The Ranger's Bride. Laurie Grant

cast an eye at the sun, which was almost directly overhead. Just about time for dinner. She decided she’d stop in the springhouse for a jar of cold water, then mix up some corn bread to serve with the peas and greens.

      She’d checked on Rede, and found him dozing, and was just mixing up the corn bread dough when she heard the sound of a buggy halting out front.

      Oh dear, another interruption, Addy thought as she hurried to the front of the house after pulling the door to her bedroom quietly shut. Who could that be?

      An imperious rapping greeted her ears. “Mrs. Kelly!”

      Addy recognized the booming nasal twang of Mrs. Horace Fickhiser, the wife of the mayor. Olympia Fickhiser was the self-appointed social arbiter of Connor’s Crossing and the mother of sixteen-year-old Lucille. The girl fancied herself a belle, but unfortunately she took after her short, thickset father and had too dumpy a build for true elegance.

      Forcing a smile onto her face before opening her door, Addy said, “Good morning, Mrs. Fickhiser, Lucy. What can I do for you?”

      “Lucille!” Olympia Fickhiser corrected Addy frostily in an overloud voice. “I did not name her Lucille to have it shortened into something so common, Mrs. Kelly.”

      “Oh, Mama, she’s forgotten, I can just tell!” cried the girl, a pout forming on her Cupid’s-bow mouth.

      “Have you forgotten we were to pick up Lucille’s gown for the cotillion today? I certainly hope it’s completed. It would be most inconvenient if you haven’t finished it.”

      Fortunately Addy had completed the gown before her trip to Austin, but after what had happened yesterday, she had totally forgotten they were to pick it up today. But she was not about to admit that to Olympia Fickhiser.

      “Naturally Lucille’s gown is ready, Mrs. Fickhiser,” Addy said smoothly. “All but the waist seam, which is only basted. I always leave that till the last minute, because that measurement has a way of changing, even for the best of us. Lucy will need to try it on, so come on in, ladies.”

      Lucy must have been stuffing herself with sweets again, Addy thought, for she looked at least two inches bigger around the middle.

      “Well, I suppose we should spare some time for this,” Mrs. Fickhiser allowed.

      Addy led the way into her sewing room in the front of the house and took down the gown of lavender peau de soie with a white lace trim and a white bow over the bustle. Stepping behind the three-paneled screen to assist Lucy out of the dress she had been wearing and into the new one, she saw that her guess had been right. The bodice that had fit perfectly a week ago was now straining at the waist seam.

      “I’m going to have to let out the waist just a little bit,” Addy called out to Olympia Fickhiser. “Don’t worry, it won’t take but a few minutes, so I can do that while you wait,” she added, sighing inwardly at the thought of delaying dinner even longer. Since the Ranger hadn’t wanted any breakfast, she hadn’t bothered to eat anything herself this morning, and now her stomach was growling.

      “Nonsense. Just tighten her laces a bit more!” Olympia ordered in her wake-the-dead voice. “Lucille, I told you you shouldn’t have consumed that entire lemon pie!”

      Lucy’s face went brick red with embarrassment, and Addy felt sorry for her.

      “All right,” Addy called, but she had no intention of complying. The stocky girl was already so tightly laced she could hardly breathe.

      Catching Lucy’s eye and putting a finger to her lips, Addy undid the back buttons, then moved to the laces at the back of the corset, but instead of tightening them, she loosened them just a bit.

      Lucy gave her a grateful, conspiratorial smile.

      After serving Mrs. Fickhiser the rest of the coffee and Lucy a glass of cold water from the springhouse, she set to work on the waist seam while the mayor’s wife chattered nonstop.

      “You had quite an ordeal yesterday, didn’t you?” the woman asked, then, without waiting for an answer, droned on. “No wonder you look so fatigued. I’m certain you didn’t sleep a wink last night! Imagine, surviving because a dead man fell over on you! How ghastly! Why, if that had not happened—you could have met with a Fate Worse Than Death,” she intoned. “Didn’t I warn you it was dangerous to travel alone?”

      “But Mama, what could be worse than dying?” Lucy asked, her round face all innocence, but there was mischief in her eyes.

      “Never you mind!” Olympia snapped.

      “Well, I wasn’t exactly alone,” Addy felt compelled to point out. “There were several other passengers…but perhaps we should speak of something else?” she said, darting a meaningful glance toward Lucy.

      Olympia’s lips thinned, but she could hardly argue that the murderous assault on the stagecoach was a fit subject to discuss in front of her daughter.

      “Of course,” she sniffed. “I merely meant to express sympathy. To change the subject, then, did you happen to hear of the couple that dared to try to buy the lot across from the mayor’s manse? No, of course you did not. This took place, I believe, while you were gone to Austin.”

      Only Olympia, Addy thought wryly, would refer to her own house as a manse. “Were they not suitable in some way?” she inquired, keeping her eye on her needlework.

      “Unsuitable?” the mayor’s wife crowed. “Why, that’s the understatement of the year, Mrs. Kelly! They had moved here hoping that no one would know what the woman—I shall not call her a lady—really was. But my sister in Houston—that’s where they came from, Houston—wrote and warned me.”

      “Do you mean that the woman was a criminal?” Addy inquired, wondering if what Olympia Fickhiser was about to say was any more fitting a subject for an innocent young lady’s ears than murder had been.

      “My dear Mrs. Kelly, perhaps not in the eyes of the law, but certainly in the eyes of decent folk. The woman had been divorced,” Olympia Fickhiser intoned in a stage whisper behind her hand.

      Addy flinched at the distaste in the woman’s voice. If Olympia Fickhiser even suspected the truth about her, she would gather her skirts and sweep out of Addy’s house, telling everyone in Connor’s Crossing that the widow Kelly was actually a fallen woman whom no decent lady should patronize.

      “But even if the woman had been divorced, weren’t they a married couple, or did I misunderstand?” she asked mildly.

      “Supposedly, though one only has their word on that,” Olympia Fickhiser muttered in an acid voice. “I sent them running from Connor’s Crossing with their tails between their legs, I can tell you!”

      Addy, imagining how the couple must have felt, said nothing.

      “But surely you can understand why I could not possibly bring myself to tolerate such a scandalous couple living across the street from my innocent daughter, can’t you?” Her tone indicated Addy’s answer had better be yes, if she hoped for continued business with the mayor’s wife.

      Addy would have loved to say that Lucy would probably be better off living with the supposedly scandalous couple than with such a judgmental woman as her mother, but she could not afford to. The disapproval of a pious busybody like Olympia Fickhiser could make Addy’s living on her own in this town financially impossible.

      “Of course I can see why you would feel that way,” she hedged. It was women like Olympia Fickhiser who would have made Addy’s life in St. Louis hell after her divorce.

      And what on earth would Olympia do if she knew Addy was harboring the Ranger in her bedroom, a man she had just met on the stage yesterday?

      As if to echo her thoughts, just then a thud sounded from the back of the house, followed by a muffled sound that Addy thought might be a groan.

      “What was that?” Olympia demanded suspiciously. “Is someone here?”

      Good