A Tender Moment Under the Stars: An Inspirational Historical Romance Book

by Grace Clemens

  Isabel did not like to feel jealous. But Betty’s sudden change in attitude had her stumped. She didn’t see how Solomon could not be attracted to that. She turned her eyes away from Betty, settling them on Solomon. He was watching Betty with Mikey, which only served to make Isabel feel even worse.

  Her heart squeezed in her chest until her eyes slid over to Freddie. He was gazing at her with a cautionary look. He shook his head and mouthed, “Don’t worry.”

  “I want this one!” Mikey announced, pulling out a giraffe with an incredibly long mouth. “These are found in Africa!”

  “That’s right, Mikey. Good job. You’re sure that’s the one you want?”

  Mikey gave him a pleading look. “Can I have two?”

  Solomon laughed and came up behind Betty. “Now I just said I was gonna run out, Mikey. Just the one, my boy.”

  “Okay! Thank you!” He turned and ran off with his giraffe to show his parents, who were waiting for him. The adults raised their hands to Solomon, who waved back.

  “You’re doing a good job here, Betty. Thanks.”

  Isabel listened to Solomon compliment Betty. It made her stomach turn. Especially when Betty looked at Solomon with doughy eyes and practically melted against him. She was outraged. Right in front of everyone. She clenched her jaw.

  “Whoa!” Solomon said, grabbing Betty’s arms and pushing her off him gently. “I think you just fell over, Betty. You all right?”

  Betty looked around, an embarrassed look on her face, her eyes eventually settling on Isabel. Isabel did her best to keep a look of disgust from her face. She didn’t want to advertise her jealousy in front of everyone. She forced herself to smile.

  “I’m fine,” Betty said, just before Freddie grabbed her arm and steered her away from Solomon.

  “Help me make some more cotton candy for the rest of these children,” he said enthusiastically. “We can’t let them starve now, can we?”

  “No, no, we don’t want that,” Solomon said, scanning the small group of children in front of the stand, who all had delighted looks on their faces at the mention of the cotton candy. Solomon picked up a small container on the side of the counter. “This is for donations. The cotton candy costs a penny and to play the game it costs a penny. But if you can’t afford that, I’ll still give you some cotton candy.”

  Isabel noticed Solomon flipped his eyes between the children and the adults standing around them. Most of the adults were nodding acknowledgment of the payment request and were already getting out their coins.

  “Isabel!” Solomon called out to her, as she had stayed within the crowd when he went around to the other side of the stand. He lifted one hand and gestured to her. “Come back here. It’s more fun and less suffocating on this side of the table.”

  The group around the table laughed. Several adults moved back some or moved out of the way so Isabel could get to the stand.

  She went around to him and looked at the interior of the booth. “What can I do to help?”

  “Mostly you can stand there and look pretty,” Solomon said. “But first let me introduce you to everyone.”

  Isabel blushed, running her eyes over the group she’d just left.

  “Everyone, this is Isabel Crane. She’s come to Steven’s Gulch to be my bride!”

  “Ah!” a voice said loudly from the crowd, which dispersed enough for Isabel to see it was the sheriff that had spoken. She vaguely remembered Solomon speaking of the sheriff as a friend. “Here she is. The lovely Isabel.” The sheriff came to the front of the booth to a space where the children weren’t shooting. He had his hat in his hand and gestured with it repeatedly as he spoke, pointing to Solomon and to her. “He’s been talking about you since he first got that letter. It’s about time a woman came and snatched his heart.”

  Isabel noticed the sheriff wasn’t looking in Betty’s direction. Betty was behind her so Isabel had no idea how she was taking what the sheriff was saying. She didn’t turn to look.

  She didn’t care to know.

  “He mentioned that you have been anxious for him to get married,” Isabel said. “That’s a paraphrase, not a direct quote.”

  Solomon laughed, which prompted laughter from the crowd, as well.

  “I think we’ve all been anxious to see him happy again. He hasn’t been for some time. Especially after his father’s death. But Sol knows we are all here for him, don’t ya, Sol?”

  Solomon nodded, smiling at the sheriff. “I sure do. No worries there. It’s like I lost a father and gained twenty more.”

  “More than twenty, if I’d hazard a guess.”

  “Probably.” Solomon laughed. He turned when the crowd cheered as one of the young girls shooting the ducks got twelve in a row.

  “Wow!” Betty said, coming up so that Isabel could see her again. She was carrying a box with large stuffed animals in it. “Not only do you get one of the big animals, you get a balloon, too!”

