Free Miracle Jones by Nancy Bush

slipped into a mood of melancholy she couldn’t shake. Uncle Horace could be dead, for all she knew. She’d tried to keep that thought from her mind, but now it came like a persistent beat, hammering at her until she could no longer push it aside. The highwaymen who kidnapped her had done something to him. Hurt him. Made it impossible for him to find her.
    Sorrow filled her, burning her eyes. She rested her chin on her palms and watched shadows move across the lake as the sun fled behind the mountains. It amazed her that it had not yet been a day since the kidnapping, yet her whole life had changed.
    She shivered. Harrison’s life had changed also. With a vague sense of premonition she wondered who was waiting for him in Rock Springs, and what they were thinking had happened to him.
    ¤   ¤   ¤
    The Rock Springs church was an unpretentious clapboard building with an iron bell in the belltower, a small juniper hedge lining the front walk, and a sign welcomed one and all. There was a square rectory attached by a breezeway to the back, and a dusty rose garden, wilted and straggly now, which was the reverend’s own pride and joy.
    On that hot September evening everybody who was anybody in Rock Springs showed up at the church to offer congratulations and best wishes to the bride and groom. The mayor, a personal friend of the Garretts, was resplendent in a black suit with a black and gray striped waistcoat. Sheriff Raynor, a personal friend of the Danners, stood by uncomfortably in a shirt buttoned to his throat and a string tie that looked to be choking him. The ladies of the Ladies Aid Society wore taffeta, satin, and even silk. They stood in an uncompromising line near the church steps, a dozen old biddies with sour faces and gossipy tongues. Jason Garrett, the brother of the bride, waited at the open church doors. A hot breeze ruffled his hair, and he sweated in a solid navy wool suit. His pretty and seductive wife, Emerald, stood proudly at his side. Tremaine Danner was in a black tuxedo, his wife, Lexington, wore a peach satin gown. Their expressions were grim and anxious, revealing their feelings eloquently. Beside them, like small, silent soldiers at attention, stood their two sons, Jamie, nine, and Seth, eight.
    Joseph and Eliza Danner, the groom’s parents, remained beside the barren rose bushes. Joseph’s arm was around his wife’s waist, offering her support. Her face was pale behind a netted blue veil, and she leaned against her husband as if the early fall heat had quite prostrated her.
    The bride was sequestered in a room near the back of the church, swathed in creamy white lace from hem to throat, only the most demure of décolletages peeking through a long netted veil studded with seed pearls.
    Yes, everyone was there except for the groom.
    Alone in the backroom, Kelsey felt the oppressive heat weigh down on her, prickling her scalp and making it itch. She tried to sneak a finger beneath the waving folds of her shimmering veil and only succeeded in hearing the delicate fabric rend. Sighing, she gave up and resumed pacing the small and stifling room, wearing a path in the already worn red carpet.
    A muffled knock sounded at the door.
    “Come in,” Kelsey called. Had Harrison finally arrived?
    Her matron of honor, Lexington Danner, slipped inside in a rustle of peach satin. One look at her face and Kelsey knew Harrison hadn’t shown.
    “Hi,” Lexie said, regarding Kelsey with a twisting, sympathetic smile. “Beastly weather, isn’t it?”
    Kelsey didn’t answer. She liked and respected Lexie and was still embarrassed for the way Jace had treated her after Lexie had broken their engagement. Though Kelsey didn’t know the whole story, she was astute enough to sense Jace had hurt Lexie in some unforgivable way when she’d professed her love for Tremaine. Kelsey suspected he’d made improper advances; Jace was not a man known for his self-control. But she also suspected that Lexie had held her