“My father. The sheriff.” He cuts me off before I can say anymore.
“I know who your father is Sara-May. Now what is this nonsense about me being arrested?” Why he is snapping at me, I don’t know. Perhaps I should have kept my mouth shut after all. I’m no more than the bearer of the bad news, not the one who’s planning to arrest him.
“He thinks you are a bank robber.” I pause as though sending a telegram. “He’s going to arrest you.” I pause again. “At the store tomorrow.” I watch Jim shake his head, a look of complete confusion on his face.
“Why would he think that? And why not just come for me today if he believes it? I don’t understand…” He looks at me in total bewilderment. I shake my head.
“I don’t know. I wasn’t even supposed to tell you, but I couldn’t not…I couldn’t let him just surprise you tomorrow at the store.” His confusion turns to fear.
“But I didn’t do anything Sara-May. Can’t you talk to him?” His big brown eyes are just about as wide as I’ve ever seen them. He’s begging me, begging me to help him and I’m absolutely powerless.
“I tried, Jim. I tried to tell him that you’d never do such a thing but he only became angry that I dared to have an opinion at all.” He’s staring at his plate now and I can see the cogs turning. “We could run away?” I say. “Go to California? I have a cousin there, she would probably be willing to help us set up there. We could just start over. We could be pioneers…”
“No.” Jim pushes his chair back and stands up with both hands on the edge of the table. I can see the fear turn to resolve as he squares his shoulders. “No, I’m not going to run away from my home, from your family, for something I didn’t do. I’m an innocent man Sara-May and innocent men don’t run.”
“But what if they don’t believe that you’re innocent?” I ask, immediately regretting it as soon as the words come out of my mouth.
“They have to. They have to because I am.” Leaving his untouched plate on the table, Jim walks through to the front room. I remain at the table, picking at the string beans on my plate. I have no appetite at all, but for the time I spent picking these beans in the garden they need to be eaten.
I never would have imagined two years ago that I would be where I am now. Living in a small house, in a small town, unmarried with a child and picking food to eat from my own garden. Back in Virginia we had more than plenty to our name. We had servants who tended to the vegetable gardens, who picked the food and cooked the food. I never had to lift a finger at all. Not that I mind it now, but it would sometimes be nice to have a hand around the house, especially now that Sam is here. Truth be told, if I still lived under my father’s roof, I still would have the allowance of the privileged. But, Jim changed that. I traded in my lifestyle of the privileged only daughter of a lawyer to be with the man I loved. A man my father apparently hates.
Back when we lived out east, the newest trend in Virginia had become for the men to seek out and marry rich slender women who powdered their faces from expensive compacts. While I could certainly powder my face and was wealthy by my father’s means, there was no possibility of me ever being slender. Betsy used to say that she knew that I would always be quite shapely even as a child from the way that my chin folded over and my thighs always rubbed together as I walked. For a while I tried to prove her wrong, but the dieting soon became the death of me. I would hide food throughout the house and eventually my father tired of sending servants out to buy rat traps. All the while I was simply starving and miserable. I soon decided that it just wasn’t the lifestyle for me. Even if it meant never marrying, I simply loved food too much to starve myself half to death for the appearance of things.
When it became clear to my father that his eighteen year old daughter would never marry lest he do something about it, he decided we should move to Montana. A slightly less progressive state that still seemed to value the fuller figured woman. In no time at all we went from being the center of social occasions, to being a wealthy family in a small town with no social circle at all. Father went from lawyer to sheriff and I went from spoiled, bored daughter to bored daughter. Still, father’s plan to marry me off seemed to be a success because I had men lining up at the door to seek my hand in marriage from the moment that we arrived. I am certain that more than half of them were interested only in my father’s money and the other half, my father was only interested in for their money. But there was something about Jim that caught my eye. He wasn’t like any of the others. He worked hard and he was proud of his job even though it wasn’t much. Most of all though, he didn’t cower to my father, rather, he held his own opinions and presented them with the precision of the most educated man despite never having had a formal education. Needless to say, my father wasn’t impressed. He would much have preferred for us to stay back in Virginia and I remain single as opposed to fall in love with a man like Jim.
