The Whippoorwill Trilogy - Sharon Sala Page 0,134

ever gonna learn the right way to do things if you keep making me guess what they are. Just spit it out. You’ll feel better to get it off your chest and I’ll do whatever it is you want me to do that much faster.”

Letty was debating with herself as to chastising him for mentioning her “chest” when Eulis got in her face.

“Sister Leticia, are we going to eat or not?”

Letty pointed to the door.

“A gentleman always opens a door for a lady.”

“Yeah, so?”

Letty grabbed the door and yanked it open, then let it go shut in Eulis’s face.

Eulis groaned. He’d done it again. Dang it, she was just going to have to give him a little more time to get used to their new identities. After all, she’d been a whore a whole lot longer than she’d been Sister Leticia.

He opened the door and hurried out, running to keep up with the pissed off woman stomping down the stairs.

It was nearing sundown when Mary Farmer walked out of the dry goods store and out onto the sidewalk. Since Plum Creek had no church, they’d decided to hold the wedding at the dog trot between the hotel and the telegraph office. There was a roof over the alley which would serve as a fine shelter in case of rain, and there was room out in the street where the ceremony could be viewed.

And viewed it was bound to be. The news of the burly blacksmith getting wed to the Farmers’ oldest daughter was something of a shock. No one had any notion that they’d been seeing each other, and gossip had been rampant until they’d learned of Dooley’s heroism earlier in the day.

By the time the traveling preacher arrived to perform the ceremony, the gossip had turned into fact and Mary Farmer had fallen immediately in love with the man who’d saved her life. Women thought it a fine and romantic reason for the wedding, while the men were somewhat doubtful that it had happened that way. However, it was hard to deny the lovesick look on Dooley’s face, or the smile on Mary Farmer’s as she and her family came hurrying down the sidewalk.

Her mother’s wedding dress was a tiny bit too long, but Mary held it up as she walked, and she had reason to want to hasten this wedding along. She wasn’t certain until she saw Dooley waiting beneath the dog trot that it was really going to happen. Then she saw Sister Leticia, and a man in a dark suit she took to be the preacher, and knew it was going to be all right.

Dooley didn’t know until he saw Mary’s face that he’d been holding his breath. He exhaled slowly and stepped forward, and tucked Mary’s hand in the crook of his elbow.

He wanted to tell her she was beautiful. He wanted to say how blessed a man he believed himself to be. But he couldn’t speak past the lump in his throat.

Mary’s eyes widened with appreciation. Well, well, Dooley Pilchard was a man who cleaned up just fine. His hair and beard had been trimmed neatly since she’d seen him last, and the new clothes he was wearing, while tight across his shoulders, fit the rest of him just fine. She decided he was a prime figure of a man.

Eulis patted his pocket to make sure he still had the ring Dooley had given him.

“Are we ready?” he asked.

Mary nodded.

Dooley looked at Mary. “Yes, preacher, we’re ready.”

Eulis gazed out at the large crowd assembled in the street behind the young couple, and was considering tossing in a little sermon for free when Letty started hissing. Knowing that always meant he was messing something up, he took out his book of sermons and turned to the page marked weddings.

“We are gathered here today to join these two people in holy bliss.”

More hissing meant he’d said something wrong.

“Uh… wedded matrimony.”

The hissing got louder. He turned abruptly and gave Letty a silencing stare that sucked the next hiss back down her throat. She hacked a bit and then delicately lifted a handkerchief to her lips and coughed once more before silencing.

Eulis turned back to the couple and took out a note on which he’d written their proper names and laid it between the open pages of his book.

“So… Mary Faith Farmer, do you take this man, whether he’s sick or well, to be your husband until you die?”

Mary’s heart fluttered once and then she remembered the man