Page 68 of A Soft Kiss in Summer
He’d lived for years alone and had been determined to remain that way, but had to admit, Violet had been right.He couldn’t blame himself for Ruth’s death forever or shut the world out around him.Life was meant to be lived and once this mess was all sorted, he intended to do just that.
ChapterTwenty
The sun was setting by the time she’d stopped asking people on the street if they knew Reverend Peele.The day had been so long and she was dragging now that it was almost over.
After leaving the jail, she’d stopped by the doctor's office and asked the doctor to look at the bullet graze on Josiah’s back, then ran to grab him a clean shirt and his boots before setting out to find that preacher and spent the entire day doing so.
Now, she was bone tired as she made her way back to the doctor's office to check in on Bonnie and Archie.
To her surprise, Archie was awake.He looked better.His fever was still elevated, but his eyes didn’t look as weak.
She didn’t mention any of the trouble going on all around him.He shouldn’t have to worry about anything other than recovering, so when he dosed back off, Violet convinced Bonnie to join her at the hotel restaurant for a late supper.
The window in the restaurant had been boarded up, which made the room even darker than it should have been.There were small oil lamps on every table and it would have been a very intimate affair had she’d not been sharing her meal with a small town saloon whore.
She wasn’t the only one to notice her company, either.Some of the other patrons were staring while some were out right gawking.
That old saying you could take a girl out of the whorehouse but couldn’t take the whorehouse out of the girl was true.It only took a glance to know what Bonnie did for a living.Her manner of dress was a dead giveaway.
Most days her face was painted, but she hadn’t bothered since arriving in Elkin, but something about her just screamed—sex.It might have been the way she carried herself, or maybe the men in the restaurant were just more prone to notice women of looser morals.
The gawking didn’t stop even when their food arrived and when Bonnie started to get uncomfortable and said she shouldn’t be there, Violet’s anger exploded.
The woman sitting at the next table over was sneering at them.Violet met her judgmental gaze and yelled, “What are you looking at?”
The woman gasped and turned her head, but not before Violet heard someone mutter, “whore,” under their breath.
Someone else said, “doesn’t belong with civilized company,” but she couldn’t tell who it was.
Violet ignored them all and told Bonnie to do the same.They continued to eat, but the words people were whispering didn’t leave her.
The saloon was still on her mind and it dawned on her then that she hadn’t asked anyone there if they knew the Reverend.Just because he was a godly man didn’t mean he didn’t sneak in every now and then.
As Graham so often told her when she caught him and Rose all over each other in the back room, men had needs.She assumed the good reverend did, too.
After she had the meal charged to Josiah’s room, they headed back outside.The sun had fully set now and the noise from the saloon was filling the street.The tinny music and raucous laughter could be heard all the way down the road.
She turned to Bonnie.“Want to go back to the saloon with me?”
“What for?”
“I need to ask the girls about Reverend Peele, the man who performed my wedding ceremony, and see if they know him.No one I spoke to today did, but I don’t want to miss anyone.Someone in this town has to know him, or at least seen him at some point.He was Edwin’s friend, after all.He had to have been in the mercantile at least once.”
“One would think so.”
They headed down the street, stepping around people on the sidewalk, and it took every ounce of willpower she possessed not to go inside the jail as they passed it.Knowing Josiah was in there alone almost killed her, but knowing he was locked away in there only spurred her on.
The saloon at night was a completely different atmosphere than it was during the day.There were more cowboys and saddle bums filling the space.The girls she’d met upstairs were lingering around the main room now, most of them in the laps of the men at the gaming tables, and the noise was almost unbearable.
Bonnie spotted the brunette she acted as if she’d known earlier in the day and spoke with her before a few other girls joined them.
When Bonnie asked them if they knew Reverend Peele, no one did.
“Sorry,” the brunette said.“The last holy man to step through that door tried to convert us all and Bub tossed him out on his ear.”
Bub, the bartender, looked their way when he heard his name.He gave her a once over and a grin before turning back to the bar.
Bonnie got their attention again by saying, “What if he didn’t tell anyone he was a preacher?”
