Mail Order Bride: Springtime (Bride For All Seasons 1)

“Either shut up and sit down,” growled Ben, with feeling, “or get out. I’m in no mood to deal with your malarkey.”

“Holy Hannah. You’ve done gone off the deep end. What happened to get you in such a lather?” Ignoring the burst of spleen, Gabriel yanked out a free chair and signaled for the waiter. “I’ll have what he’s got,” he placed the order in an aside. “May’s well bring along an empty glass, too.”

Silence reigned at their table for a few minutes, while conversation ebbed and flowed in the other parts of the room, crockery clattered, and Ben sullenly but methodically plied his knife and fork.

“Tasty?”

“Yeah.”

“Fillin’?”

“To a tee.”

Gabriel was tired. He had spent a goodly number of hours working to extract a reluctant baby from its anguished mother’s womb, and he was physically drained from the effort. It had been a touch-and-go situation, toward the end, but fortunately he had brought both safely through perilous waters into safe haven. Leaving them and a vastly relieved new father to recover from the ordeal, he now wanted nothing more than to fill his empty gullet and crash onto his single bed.

Still, a few gulps of redeye couldn’t hurt.

“Ah, thanks, Billy.” Gratefully he acknowledged the steaming dish placed almost under his nose, and began to dig in. “So,” he continued the earlier thread of conversation, “all is not well in this corner of Paradise, I take it?”

“You would take it correct.”

“Huh.” Gabriel chewed meditatively on a baking-powder biscuit. “And just what started all this foofaraw?”

“Hanged if I know.”

“Well, son, either you wanna talk about it, or you don’t. Which?”

Ben slugged down another couple fingers of rye whiskey. Or firewater. Or rotgut. Or tonsil paint. Whatever was in the bottle, he was having it, and plainly not happy about sharing. Meanwhile glancing around, to note that many of the customers had cleared out and the place was almost empty behind its pretty blue-checked curtains. Still, he kept his voice low-toned when he answered, to relate how events had proceeded from pleasant to putrid during the afternoon’s drive.

Once he was finally finished venting, his friend needed a belt of intoxicants himself.

“So, you got no idea what you said or did to get her so upset?”

“Not a clue. Soon as I told her I was headin’ to Manifest tomorrow, by myself, she flew off the handle and stormed inside. And I ain’t seen or talked to her since.”

Gabriel, his plate left half-full as his appetite eased, leaned back in his chair to consider. “Well, y’ know, I ain’t never been married, so I can’t give you a world of advice. But I do b’lieve I know a little bit more about women than you do.”

“Prob’ly true. You been around the block a few times.”

“Huh,” the doctor, miffed, said again. “You needn’t sound so sanctimonious about it.”

Finished, Ben shoved his dish aside and got down to some serious drinking. “Maybe I oughta talk to somebody else about this.”

“Yeah, by all means, do that,” hooted Gabe. “B’cause you got such a large circle of friends to choose from.”

The muscle in Ben’s furious jaw was working overtime. “Just keep on a-yappin’. I can easily make my circle just one friend smaller.”

“That possibility worries me no end.” Shrugging his shoulders in the brown frock coat, shoulders that ached abominably after their ordeal, he replenished his own supply of killer sauce. “Sounds to me, O great purveyor of incidentals, like a classic case of misunderstanding. Forget talkin’ with me; have you tried talkin’ with her?”

“With Camellia?” Ben’s expression became inordinately astounded. “You joshin’ me? Why would I do that?”

Propping both elbows on the table top with a thunk, Gabriel buried his face in both palms and let out a resounding groan. “Oh, Lord help me. Was there ever such a fool of a man? All right.” Drawing in a deep breath, he laid both hands

flat to glare at his companion. “Point is, what’re you gonna do about it?”

“Dunno. Get drunk, I guess.”

“No, by gum, you are not. You get to the place where you’re feelin’ no pain, Benjamin, then you betake yourself home and snuggle up to that pretty wife of yours and make things right.”