The group’s men still took turns preparing meals at the barbershop apartment, but some suppers were much better than others.
"Glad you're enjoying it. We like to have company join us now and then. Keeps the girls on their best behavior," Helen said but winked afterward.
Yeah, Phoebe showed her "best behavior" by asking for her lemon drops when he first arrived instead of digging into his coat pocket like she did last week. Gordon figured out ten-year-old girls were slightly forward and single-minded, especially when it involved candy.
"Please tell us a little about your growing up in eastern Kansas," Helen steered the conversation toward Gordon.
He hated telling the story over and over to people, but that's the way it was when you were new in town and had an unusual childhood.
"I was orphaned at seven in New York City and traveled with my brothers on the orphan train to Topeka. We were adopted by three Miller families—"
"Wait, three families?" Nadine stopped him to ask.
"We didn't stay together. Baron went to Aaron Miller, I stayed with his brother, Ben, and Squires went to a Miller cousin."
"Oh, I assumed you were together because of your last name. Did you live close to each other, though?" Helen asked.
"Barton's adopted father farmed and was the area's blacksmith. The Millers I stayed with lived on the edge of town and ran a dairy. We lived about three miles apart and went to the same school when I had a chance to attend it. Squire's adopted family lived on the opposite side of town, but we saw him at church most Sundays."
"Did you have a big enough herd of dairy cows to supply the town then?" Ethan asked, now that the girls were quiet and eating.
Gordon took a sip of his coffee before answering. It was a little disturbing to have seven pairs of eyes on him.
"Yes, we milked twice a day. I'd deliver the morning milk route to homes and businesses after we bottled the milk, and before I went to school in the morning. Then after school was out for the day, we milked a second time and did another route."
"I can see why you said you went to school when you had the chance," Helen sympathized with him.
"Bad weather always caused a delay," Gordon replied, thinking of the muddy cows' udders that had to be washed first before they could be milked. And the countless times the conditions of the roads, both during rains and snow, hampered the milk delivery.
After leaving the army, he’d visited his adopted folks once, but didn’t take them up on their offer of working at the dairy again.
Gordon loathed drinking milk now, although he still loved whipped cream on any dessert.
“Did you have any siblings in your adopted family?” Helen continued to quiz him.
“Their only son died shortly before the orphan train arrived. I was their son’s replacement,” Gordon quietly told Helen.
It was a hard, sad, situation, one that his adoptive parents never got over. Mr. Miller insisted they needed to adopt Gordon to take over the chores that their son was of age to start doing. Mrs. Miller would have preferred not to adopt Gordon. Hence they never grew close. It was a lonely life, only made acceptable when he could see his brothers occasionally.
"I'm glad you can settle with your brothers in the same town now. How are things going with the Taylors?" Helen asked, bringing up the other conversation Gordon didn't like talking about.
"Uh, kind of strained. The plan to divide the store and make it into two entities hasn't been settled. Merchandise has been moved back and forth, making it hard for the customers and me, the clerk, to figure out where things are."
“The Taylors have been good friends and businesspeople. I know it was hard for them to make the decision to slow down in the first place. They’ve been part of the community since the beginning of the town,” Ethan defended his friends.
“Unfortunately. they don’t have a family to take over the business like we did. Helen and I took over management of the hotel from my parents when we married,” Ethan added.
Gordon had met the elder Paulsons. Although they lived a few blocks from the hotel, they occasionally came in to help with events.
“And I hope one of our daughters will take over the hotel when we decide to retire,” Ethan pointedly looked at Nadine, who beamed at the suggestion.
Gordon glanced at Avalee, who looked like she’d dodged a bullet. Why did she work at the doctor’s office instead of the hotel when this was the family’s business?
“Nadine needs a husband to help her run the hotel though,” Cecilia piped up.
“No, I don’t,” Nadine retorted.
“But first Avalee needs to marry Brother—. Ouch! Who kicked me?” Phoebe stared across at her sisters, who didn’t say a word.
