Beside him now, Prissy plied an ivory-handled fan with a delicate flower design as she concentrated on the sermon. Clearly coming to church was very important to her. Was he doing her a disservice by pretending to be a…what? God-fearing man? A believer?
Was he pretending?
Sam did notice, however, Prissy darting a look at her father—who seemed to be giving some sidelong glances of his own at the lady beside him. When Prissy returned her gaze to the pulpit after one of these glances, he caught an anxious look on her features. He wondered who this lady was that was causing Prissy concern.
The temperature in the little chapel climbed. Ladies wielded their fans faster and faster. Here and there gents pulled out handkerchiefs and mopped their foreheads. At last Reverend Chadwick stopped preaching, the congregation rose for a final hymn, and the service was over.
Before they even left the pew, the mayor stopped him. “I didn’t want to interrupt the service when you came in, but I want to introduce you to an old friend from my childhood, Mrs. Hap Fairchild. She and her husband and I were friends back in school. He’s passed on now, but Mariah—that is, Mrs. Fairchild—is thinking about settling down here.”
Ah, Sam thought, understanding immediately why Prissy looked so unhappy. Her father was a lonely widower, and Prissy didn’t cotton to the idea of him putting another woman in her mother’s place. Yet the woman’s smile was genuine and warm, and there was no denying her effect on James Gilmore.
“Mrs. Fairchild,” Sam said politely, taking the gloved hand she extended. “I’ve only been in Simpson Creek since Friday, but it already feels like home to me. I hope you’ll be very happy here.”
“I’m sure I will. It’s nice to meet you, Sheriff Bishop. I’m sure the town’s in good hands with you as sheriff and James as mayor.”
He didn’t miss the way Prissy’s lips tightened, and was sorry that she felt threatened.
“I hope you’ll be back,” Reverend Chadwick said, as they came to the entrance. The preacher was shaking hands with each person as they left.
“Yessir, I’ll be back,” Sam said, warmed by the man’s friendliness. He suspected he would be back—even if Prissy was the real reason he came. Before he could say any more, another man extended his hand.
“Sheriff Bishop, I’m Dr. Walker—Nolan Walker, that is.” His accent was distinctly Yankee—from Maine, Sam thought. “You met my wife, Sarah, yesterday.”
There seemed to be an interminable number of people who wanted to introduce themselves to Sam and shake his hand, from the homes and businesses around town as well as from outlying ranches. He was overwhelmed with names, friendliness and open interest.
So this is what it’s like to belong somewhere…
When they were alone again, Prissy turned to him with avid curiosity. “Will you tell me what it is you were arranging before church?”
“I’ve arranged with the hotel to pack us a picnic basket—but of course, I realize it’s short notice, and you might have made other plans,” he added. “If that’s the case, perhaps I’ll just give it to one of the other ladies.” He glanced at the knot of Spinsters’ Club females he’d met before church, who were gathered under the shade of a cottonwood, discussing the two of them, if their sidelong glances were anything to go by. “I wouldn’t want it to go to waste.”
She smiled at him, please by his gesture. “I have to ask my father, of course.”
“Oh, but I already have,” he told her. “Yesterday, as a matter of fact, after you visited me with Sarah. He seemed quite open to the idea. So now the only question remains, where are we to enjoy this picnic?”
Prissy was so astonished she could barely respond. “Sam Bishop, you are full of surprises.”
He grinned, hoping against hope that the only surprises she would ever get from him would be pleasant ones.
Chapter Six
Prissy felt the warmth of joy bubbling up within her, warmer than the summer sun above her. He’d secured her father’s permission to court her the very day after he’d asked her? And he’d gone to the trouble of planning an outing already? But wait—wasn’t this all happening a bit too fast?
“Prissy, are you all right?”
“Yes! I was just thinking we could have our picnic over yonder, in the meadow,” she said, pointing to the grassy, tree-lined field on the other side of the creek that had given the town its name.
He studied it. “Looks like a fine place for a picnic,” he said.
