Page 41 of A Late-Blooming Rose
“They were in the middle of nowhere, can you imagine?” Wide-eyed, Delia clasped her hands together. “Caleb had to deliver the baby.”
“He brought Maggie and Charlotte to his house to live and fell in love. Best thing that could have happened to that man.” Andre made a sour face. “He’s certainly changed, thank goodness.”
“Papa….” Delia said in a warning tone.
“You have a more forgiving heart, my dear.” Once again, Andre raised a hand to deter a response. “But I will say no more about Caleb Livingston.”
Curious, Rose wondered about prying more details out of the man. Although to enquire more would be the height of bad manners and would be poking her nose into matters that did not concern her.
Really, in spite offeelingshe knew Andre intimately, the years must have changed him as they had her. He and Rose were practically strangers—at best acquaintances.
I must keep that in mind.
* * *
The next day after church, Rose stood between Delia and Cora in the entryway of Andre’s house, greeting the ladies after they passed through the front door and deposited their outerwear in the coatroom. Some women they’d already met at church, or Cora knew from paying calls with Delia, but most were strangers to Rose.
Her niece, looking fresh and pretty in her new seafoam-green day dress with a matching green ribbon threaded through her chignon, stood still and straight, as excited energy vibrated from her body.
Delia, clad in a basque and skirt in the color of molten gold with jewelry to match, which turned her hazel eyes the same color, looked nothing like any minister’s wife Rose ever saw. Her expression glowed brighter than the gold she wore. Earlier that day, she’d confided her happiness about being pregnant and her belief that the worst of the morning sickness appeared to have passed.
Rose felt immeasurably older then both young women and also combated a bout of shyness that, by her age, she should have outgrown. Being the center of attention made her feel as if dozens of bees buzzed in her stomach, and her breathing felt constricted. She wished she could be more like Cora, eager to meet everyone and make friends, instead of wishing she could retreat to her bedroom with a favorite book.
Even her new outfit in a shade of smoky-blue, worn with her mother’s pearl necklace, as well as her mirror’s assurance that she looked her best, couldn’t give Rose enough confidence to banish her awkward feelings. Knowing she was under scrutiny didn’t help, even if everyone appeared friendly—everyone, that is, but Hortense Cobb, the mercantile owner.
With a frown, the short, stout woman planted her feet in front of Rose, studied her with close-set brown eyes, and sniffed. “I’ll have you know I think building a library in this town is a waste of money. Too much reading promotes idleness, and idle hands, as you well know,Mrs. Norton—” she glared at Delia and emphasized her role of minister’s wife “—will be all too eager to do Satan’s work. And, so, I told your father when he promoted the Harvest Festival. I predicted no good would come of such an outrageous production.” She jerked her chin. “I was right, too.”
A tall, brown-haired woman wearing male attire—jacket, vest with a watch chain and fob, trousers, and her hair in a long braid flipped over her shoulder—entered just in time to hear the last few sentences. Her cold gray eyes bored into Mrs. Cobb’s back, and she clenched her jaw.
A shiver ran down Rose’s spine, and she had no doubt this person was the formidable Sheriff Granger. As far as she could tell, the lawwoman wasn’t armed, but she radiated enough authority not to need a badge and gun.I wouldn’t want to be in Mrs. Cobb’s shoes right now.
Delia gave the shopkeeper a brittle smile. “Actually, Mrs. Cobb, no such quotation exists in the Bible.” She turned to greet the sheriff, her smile becoming genuine. “Sheriff Granger, I’m so glad you could make our tea party. Here is our new librarian, Rose Collier, and her niece, Cora Collier, who is studying nursing.”
The sheriff nodded at them both. “I’m looking forward to having a library in Sweetwater Springs,” she said in a husky voice. “Don’t usually have much time for reading, but I sure do like sitting in front of a warm stove with a rousing adventure tale when the snow’s coming down too hard for anyone to be out and about causing mischief.”
Mrs. Cobb glared at the sheriff but wisely held her tongue.
“If more people were reading—” Rose couldn’t help subtly poking at Mrs. Cobb “—you’d have fewer people out making mischief.”
“True. As for the Harvest Festival—” the sheriff said, her eyes narrowing at the shopkeeper “—that was a fundraiser for the new churchnotthe library. The town paid a horrible price for those funds. But from Deputy Rodda’s sacrifice and the efforts of our posse, as well as Seth Flanigan and my son Walter, now our community is safe in a way we wouldn’t have been with those outlaws secretly living among us.”
Mrs. Cobb flushed an ugly red, and her bug-eyed stare turned baleful.
Delia smiled and patted the lawwoman’s arm. “And you ended up with a husband and son. Bet you didn’t see that coming.”
A smile softened Sheriff Granger’s features. “Not in a month of Sundays.”
With a sniff, Mrs. Cobb moved away into the parlor.
The sheriff lifted her chin in the shopkeeper’s direction. “She doesn’t approve of myheathen, redskin husbandand my newly-adopted son, who should bepacked off to reform school,” she quoted.
Cora gasped, raising a hand to cover her mouth.
“Mrs. Cobb said that to you?” Rose questioned, disbelieving anyone could be so mean.
With a shrug, the sheriff seemed to dismiss the rude remarks, but her expression remained bleak. “She wouldn’t be brave enough to say anything so nasty to my face. But gossip goes around here faster than lightning.”
“Everyone I know is delighted with your marriage,” Delia said firmly. “Once people meet your son, they’ll see Walter’s a beautiful child, inside and out.”
