Free Two Brides Too Many by Mona Hodgson Page B

on lemons.
    “Sister Veronica?” Concern etched Nell’s brow. “Is everyone at St. Peter’s all right? Do you need my help?”
    “They’re doing fine, thank you.” The sister looked at the man beside her. Clumps of gray hair ringed the sides of his otherwise bald head. “Nell, this is Wayne Snelling. He’s our sheriff, and he needs to speak to your sister.”
    That’s when Kat noticed the badge at the collar of his canvas coat.
    “Me?” What would he need to see her about? She’d heard a fight break out in the saloon as she’d walked out the other night, but he couldn’t blame her for that, could her?
    Nodding a greeting, the man looked down at the hat he held, then glanced around. “Is there a place where we can sit down and talk?”
    Nell laced her arm in Kat’s. Her blue eyes were suddenly cloudy, and Kat looked away. “Yes, the parlor,” Nell said, and led the way, then sat down on the sofa beside Kat.
    “Sheriff,” she said, her voice thin. “Does this concern our father, or our sisters?”
    “No ma’am, it doesn’t.” The sheriff reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a scorched flask. His face long and drawn, he handed it to Kat. “We found this inside a burned-out building, ma’am.”
    Kat grasped it with two fingertips and held it away from her, then nodded, at a loss to know what else to do. Yes, she’d been inside a saloon, but she didn’t own a whiskey flask, and until now, she’d never even touched one. What could that nasty thing have to do with her?
    “We don’t drink, Sheriff.” Nell tightened her grip on Kat’s arm.
    “It was Paddy Maloney’s, ma’am.”
    “Patrick’s?”
    “Sister Veronica told me you were his intended.”
    Kat held the flask out, but the sheriff didn’t take it back. “He’s not here, Sheriff.”
    “I know, ma’am. I’m right sorry, but Paddy…” The man cleared his throat. “Patrick Maloney was killed in the fire.”
    Sucking in a gasp of air, Kat jerked up stick-straight on the sofa and dropped the flask. It bounced off the area rug and clanged onto the hardwood floor. She saw Nell wipe tears from her face, but Kat didn’t shed any of her own.
    Anytime a person died, a good Christian should feel the loss…should mourn the death. She should feel grief for the man, but it was guilt that knotted Kat’s stomach. She’d poured flowers down his front. Although she’d initially found the act satisfying, now it seemed like a childish and petty transgression against a pitiful man. Patrick Maloney had made counterfeit promises, and she’d believed him. She’d said good-bye to her family and journeyed long and hard to marry Patrick, to start a new life here with him. She had stitches in her shoulder because of him, and a motherless child in her charge, but regardless of the man’s dishonesty and decadence, he didn’t deserve to die.
    Still, try as she might to grieve his death, Kat couldn’t feel anything but relief.
    Forgive me, Lord .

T WELVE

    F riday morning, Kat added a period to her last sentence and, laying her journal in her lap, shut her eyes and leaned back in the rocker. She swayed in slow, steady sweeps, breathing in rhythm with the chair’s light creaks.
    She had the room to herself for a few moments, and she wasn’t quite finished taking full advantage of it. Kat had come upstairs to “get ready” for her walk into town after they finished the breakfast cleanup, and Rosita was down playing with the other children.
    She’d taken advantage of the quiet to write in her journal. Since she’d left Maine, her writing had less to do with poetry than it did prayers. More like pleas, really. Petitions for herself and for others—Nell and Rosita, Father, Vivian and Ida, Edith and Lucille, and Thelma and her three children. Kat found herself especially diligent about praying for Nell’s Judson Archer. Nell wanted him and needed him. Kat prayed Judson was a good man who would take care of her sister and cherish her. And that