Free Six Little Sunflowers: Historical Romance Novella (American State Flower) by Gina Welborn Page A

they still had to keep up appearances as a smitten couple.
    Attend a weekend house party at the Kingfishers’ ranch.
    Join him on a canoe trip down the Little Arkansas.
    Help him manage the Fire Department’s Spring Auction.
    Partner with him to run a booth in the high school’s alumni carnival.
    The latter she couldn’t find fault with. Who wouldn’t enjoy convincing Wichitans to toss a pie in his face? Actually, she’d enjoyed all their couple activities during the last three months. Not that she would tell him. When Carpenter Yeary wasn’t trying to torture her, he was rather amusing and gallant.
    He happily met her at the hotel every weekday morning and escorted her to breakfast in the dining room. He stopped questioning her relationship with Rena and Mama Helaine. He even insisted she spend her Sundays with them, to the point of forbidding Mrs. Grbic’s circle of friends to host events on Sunday. A man that considerate should have the decency to break an engagement.
    Mama Helaine’s palm rested against Félicie’s cheek. “What troubles you?”
    Félicie walked to the three-panel mirror and studied her reflection. Not a single strand of hair had escaped her smooth bun. Her cheeks no longer looked thin (or skeletal as Mama Helaine had oft complained). The princess-cut of the dress accentuated the fuller curves she had developed over weeks of extravagant dinners. A woman smitten with her fiancé should have a joy in her eyes. She looked tired, despite the bronze glow on her nose and cheeks from Carpenter’s attempt on Saturday to teach her how to play lawn tennis. No matter how unteachable she had tried to be, he’d taken it all in stride. The man had the patience of a saint.
    Félicie sighed. “Nothing I can do will convince him to break the engagement.”
    Mama Helaine stood next to her. “He is as stubborn as you are.”
    That she believed.
    “He is more insufferable too,” Félicie said, and noted how pathetic she sounded. “If Carpenter would break the engagement, no one would think the worse of him. He is their hero.”
    “Perhaps being their hero is exactly why he will not.” Mama Helaine stepped between Félicie and the mirror. “Man scales burning building yet flees marriage to woman half his size. Makes him look like he is a coward, does it not?”
    Félicie considered this for all of two seconds. This was the same man who insisted they stay engaged for the free meals. She couldn’t admit that and risk Mama Helaine thinking poorly of Carpenter. So she just said, “Given time, people would forget and return to adoring him. I will lose the only job I have ever—” Blinking away the sudden tears of frustration, she held up her ink-stained fingertips. “Even when I spill an entire ink bottle over a day’s work, I still love being the calligrapher for the Carey House, the grandest hotel in all of Wichita. I’ve worked too hard to give it up.”
    “Then you have no choice but to marry Carp.”
    “We don’t want to be married,” she argued. “We made a list of why it would be detrimental for both of us. Neither of us can cook. Neither of us knows what to do with a crying infant. Neither of us likes to share, and the ability to share and compromise are key components to a successful marriage.”
    Mama Helaine smiled.
    “Why are you looking at me like that?”
    “You talked about having children.”
    Félicie let out an exasperated sigh. “Not about having them together. We discussed children in the general sense of their existence—loud and smelly existence—and that is not relevant to the matter at hand. You must tell Mrs. Grbic it is impossible to have the wedding dress finished until October—no, make it November,” she corrected, “because then Mrs. O’Brian will bring up how lovely Christmas weddings are. Mrs. Dillingsford loves all things Christmas, so she will insist we schedule it for then. Mrs. Topping will mention how much her husband loves egg nog. From there, they will