The Bride of Willow Creek(65)
Studying a point in space, Angie slowly nodded. She had made a very wrong assumption. Lucy and Daisy did not dislike their grandmother. They didn’t resent Winnie Govenor’s reprimands, and they believed their grandmother loved them.
None of the women spoke after the girls ran outside again.
Finally Tilly went to the door and leaned out to make sure the girls weren’t eavesdropping. “It sounds like Winnie makes a better grandmother than a mother.”
Dorothy Church blew on the smoking crimping iron. “Maybe she wants a second chance. She can’t change the estrangement between herself and Laura, but maybe she hopes to correct her mistakes with Laura’s children.”
Molly made a snorting sound. “If Winnie really wanted to do right by those girls, then Daisy wouldn’t be lurching around here like a drunken miner. Her foot would have been straightened years ago.”
Angie was glad someone shared her opinion about Winnie Govenor.
Tilly stood at the door and smiled back into the kitchen. “You know, I wish I could see Miss Lily’s Paris gown, too.”
And suddenly they were laughing and chattering again and everything was all right.
But underneath the banter and the bustle of preparation, Angie’s thoughts circled around a disturbing new way of looking at things. She had believed the Govenors wanted Lucy and Daisy only to punish Sam for ruining their daughter. But maybe, in their own strange way, the Govenors truly cared about their granddaughters. Lucy and Daisy thought so. And children had a gift for spotting hypocrisy and deceit.
Nothing would change her opinion that Lucy and Daisy belonged with their father. But the situation had seemed more clear cut when the Govenors could be condemned as black-hearted villains on every level. Now a troubling gray area had appeared.
Everything was ready. Angie’s cape lay folded over the back of a kitchen chair. She’d packed her evening bag with a fresh handkerchief, a small bottle of eau de cologne, and a puff to blot the shine from her nose and forehead after the dancing began. Her satin gown glowed in the lamplight. She had checked the mirror a dozen times to admire her fashionably crimped bangs and the single tease of a curl at the back of her neck. Tilly’s lovely hair ornament was well anchored at the crown of her head and completed her ensemble to perfection.
Wetting her lips in nervous anticipation, Angie stood in the center of the kitchen, afraid to sit lest she crush her gown, afraid to touch anything lest she soil her gloves. Her gaze flew to the schoolhouse clock over the table just as Sam came in the back door, followed by the girls.
Angie’s breath caught in the back of her throat, and her heart stopped. Sam wore a dark cutaway over a silver-shot waistcoat. His white shirt was one of the new pleated soft shirts, but the high butterfly collar was starched and as stiff as it should be. His dark hair was brushed to a glossy sheen, and he’d tied it back with a length of black ribbon.
Stunned, Angie spread her hands. “You look . . .” Handsome didn’t begin to describe his appearance tonight. He might have stepped from the pages of a gentlemen’s magazine. Except for the black eye, of course. Astonishingly, Sam appeared as comfortable and at ease in formal wear as he did in his denims and flannels.
He smiled but his gaze narrowed in intensity as he slowly scanned her gown, letting his interest linger at her small cinched waist, and again at the curve of breasts swelling above her neckline. When her cheeks started to burn and she thought her nerves would fly apart, he finally met her eyes.
“You look beautiful,” he said in a low, gruff voice.
Suddenly they were shy with each other, strangers again. If the girls hadn’t been present as a buffer, neither would have found anything to say.
Lucy and Daisy gazed back and forth between them, eyes wide with awe and admiration.
“You don’t look like you,” Lucy said to Sam.
Laughing, he knelt in front of her. “Because of the black eye or because of the fancy rig I’m wearing?”
“I don’t know.” Puckering her lips, Lucy glanced at Angie. “And Angie looks like a fairy princess.”
Daisy ran her fingertips lightly across Angie’s satin skirt. “When I grow up, I want a dress just like this one.” She lifted shining gray eyes. “You’re as beautiful as Miss Lily tonight!”
“Now that’s high praise indeed.” Angie could never have imagined that she would be pleased by a favorable comparison to a sporting lady.
Molly came up the back steps, smiling broadly. “My, my, don’t you two make a picture!” She placed a hand on top of Lucy’s and Daisy’s heads and turned them toward the door. “Don’t forget to bring me a souvenir. And we’ll be here first thing in the morning to hear all the details.”