Sarah Sunshine: A Montana Romance Novella

by Merry Farmer

  “The decorations are all hung and the ballroom’s been set up,” Delilah rattled off her list as though they’d been talking all morning, “but I’m willing to bet Alex ain’t got the food ready.”

  “He’ll be fine,” Roy said, and before Delilah could continue he added, “Look, do you think you could manage without me for a spell?”

  Delilah stopped at the end of the alley between the hotel and the saloon. Paul leaned against the saloon’s front wall having a morning cigar. He stood straighter when he saw the two of them.

  “I most certainly cannot manage without you!” Delilah said.

  Roy let out a breath. “Only, the thing is, I’m worried about Sarah.”

  “Oh?” Delilah arched an eyebrow, hands on her hips.

  Paul straightened, dropping the butt of his cigar and using the excuse of grinding it under his heel to inch closer to them.

  “I’m not too proud to say I spent the night with her last night,” Roy said. “But this morning she was as jumpy as a jackrabbit.”

  “Well, she does tend to get like that. Now if we get there early enough-”

  “She kicked me out because she was nervous about people spreading rumors and thinking we weren’t behaving respectably.” Roy stuck to his concerns.

  “You weren’t. Now come on and-”

  “I should go back for her. She needs me right now, by her side.”

  “Sarah will keep,” Delilah sighed. “This hotel opening will not.”

  “I agree that the opening is important, but Sarah-”

  “Land sake’s, Roy!” Delilah threw up her hands and attempted to walk on.

  “She’s scared as hell that she’ll turn out like you!” he called after her.

  Delilah froze mid-step. She turned to face him.

  “She’s scared I’ll believe some kind of rumor and leave her the way Paul left you.”

  A flare of indignation melted to regret in Delilah’s eyes. She and Roy both shot sideways glances to Paul. Paul stood still, staring at his feet.

  Delilah sighed and rubbed her temples. “Son, we got a hotel to open. Now I know you care about Sarah, but we don’t got time to drag the past out of the trunk it’s been packed away in.”

  Roy opened his mouth to disagree, but Paul’s loud, barked laugh shut him up right quick. Both Roy and Delilah turned to him.

  “Have you got something to add?” Delilah snapped.

  “Yes, I do.” Paul stepped off the saloon porch and joined the two of them, crossing his arms.

  “Oh Lordy.” Delilah sighed.

  “I do believe this young man is right,” Paul said. Roy and Delilah both gaped at him. Paul frowned and went on. “I ain’t too proud to admit it. He’s right.”

  “Thank you, sir.” Confidence spread through Roy’s chest.

  “He should be with Sarah right now, not you.”

  For half a second, Delilah’s carefully painted lips quivered. She swallowed hard. “Can this please wait until after the hotel opening?” she whispered, voice hoarse. “We got work to do.”

  “That’s your problem.” Paul shook his head. “Always running off to do business. Always thinking of your precious hotel and your prestige and your bottom line.”

  “Well what else have I got?” Delilah fired back, so sharp that Roy winced. “A woman’s gotta do what she’s gotta do when the man she loves turns out to be a fool. You believed every vicious lie Viola ever told!”

  “Well what was I supposed to think?” Paul met her anger with his own. “You bought a house and said you were going to open for business.”

  “A hotel is not a brothel!”

  “How was I supposed to know?”

  “You coulda trusted me instead of listening to her.”

  For a moment, Paul and Delilah locked eyes. Roy took a step back the way he would from a fire. Then all at once, Paul’s expression softened.

  “We messed up, sweetheart.” He sighed. “We were both blind, stubborn fools. But them two,” he nodded to Roy, “them two have got a chance.”

  “A chance that can wait a few hours,” Delilah insisted, her eyes glassy with tears of the past.

  “Can it?” Paul asked. He shifted his weight. “This young man’s standing on the verge of doing what I never had the guts to do. He’s telling you he wants to go to Sarah and sweep her into his arms and stand by her no matter what other folks say.”

  “Yes,” Roy said, purpose ringing clear through him. “Yes, I am.”

