Romance: Seducing The Quarterback

by Stacie Duncan

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  Chapter 1

  “Sara-May, I did not bring you all the way out here to marry a man with no honor!” My father paces the floor shaking his head furiously. His face is so red that it matches the beets growing in my garden.

  “Papa, please, it couldn’t have been him!” I know that my pleading will do no good. It never does. My father is a man who very firmly believes that a woman’s place is in the kitchen. She should have no opinion other than that of her father, and when he is dead, her husband. Still, I can’t help but try.

  “I did not tell you about this to offer you a chance to argue his case. I told you as a courtesy, because you are my daughter and he is the father of my grandson. I now see that that was a mistake.” My cheeks burn scarlet now, my frustration building and tears are brimming in my eyes, but I’m not going to cry. Father says that women who cry to get their way are worse than men who steal because at least men who steal have guts. He is already accusing my child’s father of being a thief, I’m not going give him the satisfaction of my crying as well. He’s seen me cry plenty of times before certainly, but not this time. This time I will hold strong.

  “Yes, father.” I bite my tongue, partly to forget the tears and partly to avoid saying something I’ll regret.

  “It would be my suggestion that you stay far from the General Store tomorrow, Sara-May. It would only make things more difficult for the both of us.” I can’t even look at him. His words aren’t a suggestion at all, rather a requirement. A requirement that if I disobey, there will almost certainly be consequences. And father’s consequences are never as simple as a slap on the wrist.

  Father leaves the room, satisfied that he has made his point and for a moment I can do nothing but sit and breathe. My heart is still racing and my whole body shaking. Tomorrow afternoon my father will arrest the father of my child, the man I hope to be my husband someday and there is nothing that I can do to stop it.

  “Sara-May?” Betsy sticks her head through the parlor door. “I heard your father, he was in quite a state. Is there anything I can do to help?” For once I don’t think there is anything she can do at all. She may have a way with my father, but this time I’m afraid there is no changing his mind.

  Betsy has served as my mother, nanny and tutor for most of my life – at least since my mother died when I was five years old. She always has the right answers and usually she can turn my father’s head around, but I’m fairly certain that this time her powers of persuasion will be fruitless. I shake my head.

  “No ma’am.” I can’t bring myself to look at her. I just know that if I do the tears will begin falling and once they start I’m not sure that they will ever stop.

  Betsy pushes her way in through the slightly open door and pushes it closed behind her. She bustles over to me noisily in her swaying skirts.

  “Now…” She says gently, sitting beside me on the sofa. “You tell me what all we can do to make this better.” She places her hand on mine and in that very second the first of my tears slides down my cheek. “Oh, honey. Don’t you cry.” She wipes at my cheek with her fingers. Now I’m sobbing and she gives up trying to wipe the tears away. “You listen here, your father loves you very much and I’m sure he is only doing what he thinks is best for you.” She pulls my head softly to her shoulder, her hand brushing over my long hair. “Shhh.”

  “But he’s not, Betsy. He’s not at all! He wouldn’t even listen to me!” My voice barely came out between the hiccups and squeaks. My nose begins to run. I’m certain that I look like a complete wreck.

  “Darlin’ you have to believe that he is only trying to look out for your best interests, and those of little Sam.” She says. I lift my head off her shoulder and look at her, hurt. I hate her for taking my father’s side and yet I love her so. Why does she always have to try to see the sense in everything?

  “How can putting the father of my child in prison be best for me? How can it be best for my child?” I no longer feel sad or frustrated, anger begins to take over. “And how does he expect me to provide for Sam? I have no job; we depend on Jim’s wages to survive! He knows that! He is the one who has forbidden me to work! ‘It’s not a woman’s place to work,’ he says. So I stayed at home and we learned to make do with Jim’s wages. But if he puts Jim in jail, surely he has to know that he is leaving us without?”

  Jim has never made a lot of money working at the general store, but as the manager he makes enough for us to get by. We have a small house of our own and food on the table every night – some of which I grow in the garden - and while it’s a far cry from my father’s fortune, it’s enough for me.

  “Listen here, I’m sure that your father has a very good reason to believe that Jim is the man he is looking for. Now if he says that Jim robbed those banks, then we need to stand by him until it’s proved otherwise. After all, he is your father and you are his daughter.” I hate the guilt trip. When in doubt, Betsy always goes to the guilt trip. She knows, by reminding me that I am all the family my father has, that she can force me to relent. But this time, I have my own family to think of as well.

  “And Jim is my child’s father!” I say. “How can I see him be locked away for something that he didn’t do, Betsy? They’ll hang him for it!” The thought of Jim being hung by the neck makes my stomach turn. From the look on Betsy’s face, it makes hers turn as well. She lets out a quiet sigh and pats my hand.

  “Child, how can you be so sure that your father is wrong? He’s a man of the law, he wouldn’t just make up such charges for the sake of it! What could he possibly gain from that? It certainly wouldn’t make him a good sheriff and you know how much your father values his position.” Betsy shakes her head, almost as though she’s trying to shake the very idea out of it.

