in a stylishly cut emerald-green silk with matching shoes and a fringed parasol, looked the perfect Southern lady. Miss LeClair, no doubt. Even in the wilting heat, not one hair straggled from her crown of golden ringlets.
The other woman, seated next to Miss LeClair, looked even younger in a pretty blue-checked gingham with pearl buttons all the way to the hem. Her soulful brown eyes were set in a rather plain-featured face.
Lolly knew exactly what had driven herself to this step. What, she wondered, was wrong with them?
Perhaps, a voice whispered, they are as desperate as you are.
She eyed the younger women again. Both held her gaze for a brief moment, and in that instant Lolly recognized something. Whatever their reasons, whatever their differences, they were all sisters under the skin. They all wanted to get married.
“It’s for the school, dearie. You do see that, don’t you?” Minnie’s sugary voice floated to her over the buzzing in her ears.
“For the children,” Dora Mae added. “Twenty-seven students will attend the Maple Falls school come the fall term. They simply must have a new—”
“All right, all right,” Lolly murmured. “A schoolhouse is a fine thing in a community.”
Dora Mae thrust the pencil at her. “Just sign right here, Miss Mayfield.”
“And then,” sang Minnie, her hands stroking the air, “you can meet the other brides.”
Chapter Two
Dora Mae smoothed the creases in her royal-blue skirt, captured Lolly’s hand and tugged her across the floor. “May I introduce Miss Fleurette LeClair, from New Orleans. Miss Leora Mayfield.”
The green-silk-clad woman tipped her head. Her face wasn’t the least bit welcoming. It wasn’t even friendly. Her green eyes shot ice chips up and down Lolly’s plain black travel ensemble. Lolly tried to smile.
The perfect lips opened. “Wheah you from?”
“Um…well, I’m from Baxter Springs, Kansas. I used to run a news—”
“Oh,” Miss LeClair sniffed. “That explains it.”
Lolly’s mouth opened of its own accord. “Explains what?”
“All that black,” Fleurette drawled. “And, my heavens, yoah shoes.”
“What’s wrong with my shoes? They’re brand-new. I ordered them from Bloom—”
“It’s summertime, honey. Or have you not noticed?”
“And this,” Minnie interrupted with a flutter in her voice, “is Miss Careen Gundersen. Most everyone calls her Carrie, and she was born and raised right here in Maple Falls.”
Carrie extended her hand and enfolded Lolly’s in a firm grasp. “I don’t in the least object to black in the summer,” she murmured. “It’s quite elegant.”
Lolly smiled at her, then turned her gaze to include Miss LeClair. “I am pleased to meet you both, even under these rather odd circumstances.”
Her remark met with a prolonged silence.
“I mean, it is a bit odd, don’t you think? All three of us competing for the same—”
“Decidedly,” Miss LeClair acknowledged with a little nod that made her ringlets bounce.
“Perhaps just a bit,” Carrie allowed. “But you haven’t met Colonel Macready yet. He—” she drew the word out on a long sigh “—makes it all worthwhile.”
“Really,” murmured Miss LeClair.
Carrie beamed. “I’ve been calculating the odds. I’m quite good at mathematics, being a school-teach…”
Her voice trailed off as Miss LeClair pivoted and headed for the doorway, unfurling her parasol on the way.
“I am not interested in mathematical odds,” she said over her shoulder. “It is a lady’s breedin’ and accomplishments that will tip the scale.”
Her cool-as-silk tone hinted at an assumed superiority that made Lolly’s lips tighten. The back of her neck began to tingle. For a fleeting moment she imagined a jungle, tangled green vines full of twittering birds and silent, deadly snakes. Deep inside her a kill-or-be-killed instinct stirred.
Carrie broke the awkward quiet. “Let’s all go over to the hotel and have some lemonade, shall we?” Her earnest brown eyes rested on Lolly, then on Miss LeClair. Lolly watched Fleurette deliberately turn her back and address the Helpful Ladies.
“When am Ah to meet Colonel Macready?”
The older women looked at one another. “This afternoon,” Dora Mae replied.
“This evening,” Ruth said in the same instant.
Minnie’s hands swooped in front of her face. “Well, we hadn’t exactly decided when….”
Miss LeClair’s parasol spun to a halt. “This evening, Ah take it. And what will be the occasion? Ah ask because Ah wish to dress appropriately.” She cast a disparaging glance at Lolly’s traveling costume, then lingered on Carrie’s blue check. “Did you make that yourself?” she inquired.
“Why, yes. I sew quite a bit and…”
“Exactly,” came the murmured response. “Ah thought as much.”
That tone of voice, Lolly thought, was like the hiss of a poisonous viper. Rarely had she taken such an instant dislike to another human being, unless it was a braggadocio Rebel soldier exulting over some past victory or attacking her latest newspaper editorial.
Lady or not, Miss Green Eyes from New Orleans was just plain rude. And stuck-up. It would be pure pleasure to take some of the starch out of her no-doubt perfectly stiff petticoats.
Carrie just smiled. “Come on. I calculate it to be ninety-seven degrees in here. Doesn’t a glass of cold lemonade sound just about perfect? It will lower our body temperature at least two degrees.”
Lolly guessed there wasn’t a mean bone in Carrie’s slim, gingham-swathed body or her fact-overloaded brain. She might be a little pedantic, but that was because she was a trained teacher.
Lolly was educated, too. She had read her way through the Baxter Springs library shelves while she struggled to keep the newspaper going so she could care for her mother. Her education might have been a bit sporadic, but who cared if she’d discovered Shakespeare before she stumbled onto Plato?
Besides, she reasoned, there wasn’t one of the occupants in this musty-smelling schoolroom who couldn’t stand to learn something new. Herself included.
Lemonade sounded like a fine place to start.
“Do tell us, Miss Gundersen, Ah mean, Carrie, what do you know of Colonel Macready?” Fleurette swirled another teaspoonful of sugar into her lemonade glass.
Lolly
