Twice a Bride (5 page)

To whom it concerns:

Please accept my application for the job of portrait painter. I am a sketch artist and a painter. My formal training includes several art courses with Mrs. Agnes Gibson of Stockton, California, whose work is sold in galleries in Sacramento and San Francisco
.

The sample I’ve chosen to include is the portrait I painted of my husband, Samuel Peterson. Please note that whether or not I gain your employment, I require the painting be returned to me
.

I look forward to hearing from you in respect to the details of the position available at your photography studio
.

With best regards
,

Mrs. Peterson

Miss Hattie’s Boardinghouse

Golden Avenue, Cripple Creek

Trenton dropped the letter on the countertop. A female applicant. He unwrapped her sample painting. Dark cherry wood framed a stunning portrait of a young man. Mrs. Peterson’s work displayed a keen understanding of composition and shading. Her abilities with depth of field were unmatched by the
previous applicants. Leaning against the counter, Trenton pinched the bridge of his nose.

Jesse stepped onto the boardwalk outside the door, and Trenton waved him inside. His childhood friend looked around the studio. “You ready for some lunch?”

Trenton grinned. “You buyin’ today?”

“Yep.” Jesse hooked a thumb in his overalls. “Sold that black stallion.”

“Then, yes, I’m ready.” Trenton tucked the latest application into the drawer and pulled his hat from the hook. Mollie Gortner might be in a hurry to have a portrait painted from her photograph and Mr. Flinn might be anxious to have his daughter’s eyes colorized, but he couldn’t be in such a hurry that he hire the wrong person for the job.

After he locked the door, Trenton fell into step beside his friend. “Since you’re buying, I might even indulge in a generous slice of pie.”

Jesse chuckled. “You looked awful intent back there. You hear from another artist about the job?”

Trenton waved at the elderly woman sitting in front of the cobbler’s shop across the street. “A Mrs. Peterson submitted an application.”

“A married woman.”

“Yes.” Trenton turned left on Bennett Avenue and headed for the Third Street Café.

“S’pose neither of us should be surprised. More and more married women are working now.” Jesse raked his yellow hair with one hand. “Reverend Tucker Raines’s wife is a businesswoman. She manages the ice company and sells iceboxes.”

A pastor’s wife, no less. Trenton patted the pocket watch in his vest pocket. “Times are changing, all right.” He didn’t have anything against women who took jobs away from their home. That was a woman’s business to work out with her husband. But he’d assumed he would hire a man.

“Did your female applicant send a sample painting?”

“Yes.”

“Any good?

“Didn’t expect to hire a woman.”

“That good, huh?

Trenton nodded.

“Not all women are like that one in Kansas, you know.”

It would be far easier to believe that if he didn’t still have the sour taste of duplicity stuck in his throat.

H
attie covered her mouth, but the giggle escaped anyway. Boney Hughes lay under her kitchen sink, his upper body concealed by the cupboard. His legs sprawled over her linoleum flooring.

Boney scooted out from under the sink and peered up at her. “You think me rappin’ my old knuckles on these leaky pipes is funny?”

Unable to stifle her amusement, Hattie nodded. “You look like a …” She fanned herself, trying to regain her composure while he stood. “Like a fish out of water.”

Boney’s winter-white eyebrows arched. “A big old river catfish?”

Giggling, she studied him from his wiry beard to his worn boots. “A smaller fish perhaps, but surely one with a big heart.”

“You’re still a charmer, Hattie.” He hooked his thumbs in his bib overalls. “Wore my best duds for coffee this morning. If I knew you planned to put me to work—”

“You would’ve shown up anyway.” She smiled and pulled two mugs from the buffet.

“You know me all too well, Adeline Prudence Pemberton … Adams.” He said her married name with an air of reverence.

George had died within months of finishing the boardinghouse. He would have relished the ever-changing company the house afforded. Hattie sighed, picturing her late husband leaning against the sink.

Boney cleared his throat and looked out the window. “I still miss him too.”

She poured the coffee and set their cups on the kitchen table beside the lemon-meringue pie she’d baked that morning.

Boney washed his hands under the running water, then bent to look at the pipes beneath the sink. “Fishy or not, ma’am, I fixed it. Not a single wayward drop.” His eyes shining like polished silver, he joined her at the table and gulped his coffee.

Hattie stirred a pinch of cinnamon into her cup. “You’re a good man, Mister Hughes.”

Bracing her cup with both hands, she sipped and savored the bold warmth as she did the same with the memories. “It’s nice to have someone to share coffee and a chat with. The house has been too quiet lately.”

“You got spoiled having the Sinclair sisters in the house.”

“I surely did.” Melancholy softened her tone. She missed witnessing the first hints of affection between the ladies and their gentlemen, the questions, the discoveries, the surrendering of two hearts to become one. Their journeys to the altar. She missed the excitement of the weddings.

She couldn’t love those four girls—young women—any more if they were her own daughters. George would have too. Each of them had found a good man and married him. Vivian, the last born and the last to arrive in Cripple Creek, had wed nearly a year ago.

The house had definitely been too quiet these past few months. Willow Raines Peterson was back in town, and she was as close to being a Sinclair sister as one could get without the blood, but—

Boney cleared his throat again, derailing her thoughts and drawing her gaze. Her friend had cut the pie and dished up two pieces. “Where’d you go?”

