Mail Order Megan by Elissa Strati

Author:Elissa Strati [Strati, Elissa]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Elissa Strati
Published: 2020-05-15T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER THIRTEEN – Gossip

Ted took a sip of his coffee, closed his eyes, and sighed in satisfaction.

“No one makes better coffee than Señora Suarez.” Reopening his eyes, he turned to the priest. “I trust you will be staying to dine with us after the ceremony?”

“You think it will be that long before the ladies rejoin us?”

“If Miss Maddux takes just half as long as my sister does to dress for anything, we will have a long wait.”

“Then it is good the señora is such a fine cook because I will have built up an appetite.”

“Oh, I think we can trust Miguel and his aunt to provide us a small nuncheon while the ladies prepare.”

“Señora Ortega is here?” Father Rubio’s eyes brightened. “She is even a better cook than her sister!”

“I don’t know. Which of her sisters just had a baby?”

The priest rolled his eyes up as he contemplated. “Well, Rosita had a boy about six months ago, and Sylvia a girl, hmmm, almost a year since, now. I wonder if she is expecting again. And Claudia—yes! Claudia Ortega had a boy about five weeks past. And I understand Miss Maddux has brought a child with her which needs a wet nurse. So that would be the one.”

“How do you know about the child?”

Eyebrows raised, Padre Rubio laughed. “How long have you been here now? Almost a year?”

True, the gossip vine here seemed to grow at the speed of light. He hoped for Megan’s sake her reputation had not suffered.

Taking pity at the sight of the forlorn face before him, he reassured Ted. “Señora Suarez took one look at your fiancée and the baby and knew the child wasn’t hers. And she may have inadvertently overheard,” the good father winked at him, “that the mother died and Miss Maddux is searching for the father. For a single woman to take on such a task in the face of gossip, many of the women already think she’s a saint!”

And they’d been at such pains not to discuss things publicly!

“Well as fast as tales travel here, has anyone found the father yet?”

The padre shrugged his shoulders. “Even by stage, Tombstone is still at least five hours from here. The negros, the friend of Miss Maddux and her miner, stopped to see me to be married, as they were leaving Benson. They will be fortunate to arrive in Tombstone before nightfall. It is good that the days are still long.”

A little stunned by all the revelations of the day, the fact that her companion from the train had been black nearly slipped by without notice. Besides, like many Pennsylvanians, his grandparents had proudly offered their farm as shelter to help escaped slaves reach freedom.

“I can only hope it will be as simple as that, finding the father. As I understand it from Megan, apparently Tom McNeel and his partner Randy Evans hit a motherlode. Shortly thereafter Tom disappeared. According to Moses O’Henry, the fellow whose wedding you just performed, Tom was heading east to fetch his wife and new daughter.

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