“That’s enough, girls,” Ethan warned his daughters. “Please return to your best manners.”
“Yes, sir,” all five answered around the table, but it was out of respect instead of worry of retribution.
“Do we get to invite all the new men to dinner, Mama?” Cecilia asked as she carefully cut her meat into smaller pieces.
“I suppose we could. Actually, that’s a good idea. Who do you want to invite next?”
“I like talking to Toad. Please invite him next,” Phoebe piped up, and Gordon almost choked on his food.
“Who’s Toad?” Ethan looked at Phoebe to clarify.
“Tobin Billings, Sir. Toad was his nickname when we were growing up,” Gordon said to clear the confusion.
“We all had one. I was Gopher since my name started with a ‘G,’” Gordon added with a shrug.
“Yeah, and Toad lets me stop at the livery any time to play with his kittens, Salt, and Pepper. He had a pet raccoon named Bandit when he was growing up. Did you meet the raccoon, Mr. Miller?” Phoebe asked in a rush of words.
“Yes, actually, I do remember playing with Bandit. And Bandit even came back to visit Tobin a few times. Bandit had a stub tail, so Tobin knew him instantly.”
“Could we get a pet raccoon, Papa? You’ve already said no to a dog or a cat,” Phoebe begged her father.
“No pets in the hotel, Phoebe. Grandma Paulson made the rule, and I stick by it. You’ll have to play with other people’s pets instead.”
“Do you want to invite Wesley to join us next Sunday’s supper too?” Helen asked her daughters.
“No. We see Weasel, uh, Wesley, every day,” Nadine quickly told her point of view. But what was the girl’s blush about? Did Nadine like Wesley, or did something go on between them that embarrassed her? Gordon would have to ask Wesley about his relationship with the Paulson sisters, especially Nadine.
“How about inviting Squires?” Avalee asked. “I asked him to join us today, but he said he had plans with Maisie Brenner to ride out to the Cross C Ranch.”
Oh, he did? Gordon hadn’t bothered to ask what the rest of the group was doing today besides assuming Barton and Amelia would be together today.
Just his luck, everyone would pair off, and he’d still be Avalee’s pretend fiancé—when she needed him.
Gordon watched Ethan smile across the table to Helen, still in love with his wife twenty years after they met.
Why couldn’t he have been adopted into a loving family like the Paulsons?
Gordon had never called his adopted parents, “Pa” and “Ma.” It was always, Mr. and Mrs. Miller. They kept him at arm’s length from the very beginning.
Gordon was a seven-year-old boy, mourning the loss of his own parents and separated from his brothers, but he found no comfort in Mr. and Mrs. Miller.
They gave him food, shelter, and clothing, but not the love he craved. No wonder he was timid about courting a woman. One reason was that he hadn’t grown up in a home that showed love and compassion between two adults. And deep down, he was scared he’d be rejected as he had been by two mothers.
But there were shining examples of love at this table that Gordon couldn’t ignore. Ethan had been left at the altar by his first love, but he was happy now with his family. And Helen had been with four
men before she found Ethan.
Gordon looked across the table at Avalee, realizing she had been watching him look at her parents. Could she guess that he longed for a family like her own?
Could he convince her to change his status from a pretend fiancé to a real one? But his employment was still up in the air. He needed to talk to the Taylors before thinking about settling down in Clear Creek and starting his own family.
Chapter 14
"We're moving to Denver!" Mr. Taylor came into the store in a rush. His wife trailed right behind him, waving a letter in the air.
"After twelve years, our son and his wife are expecting babies! Plural! The doctor's confident Betty's having twins or possibly triplets!" Mrs. Taylor squealed like a woman a third her age.
Wait, what? Moving? Triplets?
"We're moving right away!" Mrs. Taylor huffed as she finally got to the counter. "I need to help Betty since she's to stay in bed until the babies arrive, and Mr. Taylor needs to help Thomas in the store to take Betty's place."
"When?" Gordon asked, looking back and forth at the excited couple.
