“Prissy, I thought I heard you come in—” Caroline began, coming from the living quarters behind the counter. “What’s wrong?”
Prissy told her what had happened, shuddering as she did so. Now, of course, with Mr. Wallace bringing her a glass of water and Caroline kneeling by her side peering worriedly up at her, it seemed ridiculous that she’d been so frightened. She was Priscilla Gilmore, daughter of the mayor. She wasn’t about to let some filthy cowboys bother her! She’d dealt with their harassment and escaped them, after all.
“I-I’m all right,” she assured them, getting to her feet. “I came back, Caroline, because I forgot to ask you this morning if there was any correspondence for the Spinsters’ Club?”
A smile reminiscent of the old Caroline curved the other woman’s lips and she straightened also. “I can well imagine why you forgot, what with that tiresome Mr. Waters bothering you and the sheriff showing up in the nick of time. As a matter of fact, Madame President, there are three letters I’ve saved for your perusal. Come on back to the kitchen—I’ll give you some cold lemonade while you take a look at them.”
Prissy rose on legs which still felt unsteady and followed her.
“It was very wise of your uncle to suggest advertising in the newspapers of closer towns, as well as Houston,” Caroline remarked as she handed Prissy the letters, “and kind of him to write the editors and urge them to run our notices. As you see, it’s borne fruit—these letters come from Austin, Mason and Fredericksburg.”
Prissy was pleased to hear some enthusiasm creeping into Caroline’s voice. “So if we were to invite these gentlemen to a party, we wouldn’t have to wait weeks for them to receive the invitations, reply, then travel to Simpson Creek,” she said. “Hmm, this fellow from Fredericksburg sounds German—‘Frederick von Hesse.’ I hope he isn’t one of those dour, ever-so-serious Prussians,” she said, making a face. Caroline giggled.
Before an hour was up, Prissy had decided to hold a barbecue, complete with dancing in the evening, at Gilmore House. The whole town would be invited, of course, along with the Spinsters’ Club and the bachelors.
“We can discuss the menu with the other ladies on the way out to the Brookfield ranch next week,” Prissy said.
“I’ll write the letters and send them out this very afternoon,” Caroline said, after a glance at the grandfather clock which stood in the hallway. “I’ve just time before the stage comes through.”
“Then I’d better get going and leave you in peace,” Prissy said. “Caroline, thanks for your help. It’s great that you’re working on this with me.” Did she dare utter her thoughts? “Maybe—”
Caroline held up a hand. “I know what you’re about to say, but don’t. This is just something for me to do, that’s all. I like a party as well as anyone, but don’t plan on throwing me at any of those men. I’m quite content with my decision to become the schoolteacher this fall.”
Prissy shut her mouth, but she couldn’t help hoping. Please, Lord, let one of those bachelors be just the right man to bring Caroline out of her mourning.
But first, she needed to straighten a few things out with Sam. It was time for her to get the full story on Mr. Bishop so she could put her fears and questions to rest. After their dinner with Mrs. Detwiler, she was going to demand some answers. Right after she ruined the mood by telling him about the Alliance cowboys.
“What an enjoyable time,” Prissy remarked as they watched lamplight flare near the window after Nolan Walker entered his darkened home.
She’d been pleased to discover Mrs. Detwiler had also invited Nolan Walker to supper, since Sarah, his wife, was still out at the Brookfield ranch helping her sister. It was good for Sam to get to know Nolan better, Prissy thought, because while the doctor had come to faith only recently, he spoke of the Lord and spiritual matters as easily as one would talk about the weather. She still didn’t know exactly where Sam stood in his faith journey, but he didn’t talk about it.
The food had been delicious, the conversation on the porch afterward even better. Sam had obviously enjoyed conversing with their elderly hostess and the town doctor. As Mrs. Detwiler had put it, the four of them had “gotten along like a house afire.”
Now they had walked Nolan home, and they were alone again. Dusk was fast edging into dark.
“Yes, it was. Shall we stroll a little?” Sam asked. “Or do you have to go right home?”
