Richard finished his glass and set it on the table, an action which brought Sally’s attention back to him. “You have no idea what’s bothering Rick’s mother and you won’t ask. Sally, it’s going to be awkward for you now that his parents are going to be living in Omaha.”
“I know,” Sally said. “But I don’t have any say over where they live. They’re going to buy a house whether I like it or not.” She bit her lower lip then gave him a hopeful look. “I don’t suppose you can tell his parents that there’s a rat problem or swarming locusts that invade the area every year, can you? What about telling them the houses built here are in poor condition? Tell them that you have to rush through building them so they end up needing a lot of repairs.”
Richard gasped. “I’d do no such thing! Telling a lie about rats and annual locusts is one thing, but saying my men and I can’t build good houses…?” He clucked his tongue and shook his head. “I’m ashamed of you, Sally.”
Well, it was a longshot but one she figured she’d take, so she shrugged.
“Perhaps Richard should find a house that’s not near the courthouse,” Amanda offered. “Omaha is growing. There are businesses being established all the time. You could live on one side of it, and his parents could live on the other.”
Though Sally would have preferred it if his parents moved back to Vermont, this was the next best option. Not that his parents were talking of moving close to the courthouse where she and Rick lived, but it would be nice if she never had to worry about passing by his parents’ house and having to run into his mother who would probably narrow her eyes at her in a condescending manner.
“Alright,” Sally agreed. “Find something where they can be close to businesses but not close to my house.”
Richard chuckled. “Only married for a short time, and already it’s your house.”
“Come on, Richard,” Amanda teased with a twinkle in her eye, “you know very well that a house is the woman’s domain. You men have your jobs. We have our homes.”
Though Richard rolled his eyes, he grinned. “Yes, I know this all too well.”
Amanda shook her head and laughed. “You never mind it when the house needs a good cleaning.”
“I stand corrected. You have every right to control what happens in our house.” His eyes grew wide and he pressed his hand over his mouth. “I mean, your house, of course.”
Sally giggled. “It’s nice to watch you two argue, but I better go home. I told Rick I’d only be here for an hour.”
“Tell Rick we said hello,” Amanda said.
“I will, and I hope you two will bring my nephews over to my house this week for supper. I’m serious, Richard. I’ve improved in my cooking ever since Ethel Mae taught me how to do better,” Sally insisted.
“I hope so. I’d hate to think of what poor Rick has to go through at mealtime,” Richard joked. “I wouldn’t want to see him dead before his time.”
Sally let out a long sigh before she finished her lemonade and stood up. “A delight as always, Richard.” She stood up, handed Anthony to Richard, and winked at her sister-in-law. “Amanda, I give you my sympathies.”
Amanda giggled and eased off the couch. “I’ll see you out.” Sally followed her to the front door, and Amanda hugged her, careful not to make her baby uncomfortable. “Good luck, Sally.”
“Thank you,” Sally whispered. She kissed Mark’s forehead and opened the door. “I’ll see you this week for supper.”
“We’re looking forward to it.”
Sally slipped out of the house and closed the door behind her. She thought of a couple of houses that Rick’s parents could move into that weren’t close to the courthouse and headed down the porch steps. It wasn’t the perfect solution, but it would work well enough so she could keep her sanity. Feeling better, she headed on home.
Chapter Nineteen
On her way home as Sally passed Ethel Mae’s house, Vivian bolted out from behind one of the cherry blossom trees lining the street and almost plowed into her. Startled, Sally jumped back and shrieked.
Vivian jerked and backed away from her. “I’m sorry, Sally. I thought you were Hugh. He’s been following me all over the place lately.”
“You planned to frighten him so he’d stop?” Sally guessed.
She nodded. “You didn’t scare Rick when you were trying to get him to marry you, did you?”
“Of course not. That would have been a silly thing to do.”
“So you see the brilliance of my plan! I figured if I did everything you didn’t, then I could get Hugh to finally leave me alone.”
Sally considered her plan and decided it wasn’t a bad one, but part of her still suspected Vivian enjoyed the attention he gave her. Since she didn’t want to say anything to upset the girl, she opted for a simple, “I hope it works.”
Looking pleased, Vivian grinned. She glanced around Sally and winked. “He’s coming down the street.” She bolted back for the tree and hid behind it.
With a chuckle, Sally walked a few paces and saw that Ethel Mae was on the front porch sewing the wedding dress she was making. Curious, she headed up the walkway that led to the porch. As she went up the steps, she called out, “Did he propose yet?”
Ethel Mae glanced up from her sewing with a wide smile. “He just did today! I feel like I’m dreaming. Even though we expected it, it doesn’t seem real.”
Sally sat in the chair next to the porch swing. “It’s real. Enjoy it!”
“Oh, I am.” She clutched the dress to her chest and sighed. “Every other time I’ve seen him, he’s been confident, but today he seemed so nervous when he asked me to marry him.”
“Well, he was asking you to leave everything you’ve ever known behind to go to California with him. He was afraid you wouldn’t want to leave your family and friends.”
