A Tailor-Made Bride by Karen Witemeyer Read Free Book Online Page B

his jaw, J.T. pulverized as many dirt clods under his boots as possible while he crossed the road. First he tangled himself up with the dressmaker for another day by promising to make her a table, and now he’d dragged Cordelia into it, too. Exactly what he’d been trying to avoid.
    J.T. stormed into his office and shut the door. He pounded the wall with his fist as his rebellious eyes sought Hannah Richards through the window and followed her until she disappeared into the mercantile. With a growl, he spun around and pressed his back into the wall, banging his head against the wood.
    A godsend?
    J.T. tipped his chin toward the ceiling. “If it’s all the same to you, the next time she needs help, send someone else.”

C HAPTER 5
    By the time all trace of pink had faded from the sky the next morning, Hannah had already completed her calisthenic regimen, arranged her trunks and crates about the room, and organized her food supplies and personal belongings. A mountain of work still awaited her downstairs, but that knowledge did nothing to dim the excitement skittering across her nerves. If all went according to plan, she’d have her shop in basic working order by the end of the day and be open for business on the morrow. The very thought sent her into a pirouette. The shortened skirt of her loose-fitting gymnastic costume belled out around her.
    Now, if only Miss Tucker would arrive with her milk, the day would be off to a grand start. Fighting off a spurt of impatience, Hannah decided to start in on her devotional time without her breakfast cocoa. Whenever possible, she began the day by sipping chocolate and reading from her Bible, but she couldn’t afford to wait on the cocoa with all that had yet to be accomplished.
    She had utilized every scrap of yesterday’s daylight to knock down cobwebs from the rafters and corners of her living quarters, clean out ashes from the stove, scrub the floor, and curtain off her bedroom area. When the early darkness of the autumn evening had finally forced her to stop, she collapsed onto her lumpy mattress like a dervish that had run out of whirl and slept unmoving until a nearby rooster let out his predawn squawk. Spun back into action by the sound, she’d been swirling about in a frenzy ever since. She was more than ready for a little quiet time.
    Hannah pushed the curtain aside, trying to ignore the unattractive fabric as she collected her Bible from the crate next to her bed. When Floyd Hawkins, the dry-goods store owner, heard she was a seamstress, he had dug out a bolt of dusty calico that had apparently been languishing untouched for over a year in his cloth bin and demanded she take it off his hands at the wholesale price. Hannah certainly understood why no one had purchased the appalling fabric. She would swallow a bug before fashioning the orange-dotted cloth into a dress. But knowing she could put it to use, her practical side wouldn’t let her pass up the bargain. Tacked up in pleated folds along a ceiling beam, it offered privacy, if not great aesthetic value. Perhaps she could drape an eye-pleasing swag across the top and add a ribbon to the hem to dress it up a bit when things settled down.
    Bible in hand, Hannah took a seat on the trunk bench she had positioned beneath the window to the left of the stove. She tugged the red satin ribbon that held her place and opened to Proverbs 16, the passage she had been meditating on for the last month as she made preparations for this day. Morning sunlight illuminated the wisdom on the page. Verse three promised that if she committed her work to the Lord, her thoughts would be established. Yet verse eight cautioned that having little while being righteous was better than great revenues without right. Finally, verse nine, the verse of balance, brought her hopes and fears together in a call to trust.
    “ ‘A man’s heart deviseth his way,’ ” she whispered, “ ‘but the Lord directeth his steps.’ ”
    Hannah read the