“I don’t think Papa would mind if we strolled a little,” Prissy murmured. She felt slightly nervous, though she couldn’t say exactly why.
His face was shadowy in the growing dark. “I believe we could get the best view of that big full moon from over there in the meadow,” he said, pointing past the church and across the creek. “There’s no little boys shrieking like wild Comanches over there tonight,” he added with a wink.
“I believe you’re right. There’s a bench on the far bank of the creek that would be just perfect for moon watching.”
Their footsteps echoed as they stepped onto the wooden bridge that spanned Simpson Creek, forming a counterpoint to the chirping of crickets and the burble of the creek beneath. Somewhere below, a splash of water announced a fish’s leap at an insect. An owl flew past them on silent wings, startling Prissy into grabbing Sam’s arm with a squeak of surprise. He chuckled, putting an arm around her with exaggerated protectiveness.
They crossed the bridge and stepped onto the soft earth of the meadow. Grass brushed her skirts shin-high. She could just make out the moonlight-dappled bench under a big cottonwood tree.
Prissy didn’t want to spoil the mood, but she knew she had to tell Sam what had happened this afternoon before she said anything else. She hadn’t wanted to bring it up while at Mrs. Detwiler’s, lest it alarm the old lady. But since Sam was the sheriff, he needed to know about it.
“How was your trip out to the Pennington ranch?” she asked as they reached the bench and sat down. “You didn’t say anything about it, so I thought perhaps you might not want to discuss it in front of the others.”
“I never made it,” he admitted with a rueful smile. “I was only a little way beyond town when Jackson cast a shoe. I took him to the blacksmith, but by the time we were done it was too late to ride out that far because of our supper plans. I’ll go tomorrow.” Her expression must have given him a hint that something was on her mind, though, for he studied her face more closely. “Why? Did something happen?”
She told him about the rough-looking men loitering in the bank, and the Daughertys telling her they’d been bought out and were leaving. “Mr. Markison told me Mr. Pennington was back in the bank president’s private office right then. And, Sam, it looked like those rough men were watching the old couple to make sure they were actually getting ready to leave.”
Prissy had delivered her account matter-of-factly to this point, but when she started telling him the rest, about the cowboys suddenly appearing on horseback when she came out of the bank, and the panic she’d felt when they’d surrounded her by their horses, it all became terrifyingly real to her again. She could almost smell the overpowering scents of saddle leather, tobacco and stale whiskey. Prissy couldn’t suppress a shudder, and before she could squeeze her eyes shut, big wet tears escaped down her cheeks.
And then he was holding her, one hand stroking her hair. “Prissy, sweet Prissy, don’t be afraid. I’m not going to let anything or anybody hurt you.” His voice was raspy but soothing, right next to her ear. “Aw, Prissy, don’t cry…”
“But they were so close, Sam. I didn’t know if they were going to make their horses step on my feet, or if they were going to snatch me up onto one of their saddles.” She wanted to stop crying, to show him that she wasn’t a frightened little rabbit, but he felt so solid, so safe. It felt so good to be held by this man.
“I’ll ride out there bright and early to put Pennington on notice that there’s to be no repeat of this kind of behavior,” Sam told her. “Don’t you give it another moment’s thought, Prissy.”<
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“Oh, Sam—” she began, but she couldn’t go on because she was overwhelmed by his kindness, by the feel of his hand on her hair.
“I want to protect you, Prissy. You bring that out in me.”
“Do I, Sam?”
He drew back and rested his forehead against hers. “You do. I hope you feel like that’s a good thing.”
She was about to say that she did when the moonlight fell across his face, illuminating his cut and fading bruises. But before she could say anything, he stood, and stretched out a hand to help her to her feet.
“There’s something I want you to see on the way home,” Sam said.
“What?”
He laid a finger on her lips. “You’ll just have to wait, Miss Inquisitive. It’s over on Travis Street.”
Just as they left the bridge, Delbert Perry walked by and tipped his ragged cap to Prissy. “Pretty evenin’, ain’t it, Miss Prissy, Sheriff?”