Her smile faltered a bit and she turned her gaze to Sally. “That will be hard. I’ll miss you.”
“I’ll miss you, too, but this will be a wonderful thing for you. And imagine the excitement of going to California!”
“Yes, that is exciting.” She paused for a moment and set the dress in her lap. “What was it like to travel from New York to here?”
“Long, tiring, and often boring. You and Samuel won’t be taking a wagon out to California, will you?”
“No. We’ll go by train.”
“That will be much better. I enjoyed seeing a lot of the country while coming here, but traveling by horse is no way to do it, especially with a bunch of bored brothers.”
“I am looking forward to seeing California.”
“It’ll be a grand adventure. And though you’ll miss those of us you left behind, you’ll find new friends and you and Samuel will have children. You have a lot to look forward to.”
“I do, don’t I?” She smiled and looked back at her dress.
“I hope you’ll write to me and let me know how things go for you out there.”
“Of course, I will. And you’ll write to me as well?”
“Try and stop me,” Sally teased.
She chuckled and resumed her sewing. “We’ll be getting married in two weeks.”
“That’s awfully sudden.”
“No more sudden than when you married Rick.”
Sally couldn’t argue with that. “At least you’re letting everyone know ahead of time you’re getting married.”
“To be fair, Rick did tell the rest of us about eloping with you. Even if it’s strange that everyone knew but you, it was also romantic, wasn’t it?”
“Yes, it was, but…”
Her eyebrows furrowed, she glanced at Sally as she pulled a thread through the cotton material. “But what?”
She shrugged and leaned back in her chair. “I don’t know. It’s just that…” She sighed and ran her fingers along the wooden arm of her chair. “You don’t think that’s why Rick’s mother doesn’t like me, do you? Because we married so soon?”
“I don’t see why something like that should upset
her. Not everyone waits a long time before they get married, and some people agree to marry each other without seeing each other first. Why, look at the mail-order brides. They step off a train or stage coach and get married the same day.”
“Yes, that’s true.”
“It’s not like you married Rick the same day you met him. You knew him first, and your parents met him and liked him.”
“Yes, they did.” After a moment of silence passed between them, she ventured, “Do you think Rick’s right and that his mother is upset because he neglected to write a letter as soon as he took an interest me?”
Ethel Mae pulled her needle through the material in her lap and shook her head. “There’s no way to know for sure unless you ask her. Did you take his parents out to meet your parents like I suggested?”
“I did.”
“And?”
“And nothing. My ma thinks everything is fine.”
“Is it possible you’re imagining it then? Maybe it’s newlywed jitters. After all, we all want to please our in-laws, don’t we?”
“No. I’m not imagining it.” Sally crossed her legs and tapped her fingers on the arms of the chair. “I suppose the thing that bothers me about it is that it doesn’t make much sense. If they were upset because Rick didn’t write a letter, then why would they, especially his mother, be treating me as if she wished I hadn’t married her son?”
Ethel Mae nodded. “You’d think she would be giving him a scolding for it.”
“Yes. You’d think so.” Sally took a deep breath and released it slowly. “I think Rick might know more than he’s telling me. I’m starting to think his mother really is mad at me for something I did, but it can’t be for something I did after I married him. She seemed as if she was already upset with me as soon as she walked into my house. And if that’s that case, then it had to be something he told her before she met me.”
“Oh, Sally. There’s nothing bad he’d say about you. He adores you. Anyone can see that.”
“He might adore me, but I suspect there’s something he told his mother that bothers her.”
“Well, if that’s the case, then all you can do is ask him or her. One of them should tell you what happened.”
“Yes, you’re right.” She stopped tapping the arms of the chair and considered how she might ask Rick about it. There was no way she’d ask his mother. The woman didn’t want to talk to her any more than Sally wanted to talk to her. Rick was the logical choice. With a nod, she got out of the chair and thanked her friend. “I’m going to ask him as soon as I get home. You let me know when I should be at your wedding?”
Ethel Mae smiled at her. “Of course. Samuel is talking to the preacher right now, so I should know soon.”
“That’s wonderful. I’m excited for you.” Sally leaned forward and hugged her friend. “And yes, it’s really happening.”
She laughed and brushed a tear from her eye. “You’ve always been a good friend, Sally.”
“The same is true for you.” Sally took out the handkerchief from her pocket and dabbed her eyes. “I’ll see you tomorrow. We can talk about flowers and a song you can have Hugh play at your wedding.”
“Vivian would be horrified if Hugh attended.”
“Yes, but no one plays the violin as well as he does. He has a gift for it.”
“I can’t argue with you there.”
After saying good-bye, Sally went down the porch steps, trying to decide how to best approach Rick about what he might have said to his mother to upset her. As she headed down the street, Vivian rounded the corner of another tree and almost knocked her over. Startled, once again, Sally grabbed Vivian by the shoulders to stop her. “I’m not Hugh!”
Vivian looked up at her, her cheeks pink. “I know. The rat said he liked being scared, and he asked me to jump out at him again from somewhere else. Can you believe that?”
