The Widow's Touch (A Whimsical Select Romance Novella)

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THE ENTANGLEMENT

BITTERSWEET ENDEAVORS

ABIGAIL’S SECRET

THE WIDOW’S TOUCH

THE SOCIAL PARIAH (Coming Soon!)

CONTENTS

Chapter One

C
hapter Two

C
hapter Three

C
hapter Four

C
hapter Five

C
hapter Six

C
hapter Seven

C
hapter Eight

C
hapter Nine

C
hapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

18
73, Caroline County, Virginia

Wh
en they found her fourth husband dead in the cellar, Eloda knew that gaining a fifth would be difficult, and the buckshot that riddled his body didn’t aid her cause.  Forced to take two hours away from her painting, she tried to convince Sheriff Jack Finley that the soul of her husband had long taken off to Hell before a bullet penetrated his person.  But being a man of the law and suspect of everyone, she knew he wouldn’t be easily persuaded.

“I can assure you that I’m
telling the truth,” Eloda said, more than a mite peeved that the man assumed the worst about her character.  “I came down to fetch some wood and spotted a rodent making his dinner of him.  So, I did what any decent wife would do to preserve her husband’s dignity.”

“
You decided to shoot the rodent,” Sheriff Finley said and nodded toward the rifle that was lying next to Peter Timmons, her dead husband.

“
Yes, that was my intent,” she said.  “But a gun in my hands is as unnatural as men having babies, so I missed my mark and hit poor Peter’s already dead body.”

The sheriff cautiously walked across the
brick laid floor and suspiciously viewed the perimeter around her husband’s body, as well as the entire room.  Yet he only needed a cursory glance being their two story brick home had been placed on the same said foundation.  From floor to ceiling, only fire red bricks were to be seen from all directions.  She thought it was quite fitting for her husband to lie there dead, as he, too, was just as hard, cold, and heavy.  Peter laid there near to naked, clothed in a nightshirt that poorly covered his enormous frame. Aside from him, the only other article in the room was a stack of firewood for the hearths in the upper rooms.

She
riff Finley kneeled down onto one knee and observed Peter’s body with the same regard Eloda provided to her canvas when she’d take it to paint.  He pulled the corner of his greatcoat over his nostrils, but as pungent as the odor was that emanated from her husband, Eloda figured it was no more helpful than a single spit was to a shine.

“How long has he been dead?” the sheriff
asked and he rose to his full height which Eloda suspected was near to six-feet tall.  He swiped his hands across his brown wool trousers and tugged the edges of his matching vest beneath his black sack coat.

“Nearing
three weeks now,” she replied.  “The snow has prevented my taking him out for burial, but betwixt the cold and the ale that coursed regularly through his veins, I reckon that’s what has preserved him rightly well up until now.”  She waved her hand across her face and fluttered off the offensive odor.  “But I dare to say that this early spring weather we’re having may have him smelling up the whole upstairs by noon.”

“And what of these”
Sheriff Finley asked, waving his finger downward toward several discolorations on Peter’s legs and arms.

“
I suppose that happened when I pushed him down the stairs,” she sighed.  “His arms and legs kept catching on the stair’s railing. I thought to never get him down here.  But I couldn’t leave him upstairs to wait out the weather so this seemed the only option,” she defended.

“
And that?” he asked, and pointed at a fire red marking the size of a button on Peter’s forehead.  “Did you brand a horseshoe into his face as well?” he asked, and his eyes squinted for a better view of the marking.

“He was born with that,” Eloda replied.  “
My husband hated horses even more than work, yet due to that mark he felt it was God’s calling for him to raise them.  So he bought this ranch.”

Sheriff
Finley raised his brow and cocked his head.  “So, if Mister Timmons didn’t die from the gunshots, or the fall, then what robbed him of his life, ma’am?”

“You are a very fine looking
gentleman, Sheriff,” she blurted out as mater-of-fact.  “I do believe I’d like to paint your image one day if you’d permit me.”  Although she wasn’t trying to purposefully be evasive, Eloda realized that in her worry to clear her name, she hadn’t taken due time to examine the man who stood as her accuser.  The sheriff was a man of more than ordinary intelligence, and he was tall, shoulder broad, and exceedingly fetching.  Eloda guessed him to be in his early thirties.  She came to the conclusion that his eyes were the best of him, large and rather prominent, and she believed that she’d never seen a hue so blue.  By habit, she mentally assessed her paints and calculated the exact mixture she’d need to obtain it.  As they were indoors, the sheriff’s hat was respectfully in his hand, and she admired his full head of wavy, ebony hair that hung long beneath his coat collar.  It was so bountiful that she reckoned it could easily accommodate another head.  His full mane was in great contrast to her past husbands.  Being all older gentlemen, they had more hair on their backsides than their crowns.  It was then Eloda concluded that Sheriff Jack Finley was more than a little to her liking.  Then it occurred to her; perhaps losing her unpleasant fourth husband was God’s way of rectifying the error and sending her a readily available fifth. 

