The Bride Wore Blue Page 22

  Leon took a step back and dropped his weapon in the dirt. He looked down at the black spot spreading across the bib of his shirt, then at Carter. His eyes closed, and he slumped to the ground.

  When Leon didn’t move again, Carter gave in to the blackness.

  Vivian pulled a large sketch pad from her trunk. After savoring the plate of pot roast together, Kat and Ida had left to join their husbands at the parsonage. From there, Kat and Morgan took Judson down to Poverty Gulch to check on Nell. Less than thirty minutes ago, they’d called Auntie Vivian to let her know she had a noisy nephew.

  Seated in her rocker, Vivian glanced from the hobnail lamp on the side table up to the corniced ceiling above her, then to the quilt on her feather bed. Nearly as steady as her breaths, the prayers of thanksgiving just kept coming. Now that she had time alone this evening, time to reflect on the happenings of the past several days, she could see that God’s hand was there guiding her, protecting her, providing for her. One man had been her downfall. Another, her salvation.

  Breathing a prayer for Carter, Vivian leaned back in the cushioned chair. She flipped open the book of what she called her dream drawings, sketches of women’s costumes for all seasons. She knew exactly where her favorite page lay in her portfolio of fashion designs, but saving the best for last, she trailed her finger over the lines of the ball gown on the first page. She revisited her sketches of skirts, capes, shirtwaists, even women’s riding trousers before turning to the dog-eared page.

  The wedding gown displayed there was the dress she’d designed while Gregory was courting her. But it wasn’t Gregory she saw waiting for her at the end of the aisle now. Instead, a brown-eyed deputy with a smile that could melt midwinter icicles dwelt in her daydreams. He possessed a caring touch that comforted her and a heart so full of grace that it spilled out onto those around him.

  She’d thought her gown would be accented with a dandelion yellow sash—Gregory’s favorite color. But not Carter Alwyn’s favorite.

  Vivian gripped both sides of the pad and lifted it off her lap. Standing, she clutched the sketch to her breast and twirled across the room, lost in a silent dance.

  Wagon wheels churned the street below, then suddenly stopped. Anxious voices drew Vivian to the window. In the darkness, all she could see was the silhouette of a wagon and the glow from the lantern a woman carried up the walk.

  Tucker and Ida.

  Vivian set the sketch pad on the bed and grabbed her dressing gown from the wardrobe. It was ten o’clock. Miss Hattie had retired for the night.

  Fear knotted Vivian’s stomach while she secured the tie at her waist. Her sister’s presence this time of night could mean only one thing—trouble. She quickly lit her lantern and hurried down the stairs to open the door. Ida and Tucker’s solemn faces only served to tighten the knots in Vivian’s stomach.

  Tucker ushered Ida inside and removed his hat. “Vivian, Morgan called us.”

  “Kat? Is something wrong with her? The baby?”

  “It’s Carter.”

  Vivian’s breath caught in her throat.

  Ida grasped Vivian’s hands. “Jesse and Boney found him. He’s been shot.”

  Vivian’s heart pounded in her chest. “Is he alive?”

  Lips pressed together, Ida nodded.

  “He’s at the hospital,” Tucker said. “He’s asking for you.”

  Carter watched Morgan Cutshaw walk toward his hospital bed. He struggled to draw in the breath to speak. “Is she coming?”

  “Tucker and Ida went to get her, but we can’t wait.”

  Carter couldn’t say for sure that his mother would marry his father all over again, knowing he’d be killed, but he did know her greatest regret. They’d taken her husband to surgery before she could see him, and he’d died on the operating table.

  His breathing shallow and labored, Carter gasped in a lungful of air. “I have to wait.”

  Morgan sighed. “Five minutes, and that’s more than I should give you.”

  Carter closed his eyes. Hopefully God would give him longer. Vivian was the woman he’d been waiting for, even if he hadn’t been looking.

  “Carter?”

  He opened his eyes to a glorious vision. His girl peered down at him, apprehension and tears brimming in her eyes.

  “Vivian.”

  She swept tears from her chin. “Carter Alwyn, I’ll have you know I worked hard to earn my place at the center of attention. What’s the big idea? You trying to steal it from me?”

