face, framed by her floppy white ears, made her look innocent, but I knew better. She could make all the deep, soulful sounds she wanted, but I still wouldn’t let her into my yard.
“You trying to make it rain, darlin’?”
I froze midstep, arms still raised. Will Flores. Why was it that anytime I happened to be doing something ridiculous—like shooing away wayward goats—Will was there to see it? “I made it
He stood, rocking back on his heels, his hands in his pockets, a crooked little smile on his lips. Gracie stood next to him. I heard the faint
“Good work, then,” he said, his smile widening. “So next flash flood that comes through, you just do your thing.”
Thelma Louise had finally scurried back to her own pasture. I threaded through the bluebonnets, staying on the flagstone path and trying not to crush the encroaching flowers. Mama’s charm seemed to have lingered after her; the flowers were multiplying faster than a flurry of June bugs dive-bombing in the moonlight on a hot summer night. I unlocked the front door and held it open as Gracie and Madelyn stepped inside.
Will caught the door behind me. He leaned down and whispered in my ear, his hand, just for the briefest second, resting on my waist. “You look mighty fine, whatever kind of dance you’re doing.”
He had a good six inches on me, and I’d worn flats today so the distance from my eyes to his… was pretty steep. I looked up at him as I passed inside. “Why, thank you,” I said, waxing heavy on my Southern accent and batting my eyes.
“My pleasure.” As he closed the door behind him, I was already shifting gears. Flirtation had to give way to work. Madelyn was snapping test pictures, pointing her camera in different directions. “Trying to figure out the best spot for the photo shoot,” she answered, even though I hadn’t asked.
Gracie slipped behind the privacy screen in the workroom. I dropped my purse and Trudy’s notebook on the coffee table so I could take the gown off the dress form and hand it to her. “Let me know if you need help,” I told her.
“It’s really lovely.”
“I wonder if she’ll feel that way when she finds out that was her grandmother’s gown,” I whispered to Will.
His eyes instantly darkened. “Eleanor Mcafferty wore that dress?” he hissed.
Suddenly the air whooshed around me, rushing through the room like an invisible meteor. The clothes swayed on their hangers. My purse flopped open. The pages of Trudy’s book rustled from the coffee table. Finally, I felt a feathery breath against my ear. Meemaw had joined us.
Will looked around, striding to the front door, which was cracked open, and slammed it shut. “Damn house,” he muttered under his breath. He scowled as he walked back to me, his lips pressed together between his mustache and goatee. “When did you find that out?”
“My grandmother just told me the story.” Or at least enough of the story that I knew who wore each of the three gowns. “She wore the yellow one, Eleanor’s was the green silk that Gracie has, and Mrs. James’s was the cornflower blue. Will,” I said, sensing that he wanted to forbid Gracie from wearing the gown I’d fixed for her. “She was instantly drawn to that dress. It’s almost as if she sensed it had been in her family.”
“Gracie doesn’t need anything of that woman’s,” Will said.
“You can’t blame Mrs. Mcafferty. She doesn’t even know about Gracie,” I reminded him. Like he could forget. I squeezed his arm. “It’s just a dress.” And if I really believed that, I was sure there was some prime vineyard land in the Hill Country somebody could sell me on the cheap. What I knew for sure was that everything had a history to it, including, if not especially, fabric and clothing. The threads connected us, weaving together the past, the present, and the future, sometimes in deeper ways than we might have thought possible.
The bells hanging from the knob on the front door jingled. “Knock knock,” Anna Hughes, Buckley’s wife, said in a singsong voice as she stepped into the shop. Her son, Libby’s beau, was on her heels. Anna’s eyes grew wide as she took in Buttons & Bows: the metal display board with photographs of models wearing my designs and swatches of fabrics held to it with tiny magnets, the rack of samples, the bolts of fabrics stacked against the far wall in the workroom and on the worktable, the antique shelf with the Mason jars filled with buttons and trims. “Wow.”
Oh lordy. Anna and her
“Is now a good time?” The slur of her words made me wonder if she’d had a cocktail or two already. I raised my eyebrows in a silent question at her son, Duane, but he just shrugged. Being dragged to a dressmaker’s studio was hardly exciting for a teenage boy.
“Um, sure. Come on in. Your sister’s wedding, right?”
Her smile faltered, but she caught it before it disappeared altogether. “Third wedding, but I’m not sure what I want…” She left the sentence unfinished when she heard the click of the camera.
Madelyn snapped a picture from where she stood next to the armoire. Still testing the light, I guessed.
I shut the door behind them and ushered them in. “Like you said, third time’s a charm.”
Duane sank down on the sofa. “Or three strikes you’re out,” he mumbled. His mother shot him a stern, if wavering, look.
I studied Anna Hughes, trying to gauge if she agreed with her son, but before I could get a reading on her, she schooled her face into a perfectly unemotional expression. I led her to the ready-made clothes. “Maybe you’ll find something here. It would be less expensive than a custom design—”
“Oh!” Gracie yelped from behind the privacy screen.
Anna waved me away, heading to the seating area and the lookbook. “I didn’t mean to interrupt. I’ll wait.”
I left her to browse while I went to help Gracie, but Will beat me to her. “What’s wrong, baby?” he said.
“I… I… I don’t know.”
She stepped out from behind the screen. With her hair parted in the center, isolated long curls dangling in ringlets on either side of her face, and a high bun on the crown of her head, she could have stepped right out of one of the pictures framed in my stairwell.
“You’re stunning.” I came around behind her to button her up, but as I touched the fabric, a jolt shot up my arms. A vision tore through my mind, but not of Gracie. It was a vision of Eleanor Mcafferty in this very gown, but I was looking through her eyes right at Nana and Mrs. James. They were younger, dressed in their Margaret gowns. My granddaddy Dalton was in the background.
Another jolt went through me as Nana reached her hand out, grabbed hold of the fabric of my dress, and yanked, tearing the silk. “It’s a lie,” she said, her voice thready and thin and echoing only in my mind.
I stumbled back, Will’s arms catching me before I lost my balance. “It was Nana,” I said, my voice hushed. “She ripped the gown.”
Chapter 27
Madelyn clapped her hands from the front room. “Let’s get this show on the road.”
“Should I come back?” Anna called. “I sure didn’t think you’d be so busy at this time of night.”
I finished buttoning Gracie up, and ushered her over to Madelyn, noticing how Duane stared at her, rapt. Looked like Duane and Libby’s future together wasn’t as assured as Dr. Hughes was hoping for. “We’ll be taking pictures for a little while…” I trailed off, leaving it up to Anna if she wanted to come back or wait.
She settled back against the settee, lounging like Cleopatra. “I’ll wait.”
My gaze met Will’s. His back was stick straight and his hands were fisted in his pockets. “Sounds great,” I said, my voice more enthusiastic than I actually felt at the moment. Part of me was glad Anna was staying. It meant I wouldn’t have to lie to Will about whatever magic Gracie might be carrying inside of her. But the other part of me wanted to come clean about what I knew, figure out what in tarnation was going on, and reassure Will that everything would be okay.
“Yeah, great,” he said. I sensed he was just as conflicted as I was.
