Free Sarah Sunshine: A Montana Romance Novella by Merry Farmer Page B

spark in her eyes gave Roy the shivers.  If he was smart, he would ignore Delilah’s advice and carry Sarah away now.
    “Well, if Paul Sutcliffe thinks you should come and learn from me,” Miss Jones said, “then I think we should give him exactly what he wants.  Exactly what he deserves ,” she corrected herself.  “But I won’t waste my time if you’re just going to beg off when thing get uncomfortable.”
    “No ma’am.”  Sarah was as earnest as a nun.
    “If we do this, then you must promise me you’ll see it through.”  There was not one single thing about her acid tone that Roy found comforting.  “Do you promise?  Promise to do as I tell you without complaint?”
    “Oh, yes ma’am!” Sarah agreed.
    A thin, dry smile spread across Miss Jones’s lips.  “Well, come on, girl.”  She held her hand out to Sarah.
    Sarah stepped up the stairs and took the old biddy’s hand.  Miss Jones closed her bony fingers around Sarah’s soft ones with a grip that Roy was convinced would turn his Sarah to stone.  It did something much worse.  Sarah smiled like something good had happened and let Miss Jones lead her across the porch and into the house.
    Roy swallowed, feeling sick.  Whatever Sarah was up to, it was dead wrong of him to just let her walk into it like that.
     

 
    Chapter Six
     
    The awful feeling Roy had—that he’d let something bad happen while trying to do something good—stuck with him through the next few days.  He shouldn’t have had time to fret about it, not with the hotel opening inching closer and closer.  Delilah kept him busy day and night, checking on shipments, hiring staff, and learning how to use the new telephone she’d had installed in the lobby and a second in the office.  He should have been in high heaven, except that every time he saw Sarah traipsing around town in Miss Jones’s wake, the gnawing in his gut got worse.
    “Lift it a little higher on that side,” Delilah directed him and the young half-Indian woman she’d hired to work at the hotel.  The two of them stood on chairs hanging bunting on the porch.  “Maybe down a little on your side, Martha.”
    Roy’s arms ached from holding bunting up for so long, but it was nothing to the ache in his heart.  That ache got worse when he twisted his neck to stretch it, only to see Sarah turning the corner with Miss Jones, Miss Jacinta Archer, and Miss Gladys Pickering.  His pulse beat double-time.
    Miss Jones stopped their group in front of the new pharmacy and began talking and pointing at the place.  Roy was too far away to hear what she was saying.  He leaned out over the porch railing as if that would help.
    “Land sake’s, Roy!”  Delilah’s bark brought his attention back to his own business.  His arms had sagged and the bunting drooped to the side.
    “Sorry.”  He lifted his end of the fabric up and tacked it into the beam above him.
    Delilah saw Sarah and the biddies too.  “I never shoulda give you the advice to go after that girl.”  She shook her head.  “Never mind the fact that you completely missed the intent of that advice in the first place, it’s got you wrapped tighter than you were before.”
    Roy stepped down from his chair.  “Sorry, Delilah.  It won’t happen again.”  He moved to fetch a second swath of bunting from the pristine white wicker lounge at the back of the porch.
    “I highly doubt that,” he thought he heard Delilah mutter.
    He gathered the red, white, and blue material in his arms and carried it to the other side of the porch.  As much as he tried to keep his eyes and his mind on his work, his gaze drifted out to the street, to Sarah.
    She didn’t look half as determined as she had the other day.  The dress she wore was pretty enough, but the stoop of Sarah’s shoulders made it look loose and baggy where it should have been tight and flattering to her figure.  Her hair was pulled back in a severe knot, and the bonnet she’d worn the