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pay a visit to Sister Gonzaga.”

    THE PACKAGE on the shelf was wrapped in plain brown paper but tied with hair ribbons in nine different colors. Next to it sat a dress box containing a young woman’s gown made of calico, designed with a careful eye and sewn with loving stitches. Today was Emma McBride’s birthday.
    Jenny hadn’t seen the girls except in passing for the past ten days, ever since the clash with their father upstairs. “Talk about Town” reported that their time was divided between the Catholic and Baptist churches, doing odd jobs and for the most part staying out of trouble. She hoped for Mr. McBride’s sake that was true. He’d certainly appeared at the end of his patience when he stormed into the parlor that memorable afternoon.
    She could empathize with the feeling. She was reaching the end of her own patience with the superstitious citizens of Fort Worth.
    With every day that passed, the outlook for Fortune’s Design grew bleaker. Nothing she tried made a difference. She’d cut her prices and placed an advertisement in the Democratto alert customers to the change. She’d had broadsides printed and passed out to people on the streets. She’d attended every pie supper, quilting bee, and church social in town, but no one appeared willing to take the risk of wearing a Jenny Fortune design.
    Her gaze drifted to the ribbon-wrapped box. Except for Trace McBride, that is. He had not canceled his order for Emma’s dress. Neither had the Widow Sperry, bless her soul.
    Jenny had work to do today because of that kind lady. The last order on her book was a cool-weather dress in black bombazine. Rilda Bea Sperry, an elderly woman whose wealth was the direct result of having married and buried four husbands, had scoffed at the idea of being felled by bad luck if she patronized Fortune’s Design. As she happily proclaimed while ordering the gown, what some perceived as bad luck, others knew to be a windfall. Jenny wished Fort Worth had more people like her.
    Before the latest Bailey bride’s mishap and the subsequent mention of the Bad Luck Wedding Dress in the Democrat Jenny had been forced to turn away work. Nowadays if her shop’s welcome bell rang at all it was more likely a gust of wind than a customer. Even the McBride girls hadn’t shown their faces inside the store since the trouble with the nuns’ horses.
    The McBride girls. Jenny wondered how the drama upstairs had ended. Their father had been so upset, so angry. She’d have changed her opinion of the man entirely had she not seen his concern for his daughters and sensed his grief for his wife. It must be exceedingly difficult for a man to raise three daughters alone. Look at all the trouble her own father had encountered, and there had been only one of her.
    She fluffed out the bombazine, eyed the length of hem yet to be sewn, then resumed her stitching. She really shouldn’t try to compare Trace McBride and her father. The saloonkeeper wasn’t anything like Richard Fortune.
    Lucky for the McBride girls .
    Jenny dropped her needle at the mean-spirited thought. Guilt rolled over her in waves. Richard Fortune wasn’t a bad father, not at all. He simply expended so much energy on his science and her mother—the two great loves of his life—that there wasn’t a lot left over for his daughter. She understood; she truly did.
    There wasn’t a doubt in Jenny’s mind that her father cared deeply for her. He always wanted what was best for her. Why, the argument that had led to her parents’ second divorce had begun as a disagreement over her education. And he wouldn’t be insisting she return to Thicket Glen if he didn’t care.
    And yet he did it all from a distance. For all of the love they shared, she and her father had never quite bridged the space between them. She’d wanted hugs and he’d patted her head, when he remembered she was around.
    Trace McBride hugged his girls all the time.
    Jenny sighed in self-disgust as she put the final