Page 25 of Chasing Trouble
Whitney tried to butter her roll and pretend she didn’t hear what her sister said, but she could feel the hot red creeping up her neck.With her head bent, she dipped her biscuit in the soup, took a bite, and picked up her spoon.She didn’t know why she felt so mortified.Family discipline was never a secret.How could it be with the lack of privacy?No one usually pointed it out, though, and that was the mortifying part.Knowing they had all probably heard her yelling from the barn made her feel like crawling under a rock.
Daniel started a conversation with Luke about the cougar, and Whitney tried to eat as much of the soup as she could, but it all tasted like sawdust in her mouth.Her appetite was totally gone, and all she wanted to do was go to her room, but she didn’t.
A few hours later, Luke and Amelia had gone to bed.Whitney washed the dishes and tidied up the little kitchen.Menial tasks helped her think and restored order to her mind. Amelia’s words kept creeping back into her thoughts.‘Witty loves Mac too...even when he ‘panks.’
She sighed heavily when she sat down across from her father and stared at the logs crackling in the fireplace.He was looking at an old hunting magazine.His gaze flew up and cornered hers.“Want to talk about it?”
“Not really,” she finally replied, breaking his gaze and turning back to the fire.
He was silent for a moment, and then he spoke.“Mac’s a good man, honey.I saw him once at the market in Bolton last spring with his mother and his sister.I did some checking around then, knowing we were going to be neighbors.Sooner or later, the two of you would have met.There was always the possibility that you might be drawn to one another.”
Whitney snorted.“He caught me poaching his property.If I’d been a better hunter, he still wouldn’t know who the poacher was.”
Daniel chuckled.“Always full of piss and vinegar, just like your mama,” he replied.He leaned forward, his elbows on his knees.“You know, the shotgun was just for his benefit.I wanted him to know he couldn’t use my daughter and get away with it.I was pleased to find out that wasn’t the case, but even if it weren’t, I still wouldn’t have forced you into marriage with a no-good varmint.But I do think that if you’ve talked about marriage already, then getting married tomorrow wouldn’t be a bad idea at all.”
“I just wasn’t expecting it so soon.I thought we had more time...to get to know each other...before...you know.What if he changes his mind?”
Daniel smiled.“He won’t change his mind.He has that same look of longing in his words that I felt about your mother.”
“Are you sure, Daddy?”Whitney asked doubtfully.
Daniel nodded knowingly.
Whitney stirred restlessly, staring into the fire.“Even so, I reckon there are a lot of things going through my mind lately.He has a very bossy attitude, and I don’t like being told how things are going to be.I want a say in things too.”
“I reckon I made the same mistake Mac did with the being bossy parts.”His eyes gleamed at her in amusement.“It didn’t take your mother long to straighten me out, though, God rest her soul.”
“I miss her so much.”Whitney’s throat threatened to close up.She could really use her mother’s advice now.
“I do too, honey.”
They were both quiet for a moment, then Daniel stood up.“So that you know, I left a little something for you in your closet.I picked it up in town after I heard those fella’s talking about Mac.Figured it couldn’t hurt, depending on the situation.We’ll be attending church in the morning, but you don’t have to wear it if you decide you don’t want to.”He walked over, made sure the door was barred, and then came back to place a kiss on top of her head.“Good night, daughter.”
“Good night, Daddy.”
After he left the room, Whitney’s curiosity kicked into full gear.He’d bought her something?She badly needed a winter coat, but it didn’t seem like he was talking about a coat.Deciding she couldn’t stand not knowing any longer, she got up and went to her room.Once inside, she opened the closet door.A garment bag was hanging directly in front, with another bag on the same hanger.She grabbed it and went back into the living room, where she could see it better.She opened the smaller bag and gasped when she realized it was her mother’s headpiece she’d worn at her wedding.The bag also held Danielle’s gold necklace with the blue sapphire teardrop.A memory surfaced of her dad holding her on his lap when she was eight years old, and her chattering about how she loved her mother’s teardrop necklace.And all about how she wanted to wear her mother’s white wedding dress and the necklace when she got married...just like her mother.
Her eyes started to leak again, and she sniffled as she laid the items aside and carefully opened the garment bag.Her mother’s wedding dress had been destroyed when a raccoon had found a way into the attic of their old home.It had been torn and ruined as a mother raccoon had gleefully built herself a nest for her babies in the precious materials.Her mother had been devastated, but the damage was too extensive to be repaired.
Nibbling on her lip, she lifted the dress from the bag and slowly spun it around.It wasn’t exactly like her mother’s dress, but it was pretty darned close.Her father had remembered her childish, romantic dreams.Something old, the headpiece, something new, this dress.Something borrowed, something blue, the teardrop.It all fits.Whitney felt as if her heart would burst.
Carefully, she put everything back in its respective bag and returned it to the closet.Then she sat in front of the fire and thought deeply about Mac and what to do about her future.
