Too Rich for a Bride (7 page)

Nell rose from a Queen Anne chair and filled the four cups with hot cocoa. Ida lifted her cup and inhaled the aromatic steam. The creamy chocolate smelled rich enough to carry away the cares of her day, along with the myriad of offensive smells that had accompanied them.

Hattie passed out dessert plates, each with a stack of shortbread cookies on it, then settled back onto the sofa beside Ida. “Your sisters asked me to reserve a room for you for mid-October.”

Ida nodded. “Yes, and you have a lovely place here, Miss Hattie.”

“Thank you. My George and I worked very hard on it.”

“I especially like the square grand piano.” Ida sipped her cocoa, letting its warmth soothe her travel-weary body.

“She’s storing the piano for Morgan until our house is finished,” Kat said.

“September’s not even over yet, and here you are.” Miss Hattie peered at Ida over the top of her cup.

“Yes ma’am.” Ida glanced at the flocked wallpaper on the far wall.

“Kat said you’ve been attending business school and would complete your course at the beginning of October.”

“I completed my schooling earlier than expected.” Ida took a big gulp of the chocolate drink.

“It was because of a man, wasn’t it, dear?” Miss Hattie twisted to face Ida. “I can see it in your eyes.”

Ida blinked. This woman’s tenacity would shame the most diligent of worker ants. Ida set her saucer on the table and rose from the sofa. She walked over to the fireplace, looking for warmth, but the snaps and pops only competed with the barrage of questions that had been unleashed by her evasion.

“Is Hattie right?” Kat had followed her and now stood beside her. “Did you leave early because of a man?”

Ida needed to tell them the truth. They cared about her. They’d believe her, if anyone would. “Yes, I left early because of a man—a very improper man. A guest professor.” Tears stung Ida’s eyes. She detested the quiver she heard in her voice, a sign of weakness. How could she have been so trusting? So naive? “He began … He kissed me, then offered me a job in New York if I would agree to be his … companion. He said that was the only way I’d find success in the business world—that women couldn’t make it on their own.”

“You must have been mortified.” Kat held both of Ida’s hands and squeezed them, her eyes full of compassion.

“What did you do?” Nell sat rigid on the edge of her chair.

“I slapped him. Told him he was wrong, and then ran out of the room.”

“Good for you. We women have to stand up for ourselves.” Hattie clucked her tongue. “For the life of me, I don’t understand why men can’t keep their lips to themselves. Until we ask for them, anyway.”

“You said he was a guest professor. Did you report him to the school’s director?” Kat led her back to the sofa.

“I did.” Ida sat down and Hattie patted her knee much the way she imagined her mother would. “The professor is a powerful businessman and a childhood friend of Mr. Merton, the school’s director, but I convinced him to give me a certificate of completion and a glowing letter of recommendation.”

“That’s what I love about you Sinclair girls.” Miss Hattie shook her fist in the air. “You might get knocked down, but you get right back on the horse.”

Ida bit back a giggle and gave the hand on her knee a squeeze. “Thank you, Miss Hattie.”

The sound of wagon wheels churning the rocks on the road drew Miss Hattie to the window. She pulled the curtain back and stood on her tiptoes, her face pressed against the glass. “It’s the ice wagon and Otis with a man I don’t know. You girls will have to excuse me.”

When the three of them nodded, the older woman rushed out of the parlor.

The faith and support Ida saw in her sisters’ eyes made her believe this was where she belonged. Hopefully, Mollie O’Bryan would agree.

Tucker removed his hat and wiped his brow with his coat sleeve while Otis parked the wagon in front of a yellow, two-story clapboard house. Hattie’s Boardinghouse was their last stop for the day. His body was tired, but his mind raced with possibilities, thanks to Otis, and he was anxious to get back to the house and put them to paper.

If he could secure a bank loan to expand the business to three wagons delivering ice every day, they could make enough to pay six men and cover the costs of the care his father and Willow required.

Tucker hadn’t received a report since he’d left Stockton, but he had to hope Willow wouldn’t always require care. He had to believe one day soon, the Lord would heal her heart and he’d be able to bring her to Colorado for a visit. He wanted to show her these magnificent mountains.

