Free Pieces of Dreams by Jennifer Blake

with its soft fabrics gleaming in the muted light falling through the tree canopy overhead and its fine stitching tracking over it in regular and precise patterns.
    The motifs of the bridesmaids' squares made lovely corner accents: The rich aquamarine-blue of the sea waves beneath the clipper ship in full sail that Lydia had stitched. The shades of pink and rose which her cousin Sarah had used to embroider a rose wreath to indicate the bouquet of late summer blooms she would make for Melly to carry up the aisle. The sweet simplicity of the daisy in white and green that Esther had cross-stitched on her square along with the Shakespearean phrase, “ Love comforteth like sunshine after rain .” The swirls of silver-gray embroidery in running chain stitch of Biddy's eloquent and moving Biblical fragment, 'Whither thou goest ...'
    Each of her friends had adorned her square according to her own taste and personality, therefore each square was a vivid and unique reminder of the person who had sewn and initialed it. Melly would have cherished the quilt for that reason alone, but the exquisite workmanship and fortuitous blending of colors and fabrics made it a treasure to be cared for and handed down through the years.
    “I'll need to be careful of it,” she said with a misty smile. “But I will be, always. And I'll never, ever part with it, not for anything.”
    Caleb, glancing over at her, shook his head on a low laugh. “I give it five years. After that, the babies will be using it for a napping pallet and spitting up on it right and left.”
    “Caleb Wells! What a thing to say!” The rebuke came from Biddy.
    “That's right,” Lydia said with an indignant glance. “You hush your mouth.”
    “Five years,” Melly's fiancé repeated with an unrepentant grin. “Mark my words.”
    Conrad roused himself from his somnolent enjoyment of the sound of Melly's voice and the pleasurable torture of breathing in her scent of roses, lavender, spice and warm womanliness and feeling the silky softness of her dimity skirt against his jaw. He didn't care for Caleb's superior tone or the suggestion that eternal motherhood would leave Melly too tired and harassed to care about fine things. More than that, he was curious.
    Levering himself to one elbow, he cast an eye over the finished quilt, then gave it a closer look. The squares were pieced from the silk he had sent to Melly; he recognized the goods. Strange he had not noticed that first night, but other things had been on his mind.
    A crooked smile tugged at his mouth as he said almost at random, “What you need is a special box to protect it. I have a small chest on my ship made out of carved teak that I picked up in Hong Kong to keep moisture and bugs out of my papers. I'll send it to you, if you like.”
    “Oh, I couldn't take yours,” she said with a warm smile.
    “Nor will you have to,” Caleb objected, cutting into their quiet exchange. “I can build Melly a box out of cedar.”
    Melly sent her future husband a quick look. “That would be—very nice, someday, but for now I'd like to put the quilt out in the parlor. If you—”
    “Sketch out what you want,” Caleb said evenly. “I'll see to it.”
    There was a small silence during which Conrad very carefully did not look at either his brother or Melly. He had wanted her to have the chest, and couldn't see that offering it to her violated any of the rules about presenting personal items to females. Caleb apparently felt otherwise. Or maybe it was just that he didn't want Melly accepting anything from him.
    Did Caleb know he had provided the silk for Melly’s wedding gown? Conrad somehow doubted it. The groom wasn’t supposed to see the thing before the wedding, after all.
    Conrad hated to think of the way his brother might find out. It could easily be on his wedding night as he stepped close enough to his new wife to see the small Oriental figures in the brocade, to touch the heavy silk, to slide it from Melly's