The Bride Wore Blue Page 11

  “No ma’am.” Not unless she wanted to count the way her sister had him tied up in knots. “I’m sorry to bother you. I wondered if I might have a word with your husband. I checked at the church.” He glanced toward the brick building behind him. “But you’re home and—”

  “Please, come in.” She waved him into the small entryway. “I was on my way to the icehouse for the afternoon. I’ll let Tucker know you’re here.”

  As the Sinclair sister moved to the closed parlor door, Carter couldn’t help noting the similarities between her and Vivian. Although Ida Raines was three or four inches taller, both possessed narrow noses and high cheekbones.

  Mrs. Raines tapped on the parlor door before opening it. “Carter Alwyn is here to see you.”

  The reverend stepped into the entryway and reached for Carter’s hand. “Good to see you.”

  A slight smile tipped Ida Raines’s mouth as she looked Carter in the eye. “Mind if I ask you a question?”

  He had no room for a bigger icebox in his apartment, but he’d let her give the sales pitch anyway. “I don’t mind.”

  “Was your meeting with my sister this morning planned or by happenstance?”

  He gulped. How could she already know about the two of them eating together at the café?

  “Tucker mentioned he saw her talking to you in front of the post office,” Ida continued.

  Carter shot the reverend a look meant to scold him for squealing.

  Tucker shrugged. “Sisters. Sorry.”

  “Yes, seeing Vivian was unplanned.” Carter shifted to his other leg.

  “So she was on her break at the telephone company?”

  She worked at the telephone company? He brushed his hand through his hair. Vivian had asked him for a lead on employment. But it wasn’t his place to meddle in a family. He needed to choose his words carefully.

  “Dear, I doubt Carter came here to play a game of Yes or No with you,” Tucker said, saving him. He shooed his wife toward the door. “Off you go. He doesn’t need a big sister. Or a matchmaker.” The reverend turned to Carter, his eyebrows arched. “Do you?”

  Carter shook his head.

  “See there.” Tucker patted his wife’s back. “Your services, though very capable, aren’t needed here.”

  Ida glanced at Carter, a gloved hand in the air. “If you should change your mind … I know my sister very well and could give you some pointers.”

  Carter couldn’t believe he was actually considering taking Ida up on her offer. Fortunately, she squeezed Tucker’s hand and stepped outside before he could give in to the temptation.

  The reverend watched his wife saunter down the path, then turned back to Carter, a smile on his face. “Got to tell you, deputy, these Sinclair sisters are really something.”

  “I’m discovering that.” What that something was, exactly, Carter couldn’t yet pinpoint.

  “Ida made lemonade. I was about to pour myself a glass. Can I get you some? ”

  “Sounds good. Thanks.”

  Tucker pointed to the parlor. “I’ll be right in.”

  A vase of black-eyed Susans topped a round, oak lamp table between two wing-back chairs. A Bible lay on the side table by one chair, and a copy of The Word and the Spirit by Charles Spurgeon lay on the floor next to the other. Carter chose to sit at one end of the settee, where he had a clear view of the landscape painting on the wall. Pikes Peak rose out of a bank of gray fog, tipped in pure white.

  Right now he felt surrounded by fog, impatient for a breakthrough.

  Laying his hat on his lap, Carter let himself imagine a life like this. A home. A favorite place to sit and read. A woman in his life to tease and hold hands with. A wife to come home to. Or in the reverend’s case, a wife who came home to him.

  Tucker walked in carrying a glass of lemonade in each hand. “My sister painted the picture.”

  Carter took a glass from him. “Mrs. Peterson, correct?”

  “Yes, I forgot you met Willow before she went to Colorado Springs to be with my folks.” Tucker sat across from him in one of the wing-back chairs. “She gave me the painting when we went to see them last month. Didn’t get it hung until this week.”

  Carter raised his glass to his mouth. The lemonade was a perfect balance of sweet and sour, just what he needed to quench his thirst.

  Tucker leaned back in his chair. “What’s on your mind?”