  “Betsy, he has never liked Jim. Not since I got pregnant with Sam. It wasn’t the proper way to do things and you know how my father likes the proper way. And Jim doesn’t have the money that father had hoped I would marry in to. All of those suitors and every one my father picked had a small fortune to his name! And now that Sam is older, me and Jim, we were planning to get married and the very idea of it must have turned my father to...” Before I even finish talking, Betsy is holding up her hand and shaking her head. I stop.

  “Your father wouldn’t do something like that, my love. Of course he didn’t like how things came about between you and Jim, but he wouldn’t destroy a marriage just for the sake of it. He wouldn’t leave little Sam without a father just because of the timing of things. When it all comes down to it you are his daughter and Sam, he’s his grandson. He loves you both so very much.” She stands up and runs her palms down the front of her dress. “Just think about what I’m saying Sara-May. He’s your father and he loves you so much that he moved his whole life out here to make sure that you had the best opportunity. He’s just trying to do what’s best for you and little Sam now.” She shuffles out of the room. I sit watching the small birds from the front window. They hop around pecking at the ground in search of juicy worms. I detest even them for their joy. How can life be so unfair?

  I scoop Sam up from the pram in the kitchen. Betsy stands at the stove peeling potatoes and dropping them in to a pot.

  “Betsy, Sam and I are headed home.” I tell her as calmly as I can manage. Despite infuriating me with her defense of my father, I know that she meant well. I can never stay angry at her. She nods with a smile before shuffling over to kiss each of us on the cheek.

  “Just remember what I said Sara-May. He means well. And, if Jim is innocent, well then God will see to it that justice prevails.” She pulls Sam’s collar up around his fat neck and goes back to peeling her potatoes.

  I love Betsy more than most anyone, but one thing that I have learned from my real world experience is that justice does not always prevail. And God doesn’t always see to it. Sometimes innocent men are hung by their necks for things they didn’t
do, and sometimes it’s just ordinary people who have to fight tooth and nail to free that innocent man before he swings.

  Chapter 2

  “How is your father?” Jim asks me as he sits down at the table for supper. He’s still dressed in his work clothes and without his bath he looks more tired than ever. I can barely stand what I have to tell him. I wait to answer his question, studying every wrinkle on his face, before I realize that I just can’t keep it inside anymore.

  “He believes that you are a bank robber and plans to arrest you tomorrow at the General Store.” It wasn’t quite how I imagined telling him and it definitely wasn’t what he had anticipated me saying, but it had just fallen out of my mouth that way.

  “What’s that?” He asks. From the look on his face it’s obvious that he hasn’t quite caught on to the severity of the accusations, that is, if he heard them at all in my speedy expulsion.

  “My father. The sheriff.” He cuts me off before I can say anymore.

  “I know who your father is Sara-May. Now what is this nonsense about me being arrested?” Why he is snapping at me, I don’t know. Perhaps I should have kept my mouth shut after all. I’m no more than the bearer of the bad news, not the one who’s planning to arrest him.

  “He thinks you are a bank robber.” I pause as though sending a telegram. “He’s going to arrest you.” I pause again. “At the store tomorrow.” I watch Jim shake his head, a look of complete confusion on his face.

  “Why would he think that? And why not just come for me today if he believes it? I don’t understand…” He looks at me in total bewilderment. I shake my head.

  “I don’t know. I wasn’t even supposed to tell you, but I couldn’t not…I couldn’t let him just surprise you tomorrow at the store.” His confusion turns to fear.

  “But I didn’t do anything Sara-May. Can’t you talk to him?” His big brown eyes are just about as wide as I’ve ever seen them. He’s begging me, begging me to help him and I’m absolutely powerless.

  “I tried, Jim. I tried to tell him that you’d never do such a thing but he only became angry that I dared to have an opinion at all.” He’s staring at his plate now and I can see the cogs turning. “We could run away?” I say. “Go to California? I have a cousin there, she would probably be willing to help us set up there. We could just start over. We could be pioneers…”

  “No.” Jim pushes his chair back and stands up with both hands on the edge of the table. I can see the fear turn to resolve as he squares his shoulders. “No, I’m not going to run away from my home, from your family, for something I didn’t do. I’m an innocent man Sara-May and innocent men don’t run.”

  “But what if they don’t believe that you’re innocent?” I ask, immediately regretting it as soon as the words come out of my mouth.

  “They have to. They have to because I am.” Leaving his untouched plate on the table, Jim walks through to the front room. I remain at the table, picking at the string beans on my plate. I have no appetite at all, but for the time I spent picking these beans in the garden they need to be eaten.

  I never would have imagined two years ago that I would be where I am now. Living in a small house, in a small town, unmarried with a child and picking food to eat from my own garden. Back in Virginia we had more than plenty to our name. We had servants who tended to the vegetable gardens, who picked the food and cooked the food. I never had to lift a finger at all. Not that I mind it now, but it would sometimes be nice to have a hand around the house, especially now that Sam is here. Truth be told, if I still lived under my father’s roof, I still would have the allowance of the privileged. But, Jim changed that. I traded in my lifestyle of the privileged only daughter of a lawyer to be with the man I loved. A man my father apparently hates.

