The Bad Luck Wedding Dress Read online

  Starnes mumbled something, obviously unimpressed. Jenny didn’t care. With this shipment of yard goods, she’d create gowns the likes of which this state had never seen. She clasped her hands to her chest, her smile as big as Texas.

  “What is it, Miss Fortune?” Maribeth peered up at the crate with interest.

  “Oh, Mari, just wait till you see. It’s—”

  The deliveryman interrupted with a paper for her to sign, saying, “Put your John Henry here, pay me the $321.75 you owe, and it’s all yours.”

  Jenny’s hand stilled in midsignature. “Three twenty- one seventy-five?” she repeated.

  She didn’t have the money. She’d used the cash held in reserve for this order to pay the July rent when the first of the bad-luck rumors had surfaced and cut into her business. The payments from Miss Rachel’s girls wouldn’t make a dent in this bill. “I thought I’d have time. I didn’t think it would drag on this long,” she mumbled, closing her eyes in distress.

  “What’s that, ma’am?”

  “Um, Mr. Starnes, I have a slight problem.” What followed was a ten-minute discussion that degenerated into begging and pleading on Jenny’s part, to no avail.

  “It’s gotta go back to the railroad, Miss Fortune,” the deliveryman eventually pronounced. “My hands are tied.”

  A heavy sense of defeat weighted her shoulders. She desperately needed this shipment. One look at her designs for these fabrics would have the women of Fort Worth racking their brains for an excuse to order dresses. Her donning of The Bad Luck Wedding Dress for her own ceremony would provide that excuse.

  The timing was perfect. Jenny couldn’t afford to allow this opportunity to pass.

  She’d borrow the money from her mother.

  “Mr. Starnes, I’ll obtain the funds later today and have them for you tomorrow. If you’ll leave the fabric—”

  “Sorry, ma’am. This order is COD. I can’t leave the goods without the cash.” He glanced down at his form. “I have a standing order for all goods refused at this address, and I’m obligated to see that the goods are delivered there. Sorry Miss Fortune.” He heaved the crate back onto the wagon.

  “Standing order?” Confusion dulled her mind. “What standing order?”

  Touching a finger to his cap, he climbed into the wagon. Grabbing up the reins, he glanced down and said, “From a woman in Dallas. Miss Ethel Baumgardner. I’d best hurry along if I’m going to get this delivery back to the station before the next train pulls out.” The wagon rolled forward, leaving Jenny standing stiff with shock in its dusty wake.

  Ethel Baumgardner. Ethel Baumgardner!

  “That witch,” she whispered. “That underhanded, talentless, green-eyed biddy.” Fury pounded through her as she stared after her departing dreams. Wasn’t it enough that Ethel Baumgardner had capitalized on the Bad Luck Wedding Dress fiasco and stolen all her customers? Did she have to steal the fabric right off her bolts, too? Angry tears swelled in Jenny’s eyes and spilled down her cheeks.

  She felt a tiny hand slip into hers and she looked down.

  “Don’t cry, Miss Fortune,” Katrina’s sad voice implored. “Please?”

  Jenny glanced around to see Maribeth and Emma standing behind their sister, watching her with somber faces. She tried to smile, but knew it was a sorry effort at best. “When did you and Emma come down?” she asked Katrina in a tremulous voice.

  “About the time the grumpy man started carrying on about money. Maybe you should have paid him in kisses, Miss Fortune. That’s what I always do with my papa.”

  Jenny swallowed the hysteric laughter that bubbled up at Katrina’s innocent comment. Then Emma spoke, her soft voice filled with concern. “I’m sorry about the yard goods, Miss Fortune.”

  “It’s not fair!” Maribeth stared down the alley, arms folded as she fumed. “It’s the stupidest thing, him not waiting one little day. That Ethel woman shouldn’t get your cloth!”

  “It doesn’t matter, girls. Let’s go inside.”

  “It does too matter! I’ve met that Dallas dressmaker before. The dresses she makes are ugly. She’ll ruin your fabric!”

  Jenny closed her eyes and sighed. Maribeth was right. That fabric would be wasted on a designer of Mrs. Baumgardner’s talents.

  “Never mind Ethel.” She gathered the girls in her arms and gave them a big, group hug. “I want to talk about you three. Y’all are my very best friends, do you know that? Your support means so very much to me.”