  “You can’t look me in the eyes and tell me that you don’t wish I woulda done the same all them years ago,” Paul told Delilah.

  “I-”

  “Don’t let this young man make the same mistake we did.”

  Delilah stared at Paul in silence. Roy had never seen the sort of look that came over her. Her eyes never left Paul’s, but they looked past the man in front of her to something long gone. For a moment Roy could see the young women Delilah must’ve been beneath the years of standing strong on her own.

  “Go on,” Delilah whispered at length. She cleared the crack in her throat and spoke again. “Go on and get her, honey.”

  A smile spread from Roy’s lips to his heart. He didn’t need to be told twice. “Yes, ma’am. Yes, I will.”

  He dodged around Delilah and Paul and strode out into the street. Certainty carried him on like the wind. He loved Sarah. He never wanted to let her go and he didn’t care what folks thought. He would march right up to Mr. Bell’s house and tell her so and everything would be all right.

  A few folks were up and about on errands already as he approached Mr. Bell’s house. They watched him, watched Delilah catching up to him, as they went about their business. In a stroke of luck, the front door of Mr. Bell’s house opened as he drew near. Sarah and Mr. Bell stepped out. Sarah was all smiles, talking up a storm while Mr. Bell grinned and listened. Roy knew what he had to do. It was so simple, but had taken him far too long.

  “Sarah!” he called across the distance to her.

  “Roy,” she answered, stepping into the street. “What’re you doing here?”

  “I’ve come to say-”

  “Sarah!” A new voice split the air. Roy and Sarah both turned to see Viola Jones charging down the street from the train station, a parcel under each arm. “Sarah Withers, what on earth are you doing talking to these sorts!”

  “Good morning, Miss Jones,” Sarah said, rushing to meet the woman. “Do you need help with those packages?”

  Roy blinked. His sense of certainty vanished.

  “Yes, I do,” Miss Jones said. When Sarah reached her, Miss Jones shoved both armfuls of parcels at her. “I am appalled at the company you are keeping!” she lectured. “Prostitutes and reprobates and deviants of the worst kind! I’m shocked, simply shocked!”

  “Miss Jones, I been meaning to talk to you,” Sarah began, fumbling the parcels in an attempt to secure them. “I been thinkin’, and maybe it isn’t such a good idea for me to keep company with you and Miss Archer and Miss Pickering no more.”

  Roy’s heart sped up.

  “What?” Miss Jones gaped at Sarah, bright red staining her wrinkled face. She snuck a peek at Delilah, then turned on Sarah. “How dare you!”

  Sarah looked to Mr. Bell and then Roy before squaring her shoulders and saying, “I am truly grateful for all you’ve done for me, ma’am, and I respect what you’re trying to teach me, but I don’t think it’s working.”

  “If it’s not working, it’s because you’re not trying hard enough!” Something about the alarm in Miss Jones’s eyes—like she was about to lose a spitting contest—sent a prickle down Roy’s back.

  “I don’t think that’s it, ma’am,” Sarah said, but her glance darted around at Roy and Mr. Bell and Delilah and a couple other folks passing on the street. The fear was back in her eyes.

  Miss Jones must have seen it. “You made a promise to see this through to the end, girl. I refuse to take no for an answer,” she said, chin tipped up.

  “Now ho
ld on a second there, Viola,” Delilah said.

  “Do you have something to say to me?” Miss Jones raised her voice.

  “Miss Jones, please!” Sarah shrank from folks she must have thought were watching, even though they weren’t.

  “I got plenty of things to say to you,” Delilah stood toe-to-toe with Miss Jones.

  Roy put a hand on Delilah’s arm, holding her back. “I think that now is not the time,” he said, attention focused on Sarah.

  Sarah met his eyes with a look of such anxious gratitude that he had half a mind to scoop her over his shoulder and carry her away for good.

  “You’re right,” Delilah said after a tense pause. Her eyes never left Miss Jones’s. “You and I will have our moment.”

  “We certainly will,” Miss Jones replied, eyes narrowed. “Sarah, you made a promise. Respectable women keep their promises. Or have you lost interest in being respectable as well?”

