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Felicia was silent so long, Mark wondered if she had turned into a statue. Make that a slack-jawed statue.
“Are you serious?” she finally sputtered.
“Absolutely.”
“I can’t be his lady friend.” She cleared her throat, looking like she’d just swallowed a bee.
“Why not?”
“Because I . . . I’m older than he is.”
“Only by a few years. And anyway, no one has to know your true age.”
“But I’m sassy and he’s a doormat.”
“He won’t be for long.” Archie smirked. “You know as well as I that you don’t get very far in this business without learning to stand up for yourself.”
“Will I have to kiss this chump?”
“That is entirely up to you. Some couples are more demonstrative than others, but you will at least need to hold hands once in a while in order to be convincing.”
“I couldn’t just be Mark’s long-lost cousin? Or better yet, the Packards’?”
“Sarah would catch on to that really quick,” Lyle answered. With a wink directed at Mark, he added, “After all, she’s a smart one.”
Gulp. Did that wink mean that he’d guessed Mark’s true feelings regarding Sarah? Striving to hide his disquiet, he asked, “You don’t want her to know I’m on the job?”
Lyle’s expression sobered and he shook his head. “All we know is that someone either has a vendetta against the Baldwins—”
“Almost the entire town of Denver has a vendetta against them,” Felicia scoffed.
Mrs. Packard’s eyes widened, but Lyle doggedly finished, “Or that someone is trying to stop Sarah and Derrick’s wedding. After all, they used a mouse to try to scare her off.”
“This is her wedding,” Mrs. Packard added. “The day she’s been waiting for her whole life. Nothing must spoil it. She deserves the best.”
Another gulp. “Yes, she does,” Mark murmured, the back of his throat burning as he accepted Mrs. Packard’s unwitting reminder at face value. Mark had never been the best at anything. And in the one thing that mattered the most, winning Sarah’s love, he’d come in second.
***
“Woo! Let’s go, Majesty!” Sarah called as she nudged her beloved horse faster. The tree line they were heading for was just ahead and they were winning. The sound of hooves reverberated in her ears. She knew that Derrick was right on her heels. Or maybe that was Amy. She had proven herself a notable horsewoman through the years and had even won against Sarah a few times.
Of course, it could be Bruce or Maddie. When Derrick’s youngest two siblings had heard about Derrick and Sarah’s plans to go riding this morning, they had wanted to join in.
But if it was indeed Derrick . . . she moved her hand over to her skirt and pulled on it a bit so that part of her leg showed. Brazen. That’s what I am.
But a distraction was a distraction, she figured, and she let out another holler when they were the first ones to reach the finish line.
“Woohoo! We make a great team, Majesty. I’m so glad you’re here,” Sarah told him as Majesty made a wide turn. Having her beloved stallion with her was worth every penny it had cost to transport him here.
Sarah guided him across the field over to where Derrick and Amy were talking over each other.
“I had to stop because Winnie was making short, jerky movements,” said Amy.
“What did you do to her?” barked Derrick.
“Me?” Amy said indignantly. “I didn’t do anything. She must have stepped on a rock. She’s favoring one leg.”
“Maybe you just don’t know how to ride a horse properly.” The glare he returned just before bending down and lifting Winnie’s hoof to check the problem set Sarah’s nerves on edge. Why did Derrick have to be so feisty with Amy? She was his guest, for heaven’s sake. True, Amy was giving as well as she got, but a gentleman would never treat a lady the way he was treating her.
“Derrick,” she said softly after guiding Majesty over to him, “my mama always said to me, ‘A true gentleman treats all females as if they’re queens’.”
Watching him closely as he straightened, she was disappointed when his jaw clamped shut and he gave a curt nod. “You’re right,” he said tightly. “I don’t know what came over me. But I can tell you this. My daddy always told me, ‘Women are better seen than heard’.”
Sarah’s jaw dropped. Wasn’t that saying usually about children? “In my family, Mama and Papa are equal partners. They started their breeding operation from the ground up and worked hard to establish it before Papa brought on another partner.”
“And I’m mighty glad they did,” Derrick interrupted her. “Otherwise, I would’ve never met you, and we’d still be buying inferior horses from Wallace Morrison.”
“Pfft, you’re such a goose,” Sarah said with a smile. “Back to our previous topic. It’s true that Mother flits around the house now, and one looking upon her for the first time may think she’s a hothouse flower rather than a hardy columbine that dug its roots deep into the earth and overcame the elements, but that couldn’t be further from the truth.”
Derrick said with a chuckle, “Well, she’s no Mrs. Bryant, I can tell you that.”
“Jessica?” Sarah said in confusion. Glancing over at Amy, she was relieved to see Amy’s attention drawn to Maddie, who was prattling on about something or other.
He nodded. “There’s no comparison between the two. That woman never rests. She’s always got something she’s working on, even if it’s just something she’s stitching by hand, from what I’ve seen of her. And her clothing isn’t near as fancy. Which is fine for some folks, I guess. But I like females to dress up a little more, prettify themselves for their men.”
“You want a hothouse plant,” Sarah surmised, an invisible arrow shooting pain at her chest. Was that what he thought she was?
Aren’t I?
They had their housekeeper, Elyse. And the idea of marrying Derrick with the expectation of gaining servants to help run her household had appealed to Sarah. But she wasn’t born into wealth. She had learned to work hard at her daddy’s knee. Of course, work wasn’t really work when you were doing something you loved. Papa had always told her that, and she felt the same way. Maybe she had become spoiled with parties and fancy clothes and finishing school of late, but deep down, she was the same Sarah she’d always been.
