Chapter 3 #2
“So,” she said. “I saw you with the new seamstress next door. You two seemed to get along well.”
He laughed. “I’m sure she’d get along with anyone carrying in those heavy bolts of fabric.” He shifted his shoulders before laying a letter on the counter. “Can you put this in with the outgoing mail?”
Not only was Campbell’s Mercantile the place to buy most anything, it also doubled as the local post office. The letter Josiah laid down had scrawled handwriting across the front of it that was full of fancy loops and dips. She’d seen him sign his name on the ledger book enough to know it was his.
She picked it up and said, “Sure.” A glance down to see where the letter was going made her entire body freeze. The Grooms Gazette was written across the envelope and her heart thumped so hard it nearly took her breath.
Maybe his quick dismissal of the new neighbor was because he had other plans. Why else would Josiah be writing to a mail-order bride agency?
All those girlish dreams of him asking her to marry him had been all but forgotten over the last two years, but looking at that letter, they all came back in a rush.
Rose had convinced her Josiah didn’t want to marry anyone, and that’s why he’d never shown her any interest when he moved to town, but this letter proved otherwise. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to get married. He just hadn’t wanted to marry her.
She met his gaze and narrowed her eyes. “Looking for a bride?”
He leaned forward and lowered his voice. “I think that would be impossible, seeing as I already seem to have a fiancé.”
Her face heated as she looked at the ladies inside the store. No one knew of her little white lie and she wanted to keep it that way.
He tapped the letter she still held and said, “That’s just some personal business for someone I’m trying to find some answers for. Nothing more.”
“Oh.” She hoped the relief she felt wasn’t showing on her face as she tossed the letter in the mailbag.
She glanced around the store to make sure there weren’t any customers within hearing distance and said, “For what it's worth, I really am sorry about yesterday, you know. I just panicked, and you were standing right there and I—”
“—You don’t have to explain, Violet. I know how rash people can be when they’re backed against a wall. Hopefully he’ll leave soon and everything will get sorted out on its own.”
“Yeah, I hope so, too.” He nodded and said his goodbyes, and she watched him leave, following his progression across the street and around the side of the jail, trying not to noticed how his denim jeans hugged his backside or the loose-hipped way he walked that made her heart thump a bit harder.
The last town Marshall had a small room built on to the back of the jailhouse that was big enough to pass for a proper home and she may have sneaked a peek inside the window to have a little look a time or two and knew it was a comfortable space large enough for a cookstove, a table big enough to seat two people and had a bed and armoire.
Even though the space was small as far as houses went, it was larger than her bedroom at home and she imagined it was quite comfortable for a single man.
She may have even imagined herself living in that tiny room with him.
Now, that dream didn’t seem so farfetched.
Not since her little fib had given life to a lie.
The rest of the morning seemed to drag on forever. When Rose finally told her to go home and have lunch, she couldn’t leave fast enough.
As unladylike as it was, she left through the back door. No way was she going to chance running into Edwin on the street. She didn’t care what anyone thought. She’d skulk around town in the shadows until Edwin was good and gone.
He’d not been wrong. The word peculiar described Violet Campbell better than any other he could think of.
Josiah cocked his head to one side to watch her run from the alleyway between the mercantile and the new dress shop that was going in beside it, ducking behind a wagon before craning her neck to look down the street in both directions. He did the same, noting nothing looked out of the ordinary.
She must have been satisfied with whatever she’d been looking for as she lifted her skirts and started to run while crouched down and made a mad dash toward her house.
When she was inside, the door slamming hard enough he could hear it from where he stood beside the jail, he grinned and stepped around the corner and onto the sidewalk.
As boring as this town was, the people that lived here made it worth staying.
As odd as Violet was at times, her grandfather was in a class all by himself.
The old Scotsman was a stickler for tradition, going so far as to still wear his native dress of a kilt and his sword.
The man always had a story to tell about his ancestors and even though he was hard to understand at times because his brogue was so thick, he enjoyed talking with him.
He was a character unlike any he’d ever met.
Vera Hiatt, the new dressmaker, stepped out onto the sidewalk. Josiah watched her start to scrub the glass window in the front of her store and he eased toward the door and quietly walked into the jail.
He hated to admit he was running from her, but she’d made some bold propositions when he’d helped her carry in her fabrics.
He didn’t find her particularly attractive, but he’d been without a woman for so many years, he’d paused a moment too long when she’d made the suggestion and the last thing he needed was an entanglement with a lonely widow, especially now that Violet had dragged him into her drama.
So, he was avoiding her.
He shut the office door and sat at his desk, peering out the window toward the mercantile.
His thoughts went right back to Violet and their fake engagement, which made him think of weddings and honeymoons and if he hadn’t sworn off relationships, he might have been willing to see where this whole mess ended up.
Violet was certainly feisty enough to make life interesting, but he knew from experience that relationships just didn’t work well for lawmen.
He didn’t know a single one who managed to make it work, which told him he’d made the right decision in keeping females at a distant. They invited trouble he didn’t want nor need, and even though Violet Campbell was lovely to look at, he’d had enough heartache to last him a lifetime.