“But that’s where everyone goes to picnic—families…with little children running around…” She hesitated. “It’s not exactly the most private location. There’s always the possibility that we’ll be talked about.”
“And you know somewhere less crowded?”
“No! No, I mean…I…uh…” Suddenly Prissy was afraid she’d sounded too bold. She didn’t want Sam Bishop to think she was not a lady. But she didn’t want the entire town observing their picnic, either. “I just meant somewhere where we could talk in peace, and not have to worry about a ball landing in the middle of the fried chicken all of a sudden—or whatever’s in that picnic basket.”
Sam chuckled. “No, we don’t want that,” he agreed. “Where did you have in mind?”
His smile was so warm she felt it like a physical touch. It was almost unnerving. “There’s a place…” she began. “Oh, but we couldn’t walk there, it’s too far. Maybe we’d better go there another time.”
“It just so happens I’ve checked with the Calhoun boy at the livery, and he’s got a horse and shay we could borrow for the afternoon. He could hitch it up while we’re picking up the basket at the hotel.”
“My, you’ve thought of everything, haven’t you? All right, then, there’s this huge old live oak, just a little ways out of town. They say it’s over a hundred years old.”
“And there wouldn’t be families and little boys throwing balls into the fried chicken there?”
“No. Chances are we’d have the place to ourselves today.”
“Sounds perfect,” he said.
Prissy felt her heart accelerate. She gazed up into those intense brown eyes and felt a niggle of doubt about the propriety of going off alone with this handsome man she’d so recently met. “But perhaps you shouldn’t go so far from town, since you’re the sheriff?” she said, twisting a fold of her pink skirt in her hand.
“I don’t think there’ll be a wave of lawlessness striking Simpson Creek on a Sunday afternoon,” he said lightly but without ridicule. “Would you feel more at ease, though, if we asked Sarah and her husband to come along?”
“Sam, you wouldn’t mind?” she said, relief washing over her.
“Of course not. They’re talking to Nick Brookfield by his wagon. Let’s go ask. I thought you might feel that way, so I told the cook to pack enough for four.”
Impulsively, she seized his hand and squeezed it. “You are the most thoughtful man!” she exclaimed, and was rewarded with a lopsided grin—as well as some interesting looks from the ladies of the Society.
Sarah and Nolan were perfectly agreeable to falling in with their plan, but just as they started down the street toward the livery stable with them, a cowhand on a lathered horse galloped into the churchyard from beyond the creek and slid to a stop by Nick’s wagon.
“Miz Milly says ya gotta hurry on home, boss! She commenced t’ havin’ pains ’bout the time you left, but she didn’t wanna tell you. Figured you’d be back in plenty a’ time. Now they comin’ faster. She thinks the time’s about here. She says you better come, too, Doc Walker, Miz Sarah! You take the horse, Mist’ Nick—I’ll drive the wagon.”
Sarah turned back to Prissy. “I’m afraid we’ll have to make it some other time,” she said as Nick took off toward the ranch. “My sister needs me.”
“Of course,” Prissy said. “How exciting, Sarah—you’ll soon be an aunt!”
After the excited Walkers and the wagon full of cowhands had departed along with the Walkers in the doctor’s buggy, Sam turne
d to Prissy. “Perhaps you’d rather have our picnic over in the meadow after all?” he suggested.
She turned and gazed across the creek. Just as she had said, families were spreading out tablecloths on the grass, and children who’d been confined to the pews in their stiff Sunday clothes were already wading in the creek, splashing and shrieking. She shook her head.
“We could always take the picnic basket and eat out on your lawn.”
“And have Papa and Mariah Fairchild watching us through the window? No, thank you. He invited her to Sunday dinner, you know.” Her voice sounded sulky in her own ears, so she took a deep breath. “No, let’s stick to the original plan, and go out to the We—” She caught herself, not wanting to say “Wedding Tree”—the name the locals had given the venerable old live oak—it would make her sound like a desperate old maid. “To that old tree outside of town,” she amended.
