Mail Order Man

by Heather Gray

  “If we’re in the habit of praying because we love God, that’s one thing. But sometimes we get into a habit of doing something – even something that’s good and right – and then we forget why we wanted that thing – whatever it is – to be a habit in the first place. Does that make sense?”

  “I think so,” said Sarah. “It’s okay if our heart is in the right place. If we are doing something habitually, though, and don’t even remember why we got into the habit to begin with, then we need to stop and think about what we’re doing.”

  “Couldn’t have said it better myself,” said Samuel cheerily.

  ****

  When Sarah and Samuel arrived back at the mayor’s house that evening, they learned Minnie had taken ill during the day. She had a fever and a terrible stomach upset. Mrs. Smith shooed Sarah and Samuel out the door, telling them to go ahead and take the trip out to the Fitzgerald farm. So, loaded down with a large crate of miscellaneous foodstuffs and other surprises, Samuel took the mayor’s buggy and escorted Sarah.

  As they pulled up to the house, it became apparent the farm had long been neglected. Paint was badly peeled, the front porch sagged, the fields were nowhere near ready for planting, and the mule and goat penned outside the barn resembled scarecrows that a strong wind could blow over.

  Sarah still felt guilty about not having reached out to Mary before, but she was not letting guilt be her motivator today. She had spent a long time the night before talking things over with God, and she felt certain this was a change He wanted to see in her – a willingness to put others first even when it made her uncomfortable or was a situation she would rather avoid.

  Samuel helped Sarah down from the buggy and followed her up the steps. Knocking on the door garnered no answer. The door didn’t appear to be latched, but Sarah wasn’t sure they should barge in.

  Samuel offered, “Let me go take a look out in the barn and see if anyone is out there, okay? Wait right here.” With that, he loped off toward the barn. Sarah didn’t want to stay on the front porch, though, so she walked around to the back of the house to take a look around. She saw a large garden that was obviously well cared for next to laundry hanging on a line. Upon closer inspection, Sarah could see the laundry was dry and ready to come down.

  A few minutes later, Sarah heard Samuel calling her name. “Around back!” she yelled back. Samuel walked quickly around the edge of the house but stopped in his tracks when he saw Sarah.

  “What are you doing?”

  “What does it look like I’m doing?”

  Sarah had already taken half of the laundry down, folded it, and placed it in the basket she’d found nearby. Samuel shook his head in resignation and helped Sarah get the remainder of the laundry down. Sarah had no intention of leaving until she had done something for this family.

  Working together, the two took care of the laundry in quick order. Samuel carried the basket back around to the front porch where he tried the front door. The door opened easily.

  “It’s not uncommon for people to leave their doors unlocked around here,” Sarah told him when he raised his eyebrows in surprise.

  “I understand, Sarah, but this door doesn’t even have a lock on it. They couldn’t lock it if they wanted to.”

  Since her father passed away, Sarah always made sure to lock her doors and latch her windows when she went to bed at night. The mayor had given her strict instructions for her safety, and she had promised him she would do those things. She understood people not locking their doors when they trusted their neighbors, but she couldn’t fathom a door not even having a lock on it.

  When they stepped into the house, Sarah was surprised by what she saw. Everything surrounding her was neat and tidy. The wallpaper was peeling, and the furniture was older than time itself, but everything was clean. There was no dirt or clutter or filth like one might have expected based on the outer condition of the farm. Sarah nodded her approval.

  “Mary takes good care of her home, doesn’t she?”

  Samuel grunted in reply, still not convinced nobody was home.

  “Put the basket here,” Sarah said, indicating the large kitchen table. Samuel set the basket down and then waved Sarah toward the door.

  “Not yet. You have to bring the crate in.”

  Mrs. Smith had gone above and beyond. Packing a mere basket of goods for the family would have been too simple. Instead, she had packed an entire crate, and Sarah couldn’t have been more thrilled. It might have been a hard sell had Mary been there. Pride sometimes made people act in ways not in their own best interest. With no one there, though, no one could reject the gift.

