A Bride for Isaac by Cat Cahill

Author:Cat Cahill [Cahill, Cat]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Cat Cahill
Published: 2020-01-22T06:00:00+00:00

Chapter Thirteen

Maggie ran her fingers over the dyed muslin. The pretty red would look nice in the parlor windows. She glanced up at Isaac for his thoughts.

“Whatever you like,” he said before ambling off to look at the items on the shelves.

Maggie laughed. “We’ll take it,” she said to the woman at the counter, who had introduced herself as Caroline Drexel.

“It’s a nice choice,” Mrs. Drexel said as she began to measure out the muslin. “Do you live very far? We see a few ranchers, but I don’t believe I’ve seen you in here before.” She gave Maggie a friendly smile that immediately made her think of Ivy.

Maggie’s heart ached for the company of her friend. Perhaps talking with this woman would ease the pain of missing Ivy. “A fair distance north. I’m not certain how far exactly, but it is over an hour’s ride.”

“Have you been there long?”

“Only a few days. We . . .” Maggie paused before deciding she didn’t need to share that she planned to leave soon. “We’re only just married.” The words felt odd on her tongue, and yet, glancing at Isaac’s back as he perused the tools hanging on the wall, they also gave her a warm feeling inside, as if she belonged somehow.

“How wonderful!” Mrs. Drexel looked up from the fabric she was cutting. She was young, about Maggie’s age or perhaps only a little older. “My husband and I have been married less than a year. That’s him, with your husband.”

Maggie turned. A tall man with dark blond hair and an easy smile was shaking hands with Isaac. “How do you find married life?” Maggie asked.

When Mrs. Drexel laughed, Maggie’s face went warm. This was just the sort of thing that set the women in Plainfield to talking about her. Poor Maggie, she seems to lack the most basic of manners. It was the type of question—too forthright and too curious—that had given her no prospects at all in such a small town. “I’m sorry,” she said, casting her eyes down to the fabric-covered sales counter. “You don’t need to answer that.”

“It’s quite all right. To answer your question, it’s more wonderful and more trying than I ever thought it would be.”

Her answer brightened Maggie’s mood some. Even if the manner in which she and Isaac became married was unusual, and their personal circumstances were even more so, perhaps their disagreements were more normal than she’d thought.

Maggie wanted to laugh at herself. Here she was, so worried about whether her marriage was “normal,” when it wouldn’t exist after Saturday. That evening, she’d be on a train back to Illinois, she supposed, while Isaac . . . She bit down on her lip. For some reason, the thought of him returning to a cold, dark, empty house that still held traces of her triggered a wave of sadness so intense that tears pricked her eyes.

“You remind me of my dear friend Penny,” Mrs. Drexel said, shaking Maggie from the turn in her thoughts. “She has a tendency to speak her mind, too.

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