twenty–seven

AURORA’S FIRST THOUGHT upon waking Sunday morning was that the world had gone mighty quiet. Even the birds neglected to sing on this bright, shiny Lord’s day. The sun streamed through Charmion’s charming filmy white curtains, laying puddles of light across the sheet and making her squint and blink. Even Zane Sager would have a hard time worrying on such a—

She sat bolt upright. Now she remembered why this feeling of peace and well-being suffused her spirit. And she remembered why she felt as if cotton wadding stuffed her ears. Her grandmama had shot that vile Sam Jones, right across the top of her head, deafening her for the time being.

Jumping out of bed, she listened hard. Maybe she could hear a bit of noise coming from downstairs. She hoped it wasn’t her imagination. She very much wanted to hear Zane repeat those three magical words a few hundred times today.

As she hurriedly got dressed, she tried to remember falling asleep last night. Bedelia had helped her wash her hair and get into a clean nightgown—mercy, her entire body had ached in every muscle and joint, as if somebody had run over her with a wagon—and she’d climbed between fresh sheets hoping to stay awake long enough to get another kiss from Zane. Before she knew it, though, everything had jumbled into a silent, cloudy dream. Probably Grandpapa had dosed her with something to make her sleep, which also explained why she didn’t have a migraine.

After a futile minute spent attempting to tame the wild curls snarling about her head, she gave up and wadded the whole mess into an old-fashioned snood she found in a bureau drawer. Calling it a job well done, she stuffed her feet into slippers and pelted down the stairs.

She found the family in the dining room, finishing a large Southern breakfast. Her stomach responded to the lovely aroma of oatmeal, bacon, and toast with a rumble so loud that even she heard it. However, food would wait.

“Where is he?” she demanded of nobody and everybody.

“Well, if it isn’t Sleeping Beauty,” Schuyler said, slathering fig preserves on his toast. “I win. Levi said noon, Joelle thought eleven. But I”—he crammed the toast into his mouth and chewed—“I knew you wouldn’t be able to wait past eight before inflicting yourself on the poor fellow. Don’t pout, he’s gone down to the hotel to see Mr. Spencer about a marriage license.”

“I’m not pouting, and I can hear you,” she said, taking a bowl off the bar and helping herself to oatmeal.

“What have you done to your hair?” Joelle frowned. “Even I know snoods have been out of fashion since 1863.”

Aurora sat down next to Grandmama. “I may cut it off like yours. All these curls are so tiresome.”

“Don’t you dare!” Joelle looked horrified. “I’m growing mine back as fast as I can.”

“Let me know how you’re coming along with that,” Aurora said. “I can help with a little pulling, if you like.”

Everyone laughed except Grandmama, who placed a gentle hand on Aurora’s arm. “Did you sleep well, love? How do your ears feel?”

“Stuffed up, and I slept well.” She tried to sound cheerful and not pouty. Zane would eventually come back. “Are we not going to church?”

“I think we’re going to become Baptist,” Joelle said. “I’m pretty sure Gil Reese was in that mob last night, and I don’t like the idea of my pastor standing on my front lawn in a black robe, holding a torch. I don’t think there’s a penny’s worth of difference between Baptists and Methodists anyway.”

“I don’t like the idea of listening to Gil Reese pontificate under any circumstances,” Schuyler growled. “Self-important twit. I hope he’s convicted and put in jail with the rest of those bigots.”

“Now, Schuyler.” Joelle patted his hand.

“And another thing,” he continued, warming to his topic. “I don’t want him pronouncing our wedding vows. What do you think about getting married in Reverend Boykin’s church, Jo?”

Joelle’s lovely smile bloomed. “That’s a brilliant idea! Let’s do it today!”

“Today?” Schuyler glanced at Grandmama. “What do you think about that, Mrs. Winnie?”

“What difference does it make what she thinks?” Joelle demanded. “No disrespect intended, Grandmama, but we’re the ones getting married. We’re both adults.” She shoved back her chair and stared at Schuyler. “But maybe you’d rather wait? Your brother and sister wouldn’t be here—”

“No, of course I don’t want to wait.” He laughed. “After all, I didn’t attend either Jamie or Camilla’s wedding. I always thought all this wedding-dress, bridal-wreath hoopla was unnecessary.” He took Joelle’s hands and kissed them. “The sooner the better. Let’s get married today!”

Aurora looked at the front door, through which Zane would arrive at some point. She would like to get married today too, but as she tried to remember what her last interaction with Mr. Sager had been upon the subject, things got very fuzzy. Grandpapa had insisted she say yes to some proposal, but when she’d pressed Zane in the kitchen, he’d said something like I wish I could spend the rest of my life with you, not just the next few days.

In fact, those had been his exact words. What had he meant? It occurred to her that he’d only agreed to marry her because he was being forced to spend all of the next few days, including the nights, as her protector. Which implied that when the crisis was over, he’d consider himself free to leave.

Would he take off and never return? He certainly could. She knew plenty of women who’d had their men go to war and never come back. Zane might even think he was doing her a favor, considering his sense of his own “damage,” as he put it.

But . . . but . . . the crisis had come and gone before they’d said any vows. Now he wouldn’t have to marry her.

On the other hand, he said he loved her last night. Four times. Although that might have been part of her wonderful relaxed dream.

She pushed away from the table. “Excuse me,” she mumbled. “I have someplace I need to go.”

He had looked for her everywhere. When Zane came back from the Gum Pond Hotel at nine o’clock with the marriage license in his coat pocket, he’d burst into the dining room, hoping to find Aurora settled at breakfast with the rest of the family.