  Having retrieved it from the buggy, Samuel set the crate on the table and said, “Okay, let’s go.”

  He seemed impatient, and Sarah couldn’t figure out why.

  “Not yet, please?”

  When Samuel simply stood there considering her with a raised eyebrow, she continued, “I want to empty the crate. Mary might be tempted to not accept some of the gifts, but if they’re all laid out on the table when the family comes home, then everyone will see them and she’ll have no choice but to accept them. And I kind of wanted to start dinner for the family.”

  ****

  Samuel stared into Sarah’s pleading eyes and didn’t have the heart to crush her spirit by telling her no. Worry that someone might come home and be upset to find them in the house uninvited wouldn’t leave him. He had no desire to be on the business end of somebody’s rifle should that happen. Sarah so badly wanted to do something nice for this family, though, and he did not want to squelch the enthusiasm she was showing. In an uneasy position, Samuel was glad law enforcement was no longer a part of his daily life. Objectivity was not easy to achieve when the people involved were those who you held close to your heart.

  “Here’s the thing,” Samuel began. Sarah’s expression shouted her certainty that she wouldn’t like what he was going to say. “You cannot start dinner for the family.” When Sarah started to protest, he held up his hand. “Hear me out.” Sarah crossed her arms over her chest and gave him quite a stare. He continued, “You don’t know how this family has been surviving. If you brought them a whole side of bacon and decided to make beans and bacon, you might think it was okay to put the whole side of bacon in. For this family, though, an entire side of bacon could be two weeks’ worth of meat. You don’t know their situation, and you need to let them best decide how to use the provisions Mrs. Smith sent. Secondly, if you fix dinner, you will want to leave it warming on the stove or in the oven, and we can’t take such a risk. We don’t know when somebody will be back, and you run the risk of the food getting ruined or, even worse, a fire starting.”

  As Samuel’s words got through to Sarah, she uncrossed her arms and instead clutched her hands together in front of her.

  “Can I at least unpack the crate?”

  “Don’t you think it would be more fun to let them unpack it? It would be a lot like Christmas, right? And with that big of a family, it’s unlikely Mary would be able to hide the crate or convince all of her siblings it can’t be accepted. Besides, if they don’t know where it came from…” Samuel intentionally let the sentence hang.

  Sarah’s eyes lit up. “If they don’t know where it came from, they can’t return it, now can they?”

  Glancing around the room as though looking for something specific, Sarah moved quickly toward the crate and removed the lid. She tore off a piece of paper from the protective wrapper covering a jar of jam and circled to face Samuel. “Can you fetch my reticule for me please?”

  Still in a hurry to get Sarah out of there before any trouble arose, Samuel hurried out to the buggy and grabbed her reticule. When he returned with it, she quickly dug through until she triumphantly pulled out a pencil. “Never leave home without it!” she declared. Sarah made quick order of the note and tucked it under the edge of the crate where it could be clearly seen and would not be likely to blow away.

  Samuel glanced at the note before shepherding
Sarah toward the door. Please accept this gift and know you are in our prayers was all she had written. He hoped the struggling family accepted the gift in the spirit it was intended.

  After ushering Sarah out the door, Samuel stood in the threshold of the house with his hand on the door. He pivoted to look at the house, including the folded laundry and the crate of goods. Samuel had no proof to support it, but he had the oddest feeling someone could hear them.

  “God be with you,” he spoke into the silent house. Then, shaking his head at his own fanciful notion, he closed the door firmly and moved to help Sarah up into the buggy.

  Chapter Eleven

  Samuel and Sarah rode back into town in relative quiet. Lush trees coming to life with spring lined this stretch of road. The sky was a brilliant bright blue. A light breeze kept the air from getting stale or overly hot. When they were about halfway to town, Sarah shifted to Samuel and said, “Can I ask you something?”

  “Of course,” Samuel answered.

  “It’s rather personal, and you might find it intrusive. I should tell you that up front.”