  “No, ma’am.” Sarah let out a breath.

  Miss Jones smiled her tight smile. “Then you will come with me!”

  “I, um, well, all right,” Sarah conceded in a tiny voice.

  “Come on, Roy,” Delilah said with stone in hers. “We got a hotel to open.”

  “I’m staying with Sarah,” Roy declared.

  “No, it’s all right.” Sarah smiled, pretending to be brave. “You’re an important man with important business.”

  Roy glanced from Sarah to Delilah to Miss Jones and back again. “Are you sure-”

  “You go along,” Sarah told him. Not a single part of him wanted to leave her. “Go on,” she repeated. “Mrs. Reynolds is waiting.” Miss Jones cleared her throat. “And Miss Jones too. We’ll be at the opening later.”

  “We most certainly will,” Miss Jones added. The look she gave Roy made the hair stand up on the back of his neck. He wanted to leave Sarah like he wanted to jump off a cliff.

  “Are you sure?”

  Sarah nodded. “I … I made a promise. I’m gonna keep it.”

  It was enough and not nearly so all at once. Sarah looked so beautiful, even with her arms full of someone else’s parcels, her worried heart out on her sleeve, that he thought his own heart might beat right out of his chest.

  “I’ll save a spot for you up at the front,” he said. “And I promise not to start without you.”

  “All right.”

  “That is more than enough of that!” Miss Jones huffed. She shook her head and tugged on Sarah’s new shawl. “Come along, girl. We have things to do.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Sarah turned to follow as Miss Jones marched down the street. She sent Roy one last smile, bright as the sun, before hurrying on.

  “I don’t like this one bit.” Delilah shook her head as she too watched them go. She huffed out a breath. “Then again, I don’t like much of anything about that woman.” She turned to Roy. “You gonna run after her or are you gonna help me out?”

  Roy watched until Sarah disappeared around the corner. He turned to Delilah.

  “I’m with you until the moment Sarah needs me. Then I got to do what I got to do.”

  “Understood.” Delilah let out a breath and squared her shoulders. “Let’s get this hotel opened!”

  Chapter Nine

  The street in front of the new hotel was packed with men, women, and children—the good citizens of Cold Springs come to celebrate in spite of the cold. There may have been a fine dusting of snow on the ground and curls of mist in the air as they breathed, but that didn’t stop people from talking and laughing and visiting with their neighbors in their Sunday best. A band stood to the side of the grand new hotel, playing the latest Souza march with gusto. Their red and white uniforms were as crisp as the fresh coat of paint on the hotel and the bunting draped across the porch. Children played and danced around the band while their parents looked on and smiled.

  The hotel porch was as packed as the street below. A group of reporters stood amongst the white wicker furniture at one end, their note pads at the ready. Some of the children from the school, their teachers nearby, stood with them, looking up in awe and imitating the reporters’ calculating expressions as they surveyed the scene.

  Delilah stood at the center of the porch, between a podium that had been set up for speeches and the hotel’s front door, which had a ribbon tied across it. Mr. West from the general store stood with her to cut it. Cold Springs still didn’t have a mayor, and Mr. West was the town’s most prominent citizen, at least in Delilah’s opinion. Mr. West’s wife stood near the front of the crowd in the street below, bouncing their baby in her arms and chatting away with Mrs. Quinlan, who cradled her own baby. Even the two little ones looked like they were giddy with gossip and ready to get things going.

  Roy smiled at them, but behind his smile was gnawing impatience. He shifted from foot to foot, searching out over the crowd for any sign of Sarah. She hadn’t left his thoughts since he’d let her walk away with Miss Jones. For the second time that day he felt like he never should have left her. He would never leave her again if he had his way.

  “Roy, I hate to be a pill,” Delilah said, stepping over to his spot near the railing, “but we need to get started. Folks is getting restless.”

  “She said she’d be here,” he told Delilah without looking at her. He craned his neck to look around the corner, guessing which direction she’d be coming from.

  “Be that as it may, it’s already ten past twelve and we promised people a show,” Delilah went on.

