Chapter 4
As the next week and a half rolled by, bringing with it the changing weather as the world moved toward autumn and a distant winter, Bridie couldn’t help herself.
She found that she was continually poking at her mind, to see whether it was changing—the way one kept probing a sore tooth, she thought wryly. And yet…
And yet!
Despite the unease of feeling bought and paid for, despite her lingering irritation with her father—though now, looking back, she felt she was beginning to understand and even sympathize with his reasoning—and despite the fact that she was surrounded by wealth and comfort that she had never anticipated, she found herself settling into life in Texas much more quickly than she would have thought.
Perhaps it was due, in large part, to that wealth and comfort.
It was surprisingly difficult to maintain one’s irritation when housemaids kept bringing endless cups of tea and plates of cake.
Jed seemed to be sensitive to her feelings.
Though he stayed away for several hours each day, working at the mercantile, he always returned in plenty of time for supper, and they often spent the evening together in the sitting room, talking and reading to each other.
After she had been there for a few days, he drove her the short way into town and showed her the store that his grandfather had started before Jed was even born; it was a large store, especially for a town the size of Galveston, nearly as large as some of the department stores that she had ventured into back home in Boston.
When she commented on this, surprised, Jed responded with a faintly embarrassed chuckle.
“My pa expanded it about ten years back,” he said.
“More than any of us would have thought necessary, in fact—it was a gamble, but it paid off in the end. McHale General Store is the biggest mercantile in the whole county, and folks come from all over to buy sundries that they can’t find anywhere else.
” He hesitated, looking around the space with a fond familiarity.
“It was a dream he had to grow the store to twice the size of the one Grandfather started. And I reckon it gave him something to do after Ma passed on.”
“And you?” she asked, half teasing, nudging him gently with her elbow. “Will you expand it twice as big again?”
He shook his head, grinning.
“I already have to employ half the town as it is,” he said. “It’s lucky for me that workin’ here doesn’t keep ‘em from shoppin’ here, too. But we can’t expand much more without buyin’ out the entire street.”
On this venture, she was pleased to meet not only a handful of Jed’s old-timer employees, some of whom had worked there under his father and a few under his grandfather, but also the young mother of two that he had hired on.
Her name was Melinda Barton, and she had nothing but glowing praise for the store and for its owner.
“Not many men would have agreed to hire a married woman,” she told Bridie, busily retying her apron.
“But Jed isn’t the old-fashioned sort. He’s the most forward-thinking man in Galveston, if not the county.
Why, he even told me I could bring little Edward with me to work if need be!
” She smiled and shook her head. “Of course, I don’t reckon I’ll ever need to do such a thing.
Charles may not be well, but he’s well enough to keep an eye on Edward, and Anthony is old enough to help out with his little brother, too.
Meanwhile, here I am, running the ready-made counter for the wealthiest man in the county.
” She beamed at the neatly folded piles of shirts and pants.
“I don’t reckon there’s anyone else in Galveston who would give someone like me a chance like this.
You’re a fortunate woman, Miss Hamilton. ”
Jed had walked away, ears flaming as he tried not to overhear his employee’s fulsome compliments. But Bridie suspected that Melinda’s words were nothing less than the absolute truth of her feelings—not at all designed to flatter. She smiled at the young woman.
“I’m beginning to suspect,” she said, “that just about anyone who knows Jed McHale is fortunate indeed.”
Though Jed had just brought on two more workers, it was obvious that there was always more to do at the mercantile.
In the few hours she was there, he was called away a dozen times, and she lost count of how many customers she saw come and go through the double doors.
She could readily see the appeal; the aisles were wide and welcoming, the shelves well-stocked and neat, and there seemed to be a surprise or an intriguing product around every corner.
She surprised herself by spending half an hour looking at stockings—it was no wonder that the store seemed so popular, with so much to explore!
Coming up for air in the corner with the stockings, she realized that Jed wasn’t too far away, embroiled in conversation with one of his customers—but his eyes were on her, and a warm, fond smile played on his face.
After the success of her first visit to the store, he made a point of inviting her to go with him every day whenever she felt the hankering to do so.
She took him up on it more often than not; it was a luxury to stay at home in the big, beautiful house, with no tasks to be done or chores to be completed, but the bustle and energy of the store was even more appealing, and she found that she fell into conversation easily with Jed’s customers.
Melinda, too, was a pleasant companion, and Bridie took to helping her at the ready-made counter during the busier hours.
All in all, it was something of a shock to receive her first letter from her parents—complete with a fulsome and yet teasing apology from her father—and to realize that she had already been in Galveston for two weeks.
“Why, it seems as though I just arrived yesterday!” she told Jed as they finished up supper one fine autumn evening. “And I still see Galveston as something new and different—and yet it’s suddenly familiar at the same time.” She shook her head, marveling a little. “I can’t explain it.”
“I know what you mean,” he said. “I felt the same way when I went to Boston. It was so very different from anything I’d ever known—worlds apart from Galveston.
” His words so closely mirrored her own thoughts upon her arrival that she couldn’t help but smile.
When she glanced at him, she saw his eyes were fixed on her face, though he looked away quickly, smiling, as though he’d been caught doing something he oughtn’t.
Something mischievous. “But all it took was a few weeks to pass, and I felt as though I knew that city like the back of my hand. It became home, in the blink of an eye. Somewhere I belonged. Do you miss it, Bridie?”
Home—somewhere I belonged. Her mind was far away, surrounded by velvety green hills and the brightly colored houses of the little fishing village, the sound of the church bell ringing out the hour…
She shook herself back to the present, feeling warm.
“Boston?” she said. “No, I don’t think I can claim to miss it. Not really. My family, of course, but not Boston itself.”