  “How about this?” Samuel spoke amiably. “You ask me, and if I find I don’t wish to answer, I will tell you so.”

  “Okay,” Sarah answered softly. She was quiet for a moment. Samuel figured she was gathering her thoughts, which couldn’t have been truer. “There seem to be a lot of things about you I don’t know, a lot of unanswered questions, if you will. Would you say this is an accurate statement?”

  Not sure where she was going with this, Samuel felt he needed to be candid. “Yes, I would say that’s accurate.”

  “Can you tell me why it is you won’t tell me more about yourself? You explained why you can’t tell me about your business. I get this feeling, though, that there’s more to you. I’m not sure if that makes sense.”

  “I think I understand, and I’ll do the best I can to answer,” Samuel uttered somberly. “The mayor asked me to keep my business to myself for the time being. You already know that. There is also something in my past that I’ve not shared. Even though it has nothing to do with my business here, it could cause problems for the town right now. It’s not anything illegal or nefarious. Some things, though, no matter how innocent, might exacerbate the current situation in Larkspur. If it weren’t for this whole Eligible Female business, it wouldn’t be an issue. With so many unknown people in town, though, I need to keep some things private for the safety of John and Ida as well as others.”

  “Does the mayor know all of these things you won’t tell me about?”

  “Yes. I am not a secretive or dishonest person by nature. Mayor Smith knows about my business here as well as the things in my past which could potentially cause problems. I haven’t kept any secrets from him.”

  Samuel took his eyes from the road and let them settle on Sarah for a moment, concerned her feelings might be hurt because he had told the mayor things he had not told her. The look on her face was open, though, showing no hurt. Relief flowed through him. It appeared Miss Sarah Jenkins had been doing some growing up. Samuel’s heart swelled with pride in the beautiful enchanting woman sitting next to him.

  Some women would be satisfied with who they were and would have no desire to better themselves. Not Sarah, though. She truly wanted to be the woman God desired her to be. Without a doubt, she was an exceptional woman. Samuel knew he was well beyond the point at which he could change the state of his affections. Watching the changes in Sarah, witnessing her desire to grow and to confront things about herself that she did not like, knowing she desired to be less inflexible in her habits and thoughts… if he had been at all hesitant about his feelings for Sarah, watching these changes in her had unquestionably sealed the fate of his heart.

  “Will you ever tell me about your past and what you are doing here?”

  “Absolutely,” was Samuel’s emphatic answer. “Sarah,” he said, glancing over at her to make eye contact before returning his eyes to road ahead. “I care about you, and I want you to have a chance to get to know me without any secrets so you can decide if you care about me, too. I have not pressed my suit because I know there is a lot left unsaid between us right now. As soon as the mayor gives me the okay, though, I will come courting, and I will tell you everything you want to know.”

  A blush rose up in Sarah’s cheeks at Samuel’s words. “C-courting?” she asked.

  Samuel slowed the horses to a stop so he could turn to Sarah and give her his full attention. “I am a man of my word, and the only reason I haven’t answered all your questions is because I gave my word. You deserve to know where I stand, though, even if I can’t tell you everything yet. Would you be opposed to my courting you?”

  He didn’t even realize he was holding his breath until Sarah gave him a shy smile. As Samuel pulled in a long draught of air, Sarah said softly, “I would like that.”

  “Good,” was the only word Samuel could get past his lips, and the effort it took to get that single word out was enough put quite a strain on him. Sweat trickled down his back as he held himself still, resisting the urge to lean in closer to the woman sitting beside him. He wanted to kiss Sarah more than he’d ever thought possible. She was stunning and Samuel knew for sure and certain he would do whatever it took to keep her by his side for all his days.

  The trust radiating from her eyes stopped Samuel from taking liberties he knew he shouldn’t. Much as he felt himself being pulled to those beautiful smiling lips, Samuel resisted. It took all of his willpower, all of his self-control, but resist he did. There was a lot about him Sarah did not know. Kissing her would be amazing. An electric current thrummed through him at the thought of such a shared intimacy. Until he could tell Sarah everything, though, he needed to hold back.