  Katrina wrapped her arms around Jenny’s legs and hugged tight. “We love you, Miss Fortune.”

  Emotion clogged Jenny’s throat. “I love you, too.” Taking a deep breath, she swiped at the tears on her cheek and stepped away. “Now, don’t you think you should get back upstairs? It’s almost lunchtime, and Mrs. Wilson might have some of that green apple pie waiting for you.”

  Acknowledging Jenny’s point, the McBride daughters hurried upstairs. After gulping down their lunch, they settled down in their attic bedroom to complete the extra schoolwork assigned to make up for the unexpected holiday. At least, that’s how they made it appear should Mrs. Wilson check on them.

  Katrina mouthed her way through the alphabet. Emma whipped through an arithmetic lesson, and Maribeth stared out the window, her expression glum. “It didn’t work, Emmie. The wedding is tomorrow, and I was just working into my argument when Mr. Starnes knocked. Now Miss Fortune’s too upset to listen to anything we’d have to say.”

  Katrina wrinkled her nose. “That mean Miss Baumgardner. I don’t like her. I wish we’d said no to Monique’s idea.”

  “Me, too. I think Miss Fortune’s feelings are going to be hurt when she sees us in those dresses. Besides, they’re ugly. They’re better suited for a garden scarecrow than us.” She paused, her forehead knit in wrinkles. “We have to do something.”

  Emma looked up. “We will. I have it all figured out. Obviously, our acting good all the time hasn’t done the trick.”

  “It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done,” Katrina observed, plopping her thumb into her mouth.

  Emma continued. “It’s all right, Kat. That’s all over with now. The McBride Menaces are about to return. With a vengeance.”

  Katrina’s thumb left her mouth with a pop. “What are we going to do?”

  “Are we gonna get her fabric back?” Maribeth inquired.

  “Yes, we certainly are. We’ll get that fabric. Then, we return it to her in such a way that Miss Fortune will cancel the wedding.”

  “How?” the younger sisters chimed.

  “It’s simple, really.” Emma offered an angel’s smile. “First, the McBride Menaces are going to rob the train.”

  EMMA PLANNED the assault like a West Point general. After listening while her sister outlined their strategy, Maribeth nodded. “Sounds good to me, Emma. Casey Tate will be glad to help us. He’s good at that sort of thing. Papa will kill us, of course, but I reckon it’ll be worth it.”

  Katrina nodded seriously. “It’s a good plan, Emmie. We’re lucky you’re the thinker in the family like Papa says.”

  “He says that?”

  “Yep. You’re the thinker, Mari’s the doer, and I’m still trying to make up my mind. I do know two things, though. I don’t want Miss Fortune to marry that man, and I don’t want that old Ethel lady to get Miss Fortune’s cloth.”

  Emma nodded slowly and shifted her gaze toward the mantel clock. “The train leaves here at eleven-thirty.”

  “Yep,” Maribeth said. “They changed the schedule last week.”

  “Good. And the wedding is at four tomorrow afternoon, so we should have plenty of time to arrange everything.”

  “If we hurry.” Maribeth jumped up and headed for the stairs.

  “It won’t take more than five minutes to sneak the crowbar we need from the blacksmith’s,” Emma replied, motioning Katrina to come along as she followed Maribeth downstairs. “We might have trouble finding Casey, though. Especially if we have to go into the Acre to look for him.
”

  Maribeth groaned. “The Acre! Papa will really kill us.”

  “That’s stupid, Mari. What difference is there between killing and really killing?”

  “The number of blisters on our backsides.”

  “Oh.”

  The girls peered cautiously around a doorjamb, then darted past Mrs. Wilson, who was busy dusting the parlor furniture. Once outside, they headed first toward the Tivoli Restaurant where they hoped to locate Casey Tate. The owner of the Tivoli often provided the boy a meal in exchange for work.

  They found Casey munching on a plate of fried chicken, and Emma outlined their plan without delay. Casey was able to provide both the crowbar and a quilt to hide it in, and soon the three girls were hurrying through the streets toward the Texas & Pacific depot at the far south end of town. They had a close call at the intersection of Fourteenth and Houston, when they nearly ran right into Mrs. Wilhemina Peters. Thankfully, the editor’s wife looked in the opposite direction, staring with disapproval at a painted lady headed toward the Acre.

