Wildflower Harvest: Includes Bonus Story of Desert Rose Read online

  At a disadvantage, Ivy Ann finally broke up the conversation by almost forcing the merry crowd to join in singing Christmas carols. Laurel grinned at the ploy. Ivy Ann knew how white and dainty her hands looked when she played the spinet. Flushed from the warm room and attention, Ivy had never been more beautiful.

  To Laurel’s delight and Ivy Ann’s obvious chagrin, Beau merely thanked the musician for her playing when he left but lingered with Laurel. “Miss Brown, may I call tomorrow? I’d like to finish our discussion.”

  “Of course,” said Laurel triumphantly as she closed the door.

  Her triumph faded, however, before the blaze in Ivy Ann’s eyes and the tight line of her mouth. Ivy didn’t dare say anything in front of their parents but once upstairs she turned on Laurel.

  “Just what do you think you’re doing, hogging Beauregard Worthington all evening?”

  Laurel could have laughed it off; she knew in her heart she should. God did not want families to quarrel. Yet the sore spot formed in childhood when everyone petted and praised her twin had been intensified over Adam Birchfield and irritated further by her own growing dissatisfaction of living in her sister’s shadow. The taste of victory lay sweet in her mouth. “Isn’t it about time?”

  Ivy Ann’s eyelids half-closed in the danger signal Laurel well knew and usually heeded. “What do you mean?”

  Laurel walked to the dressing table, seated herself, and deliberately let down her curls. Ivy’s flushed, angry image stared at her over her shoulder. Suddenly Laurel had borne enough. She turned and faced her sister. “Ever since we were big enough to toddle you’ve had to be first. Pretty, popular Ivy Ann. Quiet Laurel, following a few steps behind. It has never mattered which of us found a new friend or beau. Always they’ve eventually turned from me to you, Ivy Ann. How many boys that I could have cared for did you deliberately take away, even when they meant nothing to you?”

  Ivy’s face turned to pearl but she didn’t answer.

  Laurel felt exhausted. “I love you more than anything or anyone except God. But it isn’t right and it isn’t good for either of us to continue the way we have. You need to learn that you can’t have everything you demand in life.”

  “Meaning Beauregard Worthington?” A small smile crept over Ivy’s face until she looked like a sleepy kitten. Yet Laurel knew how sharp her claws could be.

  She sighed and didn’t back down. “If he chooses to call on me, I am going to welcome him and enjoy his company.” She carefully removed her blue dress and hung it away, noting her twin’s unusual silence. But when Laurel pulled her nightgown over her head she caught Ivy Ann’s whispered response.

  “We’ll just see about that.”

  Was it worth it? Had staging a tiny revolution done anything except challenge Ivy to do her best—or worst—and capture Beau’s interest? Dear God, Laurel silently prayed, maybe You created me to be the giver. But how can Ivy Ann ever become a woman if she takes and takes and takes? Or am I just excusing my own selfishness? Troubled, she fell asleep without an answer.

  If Thomas and Sadie Brown hadn’t been so involved with the never-ending duties of Red Cedars, they would have noticed the latest romantic triangle. A hundred times before, Ivy Ann had charmed the young men who called on Laurel as well as on herself. But this time Laurel didn’t meekly step aside. Deep in her innermost being she knew she cared little for Beauregard Worthington in spite of his eligible qualities. But the same flame of independence that had brought about the most serious argument the twins ever had steadied into resolve. What she had said in a moment of truth bore heavily on her mind. Going on as she had, giving in to her twin, set a silent approval to Ivy’s idea she could and would be first in everything and with everyone.

  No more, Laurel promised herself. And yet the new coldness Ivy bestowed on her almost shattered Laurel’s stance. Childhood arguments and quarrels, conducted without their parents’ knowledge, had always ended with the girls making up before bedtime in compliance with their Bible teachings. This latest rift did not and, for the first time in her life, Laurel refused to apologize for the disagreement and take the blame as she had done before.

  “Dear God,” she prayed one night when Ivy Ann had fallen asleep without even a goodnight, “your Son taught that blessed are the meek. Does meek mean being a doormat all my life? I don’t think so.” She remembered what their minister said in his last sermon concerning the Beatitudes.

