“If it’s all the same to you,” he said, “I’d like to take this here contract home and ponder it awhile.” Maybe even seek the Lord’s guidance, though he and the Big Man were still on rather shaky footing. “Seems like you might want some ponderin’ time too, since I just sprang the whole relations thing on ya. I’ll come by the bakery in the morning before you open, and if we’re both agreed, we can sign it.”
She blinked—twice. “Am I to understand that you’re truly considering my proposal?”
What had the last twenty minutes been, if not consideration? He raised a brow at her. “You trying to talk me out of it?”
“No!” She wagged her head with a vigor that soothed his pride.
It was rather nice being a female’s first choice, even if he’d originally planned to avoid the parson’s mousetrap. Of course, if her second and third choice were Beekman and Ormandy, he couldn’t exactly brag about being top of the list. The rungs on that ladder were pretty low.
“All right, then.” He folded the papers in half and tucked them into the waistband of his trousers. Then he stood and held out a hand to help her rise. It seemed like something a gentleman would do. Not that he was much of a gentleman, but if she was gonna be his wife, he figured he should extend the courtesy.
Besides, at least four pairs of eyes were staring at them from the boardinghouse kitchen window, and he wouldn’t give any of those busybodies reason to wag their tongues about anything improper.
Abigail’s hand slid into his palm, and his fingers closed around hers. She had a strong grip, yet her touch felt nothing like an ordinary handshake. His skin warmed where it touched hers, and little pinpricks paraded up his arm. Not a sensation he was used to, but not one he disliked, exactly, either. He guessed he’d get used to it.
He steered her in such a way that kept her back to the boardinghouse, hoping she’d fail to notice their audience.
“I guess I’ll see you in the morning, then?” she said as she retrieved her hand from his and used it to smooth out her skirt.
“Yes, ma’am.” Zach nodded, trying to convince himself that the thought of sacrificing his freedom didn’t leave him a tad bilious. “Bright and early.”
Her lips curved in a tiny smile, and then she nodded and left him in the boardinghouse yard, watching her hips sway side to side as she made her way down the street.
Maybe he should have signed the papers without giving himself time to think about the consequences. But no. If he was going to tie himself to a woman for life, he needed to make sure he wouldn’t balk at the yoke.
He still had his freedom. He could choose the path his future took. If he chose Abigail, there’d be no going back. No bellyaching about being tied down. No whining with the fellas at the saloon about clipped wings. It would be his choice, and he’d make the best of it, just as he’d been making the best of whatever life threw at him since he was a kid.
Zach tossed a quick glance at the sky before starting the trudge home. You just can’t leave me alone, can you? You keep throwing family at me, even when you know my track record for messing it up. I thought you were smarter than that.
Apparently not.
Zach sighed, his gaze turning south. Was it too late to catch that boat to go visit the queen?
CHAPTER
10
“He’ll do it. You’ll see.” Rosalind grinned as she set plates on the tables near the front window. As if the outcome had already been decided.
Abigail knew better. If the matter had been decided, Mr. Hamilton would not have needed the night to consider things. Her hands shook slightly as she placed a selection of sticky buns in the display case. His sticky buns. Not until this morning had she realized that she thought of them that way. She’d been doing so for weeks, apparently. Now, thanks to her impetuous marriage proposal, he’d probably start breakfasting elsewhere to avoid the awkwardness. Which would be for the best. Especially if she managed to convince Elmer Beekman to take his place, a prospect that didn’t sit as well with her as it once had.
After her conversation with Mr. Hamilton yesterday, and their discussion of intimacies, Abigail just couldn’t picture anyone other than him as her husband. Especially not Mr. Beekman and his breath of doom. But if Mr. Hamilton’s night had been anything like hers, he was probably questioning why he’d ever considered her offer in the first place.
Whenever Abigail had awakened during the night, which had been far too often, she’d prayed. At first she’d begged God to convince Mr. Hamilton to agree to her scheme. Then, as the night grew darker and her doubts and insecurities grew louder, she’d asked him simply to save her bakery. When morning came and she rose exhausted from a restless night of little sleep and no reassurances, her petitions deteriorated to a humble plea that God provide a way for her and Rosalind to survive.
