Epilogue
Five and a half months later
“I can’t believe you are getting married a week from Saturday.” Martha set her empty teacup on its saucer, then leaned back in her chair, her head shaking slightly. “It seems like only yesterday that we were pledging our fealty to the spinster society, and now you’re running off to get married.”
Noreen chuckled as she lowered her own cup. “I’m not running anywhere. James and I are staying right here in Albany. And my fealty to the spinsters, to my sisters,” she said as she looked pointedly at Martha and then Jane, “is unwavering. My marrying James isn’t going to change anything.”
Martha raised a brow to challenge that remark. “You’re far too intelligent to utter such nonsense. Getting married changes everything.”
Noreen reached out and covered her friend’s hand with her own. “Not the important things. Not our friendship. James knows how deeply I care for the two of you. He’s even encouraged me to offer to host our Tuesday teatimes at our home after the wedding.”
“Your home. In the jailhouse.”
Noreen ignored Martha’s wry tone as she lifted her cup back to her lips, hoping it would hide her amusement.
“Hanging curtains on the windows upstairs will hide the bars, and I thought to lay down a rug or two. Install a stove. Bring in some furnishings. Turn the space into a proper parlor. What do you think?”
Jane’s eyes widened.
Martha looked aghast. “You can’t be serious!”
Noreen released the grin she’d been holding back. “Of course I’m not serious. James has a perfectly normal sitting area downstairs in his personal quarters that we can use.”
“You’re terrible.” Martha snatched the napkin from her lap and tossed it at Noreen a heartbeat before all three ladies burst into laughter.
Noreen wiped at her watering eyes and caught a glimpse of her mother standing in the doorway, a smile on her face.
“I’m sorry, Mama. Did we disturb you?”
“There’s nothing disturbing about the sound of laughter ringing through the house.
” Her smile erased years of hardship from her face.
“I just wanted to let you know I’m heading to the emporium.
I told Mrs. Saunders I’d cover the end of her shift so she could get home in time to bake her husband a chocolate cake for his birthday. She wants to surprise him.”
Ramona Clevenger’s eyes danced with a merriment that softened Noreen’s heart. How her mother had blossomed over these last months. There was a freedom about her now, a joy that had begun to flourish after the removal of her husband’s stifling influence.
When Arthur had been convicted of arson and sentenced to life in prison with hard labor, Noreen’s mother had taken over the running of Clevenger’s Emporium and discovered she had a knack for business.
She overhauled the inventory to cater to a more feminine clientele, focusing on groceries, dress goods, housewares, and a new line of scented soaps that had proven a top seller.
Noreen assisted by polling the spinsters about what items they had the hardest time finding in town, and then gathered opinions about what would make a store appealing.
Ramona took the results and implemented them within the first few weeks.
She sold off farm implements, carpentry tools, and firearms and filled those shelves instead with wallpaper selections, books, and practical millinery.
Word spread, and in less than a month’s time, Clevenger’s Emporium had become a hub for female shoppers. A store run by women to benefit women.
Noreen had left the hotel four months ago to work beside her mother in the emporium full-time.
She’d drawn a salary that allowed her to increase her payments to Milton Taggert every week, until only one payment remained.
The one she would send on Friday, clearing her debt and allowing her to walk down the aisle to James a free woman. Her stomach danced at the thought.
“I’ll have dinner ready when you get home,” Noreen promised.
Her mother nodded. “I assume your handsome deputy will be joining us. I noticed a fresh apple pie cooling on the counter.”
Noreen blushed. In her hurry to get things ready for the teatime with her friends this afternoon, she’d completely forgotten to notify her mother that she’d invited James to dinner when he’d stopped by the emporium on his rounds that morning.
“You don’t mind, do you?”
“Mind? Reenie, that man is welcome at our table any time. He’s family.” Her gaze shifted to the others in the parlor. “You girls should get Noreen to show you her dress. We finished it last night.”