  “Oh boy!” the girl cried, jumping up and down, clapping her hands. “Thanks, Betty!”

  “It’s Solomon you should be thanking,” Betty said, turning her head to Solomon and winking. “Isn’t that right?”

  Solomon smiled at the girl. “You’re welcome, Diana. Now run along and show everyone what you’ve won!”

  Chapter 21

  It was five o’clock when they decided to shut the booth down. The town would go into the evening mode of celebrations, which consisted of people gathering at the restaurant, the saloon, or the hotel dining room. Families would get together in the park areas where benches were placed and blankets were put on the ground.

  It was the night of a full moon so while there were still lanterns and the street lamps were lit, there wasn’t much artificial light needed.

  The evening was warm and pleasant. Just as they were almost finished closing up, they heard two familiar voices coming toward them. Isabel looked up at Betty’s parents while trying to cover her amusement.

  “Be-tty!” her mother sung her name. “Betty, dear, it’s time to come home.”

  “I don’t want to go home, Mother,” Betty responded, looking a bit confused. “I’m staying here for the festivities this evening.”

  “We are coming back to go to the restaurant,” her father replied in a stern voice, looking directly at his daughter. Isabel got the impression he didn’t realize his daughter had grown up. She almost felt sorry for Betty. But remembering the way she melted herself against Solomon earlier in the day made her take a bit more delight out Betty’s parents’ attitude toward their daughter than she probably should have. She would ask for forgiveness later in her prayers. “You’ve been working in the hot sun all day and are probably dirty and sweaty. You should go home and change.”

  “Pa!” Betty protested. “I’m not dirty and sweaty! How can you say something like that!”

  “Now, now, Betty,” her mother said, gently, coming up to the booth and looking in at her daughter. “You know you don’t want to embarrass your little friends by staying around them when you need to clean up.”

  “Ma!”

  It was almost amusing but Isabel just couldn’t bring herself to laugh at the other woman’s situation. If she’d been treated that way as an adult, she wouldn’t have accepted it for a moment. But Betty’s protests were weak and it looked like she was going to give in anyway.

  “You know we’re right, Betty. Come along now. You can come out and play later. Say goodbye to your friends.”

  Betty grumbled as she stomped toward the entrance to the booth. She called back over her shoulder, “I’ll see you all later.”

  Isabel watched with amazement as the woman trudged off with her parents, both of them talking over each other to her, telling her they knew what was best for her and she would have a better time in town if she was cleaned up and changed.

  Isabel turned her eyes to Solomon and Freddie, who had sympathetic looks on their faces as they watched Betty being led away by her parents.

  “That girl’s got it
rough,” Freddie said, looking at Isabel. “Don’t you think? I mean, how would you feel if you were treated that way?”

  “I wouldn’t like it,” Isabel responded without hesitation.

  “Same with me,” Solomon said. Isabel noticed his eyes were still following Betty and her parents. She couldn’t quite decipher the look on his face and decided it was pity rather than anything else. “My pa stopped treating me like a child when I was about eleven years old.”

  “Mine, too,” Freddie said.

  “I’m gonna load this stuff in the storage building and lock it up,” Solomon said, lifting a huge heavy box with ease and lugging it out of the booth to take to the storage for the next day. As soon as he was gone, both Isabel and Freddie started talking.

  “You go ahead,” they both said at the same time.

  They laughed together and Freddie said quickly, “Ladies first. Please, I insist.”

  “I was wondering if you saw how Betty threw herself at Solomon earlier. I don’t know how to feel about that. It must have hurt you, too, to see that, seeing as how you have feelings for her.”

  “I don’t like seeing it,” Freddie said, shaking his head. “But you have to remember that I’ve been dealing with that for many years now. It wasn’t just Sol she left behind when she went to college. It was me, too. She didn’t know it but I’ve pined for her for years. And in my case, absence did make my heart grow fonder. I do want to be with her. I know she and I would be more compatible than Sol and her ever were.”

  “Why do you say that?” she asked, genuinely curious.

  Freddie moved his eyes to the storage unit. She could tell he was worried Solomon would return and hear them talking. But it wasn’t gossip. It was needed information so she could make an informed decision.

  “Well, for one thing, they argued every day. I mean every day. It wasn’t like that at first when they were first together and we were pretty young. But when they grew older and for at least a year before she left, they always argued. I used to talk to him about it but he said it was all petty stuff and that they were fine. Then she blindsided him by saying she was leaving for four years to go to college. She wanted him to wait for her. That’s why it hurt him so much when she decided to leave like that. What kind of woman would ask a man to wait four years for her without even knowing if she would come back?”

