Page 68 of Pistol Perfect
“Another payment missed and they lose everything. Kitty has one shot to save them, the winning prize would earn her freedom from a dastardly uncle, if only she had the chance to make it.
“Thad is setting up the Deadwood annual shooting tournament and thinks he’s solved Kitty’s problem by setting up a women’s division. There’s no prize, but she can compete. With her continued pressure, he realizes there’s more to the story, but his hands are tied. If he allows a woman to compete against the men, all the donors could pull out and he would be a laughingstock.”
“That’s it?” James asked when Carol stopped.
“That’s all she wrote.” Carol lifted her hands.
“Even if she lost her house, they got married, so there was a happily ever after.” Mabel personally would rather have her family than a house. It was just a building. Love was worth so much more.
“Interesting,” Carol murmured.
James tapped the table thoughtfully. “I’d love to know more about their story. But also, where did the pistol go from there?”
Chapter 22
Mabel looked at herpaper.
“Mine doesn’t say where it went. I have Sharpshooter Violet Taylor married Pastor Carson Davis on July 1, 1911. Keeping secrets threatened to ruin our shot at love. But when we found the courage to come clean to each other, the smoke cleared, and we were able to joyfully embrace what promises to be a bright future together.”
“It’s no good when couples keep secrets from each other.” Mabel was firm in this. Sometimes things were hard to talk about, but a relationship needed trust and openness in order to survive.
“I’m not sure mine says where they were, either. It says, Violet Taylor leads a double life. She performs in a traveling show as the mysterious Masked Marvel, a daring and commanding sharpshooter. But in real life, she holds back and allows others to lead the way. When an accident puts her arm in a sling, she has to scramble to protect the secret of her identity as the Masked Marvel. So she enlists the help of her identical twin sister, a ‘townie’ dressmaker, to secretly swap places until her arm heals. But that means she must also take on her sister’s role as director of a children’s church program. There’s just one hitch. Her sister’s sweet on Pastor Carson, the program’s codirector, so Violet has to make sure not to mess anything up with him.
“Pastor Carson Davis became guardian to an orphaned nine-year-old six months ago and has been struggling to build a relationship with the boy ever since. It’s to the point where he’s begun to wonder if he’s even fit to be a pastor. Could finding himself a wife who’d be a proper mother figure for his foster son be the solution?
“As Violet and Carson work together on the children’s program, the attraction between them grows. But awareness of her sister’s feelings and guilt over her deception hold Violet back.
“Little does she know that Carson is harboring secrets of his own...”
Carol looked over the paper. “Oh, here it says the pistol was in Larkin, Missouri.”
“Missouri?” James exclaimed. “It’s traveling south. There doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason about how it gets to where it goes.”
“That does seem to be a mystery. Although it might have happened like it did for us—Carol brought it when she moved from Oklahoma. Maybe it was sent with an aunt or other relative who wanted to see their charges married.”
“Or their nephews.” Carol smiled.