The Widow's Touch (A Whimsical Select Romance Novella) (3 page)

“Where are you from,
Sheriff?” she asked.

“I lived in Ohio before here, but I was born in Maryland.”

“And were you a lawman back in Ohio?”

He nodded his head
. “My father was a sheriff and his father as well.  And his before that was a judge.  I hail from a long line of peacemakers,” he said, proudly.

“And what brought about your leaving
Ohio to come to our little town?”

He paused a moment before he spoke. 
“My wife passed away during childbirth, and as there was nothing beholding me to stay behind, I moved along.”

“I’m very sorry a
bout your wife, Sheriff Finley,” she said with smiling sympathy, and deeply felt for his pain when the dark shades of sadness in his voice nearly brought a tear to her eye.  “And your child?” she asked.  “Did he or she survive?”

Sheriff Finley
shook his head. 

“I’m very sorry to hear that
as well. That is dreadfully sad.”

They reached the crossroads
of the walking plank and Andy, a young boy about town, came rounding the corner like Hell had been chasing after him.  He ran into Eloda and it knocked him to the floor of the walkway.  If not for Jack’s interference, she’d had been pitched to the boards as well, but the sheriff claimed her into his arms and saved her the humiliation.

When the boy saw that it was Eloda
that he had struck, his eyes widened and he scurried like a startled crab across the wooden planks.  Andy visibly swallowed hard, but slowly rose to his feet and addressed her. 

“
I didn’t mean it, Mrs. Timmons,” he rushed out, breathless, and he nearl
y
convulsed in anguish.  “I swear, I didn’t mean it!” he exclaimed.

“Apparently you
terrify even the youngest of men in this town,” Jack said, and a lopsided smile bent at his lips.

Eloda looked at
the sheriff and back to the boy.  Taking the boy by the shoulders, Eloda leaned slightly down, as his height wasn’t far beneath her own.  Her eyes fastened themselves on him and she gave him a slight shake.  “Andy, quit fretting,” she ordered.  “I’ll hear no more about it.  It was just a mishap, is all,” she pressed.  The boy finally nodded and relief washed over his face.  “You go on and get back home and take care of your mother, you hear?”

The boy looked
at the sheriff and back to her and he was hesitant to leave.

“Truly, all is well
,” Eloda repeated, and then she smiled and soothed the child’s uneasiness.

Again, h
e looked at the sheriff and then back to her.  With a slight nod, he turned around and ran as fast as his legs would take him towards his home.

“That’s the first time
since I’ve arrived that I heard someone use his given name,” Jack stated.  “I’ve noticed the whole of the town just calls him The Bastard, even to the poor youth’s face.”

“Yes, I’m aware,” she
sighed.  She straightened her veil and skirt that which was misaligned after the boy bumped into her.  “This town isn’t overly abundant with compassion for the sake he and his mother are of the lowly sort.  Yet there’s not a shopkeeper in this town who’ll hire his mother so she can earn a decent wage,” she said angrily.  “I suspect it’ll be much the same for the boy once he becomes full grown,” she added.  She looked up at the sheriff and excitedly grasped his arm.  “I think if you decide not to send me to the gallows, I shall see to it that he and his mother are placed under my employ at the ranch.  I’m sure I can figure out some task they can do, especially now that Mister Timmons is no longer there.”

Jack Finley looked down into her eyes and a slow smile crept on his lips. “If it should come to the gallows
, I do believe I’d sorely miss the opportunity of getting to know you better, Eloda.”

“Then, sir,” she said
, and returned an even wider smile of her own.  “See to it that my neck remains firmly intact and neither of us will find need to be disappointed.”

Eloda didn’t need to step into the church to know she’d receive a poor reception from the hypocrites within; she knew it before she had left the house.  She had received similar reactions upon each of her husbands’ deaths.  And again, as the last three times, Reverend Tilden gave his sermon on the corruption of women, stressing the evils of Jezebel, Delilah, and Athaliah within his service.

Eloda
found slight distraction from the minister’s word when the light of the oil lamp chandelier flickered in step to the preacher’s wrathful tone.  The small, one-room church accommodated eighty people comfortably, but there was well over one-hundred in attendance.  Every lungful of air she inhaled felt as if it was castoff from another one’s breath.  Even the artistic designs inserted within the stained glass windows didn’t fully divert her from Reverend Tilden’s enraged-filled speech.

“
The crowd beat and stabbed her to death!” the minister shouted through his gray, overgrown imperial mustache.  His mustache not only covered the space of one cheek to the other, but was so full that it invaded and conquered the region of his lips as well. His white collar stood out like a beacon and contradicted the silent implication that he was a compassionate and understanding man. 

“And h
er death brought rejoicing into the land!” he continued and roared about the killing of Athaliah, but there wasn’t a parishioners who sat in church that didn’t know he was referencing Eloda.  He held his well-worn, black bible tightly in his hand and thrust it forward and upward and accentuated his point.  He lowered his bible and held it against the suit of his chest and turned his head to Eloda.  The preacher glared at her so there was no mistake made to his congregation that his sermon was about her.

“
And there was no one who cried at her funeral,” he shouted, and he sneered directly at Eloda.

Eloda stood.  She
had heard enough.  In previous years the minister hadn’t been so direct, and most certainly never implied that the town should take matters of justice into their own hands. The smirks, snickers, and wicked glares that arose from his dreadful sermon only added to her exasperation. 

“If you cannot handle knowing the damnation that you’ll face, Mrs. Timmons, perhaps you should
n’t return to my services again,” the minister called out to her as she walked down the aisle towards the door.