“Look!” her sister exclaimed as she leaned close to the window. “Here he comes now . . . wait.” Her smile dimmed. “That’s not Mr. Hamilton crossing the square. It’s Marshal Burton. Carrying a box of tools.”
Abigail straightened. Tools? That didn’t sound good.
“Unlock the door.” Abigail flapped her arm at her sister as she scurried around the counter. “Hurry!”
Rosalind bustled to the shop entrance and turned the key in the lock, her face full of questions Abigail didn’t have time to answer. She swept past her sister and pulled open the door.
“Marshal,” she greeted, a wide smile masking the terror floundering in her chest. “We don’t open for another fifteen minutes, but I’d be glad to make an exception for the man who keeps Honey Grove safe. What can I bring you? A cinnamon roll, perhaps, or a croissant?”
The lawman mounted the boardwalk in front of her shop and tipped his hat. “I’m sorry, ma’am, but I’m not here for breakfast. I’ve been tasked with posting a public notice stating that the Taste of Heaven Bakery is conducting business illegally and will have all operations shut down by the end of the week.” His gaze softened with regret, but his eyes never flinched as he delivered the devastating news. He handed the printed notice to her to examine.
The glaring headline of City Violation jumped off the page in print so large that people would be able to read it from halfway across the square.
She shook her head, slowly at first, then with greater speed as reality forced its way into her numb brain. “You can’t do this.” She glanced up from the paper. “The council gave me until the end of the month to comply with the ordinance. My time’s not up. If you post this inflammatory notice, you’ll do irreparable harm to my reputation and the reputation of this bakery when I’ve done nothing wrong.”
Marshal Burton bent sideways and set his box of tools on the boardwalk with a jangle of metal. He stuffed a few nails in his trouser pocket, then grabbed a hammer and straightened. He took the notice from her hands and laid it flat against the siding next to the door.
“If you have an issue with the notice, you can take it up with Mayor Longfellow. He’s the one who gave the order. He said you had failed to communicate any plan regarding coming into compliance, so he thought it best to warn the public of the upcoming closure.”
“The council never asked for any communication. They just gave me a deadline. I do have a plan in place to bring the bakery into compliance, but I need to finalize a few details first. Give me until Friday. If I haven’t addressed the issue by then, you can post the notice. Posting it now would be prejudicial and malicious.”
The marshal dug a nail out of his pocket and set it at the top right corner of the page. He slanted a glance at her. “Anything in this notice untrue?”
“Not precisely,” Abigail hedged, “but it paints an inaccurate picture of the situation.”
He shrugged and swung the hammer. It connected with a bang that sounded far too much like a nail being driven into a coffin—a death knell for her business.
“Please,” she begged, taking hold of his arm. “Don’t do this.”
“Sorry, ma’am,” he said, gently b
ut firmly removing her hand from his arm. “It ain’t my call to make. You’re gonna have to take it up with the mayor.”
But not before all her morning customers saw the notice and spread the tale. Even if the mayor relented, it would be too late.
Zach strolled up Sixth Street at a leisurely pace. At least that was what he told himself he was doing—strolling. It wasn’t cowardly feet dragging if a man was simply enjoying a lovely summer morning. Zach blew out a shaky breath and tried to focus on the sunshine and the cool breeze, but every time that breeze swirled around his face and neck, he had to fight the urge to scrub at his skin. After spending most of the night tangled in a nightmare where snakelike ropes coiled around him from head to toe, he was a little on edge.
Get a grip, man. You’re not marching to the gallows. Though he had to admit he’d welcome a reprieve if Miss Kemp changed her mind. He’d prayed she would let him off the hook, take the decision out of his hands, but his gut told him she wouldn’t. She was fighting for her livelihood and her family. Powerful motivators. Ones Zach understood far too well. Yet he couldn’t help but hope for a miracle. After all but giving her his word yesterday during their conversation, he didn’t feel like he could call things off and still be a man of honor. But if the lady’s wishes had changed? Well, that was an entirely different matter.
