Sarah Sunshine: A Montana Romance Novella (9 page)

He laughed wistfully.  “It’s not so simple when you’re different.”

She dismissed the thought with a shake of her head.  “Well, if it weren’t for Roy, I’d want to marry you.”

Mr. Bell’s smile grew.  “And I’d want to marry you too, Sarah.  If it weren’t for Roy.”

For a tiny moment she was sure he meant something else entirely with those words.  Whatever it was, her own happy thoughts drown it out.  She was on the path to respectability, even if she wasn’t there yet.  She would keep her promises to Miss Jones, but only until she could get out of it.  She would support Roy at the hotel opening, and then let whatever magic was due to come to her work itself out.

Roy strode toward the hotel with Delilah’s ladder over one shoulder, doubt resting on the other.  The itchy feeling that he hadn’t done the right thing by letting Sarah rush him out hung with him.  She’d had that look in her eyes when he’d kissed her goodbye, the same look she’d worn every time Paul had shooed him out of the saloon late in the night, like she was making up her mind whether to run off with him or hide.

He turned the corner to cross through the alley between the saloon and the hotel and glanced over his shoulder at Mr. Bell’s house.  No one in all of Cold Springs, all of the world, was as lovely as Sarah.  He didn’t know why he hadn’t snuck up into her room sooner.  He didn’t know why he’d left.

He’d halfway made up his mind to ditch the ladder, forget the opening, and go back for Sarah when Delilah’s cry of “There you are!” distracted him.

Delilah was already halfway up the alley and in a fit.  “What the devil are you doing with a ladder?” she asked.

“I went-”

“Oh, never mind,” she brushed his answer away.  “It’s already nine o’clock and we got more work to do than the planning committee for the Chicago World’s Fair!  Put that thing away and come on.”

“Yes, ma’am.”  He double-timed it around the back of the hotel, resting the ladder against the wall instead of storing it in the shed, then hurried back to the edge of the alley where Delilah waited.

“The decorations are all hung and the ballroom’s been set up,” Delilah rattled off her list as though they’d been talking all morning, “but I’m willing to bet Alex ain’t got the food ready.”

“He’ll be fine,” Roy said, and before Delilah could continue he added, “Look, do you think you could manage without me for a spell?”

Delilah stopped at the end of the alley between the hotel and the saloon.  Paul leaned against the saloon’s front wall having a morning cigar.  He stood straighter when he saw the two of them.

“I most certainly cannot manage without you!” Delilah said.

Roy let out a breath.  “Only, the thing is, I’m worried about Sarah.”

“Oh?”  Delilah arched an eyebrow, hands on her hips.

Paul straightened, dropping the butt of his cigar and using the excuse of grinding it under his heel to inch closer to them.

“I’m not too proud to say I spent the night with her last night,” Roy said.  “But this morning she was as jumpy as a jackrabbit.”

“Well, she does tend to get like that.  Now if we get there early enough-”

“She kicked me out because she was nervous about people spreading rumors and thinking we weren’t behaving respectably.”  Roy stuck to his concerns.

“You weren’t.  Now come on and-”

“I should go back for her.  She needs me right now, by her side.”

“Sarah will keep,” Delilah sighed.  “This hotel opening will not.”

“I agree that the opening is important, but Sarah-”

“Land sake’s, Roy!”  Delilah threw up her hands and attempted to walk on.

“She’s scared as hell that she’ll turn out like you!” he called after her.

Delilah froze mid-step.  She turned to face him.

“She’s scared I’ll believe some kind of rumor and leave her the way Paul left you.”

A flare of indignation melted to regret in Delilah’s eyes.  She and Roy both shot sideways glances to Paul.  Paul stood still, staring at his feet.

Delilah sighed and rubbed her temples.  “Son, we got a hotel to open.  Now I know you care about Sarah, but we don’t got time to drag the past out of the trunk it’s been packed away in.”

Roy opened his mouth to disagree, but Paul’s loud, barked laugh shut him up right quick.  Both Roy and Delilah turned to him.

“Have you got something to add?” Delilah snapped.