  A few things, including his friend’s sister-in-law, but where did he begin? His friend showed no signs of filling the silence with more questions or assumptions. Carter liked that about him.

  After another gulp of lemonade, Carter set his glass on the sofa table. “How do you know that what you’re doing is what you’re intended to do?”

  “In my work?”

  For starters. Carter nodded.

  “I didn’t know for a long time. Thought it was itinerant preaching until I found out my father was sick and my mother needed me to help with the ice business. My plan was to return to California as soon as possible.”

  “So how did you know you were supposed to stay here? Return to preaching and marry?”

  “That’s a big question. A series of them, actually. But for me, they were all related.” Tucker paused and scrubbed his clean-shaven face. “I had a change of heart. I knew I was supposed to stay. I suddenly had a strong desire that I believe God placed in my heart, along with an opportunity I eventually recognized as God’s provision for His plan.”

  Was Tucker talking about the church or about Ida Sinclair? Did Carter dare think that Vivian could be part of God’s plan and provision for his life?

  “In your office a few Sundays back, during your prayer, you asked God to ‘protect me in this, my calling.’ ”

  Tucker straightened. “I remember. Had the robberies on my mind.”

  “So you think I’m called by God to be a lawman?”

  “You don’t?”

  “I don’t know. I hadn’t thought of my work in that way before. My dad was a lawman.”

  Tucker nodded, sympathy etching lines into his brow. Carter had told his friend the story.

  Carter picked up his half-empty glass. “So, am I ‘serving justice’ because God called me to it, or am I a lawman because it’s what my father did?”

  “Seems we have some things in common. Me with the ice business and you with the law.” Tucker swirled the ice chunks in his glass. “You think you’re a deputy simply because it’s what your father did? That you have to carry on his work?”

  “Maybe.” Carter took another drink. “Or some sort of mission to avenge his death.”

  “You probably want to save families from suffering the loss you suffered.”

  Carter looked up at the painting again. “I have the desire and was given the opportunity, but … I’ll think about it.” He swallowed his resolve to ignore his feelings. “Between you and me?”

  “Yes, I learned my lesson.” A grin deepened the laugh lines at Tucker’s eyes.

  “Vivian Sinclair.”

  The pastor leaned back in his chair again. “Forgive my ignorance, but what’s the problem? Vivian isn’t interested in a lawman?”

  “I’m not interested in bringing a woman into the life of a lawman.”

  “Not interested, or afraid to do so because of what you and your mother lived through?”

  “It’s too dangerous.”

  “And that’s why you’re questioning your choice of profession?”

  “Partly.”

  Tucker peered up at his sister’s painting. “Keep trusting God. Keep your heart open to Him. He’ll lead you through the fog.”

  Nodding, Carter stood. “I best get back to the office. Thanks.”

  “I’ll be praying for you.”

  “Appreciate it.”

  Tucker held the door open for him. “Do you think if your mother knew then what she knows now, she would’ve chosen not to marry your father?”

  Carter positioned his hat on his head and looked at his friend. “I do
n’t know.”

  And he wasn’t sure he wanted to.

  Vivian sneezed again and followed it up with a huff of frustration. That was at least the tenth sneeze in the two hours since she’d arrived at the newspaper office. The worst possible time for a cold. She needed to make a good impression her first day on the job. Not an easy task when she seemed to be waving a blackened and wet handkerchief about. Stuffing the handkerchief back into her apron pocket, she sniffled and resisted the impulse to wipe her watery eyes with her hands.

  “Miss Sinclair, are you all right?” Mr. Gardner spoke above the clickety-click, swish-clunk of the monstrous press he wrestled. He was already more pleasant to work with than Mara Wilkening.

  Vivian nodded and held her breath in an attempt to stifle another sneeze. “Yes sir.” Except that her eyes felt like they’d been rubbed with salt and her nose was sure to be as red as a tomato.

  When her boss resumed feeding paper into the rotating mass, Vivian returned her attention to the work table. She pulled one letter at a time out of the pan of solvent, patted each creviced piece of metal with a cotton cloth, and then set each letter in a clean pan on the table.