“As this is God’s house, I’ll refrain from saying
the words that are most definitely lingering on my tongue.  But my advice to you, Reverend Tilden, is before you judge and damn a person in your congregation, you might want to reconcile your own offenses against God,” she countered.  Eloda pressed her way further down the aisle, but it was congested by the men who hadn’t been provided a seat.  She noticed ahead of her that Jack Finley was one of those people.  He stood near the door with his hand on the latch.  Like an angel, he stayed ready to sanction her exit from Hell.  His eyes were dark, narrowed, and a look of concern glistened in his eye when their gazes met.

“Whore,” a man
uttered from the pews as she walked toward the door.  The word was then repeated by the woman, his wife, who sat aside him.

Eloda
stopped.  She turned and looked at the man.  It was Emmett Knotting, a man she’d known since he was a boy.  She didn’t like him then and cared even less for him as a man.  He was well regarded for treating women and livestock with the same poor regard. 

“Truly, sir, that’s the best you have to offer?  I’ll have you know that I
was faithful to each one of my husbands, even when you came sniffing around my skirts asking otherwise,” she clipped out.  She looked directly at the man’s wife of fifteen years and dared for either she or her husband to dispute her.  Neither chose to take the challenge.  Eloda returned her stare toward the minister again.  “Perhaps, Reverend Tilden, you should consider a sermon on adultery next week. It’d suit you and many others in this town to hear it.” She pushed through a few more men and was close to her escape but was compelled to stop when she heard the reverend’s wife shrieking out her wrathful words.

“I’ll not hear such blasphemy about my husband
who is a direct servant of God, especially from a woman who has made it her vocation in life to kill her husbands!” 

The woman, who at full height didn’t reach the top of the pump organ aside her, was dressed in black from head to toe
even though she wasn’t in mourning.  Eloda was certain the woman had been born in the same drab clothing, as she had never worn anything otherwise.  Her gray hair was forced into a knot on the top of her head, and was pulled back so tightly that it emphasized her bulging gray eyes.  They were so pale and lifeless that they looked to belong to a person who had been long dead.

“
Reverend Tilden is an honorable and faithful servant unto God and this town.  He has served this community in spirituality for over forty years!  He’s a God-fearing man with virtue beyond your understanding and he would never consider taking up with another woman as you have submitted to this congregation!”

Eloda quirked her head to the side and
she looked perfectly contrite when she gazed over the woman.  “I’m sorry, Mrs. Tilden,” she said sweetly, and the woman nodded her head in satisfaction.  “There must be some confusion,” Eloda continued.  “I don’t recall stating his participation was with that of a woman.”  Leaving a dumbfounded expression on Mrs. Tilden’s face, and a mortally pale one upon the Reverend Tilden, Eloda marched out the door.

Sheriff Finley
followed her out of the church.  Eloda had just made it to the bottom rung of the steps when he gently clasped her arm and stepped ahead of her.

“I must ask,” he said, and a playful smile teased at the corner of his lips.  “Has there ever been a time you’ve walked away from confrontation without debate?”

Eloda looked at him and thought hard on his question. She angled her head to the side and grinned.  “Now that you make mention of it, no, I don’t believe there has.”

Jack laughed.  He secured his hat onto his head and walked
Eloda to her carriage.  She wasn’t sure if the sheriff followed her as a lawman who had been concerned for her safety or as a man who was worried about her emotional state after being cornered and threatened by the town.  Either way, she appreciated it.  Even though he’d more than likely arrest her for murder before the week passed, he was her only friend in town.

“Are you not
worried that the townspeople will think you are consorting with the enemy, Sheriff?”  She watched him closely and the heat within her started to rise despite the cold Sunday morning.  He was garbed in a cobalt suit that heightened the intensity in his blue eyes.  There was something about how he stared down at her that went beyond professional interest and she swallowed hard.  “Being new to this town is hard enough with finding friends, as I’m sure you have found.  But if you should decide to align your loyalties with me, whether professional or otherwise, you will have a long row to hoe when it comes to gaining trusts and friendships with people of this town.”

“Well, ma’am, considering I’m not overly fond of a great number of people in this town, I
don’t rightly expect I’ll be too sore at such an outcome.”

“
I am pleased to hear that, Jack.”  She accepted his offered hand and allowed him to guide her into the seat of her buckboard carriage.  Once Eloda settled herself in by straightening her skirts and bonnet, she looked down upon him. 

S
he waved her arm toward the church. “Now that the preacher has stated they have God’s approval to seek out justice on their own, they’ll be eager to accommodate him,” she said, and Jack nodded his agreement.  “I’m not frightened of them, mind you, I can take care of myself,” she said with more bravado than she felt. “But most my servants and their families live on my land, and I’d be sorely upset to see any of them come to harm,” she continued.  “I’d kindly appreciate it if you would take extra caution in seeing to their safety.”

“I’ll not let it come to that, I assure you
.” 

He said it with such authority that she believed him. 
The man truly knew exactly what to say and how to say it, Eloda decided. 

“You know, Jack, i
f this town catches wind that I’m in serious consideration of making you husband number five, they’ll surely have their skivvies in a knot.”  Eloda smiled and slapped the reins onto her horses’ backs and set the wagon into motion.   His loud and pleasingly coarse voice rang out in laughter as she departed. 

The
man didn’t realize she was serious.

“You’re here to arrest me, aren’t you, Sheriff?” she called out to him.  She walked down the clean white steps of the porch that sharply contrasted against her black mourning clothes.  The sheriff stepped from his buckboard wagon and it was his conveyance that gave his intent away.  Eloda knew if his only purpose was to call on her, he would’ve ridden his horse.  Yet there he was with his wagon, and Jack demonstrated his consideration when she saw the blanket on the seat aside him.  She smiled at that.  He was worried about her discomfort during a five minute ride although he intended to place her inside a cold, dreary jail cell at the end of their short journey.