fiancé and I are new in Smoke River. We don’t know anyone in town.”
The dressmaker pinned her with beady eyes. “That’s too bad, Miss. This here’s a real friendly town.”
“I’m sure it is, Miss Forester. But you see, as I explained before, we are in somewhat of a hurry. Arranging for a wedding reception takes time, and—”
“So?” Verena’s thick eyebrows went up.
She gulped. Were people in small towns like this always so nosy? She didn’t want to confide everything about Lance and herself to a perfect stranger, at least not within her first twenty-four hours in Smoke River. Especially since she was beginning to feel just a tad frightened at the prospect now staring her in the face, getting married to a man she didn’t know all that well and then taking on her inherited business establishment, which was still a mystery.
At the moment, Marianne admitted, she was most nervous about the getting married part. Somehow when she was back in St. Louis it had all seemed like a perfectly straightforward matter; she would get married and then she could claim her inheritance. But now that it was actually right around the corner, she was...well, terrified.
The dressmaker poked a bony forefinger at a fat bolt of fabric at eye level. “How about a nice practical—”
“Yellow gingham,” Marianne finished. “Yes, that one.” She pointed at the bolt. “Gingham will get lots more wear than a fancy silk or a sheer lawn.”
Verena sniffed again, manhandled the bolt of yellow gingham onto the counter and flipped out her tape measure. “Twenty-four hours, you say?”
“Y-yes. Can you do that?”
The dressmaker’s thin face broke into a grin. “You just watch me, Miss, I am the best dressmaker in the county. I have accomplished miracles before, and I can certainly do so again.”
“Oh, I have no doubt—”
“Now,” Verena ordered, “raise your arms so I can take your measurements.”
* * *
Lance paced up and down in front of Ness’s Mercantile, past bushel baskets of ripe peaches and apricots, crates of apples and burlap sacks bulging with potatoes. Inside, the air smelled enticingly of lavender. Lavender? This must be the only mercantile in the world that didn’t smell of pickles or coffee beans or aged cheese. Then he noticed beribboned bundles of the fragrant herb hanging from a rafter.
The store had neatly arranged aisles with displays of garden rakes and boys’ leather boots, even a rack of flower seeds. Fat glass jars of caramels and lemon drops and jelly beans lined one shelf.
The proprietor looked up from the newspaper spread on the wooden counter and surveyed him with a scowl.
“Good morning,” Lance said. “My name is Lawrence Burnside, I just arrived in town yesterday from St. Louis, and I’m looking for a new shirt and a church.”
The man, owner Carl Ness, jerked his head to the left. “Gents’ shirts are down that aisle,” he said shortly. “And we only got one church in town.”
Lance stared at the mercantile owner’s face. “Smoke River has just one church? What denomination is it?”
Ness frowned. “Look, mister...Burnside, is it? This ain’t a big city like St. Louis. Here we got the Smoke River Community Church and that’s it. Suited Smoke River folks for the last forty years. Doesn’t really have a ‘denomination’ so to speak.”
“Do they marry people, Mr. Ness?”
“Well, whaddya think, son? How else are people out here gonna get hitched?”
Lance grunted. “Yeah, I see what you mean.”
“You gettin’ yourself married, are ya?”
“Yes, Mr. Ness, I am. Tomorrow, in fact.”
The mercantile owner gave him an assessing look. “You know this girl for a long time?”
“About four years,” Lance said.
“How long you been engaged?”
Lance blinked. “Um...four days.”
Carl Ness slapped his palm down on the counter. “Four days? Son, are you crazy? That’s not even long enough to learn a gal’s middle name.”
Lance took a step back and nervously ran his fingers through the hair flopping into his eyes. Well, that much was true. He had no idea what Marianne’s middle name might be. Adelaide? Nah, too old-maidish. Samantha? Too fussy. What about Euphemia? Nope. Too fancy.
“Look, Mr. Ness, all I need is a shirt so I can get married tomorrow.”
The proprietor rolled his eyes, but the frown went away and his eyes lit up. “Second aisle, next to the fly swatters.”
Lance chose a long-sleeved blue chambray shirt with white pearl buttons on the cuffs and added a tan leather vest with two pockets and a secret one on the inside. When Lance reached the counter, Mr. Ness had another question for him.
“You got a wedding ring?”
He stared at the paunchy man behind the cash register. A wedding ring? Heck, no, he didn’t have a wedding ring. Until four days ago he’d never had a single thought about a wedding, or a wedding ring. Ever since the prospect of marrying Marianne had presented itself, he’d been on a train chugging its way across the prairie toward Smoke River. But... He gulped. No doubt about it, he was getting married tomorrow, so maybe a wedding ring was a good idea.
“Uh, I don’t suppose you have a jewelry store in town, do you?”
“Nope. Got a tray of gold rings, though. You want to see ’em?”
Lance hesitated. He had exactly seven dollars in his pocket, and that had to cover their hotel room and all their meals until Marianne took over her business and they would have a steady income. “Um...”
Before he could come up with a coherent answer, the proprietor slid a velvet case of shiny gold rings on to the counter. Lance studied them and frowned. What kind of ring would Marianne like? A plain band or one with curlicues engraved all over it? She had never struck him as being a curlicue type of woman, so he moved his gaze over to the plain gold rings on the tray.
“Take yer time, son,” Ness said. “A man only gets married once. If he’s lucky, that is.”
“You married, Mr. Ness?”
The proprietor rolled his eyes. “Huh! You see the front of my store? That’s the most god-awful pink I’ve ever laid eyes on. Last week it was apple-green, and the week before that it was purple.”
“Does your wife paint your storefront?”
“Nope. My daughter does. For years my wife’s been tellin’ my Edith that she’s artistic and that her father’s a mean old fuddy-duddy with no sense of adventure. I’m so married I can’t look my wife in the face and tell her she’s crazy.”
“Yeah, I see your problem, Mr. Ness. I couldn’t tell my fiancée she’s crazy, either.”
“I’m tellin’ ya, a man’s gotta think real careful about gettin’ himself tied down to a woman. It’s kinda like Russian roulette, if you know what I mean.”
Lance bit back a chuckle. “Seems to me if you’re married you could say that to your wife, couldn’t you? You know, just be honest with her?”
“Oh, well, maybe I could. And maybe I’d sleep in the barn for the next twenty years. You got a lot to learn about women, son.”
Lance sighed. What did he know about Marianne, apart from her tendency to give orders and never say thank-you? But he liked what he did know about her. She was sensible and hardworking and generally fair-minded. And darn good-looking.
He continued to mull carefully