  It wasn’t the work she’d expected to do here. In her mind, an office job involved typing and filing and answering the telephone. Certainly, she’d rather handle fabrics rinsed in lavender water than letters dipped in a solvent that smelled worse than ammonia, but she much preferred working with a newspaperman than a telephone woman. This paid better, and she found the entire process rather intriguing. Until today, she had no idea what went into creating those huge sheets of paper that had captured her father’s attention with every new edition of the Portland Press Herald.

  The next two sneezes didn’t even wait for her to retrieve the handkerchief from her pocket. Hoping that was the last of them, she carried the cleaned and dried letters to the other end of the table, where Mr. Gardner had placed the type tray.

  “Remember to mind your p’s and q’s now.” The hard-working man laid a two-foot-by-three-foot sheet of paper over a drying rack. “A place for every letter, and every letter in its proper place.” He hadn’t scowled at her once. She would like this job.

  “I will, sir. I’ll be most careful.”

  Cleaning type was something she could do. This work made much more sense than the willy-nilly lights and plugs and cords on the telephone switchboard. Scooting onto a stool at the table, Vivian began fitting each of the cleaned type letters into their proper place in the distribution box.

  By four o’clock, thousands of letters had been swished in solvent, patted dry, and properly tucked into bed in the tray. Unfortunately, she felt like she’d been swished and dried and was now ready for bed too. All she had left to do was wipe down the table. She’d nearly made it through her first day.

  Two more sneezes struck. She yanked her soiled handkerchief out of her pocket. The sneezes continued, five in a row. The inside of her nose tingled, and her throat felt scratchy. Two symptoms she hadn’t noticed earlier.

  Mr. Gardner rose from his desk and walked across the room toward her. She sniffed back another sneeze. “You’ve been sneezing like a skunked dog all day.” He lifted the type tray off the table and studied her. “And, frankly, you look like you’ve been on a binge.”

  “Yes, I’m sorry, sir. I seem to have a cold.” Vivian blinked hard against the grit in her eyes. “I plan to stop by the pharmacy on my way home and pick up some menthol salve. I’m sure I’ll be like new by tomorrow morning.”

  Shaking his gray head, he carried the tray to the rack at the printing press. Sliding the tray into place, he looked at her and brushed his mustache. “You weren’t sneezing last week when you were here.”

  “No, but I do remember my eyes started watering and itching a bit.”

  The corners of his mouth sagged into a frown. “While you were here?”

  “Yes.” She squeezed the word out, trying to resist another sneeze.

  “And Tuesday after you left, did your eyes water and itch?”

  “Not for long.”

  “Were you sneezing on your way to work this morning?”

  “I don’t suppose so.”

  “Then this isn’t a common cold.”

  “It isn’t?” Nothing like this had troubled her at the telephone company. If this wasn’t a cold, then what was it?

  “It’s the solvent or the ink. Could be both.” He pulled a fresh handkerchief from his pocket and handed it to her.

  “Thank you.” She wiped her watering eyes.

  “Seems you may not be cut out for newspaper work.”

  “But I am.”

  “Some folks just can’t take the solvent.”

  “This can’t be.” Vivian glanced at the grimy window. “I could open the window to air out the room some.”

  He smiled. “We work with paper.”

  “Of course.” A warm flush climbed her neck. “That would be a problem.”

  He nodded and wiped his hands on his apron.

  “But I like working here,” she said.

  “You do?”

  “Yes, it’s a little dirty and stinky, and loud, but working with the letters is rather fun. I did a good job, didn’t I?”

  “Yes, but I’m afraid, for the good of your health, you’ll need—”

  “No.”

  “Yes. You need a job that’s better suited to your status, anyway. This is menial work for a young lady with your breeding.” He glanced at the handkerchief in her hand and tapped his bulbous nose. “You have ink on your face.”

  She wiped the top of her nose, adding a big smudge to his kerchief.

  “The top of your right ear is black too.”

