Page 38 of A Soft Kiss in Summer
Violet laid in bed long enough to know Josiah wasn’t coming back.She flopped over and stared at the ceiling.
His side of the bed was cold now.She pulled the blankets up and tucked them under her chin, recalling the morning with a tiny smile on her face.
She’d nearly had a heart attack while sliding across the bed and spooning against him.She’d held her breath, waiting for him to wake up and find her manipulating the situation the way she had and nearly died when he pulled her closer, burying his face in her hair before shocking her to the point her brain stopped functioning when he slid his hand up her shirt and cupped her breast.
Her body had heated as she laid there, her breasts aching while a throbbing pulse beat between her legs and she’d silently urged him to do—something.To keep touching her.To make her his wife in every way possible, but he never did.He woke and quietly left without a word.
Daisy hadn’t gone into any sort of detail during their discussion the day before about keeping Josiah interested by acting like a wife instead of just pretending to be one.But she knew them having some sort of physical contact was one way to accomplish that.
Forcing him into a compromising situation was out of the question, though.She couldn’t manipulate him like that, forcing contact when it wasn’t wanted, but he’d done it in his sleep anyway after she’d moved closer to him.She should probably feel bad about doing that much, but she could still feel his touch and she’d savor that tiny bit of contact while she could.
Tossing back the covers, she eventually dressed and headed home, stopping to peek inside the jail before doing so.Josiah hadn’t been there, and she wondered all the way across town where he’d gone.
Her gut told her to Elkin, but her heart refused to believe it.In her delusional world, he wanted to be married to her and wouldn’t go so far as to really have it annulled, and she hoped she was right.
The morning was like most of them and by the time she was helping Daisy clean the mess they’d made at breakfast, she was just going through the motions, so lost in thought she didn’t even look up until Daisy touched her arm.
“Did it go that bad?”her sister asked her.
“No.Everything went fine.”
“Then why are you so lost in thought?”
She sat at the table and blew out a breath.“Josiah wasn’t at the jail and since he didn’t come here for breakfast, I’m assuming he’s not in town.”
Daisy shrugged a shoulder.“There are plenty of reasons for him not to be in town.”
“Maybe, but what if he went to Elkin?”
“Oh.”
“Yeah.”
“He wouldn’t have gone without telling you, would he?”
“I don’t know.Maybe.”She shrugged.“He might have thought I’d try to talk him out of it.”
“Why would he think you’d do that?You both agreed to the annulment, didn’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Well, then he has no reason to believe you don’t really want it, does he?”
“No.”
Daisy gave her a tiny smile.“You’re fretting about nothing, Violet.I’m sure he’s off doing something here close to town.Elkin is half a day's ride away.Surely he’d tell someone if he was going that far away.He always leaves Rufus Clemmons in charge when he does.Was he at the jail?”
“No.”
“Then Josiah didn’t go to Elkin.I’m sure of it.”
Violet let Daisy talk her out of the notion Josiah had gone to Elkin and finally headed upstairs to change her clothes.
She set a few dresses and underthings aside as she dressed, deciding to take them to Josiah’s just in case she wasn’t able to make it back home again before nightfall and headed out of the house.Regardless of what Josiah was doing today, she still had to work, and Rose wouldn’t care one bit about her personal dramas.
She stepped off the porch and was headed toward the sidewalk, but stopped when the sound of gunfire filled the air.Someone screamed, and she turned to the sound before dropping her bag and running.
His intuition had been right.Leaving town without telling anyone was a bad idea, the sound of gunfire filling the air only confirming it.