Father had in mind for me someone much more amenable to being molded in to a Sutherfield gentleman. Jim, on the other hand, had no intentions of changing his last name upon our marriage to suit my father – after all, what man takes his wife’s last name? So, while my father entertained other potential suitors I took to meeting Jim whenever the opportunity arose. I just couldn’t stay away from him, nor him me. We would sneak around like lovesick teenagers, sneaking a few minutes here or a few minutes there. After just one month of our sneaking around however, nature took its course and I fell pregnant with Jim’s child. I knew that my father would never approve. I took to wearing larger clothes for a while in order to hide my burgeoning belly. Telling my father that it was the new fashion trend back in Virginia, that all the girls were doing it now. By the time he found out that I had been lying and that underneath my baggy smocks hid an extra twenty pounds of belly, it was almost time for the child to be born. There was nothing that he could do but provide me with a midwife and order me to leave our family home after the birth. I had disgraced him both as a father and as the sheriff of our town.
I don’t know that my father ever forgave Jim for giving me a child out of wedlock. Even after things began to smooth over. Despite our plans to marry now, I don’t believe that father will ever overcome the shame of having a bastard grandson.
Chapter 3
I made it a point to have business in town today. Taking Sam to the local doctor for a checkup while feigning pain in my breasts from feeding him set us in a good position to observe any goings on. I need to see with my own eyes, my father’s plan put in to action. Until I see it unfold. I just can’t bring myself to believe that he will actually carry it out.
Despite my begging and pleading this morning, Jim still went to work at the general store and so it was only a matter of time before my father’s plan was put in to motion. By two o’clock I had suffered the indignities of having my breasts squeezed and wrapped in hot compresses. By three o’clock I was walking Main Street for the fourth time when I saw my father’s men walk in to the General Store.
I can’t imagine Jim’s face when they came through the door. Even though he was expecting them I don’t think the reality of the situation had quite settled in. I know it hasn’t for me, even when I see the men walk in to take him. It is as though my brain and my eyes just don’t connect. I can’t believe what I am seeing.
I clutch Sam to my chest and bounce him softly to keep him quiet as I watch from the side of the saloon, pressing my back against the rough wooden wall. I don’t want my father to see that I have disobeyed his orders or that I’m spying on him. Four men come out of the General Store with Jim held up off the ground by the elbows of the two in the back. I hear Jim tell them that he’s innocent, but they just shout back at him to shut up and save it for the judge. Jim tries again to tell them that he didn’t do anything, but again they tell him to shut up and this time they threaten to beat him if he doesn’t. It takes everything in me not to run out after them, to tell them that Jim is telling the truth. I can’t tell them how I know, but I know that he is. He has to be be
cause if he’s not then everything has been a lie and that just can’t be. Jim is a good man, he wouldn’t lie to me about this and even if he would, I would notice something like being married to a bank robber…wouldn’t I?
Jim is hauled off to the jail. Like everything in this small town, the jail sits on Main Street. Right at the far end of the dirt street and overlooking the dusty mountains, it sits as a tribute to my father’s position as sheriff. Since our move to town, my father has decreased crime rates by fifty percent. An achievement that he boasts to anyone who will listen. He has put God knows how many degenerates in jail…and now my child’s father is one of them.
“Sara-May!” I knew I’d be caught, but I couldn’t stay away any longer.
“Father.” I say as I turn around to see him standing there in full uniform.
“Sara-May, I thought I told you to leave this well enough alone.” His voice is stern as he eyes me.
“Father, you may believe that Jim is guilty, but I believe that he is innocent. As his soon to be wife it is my job to stand by him. I will prove his innocence if it’s the last thing I do!” I cringe inwardly at the fact that I dared to speak to my father in such a way. I expect him to explode, perhaps to throw me in jail for insubordination, but instead he sighs heavily and shakes his head.