Yes, they said, she’d come down a little after half past seven, wide awake and making jokes, back to her normal sunny self. Somebody thought they’d been talking about Schuyler and Joelle tying the knot that very day at the Negro Methodist Church when Aurora said she had to go somewhere.

Nobody remembered where.

So he’d rushed throughout the house, calling her name like a fool. He even went down into the cellar with a lantern—though he couldn’t imagine Aurora voluntarily pursuing any errand down there alone—and then all the way up to the attic. Again, the bloodstains on the floor made that a crazy idea for a hiding place. Finally he returned to the dining room and sat there alone, hoping she might realize how worried they all were and come back on her own.

The rest of the family didn’t seem concerned. Joelle checked the bedroom, said she wasn’t there, and none of her belongings seemed to be missing. So he didn’t know what else to do but wait.

An hour went by, then two. Now genuinely concerned, he decided to take a walk around town. Maybe she’d decided to stretch her legs and got lost.

In her own hometown. That was absurd, but he couldn’t sit here any longer. He trudged up the stairs to his room for his Bible. Maybe he’d go sit in the empty church—surely church was over by now—and read and pray. And worry.

He started to open the door to his room but paused with his hand on the knob. It was ajar. He always closed the door when he left the room. It was a personal habit, and he never changed habits, a fact that had saved his life on more than one occasion.

Sliding his gun out of the holster, he pushed the door open a little at a time.

He stared at the bed, where Aurora lay curled on her side, fast asleep, with his Bible flattened open beside her. Her hair was loose, spilling like flame across his pillow, and he was stricken with a surge of longing so deep he nearly fell to his knees. Before he could do anything so dunderheaded, he returned his gun to its holster, then unbuckled the whole thing and dropped it on the bedside table. It made a large thud, which caused Aurora to turn over with a ladylike little snort.

Which made him laugh and sit down beside her hard enough to bounce her nearly off the bed.

She sat up, wide-eyed. “Zane! I fell asleep!”

He nodded. “You’re not shouting. Your ears must be better.”

She yawned and knuckled her eyes. “Some. You still sound like you’re in another room. I think Grandpapa drugged me good. I tried to stay awake.”

“I’ve been calling and calling. Did you not hear me?”

She gave him a reproachful look. “I just told you—”

“Right, right. It’s just that I was worried. I was about to go look for you in town.”

“Why would I go to town?”

“Why would you come up to my room and go to sleep like Goldilocks? And what are you doing with my Bible?”

“I was reading the parts you marked. And what you wrote in the margins.” She peered at him from beneath her lashes, her cheeks flushed like a rose. “I found my name several times. Are you angry with me?”

He looked at her, that beautiful hair curling into her eyes and over her shoulders, golden eyes still drowsy, and he couldn’t find one iota of anger within a hundred miles. “I’m very angry. I’m afraid I’m going to have to marry you to make you pay.”

She grinned. “Oh, goody. I was hoping you’d say that. Especially since we’re sitting on your bed and you shut the door. Grandpapa wouldn’t like that at all. Also, since you mentioned it, Joelle and Schuyler have arranged to get Reverend Boykin to pronounce their vows this afternoon, and we might as well kill two birds with one—”

He took her lips with his, burying one hand in that glorious red mane tumbling down her back. Coming up for air, he said gruffly, “You talk entirely too much, Miss Pete.”

“Well, if you’re going to be critical, maybe you can think of something better to do.”

He could. And he did.

“I might have known I’d have to share the altar with you,” Joelle grumbled as she pinned Aurora’s curls into a simple knot at the back of her head. “I should have bought that monstrosity you made me try on, in your size.”

“Now you’re just being mean,” Aurora said, craning her neck to see the back of her hair in the mirror. “Besides, there isn’t going to be an altar. We’re getting married in a saloon.”

Joelle laughed. “That’s my favorite part of this whole thing. Besides, you know, getting to marry my childhood sweetheart.”

Aurora laughed. “Everyone but me thought you hated him, right up until the day he proposed.”

Joelle bent over to brush her own hair, conveniently hiding her face. But her ear was scarlet. “He was pretty charming, for an adolescent prankster who made my life miserable.”

“I knew it!” Aurora snatched the brush. “Here, sit down at the vanity and let me do that. You’re making a mess.”

Taming her sister’s red-gold tresses into an elegant twist and loaning her a pearl-studded comb for decoration, Aurora stood back to study Joelle in the mirror. The bronze medieval-style dress Charmion had made for Joelle after the fire played up her fiery coloring, and its elegant lines emphasized her statuesque beauty.

“Nobody will even see me when you walk down the stairs,” Aurora said with satisfaction. “You look like a queen.”

Joelle made a rude noise. “You know there’s one person who won’t be looking at anybody else.”

Aurora took Joelle’s hands. “I’m glad we’re getting married together, Jo. Otherwise, I might be just a little . . . nervous.”

“You? Nervous?” Joelle looked incredulous.

“Yes. I—I love him so much, it frightens me. But everything will be so different. I’m used to telling other people what to do. What if he tries to boss me around?”

Joelle’s blue eyes twinkled with sly humor. “Of course he will try sometimes. But you’ll find ways to convince him he wants what you want.”

“Jo!”

“Oh, I’m just teasing.” Joelle’s tone grew more serious. “Pete, you’re marrying a godly man. You pray for Zane to follow Jesus Christ, and then you can confidently follow him.”

“That sounds right. But it sounds messy.”

“I’m sure it will be. Aurora, none of us is perfect. We’re going to make mistakes and struggle through things. But isn’t it wonderful that God gave us a partner to struggle with—and have fun with?”

“Oh, it is!” Aurora flung her arms around her sister. “Let’s go get married!”