn’t make sense to him. At all.
Tears filled her eyes, and she shrugged. A few weeks ago, he would’ve been taken in by her visible emotions. He would’ve done whatever she wanted, got down on one knee and proposed right then and there.
But now he looked over his shoulder, wanting to make sure Catherine was being taken care of.
When he turned back to her, Luella leaned to one side, her eyes following the path his gaze had taken only seconds ago. Her expression hardened slightly. “I never expected you to get hurt, or to…”
“To fall for someone else?” he finished gently. Because it was the truth. He’d fallen hard for Catherine and there was no going back. “Luella, I’m glad we were friends during school and I’m glad we’re still friends, but…what I feel for you doesn’t go anything past that. Not anymore.” And it probably never had.
“I’m sorry.”
Her eyes flashed. “What do you see in her anyway? She’s…”
“She’s a woman I care very deeply for,” he said firmly. “And if I hear anyone spreading gossip about her, malicious or otherwise, I’d have a problem with it. We didn’t treat her right when we were children, but we can choose to do differently now.”
He paused.
“And that’s what I expect from you, my friend.”
Catherine knelt near one of the Whites’ two wagons—because their family was so large they couldn’t travel in a single conveyance—listening to Oscar and Sarah’s toddler girl explain something about the Bible class the young children had been dismissed to.
She couldn’t decipher all the words and was relieved when Matty came around the side of the wagon.
“Unca Matty!”
He swung the girl up in his arms, and she laid her head on his shoulder.
Kind of like Catherine longed to do.
One small thumb popped into the little bow mouth.
Curling up against the cowboy probably wouldn’t be appropriate, not here in the churchyard. What a little girl could get away with…well, didn’t mean Catherine could get away with it. And she desperately didn’t want to embarrass him.
But he surprised her even as he took her hand, laced their fingers together.
Her eyes cut to where she’d last seen him standing with Luella. She’d experienced such a powerful pull of jealousy she’d had to fist her hands at her sides. But she’d somehow maintained a facade of calm in front of Matty’s mother and then been distracted by the young girl.
“I can’t come for lunch,” she said softly. “Not this time. Will your mother be offended?”
He squeezed her hand. “No. Not if there’s a next time.”
She lifted her chin. After all he’d done for her, saying the words was the least she could do for him. “I’d…I’d like it if you would come calling.”
He held her gaze for a long moment, then very deliberately set the little girl down and told her to go find her ma. When he straightened, he took both of her hands in his, edged her slightly closer than she had been before.
“I thought you were dead set against me. Too many things in the way. What changed your mind?”
“Pop.” She swallowed back the grief. This wasn’t the time for that emotion, not yet. “He’s been slowly sinking into the…dementia,” she barely stumbled over the word, “for years. This season has been especially bad. And he told me in a lucid moment that he didn’t want me to be alone. That I shouldn’t let fear stop me from being with you. Because I…”
Her eyes had flitted around during her confession, not settling on any one place on him. But now Matty squeezed her hands firmly, and she forced her eyes to meet his gaze.
“Because you…”
“…Care about you, too,” she whispered.
“I wish we weren’t in such a public place,” he said. “I’d really like to kiss you right now.”
Frantically, she glanced around. Until he jiggled her hands slightly. “I might’ve been a tease back in our school days, but I’ll do my best to keep from embarrassing you now.”
She believed him, believed the sincerity of his intense gaze.
“I can’t make any guarantees for my brothers, though.”
She laughed a little. “I like your brothers.”
“Good.” His eyes crinkled around the edges. “I was real pleased to see you this morning. It wasn’t so bad, coming to town, was it?”
It had been terrifying, not that she would admit it to him.
“I—it—I did it,” she concluded.
Again came that soft smile, the one that he seemed to only give to her. “You don’t have to face things alone anymore,” he reminded her.
That would take some getting used to.