Unbridled Dreams by Stephanie Grace Whitson Read Free Book Online

blue from your dress showing up the pattern in the lace, it’ll look really nice.” Inspiration struck. She opened the small velvet box sitting in the tray of her traveling trunk and held up a pair of earrings. “Put these on. The dangles don’t do a thing for my scrawny neck. In fact,” she said, tucking her hands into her armpits and bobbing her head back and forth, “they make me look like a chicken.” She squawked and strutted her way across the room as Minnie held the earrings up to her ears and then joined in the clucking and strutting. Finally, the girls collapsed on the bed in a fit of laughter.
    “Now you stop,” Minnie gasped, trying to regain her composure. She handed the earrings back, “They’re lovely but I can’t. I don’t want the responsibility. If one fell out at Scout’s Rest we’d never find it, and Aunt Willa would throw a fit about that. So would Ma, for that matter.”
    “All right,” Irma said and, returning the earrings to her jewelry box. She held up a length of ivory-colored ribbon. “Then we’ll braid this into your hair. Between that and the lace frill, no one will even notice the dress isn’t new.”
    “Thanks.” Minnie accepted the ribbon.
    “I’ll do a French braid. Orrin Knox won’t be able to take his eyes off you. Of course I expect to get some credit when that happens.”
    “Should that miracle occur,” Minnie countered, “there is not a chance that I am going to put your name in Mr. Knox’s head by telling him you had anything to do with my ensemble.”
    “Why not?”
    “You know exactly why. Your mother has her own plans for Mr. Knox. It’s going to take more than a bit of lace on last year’s dress to get him to notice me. ”
    Irma reached for her cousin’s hand. “You listen to me, Minnie Mason, and believe what I am about to say—I have no interest in Orrin Knox.”
    Minnie shrugged. “I do believe you. But Aunt Willa has her ways . . . and any man would be an idiot to choose me over—”
    “You stop right there,” Irma said. She glowered at Minnie. “You have everything any man in his right mind would desire in a woman. You’re lovely. You can cook and sew with the best of women. I, on the other hand, hate to cook and sew, and the last thing on earth I want is to settle down and raise a family. A man would have to be crazy to be interested in me right now, and if Orrin Knox doesn’t have enough sense to see that, then I’ll just have to corner him and tell him!”
    Minnie’s hand went to her mouth. “You wouldn’t!”
    “I won’t have to,” Irma said as she shimmied her way into another one of the petticoats. “Orrin doesn’t care for me a bit.” When Minnie looked doubtful, Irma insisted. “He doesn’t. Momma is always talking about how my dreams are ridiculous. Well, trust me. When it comes to ‘ridiculous,’ Momma’s notions about my future win the prize. I am not going to stand for being courted by the likes of Orrin Knox, and that’s that.” She reached into Minnie’s wardrobe and pulled out the blue dress. “Now get thyself primped and proper, Miss Mason. The buggy departs directly.”
    Minnie changed while Irma grunted through the process of buttoning her shoes and grimaced as she donned the ridiculous bustle that made her backside wiggle when she walked. Glancing at herself in the mirror, she wondered at the dichotomy between what Momma called a “virtuous reticence of manner” and the reality that dressed in this getup she would be shaking her tail feathers at every man on the ranch today.
    With a sigh of resignation, Irma pulled the teal plaid walking skirt over her head, tucked in the ivory waist, then added the plaid jacket cut to suggest a plunging neckline that emphasized the veritable waterfall of ivory lace spilling down her front. The idea that this was somehow more demure than a simple denim split skirt was ridiculous. But Minnie was right about one thing. The dressmaker had done a good job of