Chapter 33 Our Wedding
THIRTY-THREE
Our Wedding
Mabel
I’d been right.
Abigail had come down with the flu.
In fact, a lot of people were coming down with it, and this was why Hutch was right then at the rescue and sanctuary, filling in for staff and volunteers who couldn’t make it in.
And it was why it was only me at the shop which had been, the only way to put it, Kimmyfied.
That morning, she’d made two trips, hauling two big boxes over, and even if it was my own damned shop, she wouldn’t let me have any say in where she set stuff out.
Then again, she’d been doing this shop business a lot longer than I had, and as such, what she decided was perfect. I also took note of how she did it, because you never knew when you’d learn something, so you always had to be open to learning it.
We’d then haggled about the money when I sold stuff, and I’d agreed to a commission just because it went on so long. Only then had she taken off, I’d put out the little cards to cross-market her place, and that was the big event for the day since the shop was mostly dead.
Until Jill walked through the door in the afternoon with her messenger bag.
Tonks yodeled hello and loped in her direction.
“Wow,” I cried. “Hi. So cool to see you.”
She smiled and headed my way, having a look around.
“You okay with dogs?” I asked as Tonks made a play for her hand.
“Love them,” she replied, patting her as she moved.
When she stopped across from me, she said, “And wow is right. I keep passing by and reminding myself I need to step in. I really should have stepped in.” Her head turned, her eyes fell on the leather chair, that illusive thing called hope sprang in my breast, and she came back to me.
“I’m definitely coming back when I start Christmas shopping. ”
So she wasn’t going to drag the chair out my front door with her.
And that’s what you got from hope.
“That’d be great,” I replied.
“Guess what?” she asked, rummaging through her bag.
Before I could make a guess, she put a book on the counter between us, went back to her bag and put a file folder on top of that.
“I did some digging. Went to the library,” she said. “I own that book, but I checked another copy out of the library for you. If you could return it before its due date, that’d be great. Or go back and check it out yourself.”
I didn’t have a library card.
I’d be getting one.
“That’s no problem,” I promised. “Is it about the history of Misted Pines?”
She nodded. “The one and only in existence. The library has some journals, notes, letters, old deeds, and maps and stuff. And there are the old newspapers, seeing as the Chronicle has been around for ages. But no one has written a book about this place, which I think is crazy, except that one, and heads up, it’s not very comprehensive.
So much happened here.” She wrinkled her nose.
“Way before all the gross stuff started happening when Ray Andrews did his thing.”
“Yeah,” I replied.
“Anyway, look,” she urged, turning the file folder my way and opening it up.
“Oh God, you found her,” I said, staring down at an old-timey picture in a plastic sleeve of a woman in an old-fashioned dress, a straw hat on her head, standing in front of a house made of wood.
The picture was overexposed and very old, but you could make her out.
“Then,” Jill said, and reached to the thin stack in the file folder to turn that pic over and expose the one under it. “I found this.”
And there I saw another old, this time posed and formal portrait of that same woman, seated. A baby in a lacy baby dress sat on her lap. Two older children stood by her, one on each side. And a man stood behind her with his hand on her shoulder.
I peered closer, stunned.
I’d seen a lot of old pictures, everyone had, and normally, no one seemed what was now considered conventionally attractive.
In fact, before he became infamous, John Wilkes Booth was a famous actor and considered one of the most handsome men of the day.
I didn’t see it.
But this guy.
Chisolm Beckwith.
Clementine was in a button-to-the-neck dress, her hair nicely arranged, and she was pretty. The kids were cleaned up and wearing their Sunday best.
But he was in hide pants with the fringe down the sides, a jacket-type thing with more fringe that hung to his upper thighs (the jacket, not the fringe) and was belted closed, with a knife and a pouch attached to the belt.
And he was wearing a wide-brimmed hat. Even so, you could see his hair was dark and long, because it went down past his shoulders. He also had a full, but kept beard.
Further, he was gorgeous.
“And this,” Jill said as she flipped to the next pic.
Clementine in a pretty and slightly elevated, but still day-to-day dress, Chisolm standing next to her in his trapper’s outfit, no hat this time, hair pulled back into a tail. They were turned to each other and holding hands, she was also holding a wildflower bouquet.
Their wedding picture.
And if my eyes didn’t deceive me, uncommon to pretty much any picture I’d seen like this—because it was expensive, serious business to have your photo taken, so for some reason, everyone wore solemn expressions—his beard around his mouth was tipped up in a very small smile.
Hers was too.
“Now this,” Jill said, and turned the photo around.
In faded ink in loopy scroll, it said,
Chisolm and me, May 11, 1874. Our Wedding.
She didn’t draw hearts and flowers around the words “our wedding,” but there was something about it.
You could see from the picture it was their wedding. She didn’t need to write that. Just the names and the date if she was going for posterity.
That was a happy day for her.
She was happy.
Widowed twice. Single mom trying to make it in the Old West. Lugging bathwater and washing clothes for a living. Having to shoot a man to stay safe.
She was happy.
Our wedding.
I knew a thing or two about wading through all the shit of life.
And last night at the Double D, that levee broke, so I couldn’t hold it back anymore.
Hope was blooming that I might have just found that kind of happy.
I looked to Jill. “Can I take snaps of these so I can show Hutch?”
“You can take the pictures full stop, if you’ll promise to return them to me.
I had a couple of extra boxes of stuff I’d collected from around and hadn’t gotten to organizing.
