The Bride Wore Blue (15 page)

A dark-haired matron seated them across from each other at a table against the wall, and then the waitress met his gaze. “Coffee, deputy?”

Carter nodded. “And two eggs over hard. Bacon. Sausage. Hash. Biscuits.”

The waitress flipped the brown braid off her shoulder and studied Vivian from the black lace frill on her hat to the ruffled hem on her purple dress. “For you, Miss?”

“I’d like a cup of ginger tea and a piece of peach pie with cream.” Vivian pointed to the bell jar on the counter displaying a whole pie.

He hadn’t even had breakfast yet, and Vivian was eating dessert? “It can’t be any later than ten o’clock, and you’re ordering pie?”

“Is that a problem?”

“Not for me.” Yes, definitely independent. And the real problem was that he found her attractive on many levels.

The waitress jotted on her notepad and looked up at him. “Will that be all, sir?”

Carter looked across the table at Vivian.

“Yes, thank you,” she said.

“Very well, then.” The waitress dropped her pad and pencil into her apron pocket. “We’ll get those right up for you.”

As soon as the waitress walked away, Vivian regarded him, her dainty chin angled slightly. “You have more outlaw business to discuss, I presume.”

“Not exactly. Not at all, actually.” He pressed his back against the chair for added support. “I know you attributed your attempt to ignore me in Victor to not getting a job you wanted and to family matters, but … do you have something against lawmen?”

“I assure you that I have nothing against lawmen, Deputy Alwyn.” She fidgeted with the napkin in front of her before meeting his gaze. “I was simply trying to discourage you.”

“Why would you feel a need to do that?”

“Because, I don’t want to
encourage
you, Carter.”

“You used my given name.”

“So I did.”

Before he could respond, the waitress arrived with a big mug of steaming coffee and a dainty teacup on a saucer.

“Thank you.” They spoke in perfect unison.

“The rest will be up in a minute.” The waitress headed toward the diners seated at a corner table.

Carter returned his attention to the puzzling woman sitting across from him. “You used my given name. Does that mean you like me?”

Vivian stirred a spoonful of sugar into her cup. “It means I would like you, if I could.”

“Meaning I’m unlikable?”

She moistened her lips. “Meaning I can’t trust myself.”

“To like me?”

Vivian nodded.

“I see.” So it wasn’t just his imagination or wishful thinking—she was drawn to him too. They were both attracted to each other, but apparently each of them had personal reasons to avoid romantic entanglements. And he didn’t have to know her reasons to respect them. “I can’t offer any more than friendship either, Vivian.”

She opened her mouth long before the words came out. “Friendship is good.” Relaxing against the chair, she tucked her hair, the color of caramel taffy, behind her ear. “Now I have a question for you.”

“That’s fair.” He wasn’t sure whether to welcome a query from her or to brace himself.

“Might you know of anyone looking to employ a well-dressed young woman from Maine with a passel of sisters and a knack for bewildering deputies?”

Carter chuckled. “Just so happens that I do.”

“Really?” Surprise crinkled her forehead.

“Yeah, Bart Gardner over at the
Cripple Creek Times
told me just minutes ago that he needs someone bright to work in his newspaper office.”

“Thank you.” Her smile added golden flecks to her brown eyes and threatened to render him speechless.

What were his reasons, again? Oh yeah. He didn’t want to bring a wife into his life as a lawman.

Perhaps it was time to rethink what Tucker had referred to as his calling. Right now, being a shopkeeper or a rancher or even a mucker in a mine sounded good if it meant he could pursue more than friendship with Vivian Sinclair.

T
he newspaper man stood beside a contraption that filled the room with a constant
whirr-clickety-clack
. It was all Vivian could do to resist covering her ears, but she was here to ask for a job.

Feeding sheets of paper into the smelly machine divided the man’s attention. “You said you’re here about an opening for employment?” he shouted.

“Yes sir.”

He studied her and shook his head. “I’m afraid I don’t have anything for you, young lady.”

She’d had quite enough of people deciding what she could and couldn’t do based upon her age or gender or size. And she probably had all three strikes against her here. Vivian blew out a long breath. Never mind that such an action wasn’t becoming of a lady.

“Sir.” She hadn’t intended for it to come out in a huff, but the volume did gain the man’s attention. “Just moments ago, I was told that you spoke this very morning of an opening here at the
Cripple Creek Times
.”

“This morning, you say?”

Vivian nodded. She started to cross her arms for emphasis, but thought better of it.

“Deputy Alwyn? ”

“Yes sir.” She kept her chin held high. “You told him you were looking for someone bright to work in the office.”

He looked down at the floor, stained black. “I did.”

“Well, sir, that would be me.”

“But—”

“Please, sir.” Vivian allowed her bottom lip to jut out ever so slightly, a tactic that used to work on her father. “I’m new to town, and I need the job.”

Mr. Gardner’s face softened, and his shoulders slouched. “You’ll need to leave the fancy clothes at home.”

“I can do that.” Why had her eye chosen this particular moment to start watering and itching?

He glanced down at the filthy apron stretched tight across his middle. “You’ll need to wear an apron.”

Vivian nodded. That was easy enough.

“You’ll start Monday morning. Eight o’clock.”

“Yes. Thank you, Mr. Gardner. You won’t regret hiring me.” Smiling, she walked to the door.

She was now a newspaperwoman.