  Solomon emerged from the storage building and Freddie stopped talking. Not wanting to look suspicious, Isabel said as she packed up the last of the stuffed animals for the storage building, “I think it went really well today. I like doing this. And all that cotton candy. I’ll bet those parents are regretting that. Their children will be climbing the walls.”

  “I saw you eating plenty,” Freddie responded. “You aren’t climbing the walls.”

  She laughed. “I’m not ten years old, either.”

  “True, true.”

  Without speaking, Solomon picked up two large boxes one on top of the other. He turned and headed back to the storage building.

  “Did he attempt to wait for her?” Isabel asked as soon as he was not in hearing distance.

  Freddie’s nod made a stab of pain hit her in the heart.

  “He tried to. He wasn’t seeing anyone else, mind you. He wanted to wait for her and, like I said, he tried. But I remember one night we were talking and he said he felt like something was off. He said it was as if he was just starting to realize how immature she was and how most of the fights were more petty than he thought. They were random. He said it seemed like she found something to complain about every day even if it was something dumb. He realized how much he didn’t like that.”

  “Do you think he will find her to be more mature now? He did compliment her, after all.”

  Freddie gave her a sarcastic look. “Now, Izzy. You can’t expect him to be mean to her because you don’t like her and you feel jealous. He’s still her friend and they cared about each other at one time. I’m not saying this to frighten you into thinking he’s going to boot you out and take her back. I don’t believe that’s going to happen. I’m just telling you because I don’t want you to fall into a trap where you start feeling bad about yourself and undervaluing you.”

  He came over to stand next to her, looking her in the eyes as he leaned sideways on the counter. “You are just as worthy of his love as Betty ever was, probably more. You are more mature than she is. Yes, she’s my friend and I have a thing for her but what’s obvious is obvious. I don’t think she will be the same with me as she was with Sol.”

  “I’m sure you’d at least like to be given a chance to find out,” Isabel said.

  Freddie gave her a grateful, friendly look. “Yes. That’s exactly it. Just please. Don’t worry about her. He’s not in love with her. Not anymore.”

  “How do you know?”

  Freddie reached out and grabbed her around the shoulders, giving her a side hug. “Because I see the way he looks at you.” He looked down at her, meeting her eyes with his. “You already have him, Izzy. You just have to be confident in yourself and not let Betty get under your skin. I’m trying my best to show her how I feel and eventually, I’ll work up the nerve to tell her. But she’s only been back three days and I’m not going to spring something like that on her just yet.”

  Isabel nodded. “I understand what you mean. All right. I’ll do my best to keep my wits about me and not get jealous. I just…I think I’m falling in love with Sol already. Letting myself isn’t hard. He’s a great man, isn’t he? So many people here like him.”

  Freddie laughed, releasing her and picking up the box of stuffed animals she’d just filled with the last of them. “Everyone likes him, you mean. And why not? He’s a wonderful friend. I’m glad he considers me his best friend. It’s an honor.”

  Isabel was pleased to hear her future husband spoken of in such a positive way. She was coming to realize she’d made her decision and that despite whatever Betty might try putting in the way, she was going to bond with Solomon and they would someday really fall in love with each other.

  Isabel kept telling herself that as she followed Freddie to the storage building with the last two boxes of toys.

  Chapter 22

  Solomon stepped up to the dressmaker’s little shop out on the outskirts of town and smiled wide when she opened the door.

  “Clara!” he said, throwing his arms out wide. The buxom woman cried out in delight and threw herself into a hug with him.

  Isabel watched the whole scene, astonished that she wasn’t immediately hot with jealousy. The dressmaker was a beautiful woman, dressed fantastically, the bodice of her dress pushed out far because of the large size of her breasts.

  Solomon turned to Isabel. “Izzy, this is Clara. She’s an old friend of mine and my father’s. Clara, this is my future wife, Isabel. Izzy for short.”

  Clara released Solomon and excitedly grabbed Isabel into a hug. “Hello, hello! Wonderful to meet you. You’ve got a good man here.” Clara pulled back and bopped Isabel on the nose. “Don’t you forget that or someone might come along and snatch him up.”

  Isabel raised her eyebrows, astonished when Clara pulled her close again and squeezed her tight. She was a little uncomfortable because of Clara’s full figure. She was relieved when the woman let her go. She didn’t like hugging strangers to begin with. But somehow she found Clara’s to be different from the others. She had huge hair that she left uncovered, a big bright smile, and blue eyes to match the smile.