The Sheriff's Sweetheart by Laurie Kingery Page A

did.”
    â€œAre your parents still living? Do you have brothers and sisters?”
    â€œNo brothers, just three younger sisters, and our parents both died of a fever when I was about sixteen.” His facehad gone bleak, his eyes unfocused as he stared off into the distance.
    She sighed and gazed at him, pity welling up in her. “How awful for you! Did you go to live with grandparents, or an aunt or uncle?”
    His mouth tightened as he pretended great interest in a couple of ants marching determinedly across their picnic cloth. “No, our folks had come there from back East and burned their bridges behind them, I guess you could say.”
    â€œBut there must have been someone,” she said. “Some family to take you in.”
    â€œIf we were willing to be split up, sure. One family was willing to take one of my sisters to mind their handful of young’uns, another wanted me to work on their farm that was about as hardscrabble as ours, another wanted one of my sisters to cook and clean for a family of twelve. And then there was the sixty-year-old widower who was willing to marry the oldest of my sisters—if our farm was included as part of the deal, and the rest of us found another place to live.”
    Prissy couldn’t stifle a gasp of horror.
    â€œBut Bishops take care of their own,” he went on, after a quick glance at her. “They don’t take charity—if you could call what we were offered charity. I worked from sunup to sundown and kept food on the table and clothes on our backs until my sisters were older and made good marriages to good men. Then I left.”
    â€œYou don’t keep in touch with your sisters?”
    He shrugged. “I’ve moved around a fair amount. If they tried, the letters probably got lost in the mail.” He looked back at the ants, who’d been joined by a couple of theirfellows. Prissy sensed there was more to the story than what he was telling.
    â€œWhat about you?” she asked. “Didn’t you try to write to them?”
    He shrugged again. “I wrote a couple of times. Didn’t hear anything back. There’s no telling if they even received them.”
    â€œYou might be an uncle several times over, for all you know.”
    His lips quirked upward. “They’d already had at least two young ’uns apiece last I heard. There’s probably more now. Could be I’ll try writing them again. I’ll probably send it to Etta, the oldest—she’d be the one most apt to write back. I’ll tell her I’ve met this wonderful girl in Simpson Creek with blue eyes and strawberry-blond hair, one Prissy Gilmore by name…”
    Prissy couldn’t help but smile.
    Sam got to his feet, peering at the position of the sun through the gnarled branches of the live oak. “I suppose we’d better get back, before your papa sends out a search party for us,” he said, extending a hand to help her up.
    â€œOr before evildoers take over Simpson Creek,” she responded wryly. She imagined it was likely her father was still enjoying the company of Mariah Fairchild and hadn’t even missed her yet. She only hoped the fair widow hadn’t been invited to supper, too.
    Then she felt guilty for the selfish thought. She had spent a wonderful afternoon with Sam—should her father have to sit home alone, staring at the portrait of her mother that hung in his study?
    But my mother only died a few months ago.
    No. She wouldn’t think of that now. She was too happy to let her worry about the widow spoil her joy. Sam hadbared his very soul to her, daring to confess the real reason for his coming to Simpson Creek, risking her disapproval of the lie he had told her father, promising to confess it and apologize for it soon. And he’d confided in her about his arduous growing up, trusting that she wouldn’t think less of him for his humble beginnings. He wouldn’t do