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It was funny how a person could lie to themselves when they wouldn’t utter a lie to someone else.
“I bet your girls loved that,” Miss June said as she climbed the stairs to the front porch.
“They’re doing a great job with her. I was teaching them how to feed her, and I think that probably the older two especially will be able to feed her on their own, if she continues to do well.”
“There’s nothing like growing up on a farm for raising kids.”
Miss April and Miss June nodded at Miss Helen’s words.
Mabel couldn’t disagree. She was happy and grateful that James had had the foresight to buy this property, and that it had come with such a huge house. She could imagine them filling it with children over the years. The idea made her smile.
“I brought you a casserole, and if it’s okay, I’ll just slip in the house and put it on the counter,” Miss April said, holding up the casserole that Mabel had not noticed until then.
“I’m so sorry. Yes, of course. Carol is in there, along with James, and I’m sure they can take it from you.”
She opened the door and held it while Miss April walked in.
She got Miss June and Miss Helen seated, and they’d started talking about the weather when Miss April came out with Carol and James.
They all settled on seats on the porch and casually watched the children play in the yard with a ball someone had found in the shed.
“I heard something about a pistol, a matchmaking pistol. Now, are you going to tell me that Sweet Water has their own matchmakers, a matchmaking steer, and now we have a matchmaking pistol?” Miss April looked from Mabel to James to Carol.
Carol looked guilty.
“Carol?” Miss April said, as though prompting her to go ahead and spill the truth.
Carol couldn’t contain herself. “It’s all my fault. When I was living in Oklahoma, I heard about the pistol. It belonged to Annie Oakley and was supposed to have some kind of matchmaking qualities. I knew that my nephew,” she beamed at James, “had carried a torch for Mabel for years. I just had some loose idea in my head that the pistol might be able to bring them together. But the pistol always has to be passed through the woman. And I didn’t know how I was going to give it to Mabel until, lo and behold, she volunteered to move in with me.”
“James, you didn’t have anything to do with that, did you?” Miss Helen said with a knowing gleam in her eye.
“I don’t think I did. Maybe. Can I plead the fifth?” James stammered a little, which made Mabel want to laugh. She was pretty sure he didn’t have anything to do with her moving in. Carol had just needed someone to live with her, and Mabel had volunteered. After all, Lark had needed the extra bedroom to house more girls, and the location wasn’t far from Lark’s farm, so Mabel figured that if they needed her there, it would be a short ride.
“It was an easy decision, but more because of Lark needing room at her farm than because of James.”
“Oh, we all knew that you had no idea that James even existed,” Miss June said, waving her hand.
Mabel gritted her teeth and looked at James. She didn’t want to hurt his feelings, and she was afraid that might have, but he looked casual, like he already knew that, and the ladies weren’t saying anything that he hadn’t already accepted as truth. Mabel had to admit that she appreciated that.
“Anyway, the pistol supposedly has a list of the ladies who have been matched by it, and at some point, Mabel needs to add her name to the list.”
“The pistol didn’t match me.”
“Didn’t? You didn’t get together with James until after we got the pistol.”
“Is it true that you shot James?” Miss April said, as though she couldn’t contain that question any longer.
Mabel bit her tongue, then she nodded. “Yes. That is true.” She put up a finger. “But it was an accident. A true accident.”
The ladies didn’t look like they were sure whether or not they believed that. Thankfully James stepped in to her rescue.
“It was. She was taking the pistol out of the box and fumbled it a little bit. It went off and nipped me on my foot. Thankfully, Mabel used her doctoring skills to fix me up, and I’m good as new.”
“Interesting story. Bet your children will love to hear that one.”
“We haven’t told it to them yet. We didn’t want to scare them on their first day here,” James said, winking.
The girls probably weren’t the children that Miss April had meant, but Mabel appreciated the fact that James considered them their legitimate children.
