Read Online Heart of Mercy (Tennessee Dreams) by Sharlene MacLaren - Free Book Online Page A

Spanish accent. “Miss Evans, she already name her future husband.”
    All ears had perked, including Sam’s, as she’d taken her time setting the tray of goods in the center of the big round table. “That so?” Bill had asked, stretching out his fat paw to snatch up a jelly roll. “Who’s the lucky feller?”
    Juanita had straightened, shifted to one side, and placed a hand on her round hip. One black eyebrow had jutted higher than the other. “Harold Beauchamp.”
    Sam had coughed, not so much from his continued bouts of congestion since the fire but from the fact that his coffee had gone down the wrong pipe at her response. A few surprised gasps had filtered through the room, followed by spurts of laughter. “The Paris postmaster?” someone had asked. “Are you sure?”
    “Sí, señor. I hear it from the man who bring my mail to me.”
    “Well, ain’t that somethin’?”
    “What’s he know about raisin’ young’uns?”
    “Who says it’s them young’uns he’s interested in?”
    “What in all creation does she see in him?”
    The questions and remarks had kept up until Sam had heard enough and pushed back in his chair, its legs screeching loudly across the grainy concrete floor. He’d tossed a few coins on the table, nodded his thanks at Juanita, then stalked out the door, his dander up for reasons he couldn’t identify. Why should it matter one whit whom Mercy Evans chose to marry?
    But even as he’d strode through the shop door that morning and fired up the forge, he’d mulled over the idea of offering her his hand. She’d probably chase him right out of her house, but it was worth a shot, even if she refused. He cared about the future of those little boys, and he frankly couldn’t see Beauchamp having the energy or desire to invest a lot of time in them. Not that he wasn’t a nice enough guy, but what did Mercy see in that balding, pudgy bachelor, who had to be nearing his mid-forties?
    Now Sam decided to test his uncle’s reaction to the notion of approaching her. “You hear about Mercy Evans and her search for a husband?”
    “Yep.” His uncle kept his eyes on his task, using a mallet to fix an angle, then laying it down and taking up a file to perfect the shape to his liking.
    “You ever talk to her?”
    “Nope.” The filing motion made a swish, swish sound.
    “She’s a pretty thing.”
    “Yep.”
    “I been thinkin’ ’bout…makin’ her an offer, I guess you could say.”
    Uncle Clarence stilled his hands, and he looked up, his thin lips barely visible beneath his bushy mustache. Still, Sam swore he detected the faintest upturn of the corners of his mouth. However, his gray eyes refused to give away any emotion. “That so?”
    “You think it’s foolhardy o’ me?”
    “Depends on your motive, I guess.”
    “My motive?” Sam stood the ancient cornhusk broom in a corner and set the dustpan alongside it, then reached around to untie his apron and lifted it over his head.
    “Sure. Are you lookin’ for a permanent place to hang your hat? The fastest way to pull your mother’s chain? Are you marryin’ for love?”
    “Love? Heck, no!” A tiny knot of guilt rolled around in his gut. “I won’t deny it’d be nice to have my own place.”
    “It wouldn’t be your place. It’d be hers.”
    “Yeah, but she’s advertisin’ for a husband. I would expect she’d be willin’ to share her house with ’im.”
    “I wouldn’t expect much more than that from her.”
    Sam caught his uncle’s drift, and a wave of warmth stole into his cheeks. Made him glad for the shop’s dimming light. “It’d be a purely legal arrangement, nothin’ more.”
    “Uh-huh. And how long would you stand for that?”
    “Uncle Clarence!”
    “She’s an Evans, son. I don’t have to warn you what the outcry would be, from both families, if you two hitched up.”
    How quickly he’d breezed past the subject of keeping the union strictly platonic. “It’s those boys I’m thinkin’ about.