“Two sisters, sir, one older, one younger.” Frank sipped from his glass, waiting for the next comment.
“Sisters. I have a younger sister and four younger brothers.” Reverend Cooper shook his head with a reminiscent smile. “She never let us intimidate her, though. Like my Marian here.” He touched a loose curl on Marian’s shoulder, his expression filled with pride.
Frank held back a shudder. This man loved his daughter but more than that, she was a prized possession, if that proprietary look was anything to judge by. The reverend might welcome a passing traveler into his home for a meal, even offer to find him work. All of that would be in keeping with his spiritual calling. But he would not easily give away his only daughter to that same man.
Frank suddenly felt hot and surreptitiously mopped at his forehead. He was relieved when the meal was over, so he could escape to the room under the eaves.
After bidding everyone good-night, he climbed the stairs, shutting the guest-room door with a thankful sigh. It was simply decorated, with the barest of necessities, dominated by a large bed in the middle. He turned back the heavy blanket and sighed happily. Clean sheets! He didn’t often have a bed at night. Now and then, he slid between the sheets of a bed with a housewife or a maid left alone in the house but seldom at night and never for very long.
He pushed such images away. Marian was in the room next to him. He could hear her moving around, making her own preparations for sleep. The vision of her smooth skin, naked beneath his hands, made him groan and he stripped off his clothes and crawled into bed, pulling the pillow over his head and ignoring the sounds from the room beside his.
He met Reverend Cooper on the stairs the next morning. “Sleep well, my boy?”
“Yes, thank you.” Frank had finally settled into a dreamless sleep, waking only once at the howling of coyotes nearby.
“We’ll have breakfast and then I’ll take you to see Adam Bates.”
The reverend was as good as his word. Adam, the middle-aged, rough-hewn owner of the feed store, studied Frank for a few moments. “If Reverend Cooper vouches for you, you’re fine by me, ” he said, extending his hand. “You can start tomorrow.”
“I could start this afternoon, ” Frank said. He needed hard work, something to keep his mind and his hands busy—to distract him from the minister’s daughter.
Adam Bates leaned against the counter and nodded. “Fine, after lunch then.”
Widow Bartlett had a room available in her narrow house. She was a tall, slender woman with a weary smile and even wearier eyes. Frank smiled politely when she showed him the common living quarters and he accepted her terms. With the money he made from the feed store, he’d have enough to begin saving.
For what? he asked himself as he carried his bag to his new home. He had thanked the family for their hospitality and promised to be a visitor one day soon. Marian had stood behind her mother, eyes aglow. He’d needed every ounce of control to keep from staring at her.
In his new room, he unpacked his meager belongings, his mind still on his change of plans. He’d never considered his future before. He enjoyed the different towns he visited and the freedom he had to leave them.
He sank down on his new bed. The bedsprings squeaked. The mattress wasn’t as soft as the one in the Coopers’ guest room, but it was his room. He hadn’t been in his own place since his departure from his parents’ house five years earlier.
The work wasn’t hard. Adam Bates kept him until only a thin sliver of the sun was left in the sky. Jamming his hat on his head, Frank walked back to his new home, ready for a hot bath and a long sleep.
He ducked his head under the water and washed the dirt and grime off his body, whistling tunelessly as he did. Marian said she loved him but what could she know of love, young as she was, stuck in this little town? No one could really love someone after such a short time together. The idea was preposterous.
Maybe she was exercising her ability to charm men with nothing more than a smile. Was she practicing on him so she could entice some young man in the village who was her main objective?
Dressed in his slacks and a clean shirt, he went down to the kitchen, hoping his dinner would fill the suddenly painful hollow in his stomach.
Chapter 3
He soon adjusted to the easy pace of the village. Every Sunday, he dressed carefully in his new suit and marched down the road to the white church. While his sole interest in attending lay with the minister’s daughter, he found himself paying more attention to her father’s sermons every week.
After the service, Marian and her father greeted the congregation while her mother disappeared, presumably to fix the noonday meal. Frank didn’t receive another invitation to the house but he didn’t mind. He often ate his Sunday meal with his boss and family; it was easier to relax under the roof of the boisterous Bates family.
He’d just started his second week in the village when Marian came into the store with her father. “How are things going?” Reverend Cooper asked.
“Fine, sir.” Frank didn’t glance toward Marian, afraid that his emotions would show in his eyes. His heart pounded under the canvas apron he wore and he swallowed to relieve the pressure in his throat.
Satisfied that his good deed was still producing positive results, Reverend Cooper sat down on a stool near the front of the store. Mr. Bates took a stool opposite him and soon they were engaged in a lively discussion of politics, the weather and the state of the country.
Dismissed, Frank returned to his work, stacking bags of grain near the back wall. He almost dropped one when he heard Marian’s soft voice behind him. “I’ve missed you.”
He swung around, the bag clutched in his hands. “Marian, what are you doing?”
He peered quickly around. Tall sacks of grain separated them from the two men, and he could hear their animated conversation, but it was only a matter of time before her father started looking for her.
“I miss you, Frank.”
Her forlorn voice pulled at him. Setting the bag down between them, he framed her face with his hands and tilted it up until he could see her eyes. “I’ve missed you, too, ” he whispered. “But we can’t meet here.”
“Then where? You never come to the house and I can’t go to the widow Bartlett’s by myself.” She sniffed loudly, then let her breath out in a long sigh.
When he chuckled, her eyes flashed. “You think it’s funny that we can’t meet?”
He bent down and kissed her on the lips. “No, I think your playacting is funny.” At the mutinous look in her eyes, he kissed her again, a hard kiss that left them both breathless.
“Frank, what are we going to do?”
When her shining face tipped toward his, he knew he was lost. He wouldn’t call it love but he couldn’t imagine living without her.
“I don’t know yet, but I’ll come up with something, Marian.” At the scraping sound that signaled the stools were being pushed aside, he nudged her toward the front of the store. “Until then, trust me.”
The tremulous look she gave him was full of trust. No one had ever regarded him that way before. His chest swelling with pride, he flung a bag to the top of the pile, her tempting smile urging him on.
That night, he wrote to his mother and told her about his new job and the village. He made only a passing mention of the Coopers, including them in a list of families who’d invited him into their homes. The letter sealed, he lay back on his bed. For the first time since he’d gone on the road, he felt a burning desire to return home, to try again with his father, to see his mother and ask her about his feelings for Marian.
The next Sunday, he saw Marian at the church. When Frank would’ve