  How could he have known to look for such sass and sensitivity in the same package?

  “I had to see you.” Even to himself, he sounded like a bellows, each word coming out on a puff of breath, but he had to give her what his mother didn’t have. “To tell you … I love you.”

  Vivian nodded and lifted his hand to her mouth. She brushed the back of it with her soft lips. “I love you too.”

  “I have to get him into surgery right now,” Morgan said. The gurney began to move.

  Vivian loved him. Carter had so much to live for. Staring up into her face, he drank in the devotion he saw in her eyes. “Viv-i-an, I …” Words crowded his heart, but he hadn’t the strength to speak them.

  He felt her hand slip away. The bed began to spin.

  “I’ll wait for you,” she said.

  Her words echoed off the walls of his mind before the room faded.

  Thursday morning, Vivian sat in Miss Hattie’s dining room, stirring a stream of honey into her mint tea. Pots and pans clanged in the kitchen on the other side of the wall. Miss Hattie had insisted she didn’t need any help and that Vivian should visit with their houseguest.

  Carter strolled into the room, his left arm wrapped against his side. The bullet had lodged in the breast muscle. He’d lost a lot of blood before Morgan was able to dig it out. He’d been released from the hospital last evening with the stipulation that he not try to negotiate any stairs or do any lifting for at least a week, which ruled out going back to his apartment above the sheriff’s office.

  In the meantime, he’d recuperate in a place that would provide him with good meals and care—Miss Hattie’s Boardinghouse. Vivian rather liked the arrangement. The broad smile on Carter’s whiskered face said he did too.

  “Good morning.” He greeted Vivian with a lilt in his baritone voice, then stopped across the table from her, wearing a crisp yellow shirt and a pair of black trousers.

  “Yes,” Vivian said. “How do you feel this morning?”

  “Thankful to be alive.” He seated himself. “Thankful to be here.” His eyes, just as intense as his smile, seemed to be gazing into her soul. He had seen her for who she was and still looked at her.

  She didn’t look away.

  Did he remember what she said to him before Morgan wheeled him to the operating room Sunday night? More importantly, did he remember what he said to her? They’d confessed their love for each other, and although she’d been to the hospital to see him every day since, neither of them had spoken of it. He’d winced with every breath that night. What if the pain and delirium—not his heart—had done the talking?

  Vivian unfolded the napkin on her plate. They’d focused on his recovery and on the details of the events that led to his injury. Gilbert and Jon had been in to see him, along with many grateful townspeople. Between the visitors and the medical personnel, she and Carter had not had a moment alone until now, and even this was fleeting. Miss Hattie could waltz into the room at any moment.

  “Vivian.”

  She looked up from the napkin on her lap.

  Carter reached across the table and took her hands in his. “I meant what I said the other night.”

  He remembered. Vivian squeezed his hand. “I did too.”

  Carter knew her heart, and he’d captured it. Now what?

  She’d just opened her mouth to ask when Miss Hattie walked in carrying a platter of fried ham and eggs. Staring at their linked hands, the widow stopped in her tracks. “It seems I still need to wor
k on my timing.”

  Vivian giggled. “Yes, that would be nice.”

  Carter let go of her hands, and she folded them in her lap, already missing his warmth.

  When he started to stand, Miss Hattie motioned for him to remain seated. “You can be a gentleman another day,” she said. Seated at the head of the table, she offered a breakfast blessing full of thanksgiving. Vivian’s safe return. Boney and Jesse returning Carter to town in a timely fashion. Morgan’s skilled hands. Nell’s new baby boy. The bounty on the table.

  Vivian’s heart and soul echoed every word of praise and even added some of her own, most of which involved Carter.

  Between bites of ham and honey-smothered biscuits, Carter relayed what Jon had told him about Leon’s checkered past in Kentucky and in several southern states. Leon’s cousin, Pickett, hadn’t said much, but the ringleader’s disgruntled son had plenty to say while waiting to see the judge. Jon and Gilbert had found a considerable amount of money buried under a tree outside the shanty. The portion left after accounting for the train and bank robberies was being wired to Mac’s widow and children.

  Vivian had just swallowed the last of her orange juice when Carter set his fork on his plate and stared at her. “Do you think you could sit in the parlor with me for a spell?”