  The sisters reached the train yard without further incident, and as they drew to a halt near the massive, hissing iron engine, Maribeth leaned over and said, “There’s a bunch of freight cars. Where do we start looking?”

  Emma’s brow wrinkled in thought, then she said, “I think we should try the last one. It makes sense that goods to be unloaded at the first stop would be in the last car, don’t you think? They might just unhook it and leave it behind.”

  Maribeth agreed, and the two older girls turned to their younger sister. Emma pointed toward the front of the train and murmured, “You know what to do, Kat?”

  The little girl nodded. “I’ll do a good job.”

  “We know you will,” Emma replied, smiling. “Good luck.”

  Katrina’s eyes shone with anticipation as she skipped toward the front of the train. Then, with a last glance toward Emma and Maribeth, she turned her back, lifted her face toward the sky, and wailed at the top of her lungs.

  Immediately, all eyes around the train depot turned in Katrina’s direction. Maribeth and Emma used the diversion to clamber into the boxcar nearest the caboose on the train departing for Dallas and points east at eleven-thirty.

  Their sister’s cry built to a crescendo as they went to work, and they paused just long enough to share a smile. “She’ll be an actress when she grows up, sure as shootin’,” Maribeth stated.

  The open door on the boxcar provided plenty of light to see, but the sheer number of crates made it difficult to move around. To complicate matters, many of the boxes looked strikingly similar to the one for which they searched. “This is gonna take forever,” Maribeth grumbled.

  Emma ignored her, checking the address markings on each crate she came to. “Here’s one for Dallas. Hand me the crowbar, Mari.” She held out her hand as her sister retrieved the tool from near the door.

  “Well, is that it?” she asked impatiently as Emma worked to open the large square box.

  Emma lifted the lid and peered inside. “Nope. It’s leather goods. But here,” she passed her sister the crowbar and pointed toward a crate in the corner. “I think I see a Dallas stamp on that one. Try it, all right?”

  The second box failed to yield their treasure, as did the third, fourth, and seventh boxes. But the eighth time they pried up a lid, their eyes lit at the sight of rectangular bundles wrapped in brown paper. Emma reached into the crate and tore a slit in the covering, exposing a swath of delicate pink lace. “Mari, we’ve found it!”

  Carefully, they unloaded bolt after bolt, inspecting every one until they discovered the midnight-blue silk. “Oh, it is beautiful,” Emma marveled, unwrapping a length of the cloth. “No wonder Miss Fortune wanted this so badly. Look, Mari, see how the light catches the metallic threads and makes it shine?”

  Maribeth had only a moment to see the feature her sister pointed out. With a shuffling roar, the boxcar door slammed closed, plunging the girls into darkness.

  “Oh, my!” Emma squawked.

  A whistle blew two long blasts, then slowly, the train began to move. “Heck fire, Emma,” Maribeth groaned. “We’ve stepped in the cow chips now.”

  THE NOONTIME sun pounded down upon Fort Worth, unusually warm for a late-September afternoon. Taking inventory of her shop’s dwindling supplies, Jenny fanned her face, frowning as she attempted to recall when she had used the last of her pumpkin-colored thread. It wasn’t like her to fail to replace her stock.

  “But then it isn’t like me to count pennies in order to buy spools of thread, either,” she grumbled. She plunged her fingers into a button tin, rattling the contents in a fruitless search. She had not misplaced what she needed; she simply didn’t have it. No pumpkin-colored thread.

  And no European shipment.

  That blasted Ethel Baumgardner. Jenny wouldn’t put anything past that woman. She’d out and out copied some of Jenny’s designs and tried to pass them off as her own. She’d been pea-green jealous when the Bailey daughters chose the Fort Worth designer to create their wedding gown. Shoot, if not for Big Jack’s superstitious nature, Jenny would suspect Ethel of inventing the Bad Luck Wedding Dress myth. The woman certainly had done her share of spreading the tale. Of that, Jenny had no doubt.

  She’s a poisoned-mouth old biddy—even if she is not more than five years older than I am.

