The Edge of Hell: The Mitchell Brothers Series Book One

9

Over the next several days, Mae's promise to leave sat like a wet wool blanket upon her shoulders. Inescapable, increasingly uncomfortable, and if she allowed herself a moment to ponder the full weight of the issue—utterly petrifying.

Her circumstances remained unchanged from the night she'd first arrived eight months ago. She had only the clothes on her back—which weren't even hers, to begin with, she reminded herself with an exasperated roll of her eyes—no money and nowhere else to go.

And to make matters worse, she didn't want to leave.

Every cell in her body cried out that it was a terrible decision she would regret for the rest of her life. But neither did she wish to remain in a house where she was loathed with such enmity by Wolstan that if she stayed, there was no doubt in her mind her continued presence would drive him away.

So one swelteringly humid morning, Mae dressed in a faded yellow muslin gown with pretty pouffy elbow-length sleeves. She gathered the box filled with remaining jars of Wolstan's salve from under her bed, scribbled down a sales pitch for Mr. Halpine on a sheet of paper, and memorized it on the mile and a half walk into town.

Not informing Emerson or Wolstan she was leaving and having one of them drive her in the carriage was a decision she regretted many times over during the next twenty-four minutes. Her right arm screamed in pain and burned as though it were engulfed in white-hot flames when finally approaching Halpine and Sons Mercantile.

But if either man had come along, there would have been questions asked that she didn't want to answer. So, she pasted on a pained smile in greeting to Mr. Halpine behind the counter. The bell tinkled above upon entering the mercantile, Mae marched forward and set her box down with a soft thud.

"Morning, Mrs. Stoker," he said with a perplexed smile. He nudged his spectacles with a bent knuckle up the bridge of his bulbous nose.

Standing only an inch or two taller than Mae's height of five foot nine, Oran Halpine was neither handsome nor commanding in his presence.

Coarse blonde hair the color of old cider stood at a forty-five-degree angle from his head, shiny and stuck together in uneven clumps of bear grease pomade. It gave him the appearance he'd walked through a stiff wind, and the hair on his crown fought to push the strands once belonging to his receding hairline back in place.

"Good morning, Mr. Halpine," Mae murmured, wishing whoever created the notion of delivering meaningless pleasantries at the beginning of a conversation could be hunted down and punished—if they were still alive.

He glanced from the box to her face, then back to the jars, and quirked his head. "What have we here?"

Mae folded her arms demurely in front of her, biting back a painful gasp when her right bicep tightened in a spasm. "Rosemary and basil salve for healing all sorts of scrapes and wounds."

She grabbed a jar and offered it to him. "Men can use it without fearing they'll smell like they've been doused in perfume, and women find the scent pleasing as well."

Mr. Halpine arched a brow, hesitating before plucking the jar from her hands. He removed the cork, and lifted it to his nose for a sniff. "Hmm."

"I used to make it for my daddy and brothers when they'd get scratched up from working our farm," Mae murmured. She studied him as she wiped away the sweat rolling down the side of her neck with the back of her left wrist. "They couldn't get enough of it."

"Is that right?"

Mae nodded. "I made this batch for Captain Wolstan Mitchell after he returned from the war six weeks ago. He's used three jars already."