rue the day, Colt Wesson!” he heard Cyrus call out behind him. “A man can’t set aside his kin!”
* * *
Holly Jane Munroe sat at a lace-covered table and stared out the window of her shop, The Sweet Treat. Balancing a knife in her fingers, she whirled a curlicue on the top of the cake she was frosting without even having to look at it.
She sighed and wished that Billy Folsom wasn’t standing in front of the bank, staring back at her. He twirled his hat in his fingers, brushed a strand of curly hair from his forehead then tugged the tips of his heavy black mustache.
With an inhalation big enough to be noticeable from across the road, he stepped off the boardwalk. The poor fellow looked nervous; clearly buying a sweet treat was not the first thought on his mind.
There was nothing to be done about it, then, but to hurry behind the counter, setting row upon row of cookies, chocolates and pies between them.
And smile—she owed her swain that much, since he likely didn’t want to be ringing the tinkling bell over her front door any more than she wanted him to be.
“Good afternoon, Billy.” She hoped the smile would conceal her feeling that the sooner he was gone the better.
Billy was handsome...he was young. At twenty-one years old he was only two years her junior. The Folsoms had sent far worse her way over the past few months.
“Miss Holly Jane,” he stated with a nod of his head. He wiped his damp brow with his sleeve. “I’ve come to... Well, that is, I’m here to—”
Billy crushed his hat in both of his fists. He inhaled a huge lungful of air.
“Will you marry me, Holly Jane?”
“I’m sorry, Billy, but no.” It was hard to miss the relief that darted across his expression. “Please tell your grandfather that I have no intention of marrying anyone. Besides, what do you expect Lettie Coulter would have to say about that?”
Lettie and Billy had been sweet on each other since fourth grade.
“Thank you for the turndown, Holly Jane.” He crammed his mangled hat on his head, grinning. “Pa’s going to be put out some...again.”
“Take this with you.” Holly Jane handed him the cake she had just frosted. “That might sweeten him up some.”
“Might, but only for a while.” Billy stretched across the counter and kissed her cheek. “Be careful, Holly Jane. I spotted a Broadhower two blocks away.”
“I’ll be safe enough. You might want to go out my back door, though.”
“Much obliged.”
Billy glanced out the front window then hurried out the back door.
Holly Jane watched him trot down the path that passed through the oak grove behind the shop. With fall a week old, the leaves had begun to show some color. This evening, she hoped the walk home would be pretty enough to wipe her mind clean of troubles.
And thinking of trouble, it had been avoided by only seconds. The instant that she closed the back door on Billy, Henry Broadhower stormed in, red-faced and breathing hard.
“Good day, Henry.” Henry was close to thirty years old and already beginning to lose his hair. His round belly rose and fell with his breathing. “I said no to Billy, if that’s what’s got you riled.”
“Would have got me riled, but looks like you’ve got some common sense, for a frilly girl.”
She smiled at him because it was the easiest way to deal with the man. “What’s wrong with a frilly girl? Sugar and spice makes for a more pleasant town, don’t you whink.”
“Having no Folsoms in it would make it a better place.”
“Say what you came to, Henry,” she said with a sigh. In her opinion the town would be better off without a Folsom or a Broadhower to spread animosity. Their feud had caused tension for as long as she could remember.
“I’d be pleased if you’d become my wife, Miss Holly Jane.”
“I’m sorry, Henry, but no.” Even a frilly girl set her hopes higher than marrying to settle a feud.
When the color began to rise in his face once more, she plucked a cake from the case, apples and cream by heavens, and set it in his hands.
“Give your family my regards,” she said, walking to the front door. Henry passed through it, slump-shouldered and grumbling.
Mercy me! She plucked a square of chocolate from a display dish and popped it in her mouth. It melted over her tongue, sweet and smooth.
If the day presented one more proposal, she wouldn’t make a single dollar.
* * *
“My word, isn’t this a lovely town?” Sitting beside Colt on the buggy bench, Aunt Tillie patted his knee. “I believe this will be the home I’ve dreamed of all my life. See how the trees are begging to turn for the fall. I truly missed trees back at the Broken Brand.”
His great-aunt was right. The green hill country of Texas looked like heaven compared to the desolate badlands of Nebraska.
“Friendship Springs,” Grannie Rose read the sign announcing the name of the town. “I reckon it’s full of friendly folks, don’t you?”
Many of them would be friendly, but Colt knew that there was a feud dividing two of the old-time families and he was landing himself right in the middle of it.
“Hell, Grannie Rose,” he said, “we’ll be happy as three butterflies in a meadow.”
“Colt Travers, what have I told you about that language?” Aunt Tillie swatted his hand where the reins lay lightly in his fingers.
“Don’t use it.” He winked at her and earned a frown, but it wasn’t genuine. His great-aunt had doted on him from the moment he bawled his first lungful of air.
He’d try and be more careful with his language, but he’d worked the railroad for eleven years, dealing with rough men and stubborn locomotives, and his manners had turned coarse. The only thing guaranteed to bring on foul language quicker than a Travers relative was a damn, stubborn steam engine fighting his efforts to repair it.
Today, all that was behind him. He’d bought himself a ranch, sight unseen, just outside Friendship Springs. The seller had been a stranger who had become a friend over dinner and a beer. He never doubted the old man when he said the ranch looked like it had slipped through a hole in paradise and landed in Texas. It would provide wide green pastures for his horses and a snug home for the old ladies.
He wouldn’t let the fact that his ranch was bordered by the two feuding families—the Folsoms to the west and the Broadhowers to the south—bother him. He’d grown up with trouble most of his life.
“Lordy, will you look at that?” Aunt Tillie exclaimed, pointing toward Town Square.
Town Square was not a square