  Jenny was replacing the buttons on the storage shelf when a child’s fearful shriek sounded just outside her door. She jerked toward the noise, her hand bumping a box in the process, and a dozen spools of white thread spilled from the container and clattered to the floor. They rolled in every direction, but Jenny paid them no mind as she flew out of her shop.

  Katrina McBride was yanking open the door that led upstairs, yelling at the top of her voice, “Papa, Papa, Papa!” Yellow ribbons trailed from rich brown pigtails as the young girl climbed frantically toward the family rooms above.

  Jenny called, “Katrina, what’s wrong?”

  The girl glanced over her shoulder but didn’t slow down. “Help, Miss Fortune. I have to find my papa.” She pushed open the door and disappeared inside the McBride home.

  Filled with apprehension, Jenny followed Katrina up the stairs. Trace was never home this time of day. “Isn’t your father at work?” she asked as she went inside.

  “I want him to be home! I have to tell him. He has to hurry to catch them.” She ran through the parlor and the kitchen, then back to her father’s bedroom, crying, “Papa, please be here!”

  A wide-eyed Mrs. Wilson trailed Katrina from the kitchen, wiping wet hands on a dishrag. The two women shared a brief, worried gaze before Jenny caught up with Katrina as she made a turn back through the parlor, headed for the stairs and the attic.

  “Whoa, there, sweetie,” Jenny said, kneeling before the panicked child. “I want you to tell me what’s wrong.”

  Tears spilled down rosy cheeks. “You have to take me to Papa’s saloon, Miss Fortune. I prayed he’d be here because I mustn’t go there on my own. He has to save them!”

  “Save whom?”

  “Emma and Maribeth. The train took them away!”

  With a little more coaching, the story poured from the young girl, and as Jenny held her and listened, she had to stifle a groan at the implications of the tale.

  They’d done this for her. For her! A wave of emotion washed through Jenny, a peculiar combination of love and guilt. Those foolish, reckless, wonderful children. She wrapped Katrina in a fierce hug and said a silent prayer for the safety of the sisters. Poor Emma and Maribeth. They must be so afraid.

  Immediately, she planned her course of action. First she spent a few moments assuring a sobbing Katrina that she’d find Trace and help him return the older girls safe and sound. Next she hurried to Main Street where she hopped the trolley for the fastest transportation to Hell’s Half Acre, only to discover a closed sign and a locked door at the End of the Line Saloon.

  Where was he? Jenny banged on the door, then on the w
indow. She paused to peer inside to the gloomy interior. Nobody was there.

  “Of all the times for him to go missing,” she muttered as she crossed the street to inquire after him at Miss Rachel’s Social Emporium. Having no luck there, she checked the saloons on either side of the End of the Line, but again came up empty.

  She stared frantically up and down the street. Where was he? What kind of father was Trace McBride to up and disappear when his daughters needed him? A responsible parent would always be available in the case of emergency.

  Now, Jenny, be fair, her conscience scolded. She had to acknowledge the difficulty of such an aim, especially when a family had but one parent. And Trace was trying. She couldn’t forget his offer of a job. A hired mother.

  She chuckled humorlessly. Trace McBride didn’t have to pay her to worry about his girls.

  The image of Emma and Maribeth, frightened and alone and trapped inside a dark, swaying railroad car played over and over in her mind. Jenny knew then what she must do.

  Purpose fired her blood as she hurried away from the Acre and made three quick stops: her home, the McBride’s home, and the wagonyard, where she rented the fastest horse and buggy available.

  When Trace stopped to inquire after her almost an hour later, he was told by the proprietor, “That crazy woman lit outta here like a prairie fire with a tail wind. What the hell is she up to?”

  A faint smile played about his lips as he replied, “That crazy woman is trying to save my girls.”

  TRACE RODE alongside the parallel troughs carved over time by the wheels of hundreds of wagons that had traveled the thirty-mile stretch between Fort Worth and Dallas. The past two hours had near to worn him to a frazzle, and his day was far from over.

  The Menaces had struck again, and this time if not for a little luck, the consequences could have been disastrous. Thank God that as of an hour ago—when he’d saddled up and headed east out of town—Emma, Maribeth, and Katrina were safely ensconced in their bedroom with strict instructions not to set so much as a big toe across the threshold until school the next morning. In light of today’s events, he felt reasonably sure that they’d mind him. This time, at least.