Mail Order Bride: Summer (Bride For All Seasons 2)

She was finished consuming her belated breakfast. With an efficiency of movement that categorized almost everything she did, Camellia moved the tray aside, out of the way, to take her sister’s cold hands in both of hers.

“You felt comfortable with him, didn’t you, my dear? Safe?”

Molly nodded. “With him. And Ben. And Dr. Havers. No one—no one else...no other man. With things as they are—with the way I feel—I don’t want to even speak to anyone. Cam, do you think Paul could come see me again? I need to tell him about—this...” The sideways slant of her head indicated the note, and the gathering of blooms. “And I want to ask him about my—my options.”

Camellia’s throat closed up. A quick breath, and then another, was necessary before she could speak. “Yes, certainly. When Ben comes home for dinner, we’ll ask him to get hold of Paul for us.”

Chapter Fourteen

HE DID BETTER THAN that. He brought the man into the house with him.

While Camellia, busy at the stove (was there any other place to be at this time of day?), pasted on a bright and sunny smile, she couldn’t quite repress a sigh. The place seemed over-full, these days, of tall, bronzed men intent upon their own business. And, if Paul were present, could the doctor be far behind?

Dinner preparations were, fortunately, fairly simple. Salt pork, sliced thick and fried; fresh green beans from someone’s garden, cooked deliciously in bacon grease; potatoes baked in their own skins, dusted over with melted butter and seasonings; another pan of those out-of-this-world sugar buns. Blackberry bushes were still producing their tart and luscious fruit; yesterday Hannah, fast becoming an avid gardener, had gone out scavenging. The result was today’s melt-in-your-mouth cobbler, topped with cream.

Camellia had gladly promised her sister a pan of leftover dessert.

Paul’s nostrils visibly palpated at such enticing aromas as he entered the kitchen, and then he offered his usual crooked, somewhat shy smile. “Good day to you, Camellia.”

“He was passin’ by me in the street,” Ben, already washing with a great deal of vigor and stray suds at the sink, informed his wife. “So I invited him on over. Here you go, son,” tossing a towel, which his friend expertly caught with one hand, over his shoulder.

“Will Molly be joinin’ us?”

“Yes, Paul, she’ll be downstairs directly. And I believe there’s a matter she’d like to discuss with you, after dinner, if you have time.”

“Always,” said the sheriff genially. He had put aside his rain-splattered Stetson and a light woolen coat, at Ben’s urging, to take a comfortable seat in his shirt sleeves

It was a pleasant meal, despite the underlying cause. Molly, moving carefully and stiffly, had indeed come to the table, Since she no longer saw Paul as “company,” but a loyal friend and ally, she could relax and enter into the general conversation over the potatoes that were just a trifle too salty and the buns with a slight burned layer to the crust. (Although becoming increasingly proficient, even gifted Camellia, the Martha of her kitchen, must occasionally suffer some minor setback.)

At the moment, Paul was joshing his host about the pitfalls of leadership at the most recent town hall meeting, some ten days ago.

“I wasn’t able to attend,” said Camellia, looking up with interest from her plate, “and Ben said nothing about any problem that aro

se. What happened?”

“Attendees got into a free-for-all,” said the sheriff innocently. “But I’ll let Ben tell his side of it.”

Ben shot his friend a look of disgust. “Nothin’ all that important. We had a couplea business owners wantin’ to close down the Prairie Lot—bad reputation, y’ know, attractin’ the kinda clientele most folks would rather not have around.”

“And Clunker fightin’ ’em tooth and nail,” added Paul. He sent a knowing grin around the table.

“And Clunker, of course, He plans to keep the place open, ’cause it’s his livelihood.” With a shrug, the mayor returned to his meal. “Just the usual stuff that goes on every time. They’re all a bunch of hotheads.”

“Our civic leader is just bein’ modest,” Paul’s grin, and the appeal of it, broadened. “He threatened to clunk a few heads, himself, if they didn’t all shut up and sit down so’s he could have an orderly assembly.”

“Dunno that they woulda listened to me, without Clunker’s bat in my hand, if not for you at the back of the room. ’Cause you mentioned that your jail cell is big enough to hold all the troublemakers as long as necessary, and how would their wives appreciate that news bein’ broadcast in the paper?”

Molly giggled.

The sound was so unexpected, and so encouraging, that Camellia’s heart clenched up in a sudden spasm of love and tenderness. Her dear, brave sister, traumatized as a child, traumatized as an adult. Strong enough to not only survive but triumph over both.

“And what was the verdict?”

“The verdict?”

“Yes, about closing the Lot. Was everyone in agreement?”

“Naw.” Ben was offhand about the whole thing. Most events, especially those that didn’t directly touch him, could be filed in a whole separate compartment to his life and ruled upon with dispassion. “They tabled the idea till next month. Then we get to go through all this again.”