Page 30 of My Heart Will Find You

“Do you need something?” He was looking at her with a frown, as though she was a great bother to him.

My wedding day, she thought in sarcasm.The way I’ve always imagined it. Ha ha.The men were right that he’d work her hard. “I want you to invite the lawyer to dinner tonight.”

“And who would that be?”

“I don’t know his name. TDH. Tall, dark, and handsome. Arrived only recently. Are there many lawyers in town?”

His expression showed that he seemed to be wondering if she was insane or not. He looked back at the papers on the desk. “I can’t go. I have work to do.”

She went to stand on the other side of the desk. She thought that if she wanted him to do something for her, she should soften her tone. “Those are the accounts?”

He looked up at her. “You want to do them?”

“No. Sorry. I didn’t inherit that ability. You should get Dad to do them. I mean Pastor Tobias.”

He looked amused. “Get the preacher to add and subtract? The man can’t even make people believe they should stop sinning. If his father hadn’t—”

She didn’t like hearing her father disparaged. “How wouldyoube as a preacher?”

“The best,” he shot back. “I’d serve beer.”

She didn’t want him to see her laugh so she turned away, recovered, then looked back at him. “I think you and I want the same thing. Alice can’t spend her whole life locked away in a room, not even one as pretty as that one. She needs a life! Do you agree or do you like having her under your rule?”

“I got married for her, didn’t I?”

His words were a metaphoric slap. At least it was out in the open. Deflated, she plopped down on a hard wooden chair. Did these people hate all things that weresoft? “Alice saw a young lawyer in town and she was attracted to him.”

He looked blank.

“The man who was fixing a wagon hitch?”

“Oh yeah. Bertram Lloyd. She asked me about him.”

“And you didn’t take the hint?” She didn’t wait for him to answer. “You need to invite him to dinner. I want him and Alice to meet.”

“All right. I’ll come up with some legal work, hire him, get to know him, then maybe I’ll let him meet her.”

“Forget all that. You can get to know him at dinner. Tonight.”

“You sure are bossy.”

“If you’d wanted a submissive girl, you should have married the sixteen-year-old who applied for the job.”

“At last we agree on something.”

She felt like defending herself. “You wanted a woman with an education, and I’m what you got. Not that it matters, but I had to become bossy. I run everything so my father and sister can do what they need to with their lives.”

“If you’re so necessary to them, why are you here?”

“The lockdown. I mean...” She didn’t know how to answer that in a believable way.

He gave a smug little smile. “They’re doing fine without you, aren’t they?”

She didnotlike that he’d turned the tables on her. She needed to go back to why she was there. She clenched her teeth. “Trust me on this—you don’t havetimeto meet and judge the man. Before you even get started, he’ll be swept up by some girl with rouged cheeks and Alice will end up in the California mountains.”

“You make no sense. Could you leave now? I need to finish this.”

Her frustration was taking over. She stood up. “With your dyslexia it’ll take days. Hire the preacher. Test him. What do you have to lose?” She didn’t know how to get him to do what was needed, then she thought,How about showing him what I saw?

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