  “I’d like that.” She looked at Miss Hattie.

  A quick smile crossed the widow’s face. “I suppose a short visit won’t hurt him.” She wagged her finger at Carter, a gleam in her blue-gray eyes. “Then a good rest before Morgan comes to check the wound.”

  “Yes ma’am.”

  Vivian couldn’t guarantee how short their visit would be. Right now a lifetime didn’t seem long enough.

  Carter followed Vivian out of the dining room, giving himself permission to watch her every move. The woman he loved was poetry in motion. He walked with Vivian along the hallway speckled with photographs of Miss Hattie and George. Perhaps this was the pathway to his and Vivian’s future.

  He stopped outside the parlor, allowing her to enter first. She sashayed into the room and looked over her shoulder at him, the shy smile on her sweet face bathed in sunlight.

  Seating herself at the far end of the sofa, she smoothed her burgundy skirt over the bend of her knees. With every step Carter took to the quiet fireplace, he breathed a prayer for the grace and strength to be the man God purposed for Vivian.

  He wasn’t sure his repaired chest would let him stand long enough to say what he needed, so he seated himself on the hearth and looked at Vivian. “I need to ask you something.”

  She nodded, her hands clasped and her knuckles white.

  As the tick of the mantel clock echoed in the silence, Carter swallowed the lump in his throat. Vivian fiddled with a curl above her ear—something she did when she was nervous. Or impatient?

  He straightened, leaning toward her. “Would you still love me if I were just a regular shopkeeper or a miner?”

  Her eyes widened. “You’re giving up your job as a lawman?”

  “God and I are talking about it.”

  “It’s who you are, not what you do, that I love.” She leaned forward, pinning him with brown eyes that warmed him clear to his core. “But I believe who you are influences the work you do. Your integrity, your compassion, your sense of justice, your courage, and your reliance on God make you a very good lawman.”

  Vivian Sinclair was a wise woman, as well as charming and beautiful.

  She moistened her lips, and he could no longer resist them. Carter rose from the hearth and closed the distance between them. Vivian stood. Using two fingers, he lifted her chin until her teary gaze met his, then he bent to kiss her.

  When he’d summoned enough willpower to end the kiss, she sighed, a soothing salve for his soul. “I can’t imagine my life without you as a big part of it, Miss Vivian Sinclair.”

  She twirled another curl at her ear.

  “I thought about waiting until I could get to the jewelry store and propose proper-like,” he said, “but I’m not that patient a man.” He felt his own eyes misting and knew he had to get his next sentence out before emotion overcame him. “Vivian, will you do me the honor of being my wife?”

  “Yes. Yes. Yes.” Rising on her toes, Vivian kissed him gently on the mouth. “Carter Alwyn, you are a dream come true.”

  And yet in that moment, he was the one dreaming of the years he’d spend with Vivian as his wife.

  Saturday morning, Vivian sat with Miss Hattie in the parlor.

  Two weeks ago today she had fled Leon’s hideout, was pursued by Pickett and Elton, and then was rescued by Carter Alwyn. Last week, the distracting deputy proposed marriage, and she accepted. Yesterday, after a week of recuperation in the boardinghouse, Carter returned to his apartment above the sheriff’s office. Today, Vivian would plan her wedding and start sewing her gown.

  Through the open window, she heard a baby’s cry, signaling that Kat was the first of her sisters to arrive at the boardinghouse. Baby Hope wailed from under the miniature parasol of her lace-covered buggy. Kat stopped, lifted the little one into her arms, and hung a quilted bag from her shoulder. Vivian hurried out the door and down the steps. She pushed the buggy to the porch and followed Kat inside the house.

  “Thanks, Viv.” Kat looked as if she hadn’t slept all night, and red lines mapped her brown eyes. Sobbing, Hope kicked her legs and flailed her arms.

  “What’s the matter with our sweet girl?” Vivian considered taking Hope from her sister, but her inexperience with unhappy babies convinced her to choose the bag instead. She lifted it off Kat’s shoulder, then stroked Hope’s damp cheek and looked up at her weary sister. “I don’t remember ever hearing her cry like this. I’ve never seen her so upset. Is she sick?”