"Soon! Within the week if possible!" Mrs. Taylor exclaimed.
"Now, Minnie, it might take a little longer than that."
Gordon was relieved Mr. Taylor finally came to his senses.
But it was evident Mrs. Taylor didn’t like that idea.
"After school is out at three o'clock, we'll hire boys in town to move the merchandise from the second store back to here. The next day they can help Gordon take inventory in this store, so we have a fair price for the final bill of sale."
Mrs. Taylor pointed her finger at her husband.
"Harry, you go tell Kiowa Jones right now we're not taking the second shop, and he needs to co-sign the bank loan for Gordon."
The woman was rattling off commands to the two of them as if she was a general preparing for battle.
"What about your upstairs apartment?" Gordon asked, knowing it was crammed full of stuff because he'd been up there a few times.
"We're going to be living with Thomas and Betty and won't need any furniture or household items. I'll pack our personal items, and you can have the rest, Gordon."
The rest? Did that include the piles of papers, magazines, and newspapers on the dining room table and stacked in the corners of the room? It would take a week to go through them to be sure there wasn’t anything valuable in them.
Oh, Deuteronomy, to paraphrase Pastor Reagan. Were part of those paper piles their filing system for the store?
Now Gordon was in his own panic mode. “What about accounts receivable and payable? Who charges to the store and are they current on their statements? Who does the store owe money to for inventory you’ve bought?”
“Don’t worry, Gordon. You know all that’s in the big ledger we keep on the table behind the counter. If you need to look back for a daily receipt, they are bundled by month and year upstairs in our apartment.,” Mrs. Taylor waved at him as she headed back out of the store to tell someone else about the upcoming birth of her grandchildren.
"Oh," Mr. Taylor must have thought of one more thing to boggle Gordon's mind as he turned to follow his wife.
"You better change your fake fiancée into a real one, because you'll need Avalee to help run this store."
Gordon stared at the door as it slammed shut behind the man. Did everyone in town know about his and Avalee's pretend engagement?
In under five minutes' time, the Taylors had finally made their decision about the store, but it turned Gordon's world upside down.
Gordon reached for a pad of paper and a pencil on the counter, trying not to panic. He'd make a list of what needed to be done, then rank them in importance. The Taylors were not getting on the train to Denver until everything—down to the last keg of nails in inventory and the food in the upstairs pantry—was accounted for. He wanted this business free and clear of any future claims in case Taylor's change their minds, again.
*
"We came to help, Brother Gordon. Put us to work," Phoebe interrupted him.
"Excuse me? What do you need, girls?"
"The Taylors came into school right before the bell rang for the end of day and hired all the boys available to move their merchandise from the new store back to this one," Cecilia informed him.
And where there was Phoebe, there was Cecilia at her side. The two were inseparable and always up to something.
"We can help put stuff back on the shelves. We kind of know where stuff used to sit," Phoebe twirled her right index finger around in the air to prove her point.
Gordon inwardly groaned. Within a half hour, young boys who didn't care about fragile merchandise would be dropping crates of probably unwrapped breakables on whatever surface—counters or floor—were available.
By the end of the day, the store would look as bad as the upstairs.
"Oh, look at the pretty rings! I like this one!" Phoebe exclaimed as she took a ring from the velvet display case and slipped it on her finger.
Gordon had decided to start with the inventory in the glass case below the front counter with the most valuable merchandise first. He made columns on his paper to write the item name, quantities, and retail value. He had just started on the ring inventory when the girls came in.
"Put the ring back in the case, please," Gordon pointed to the ring Phoebe was now twirling on her spinning finger.
"Yeah, Phoebe. Put it back," Cecilia repeated Gordon, giving Phoebe a shoulder shove at the same time.
"Stop it, Cecilia!" Phoebe snapped back when she pushed her sister.
Next thing Gordon knew, the girls were on the floor in front of the counter, shoving and shouting at each other. He was just walking around the counter to get them apart when Phoebe let out a curdling scream.