  “Moses is identified as a meek man. Can we picture him groveling or effacing himself to the point of losing his personality? No. When we study different languages from Bible times we learn that meek means teachable, not docile and spiritless as people now call it.”

  Ivy Ann’s frosty treatment of Laurel in private matched the January winds that blew across Red Cedars and Shawnee. When others were present, Ivy clung prettily to her sister as usual. Beau extended his visits and often rode out in spite of the snow. Cutters called for the twins and sleighing parties that ended at neighbors’ homes or back at Red Cedars for spiced cider or foamy chocolate brightened the twins’ winter. Beau automatically took his place by Laurel and her natural vanity and pride swelled. Yet devious Ivy managed to sit on Beau’s other side an amazing number of times. Laurel smiled to herself. Her pretty twin seized every opportunity, and prepared for them. A half-dozen times Laurel found her reading and discussing events of the day with their father. Before Beau appeared, such talk had left her bored and restless.

  Wise Ivy Ann! Her knowledge of subjects that interested Beau never went deep, but a few well-chosen comments could keep the intelligent and dedicated young man talking for hours.

  “I didn’t think at first that your sister cared about anything but parties and dresses and flirting,” he candidly told Laurel one evening while they waited for Ivy to come downstairs. “A person shouldn’t go by first impressions, should they?”

  “‘Man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart.’ “Laurel couldn’t help quoting, thinking of Ivy’s deceitful mind.

  “Shakespeare certainly had a way of getting to the core of things, didn’t he?” Beau said enthusiastically.

  Laurel didn’t have the heart to tell him the quote came from the Bible. Neither did she have time. Ivy Ann ran lightly downstairs in spite of her heavy cloak and shoes and warm gloves.

  “Ready?” Her cheeks shone against the dark cloak.

  Laurel sighed inwardly. The look in Beau’s eyes betrayed the beginning of the end. At least he had made a good fight, far better than any young man before him. Laurel felt like tearing off her own heavy clothing and refusing to join the party calling from the sleighs gathered outside. An hour later she wished she had instead of silently submitting to Beau’s hand under her elbow. Ivy’s adoring gaze shone clear even in the starlight. Her upturned face and expression of deep interest sickened her twin. The chances of Ivy caring about anything political equaled those that the world would end before they reached home.

  Yet, Laurel considered, perhaps Ivy Ann did care. If she captured Beau, she might one day live in the governor’s mansion! Laurel let her lips curl into a reluctant smile. No woman of her acquaintance could better carry such a position. Ivy’s charm would dazzle even opponents and prove a real asset to a young man on the rise to fame.

  So could you, a reminding voice whispered.

  She shook her head. The last thing she wanted would be the endless round of gaiety, soirées, and excitement that delighted her twin. An unbidden vision of a tall, dark man etched against a scene similar to the painting by Mrs. Hardwick shot into her mind. She longed to hear his impassioned voice sharing the conviction that God wanted him to go West.

  She compared the two young men who had most touched her life. Beau—equally dedicated, but toward a profession that would bring glory as well as service. Adam—who turned his back on a lucrative practice and future, crossed swords with his father, and followed the dream in his heart to a rough but needy town thousands of miles from home.

 
Laurel felt herself tottering on the edge of an important and enlarged understanding. Not until the evening ended with Ivy twitting about her, letting her mind wander, did Laurel realize a startling truth: Every trace of annoyance with her sister’s flirting had vanished. How trite, how unworthy to care when men and a few courageous women and children struggled to create a home in the wilderness!

  Like a stranger in an unfamiliar land, Laurel observed the pretty young women vying for attention with Ivy Ann in the center. Even a few pitying glances aimed at Laurel when Beau hovered near her twin failed to penetrate the new armor she wore.

  I feel as if tonight I have put away childish things and become a woman while they are still playing with dolls. Laurel smiled at the thought and continued watching her friends. Had Sally-Ellen always simpered so? Strange that she hadn’t noticed how James brayed when he laughed, usually at the wrong times. One by one she considered those she had known for years and those who had entered her life later. She mentally measured them against Adam Birchfield and found them lacking. Only the older men, those who had fought and come home with too-wise eyes to razed homes and the need to start again, could meet Laurel’s high standards.

