Page 5 of May I Kiss the Bride

VIOLA DIDN’T MIND THE GAWKING, not exactly. She’d found it charming the first couple of days. The bakery had also sold clean out by lunchtime. And even though the morning gals whom Aunt Beth had hired were making almost double the breads and pastries, they were still selling out.

“Viola! Come here!”

Viola sighed and wiped her floured hands on her apron.

She’d been assigned pie duty, which she decided she liked over the kneading of bread dough or dipping donuts into hot fry oil.

She headed around the back counter where she worked with a view of the storefront and joined Aunt Beth at the register.

“This key is stuck.”

Again.

Aunt Beth wasn’t exactly a complainer, Viola had been quick to realize, but when she was having a bad day, she had zero patience.

Like today. Her white peppered hair resembled a bird’s nest upon her head, and the rolls of her fleshy neck shone with perspiration.

Summer afternoon in Wyoming in the middle of a bakery was not for the infirm.

“Here.” Viola took ahold of the offending key and wriggled it to the left. The key popped back up. “Now try.”

Beth continued fanning her face with an apple-filling-splotched fan. With her free hand, she poked at the key. A number 8 typed out. “That’ll be eight cents, LeRoy.”

LeRoy, a man with more freckles than a spotted dog, grinned. “Thank ’ee, ma’am. Here’s a dime. Keep the change.” He winked directly at Viola.

“Move on over,” a man behind him demanded. The man clutched a crumpled hat in his hand, his clear blue eyes focused on Viola.

She smiled politely at him, then returned to the pie counter.

“Hey, why can’t the keys stick when I’m being helped?” the man complained when Beth rang up his order of one apple tart without any trouble.

Viola hid both a smile and a sigh. As amusing as all these male patrons were, who happened to be single, available men, at some point everyone needed to do something other than purchase baked goods. Didn’t they have cows to feed and horses to ride? This was the middle-of-nowhere Wyoming, after all.

“You’ll be the belle of the barn dance if you go.” Sidney sidled next to Viola.

The girl, a couple of years younger than Viola, had a gap-toothed smile and eyelashes that went on forever.

“Oh, I don’t think I’m going,” Viola said, picking up from their earlier conversation that felt like hours ago.

A barn dance? In the hay, with everyone stomping around in cowboy boots?

Sounded dreadful. Yes, Viola was helping out her aunt at her bakery, and she did enjoy singing in the church choir—mostly to please Mother though, who’d told Viola to get her aunt to church, “To save her soul.”

Besides, Viola hadn’t taken waltz lessons in order to dance with any of the men staring at her now with their moon eyes and tobacco-stained teeth.

Not every cowboy chewed and spit, that she knew, since the sheriff from the train hadn’t.

At least not on the train … but his teeth had been a nice, clean white too.

Yes, she’d noticed.

Not that she’d thought about him much. Only to wish him well and a full recovery in her private thoughts.

She’d heard the rumors of him recovering in Cheyenne after a surgery to remove the bullet.

Which must have been why he’d been bleeding so much and why she’d fainted …

Who knew she fainted at the sight of blood?

It wasn’t like she’d ever been witness to a train robbery before.

If she did see him again, and that was if …

she’d ask politely after his well-being and hope that he’d forgotten how she was utterly useless in a dire situation.

Instead of running for help, she’d slid to the ground like a discarded rag doll.

Her heart still thundered when she thought about that morning.

Since arriving in Mayfair, she’d learned that not only was Rey the sheriff of this small place, but he was the man. The two shopgirls were half in love with him. She’d learned more about Sheriff Rey in five days than she knew about her ex-fiancé after over five months of courting.

Another reason she was anxious about their first encounter.

Rey was a widower. Had been married to the love of his life—according to the shopgirls Sidney and Della—and he had a daughter from the union.

“Looks just like her mama. Poor Sheriff. Every time he looks at his child, he grieves over his dead wife.”