“Your dress?” Jane immediately set her teacup aside. “Why didn’t you say anything? Where is it?” She glanced around the parlor as if expecting it to jump out from behind the sofa like a child playing hide and seek.
“In my room.” Unable to contain her pleasure now that she had an excuse to forgo the rest of the tea, Noreen bounded to her feet and led the way down the hall. She pushed her bedroom door inward to reveal the ivory gown hanging from her wardrobe door.
Feminine gasps echoed around her as Martha and Jane hurried into the room and began fingering the fine wool fabric.
“Oh, Noreen. It’s beautiful.” A tinge of sadness colored Jane’s voice despite her bright smile, and Noreen wondered if perhaps her friend harbored a secret desire to wear such a gown herself one day.
Do you have a man for her, Lord? Someone who can see past her shyness the way James saw past my prickly exterior?
She had no interest in playing matchmaker for her friends.
Noreen respected whatever choices Jane and Martha embraced in their own lives, just as she hoped they’d respect the choice she’d made with hers.
But if the Almighty could find a husband for someone as stubborn and bruised as she had been, nothing was outside the realm of possibility.
“The lace at the neck is exquisite,” Martha murmured.
“It’s from my mama’s wedding veil.” Warmth filtered through Noreen’s chest as she remembered the night they’d unwrapped the delicate piece.
“She’d intended to pass the veil down to me to wear in its entirety, but age had yellowed the edges.
The center remained in good condition, though, so we found a different way to use it. ”
“It’s perfect,” Jane declared.
Noreen moved toward her dresser, intending to show her friends the handkerchief she planned to carry with her down the aisle, the one embroidered with her new initials, but the sight of an opened envelope on her dresser top reminded her of more important news.
She withdrew the letter and turned back to her friends, handing the page to Martha. “I got a letter from Luella today. She and her mother are coming for the wedding!”
Martha’s face lit as she accepted the letter and immediately began scanning its contents.
Jane clapped her hands softly. “How wonderful! It will be so good to see her and Trudy again.”
Yes, it would. Noreen had missed their junior spinster immensely.
“Luella wants to see her father while she’s here.
He’s been sending her letters full of repentance and apologies.
And since Mr. Taggert decided to move his saloon to Abilene instead of rebuilding in Albany, Trudy plans to use the wedding visit as a trial run.
See if her husband has changed his ways enough for them to return home. ”
“I’ve seen him in church a few times,” Jane said. “Always at the back so he can leave before Papa can catch him. But the fact that he’s there at all shows he’s trying. All God needs is a crack in order for his love to seep into a hardened heart.”
His love had transformed Noreen. She prayed Mr. Templeton would allow it to transform him as well.
Martha finished reading Luella’s short letter, handed it to Noreen, then turned back to admire the dress.
“I still can’t believe that in less than a fortnight you’re going to be Mrs. James Paxton.
Of all the spinsters we invited to join the society, I never expected you would be the first to suffer expulsion from the marriage clause. ”
Jane sputtered. “Goodness, Martha. You make it sound like she’s contracted leprosy.
She’s not being expelled. Her membership is being retired in good standing.
” Jane smiled at Noreen. “Besides, you’ve seen how happy she is with Deputy Paxton.
You wouldn’t wish her to give that up just to retain her status with the society, would you? ”
“I suppose not.” Martha sighed in dramatic fashion. “I do want you to be happy, Noreen. I just know that things will inevitably change between us, whether we want them to or not.”
“Small things might change,” Noreen conceded, “but if we intentionally nurture our friendship, it will hold firm.” She reached for Martha’s hand with her right, then circled around to clutch Jane’s with her left. “We might not always be spinsters, but we will always be sisters.”
Jane and Martha squeezed her hands, and an unspoken promise flowed between them. No matter what changes the future held for each of them, their dedication to each other would never waver. What God had joined together in them, no man would put asunder.