Chevonne: Bride of Oklahoma (American Mail-Order Bride 46) by Leighann Dobbs

mercantile and that Trey’s destination was in the opposite direction.
    As she hurried toward the building on North Broadway, the conversation she’d had with Trey in the buggy played back in her head. Her heart kicked with excitement--Trey was as interested in new improvements as she was and, unlike most men, he didn’t seem adverse to women taking part in new things.
    Would he embrace Gram’s ideas? She glanced down at the envelope she took from her bag as she pushed the post office door open. Maybe it was better to wait until she heard back from the Patent Office. Chevonne was glad the post office lobby was empty. She didn’t want anyone to know her business.
    The bespectacled clerk behind the counter shot a look at her from underneath drawn eyebrows. “You’re too late. The mail train’s already come and gone.”
    “I want to get this in now to go out tomorrow .” Chevonne stepped up to the counter and slid the envelope across to him.
    He frowned down at it. “Ain’t got no address.”
    “I’d like to send it to the United States Patent Office, but I don’t know the address. I was hoping you could look it up.”
    The man’s eyes narrowed. “What do I look like, a librarian?”
    “Well ... no ... It’s just I thought you had a directory of government offices.”
    “A directory, you say?” The man made a harrumphing noise, then bent down, pulled out a thick book and slapped it onto the counter. “Yep. We got a directory. Now, what office did you say you wanted to send this to?”
    “The United States Patent Office,” Chevonne said clearly, since she suspected the ornery man was slightly deaf.
    The man pushed his spectacles up on his nose, opened the book, licked his index finger and started turning the pages very slowly.
    The book was over two inches thick. If he was going to go through it that slowly, Chevonne feared she’d be there for a week.
    “Patent Office ... Let’s see now ... “ He frowned at the book and flipped pages back and forth.
    Chevonne tapped her foot, anxiety ratcheting up inside her with each passing second as the clerk thumbed through pages. She glanced out the large window onto the street. What would she say if Trey caught her in here?
    “Here it is.” The clerk spun the book around and pointed at an address, then shoved a pen and ink pot across to her.
    Relief flooding through her, Chevonne quickly addressed the envelope and paid for the postage. Spinning away from the counter in a hurry to get out, she bumped into someone who had come up silently behind her. “Oh, excuse me.” Her heart nearly stopped beating when she saw who she’d bumped into: Sarah Perkins.
    “Well, if it isn’t Trey Garner’s mail-order bride .” Sarah spoke the words loudly, prompting a raised eyebrow from the clerk.
    A prickle of annoyance rose up in Chevonne. “Sarah, how lovely to see you again.” Chevonne added a fake smile to her sarcasm and moved to the right to get past the annoying woman.
    Sarah stepped to the right, blocking any escape. “What brings you in here?”
    “I mailed a letter.” Chevonne darted left, brushing quickly past Sarah and out the building.
    Her heart pounded in her chest and her stomach roiled with nerves as she ran to the mercantile. She dashed down the store’s aisle to the fabric section and sought out the sheer curtain fabrics. She didn’t lose much time selecting one, since the selection was rather meager. She calculated how much she needed for all the windows in the ranch house, based on Trey’s numbers.
    When a clerk came to gather up the amount of bolts she needed, she requested the white canvas, the precise sizes of canvas sheets Trey’s paper specified. It wasn’t long before she and all the packages of fabric were delivered by the store’s clerk to the walkway before the store to await Trey.
    Chevonne glanced over her shoulder to make sure Sarah Perkins wasn’t around. She wasn’t sure how long Sarah had been standing behind her at the post