  Because of her experience, Laurel only smiled tolerantly when Ivy Ann triumphantly confronted her the next morning. “Beau is coming to see me today.”

  “That’s nice,” Laurel said absently. She poked up the fire until it roared into the time-blackened chimney.

  “Don’t you care?” Ivy Ann looked totally astounded. Her mouth dropped open in an unbecoming pose.

  “Should I?” Laurel raised her eyebrows.

  “But he’s been coming to see you!” Ivy Ann petulantly flounced onto a chair across from her sister.

  Laurel instantly caught her twin’s mood. Half the joy Ivy Ann received from Beau’s asking to call on her had been drowned by the fact her twin simply didn’t care! Laurel threw her head back and laughed, a clear, ringing laugh that dispelled any idea Beauregard Worthington’s transfer of affections would give her a moment’s thought.

  Ivy sullenly stared and, when Laurel settled down and put her feet toward the warm fire, she never let her gaze wander.

  “Ivy Ann, do you really care for Beau or is all the excitement just to take him away from another woman?”

  Ivy’s eyes glittered. “He’s nice. He’s going to be someone. The woman he marries will have beautiful clothes, live in a home with servants, and be adored and cared for.”

  “Petted.”

  An angry flush marred the other’s face. “Why don’t you admit it’s sour grapes, Laurel? I’ve got him if I want him and you’re jealous.” She held to her crumbling position with clenched fists.

  “You don’t believe that.” Laurel knew she’d hit home by the way Ivy flinched and the way her color deepened. “Do you really think all the things you mentioned will make you happy? What about when children come and you’re at home while Beau has to attend the parties for the sake of his office? What then, Ivy Ann? Or suppose he’s terribly ill. Will you care for him gladly?”

  Her sister’s lips quivered like a butterfly poised for flight. “You’re perfectly horrid to bring up all those things, Mountain Laurel Brown!”

  Laurel felt a hundred years older than Ivy Ann. She rose and put her arm around Ivy’s shoulder. “Mama and Daddy have taught us marriage is from God and unless we love our husbands with all our hearts—next to God Himself—we must never enter into it.”

  Ivy’s slim shoulders stiffened and Laurel squeezed them. “I won’t say more but never forget that once we say ‘I do’ only death can cancel that promise before God. “She left Ivy staring into the fire, silenced for once.

  For a few weeks Beau shamefacedly sought out Laurel at times and talked with her as before. Yet all Ivy had to do was enter the room to claim his attention. Laurel discovered how sorry she felt for the young man. No boy to be teased, but a man to be reckoned with. Couldn’t Ivy Ann realize her flirtatious ways wouldn’t be tolerated forever?

  Thomas Brown spoke out at dinner one evening when only the four gathered for the meal. He rested his forearms on the table after the blessing. “Is young Worthington courting you, Laurel, or Ivy Ann?” He scowled. “I don’t like the tittle-tattle in Shawnee about one man and twin girls.”

  “Daddy!” Ivy Ann sounded horrified but Laurel caught a satisfied gleam in her dark brown eyes that went so well with a favorite pink dress. “Do you really think Beau would come courting us both at once?”

  “Beau and I are good friends and always have been,” Laurel quietly said. “As far as courting—” Her eloquent shrug said how little it mattered.

  Yet all her lack of caring and common sense couldn’t prevent shock spreading through her a few nights later when she discovered Beau and Ivy Ann kissing in a way no girl should allow unless she were betrothed.

  When Ivy Ann pulled away with a trill of laughter and caroled, “To think I thought you liked Laurel best,” righteous indignation rose to new heights in Laurel. She would break free from her twin, no matter how far she must go.