  “Yeah,” Roy drawled. He rubbed a hand over his chin and itched the back of his neck, trying to figure out if Sarah would understand their need to start without her.

  He was spared the trouble as Sarah and the Biddy Brigade turned the corner at the far end of the street and started towards them. The four women marched in a block, Sarah at the back.

  “There they are!” He sighed in relief.

  “Saints be praised,” Delilah drawled and immediately stepped forward with, “Ladies and gentlemen!”

  She held out her arms. The band finished up the last notes of their march. The crowd applauded for their finish, then turned that applause to Delilah, their faces alight with expectation.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” Delilah repeated, taking her place at the podium. “Welcome to our celebration of the opening of my new hotel, the Cold Springs Retreat!”

  Another round of applause followed. Roy smiled and clapped along with everyone else, his eyes trained on Sarah. She and the biddies made good time stomping up the street. They reached the fringes of the crowd as Delilah said, “Now why, may you ask, am I holding such a shindig for something like a hotel opening?”

  “’Cuz we ain’t had a picnic in months!” someone called from the crowd. They were met by jovial laughter.

  “Angus’s got a point,” Delilah said. “We here in Cold Springs are all about togetherness and sometimes that can be mighty hard when the weather gets cold. But we’re also here to celebrate the growth of our fair town.”

  A few people hummed in agreement. Roy watched Sarah as the biddies began picking and pushing their way through the gathering to get to the front. With so many people, all focused on the speech, it was slow going.

  “In the last year our town has undergone a transformation,” Delilah continued. “We’ve watched a new school, a slew of new houses, and new businesses go up. So many, in fact, that we’ve had to build more streets! We’ve even got a new grocery store to give Mr. West here some competition. Sorry, Michael.” She turned to Mr. West with a wry grin.

  Mr. West shrugged. “Competition is good for business.”

  “It’s good for all of us.” Delilah nodded. She received a smattering of applause and a fair bit of laughter.

  Roy laughed too, until he saw the expression on Sarah’s face. The biddies had pushed enough people that the rest were stepping aside and letting them through. Rather than looking excited as he’d hoped, Sarah’s face was drawn and wary. She kept her head down and hugged herself as
she followed the straight-backed women. He could just make out her eyes darting from side to side as they crossed through the crowd. Roy’s heart dropped to his stomach.

  “Cold Springs is on the rise,” Delilah declared. If she saw the biddies rushing towards her she didn’t let on. “In this time of transition there are towns that will fall by the wayside, their mines and ranches dried up. But not us!”

  The crowd cheered. The biddies scowled as they reached the bottom of the stairs, Sarah hunched behind them.

  “Our town has seen improvements, innovations, and industry come our way.” Delilah spared them a glance, but continued on, her head held high. “We’ve weathered the changes we’ve been through and we’ll get through even more, because we’re hard-working, proud folks.” Instead of letting the crowd hoot and cheer, this time she went straight on with, “That’s why I’ve built this hotel. It’s more than just a bunch of beds.”

  “What’s wrong with a bunch of beds?” an old coot near the front with one of the saloon girls on each arm heckled. He and the girls with him laughed.

  “I got no issue with a bunch of beds,” Delilah answered him. “If that’s all you want, Paul’s got what you need.”

  Paul, who leaned against one of the posts at the base of the hotel porch with his arms crossed and his perpetual scowl in place, nodded. His eyes were trained on Sarah, just like Roy’s were. And just like Roy, Paul clearly didn’t like what he was seeing. The biddies had their heads together, whispering behind their hands as Sarah stood apart.

  “The Cold Springs Retreat is what I would call an expanded hotel,” Delilah went on, watching out for the biddies. “We have a fine restaurant and a chef on his way from Chicago to run it. We’ve got a grand ballroom. Right now it’s filled up with refreshments for all you good people, but it’ll be available to rent out soon. So anyone who’s got a party or a meeting of any sort scheduled but no place to put it, look no further than right here. And ladies, we’ve also got a salon and spa that uses the world-famous Harper Method.”