“Yes, I do.”  Paul stepped off the saloon porch and joined the two of them, crossing his arms.

“Oh Lordy.”  Delilah sighed.

“I do believe this young man is right,” Paul said.  Roy and Delilah both gaped at him.  Paul frowned and went on.  “I ain’t too proud to admit it.  He’s right.”

“Thank you, sir.”  Confidence spread through Roy’s chest.

“He should be with Sarah right now, not you.”

For half a second, Delilah’s carefully painted lips quivered.  She swallowed hard.  “Can this
please
wait until after the hotel opening?” she whispered, voice hoarse.  “We got work to do.”

“That’s your problem.” Paul shook his head.  “Always running off to do business.  Always thinking of your precious hotel and your prestige and your bottom line.”

“Well what else have I got?” Delilah fired back, so sharp that Roy winced.  “A woman’s gotta do what she’s gotta do when the man she loves turns out to be a fool.  You believed every vicious lie Viola ever told!”

“Well what was I supposed to think?”  Paul met her anger with his own.  “You bought a house and said you were going to open for business.”

“A hotel is not a brothel!”

“How was I supposed to know?”

“You coulda trusted me instead of listening to her.”

For a moment, Paul and Delilah locked eyes.  Roy took a step back the way he would from a fire.  Then all at once, Paul’s expression softened.

“We messed up, sweetheart.”  He sighed.  “We were both blind, stubborn fools.  But them two,” he nodded to Roy, “them two have got a chance.”

“A chance that can wait a few hours,” Delilah insisted, her eyes glassy with tears of the past.

“Can it?” Paul asked.  He shifted his weight.  “This young man’s standing on the verge of doing what I never had the guts to do.  He’s telling you he wants to go to Sarah and sweep her into his arms and stand by her no matter what other folks say.”

“Yes,” Roy said, purpose ringing clear through him.  “Yes, I am.”

“You can’t look me in the eyes and tell me that you don’t wish I woulda done the same all them years ago,” Paul told Delilah.

“I-”

“Don’t let this young man make the same mistake we did.”

Delilah stared at Paul in silence.  Roy had never seen the sort of look that came over her.  Her eyes never left Paul’s, but they looked past the man in front of her to something long gone.  For a moment Roy could see the young women Delilah must’ve been beneath the years of standing strong on her own.

“Go on,” Delilah whispered at length.  She cleared the crack in her throat and spoke again.  “Go on and get her, honey.”

A smile spread from Roy’s lips to his heart.  He didn’t need to be told twice.  “Yes, ma’am.  Yes, I will.”

He dodged around Delilah and Paul and strode out into the street.  Certainty carried him on like the wind.  He loved Sarah.  He never wanted to let her go and he didn’t care what folks thought.  He would march right up to Mr. Bell’s house and tell her so and everything would be all right.

A few folks were up and about on errands already as he approached Mr. Bell’s house.  They watched him, watched Delilah catching up to him, as they went about their business.  In a stroke of luck, the front door of Mr. Bell’s house opened as he drew near.  Sarah and Mr. Bell stepped out.  Sarah was all smiles, talking up a storm while Mr. Bell grinned and listened.  Roy knew what he had to do.  It was so simple, but had taken him far too long.

“Sarah!” he called across the distance to her.

“Roy,” she answered, stepping into the street.  “What’re you doing here?”

“I’ve come to say-”

“Sarah!”  A new voice split the air.  Roy and Sarah both turned to see Viola Jones charging down the street from the train station, a parcel under each arm.  “Sarah Withers, what on earth are you doing talking to these sorts!”

“Good morning, Miss Jones,” Sarah said, rushing to meet the woman.  “Do you need help with those packages?”

Roy blinked.  His sense of certainty vanished.

“Yes, I do,” Miss Jones said.  When Sarah reached her, Miss Jones shoved both armfuls of parcels at her.  “I am appalled at the company you are keeping!” she lectured.  “Prostitutes and reprobates and deviants of the worst kind!  I’m shocked, simply shocked!”