“It is,” Prissy agreed, and watched, bemused, as the man walked on, mumbling under his breath.
“Delbert’s out walking and talking with the Lord,” Sam explained. “He told me it keeps him from drinking.”
It would have been the perfect moment to ask Sam about his faith, but she couldn’t do it. She couldn’t ask any of the questions she’d planned to ask. Why? Perhaps a part of her didn’t actually want the answers.
“You know where this is leading, don’t you?” he asked as they stepped onto Travis. Travis Street ran behind the hotel, the mercantile, the post office and the jail, and ended at the side yard of the church. It was dotted on both sides with dwellings of various sizes.
She didn’t know what he meant. “You said there was something you wanted me to see…?” She saw the dim shapes of the backs of the post office and the jail.
“No, I meant my courting you. I’m not going to rush you, Priscilla Gilmore, because a girl like you deserves a proper, thorough courtship, but you must know I want to marry you someday. Someday soon, Prissy.”
She stopped stock-still.
“Is that a proposal?” she asked. She felt a tingling all over at the hoarse, earnest way he’d said it he wanted it to be soon. “But—but I—”
She could see his grin by the light of the moon. “Call it a preliminary to a proposal, if you like. When I do the real thing, Prissy, you’ll have it with all the trimmings—me down on my knees and all the rest of it.”
“Preliminary?” was all she could stammer.
“Then I’ll give you a preliminary acceptance,” she said with mock-haughtiness, and then laughed up at him. “Oh, Sam, I want to marry you, too! If it was just up to me, we could ask Reverend Chadwick to marry us tomorrow. But—”
“Now your papa wouldn’t stand for it if we married too soon, and your papa is right. You need to know me better, to make sure I’m the right man for you.”
There was something so uncertain, so vulnerable in his gaze. She opened her mouth to agree, to say that yes, she did need to know him better and that in fact she had questions, but no sound would come out.
“But if you do decide to marry me, have you thought about where we’d live, Prissy? What would you think of living here?”
He was nodding toward a white frame two-story house on his left, a house that obviously stood empty. The moonlight illuminated upstairs windows that were cracked and a shutter that hung precariously from one remaining hinge. The flowerbeds were choked with weeds and the paint was chipped and faded.
“The old Galloway place?” It had been deteriorating since Mr. Galloway was killed in the war, and empty since his poor widow had died in the influenza epidemic this last winter.
“It’s available,” he told her, excitement and moonlight gleaming in his dark eyes as he looked down at her. “Mr. Avery told me the estate’s been settled and the bank would like to sell it. Wouldn’t it make a great home for us, Prissy? It’s close to the jail, but not too close, and I could pay for it over time out of my sheriff’s salary.”
Prissy blinked up at him in confusion, then stared at the old derelict house. “Sam, this is—I hardly know what to say…”
“I’ve walked through it. It just needs a family, and a little loving care. I could fix what’s broken easy enough. And it’s roomy—we could fill it up with children, Prissy.”
He smiled, and she felt her heart jolt with joy at the picture he was painting with his words, of a big house noisy with the sounds of laughing children—their children.
She shook her head to clear her thoughts, but it didn’t work. Marry Sam Bishop? Should she even consider it, before she knew all about him?
And…did he actually…love her? Is that what he was trying to say?
“It’s not as fancy as Gilmore House, and I’m sure your father would offer to set us up somewhere else. But I want to stand on my own two feet, sweetheart, not lean on your father because he’s wealthy. He earned his money, didn’t he? I want to do the same.”
He gently turned her around so she could see the house. “Think about it, Prissy—think about this place with a fresh coat of paint and new glass, and all the weeds pulled from the flowerbeds and flowers growing there. Look at those fine shade trees on both sides of the house, and picture our boys climbing up into them, and one of our girls swinging from a swing hanging from one of those stout boughs.”
It was more than Prissy could take in. She could hardly speak.
“Prissy, are you all right?” he asked softly.
She nodded slowly. “I need to think. Maybe you’d better take me home now, Sam.”
Despite the obvious disappointment on his face, they were the only words she could muster. And Sam, to his credit, did as he was told.
