“Ah, me too!”
She didn’t have anyone else to trust, and now she admitted, “I’m looking for a job, and not having much luck because I’m not too good at housekeeping or cooking.” She sipped the hot tea and savored it. “I’ll only be able to stay at the hotel another day or two, and then if I don’t find a job, I’m not sure what I’ll do.”
“Tsk, tsk.” He made a clicking sound and gave her a sympathetic look. “I have a back room where I store supplies. You might manage to sleep there, oui?”
She was immediately on guard. “I’m not sure—”
“No obligation.” He shook his head. “Unless you know an older rich lady, maybe a widow?” He looked hopeful.
“Sorry, I’m not from around here. I don’t know anyone.”
“Oh,” he sighed. “Well, you could model the hats for the old bats—I mean, the lovely ladies who come in. If they think they would look like you in my creations, they will buy. Besides, it might amuse me to teach you the millinery business. Of course, the salary would be quite small.”
“Almost anything would be acceptable,” she blurted. “Until I figure out what I’m going to do next.”
Pierre gave her a searching look. “I think we both may be in the same boat, maybe misunderstood by the law, no?”
She started to deny it, thinking of that damned cowboy and the mess he’d gotten her into. Then she sighed. “Misunderstood by the law, yes. Pierre, if you’re offering me a job, I’ll take it, but I have to warn you I know nothing about sewing or ladies’ accessories to speak of.”
“Ah, but mademoiselle looks talented.” He set his cup down, went over to a shelf, and began to dig through boxes. “Look, you take a felt form like this.” He pulled a black, large-brimmed hat from a box. “You pull up one side with a pretty jeweled pin, like so.” He demonstrated. “Then you add a veil, and ooh la la, a magnificent chapeau.”
“Why, it is beautiful!” Lark set her cup down. “Pierre, you are an artist.”
He shrugged. “It is nothing. I know what the ladies like.” He smiled modestly as he walked over and put the hat in the window. “Now get your things, my dear. My back room isn’t much, but it will do.”
In less than a month, Lark became quite successful at modeling hats for ladies who came in to shop. Men began to come in to buy gifts for their wives and to ogle the new girl in town. Lark was smart and more talented than she had realized. Pierre soon taught her to take a basic hat, add veils and flowers or plumes, and turn it into a thing of beauty. Business began to pick up as the weather warmed.
Several young cowboys tried to court Lark, but she made it clear she wasn’t interested. Somehow, none of them seemed as charming as the big Texan. Once Pierre mentioned that he might be moving on to a larger town, suggesting Lark might want to buy him out. Frankly, Lark told him, she couldn’t see herself in a lady’s hat shop the rest of her life—and besides, she didn’t have any money except the small salary he’d been paying her. Uncle Trace would certainly have loaned her the down payment, but Lark was still too proud and stubborn to ask her wealthy in-laws for help.
One day at the café, she picked up a Texas newspaper that a traveler on the weekly stage had apparently left behind. Out of idle curiosity, she began to look through it. Someone had a black horse for sale. Someone else had some house furnishings, some cattle. Maybe there were some job listings. Then she spotted the matrimony ads. Middle-aged lady who is a good cook, looking for widower with a nice ranch. Young lady looking for a young man of good family who is interested in matrimony. She started to put the paper on the table, then an ad caught her eye: Sheriff in up-and-coming west Texas town, former Texas Ranger, would like to meet respectable young lady. Object: Matrimony.
A sheriff. If the law was looking for her, what better protection could she have than being married to a sheriff? Lark wasn’t interested, of course, but she took the paper back to the shop with her, thinking about the ad. A sheriff. In west Texas, far, far from here. In fact, west Texas was far, far from everything. She commented on the ad to Pierre.
He sat in a chair with Miss Mew Mew in his lap and now he got the slightly pained expression of one with a headache. “A bumpkin? A sheriff? Surely you jest, my dear Lacey?”
“Of course.” She shrugged and began to empty boxes of new merchandise. “Although, sooner or later, I would like to return to Texas.”
“Texas!” Pierre sniffed. “What was it General Sherman said? ‘If I owned both hell and Texas, I’d live in hell and rent out Texas.’”
“But true Texans are never really happy anyplace else.” She blinked back tears.
Pierre took the paper from her hand as he stroked Miss Mew Mew’s fur. “Hmm. Any rich widows in here?”
“I haven’t the vaguest idea.” She began dusting display cabinets. “You know, a sheriff’s home would be the safest place in the world for me.”
“Hmm,” Pierre sighed. “And he’s young, perhaps handsome. You’re pretty, my dear, I suppose you should marry.”
“I can’t cook or keep house. Why would any man want me?”
“Mademoiselle, you are so naive, you give me a headache. Are you going to correspond with this hayseed of a lawman?”
She shook her head. “I reckon not. It was just a thought, after all.”
“Nothing ventured, nothing gained. Besides,” he smiled, “he might have a rich old lady in the family.”
“I doubt that. Lawmen are usually poor. Of course, that doesn’t matter if you’re in love.”
“My dear, you are more naive than I thought.”
“I’ll admit it.” She paused and looked out the window, her thoughts dreamy. “I want a big, handsome Texan who will sweep me off my feet and we’ll live happily ever after.”
Pierre made a moue. “Even if he’s a poor sheriff?”
She shrugged. “Forget the sheriff. I already have.”
Lark forgot about the conversation until a few days later, when Pierre brought her a letter from the post office. “Look here, my dear, he’s answered. Open it so we can see what he says.”
“What are you talking about?” Lark took the envelope, puzzled. She certainly wasn’t expecting any mail. Besides, it was addressed to her sister. She almost said so and then she remembered that she was passing herself off as Lacey Van Schuyler.
Pierre stroked his tiny mustache, looked very pleased with himself. “I was trying to help you get back to Texas, yes?”
She had a sudden feeling of disaster. “What have you done?”
“Written a sweet letter to the young Texas hayseed who is looking for a mail-order bride. Now open it, my dear, and see what he’s got to say.”
Lark gasped in horror. “You sent my name to that sheriff without even telling me about it?”
“Well, why not?” he defended himself. “I believe in amour, in love. Besides, he might have a rich old lady in the family.”
“How could you?” For a moment, Lark had visions of the law coming to arrest her for using her sister’s name or tracking her down as an accessory to a bank robbery.
Pierre smiled. “Nothing ventured, nothing gained. Now let’s see if the sheriff liked what I wrote.”
“You have a lot of nerve. And I have no intention of getting myself mixed up in a mail-order marriage.”
“Suppose,” Pierre said, “he is the man of your