Wasn’t she?
What you say and what you do are two different things.
Was this why Mark had said that awful thing to her? Argh! Why did she have to remember his scathing words right now?
Derrick interrupted her thoughts by answering, “Of course, I want a beautiful woman at my side. That is every man’s desire. The more beautiful, the better chance he has of striking deals. Other men can’t resist a lovely specimen to gaze upon when at the bargaining table. Even if cold hard cash is the thing that speaks the loudest.”
Sarah went cold all over.
“Anyhow,” Derrick said loudly, oblivious to Sarah’s unease, “it’s time for all of us to go in and wash up for supper. Come on, everyone.”
Maddie came riding over to them. “Hey, Sarah, after supper, could I show you my drawings?”
Sarah chuckled. It seemed that every other minute, Maddie was asking her to look at her drawing collection—at least, the ones she’d been able to recover. She would have done so earlier, but Derrick had swept her away for a tour of the mansion, which included the grounds beyond, and then a tour of Denver itself, which was “growing by leaps and bounds”. The next day he had arranged a picnic for his guests, and they had spent a delightful time at Sloan’s Lake in the Baldwins’ boat, and then eating a late lunch of fried chicken and slaw, with chocolate cake for dessert, prepared for them by the Baldwins’ kitchen staff, on the shore.
Looking at the mountains around them, though, being among these tall peaks and trees, the air so crisp and refreshing, brought an uplifting feeling upon her. Like she was walking on air. The sky seemed much closer here. And God . . . come to think of it, He’d been sort of quiet lately. Or was it that she had been too busy? Hmm.
“There’s a fun story associated with this lake,” Derrick had told the group as he’d lifted his oars from the water and fitted them into their holds. “Apparently the farmer that owned this parcel of land west of Denver was digging a well when suddenly he struck a point where water just gushed out and kept on coming. For days and days, it gushed out and filled up the acreage until it was the size of a lake. People came from miles around when they heard about this miraculous lake, and they named it after the farmer.”
“Surely you’re joshing me,” Sarah said, smiling and shaking her head. She would have expected to hear a tall tale like that from Mark, not Derrick.
“No, I’m not,” Derrick said in earnest. “It’s true, all of it. The guy even tried to sell the land later, but no one bought it. And then he died.” He pointed to other boats on the lake. “And now, as you can see, Sloan’s Lake is a well-known recreational spot.”
At this point in his story, Mark would have grinned and said, “Just kidding! Ha! You believed me.”
Why are you thinking of that nincompoop right now? she scolded herself. He already made it clear that you don’t matter to him one whit.
As it was, Amy made up for Mark’s absence. “How could that possibly be true?” she challenged Derrick. “You don’t just hit a spot on the hard ground with your shovel and then have water spew up like that.”
“Oh, yeah?” Derrick looked at her as if she was dense. “Geysers are a perfect example of how that very thing happens. Of course, it isn’t just water that shoots out of the ground. Gasses do, too. Ever heard of Yellowstone?”
“No, I haven’t.”
“Well, then, don’t go spouting off about things you know nothing about.”
Sarah didn’t much like Derrick’s derision. Why couldn’t the two of them just get along? “What is Yellowstone, Derrick?”
“It’s a national park up in Wyoming and Montana that covers over three thousand miles of some of the most incredible views you’ve ever seen. It’s amazing! And there’s an overabundance of animal life. It was made into a national park a few years back. What’s even more impressive are the geysers I was telling you about. There’s one that someone named Old Faithful that spurts hot water quite regularly, enough so that park rangers can predict when it will next erupt with fair accuracy.”
Sarah and Amy looked at each other, wide-eyed. “Perhaps you will take me there to see it someday.”
Derrick aimed a devastatingly handsome smile at her. “Anything for you, my sweet.” He leaned over to kiss her cheek.
A choking sound came from Amy and both of them turned toward her. “Something wrong?” Derrick asked, frowning.
Amy’s face immediately cleared and she said airily, “No, no. Everything’s fine. Well, I think I’ve had enough sun for now. Can’t stay out for too long, you know. Redheads and freckles and all that.”
Derrick studied her for a moment longer and then nodded and turned back to Sarah. “She’s right. We’ve been out for too long. Time to get home. We wouldn’t want you lovely ladies to get sunburned right before the wedding.”
Now, as Sarah recalled the events of today and the strange conversations she’d had with Derrick, she was wondering if she really knew the man she was supposed to marry.
Wait . . . supposed to?
She’d chosen him, hadn’t she?
You’re exhausted, she told herself. You still haven’t recovered from the long train ride. That’s why that word came to mind. Derrick’s full schedule of activities right afterward had been fun, but hadn’t allowed much time for rest. Tonight she would sleep like a log.
But first, she needed to go look at her soon-to-be sister-in-law’s drawings. “All right, Maddie. Where are these fantastic drawings of yours?”
“In my room,” she said enthusiastically, her long braid swaying from side to side as she ran ahead. “Come on.”
Sarah did her best to keep up with her without actually running. But when they reached the steps leading to the mansion’s large set of doors, a curious sight met her eyes. A tall man with dark hair, neatly combed, stood next to a woman with light brown hair swept up into a chignon. Her stylish hat was big enough to shade her eyes so that it was hard to see what color they were, or much of anything on her face, really.
Sarah froze when the man turned toward her and smiled.
“Mark?”