He narrowed his eyes at her, scrutinizing her as though trying to read a sentence in a book that was too far away.
“Where were you, just now?”
She glanced up at him, guiltily.
“Hmm? I don’t know what you mean. I’m right here with you, aren’t I?”
He watched her closely for a moment more, then shook his head.
“No, I don’t reckon you were,” he said. He held out his elbow for her to take. “It’s a fine evening, Bridie. Would you walk with me?”
It didn’t occur to her to turn him down. It felt strangely natural to take his arm and let him lead her out the back door. As they went, he lifted her shawl from the hook on the wall and took a moment to wrap it around her shoulders, warding off the slight chill of the evening.
The McHale property was crowned by the beautiful house, of course, but that was far from the only feature of the land that Jed’s grandfather had begun to cultivate decades earlier, when Galveston wasn’t anything more than a hamlet, when the town had not even truly been thought of.
To the left of the house lay the gardens; in the summer, as Jed had told Bridie the day of her arrival, his land provided many fruits and vegetables to the mercantile, making an abundance available to those who could not farm their own.
Near the fenced beds, a large, handsome chicken coop looked more like a cottage than anything.
They were never lacking for eggs. To the right was the barn, half as large as the house itself and kept in immaculate repair; within it, not only the four fine horses that drew the carriage but also a dozen others were kept in the well-swept stables.
Ahead of them stretched the meadows, dotted here and there with oak trees; in the last of the sunshine, as sunset crept up on them, the golden-headed grasses nodded and swayed.
Above it all, the endless, pure expanse of the heavens arched; looking up, Bridie felt as though she could fall into them and never reach the bottom.
Jed’s arm beneath her hand was the only thing anchoring her to the earth, here in Texas. She gave him a dizzied smile of gratitude, surprising both of them. He smiled back.
“I’m glad that you’re feeling that Galveston is becoming your home,” he said. “I’d like you to feel that you belong here.”
She bit her lip; his words seemed to press on her shoulders, all of a sudden, with a weight she had not been anticipating. Belonging here in Texas—it wasn’t at all what she had hoped for.
But she couldn’t bring herself to say the words.
“It’s still very different from what I had thought,” she said, as they made their way together through the grasses of the meadow. “But it’s beautiful, in its own way. I can see why you came back here, after leaving Boston.”
“I didn’t have much of a choice, really. Pa needed help with the business—and Ma’s health wasn’t so good, then either.”
“It must have been very hard on you to lose them both.”
She had heard the story from one of the maids rather than from Jed himself.
Understandably, it still pained him to speak of it, and she was glad that she hadn’t had to ask him directly.
Nor, it seemed, was he upset that she had asked others about it.
He only nodded, as though he fully expected that she would have picked up the facts of his history somewhere along the line.
In a town the size of Galveston, she supposed, it was inevitable that she wouldn’t hear it from someone.
Regardless, the thought of his mother’s long illness, which led to her eventual death, and followed by the heartbreak of his father, who seemed to lose all enthusiasm for life and simply wasted away—her heart went out to him.
Her own parents had angered and disappointed her at times over the years, of course, but she could not imagine her life without them entirely.
She squeezed his arm, and he gave her a grateful look.
“It’s hard to talk about,” he said at last. “I guess I ought to be tougher.”
“No, I understand. It’s a painful thing to lose those we love.” And the places we love…
He nodded. “The only thing that helps,” he said, “is that I reckon they’d both be proud of me, here and now. The business is going well. Pa would be happy about that. And as for everything else—well, they would have loved you, Bridie, and that’s a fact.”
His simple, honest compliment made her face burn with heat, and she kept her gaze carefully averted.
“I’m sure they would want you to be happy, no matter who you became engaged to,” she said. “I’m nothing special.”
“Is that really what you think?”
He stopped and turned her to face him, letting his arm slip from her grasp and taking her hands in his.
His earnest eyes met hers, and she found herself falling into their depths, as endless as the skies above.
The sun was going down, the blue starting to catch fire and burn with gold and scarlet.
She caught her breath—she couldn’t bring herself to answer, to make any reply to him, but he didn’t seem to want one.
“Bridie,” he murmured, “is it time yet?”
“Time?”
“To set our wedding date. I know I said I’d wait for your word. I guess I’m gettin’ a mite impatient.”
A half smile appeared on his lips, but she knew that he meant every word. Her heart was hammering at her ribs.
“Yes,” she said, without thinking. “Yes, I believe it is time.”
“You’re giving your word, then?”
“I’m giving my word, Jed.”
The half smile blossomed into something far warmer and more real, and he drew her closer still, snaking his arms around her waist.
“Then this will truly be your home,” he murmured.
She closed her eyes, lifting her lips to his, half unaware of what she was doing—but willing, all the same.
But behind her closed lids, the brilliant green of the hills of Ireland suddenly flashed, a vision as strong and real as anything she had seen here in Galveston—as strong and real as his arms around her, and just as desirable.
Yes, she would marry—and then Ireland would be in her grasp, just as she had dreamed it would.
As quickly as the vision flooded her mind, guilt followed on its heels, and she opened her eyes just in time to see Jed press close to her, his own eyes closed.
His lips found hers, and his arms held her firm but gently—and for a wild moment she knew she ought to push him back, step away, tell him the truth.
She would marry him—but for her own ends, not his. For her own happiness—not his.
But her emotions were in turmoil, and the moment slipped away from her. His embrace was heady, like a shot of whiskey, and she found herself sliding her arms around his neck and pressing close.
She would let him believe what he wanted to believe and keep her visions of going home close to her own heart—no matter how much Jed McHale seemed to be overtaking them, day by day.