  Back when we lived out east, the newest trend in Virginia had become for the men to seek out and marry rich slender women who powdered their faces from expensive compacts. While I could certainly powder my face and was wealthy by my father’s means, there was no possibility of me ever being slender. Betsy used to say that she knew that I would always be quite shapely even as a child from the way that my chin folded over and my thighs always rubbed together as I walked. For a while I tried to prove her wrong, but the dieting soon became the death of me. I would hide food throughout the house and eventually my father tired of sending servants out to buy rat traps. All the while I was simply starving and miserable. I soon decided that it just wasn’t the lifestyle for me. Even if it meant never marrying, I simply loved food too much to starve myself half to death for the appearance of things.

  When it became clear to my father that his eighteen-year-old daughter would never marry lest he do something about it, he decided we should move to Montana. A slightly less progressive state that still seemed to value the fuller figured woman. In no time at all we went from being the center of social occasions, to being a wealthy family in a small town with no social circle at all. Father went from lawyer to sheriff and I went from spoiled, bored daughter to bored daughter. Still, father’s plan to marry me off seemed to be a success because I had men lining up at the door to seek my hand in marriage from the moment that we arrived. I am certain that more than half of them were interested only in my father’s money and the other half, my father was only interested in for their money. But there was something about Jim that caught my eye. He wasn’t like any of the others. He worked hard and he was proud of his job even though it wasn’t much. Most of all though, he didn’t cower to my father, rather, he held his own opinions and presented them with the precision of the most educated man despite never having had a formal education. Needless to say, my father wasn’t impressed. He would much have preferred for us to stay back in Virginia and I remain single as opposed to fall in love with a man like Jim.

  Father had in mind for me someone much more amenable to being molded in to a Sutherfield gentleman. Jim, on the other hand, had no intentions of changing his last name upon our marriage to suit my father – after all, what man takes his wife’s last name? So, while my father entertained other potential suitors I took to meeting Jim whenever the opportunity arose. I just couldn’t stay away from him, nor him to me. We would sneak around like lovesick teenagers, sneaking a few minutes here or a few minutes there. After just one month of our sneaking around however, nature took its course and I fell pregnant with Jim’s child. I knew that my father would never approve. I took to wearing larger clothes for a while in order to hide my burgeoning belly. Telling my father that it was the new fashion trend back in Virginia, that all the girls were doing it now. By the time he found out that I had been lying and that underneath my baggy smocks hid an extra twenty pounds of belly, it was almost time for the child to be born. There was nothing that he could do but provide me with a midwife and order me to leave our family home after the birth. I had disgraced him both as a father and as the sheriff of our town.

  I don’t know that my father ever forgave Jim for giving me a child out of wedlock. Even after things began to smooth over. Despite our plans to marry now, I don’t believe that father will ever overcome the shame of having a bastard grandson.

  Chapter 3

  I made it a point to have business in town today. Taking Sam to the local doctor for a checkup while feigning pain in my breasts from feeding him set us in a good position to observe any goings on. I need to see with my own eyes, my father’s plan put in to action. Until I see it unfold. I just can’t bring myself to believe that he will actually carry it out.

  Despite my begging and pleading this morning, Jim still went to work at the general store and so it was only a matter of time before my father’s plan was put in to motion. By two o’clock I had suffered the indignities of having my breasts squeezed and wrapped in hot compresses. By three o’clock I was walking Main Street for the fourth time when I saw my father’s men walk in to the General Store.

  I can’t imagine Jim’s face when they came through the door. Even though he was expecting them I don’t think the reality of
the situation had quite settled in. I know it hasn’t for me, even when I see the men walk in to take him. It is as though my brain and my eyes just don’t connect. I can’t believe what I am seeing.

  I clutch Sam to my chest and bounce him softly to keep him quiet as I watch from the side of the saloon, pressing my back against the rough wooden wall. I don’t want my father to see that I have disobeyed his orders or that I’m spying on him. Four men come out of the General Store with Jim held up off the ground by the elbows of the two in the back. I hear Jim tell them that he’s innocent, but they just shout back at him to shut up and save it for the judge. Jim tries again to tell them that he didn’t do anything, but again they tell him to shut up and this time they threaten to beat him if he doesn’t. It takes everything in me not to run out after them, to tell them that Jim is telling the truth. I can’t tell them how I know, but I know that he is. He has to be because if he’s not then everything has been a lie and that just can’t be. Jim is a good man, he wouldn’t lie to me about this and even if he would, I would notice something like being married to a bank robber…wouldn’t I?

  Jim is hauled off to the jail. Like everything in this small town, the jail sits on Main Street. Right at the far end of the dirt street and overlooking the dusty mountains, it sits as a tribute to my father’s position as sheriff. Since our move to town, my father has decreased crime rates by fifty percent. An achievement that he boasts to anyone who will listen. He has put God knows how many degenerates in jail…and now my child’s father is one of them.

  “Sara-May!” I knew I’d be caught, but I couldn’t stay away any longer.

  “Father.” I say as I turn around to see him standing there in full uniform.

  “Sara-May, I thought I told you to leave this well enough alone.” His voice is stern as he eyes me.