As he neared the square, a commotion outside the Taste of Heaven made him pick up his pace. Was that the marshal? What was he doing? And why was Abigail trying to pull him away from her shop?
Zach broke into a jog and pounded up the boardwalk steps. The marshal paused his hammer mid-swing and turned to assess who approached. Apparently determining Zach wasn’t an immediate threat, he continued his swing and pounded a nail deep into the bakery’s siding. His sprawled hand kept Zach from being able to read the words printed on the paper the lawman was posting, but if the tears welling in Abigail’s eyes were any indication, it wasn’t good news.
“What you got there, Marshal?” Zach’s gaze bounced from Abigail to marshal.
“A public notice,” Burton said before shifting his hands so he could dig in his pocket for another nail. As his hands moved, the heading of the notice was revealed.
Zach frowned. “Violation?” His gaze swung to Abigail.
“Mayor Longfellow thinks I have no plans to comply with the city ordinance banning women from owning businesses.” Her voice shook slightly, but she held her own, her eyes flashing enough fire to keep the tears at bay. “He instructed the marshal to post an inflammatory notice about my being in violation despite the fact that the deadline the council dictated is several days away. He won’t take it down without the mayor’s permission, but I won’t be able to get in to see the mayor until after nine, and in the meantime, all my morning customers will see this—this slander and believe me to be unethical.”
Zach slid between Abigail and the marshal. “Take it down, Burton. She has until the end of the month.”
The marshal sighed and pivoted to face Zach, leaning his shoulder against the wall to keep the bottom edge of the notice from flapping in the breeze and possibly tearing free. “Look, Hamilton. It’s my job to enforce the law in this town, even laws I don’t particularly agree with. So unless you can change the law in the next few minutes or show me a falsehood in the document the mayor drew up, you’re out of luck.”
Zach hardened his jaw. “Step aside and let me read it.”
The marshal eyed him as if he thought Zach might light the notice on fire or something. “I already examined it and found nothing illegal or incorrect. Neither did Miss Kemp.” He tipped his head toward Abigail. “But give it your best shot.” He straightened away from the wall, keeping one hand on the bottom corner of the paper to hold it in place. “Just know that if you tear it down, I’ll take you in for obstruction of justice.”
As much as he wanted to rip the page away, Zach knew that wasn’t the way to win this round. Burton played by the rules. No bluffs. No trickery. And he held everyone else at the table to his standards. There was no room for sleight of hand or distraction techniques. A player had to rely on finesse and strong gameplay. Zach’s father might have taught him how to cheat, but he’d also taught him to out-strategize anyone who came to his table. That was what Zach aimed to do.
He read the notice from beginning to end, then went back to the top, searching for a loophole, for anything he could use to convince the lawman to remove the notice. At the start of the second read, his gut clenched the way it did when instinct flared faster than reason. He jerked his gaze back up to the first line and read it a third time.
Due to a failure to comply with city ordinance . . .
. . . a failure to comply . . .
Zach turned to the bakery’s owner, the winning strategy crystalizing in his mind. “That offer you proposed yesterday still on the table, Miss Kemp?”
Her eyes widened slightly, and her forehead crinkled. Her gaze moved from him to the marshal then to the notice tacked to her wall. She nodded. “It is.” Her attention flew back to Zach, her light brown eyes brimming with a depth of hope that made him nervous. A woman putting such store in him was bound to end up disappointed, but perhaps not today.
“Then I accept.” Zach backed away from the notice and braced his feet apart as he pivoted to face the marshal. “There you go, Burton. I found your inaccuracy. There is no longer a failure to comply on Miss Kemp’s part.”
The marshal raised a brow. “How do you figure? Her name’s still on the deed.”
Zach laid down his trump card. “But come Friday evening . . .” He cast a quick glance at his bride-to-be to make sure he’d gotten the timing right. Upon receiving her nod, he continued. “. . . she’ll be carrying a man’s name.”
