The Whippoorwill Trilogy - Sharon Sala Page 0,19

to a crowd almost as much as he liked lifting women’s skirts.

“That’s fine, just fine,” he said, then resumed his sprint to catch up with his hostess.

Their ride to the ranch was long, but without fault, and for the first time since leaving Boston, Randall began to have hope. He glanced up at the sky. It was cloudless. That meant no rain. He glanced at the woman beside him. Her eyes were still squinting against the glare of the sun, and the hair hanging out from beneath her hat was whipping wildly about her face as the buggy sped along the road.

“Have you lived here long?” Randall asked.

“Born here,” she said, and flicked her whip across the backs of her team, spurring them on to greater speed.

Randall tightened his grip on the seat to keep from being pitched out and searched for another vein of conversation that might not play out as fast.

“So, your family was here before the town of Feeney, right?”

She looked at him then as she might have a simpleton; with pity and patience. “Yeah, that would figure now, wouldn’t it?”

He flushed. Damnable woman. If he’d met more like her in his past, he wouldn’t be where he was now.

“So when do we get to your ranch?”

She tightened her grip on the reins and pointed with her chin. “We been on it ever since we left town and we’d still be on it if we kept drivin’ ’til tomorrow.”

Randall’s eyes widened as he looked at his hostess with renewed respect.

“You own the town of Feeney?”

“In a manner of speakin’.”

“Then was it you who requested the presence of a minister here?”

She threw back her head and laughed and Randall had a fleeting impression of a horse whinnying. Added to that, he wasn’t sure, but he might have just been insulted.

“If not you, then who?” he asked.

“My sister. She thinks she wants to be a nun.”

It was all he could do not to gawk. “But I’m not Catholic.”

Hetty shrugged. “It don’t hardly matter. Neither is she.”

Charity Doone was on her knees in prayer when she heard the buggy. It had to be Hetty. She always drove as if she was in a constant race with herself. Her pulse accelerated as she jumped to her feet and dashed to the window. This was the third time in as many days that Hetty had gone to town to meet the train, and each time she’d come home alone. She peeked through the curtains, her expression fixed, her lower lip caught between the edges of her teeth.

Please God, let this be the day. Please let the preacher be here.

At the age of twenty-three, Charity needed some answers to the dilemmas overruling her life. Hetty had been after her for more than five years to pick a man and get married. But somehow the thought had seemed foreign. Hetty had followed her own inclinations rather than those of society. No one had forced her into something she didn’t want. Charity couldn’t see why she had to be the one to make all the sacrifices. There were things that she wanted to do. Places she wanted to see. And marrying some rancher who cared more for his cows than he did her wasn’t high on her list of importance.

And then there was the dream. She’d had it a total of seventeen times now—of standing naked before God in a pale white light and pledging her life to him always. At least she thought it was God to whom she kept making the promises. In her dream, the man was tall and strong and cloaked in the light shining down upon her, and she’d wept with joy as he reached out his hand. In the dream she kept feeling his fingers against her palm, and every time she would get to the point of seeing his face, the dream would end. But Charity had deduced that was because no one on earth had looked upon the face of God.

Her fervor to follow the dream was about to begin as she gazed out upon the man getting out of the buggy. Her pulse kicked. The preacher was finally here!

She needed guidance and answers, and who better suited than a man of God? She held her breath, waiting, willing him to turn around. When he did, she exhaled on a sigh. His countenance was glorious, just as she had expected it to be.

She dashed to the mirror and fussed with her hair, poking loose ends into place