“All right, then.” His brown eyes were serious, steady. “Prissy, I want you to know you have nothing to fear from me. We may not have known one another long, but I’d never do anything…anything that would make you not trust me.”
“I know.” She did know, she realized. “All right, let’s go. I’m famished, aren’t you?”
Long before they arrived under its gnarled boughs, he could see the ancient live oak with its limbs overspreading the narrow rutted road and the meadow on the other side.
“That’s quite a tree,” Sam said, genuinely awed by its massiveness.
“Isn’t it wonderful?” she agreed, smiling at him. “It’s called the Wedding Tree. Legend has it that the Indians used to come here to have…sacred ceremonies. Some of the early settlers, too—before there were churches, of course.”
He guided the horse into the shade, set the brake, then tied the reins to it before jumping down and reaching his hand up to Prissy. She descended with a graceful flurry of pink skirts and white petticoats, then stood by as he lifted the wicker picnic basket out of the shay, along with the broad canvas sheet the hotel had included.
Beyond the reach of the low-hanging branches, the summer sun beat down in all its fierce intensity and bees buzzed amid the flowers, but it was dim and cool beneath the wide, twisted boughs. It was as if they were enclosed in their own private world.
“You’re right, Prissy, this is a perfect place for our picnic,” he said, enjoying the way her bluebonnet-blue eyes lit with pleasure at his compliment.
“Here, help me with this,” she said, taking one end of the canvas.
They spread it out just beyond where the roots of the huge tree stuck partway out of the ground, and Prissy began laying out plates and silverware, fried chicken, a napkin-wrapped basket of biscuits that were still warm, a covered dish of green beans, a jar of cold tea and mugs, and pecan pralines for dessert.
“The hotel cook made enough for an army,” she murmured. “It really is too bad Sarah and Nolan couldn’t come with us.”
“Do you mind their absence?” he asked her.
“No,” she admitted, laughing. “Although I’m sure we will now be the talk of Simpson Creek.”
“To be honest, Prissy, I think we’ve been the talk of Simpson Creek since I shared your pew.” Then, afraid he would spook her with his frankness, he added, “But I’ve got no issue with that. That is, if you don’t.”
She smiled her perfect smile and they sat down and began to eat.
“What is it?” she said, some time later, when she noticed him watching her while he lounged on his side, his head propped in his hand. Even in the shade, he could see the self-conscious flush blossom on her cheekbones.
He couldn’t tell her he liked watching the delicate way she sat nibbling at the meat clinging to the chicken drumstick with pearl-like white teeth. She didn’t have a man’s hearty appetite, but she wasn’t one of these belles who picked at her food, either.
“I have a confession to make,” he said instead.
“Oh?” Her eyes widened and she laid down the bare drumstick on her plate. “What is it?”
“About me,” he said, watching her. Would what he was about to tell her please her and make them closer, or would she become distrustful of him?
“Are you…are you an outlaw? A wanted man?” She held herself very still, he saw, as if she were afraid of the answer.
“No,” he said, “no, of course not.” He laughed as she let out the breath she had been holding. “Did you really think that’s what I was going to tell you?”
She smiled a little nervously. “No, I certainly hoped it wasn’t. I would have been shocked, of course! But when Sarah’s fiancé—her former fiancé, that is—finally returned a few months ago—she hadn’t seen Jesse Holt since he’d gone away to the war, you see—he’d become an outlaw, and he kidnapped Sarah, and Nick and Nolan and the posse had to track them down, and Jesse was killed. Poor Sarah—it was awful!”
“And you thought I might be a man on the run,” he concluded. “I’m sorry, Prissy—I didn’t mean to frighten you for a single second.” He was a man on the run, though—from Kendall Raney and his henchmen.
“Are you…are you married?” Her voice was a shaky whisper. “Did you leave a wife behind somewhere?”
He couldn’t stop the hoot of laughter that burst out of him and seemed to bounce off the twisted tree limbs hanging above them. “No, Prissy! No, I’m not married, or promised, or anything like that.”
