Free The Secret Bliss of Calliope Ipswich by Marcia Lynn McClure

hand , and pulled her to stand with her. “Come on, Shay. Let’s go play with putting your hair up a bit so Evie and I can imagine how the flowers will fit.”
    “Yes, let’s ,” Shay giggled with delight. “Warren Ackerman won’t mind kissin’ me at all if I have flowers in my hair!”
    “Exactly!” Calliope said.
     
    The girls were gone then , leaving Lawson’s head spinning. “Now how can those girls go from waving out the window at Rowdy one moment to planning more fluff where this Tom Thumb wedding is concerned the next?” he asked his beautiful young wife. “They wear me out sometimes.”
    Kizzy Ipswich smiled, studied her handsome husband a moment, and then asked, “You’re teasin’ me, right, Lawson?” she asked. “You…you do know why the subject went from Rowdy Gates to this weddin’ so quickly, don’t you?”
    Lawson leaned back in his chair and shrugged. “Well , probably because the girls can’t keep a single thought in their brains for more than a second or two at a time, I would guess.”
    Kizzy giggled and hopped up from her chair, planting herself in her husband’s lap. “Oh, Lawson, you idiot. That’s one thing I love so much about you!”
    “What’s that?” Lawson asked as his arms encircled her waist.
    “That the most amazin’, most obvious things can be goin’ on right under your nose, and you aren’t any the wiser,” Kizzy answered, giggling.
    Lawson chuckled. “Well, the only thing I see right under my nose at this moment is the most beautiful woman on the face of the earth.”
    Kizzy blushed, for she recognized the expression—the smolder of desire—deepening in her husband’s eyes. “Is that so?” she asked.
    “Yes, ma’am,” Lawson mumbled.
    As her strong, handsome, skilled lover pulled her into his embrace, ravaging her mouth with a loving and wanton kiss that caused goose pimples to erupt over the entire surface of her body, Kizzy decided she’d keep the knowledge of why Rowdy Gates’s appearance had spurred Calliope to thinking of the Tom Thumb wedding to herself for a while. Lawson would catch on eventually, one way or the other. But for that moment, Kizzy just wanted to kiss him—to be kissed by him—exactly the way she knew Calliope dreamt of being kissed by Rowdy Gates.
     
CHAPTER FOUR
     
    “I promised Evangeline I would stop by and check the post, Mrs. Perry,” Calliope explained. “You know how impatient she is in waiting for correspondence from her friend Jennie.”
    “Oh my, yes!” Mrs. Perry exclaimed with a quick burst of laughter. “Why, you’d think the fate of the entire world depended on Evangeline gettin’ her letter from Colorado, wouldn’t you?”
    Calliope giggled and nodded her agreement with the sweet proprietress of the Meadowlark Lake general store and post office, Sophia Perry. Mrs. Perry was a jolly little lady, with hair the color of salt and cinnamon stirred together and a little round face, perfectly deep-wrinkled from a lifetime of smiling. Calliope liked Mrs. Perry and her husband, Maurice Perry. They were always happy, it seemed, and never uttered an unkind word about anything or anyone. To Mr. and Mrs. Perry, life was simply something amusing.
    “And glory be , here it is!” Mrs. Perry declared as she removed a letter from a wooden box she had been using to sort the post.
    “What’s all the ruckus back here?” Mr. Perry asked as he entered the small nook of the general store that served as the post office. “It sounds like a bunch of geese just flew in,” he teased.
    “Oh, Maurice , it does not,” Mrs. Perry laughed as Mr. Perry kissed her on one cheek.
    Mr. Perry was round and plump. He had snow-white hair and a che rry-red nose that always gave Calliope reason to wonder if the man indulged a little too often in drinking spirits or if he were simply St. Nicholas hiding out in Meadowlark Lake until Christmas Eve arrived.
    “Ahhh,” Mr. Perry said as he saw Calliope. “It seems another one of them