Unable to resist the urge to tease her, Sally asked, “And did you?”
She gasped. “Why would I?”
With a shrug, she said, “He might kiss you.”
She grimaced. “That right there is a very good reason I shouldn’t.”
“Or so you claim. I still think you secretly like the attention he gives you.”
“You have no idea how wrong you are.”
Even though Sally knew it would further frustrate the girl, she added, “The more you protest, the more I can tell you’re lying.”
Just as Vivian was about to respond, Hugh called out her name. She jumped and ran around Sally so fast that Sally would have missed it if she hadn’t seen it. In the next instant, Hugh appeared around the tree and narrowly missed her as he chased Vivian. Deciding to let the matter go, Sally continued her walk in peace. She took a good look at the houses she passed by, content to see they were already inhabited.
When she reached her house, she opened the door. “Rick?”
“I’m in the parlor,” he called out.
She waited for a long moment to make sure no one else was in the house before she shut the door. Good. His parents weren’t there. Not that she expected them to be. He hadn’t said anything about inviting them over, but it was still a relief to know she could talk to him right away about his mother because the speech she’d just rehearsed was fresh in her mind. When she entered the parlor, she saw that he was reading the newspaper.
He looked up from it and smiled at her. “Did you have a good visit with your brother?”
“I did,” she replied and sat on the couch across from where he sat in the chair by the window.
He folded the paper and set it on the table before he got up and settled next to her. Taking her hand in his, he kissed it. She had to struggle to keep her mind on the reason she wanted to talk to him. Whenever he kissed her, tingles ran up and down her spine, and quite frankly, it wasn’t fair when she had other things to focus on.
“I missed you,” he told her in a soft voice.
“I missed you, too.”
“I would have gone with you.”
“I know, but I wanted to talk to Richard and Amanda alone.”
“Is this because of my parents?”
This was the opening she needed. She took a deep breath and got ready to demand he tell her the truth, even if she wouldn’t like it. “As a matter of fact, it is.”
“You didn’t think supper at your parents yesterday helped?”
“No, I don’t. Sure, your father seemed nicer, but I still sense some hesitation from your mother. I know you said it was because you didn’t tell them you were interested in me, but if that’s true, then why isn’t your mother angry with you?”
He rubbed the pad of his thumb along the back of her hand. At first she thought it was his way of setting her mind at ease, but it quickly occurred to her that he did it because he was nervous. She furrowed her eyebrows. So he wasn’t telling her something, and if she guessed right, it was something she needed to know.
“Rick?” she softly pressed.
“Of course, they were upset with me. I made a big decision and didn’t warn them.”
She shook her head and frowned. “For a judge, you do a lousy job of lying.”
“I’m not lying. They weren’t happy I didn’t tell them right away.”
“But there’s more to it than that,” she pressed, studying his face and realizing he was reluctant to pursue this topic. “What is it, Rick? What aren’t you telling me?”
He sighed and let go of her hand. “It doesn’t matter.”
“It does matter.” When he didn’t respond, she groaned. “Rick, this involves me, and you’re not telling me what I need to know. If you don’t tell me what’s going on, how can things get better?”
“But it’s not your fault.”
That was a strange way of wording things. “Why should I think it’s my fault? I’ve been nice to them.”
“I know.”
“So what’s the problem? Why does your mother hate me?”
“I wouldn’t say she hates you.”
He rubbed his eyes and let out a weary sigh. “It’s not important.”
“It is to her.”
A long moment of silence passed between them, and she was beginning to think he wasn’t going to say anything but then he threw his hands up in the air and straightened up. “Alright. When my parents came to the courthouse to see me, I told them I was married, and they assumed it was Ethel Mae because soon after I came here, I told them I wanted to marry her. But I told them it was you instead, and since they hadn’t heard of you before, they were curious. So I let it slip that you and Ethel Mae came up with that plan to get me interested in you instead of her—”
“You what?” she shrieked.
“It was flattering. Really, I had no idea someone would think enough of me to come up with a way to get my attention.”
Her cheeks grew warm from a mixture of embarrassment and anger. “Who told you?” It couldn’t have been Ethel Mae. Her friend would never betray her that way!
“Vivian.”
She gasped.
“Look, Sally, it’s not as bad as you’re thinking. Vivian didn’t mean to tell me. She said it by accident.”
“I’m sure!” She clasped her hands in her lap and tried to determine the best way to get even with Vivian for doing such a rotten thing.
“Does it help to know that I already wanted to be with you by the time Vivian told me?”
“No!” The fact that he knew at all was horrifying. But his parents knew, too? “So your parents heard and thought what? That I manipulated you? That I got in the way of you and Ethel Mae? That I’m the kind of person who twists things to get her way regardless of what everyone else thinks?”
“No, it’s nothing like that.” He tried to rub her back, but she bolted to her feet to put some distance between them. “It’s not even bad. I’m truly flattered.”
“Well, your mother isn’t!”
“Does she need to be?”
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