Chapter Eleven
Sam tossed and turned on his narrow bed that night, full of conflicting emotions. Prissy had seemed stunned, which was not a good sign. But she hadn’t been angry or insulted, which was a good sign. Had he misread her?
Perhaps he’d just moved too fast. The house might have been too much.
He smiled in the darkness as he pictured himself painting the house and repairing the dangling shutter, with Prissy in the kitchen baking bread. He’d stop his labors at dinnertime and come in the kitchen and she’d give him a sweet kiss.
With a little patience, maybe he could make that a reality.
He’d enjoyed supper at Mrs. Detwiler’s immensely. The elderly woman was full of hospitality and wry, unexpected humor, and her welcome acceptance of him both as the sheriff and as a suitor for Prissy encouraged him. He’d enjoyed his conversation with Nolan Walker, too. The physician had obviously been through much heartbreak, both before and during the War Between the States, yet he spoke of the Lord as if He were an ever-present friend—just as Reverend Chadwick did. Could there actually be something to this faith they shared with Prissy?
Prissy’s recital of her treatment by Pennington’s two men was the thing truly keeping him awake. If it had been daytime when she’d told him about the incident, he would have felt compelled to take her straight home and ride to La Alianza immediately. Perhaps she’d known that and wanted to give him time to cool down.
But he’d make up for the lapse in time, sure enough. As soon as the sun was up, he’d ride out to pay Mr. Pennington a call, and if he disturbed the man at breakfast, so much the better. He’d make it clear that there was to be no repetition of such behavior, or more Alliance men would be occupying his jail cells—after he’d pounded the sand out of them.
It was time to do everything possible to prove to Prissy that he had what it took to be her husband. To be hers.
It was just eight o’clock when Sam reached the impressive wrought-iron arch at the entrance of La Alianza. From there he was escorted by two Alliance men all the way down the winding, pecan-tree-lined lane to the sprawling limestone house. The door was opened by a stocky, impassive Chinese butler flanked by two other men whose vests also bore the Alliance insignia. The butler showed Sam into the marble-floored dining room; they were followe
d by the two Ranchers’ Alliance men.
“Welcome to La Alianza, Sheriff Bishop,” Garth Pennington said, looking up from a plate of bacon, eggs, toast and fresh fruit at one end of an immense, elaborately carved mahogany table. He was dressed in a luxurious brocade dressing gown, but if he was embarrassed to be found not fully dressed yet, or angry at this surprise early visit, nothing marred his genial expression. “I wish you had let me know you were coming, for I would have waited and breakfasted with you. You couldn’t possibly have eaten before you came. But that can be easily remedied—Wong Tiao, bring Sheriff Bishop the same as I had.”
Even as the servant bowed, Sam held up a hand. “That won’t be necessary. I’ve come to discuss something with you.”
“Sit down then, and make yourself comfortable,” Pennington purred, pointing to a chair next to him. “Some coffee, at least?”
“No, thank you.” He remained standing.
Pennington studied him blandly for a moment, then nodded to the Chinaman and the two men behind Sam. “Leave us, gentlemen. I’m sure I have nothing to fear from the sheriff.”
Just as the other men were leaving, another man entered the room. He was sepulchrally thin, with hollow eyes, but his clothes spoke of wealth.
“Ah, there you are, Francis. Sheriff Bishop, this is Francis Byrd, one of my two partners in the Alliance. Mr. Byrd is in charge of the ranches we hold east of here. Francis, Mr. Bishop has something to talk over with us, and based on his demeanor, I fear it won’t be pleasant.”
“Is that right?” Byrd’s voice was raspy as dried reeds rubbing together in the wind. “Do inform us, Mr. Bishop.”
Sam didn’t care for the faintly supercilious tinge to the man’s voice, but he guessed Byrd was hoping to get a rise out of him. Ignoring him, he plunged ahead with a terse recital of yesterday’s incident. Pennington and Byrd listened attentively, Pennington rubbing his goatee, Byrd staring, unblinking, into Sam’s eyes.
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