His eyes were so fixed on the building that he didn’t see the woman he bumped into. “My apologies,” he said, taking off his hat. “It appears I wasn’t looking where I was going.”
The blonde woman scowled at him. “Well, you should pay better attention next time.” She moved in front of him and continued to the door of the post office building.
Jack followed her, wishing she were headed elsewhere. When she turned and glared at him, he said, “It appears we’re going to the same place.”
She shook her head and disappeared inside, closing the door behind her.
It felt odd to simply enter a place that resembled a home, so Jack knocked. When no one answered, he opened it himself and slid inside. The lady he’d bumped into was deep in conversation with another woman, this one with light brown hair and an angelic face. He stood there uncomfortably, in what appeared to be the front room of a house. It had been outfitted with a long wooden counter that split the room in two.
Jack held the satchel awkwardly in front of him, wondering what to do. He finally stepped forward and placed it on the counter.
The brunette glanced at the letters peeking out from the top of the bag and promptly burst into tears.
What was he supposed to do now? Comfort her? Was she the town’s postmaster? The woman with the pale blonde hair glared at him as if he were the reason the other lady was crying. She wrapped an arm around the woman who was sobbing.
“Who are you?” the blonde lady demanded, still glaring at him.
“I’m Jack Wendler,” he replied. “I brought the mail satchel. The, uh, newspaper office asked me to deliver those letters.” Her gaze softened when she glanced at the bag on the counter.
He took a few backward steps toward the door, eager to escape. But the gentleman in him couldn’t simply leave a woman crying. “Will she be all right? Should I fetch someone?”
“She’ll be just fine,” the blonde woman said. “Thank you for delivering the letters.”
Jack took that as his cue to exit. He tipped his hat at the ladies, and slid out the door as quickly as possible. He shut the door behind him and leaned against it in disbelief. If that wasn’t just the oddest thing. Hopefully there were a lot of women in this town, and hopefully most of them were not like either of those ladies.
Stepping away from the post and telegraph office, he wondered if he shouldn’t inquire into a boardinghouse or a hotel. He’d wandered up and down the Stage Coach Road and Main Street until he found a likely place.
Exhausted from his journey, Jack had never slept so well—or so late. When he finally emerged from his room earlier that afternoon, too late even for lunch at the boardinghouse, he went in search of a restaurant. Surely this town had someplace in which a man could get something to eat, or at least a cup of coffee to ward off this cold air. But he’d barely gone a block when women began appearing from all over, moving quickly toward the church. Jack plastered himself against the side of a building to stay out of their way. The weeping woman from yesterday strode by with another lady—this one dressed like a man. It wasn’t long before the town was seemingly empty, and he stood alone on the sidewalk.
A half hour had passed, during which Jack had made a circuit of the town at least four times. He found himself standing in front of a closed restaurant called Dawson’s Diner, dreaming of soup and hearty slices of bread, when the ladies streamed out of the church at the far end of the main street, each of them clutching a stash of letters. Jack strode back up the street, watching them curiously. Some hid smiles while others looked resolute, and many seemed sullen. He recognized the sharp blonde, and then the weepy woman from the post office, now arm-in-arm with a stunning redhead. They all disappeared yet again into various buildings and houses, some of them riding out of town on horseback or in wagons. That was when Pastor Collins had appeared from seemingly nowhere and invited him in for a refreshment.
Now, belly full of food and mind full of Pastor Collins’ strange ramblings, Jack hesitated. A few women had begun emerging from the buildings again, and the town seemed to slowly be reopening for business.
But something strange had started to happen as the women reappeared.
A plain-looking woman passed and smiled shyly at him, while a lady across the street had been watching him for a few minutes. In fact, all the ladies who’d reappeared on the streets of Last Chance glanced at him curiously, some more blatantly than others. He felt like some sort of oddity on display.
It made Jack want to race back to the depot and inquire about the next stage out. What was he doing here? He’d never lived outside the city. He had no experience in anything other than convincing men of means to invest in one of his business ideas—all of which had fallen through. He’d never even gotten to the point of running one of those businesses. And now he was here, in the middle of nowhere, presenting himself as an accomplished businessman. And now all these women were looking at him as if he was someone they might marry.
Jack almost laughed out loud. He’d be someone’s husband. He might even become someone’s father, if the woman who chose him had children.