Carter hadn’t intended to go to the parsonage from the Third Street Café, but the more he considered his calling and reflected on Vivian Sinclair, the more he thought about how much he respected Tucker Raines’s opinion. He could count on his friend to be honest.

When Carter didn’t find the reverend inside the church building,
he walked the flower-lined path to the parsonage. He’d rapped the brass knocker only once when the door swung open.

“Deputy?” Ida Raines looked past him. “Is something wrong?”

“No ma’am.” Not unless she wanted to count the way her sister had him tied up in knots. “I’m sorry to bother you. I wondered if I might have a word with your husband. I checked at the church.” He glanced toward the brick building behind him. “But you’re home and—”

“Please, come in.” She waved him into the small entryway. “I was on my way to the icehouse for the afternoon. I’ll let Tucker know you’re here.”

As the Sinclair sister moved to the closed parlor door, Carter couldn’t help noting the similarities between her and Vivian. Although Ida Raines was three or four inches taller, both possessed narrow noses and high cheekbones.

Mrs. Raines tapped on the parlor door before opening it. “Carter Alwyn is here to see you.”

The reverend stepped into the entryway and reached for Carter’s hand. “Good to see you.”

A slight smile tipped Ida Raines’s mouth as she looked Carter in the eye. “Mind if I ask you a question?”

He had no room for a bigger icebox in his apartment, but he’d let her give the sales pitch anyway. “I don’t mind.”

“Was your
meeting
with my sister this morning planned or by happenstance?”

He gulped. How could she already know about the two of them eating together at the café?

“Tucker mentioned he saw her talking to you in front of the post office,” Ida continued.

Carter shot the reverend a look meant to scold him for squealing.

Tucker shrugged. “Sisters. Sorry.”

“Yes, seeing Vivian was unplanned.” Carter shifted to his other leg.

“So she was on her break at the telephone company?”

She worked at the telephone company? He brushed his hand through his hair. Vivian had asked him for a lead on employment. But it wasn’t his place to meddle in a family. He needed to choose his words carefully.

“Dear, I doubt Carter came here to play a game of Yes or No with you,” Tucker said, saving him. He shooed his wife toward the door. “Off you go. He doesn’t need a big sister. Or a matchmaker.” The reverend turned to Carter, his eyebrows arched. “Do you?”

Carter shook his head.

“See there.” Tucker patted his wife’s back. “Your services, though very capable, aren’t needed here.”

Ida glanced at Carter, a gloved hand in the air. “If you should change your mind … I know my sister very well and could give you some pointers.”

Carter couldn’t believe he was actually considering taking Ida up on her offer. Fortunately, she squeezed Tucker’s hand and stepped outside before he could give in to the temptation.

The reverend watched his wife saunter down the path, then turned back to Carter, a smile on his face. “Got to tell you, deputy, these Sinclair sisters are really something.”

“I’m discovering that.” What that
something
was, exactly, Carter couldn’t yet pinpoint.

“Ida made lemonade. I was about to pour myself a glass. Can I get you some? ”

“Sounds good. Thanks.”

Tucker pointed to the parlor. “I’ll be right in.”

A vase of black-eyed Susans topped a round, oak lamp table between two wing-back chairs. A Bible lay on the side table by one chair, and a copy of
The Word and the Spirit
by Charles Spurgeon lay on the floor next to the other. Carter chose to sit at one end of the settee, where he had a clear view of the landscape painting on the wall. Pikes Peak rose out of a bank of gray fog, tipped in pure white.

Right now he felt surrounded by fog, impatient for a breakthrough.

Laying his hat on his lap, Carter let himself imagine a life like this. A home. A favorite place to sit and read. A woman in his life to tease and hold hands with. A wife to come home to. Or in the reverend’s case, a wife who came home to him.

Tucker walked in carrying a glass of lemonade in each hand. “My sister painted the picture.”

Carter took a glass from him. “Mrs. Peterson, correct?”

“Yes, I forgot you met Willow before she went to Colorado Springs to be with my folks.” Tucker sat across from him in one of the wing-back chairs. “She gave me the painting when we went to see them last month. Didn’t get it hung until this week.”

Carter raised his glass to his mouth. The lemonade was a perfect balance of sweet and sour, just what he needed to quench his thirst.

Tucker leaned back in his chair. “What’s on your mind?”

A few things, including his friend’s sister-in-law, but where did he begin? His friend showed no signs of filling the silence with more questions or assumptions. Carter liked that about him.

After another gulp of lemonade, Carter set his glass on the sofa table. “How do you know that what you’re doing is what you’re intended to do?”

“In my work?”

For starters. Carter nodded.

“I didn’t know for a long time. Thought it was itinerant preaching until I found out my father was sick and my mother needed me to help with the ice business. My plan was to return to California as soon as possible.”

“So how did you know you were supposed to stay here? Return to preaching and marry?”

“That’s a big question. A series of them, actually. But for me, they were all related.” Tucker paused and scrubbed his clean-shaven face. “I had a change of heart. I knew I was supposed to stay. I suddenly had a strong desire that I believe God placed in my heart, along with an opportunity I eventually recognized as God’s provision for His plan.”

Was Tucker talking about the church or about Ida Sinclair? Did Carter dare think that Vivian could be part of God’s plan and provision for his life?

“In your office a few Sundays back, during your prayer, you asked God to ‘protect me in this, my calling.’ ”