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 got more’n a month.” Roy Backley, the banker, stood up beside Mrs. Peabody and placed a hand upon her shoulder. “Don’t you worry. The mayor will find us someone by then. For now, I say we all enjoy the circus tonight. Forget about that saloon for a while.”
“I second that,” added the blacksmith. “No need to worry now when it might turn out to be a fine establishment. It’s hard to imagine the Bascomb Hotel turning tawdry.”
The owner of the livery, sitting on the right side of William, stood up. “I third that notion and declare this meeting over. See you all at the circus.”
William had lost count of the times he half regretted accepting the position of mayor of Tanners Ridge, but he had to begin his public service somewhere. He’d hoped to get his start as an appointee to the Territorial Legislature of Wyoming, but it hadn’t happened.
The men who made legislative appointments had voted him down because he was not a married man. In their opinion, married men were more stable of character. In William’s opinion, it was their wives wanting other women to socialize with, hold balls and galas and the like.
The loss had been a great disappointment. Especially since he had planned to be married. He’d made an arrangement with Ivy Magee. His money to save the Lucky Clover from ruin in exchange for her hand in marriage. The union would have given him the prestige that the highly respected Lucky Clover had to offer.
In the end she’d turned him down and married Travis Murphy instead.
She was right to have done so. For all that she would have suited his needs, she was a woman who deserved being loved. And Travis loved her to his bones.
The problem with having befriended Ivy was that it complicated his bride hunt. Eligible ladies who would suit his needs in every way threw themselves in his path daily.
An availability of suitable woman was not the trouble.
The trouble was knowing how Ivy loved her man. Having seen it with his own eyes, well—he wanted that now. Or at least something close to it.
He wanted a woman who sparkled for him. But he also wanted to be governor one day. For that he would need a wife and, God willing, children.
Little girls to bounce upon his knee and little boys to play ball with. He wanted them, governorship or not.
“I’d have voted for your man, Mayor English.” William gazed down into the face of a pretty young woman who smiled up at him with a winking dimple. “May I call you William?”
One day he hoped to be as lucky as Travis Murphy.
Gazing down at the woman preening beside him, he doubted it would be today.
* * *
Agatha reread the first three lines of the book on her lap, unable to concentrate. Here in camp, all was peaceful, although the wind swayed the trailer like a cradle.
Everything added up for a cozy evening in the company of fictional characters whom she knew quite well, having read the book four times already.
But just there, beyond the solitude of the nearly abandoned camp, she could hear a crowd of voices raised in merriment.
A part of her longed to be out there, laughing and enjoying the thrills. But the nightly customers were loud and lively—there were just so many people.
She ought to force herself to go out, she knew that, but the adventures of Miss Maudie O’Hurley would do for tonight. Indeed, the beleaguered Maudie was about to be carried off by her true love. What could be more thrilling than that?
Being carried off by her own true love, of course.
“You aren’t going to meet him sitting here,” she mumbled.
Still, it was windy outside.
“What if the man of your dreams is visiting the circus at this moment?”
What if the man of her dreams was walking about out there with his dark hair glinting in the torchlight that illuminated the shadowed paths? What if his blue eyes...she’d long known them to be the color of the sky just before sunrise...were sparkling with pleasure at all he was seeing?
What if William was here and she missed him because she was sitting in her safe chair reliving Maudie’s happiness...once again.
Now there was a silly thought. William here? If she was going to indulge in daydreams she might just as soon dwell on something that really happened.
She could at the very least relive the time that William had danced with her at a party hosted at the Lucky Clover. He had only asked her to dance because she was Ivy’s sister, she was certain, but nonetheless it had been magical—the stuff of her dreams.
At the time she hadn’t even had strength enough to stand on her own so that handsome man—that prince—had taken her hand, lifted her with an arm around her back and supported her through a very brief dance.
Nothing that Maudie O’Hurely had experienced came close to that!
Agatha snapped the book closed then crossed the small space to stare out the window. Moonlight cast shadows of tree branches on the roof of the trailer across from hers. They looked like malevolent fingers all twisted and spooky.
“Idiot,” she murmured. “They are shadows and you need to go out.”
Not to find her prince, but to find her strength. The very last thing she needed at the moment was to find a royal protector—or the Wyoming equivalent.
One day that would be a fine thing. Loving a man and having him watch over her, while she in turn watched over him.
At
