Blue Bonnet
Page 9
For just a split second, Bat regretted asking Leta to marry him. He already had three pushy women in his family. Right now they were siding with Leta. He wasn't sure he needed another female to outnumber him.
“Everything worked out all right. Now that I have a new, pretty bonnet I'm going to wear it when I get married,” Leta declared.
“When is the wedding? Have you set a date?” Tessie asked.
Leta chuckled. “Not quite. The wedding will be as soon as I make a dress to match the bonnet. I have to warn all my customers I'm making this dress a priority. But not to worry, I can sew fast when I want to.”
“Leta, are you going to be lucky enough to match the bonnet to some material in your store at this late date?” Billie asked.
“No luck involved, Billie. I figured Bat didn't know if the woman in his life had a dress in her wardrobe that would go with the bonnet. I laid the blue bolt back that I cut the bonnet from, figuring the woman Bat gave that bonnet to would be needing a dress to match. I just didn't know it was going to be me.” Leta winked at Bat.
Suddenly, he was sorry he had the least bit of hesitation about adding Leta to the family. “Good thinking on your part, Leta. Didn't I tell you, Billie, that Leta was a smart woman,” Bat declared.
Once they were married, Leta made life easy for Bat. She sold the shop and her house in Dead Horse so she could live on the ranch with him. She used the property sales money to pay off her debts.
Before Leta moved to the ranch she informed her customers if they wanted her to sew for them, they would have to come to Bat's ranch to make orders and for fittings.
That solved Bat's worry that the woman he choose would have to spend time at home alone when he was on the range. Leta would have plenty of female company.
Not long after they married, Bat and Leta, wearing her new blue bonnet, rode in the ranch buckboard to town to get supplies. He didn't care one bit what the old gossips in Dead Horse thought about him, but he saw Mrs. Borders, Mrs. Petermier and Mrs. Huntman with their heads together when Leta and he drove down Main Street. They smiled warmly at the new bride and nodded their approval at Bat for choosing Leta as the woman to receive the bonnet he paid her to make.
Most of all, the town talkers were pleased to have the mystery of the blue bonnet solved to their satisfaction. It crossed Bat's mind to wonder what the old gossips would have done or said to him if he hadn't picked Leta for his wife. He would have had to move out of town for sure.
Bat had one more surprise coming when Mother Nature knocked on the next spring's door at the ranch. Bat became a father for the third time, and this time he had that son he needed so that he could pass his ranch on.
For once, Billie was so proud of her new nephew she didn't rub it in to the father too much that he hadn't wanted to marry a woman that could bear children.
For the rest of his life, Bat knew for sure he made a good choice when he picked Leta Mays to be his wife. A warm, friendly woman, Leta presided over their home with gracious kindliness and was loved by all his family and their friends. Best of all, Leta gave him a son, Bartholomew Junior, to run the Bar BK ranch.
About The Author
Fay Risner lives in Iowa with her husband on an acreage. However, she spent her early years in the Missouri Ozarks and was raised with westerns as her reading material. Her parents enjoyed books by all the well known western authors of their time, and they passed the books and their love of westerns on to their children.
Readers will find this book is reader friendly. It is written in larger font which makes it easy and fast to read.
If you like this book, please feel free to leave a review for the story to encourage others to buy the book.