I found the one of Clementine in front of her house in my old files, but the other two were in those boxes.
” She grinned. “It was an awesome find.”
“Thank you so much for taking the time to do that,” I replied.
“It was an excuse to go through those boxes, finally.”
“Still, I appreciate it.”
Her eyes smiled and she said, “You’re welcome.
But seriously, it made me even more determined to get the town council to consider a Misted Pines Museum.
I tried to pitch it when they were discussing what to do with the old paper mill.
They considered having a museum in it with all the art stuff, but there were so many artisans and craftspeople around, they had more pull, and it was clear they’d fill up the space.
But I think tourists would be interested in a museum. Don’t you?”
“There sure do seem to be enough of them that have been around for a while that provide evidence that kind of thing is popular. Museums, I mean.”
“My thoughts exactly,” she chirped.
I smiled.
“That kitchen is still in your boyfriend’s cabin,” she stated flatly.
Oh dear.
I pulled my shoulders forward noncommittally.
Another grin from Jill. “That’s okay. I’ve lived in MP all my life.
I know people like their privacy. And anyway, I owe you two for not outing that I had to make up some stuff to make the ghost tour more engaging.
There’s not a lot left from the actual Wild West days.
It was all torn down to put up sturdier brick buildings.
But for a ghost tour, you have to strike a mood. ”
“If it helps, my shop manager is now happily married with two kids because she and her husband took your ghost tour while they were dating, and it definitely struck a mood.”
She started laughing.
When she quit, she told me, “On the history tour, nothing is made up.” She crossed her heart. “Promise”
It was my turn to grin. “I’m on it. That shop manager I mentioned, she has the flu. When she gets over it, I’m gonna ask her for a girl date on a weekend, and we’ll take your history tour.”
“Awesome.”
“And if you want, I can put some brochures out for you,” I offered.
Her eyes lit. “Really?”
“Of course. We entrepreneurs need to stick together.”
“I’ll drop some by.”
“Great.”
“Now I’m gonna check out your shop.”
Please fall in love with that leather chair. Please, I mentally begged.
“Have at it,” I invited.
Although she did linger at the chair, and check out its price tag, she left with a candle, some earrings, a necklace and a morose woo-woo from Tonks, who also preferred the shop to be busy.
But no leather chair.
Even if she left them for me, I took some snaps of the pictures anyway and sent them to Hutch.
It took a while before he responded with, Cool, baby.
And when I got that response, I took a while staring at it.
Cool, baby.
Baby.
For the five thousandth time since it happened, I remembered the look on his face when he was sitting across from me in the booth at the Double D.
It was like I had a fan blowing on me, the filter to end all filters, and the perfect lighting illuminating me.
It wasn’t like he hadn’t seen me before.
No.
It was like he was finally seeing me.
I didn’t want Abigail to have the flu because I didn’t want anyone to have the flu. Flus sucked.
But selfishly, I’d wanted her to be there that day so I could tell her about Hutch’s look.
She was right.
I was almost certain of it.
He was falling in love with me.
He didn’t hide it.
It was right there across the booth from me.
Okay, sure, I was still worried that I had it wrong.
But I was a lot less worried after that look.
And yes, absolutely, we needed to talk it out and be on the same page.
But I was less anxious about that talk after seeing his look.
Breaking our stellar record, we had not had sex for a couple of days after the whole situation happened with my neighbors. We’d gratefully returned to those activities Monday night after Mrs. Matthews and Mark left.
Last night was no different.
But even after aiming that look at me, Hutch didn’t linger more than he normally lingered. There were no statements made.
Except for the fact his hunger for me, and mine for him, seemed like it would go perpetually unsated.
Thus, the statement had been being made since the beginning.
Now, I wasn’t fretting about the talk.
Now, I was frustrated it hadn’t happened yet.
And I found that frustration would continue when, early in the evening, Hutch texted, Reported eagle downed with broken wing. Gotta take Doc Simmons out there and help her capture him and get him to the clinic. Eat without me. May be late. Can you take care of the pups?
I assured him I could.
When the time came, I closed down the store, loaded up my pets, headed up the mountain, and not only let Hannibal out, but also did the whole back and forth to the dog run behind Hutch’s truck port at the back of the house with each of the puppies.
Hutch was in the midst of potty training.
Unfortunately, I found there’d been some accidents.
Fortunately, there weren’t many, though what there was, I cleaned up.
The sun went down early in Washington, but even so, Tonks and I took on the cold and dark to play fifteen minutes of fetch because she’d been cooped up all day with me at the shop, and I hadn’t been able to get away, even for a walk around the block.
I ate.
Hannibal and Tonks ate.
I sat in Hutch’s chair with Moxie in my lap and read about the history of Misted Pines, startled to see right away how far back Hutch’s friends Cade Bohannan and Lucinda Bonner had roots in that town.
And giggling at the story of Cornelius Ruck.
Hutch was so late, I went to bed without him.
He woke me by fitting his body into the back of mine and running an arm around my belly to pull me closer.
“Go back to sleep,” he murmured into the back of my hair.
“Eagle okay?” I asked.
“He might not fly again, but he’ll live.”
“Yuck,” I mumbled.
“All hope isn’t lost. It’ll take time. We’ll see.”
All hope wasn’t lost.
There he was, spooning me.
There I was, in the bed where he put me so he could protect me.
We’d never been friends with benefits, not from the beginning.
And we both knew it.
That was more than fine by me.
On that thought, I snuggled into my guy.
And fell asleep.