“Sara-May, follow me. I have something I need to show you.” He says, walking towards his office in the corner of the small building. I hesitate to follow him but when Sam starts to fuss I know that I need to get out of the main building before we upset Jim even more.
My father points to a wooden chair in front of his desk.
“Sit.” I do as he asks without question. Sam still clutched to my chest. My father walks around and sits behind his desk, then opens a drawer and fumbles inside it for a moment. “Sara-May, I want you to take a look at this.” He puts a wanted poster on the desk top. The corners of the poster are torn and the paper is discolored, but there, quite clearly in black and white, is a portrait of Jim. It looks identical to him, from his shaggy black hair to the small mole on his right cheek. I stare at it for a moment blankly before looking up at my father again.
“What is this?” I ask as Sam reaches up and grabs a lock of my dark curled hair in his fingers and pulls it gently.
“This is a wanted poster from four towns in Montana. Three other towns have been struck by the same man. Seven banks in total.” My father pauses waiting for me to say something, but I can’t even open my mouth. “Gold, jewels, guns…he stole it all and he threatened to shoot anyone who tried to stop him.” Finally I will myself to shake my head.
“No…” My fingers trace the face on the poster and I shake my head again. “No, it couldn’t be. He wouldn’t do something like that, father.” He sighs loudly, more out of heartbreak for me than disappointment.
“Sometimes, Sara-May, I wish that you would just listen to your father.” He says, the sadness in his voice is palpable.
“Can I speak to him?” I ask. He is silent for a moment as he contemplates my request and then he shrugs.
“If you must.” He gets up from his chair and leads me back to the small cells along the far wall of the jail. “You have a visitor!” He says, shouting to Jim.
All of the cells in the jail but one are empty. There on the broken wooden bench in the corner of the last cell, sits Jim. He looks haggard already after less than half a day here. I smile when I see him and he smiles back, rushing over to the bars to be close to me.
“I’ll leave you for a few minutes.” My father says and turns, walking back down the hall.
“Sara-May!” Jim’s voice is breathy, scared. “Sara-May, I didn’t think he’d really do it! I didn’t think he’d really put me in here!”
“He has evidence, Jim.” I grip his fingers with one hand as they clutch the bars.
“What evidence could he possibly have of an innocent man?” Jim asks me, his eyes wide.
“He has the wanted posters from four of the seven towns that were robbed. The man on the posters…” I can barely bring myself to say it out loud. “He looks just like you.” Jim’s forehead wrinkles deeply. “Identical to you, in fact.”
“But it couldn’t be!” He says, shaking his head. “It wasn’t me! How could it be me when it wasn’t me?!” He starts to sound panicked and I grip my fingers tightly around his.
“Perhaps…perhaps it was someone who looked like you?” I hear myself say. His expression flattens and his eyes squint.
“Like my brother…” He says.
“Your brother?” I ask. I didn’t know that he had any family at all, he never speaks of them and they have never put forth the effort to pay us a visit.
“I have a twin brother, Sara-May. He looks just like me. It’s the only explanation that I can think of.” I find myself beginning to doubt his story. How can anyone have a twin brother and not speak of him all the time? “You have to believe me!” He says frantically.
“Likely story!” My father’s voice comes from the end of the corridor. “I’ve heard it a million times before! It wasn’t me, it was my twin brother!” I look at Jim apologetically.
“His name is John, you have to believe me! His name is John Carson!” Jim is shouting towards my father and I find myself backing away from the bars. Sam is beginning to fuss again.
“I should go…” I can find no other excuse so I bounce Sam in my arm. “I need to get him home to be fed.” I say. Jim looks at me dejectedly. I want to tell him not to worry. I want to tell him that I believe him, but right at this very minute I just can’t.