Tucker bounded to the back of the wagon and grabbed the ice tongs before Abraham could. He smiled. “I’ll carry this block. I wouldn’t want your muscles to grow bigger than mine.”

Abraham, his laugh as heartwarming as his smile, secured the reins to the hitching rail while Tucker clasped a twenty-pound block of ice and followed Otis to the back porch. Abraham then scuttled ahead of them, trailing a new joke behind him like smoke following a flame. Tucker smiled, remembering the boy’s joke about not breaking a sweat under the weight of the ice.

A generously proportioned woman wearing a shawl over a housedress stood in the doorway and waved them inside.

Tucker shifted the block of ice to look down at his boots. The tops were dirt encrusted. The fact hadn’t bothered him much until the young woman at the depot dropped a hatpin into one of them. She’d stared at it, then up at him as if he were a vagabond.

“Don’t you worry about your boots none. I have something for that.” The woman of the house pointed to a shiny brass-and-bristle fixture just outside the door. “Abraham, I do declare that you stand taller every week.”

Abraham shook her hand, then ran his boots through the contraption. “Yes ma’am. And I’m funnier too.”

Her cheeks puffed out as she bit back a giggle. “I think you might be right.”

Smiling, Otis removed his canvas hat. “Good afternoon, Miss Hattie.”
After shaking hands with the woman, he scuffed his worn shoes through the brush and stepped into the kitchen.

Tucker followed his friend’s example. “Ma’am,” he said, ducking his head in a hands-free greeting. The kitchen’s bakery aroma caused his stomach to growl as the door clicked shut behind him.

Otis pulled the top off the wooden icebox, and Tucker picked a straggling piece of straw from the block and then set it inside. “Mr. Tucker, this is Miss … Mrs. Adams.”

Tucker set the ice tongs on the lid and removed his hat before accepting the woman’s hearty handshake. “I’m pleased to meet you, Mrs. Adams.”

“I’m a widow. Please call me Miss Hattie. We’re pretty informal around here.”

“Informal suits me just fine, Miss Hattie. I’m Tucker Raines, but please call me Tucker.”

Miss Hattie’s eyes widened. “You’re Will Raines’s son?” She pressed her lips together and shook her head. “Well, if that man isn’t full of secrets. Your father delivered ice to me for months and months. Why, I’ve known him for a year, and I didn’t know he had a son.”

Apparently, no one this side of Stockton knows
.

“Oh.” The woman’s sudden frown said he’d done a poor job of keeping the pain’s shadow from clouding his face.

His dark eyes full of compassion, Otis gave Tucker a sideways glance.

“My father is a private man,” Tucker said to Miss Hattie. “Doesn’t talk about family matters much.”

If ever
.

Even when he thinks he’s going off to die
.

“I’m sorry about your father’s illness.” She pulled a strand of silver hair from her face with bent fingers. “I heard he had to go to the sanitorium. And your mother?”

“Thank you. My mother’s staying with her sister in Colorado Springs.”

“Did you bring a wife with you to Cripple Creek?”

“I never married, ma’am. I’m a traveling preacher.”

One eyebrow stretched toward her hairline, deepening the wrinkles on her forehead. “I see.”

“Miss Hattie, you ready to hear my new joke?” Abraham squirmed impatiently in front of the woman.

“Is it short?”

“Real short.” He held his hands out about an inch apart.

“Then fire away.”

Abraham tapped the narrow brim of his felt hat. “What did the hat say to the hair?”

Light danced in Miss Hattie’s silver-gray eyes as she glanced first at Otis, then at Tucker. When they remained silent, she shrugged. “I give up, Abraham. What did the hat say to the hair?”

“Top that!” Giggling, Abraham waved his hat, then plopped it back on his head.

Tucker and Otis had both heard the joke that morning, but the woman’s carefree laughter was contagious, and so was Abraham’s cheery nature. He and Otis both joined in.

“Funnier every week is right, Abraham. I have something for you and your brothers.” Miss Hattie reached into her apron pocket and pulled out a handful of Tootsie Rolls. “The newest treat to come out of New York City. You’ll see they each receive one?”