“Are you married,
Sheriff Finley?”

“No,
ma’am, I’m not,” he said, and the sheriff quickly viewed the other side of the room and avoided looking at her.  “And your husband, Mrs. Timmons?” he pressed, and nodded to Peter’s body.  “I’d also like to know how your other husbands had passed too.”

“I believe I’ve made you blush,
Sheriff,” she teased and leaned forward and around to see his face, which was slightly tinted red.  Eloda smiled wide at him.  It had been her smile that each husband claimed to be their downfall when they lost their hearts to her.  Unfortunately, she couldn’t say it was due her beauty.  She wasn’t unsightly, of course, but she wasn’t a striking beauty who stopped a man in his tracks.  Yet she was comely enough to slow men down to take notice. Her inviting smile and browns eyes were melting in expression and could efficiently seal the deal when needed.  Eloda hoped that her charms still proved as potent although maturing years had removed her from her twenties only the month before.

“Your deceased husbands?” he reminded, and she allowed him to steer her back into the
investigation.

“
Of course, back to my husbands,” she said, and Eloda nervously toyed with a long strand of brown hair that escaped the knot it had once been secured.  “Well, Mister James was my first husband when I was sixteen,” she began.  “He befell a most unseemly death with the poorest of timing.  Being fifty years my senior, his excitement for the consummation had overwrought him insomuch that he expired before the act concluded.” 

Eloda
supposed that she shouldn’t have been so candid with her response, but she wanted him assured that she was being forthright and honest.  But by the queer look he presented, and the slight parting of his lips, Eloda thought she may have shocked him.

“An
d your second husband?” he asked her warily.

“
That would be Mister McKimble.  He was a very dear, sweet man,” she said, thoughtfully.  “But he died much in the same fashion as my first husband,” she sighed.

“He, too, died
in the wedding bed?” he asked, startled, and the sheriff snapped his attention and stare back to her.

“Oh, certainly not,” she
said.  “Had that been the case, I suppose Mister Shultz wouldn’t have been overly eager to become husband number three.”

“Then how did Mister McKimble die?”

“I hosted a surprise party for his birthday and when all the guests jumped from their hidden coves, he was so full of joy that he fell dead.”

“And Mister
Shultz?” he asked.

“
I’m not quite finished with Mister Kimble yet, Sheriff, as he died twice.”

“Twice
?” he asked in disbelief, but Eloda reckoned he knew her words were true when he leaned closer for her explanation.

“Indeed!” she exclaimed.  “
He hadn’t been as dead as we first supposed.  As I walked into our parlor to view him on the second day, he sat up, and right as rain he asked who died upon seeing my mourning clothes.”

“He hadn’t been dead after all,
” he chortled, and the sheriff pleasantly surprised Eloda by offering an amused smile her way.

“No, but it wasn’t more than a week later that he
caught his death from being left in that drafty parlor and died again, but this time in reality.”

“
Are you sure he was dead the second time?”

“
Oh yes,” she exclaimed.  “I had the good sense to stick my hairpin in him three times before allowing the undertaker to bury him.  He was most certainly dead.”

“And Mister Shultz?” he asked.  “
Was his constitution as poor as the other husbands?”

“Certainly not!
” she exclaimed.  “He was much younger than my other two.  Indeed, he was a very strapping gentleman of fifty-five years and had a sturdy composition.  I don’t believe he had ever taken on a cold in his lifetime.”

“If not by health,
then what brought on his passing?”

“
I stabbed him.”

The
sheriff flinched hard and she realized her blunt honesty, again, stunned the poor man. But she always fell short on tact, insomuch that her second husband had often stated that she was less delicate than newspaper in a privy. When the thought occurred to her that she ought to apologize to the stricken sheriff, it was too late.  He recovered readily enough on his own when he scowled at her.  She wondered if he thought less of her by the admission.

“I was acquitted,
Sheriff,” she further explained.  “He had taken up with our eleven year old servant girl, and unlike him, she wasn’t as agreeable to participate, so I stabbed him dead with a fire poker when I walked in on the situation.”

His dark brow quirked upward a
nd he silently ruminated on what she had said, but he didn’t offer her the courtesy of sharing his thoughts, which she was rightly sure didn’t go in her favor.

“You can check with the courts, Sheriff.
There are records that clearly define that it was justifiable.”

He slowly nodded but
she could tell he pondered on her words.  When he finally spoke, he said, “If I haven’t missed a former husband, I believe that brings us back to Mister Timmons.”  He nodded toward the flooring where her most recent husband laid.

She shook her head
and shrugged.  “I’d like to be obliging, but I don’t precisely know what happened to my Mister Timmons,” she responded innocently.

“When did you see him
alive last?” he asked, and his thumb slowly tapped repeatedly on the well-worn hat in his hands.