Page 62 of West Wind

She was, it turned out, Jacob’s third wife. He had grown children spread across the West, sons and daughters from his first two marriages. Life with a twice-widowed man several years older than herself seemed to agree with the pleasant woman.

Jacob was a circuit rider, a traveling preacher whose congregation was small and scattered. He’d spend a few days at home, then travel for several days from settlement to settlement before returning to his family. When he was on the farm he tended the cows and chickens and the garden. While he was away, those chores fell to Mary Beth and the children.

Annabelle was surprised to learn that Mary Beth was only five years older than herself. She was a little heavy, pleasantly rounded, and her face was tanned and had started to wrinkle. Too many days in the hot sun and too many hours being pounded by alkali dust had taken its toll. But Mary Beth was warm and friendly, and by the time Annabelle stepped from the tub, she felt as if she’d known the woman all her life.

She’d never had any real women friends before. Her vocal training had begun at the age of twelve, just after her parents had died in a carriage accident. The musical conservatories in Paris were fiercely competitive, and no one developed close friendships. The women she met after she left the conservatory were still competitors, singers vying for the same parts, rivals of a sort. But Suzanne Castleton had quickly become a friend, and now Mary Beth, a woman she’d just met, was beginning to feel like the sister she’d never had.

Maybe running had been the right decision after all.

Maybe a short life lived with love and friendship and excitement was better than a long and lonely life. If only Henri hadn’t had to die for her to discover that fact.

Mary Beth behaved as if they were having a grand dinner party. She presented Annabelle with a white dress, eyelet over linen, a young-looking dress that Mary Beth swore she hadn’t been able to fit into since her first child had been born. With a comically dismal face she surveyed Annabelle’s tiny waist, and then her own.

They fiddled with one another’s hair, putting it up and taking it down, giggling at the absurd styles they created. Finally, they piled their hair atop their heads, crowning themselves with a few simple flowers from the Filmore garden. Annabelle felt as light and free as the feather in the band of her hat. She giggled as she set the table for seven, and filled a vase with flowers like the ones she and Mary Beth wore in their hair.

Annabelle smoothed the pretty dress she wore, the snug waist and the flowing skirt. The simple collar was trimmed with lace Should she wear her medicine bag? It definitely didn’t suit the style. She finally removed the medicine bag and placed it with her hat, grudgingly parting with her good luck charm.

She even polished her red boots until they shone again. When she walked they peeked out from under her skirts. What would Shelley think of her now, with her white dress and pink flowers in her hair?

Mary Beth called the men to the table. The hostess placed Shelley not at Annabelle’s side, but directly across from her. Jacob sat at one end of the table and Mary Beth at the other, her three boys nearby.

Shelley was clean-shaven and had put on a fresh shirt with a string tie, the tie borrowed from Jacob, no doubt. His face was so tanned the white shirt was striking against his skin. Annabelle wondered if the same was true of her. Her skin was not as sun-kissed as his, but it was darker than it had ever been, browned by the sun.

He stared at her across the table, a sly smile on his face. She couldn’t help but return his smile. There was a fire in his eyes that only she could extinguish. A hunger only she could satisfy.

“You look lovely tonight, Annie,” he said.

“So do you.” She couldn’t wait to finish their delicious supper and retire to the barn, where Mary Beth had said they’d spend the night. For a while the voices around her faded and there was no one but the two of them. She barely tasted the chicken, even after all her complaints about their limited menu on the trail. Shelley didn’t take his eyes off her. Not as he ate, not as he answered Jacob Filmore’s questions.

She was a vision. How did she manage to be more beautiful every time he saw her? It wasn’t just the dress, or the hair, though they were lovely. Her face was radiant, alive, pink-cheeked. Her lips were the color of fresh plums, her hair as shiny as silk.

Jacob cleared his throat. “I’m quite a fiddler, you know.”

“What?” Shelley turned to him, pulling himself away from his daydream.

“Mary Beth suggested you might like to hear a little music this evening,” Jacob repeated. “I play the fiddle.”

Shelley grinned. “Maybe you could do a song with Annie. She’s a fine singer. Prettiest voice in the world, I bet.” Perhaps he was a bit prejudiced, but he’d certainly never heard anyone who could challenge her.

Annie and the preacher huddled together until they decided on a song they both knew.

Jacob fetched his fiddle and warmed up for a few minutes, tuning, listening with a practiced ear. He was, Shelley decided, a musician at heart, lost in his own world, hearing nothing of their chatter as he tuned his instrument, his eyes closed and his body relaxed.

Annie stood next to the fiddler in front of the fireplace, her back erect, her head high. The tips of her red boots peeked from under her white skirt as she folded her hands at her waist and began to sing, Jacob accompanying her.

She sang ‘Amazing Grace,’ her voice strong and rich and rapturous, her eyes fixed somewhere beyond Shelley’s shoulder as she poured her heart into the song. It was powerful, literally and emotionally. Jacob closed his eyes. Mary Beth ignored the tears that fell from hers. The three boys, completely quiet for the first time that day, stared at her with open mouths, awed.

Shelley’s face revealed nothing, but deep inside he experienced a sickening gut-churning revelation.

Poised and regal, she sang from her very soul. Near the end of the hymn her eyes met his and she smiled. She smiled just for him. But she wasn’t his Annie anymore.

She was Annabelle St. Clair, and he carried her wanted poster in his saddlebag.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

The room was silent for a few seconds after she and Jacob finished “Amazing Grace.” The boys were the first to break the silence with enthusiastic whoops and hollers. Mary Beth wiped away her tears and then applauded loudly. Only Shelley remained unmoved.

Annabelle turned to Jacob with a pleased smile. “I never expected to find such a fine violinist out here in the middle of nowhere.”