“I will, ma’am.” He displayed them on his open hand. “But there’s six candies and only four of us boys.”

Only
four boys? Tucker had entertained the thought of having a family of his own. That was no longer an option. Not considering his responsibilities
to his parents and his sister, and the traveling he did from one camp meeting to another.

“I suppose your folks will have to eat the other two chocolates.” Miss Hattie smiled at Otis.

“We’ll surely do that, Miss Hattie. Thank you. For now, son, you best stuff them into your shirt pocket till we get home.” Otis turned to Abraham and tipped his head, gesturing toward Miss Hattie.

The boy obliged and gave the woman a tight squeeze. “Thank you lots, Miss Hattie.”

“You’re welcome.” She faced Tucker. “Otis and Abraham always save my delivery for last. And now it’s time for some hot cocoa.” Miss Hattie pulled three mugs from a shelf.

Tucker would rather hurry home and prepare a business plan for the banker, but the woman did have a certain charm about her and visiting with her seemed part of Otis’s routine.

Abraham took a mug from the woman and glanced from the cupboard top to the small round table in the corner. “She always has shortbread cookies ready for us on Mondays. Where are they, Miss Hattie?”

“The platter is in the parlor … with the three young women I left waiting for us.” She gazed at Tucker, her brow raised. “I’d like you to meet them.”

“Is Miss Faith one of them?” Abraham removed his hat and looked back at Tucker. “Miss Faith lives here. She comes to the Gulch and teaches us on Saturday afternoons.”

“Miss Faith is not home yet. She must still be at the school.” The landlady shifted her attention back to Tucker. “One of the young women is married to an accountant at the Mary McKinney Mine. Another is married to Dr. Morgan Cutshaw.”

“I met Dr. Cutshaw at the hospital. He’s the doctor who treated my father.”

“Then you must come in and visit long enough to get warmed up.”

Tucker could tell the woman wasn’t accustomed to taking no for an answer, and he didn’t want to be the first to introduce such a concept.

Miss Hattie sauntered out of the kitchen. Wisps of dark gray hair rode the high collar on her housedress. The landlady fairly swished across the dining room, down the hallway, and through an open doorway.

Hat in hand, Tucker followed her into the parlor. He expected to see fine furnishings, but that wasn’t what attracted his attention. The three young women she’d wanted him to meet were those he’d encountered that morning at the depot. The one with the floppy topper and the projectile hatpin sat on the sofa, looking anything but mussed as she related a story to the others.

Miss Hattie stopped at the end of the sofa, holding the mugs together in front of her chest as if they were lovebirds. “Pardon me, ladies.”

The hatpin woman quieted and looked up. As soon as she saw him, her face blushed redder than a cardinal. She rose from the sofa and smoothed her skirt.

The other two women stood across from her with amusement etched in their tight smiles.

“Let’s see … where do I begin?” Miss Hattie tapped her fleshy chin. “Mrs. Cutshaw, Mrs. Archer, you’ve met Otis Bernard and Abraham.”

The four of them exchanged nods and greetings. Then Miss Hattie turned back toward the sofa. “This is their sister, Miss Ida Sinclair.” She set the mugs on the sofa table. “Ida, these are my friends, Mr. Otis Bernard and his oldest son, Abraham.”

“I’m pleased to meet you, Mr. Bernard, Abraham.” Ida then walked toward Tucker. “I thought you left on the train.”

“No ma’am. My parents were the ones making the trip.”

“You’ve already met my young women?” Miss Hattie asked, her brows arching.

“Not formally, ma’am.”

“We, uh, saw one another at the depot this morning.” The woman she’d called Ida touched the brim of her hat just above her ear.

“Oh.” Miss Hattie glanced down at his boots, then back up at him. “I overheard something about a hatpin incident. You’re the one who—”

“Yes ma’am.” He spoke to her, but it was Ida who held his attention.

“I’d say proper introductions are in order.” She set the mugs on the table. “Mr. Tucker Raines, these are the Sinclair sisters—Mrs. Judson Archer, Mrs. Morgan Cutshaw, and Miss Ida Sinclair.”