little babies with Johnny.”
Dropping the wooden spoon into the large pot of watery stew, Agatha wrapped her arms around her friend. With luck she would believe the tears on her cheeks were tears of joy, and they were for the most part.
But it couldn’t be denied that she was indulging in a big dose of self-pity. She hadn’t a doubt in the world that once Ivy knew where she was, she would send someone to fetch her home.
Ivy would not come herself. She had a newborn to care for, and a ranch to run. But someone would come and she was not nearly ready.
“Don’t look so worried, Agatha.” Laura Lee let go of her and scooped up a cup of flour, mixed it with water. “I know you’re concerned about being forced to go home. But I’ll assure your sister and Travis that you are thriving and the circus people are watching over you like they would their own kin.”
Someone was. Mr. Frenchie Brown. She felt his eyes on her back whenever she ventured from the cook trailer.
In her opinion, his attention was not so protective. He frowned at her often, shook his head. Given the chance he would dismiss her.
Agatha watched Laura Lee stir flour mixed with water into the pot. “Look at that! It’s stew. Nice thick stew.”
“Here’s the secret to cooking, although Mrs. Morgan would paddle me for saying so.”
Laura Lee winked. Mischief made her eyes sparkle.
One day Agatha hoped her own eyes would sparkle. They didn’t now, but one day they would. As much as her friends’ did, as much as Ivy’s did. And Ivy’s eyes always sparkled.
“If a dish isn’t right add butter, lots and lots of butter. If it needs to be thicker, flour, and if it’s dessert lots of sugar, and butter, butter, butter—a good dose of cream doesn’t hurt, either.”
The door slammed behind the current, and fifth, man that William had presented for sheriff. It was hard to tell if the wind had to do with it or if the fellow was hopping mad to have traveled a hundred miles only to be judged unworthy for the position.
William frowned at the citizens sitting in the chairs facing the council table. The way they were going, they would never agree on a lawman.
“I’m glad to see the back of that one,” uttered Mr. Henry Beal. Henry sat beside William at the long council table drumming his fingertips on the polished wood. His vocation of blacksmith showed in the soot rimming his fingernails. “Too prissy to be sheriff if you ask me.”
“And small,” declared a middle-aged woman perched on the edge of her chair. “We need a larger man.”
“Yes, a much larger man.” This from the younger lady sitting beside the woman.
William glanced away quickly when she winked at him and nudged her companion in the ribs.
The wood legs of his chair scraped across the floor when he stood up. He made eye contact—frowned more to the point—at the four men seated with him at the table.
“I understand that you want the best person for the job. We all do. But that man was qualified and willing to accept the pay you offered. He may have been short, but he came highly respected. You read his letters of recommendation.”
“Still too small.” A man stood up from his chair near the front door of the Tanners Ridge Library where town meetings were held, shrugged his shoulders. “I think we all agree on that.”
“He might be married,” came a muffled voice from the back of the room. Just not muffled enough so that folks didn’t hear the comment.
“Really, Aimee.” The woman’s seat neighbor whispered too loudly. “Why do you care? The most eligible bachelor of them all is standing right in front of you. Forget about winning a sheriff.”
“He’s not married.” William pursed his lips.
This was supposed to be a serious meeting, not a matchmaking fest. He ought to be used to that kind of attention by now. Every unmarried woman and her mother knew he was rich, ambitious and needed a wife.
But the matter at hand was to appoint a sheriff. Surely they understood how urgent the need was.
“We’re running out of time, folks,” he pointed out. The man most concerned about the size of the fellow who’d just stormed angrily out of the library sat down. Feminine giggles stopped abruptly. “You know that Pete Lydle will be here soon. Do you really want him opening up a saloon like the one he had in Luminary?”
“I wouldn’t mind having a nice place to play a game of cards,” Henry stood up to say.
“It wouldn’t be a nice place. Pete’s Palace was a hellhole. Drinking, gambling, prostitution—it attracted a lot of unsavory folks.”
“You been there? How do you know?” Henry spread his arms.
“I’m the mayor. It’s my business to know.”
As soon as the old Bascomb Hotel had been sold and rumors of a saloon surfaced, he’d made sure to find out what he could about the new owner. He’d discovered Pete Lydle to be an objectionable fellow who would do anything to earn a dollar. Didn’t matter if the thing was legal or not.
“There are decent watering holes. This town could use one if you ask me,” said a man near the back of the room.
“Maybe Lydle’s gone respectable,” said Henry. “Otherwise why would he come here? Why would old man Bascomb have sold out to him?”
“It wasn’t him who sold out!” Henry’s wife stood to glare at her husband. “It was those next of kin in New York City, did that. And don’t think you will be going to the Bascomb come an evening. Mark my words!”
“Just so!” agreed another woman, coming to her feet and wagging her finger.
“Folks change. You women are seeing the boogeyman when you might not need to.”
“Are you willing to risk the town’s safety on that? You need to hire a sheriff and you need to do it now,” William declared, trying to drive his point home. “What do you think will happen without a lawman to protect you?”
“Maybe that fellow wasn’t so short after all,” Mrs. Peabody declared from her place in the front row. “He did have a hard look in his eye.”
The glare had been because they insulted his stature and questioned his ability, William figured.
“Who else have you got for us?”
“Who else?” Did they think lawmen just wandered by seeking employment every day? “No one.”
“But we need protection!” Mrs. Peabody stood up to speak her mind. She shook her cane to make her point. “We’ll be murdered in our beds when the saloon gets here—if the circus folks haven’t got to us first.”
“We’ve