“Then what could it be?” she asked, her blue eyes puzzled in the sun-dappled shade. “If you’re not in trouble with the law, or married…”
“I don’t mean to make you play a guessing game,” he said, contrite over the worry that furrowed the lovely brow framed by her strawberry-blond curls. “Here’s my confession—I didn’t come to Simpson Creek for the sheriff job.”
“Y-you didn’t? Then why—”
“I came to meet you.”
Her jaw dropped.
All he could do now was hope for the best.
Prissy couldn’t believe her ears. “You came to meet me,” she repeated. “Not to be the sheriff? Are you saying you saw the advertisement we ladies put in the newspapers?”
He grinned. “Yes, ma’am. But of course, I had no idea that ‘Miss Priscilla Gilmore of Post Office Box 17’ was going to be the loveliest lady in Simpson Creek. I’m just surprised that no one’s snapped you up before, at least once the Spinsters’ Club began—I meant, the Society for the Promotion of Marriage.”
“That’s all right, you can call it the Spinsters’ Club—everyone does,” Prissy said, unsure of exactly how to respond to his compliment.
“It’s the truth. You’re a very pretty girl, Prissy. And very sweet.”
She suddenly remembered his words when he’d met her papa, Nick, and her. “But you told Papa you came to apply for the sheriff’s job,” she said.
He looked down. “Yes, and I’m ashamed of that fib,” he told her quietly. “I’ll confess it to him someday and ask his pardon.” He raised his head again and, taking her hand, gazed at her. “But Prissy, I knew I had to have some sort of employment while we became acquainted. What kind of man would I be if I just took a room at the hotel and spent the livelong day courting you? Your papa wouldn’t let a man like that within ten miles of his precious daughter,” he told her. “Nor should he.”
She thought about it a moment. It was true enough that all of the men who’d come to town to meet the spinsters had taken jobs of one sort or another—Nick had hired on as a cowhand on the Matthews ranch, Nolan became the town doctor, Ed Markison was a bank teller and Pete Collier, Caroline Wallace’s late fiancé, had opened up a drugstore before his untimely death.
“I see,” she said at last. “I guess that makes sense.”
“The sheriff’s job just seemed to fall into my lap. Besides, I think I’ll make a good sheriff for Simpson Creek. Don’t you?”
“If your first day on the job was anything to go by, you sure will,” she said. “Why, Delbert Perry might have killed Nick if you hadn’t been there.”
She interrupted his modest dismissal. “But, Sam, how can you be sure I’m the one you want to court? You haven’t gotten to know the other ladies—some of the Spinsters you haven’t even met yet.”
He looked down again for a moment, and when he looked up, his grin was broad. “Fishing for compliments, are you, Prissy? You want to hear that once I saw you, I didn’t have eyes for anyone else?”
He expected her to laugh, but consternation filled her eyes.
“Sam, I, too, have a confession. I’m feeling somewhat guilty about you—”
He blinked. “Guilty? About me? How’s that?” What could she possibly mean? They hadn’t so much as kissed. What could this innocent, beautiful girl have to feel guilty about?
She nodded. “I’m president of the Spinsters’ Club. By rights, I should be encouraging you to get to know all of the ladies and make your choice. But I haven’t wanted to do that. I chose to…go on a picnic with you instead.”
After a moment, he took her hand. “I’m glad you did, Prissy. Mighty glad you did.”
All of a sudden there was no world beyond the sun-dappled shade of the ancient tree, no one but him and her.
“Once I saw you, I couldn’t imagine that anyone could compare to you,” he said.
Prissy felt she could hardly catch her breath.
She could smell his scent of bay rum and leather, and even the sweetness of the pralines they had eaten. She could have stayed in that moment the rest of her life.
They both heard the creak of an axle and the sound of laughing children at the same time. A moment later, a buckboard wagon lumbered into view, the bed loaded with wriggling children, a local rancher and his wife seated on the plank bench in front.
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