Welcome to Tuesday Tales, where authors write to word prompts. This week the word prompt is "flush". Any form of the word is acceptable. Today's segment is from my work-in-progress, "Sam's Decision," book 3 in the historical romance series, "The Catskills Saga."
Just
before the Wilcox family reached the Inn. Hope put her hand on Violet’s arm.
They stopped.
“You know what to do, right?” she
asked her daughter.
Violet nodded.
“You sure?”
“Your future rests on this, young
lady,” Abiel said, his lips pulled down into a frown.
“I know,” Violet said, her eyes
flashing. “I gotta win him over.”
“If you’d have listened to me about
that no-account Zeb…”
“I know Grandpa! I know!” Violet put
her hands over her ears. “He’s not a
no-account.”
“Oh? Then where is he? Now that you’re
in a fix, he’s gone. I’d like to fix his flint,” Abiel said fisting his right
hand.
“Don’t let Sam Chesney know you got designs on him. Let him think you just cotton to him natural like,” Hope said.
“Okay! All right!” Violet's cheek flushed.
“Hush. They’ll hear you,” Hope said,
fluffing out Violet’s skirt.
“She do look mighty pretty in that
frock, Hope,” Abiel said.
“Purple is her best color. I don’t
see how any young man in his right mind could resist such a pretty girl,” Hope
gushed.
Abiel pursed his lips. At least she
wasn’t showing yet. Sam would never know. The Sheriff tried to push thoughts
about what he had asked his granddaughter to do out of his head. He wished
there was another way, but he had to guard her honor and the honor of the
Wilcox name.
Violet pulled out a small bag from
her pocket. “I hope he likes peppermints,” she mumbled.
“Never met a man in his right mind
who didn’t,” Abiel said, opening the door to the Inn.
The Wilcox family crossed the
threshold.
“Well, well, how nice to see you
folks,” Martha said, scurrying out from the kitchen and taking off her apron.
I feel sorry for Violet. She obviously had feelings for Zeb, and now she's being forced to go after Sam. Amazing the length people went to in order to maintain their honor. Unfortunately, some still do. Looking forward to seeing how this plays out. Excellent scene.
ReplyDeleteInteresting -- it always amazes me how, historically, some people twisted themselves into pretzels in order to salvage reputations- even to the extent of this kind of pretense. Clearly Zeb is her man!
ReplyDelete