Clouded by Doubts: A Pair of Historical Romances
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Penny Wise And Pound Foolish – When a woman sees the shambles of a trading post in Colorado where she is to become the bookkeeper for her uncle, she almost turns around and runs out the door – until, later, a bible salesman with a broken wheel stops by.
Riders From The Storm - The widow of a clergyman heads off to be a mail order bride to a Civil War vet with PTSD. She knows he’s troubled about the war and soon, she is drawn into his terrors; all of which appear to be focused on a tornado.
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Clouded by Doubts - Doreen Milstead
Clouded by Doubts: A Pair of Historical Romances
By
Doreen Milstead
Copyright 2016 Susan Hart
Penny Wise And Pound Foolish
Riders From The Storm
Penny Wise And Pound Foolish
Synopsis: Penny Wise And Pound Foolish – When a woman sees the shambles of a trading post in Colorado where she is to become the bookkeeper for her uncle, she almost turns around and runs out the door – until, later, a bible salesman with a broken wheel stops by.
When Penelope opened the door of the trading post and saw the mess inside, she sat on the pickle barrel and began to sob. "Why, oh why, did I come to this hateful place with its dust and sun and rattlesnakes and Indians and now… bandits? What was I thinking of? I should have stayed in Sherbourne.
Of course she knew why. It was the distaste on the haughty, chinless faces of her grandparents when they looked at her mother and their refusal to let her be buried in the family tomb when typhoid claimed both her parents, or to help in any way.
She’d had to walk out to the family seat to attend her father’s funeral and sneak into the back of the family chapel so she wouldn’t be seen. She had nobody and nowhere to go to in Dorset after that and no place in Sherbourne she could call home.
Her grandparents had made quite sure that no one from the area bought anything her mother’s millinery shop which was the only way they could feed themselves after her parents-in-law had cut them off, so that it was a dying proposition even before her mother’s death.
She had tried briefly to make a living doing what only a woman can do, but hated it from the beginning and wasn’t any good at it anyway.
She had to, really had to, make the journey to Colorado to throw herself on the mercy of her mother’s much loved brother, Joe. She’d heard so much about him and just knew he’d take her in. Perhaps she could help him out at the Trading Post, doing the books as she had for her mother.
And so, she traveled to Ft. Collins, Colorado.
Joe welcomed her there and took her to LaPorte where the trading post was. She took over his chaotic bookkeeping and everything seemed to be going swimmingly despite the dirt, the heat, and the rough customers and then he died, like her parents had--not from typhoid but from the knife of a drunken miner.
Where, she wondered, was this the God her mother thought so much of?
Why did he hate her?
Or, was he malicious instead of good as her mother had thought? Would she be cursed with death and misfortune forever?
She had nowhere to go and possessed nothing but the trading post and its goods. She had to stay put, so she did and was making it work.
The Trading Post was in an excellent position, on the banks of the Cache la Poudre River alongside the road that went over the mountains from Kansas to Salt Lake City where it was crossed by the road from Denver to Cheyenne.
There was a constant traffic of trappers, hunters, immigrants, buffalo skinners and the occasional band of Arapaho Indians who hadn’t gone into the new reservation. Uncle Joe had been good to the Arapahoes, unlike many shopkeepers and even gave them goods on credit late in the winter when their caches were empty.
Both she and Joe had been well liked and the local customers had been helpful and supportive. In the two weeks since Joe had died, she’d made many mistakes, learnt a lot, and was beginning to break even.
And now this!
By this timer, Penelope had remembered that she was making it work. If she did it then, she could do it now. She would start by seeing what they had taken. The first thing she checked was her Colt .45, under the floor beneath her pickle barrel.
It was still there.
Thank God the bandits hadn’t liked pickles.
From now on she’d keep it on her person, loaded. Then she’d be ready if they came back. Thank God her beloved patrician father, lacking a son, had taught her how to shoot thereby enraging his parents almost as much as marrying beneath him had.
She knew, with the gun, he was thinking of using it for hunting pheasants and rabbits, not bandits.
Little by little, Penelope cleaned up the shop, discovering that the bandits hadn’t taken as much as they might have. All the money was gone of course, and the ammunition, but not the barrels of beer, blankets or dry goods. They’d stuck to what they could carry easily, only two or three of them, judging from what was missing.
But the more they left behind, the more likely they’d come back.
Well, she was ready for anything or anyone.
"Shucks, ain’t that a caution. What in tarnation did God think he was doin’, lettin’ the cartwheel rim come off--here in the middle of nowhere and just when there weren’t any cash--no cash at all--to repair it.
Sometimes he was tempted to think God was a trickster as much as a loving father. No wonder He’d so few friends, the way He treated them. But of course, good must come out of this somehow. Luke just knew it.
God had always come through in the end before. He’d do so again.
But what was he to do right now? Nothing, except leave the cart and the bibles in it for now, and go forward by horseback. He was on his way to The Trading Post. It had been a fair piece since he’d been there and Trader Joe would stock up on bibles sure as anything and then help him out--most likely.
Luke unhitched his roan, stuffed some bibles in the saddlebags and set