  “Morgan says no. No fever or sore stomach, but she’s certainly been out of sorts the past couple of days.” Kat sighed. “I picked up the telephone to tell you I wouldn’t be able to come, but I had something I needed to show you.”

  Hattie swished into the entryway, carrying a wet hand towel. “Good morning, dears.” She scooped Hope into her arms and rubbed her gnarled fingertip over the infant’s bottom gums. “I feel nubs. The poor dear is cutting teeth.”

  Kat’s forehead puckered. “At five months?”

  Nodding, Hattie pressed the wet towel to the little mouth. Hope’s lips curled over it, her eyes wide, and she began to gnaw on the towel, her cries replaced by the sound of sucking. Hattie leaned her wrinkled cheek against the baby’s head, her blue-gray eyes shining. Vivian found it hard to believe she didn’t have any children and grandchildren of her own. Some things just didn’t make sense.

  “I should’ve known to do that.” Kat rubbed her eyes. “Morgan’s a doctor. Why didn’t he know what was wrong? ”

  “He’s a brilliant surgeon, dear.” Hattie tapped Hope’s nose with a fingertip. “And you’re both new to parenting. Why don’t you leave this little angel with me this morning while you go to town with your sisters?”

  Kat’s shoulders lifted a notch.

  “I have plenty of ice. I can round off a piece. That’ll help soothe her sore gums. We’ll be just fine.”

  Vivian patted Kat’s arm. “You’d probably be better off resting while you can.”

  Kat shook her head. “I’d rather spend the morning with you, scouring stores for wedding dress materials.” She shifted her attention to the contented baby in Hattie’s arms. “Are you sure you didn’t have other plans? ”

  “Not a blessed thing more important than this child.” Hattie kissed Hope’s curly head.

  “Thank you. That would be wonderful.” Kat suppressed a yawn. “I’ll make sure her belly is full before I go.”

  “Very well then, it’s settled. I get some baby time today.” Hattie’s steps toward the kitchen were light as a ballerina’s.

  “We may as well wait in the parlor for the other two.” Vivian led the way. Settling on one end of the sofa, she laid the quilted baby bag on the table in front of her and l
ooked up at her sister. “You said you had something you wanted to show me?”

  “I do.” Her voice less than enthusiastic, Kat joined Vivian on the sofa and pulled the bag onto her lap. She reached inside, then paused. “I did this right after Etta turned you down for a job in her shop.” She moistened her lips. “But with everything you’ve been through … well, now I’m not sure it’ll be the pleasant surprise I’d hoped it would.”

  “Surprises are fun.” But if Kat was this nervous about whatever she’d done, this revelation may be an exception.

  Raising a thin brow, Kat pulled a curled magazine from the bag and handed it to Vivian.

  Vivian laid it out flat on her lap. “It’s Harper’s Bazar.”

  “The September issue.” Kat tapped her chin as she was prone to do when nervous.

  “You wrote an article about Ida and her business?”

  Kat shook her head.

  Of course. Her landlady. Kat was probably rethinking the article, concerned about Vivian’s sensibilities. “Miss Hattie’s involvement with the Women for the Betterment of Cripple Creek.” She looked Kat in the eye. “If you included things about the seedier side of Cripple Creek, you needn’t worry about my—”

  Kat shook her head. An auburn curl swept across her forehead. “The article is about you.”

  Vivian’s mouth went dry, but she managed to respond on a whisper. “Me?” She’d done nothing noteworthy. At least nothing she wanted recorded for all time and eternity. “What?” The word sounded as if it had been squeezed through a sieve.

  Kat pointed to the magazine. “Open it.”

  She wasn’t sure she wanted to, but she trusted Kat’s judgment, if not her taste in subjects. She opened the cover and studied the first pages. An article on manners. A poem about love. An advertisement for Wilkie Collins’s novels. All seemingly harmless.

  “Keep going.” Kat rolled her finger.

  Vivian kept turning the pages until her sister’s hand stilled. Vivian’s gaze shot to the bold headline: “Premier Eastern Designer Relocated to Cripple Creek!”

  She gasped. “You didn’t!” It couldn’t be her. Sewing clothes for family members did not a fashion designer make. Let alone one considered premier.