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“I’m comin’, I’m comin’!” Olive Hampton called as she hurried to her door at the back of the darkened Hampton House in the dead of night.
Outside she could still hear a drizzling rain tapping at the windows, and she shivered, pulling a night wrap around her before yanking the door open.
“I’m here to claim my bride,” a dark figure slurred thrusting a handful of tattered flowers at Olive.
“Darwin Rivers, you’re drunk,” Olive snapped. “You go on home and let decent people sleep.”
“I ordered a bride,” the dark man shook his head sending a spray of water from the brim of his hat. “I ordered a bride, and you got a new one here. She looks fine to me, so I’ll take her.”
“That is not how this works,” Olive grumbled as Orville stepped up behind her. “That girl just got here, and I need to sort out who she’s best suited for.”
“Darwin, you go on home before I fetch the sheriff,” Orville growled, giving their uninvited guest a hard look. “When Olive has the right girl for you, you’ll be the first to know.”
“But that girl is pretty,” the other man argued. “I don’t mind the way she looks.”
“Looks ain’t everything,” Orville said. “You need a wife that likes ya, and you can get along with,” he grinned. “You don’t want ta be fighting all the time do ya?”
The other man shook his head slowly. “I don’t think I’d like a fightin’ woman,” he agreed. “But you’ll get me a wife won’t ya Olive?” he asked his pale gray eyes imploring.
“I will Darwin, now you go home and sleep off your drunk,” the old woman offered kindly.
“Maybe I’ll go listen to the preacher play some more of them pretty songs at the saloon,” Darwin said turning and staggering out into the dark rain once more.
“What’d he mean about listening to the preacher play music?” Olive asked turning to look at Orville and closing the door with a snap, “It’s the first I’ve heard of it.”
Orville shrugged lifting his hands and indicating he didn’t know anything about it. “I haven’t seen Brandon since after supper.”
Olive shook her head taking her husband’s arm and heading back toward their rooms at the end of the hall. “Well, maybe we’ll understand in the morning when we all go to church,”
***
BETH LAY PERFECTLY still in her bed in an upper room of the Hampton House. She had been able to hear the drunken man outside, and her heart pounded in dread at the thought of marrying someone like that.
She had come to Needful hoping to find a new home, a place to belong, and above all else, love. Beth didn’t want to be alone in this world, and though she felt welcome in the boardinghouse and eatery, the place was already occupied by a family that wasn’t her own.
“Mama,” she whispered opening her eyes on the surrounding darkness. “If only you could have waited a little longer,” she sighed, tears springing to her eyes. “I don’t want to be alone, but I don’t want to marry a man who would come home drunk either.”
Rolling over, the young woman buried her face in her feather pillow and willed herself back to sleep. If she continued to be useful to Olive, perhaps she could delay a match for as long as possible.