“Oh, no! She’s hurt! Gordon help her!” Cecilia wailed while holding her sister’s head. Phoebe was limp on the floor! Gordon stopped in shock a second, seeing the blood on Phoebe’s face and Cecilia’s hands.
“What happened? Did she fall face forward on something?”
"I don't know! Pick her up and take her to the doctor's office!" Cecilia pleaded one bloody hand up in the air now.
Gordon rushed down on one knee to carefully pick up the unconscious girl and gather her in his arms, trying to support her head against his shoulder.
"Get the door!" Gordon shouted at Cecilia, but she was already there holding it open.
He ran the half block to the doctor's office with Cecilia keeping up, ready to open the next door for him.
"Avalee! Phoebe's hurt!" Cecilia yelled once they were inside the door.
"What?" Avalee came running from the back office. "What happened? The doctor's not here right now! Put her in the back exam room!"
Gordon rushed back to the room Avalee requested and gently laid the girl on the exam table. Phoebe wasn't precisely a limp, dead weight, but she wasn't responsive either.
"What exactly happened, and where?" Avalee asked as she wet a clean cloth and gently started wiping the blood from her sister's face.
Gordon swallowed the bile rising up his throat. Phoebe’s face and the front of her dress were covered with her blood.
Please don't let Phoebe die, Lord!
"She and Cecilia got in a pushing match in the store, and all of a sudden Phoebe screamed and went limp. She must have fallen onto a corner of a shelf."
"But I don't see a cut yet," Avalee said as she tried to keep calm herself.
"I got it! Let's go!" Cecilia yelled.
Gordon and Avalee turned toward the door to see what Cecilia meant, and in that instant, Phoebe flipped off the opposite side of the table and raced out the door.
"What the...?" Gordon stood in shock as the exam room door slammed shut and a key turned in the lock.
Gordon turned to stare at Avalee. Her eyes narrowed on the cloth she'd dropped on the table.
She lifted it, smelled it, and then swiped her finger through the blood and licked it off her finger.
"Avalee! "Gordon gasped in horror when Avalee smacked her lips together as she tasted the blood.
"This isn't blood. It's thick sugar syrup and tart cherry jelly! " Avalee growled as she threw the cloth on the table. Then she marched over to the door and tried the handle. The door was locked.
Then it dawned on Gordon what the girls had done.
“Your sisters almost gave me a heart attack!”
“I must say this is one of the better stunts they’ve pulled,” Avalee said as she calmly leaned against the door frame.
“What!”
And how many times have I said “what” in the last hour or two?
"Is that all you've got to say about their shenanigans?"
"There's no use to get excited, Gordon. We can't do anything until they let us out."
"Where's Doctor Pansy?"
"Out on a call to a ranch. She won't be back for hours."
Gordon paced the small room. The store was unmanned. Jewelry sitting out on the counter. The boys were probably dropping boxes of china dishes as he was locked in this room by a couple of scheming girls! He could hear the china shattering in his mind.
"What are the girls up to? Why did they lock us in here?" Gordon demanded.
"I heard the Taylors are moving to Denver and you're taking over the store," Avalee calmly answered back.
"So? Yes, it seems like I’m finally getting to own the store if all goes well with the bank and Kiowa backing me."
"Oh, I'm sure the bank will be fine with your loan, especially since the Peashooters are involved."
Gordon vigorously rubbed his hands over his face, realizing too late he had "cherry" blood all over his hands from carrying Phoebe to the doctor's office.
"Ah!" Gordon growled as Avalee tossed him a wet towel.
“You might want to clean yourself up since we don't know who will be letting us out of this room. We don't want them to think I was trying to murder you."
Gordon grabbed the towel, wiping it across his face and hair.
“Can you get cherry jelly stains out of a white shirt?” Gordon asked, looking down at the streak of red across the front of his shirt.
“Phoebe and Cecilia will get it out, or they will be buying you a new shirt.”
Avalee Exchanges Her Fiancé Page 8