“Miss Jones, I been meaning to talk to you,” Sarah began, fumbling the parcels in an attempt to secure them.  “I been thinkin’, and maybe it isn’t such a good idea for me to keep company with you and Miss Archer and Miss Pickering no more.”

Roy’s heart sped up.

“What?”  Miss Jones gaped at Sarah, bright red staining her wrinkled face.  She snuck a peek at Delilah, then turned on Sarah.  “How dare you!”

Sarah looked to Mr. Bell and then Roy before squaring her shoulders and saying, “I am truly grateful for all you’ve done for me, ma’am, and I respect what you’re trying to teach me, but I don’t think it’s working.”

“If it’s not working, it’s because you’re not trying hard enough!”  Something about the alarm in Miss Jones’s eyes—like she was about to lose a spitting contest—sent a prickle down Roy’s back.

“I don’t think that’s it, ma’am,” Sarah said, but her glance darted around at Roy and Mr. Bell and Delilah and a couple other folks passing on the street.  The fear was back in her eyes.

Miss Jones must have seen it.  “You made a promise to see this through to the end, girl.  I refuse to take no for an answer,” she said, chin tipped up.

“Now hold on a second there, Viola,” Delilah said.

“Do you have something to say to me?” Miss Jones raised her voice.

“Miss Jones, please!”  Sarah shrank from folks she must have thought were watching, even though they weren’t.

“I got plenty of things to say to you,” Delilah stood toe-to-toe with Miss Jones.

Roy put a hand on Delilah’s arm, holding her back.  “I think that now is not the time,” he said, attention focused on Sarah.

Sarah met his eyes with a look of such anxious gratitude that he had half a mind to scoop her over his shoulder and carry her away for good.

“You’re right,” Delilah said after a tense pause.  Her eyes never left Miss Jones’s.  “You and I will have our moment.”

“We certainly will,” Miss Jones replied, eyes narrowed.  “Sarah, you made a promise.  Respectable women keep their promises.  Or have you lost interest in being respectable as well?”

“No, ma’am.”  Sarah let out a breath.

Miss Jones smiled her tight smile.  “Then you will come with me!”

“I, um, well, all right,” Sarah conceded in a tiny voice.

“Come on, Roy,” Delilah said with stone in hers.  “We got a hotel to open.”

“I’m staying with Sarah,” Roy declared.

“No, it’s all right.”  Sarah smiled, pretending to be brave.  “You’re an important man with important business.”

Roy glanced from Sarah to Delilah to Miss Jones and back again.  “Are you sure-”

“You go along,” Sarah told him.  Not a single part of him wanted to leave her.  “Go on,” she repeated.  “Mrs. Reynolds is waiting.”  Miss Jones cleared her throat.  “And Miss Jones too.  We’ll be at the opening later.”

“We most certainly will,” Miss Jones added.  The look she gave Roy made the hair stand up on the back of his neck.  He wanted to leave Sarah like he wanted to jump off a cliff.

“Are you sure?”

Sarah nodded.  “I … I made a promise.  I’m gonna keep it.”

It was enough and not nearly so all at once.  Sarah looked so beautiful, even with her arms full of someone else’s parcels, her worried heart out on her sleeve, that he thought his own heart might beat right out of his chest.

“I’ll save a spot for you up at the front,” he said.  “And I promise not to start without you.”

“All right.”

“That is more than enough of that!” Miss Jones huffed.  She shook her head and tugged on Sarah’s new shawl.  “Come along, girl.  We have things to do.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Sarah turned to follow as Miss Jones marched down the street.  She sent Roy one last smile, bright as the sun, before hurrying on.

“I don’t like this one bit.”  Delilah shook her head as she too watched them go.  She huffed out a breath.  “Then again, I don’t like much of anything about that woman.”  She turned to Roy.  “You gonna run after her or are you gonna help me out?”

Roy watched until Sarah disappeared around the corner.  He turned to Delilah.

“I’m with you until the moment Sarah needs me.  Then I got to do what I got to do.”

“Understood.”  Delilah let out a breath and squared her shoulders.  “Let’s get this hotel opened!”