Josiah's Treasure Read Free Page B

the light in her sea-blue eyes, was infectious. When she smiled, she was so pretty that Sarah wondered, yet again, why she had never remarried after becoming a widow. Wondered why she had spent the last six years tending first to a crotchety old prospector and now to Sarah.
    Mrs. McGinnis enfolded Sarah within her arms. She smelled of vanilla and Castile soap. “I knew you would, lass.”
    “I must have been the only one who doubted.”
    “You need more faith.”
    Sarah made no comment; they’d had this conversation before and she did not need to reply.
    “Mr. Pomroy was difficult, but I think he just wanted to challenge me to make certain I was resolute.” She dropped onto the chair against the wall and wiggled out of her half boots, freeing her aching feet. For Mr. Pomroy she had bothered to purchase new ones, as if the sight of buff Dongola leather might have swayed his faltering opinion of her worth. Dollars and cents. A plugged nickel. “I had macaroons with Minnie and then stopped by the storefront on the way back home. The shop is going to need some work to get into shape, but the girls and I can do it. The space should be ready in a couple of weeks.”
    “So quickly?”
    “We have to open the shop as soon as possible and bring in income. Mr. Samuelson’s loan and the proceeds from the sale of Josiah’s land in Placerville won’t pay the bills forever.” Sarah massaged the cramps in her toes and looked askance at her boots. She wouldn’t be buying shoes from that store again. “I can’t wait to show the girls. Cora will love to paint in that second-floor room. The light is perfect for even the most detailed work. And of course there’s a nice area for the lithograph press, and there is even a small corner room for Emma to work on the accounts that is well lit by gas lamps. It’s nearly a miracle to have secured the space at such an excellent price.”
    Mrs. McGinnis rested a hand on her shoulder. “Mr. Josiah would be proud of you.”
    “Yes.” The aching twist she felt in her heart was a constant companion. “He would.”
    The housekeeper dropped a kiss to the crown of Sarah’s head and stepped back. “Change out of that frock afair Miss Charlotte arrives with Anne and Emma for instruction this afternoon. You don’t want paint on yer best outfit.”
    “Lottie . . . I almost forgot.” After a final rub of her toes, Sarahstood. “First, I’d like to spend a minute with Josiah, though. Then I’ll go change.”
    In her stockinged feet, she entered the parlor just off the entry hall. Rufus slunk down the stairs and followed her inside.
    The shades had been pulled against the noonday light, and the room lay dim and quiet. All these months later the sweetness of Josiah’s cigar still lingered, clinging to the drapes and the Turkish rug covering the mahogany parlor table, as unwilling to relinquish the memory of him as she was. Sarah had always tried to shoo Josiah off to his upstairs library to smoke, but he loved to sit in his overstuffed red velvet chair by the bay window and critique the neighborhood happenings. Nobody could convince Josiah to do anything other than what he set his mind to.
    Sarah trailed a hand over the lace-trimmed antimacassar spread across the back of the chair, the indent of Josiah’s weight still visible in the nap of the velvet seat cushion, and felt salty tears rise in her throat.
    “I didn’t want this house and that bit of property, Josiah, if it meant I had to lose you.” The dearest friend she’d had. A replacement for the parents, the family she’d lost.
    If he were alive, he might laugh his gruff laugh at her sentimentality. Right before pain shot through his green eyes. The sight of it, though, would be gone as quick as the spark of a lightning bug, ephemeral. As if the pain had never truly existed.
    Sarah crossed the thick carpet, plush against her toes, to the corner of the parlor where an easel held a painting draped in black crape. She flapped the