That logic sounded a bit extreme, but what did Viola know about widowers, or cowboys, for that matter?

“I’ll have one of those peach pies,” a male voice droned from the front counter. “And I’ll pay an extra dollar if the miss can bring it to me herself.”

Viola snapped her gaze up.

The man in question was named Gerald—he’d introduced himself to her each day. And each day, his words became more brazen. Obnoxious, even. Did he know that the end of his rather large nose twitched when he spoke?

Usually, Aunt Beth chased off such comments, but she looked over at Viola expectantly .

“What?” she mouthed, but Beth’s painted-on brows only raised.

In fact, the entire shop of men in line waiting their turn were looking at her. If she did this for an extra dollar, what might tomorrow bring? What choice did she have though? A dollar was a dollar.

She pasted on a smile, then picked up the peach pie nearest to her. Holding it aloft, she walked around the counter and set it down in front of Gerald. “Have a nice day, sir.”

Without waiting for a reply, she turned and walked back to the pie counter.

“Thank you, miss,” Gerald said, his voice having an added squeak to it.

“I want that too,” the next man in line said.

His name started with a W, Viola remembered. She quickly averted her gaze. Making eye contact with him might only encourage him to be more brazen.

“I want the cherry pie, and I’ll pay two extra dollars if the miss brings me the pie and kisses me on the cheek.”

Laughter roared through the bakery, and Viola’s cheeks flamed. She kept her gaze on the crust she’d been rolling out. Anger churned in her stomach, spinning hot. Aunt Beth had better kick the man out, or she would.

Aunt Beth did no such thing because another voice boomed over the laughter. “That’s enough. No special favors. Wallace, you’re out of here, and don’t come back.”

Viola knew that voice. No. No. No. Not here—not like this.

When her hair probably matched the bird’s nest of Aunt Beth’s.

Not to mention being covered in flour and bits of dried pie crust. She dragged her gaze upward to see Wallace sputter.

Red-faced, he spun toward the man who’d dared issued the orders.

Viola already knew who’d walked into the bakery.

All laughter died, and only one set of boots walking forward could be heard.

She couldn’t keep her gaze off the tall cowboy.

His size made the bakery shrink like a dollhouse.

His eyes were the same—green beneath the cowboy hat he’d asked her to hold.

He wasn’t wearing his leather jacket, but his shoulders filled out the denim shirt he wore just as nicely.

Viola’s gaze skated to his torso, seeing a bulk probably from bandaging, and she wondered how his injury was healing.

He could obviously walk and order people out of the bakery … if that was any indication.

When she’d first seen him, he’d been shaved, and now dark whiskers outlined his jaw.

Coupled with his scar, he looked more like an outlaw than an honorable sheriff.

In this moment, Viola saw him as Sidney and Della must—the handsome, strong, tragic widower.

A man of authority and stoicism. Honorable to the bone. Respected by all.

“Sheriff?” Wallace blubbered. “I-I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”

Rey’s hand clamped on to the smaller man’s shoulder. “ Out .”

Wallace nodded, his face even redder. He pushed through the other men, nearly stumbling in the process. When he made it out the door, Rey set a hand on his holstered gun.

“Any other knuckleheads want to be banned from Beth Cannon’s bakery?”

Heads shook, and no’s were mumbled.

Rey’s gaze swept those standing in the bakery line, lingering on a couple of the men. Then he turned to face Aunt Beth. “I hear you have a niece in town helping out.”

Beth’s smile curved wide. “That’s right. She’s all the way from San Francisco. Welcome back yourself, Sheriff. Heard you got shot saving a train full of people. Looks like you’re up and in fine form now.”

“Missed my heart by a mile,” Rey’s deep voice rumbled.

Something flipped in Viola’s stomach. Oh, who was she fooling? Everything inside her was flipping and flopping like a fish on the San Francisco wharf.

Because right then, Sheriff Reynold Christensen finally looked at her.