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"The second our eyes landed on each other—I've never felt this way. I've never been with anyone like him." Alice wrapped her arms around herself, fighting off a sudden chill. Bold statements of love and adoration flowed until she'd gotten it all off her chest. She'd paused, and Bailey slipped in the big question.

"Are you really going to marry someone you don't love?"

"Yes. Of course I am," she answered curtly and assuredly. Her tenor could have been about anything. As if she were discussing chocolate cake versus vanilla for her reception. Carnations versus roses. There was no gray area. "This is Mendol. We don't marry for love; we marry to honor our families. For the good of our standing in the eyes of God. I can't be with John, not in public."

Interracial marriage was against the law in Oklahoma. Even a flirtatious glance might be punished. Sex between two consenting adults of different races was downright reckless, although everyone also knew that the rules were only enforced in one direction. A white man who wanted to marry or take a lover of a different race met no resistance, at least not from the law. But for a white woman choosing to be with anyone other than a white man, the road would be long, hard, and very dangerous. Alice, her entire family, and especially the Pawnee man, would pay dearly for such actions.

"I've heard some people travel to New Mexico or Kansas to be together," Bailey offered.

"Thank you. Yes. I've heard it would be easier anywhere other than here. Oh my, we best get on with this fitting." Alice turned around and waited for Bailey to close her gown. "I can't tell you what a relief it's been talking about all of this. I feel like a weight has been lifted. Can you make the hem a touch shorter? I don't want to trip going down the aisle," she added.

Bailey had spent the rest of her time with Alice silently pleading, Please don't tell anyone what I've said here today. "I didn't mean to overstep, Miss Alice," she eventually whispered. "Please keep this between us? I'm truly sorry if I've offended you."

"No. I would never tell a soul. Could never," Alice admitted. "Telling someone about you would mean the truth coming out about me. My fiancé is a proud man. You've met him. Not likely to let me live it down, if you know what I mean. This secret I need to take to my grave," she said with a finger to her lips. "You keep quiet and I'll do the same."

Weeks later, Miss Alice Ledge continued on her merry way, down the aisle, bouquet in hand, ignoring her true feelings. True love was a fairy tale, Bailey told herself. Lesson learned.

She swallowed the dreams and visions at night, let the tingly surge of awareness churn in her stomach, and ignored the prickly rise of hairs on her skin. She tamped down the urge to speak of warnings and soothsaying. She learned to smother the concern. No more, she chanted to herself. The brides were on their own. Who was she to try to open a door that had been closed and locked for decades, centuries even?

The problem was that Miss Alice hadn't kept her word. The secret was out. Suddenly, a gaggle of women, young ladies mostly, arrived with dresses in hand. Or they picked one a few sizes too large, with a bow askew, of an unflattering garish satin... anything they could buy right away off the Regal Gown rack so they could be pinned and touched by Bailey Dowery.

Not wanting to bring attention to herself, Bailey did her best to turn away the guidance seekers, even ones who offered to pay well enough for her services.

A few times she'd taken the irresistible cash pressed against her palm. Tell me something... anything.

She was enticed by the money. She could make good use of an extra twenty dollars at the end of the month. She'd also been urged along by Gabby Jones, her oldest and dearest friend. "Take the money," she'd told Bailey on more than one occasion. "Why shouldn't you be paid? You're offering a service, no different than hemming one of those gowns. It's worth more, actually. It's priceless, if you ask me."

Touching a bride and sparking a vision may have seemed like effortless work, but it left Bailey drained, exhausted. She could only read someone if there was passion and heat just below the surface. She then was forced to live and experience those emotions herself, however briefly.

Where had it gotten her? Bailey questioned the point of it all. Wishing not to see the visions didn't stop them from coming. So in turn, she was lying each and every time she said, I can't help you. And each time leaving pieces of herself behind.