“Yours, I suppose?” Burton asked.
“Yep.”
The marshal turned to Abigail. “That true, ma’am? You planning to sign your deed over to this fella?”
She glanced at Zach, her expression emitting equal parts gratitude and trepidation. Apparently, he wasn’t the only one unsure about this plan. Nevertheless, she stood her ground and looked the marshal straight in the eye. “Yes, sir, I am.”
Burton shook his head. “I suppose this is one of them details you were tellin’ me about earlier?”
Abigail nodded, sidling closer to Zach. Odd how that action made him want to stand a little taller and scowl a little fiercer at the lawman who had caused her such anxiety this morning. And drawn a crowd. An amazing number of neighboring shopkeepers had decided this was the perfect time to sweep their walkways. Zach angled his body a little more perpendicular to the shop wall to block even the closest neighbor’s line of sight to the notice.
“Technically, you’re not in compliance until ownership changes hands,” the marshal said.
Zach took a menacing step closer and opened his mouth to argue, but Burton shot a staying glance his way and held up his hand before Zach could utter a word.
“But since the mayor’s main concern was notifying the citizenry about the upcoming closure, I suppose we can forgo posting the notice if there will no longer be a closure.”
“Oh, thank you!” Abigail beamed a smile that had her dimples flashing and Zach’s gut tightening.
Burton yanked the notice down and crumpled it in his fist. He bent over, dropped his hammer into the tool box at his feet, then grabbed the handle and straightened. He pointed a finger first at Zach then at Abigail.
“I’m warning you, though. Hamilton’s name better be on the deed by the end of the week, or not only will I shut down this business, I’ll bring the two of you up on charges for making fraudulent claims. Understand?”
“Yes, sir.” Abigail nodded then glanced at Zach.
He gave a slow nod of his own. Not slow enough to show the lawman any disrespect, but enough to let the marshal know he wouldn’t be intimidated.
“All right, then. I’ll be on my way.” Burton tipped his hat, then set off down the boardwalk in the direction of the nosy neighbor
s. He gave Zach a telling look as he passed, making it clear that he’d run interference with the other shopkeepers, but it would be up to Zach to get Miss Kemp inside.
Seeing as how that matched his thought process precisely, Zach fit a hand to Abigail’s lower back and steered her to the bakery door—one that opened as if by magic and closed the instant they cleared the threshold.
Rosalind Kemp released the handle and plastered her back against the door. Her face was pale, but a wobbly smile brought a touch of life to it. “Looks like we have two days to plan a wedding.”
CHAPTER
11
Abigail attempted to treat Friday like any other day. She rose before dawn to knead and bake. Opened Taste of Heaven promptly at seven, served Zacharias Hamilton his sticky buns and coffee at seven thirty. Not an easy task when the delicate butterfly flutters he previously inspired had turned into a company of deranged bats swooping through her abdomen.
For the last two mornings, after their tense encounter with the marshal, they’d continued their ritual as if nothing had changed. She delivered his order, poured his coffee, and accepted his payment all without a word. He tipped his hat and nodded at her before he left, just as he always did, though she swore an added intensity heated his gaze.
Probably probing to see if she had changed her mind.
Well, she hadn’t. She couldn’t afford to. And truthfully, she wouldn’t want to even if her bakery wasn’t in jeopardy. Never would she have guessed that she could land a husband like Zacharias Hamilton. She looked forward to the shock on Sophia’s face when Zach escorted her to church on Sunday. She could almost hear the sputtering disbelief now.
Yet as Abigail locked the bakery door at three that afternoon, she had to admit that she didn’t want Zach as her husband simply to foil the city council or silence Sophia Longfellow’s spiteful comments. She wanted Zach as her husband because she liked and respected him. And even better, she could sense his respect for her. After growing up with a father who never found her good enough because she’d been born the wrong gender, her soul thirsted for validation. A validation Zach had given when he signed her contract without a single argument about her retaining control of everything related to running the bakery. Only time would tell if his words matched his character, but he didn’t seem the type to back out on his word once it was given.
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