Chapter 4
My head has been reeling all afternoon with thoughts of Jim. I want so badly to believe his story, to believe that somewhere out there is a man who looks just like him…but it seems so unlikely. But then again, if the man I love is truly a bank robber then where on Earth are all of the spoils of his labor? Our minimal lifestyle is hardly that of a bank robber and his soon to be wife.
I clutch Sam to my breast until he has had his fill. When he finished suckling I set him in his crib. He has been cradled in my arm all afternoon and it’s nice to finally set him down. While Sam rests in the small nursery, I find myself lying on my bed. Every part of me feels drained. I know that I must do something to prove Jim’s innocence…but how can I do that when I don’t know that I believe him myself?
“Come on Sara-May…just a peek?” He tugs at the top of my blouse and I squeal like a schoolgirl.
“I would thank you to kindly keep your filthy paws off me, Mr. Carson!” I can’t hide my grin and Jim continues to tug at the neck of my blouse. This time his fingers catch the thread that laces it closed and it falls open. The neck, cutting just down to my ample cleavage is wide open and Jim is still pawing.
“You could just take it off…” He says, licking his lips. I lean in and give him a peck.
“I could…but I shan’t. I’m an honorable woman Mr. Carson and until we are married I will do no such thing.” Jim stands on his tiptoes and peeks down my shirt.
“Well, it seems only fair that a man should get to feel his produce before he purchases it…” He jokes as he wraps his arms around me and pulls me in to him.
“I am no such thing!” I say, maintaining my air of dignity.
His hands slide down to my bottom and he squeezes my buttocks firmly in his hands. “Mmm hmm, nice and firm…” As he speaks, his warm breath brushes against my neck and my body begins to tingle.
“Jim…” I know I should tell him to stop now, before things get too far out of hand, but I can’t bring myself to do it.
“Let’s see here…” He grasps at my skirt, gathering it in his hands until it is up far enough to slide his hands underneath. He squeezes my buttocks again, this time with just the thin cotton of my undergarments between my skin and his touch. “Mmm hmm, still quite firm…” He says. Then he turns his face in to my neck and his lips touch my burning hot skin. It’s as though every part of me clenches at the same time and then suddenly releases. His touch does
something to me that nothing else ever has.
“Jim, we really shouldn’t!” I say. But he is already too far gone to hear me. Too deep in the throes of his lust for me. And I am too weak to say no.
Jim bends over, he tosses me over his shoulder and marches in to the small bedroom of his house. I knew that I shouldn’t have come to see him alone again. I slap my hands gently against his buttocks.
“Stop! Jim! What are you doing?!” I squeal, but never really intending one word of it. He throws me on to the bed which groans under the weight of my curves. Jim stands up straight and tears his shirt up over his head. I stare at his sun kissed flesh and the small dark patch of hair covering his chest. I have never seen a man quite so overtaken with passion before.
“Don’t you want to be mine Sara-May?” He says to me in a singsong voice as he tugs my skirt down with one swift pull. As I lay on his bed with my shirt open and just my underthings on, I nod. How could I say no? I reach down to the hem of my blouse and lift myself just enough to peel it over my head. Then I slide my hands behind my back and unhook my brassiere. The relief as it slides down my arms, my large breasts finally free of its confinement, is enough to make me moan quietly. Quiet as it was, it’s enough to get Jim’s attention. He looks at me with a glint in his eye and bites down hard on his bottom lip. Then, in one fluid motion I fall back on to the bed and he tugs at my underthings.
I am naked.
I look up at Jim as he stares at me, completely absorbed in every curve of my naked body. I can’t help but want to cover myself. No man has ever seen me this way before. But the way that Jim looks at me tells me that he enjoys every inch of me. I watch him unbuckle his britches and drop them, along with his drawers, to the floor.
The firm shaft between his legs stands upright, pointing towards me and I can’t tear my eyes away from it. I have never seen anything like it and I’ll be darned if I know what to do with it. Jim follows my gaze and then smiles.
Romance: Luther's Property Page 14