  When he kissed her for the first time, he planned on it being the kind of kiss that staked his claim for all time. He didn’t feel he could do that, though, until she knew everything there was to know about him. Then, if she was still interested in spending time with him or being courted by him, he would kiss her for all he was worth. And if it ended up that he couldn’t persuade her with words, then a couple of honest, well-placed kisses would have to do the job for him.

  With a firm nod of admonition directed at himself, Samuel put the buggy in motion again. The sooner they got back into town, the safer it would be for both him and Sarah. Samuel had always thought of himself as a man with above average self-control. Sitting in the buggy with Sarah, outside the realm of prying eyes, though, was melting his self control faster than ice cream in July. His brain was turning to mush, to boot. He needed to get some distance between them so he would stop thinking about kissing her. As long as they remained in the buggy together, he was certain kissing Sarah would be the only thing on his mind.

  ****

  Sarah was relieved when Samuel put the buggy into motion again. The look in his eyes had been… intense. Every bone in her body had begun to soften and melt. His gaze, hot against her skin, would have sent her up in smoke had it lasted much longer, she was sure. She didn’t know how to explain the sensations coursing through her, but she knew one thing for sure – Reverend Green had never mentioned feeling like THAT when he’d preached on propriety!

  ****

  The remainder of the week moved by in quick order. Sally, the maker of the triple layer chocolate cake, was staying with the Peterson family. Word in town was that the young man who won her cake at the auction had been by to visit every evening. Sarah estimated he was about twenty years younger than Sally. Men often married women significantly younger than them, of course, so it shouldn’t matter. It seemed odd, though, for a young man to take an interest in a woman that much older than he. More than a few eyebrows in town had been raised as the gossip was passed from one person to the next.

  As she stood in the stage office Thursday morning looking at the flood of mail that had been sorted by age and education, Sarah began to question the amount of work she’d put into it. Not one woman from Larkspur had been by to l
ook at the letters, and it was clear from the smile she’d seen on Sally’s face the day before that age did not have as much impact on successful matches as Sarah had first thought.

  As Sarah was mulling over the idea of mismatched ages in relationships, she heard the door behind her open. Knowing the Martinez boys had stayed home to help their dad today, Sarah shifted around to greet her customer. Alice Jones, the older woman whose cobbler Samuel had bid on, stood there.

  “Mrs. Jones, it’s so nice to see you today. What can I do for you?”

  Mrs. Jones glanced over to where Samuel sat, engrossed in a newspaper, and then back at Sarah. She approached the counter and asked softly, “Might I have a word with you in private?”

  Before Sarah could even think of a reason to ask Samuel to leave, the man stood up and yawned. “I’m going to fall asleep if I sit here any longer. Think I’ll go take a walk about outside and stretch my legs. The fresh air will do me good.” He was out the door as fast as if Mrs. Jones and Sarah had begun discussing what it was like to birth a baby.

  Sarah chuckled and said to Mrs. Jones, “Well, I guess that takes care of that. What can I do for you today, ma’am?”

  Mrs. Jones gave Sarah a steady look square in the eyes and asked, “Can I count on you to keep this conversation confidential?”

  “Yes, ma’am, absolutely.” Sarah thought for a second and then added, “Unless you are telling me you are about to do something illegal. Then I’d have to tell the sheriff. And if you confess to murder or robbery, I’d have to tell him about that too.” Seeing impatience flair on Mrs. Jones’ face, Sarah reigned herself in. “Sorry. I don’t know what you’re going to say, so I’m afraid to promise in case it’s a promise I can’t keep. I’m overthinking again. Please forgive me. Go ahead. What can I do for you?”

  “Sometimes I think your mind is simply too big for this small town, Sarah.” Shaking her head, Mrs. Jones continued, “A nice gentleman bought my cobbler at the auction. The thing is, we didn’t suit well.”