  Ink—and egg—on her face. Her sisters were all successful in their lives, and she was a complete failure. Couldn’t keep God’s laws. Couldn’t keep a job. She hadn’t even lasted a full day at this one.

  Thirty minutes later, Vivian trudged up the hill on Fourth Street. Two jobs in one week, both of them gone.

  Mr. Gardner had paid her two dollars for the day’s work. With that and what she had left from the telephone company, she’d have enough to pay this week’s rent, but that would leave her nothing for incidentals. Purchasing postage stamps. Sending telegraphs. A train ride to Victor when Etta Ondersma changed her mind.

  When another sneezing fit threatened, Vivian stopped at the corner on Golden Avenue and pulled Mr. Gardner’s handkerchief from her pocket. Four sneezes this time that made her chest ache and weakened her knees. Why must she always be so stubborn? If she’d accepted Mr. Gardner’s offer to drive her to the boardinghouse in his wagon, she’d be in her room by now.

  Ida wouldn’t have been fired from her first job … any job. Ink and solvent wouldn’t have made her sick. And, feeling this bad, Ida would’ve accepted the offer of a ride home.

  Miss Hattie was right. Sisters did help one another. Vivian and her sisters had always been there for one another. Until Father split them up for his move to Paris.

  If she wasn’t so stubborn, she would’ve gone to Ida for a job before she went to the telephone company.

  Vivian blew her raw nose and tucked the wadded handkerchief into her pocket. She willed herself down the street to Miss Hattie’s. One step after another, slow but sure, all the way to her room.

  Friday, Vivian sat at her dressing table and pinned a cameo just below her lace stand-up collar. Sealing her lips, she breathed through her nostrils.

  Her clear nostrils.

  She’d finally quit sneezing halfway through supper on Monday. Her eyes had stopped watering and itching Tuesday. And by the time she’d retired that evening, the redness in her eyes had faded. Mr. Gardner had been right—it wasn’t a cold that had assailed her, but rather an adverse reaction to the newspaper environment.

  Which meant she was back where she’d started—jobless.

  Vivian lifted the lid off the metal box of pins and noticed her hands. The ink stains remained, especially on her right hand—the one she’d
used to retrieve the inky letters from the tray. She was indeed a marked woman, physically and figuratively. Not the kind of woman a man could love and want to wed. And since her transgression had erased marriage from the picture she’d imagined for her life, she needed to persist in finding a suitable job that would allow her to support herself. Sighing, Vivian twisted her hair at the back of her head and stabbed a comb into it. If only it were that easy to tack her past in its place—behind her.

  She carefully set the mesh summer hat on her head. She was tempted to telephone Etta’s Fashions in Victor to see if anything had changed, but she wasn’t going to beg. She’d done that with Mr. Gardner at the newspaper and then had to quit. Humiliation snapped at her heels no matter what she did.

  She lifted an envelope from her dressing table. The letter had come to her from Ida just weeks after her eldest sister had left to start a new life in Cripple Creek the previous year. Vivian slipped the onionskin stationery from its matching envelope and reread the message.

  1 November, 1896

  My Dear Vivian,

  I’m faring well and finding success in my work for Mollie O’Bryan.

  Oh, how I wish I could have brought you to Cripple Creek with me.

  Partly because I already miss you terribly, and partly because I’m concerned about you. Father is gone to Paris, and all three of your sisters have moved to Colorado.

  Vivian drew in a deep breath. She’d cried for weeks after saying goodbye to Ida. Aunt Alma had done everything in her power to console her, but Vivian missed her family—her sisters most of all.

  Vivian, your heart is especially vulnerable right now, with all of us gone.

  You’ve accused me of not liking Gregory. You said I was jealous of the time he spent with you. There’s more to it.

  Gregory impressed me as the kind of boy who may sympathize with you, then possibly try to take advantage of your emotional weakness.

  Another apt description—emotional weakness. And Gregory’s attentions had made her feel stronger, in control. A costly delusion.

  Why was it so much easier to see behind you than ahead? It wasn’t fair that her sisters were so wise and she so severely lacking in wisdom.