“I was on Tenderfoot Hill, May 30, 1896, watching Kat and Nell wed Morgan and Judson. The next minute, at the church, listening to Ida and Tucker’s vows. Then in the parlor remembering Vivian and Carter’s ceremony. And just now, I was wondering about Willow. Praying she is … content.”

“You think she’ll marry again?”

“I don’t know.” Hattie spread a napkin on her lap. “Widows aren’t easily convinced.”

“Don’t I know it.” Boney slid her pie plate across the table to her. “You ever miss Missouri?”

She tucked errant gray hairs behind her ear. “I miss the river. Especially during the summer.”

He nodded, his mouth full of pie.

“And at times, I miss that girl.”

“The one with hair the color of molasses?”

“That’s the one.” Although she wouldn’t have used a pantry item to describe her hair.

“Well, as time would have it, I was fond of that girl and happen to be quite fond of the woman she is today.” He scooped up another forkful of lemon meringue. “Her cookin’ ain’t half-bad either.”

“You always were one to flatter the females, Mister Hughes.”

“Friends call me Boney.” He winked.

The telephone jangled. Hattie lifted herself out of her chair with a
hmph
. Just as well. She’d been dawdling too long on memory lane. Some anniversaries of George’s death did that to her. Today was a tougher one. She reached for the telephone, lifted the earpiece, and spoke into the cone. “Hello.”

“Miss Hattie, there’s a Mr. Harlan Sinclair on the line for you.”

“Sinclair?” Oh, the girls’ father.

“From New York.”

“Yes, thank you.”

“Hello, Mrs. Adams!” The line was more scratchy than usual, and he sounded as if he were shouting. “My four daughters have all stayed at your boardinghouse.”

“Yes. Delightful girls, each and every one.”

“Thank you.”

“I’ve been wishing you’d had more daughters.” Her cheeks warmed.
What a thing to say
. “I only meant that I enjoyed having Kat and Nell, Ida, and Vivian here in the house.”

“That’s what I’m calling about, ma’am.”

“About your girls living in my house?” She glanced over at Boney, who was sliding another piece of pie onto his plate. “That’s interesting. It’s been nearly a year since the last one moved out.”

She couldn’t be sure but she thought she heard him sigh. “Mrs. Adams—”

“Begging your pardon, Mr. Sinclair, but your girls call me Hattie.”

“Very well, Hattie Adams, I need to secure two rooms for the third week of September.”

This was September 9, the second Friday. Hattie opened her mouth.

“Week after next.” Mr. Sinclair’s words were clipped. “I expect I’ll need at least one of the rooms, perhaps both, for a month or more.”

She thought about asking why he didn’t plan to stay in one of his daughters’ homes, but the man clearly wasn’t given to chatter. But then costly long-distance rates from New York wouldn’t invite windy conversations. Still, she wondered if his daughters knew he was no longer in Paris.

“Do you have two rooms available for that time?” he asked.

“I do, and they’re now reserved for you.”

“Very well. Until then.”

After a click, the static on the line fell silent. Hattie shivered, staring at the telephone for a moment. The girls had obviously inherited their warmth from their mother.

She returned to the table and regarded Boney, a man with a very warm heart. “That was Mr. Sinclair.”

“Father to our Sinclair sisters?”

“The very one.” She scooped up a generous bite of pie. “Mr. Sinclair will arrive in Cripple Creek in about ten days, week after next. And he’s bringing a guest.”

“He’s bringing a friend with him?”

“He let two rooms. He didn’t say who would fill them.”

“Perhaps it’s the girls’ aunt coming with him.”

“Yes, of course. That’s probably who it is. Aunt Alma.” The prospect made her smile. Alma Shindlebower could brighten a room any day. Perfect!

Hattie raised her cup as if she were toasting her grand inspiration. The lively Alma Shindlebower was just what her friend Boney needed in his life. Willow might not be ready for a match, but those two were long overdue. And soon the Sinclair family would fill her home again.

F
riday morning Trenton carried his second cup of coffee and the artist applicant packages out to the front porch. He set his mug and the stack of applications on the table and settled into one of the rockers, then looked at the empty chair on the other side of his coffee cup.

A familiar ache stirred in his chest. The chair would remain empty unless Jesse or a neighbor stopped by for a visit. Some men were meant to remain single. That was what his mother had told him when he hit courting age and couldn’t gain the interest of the girls in his small Maryland town.

This spring he’d learned that gaining a female’s interest wasn’t the prize his colleagues had built it up to be. He needed to find contentment as a single man. And he couldn’t think of a better way to start than to focus all his attention on the task at hand. Two weeks had passed since he’d placed the advertisement in the newspaper.

He pulled the stack of applications onto his lap. Before he left for the shop this morning, he’d choose who was going to help him expand his business. It needed to be someone skilled and personable. Someone who wasn’t bothered by his
disability
. Another of his mother’s terms, straight from one of the many speech therapists she’d dragged him to see.

His first applicant was also new to Cripple Creek. As the town had boomed in size in just two years, most folks here were relative newcomers. Mr. Zwall was not a nomad, however. He’d lived in Chicago for twelve years straight before
moving to Colorado, and he’d studied art in Boston. But his sample painting qualified for still life, not a portrait. While the bowl of fruit he’d painted was colorful and boasted human characteristics, such as a mouth on a pear, it hardly qualified him for the job.