  Chapter 7

  Now that Laurel Brown had the bit in her teeth, she prepared herself to run with the speed of a fine West Virginia racehorse. Item by item she smuggled into a large trunk: dresses; bonnets; plain things for the most part. She could work slowly, for not until spring would she dare attempt the long journey West. In the dark night hours while Ivy Ann slept and murmured in pleasant dreams, Laurel collected things that wouldn’t be missed and spread her other clothing wide to hide the gaps. She hated the secrecy. With all her heart she longed to go to her parents and say, “This is something I have to do.”

  But she could not. They would forbid her to embark on such a mad escapade worthy of Ivy Ann and not her dependable self. She knew she would never go against their expressed command.

  Now that she no longer paid attention to Beau, some of Ivy’s interest flagged but she hid it well. Laurel suspected pride kept her from discarding him too soon. Besides, his promising future continued to intrigue Ivy. Until she met another and brighter star she found it desirable to stay high in Beau’s esteem.

  Laurel avoided any confrontations with her twin but, inevitably, Ivy Ann provoked her beyond endurance. The pretty blue dress remained Laurel’s best and she saved it for special occasions only. Once or twice Ivy had asked permission to wear it and was refused. Laurel knew how careless Ivy was with clothing. The pink birthday dress already had a tiny tear in the hem, invisibly mended by Laurel but a reminder of Ivy’s irresponsible attitude.

  That same forget-me-not dress laid claim to Laurel’s affections for another reason as well. She had seen Adam Birchfield’s admiring glance when she wore it. When she got to Antelope, Laurel intended to wear that gown the first time she saw Adam.

  Spring came early and Laurel rejoiced. Ivy Ann flitted between Beau and others. Then one afternoon Laurel returned from an invigorating ride that tossed her light brown hair and left her cheeks rosy. She burst into the parlor calling, “Ivy Ann! You should have come, it’s just grand out.”

  A girl in a forget-me-not blue dress guiltily leaped to her feet. The china cup she held tilted and a stream of raspberry cordial cascaded down the soft folds of the dress.

  “Ivy, how could you?” Laurel grabbed her twin’s shoulders and marched her toward the stairs, ignoring the startled protest from her cowed but defiant twin. This time Ivy Ann would not escape justice. Sadie had stepped into the hall, back early from an errand in town. She followed the twins upstairs, scolding all the way.

  “Did you have permission to wear Laurel’s dress?” she snapped. None of her usual amiability softened her features.

  “N-no.” Ivy Ann looked six instead of twenty. Mama’s wrath knew few bounds once provoked.

  “The dress is ruined,” Laurel cried, her anger turned to numbness while Mama helped get the blue dress off Ivy.

  Mama’s mouth buttoned itself shut. “This isn’t the last of this, girls. There’s company downstair
s and you’re to go back and apologize to Mr. Worthington for this scene,” she finally ordered Ivy Ann. “Laurel, I need help in the kitchen.”

  “I can’t go down.” Ivy Ann shivered. “Beau will—won’t—”

  “I expect you dressed and downstairs in five minutes.” Mama snatched a simply gray dress from the wardrobe. “Wear this.”

  Obviously frightened, Ivy Ann got into the dress, smoothed her hair, and followed Mama. Laurel held out the wide skirt panels and wondered if the front breadth could be removed.

  “Why bother?” She wadded up the gown and threw it into a heap in the corner. “I’ll never wear the spoiled thing again, anyway. Not after it’s been ruined and made over.” The numbness passed and an exultant wave of gladness filled her. In a short time she’d be gone. Never again could Ivy Ann selfishly take and ruin what rightfully belonged to her.

  Beau didn’t stay long and the girls avoided each other’s company until supper. Afterward Thomas gathered Sadie and the twins into the parlor. “Ivy Ann, you have acted abominably and I’m ashamed of you.”

  Laurel couldn’t help but feel a little sorry for the drooping figure huddled in a chair that heightened her deceptively frail figure. If Daddy ever boomed at her like that!

  “Go get the blue dress,” Thomas commanded Ivy Ann. “Laurel, bring down the pink birthday dress.”

  She started to protest but saw the stony look in her father’s face and did what she’d been told, following thoroughly subdued Ivy Ann. Back in the parlor Thomas spread the stained gown out over his knees.

  “Sadie, will the stain come out?”