A Joyful Love

“What an everlasting bother,” Laramee Scott grumbled, jerking back when her hat bumped into the doorway as she attempted to exit the train car.

She tilted her head sideways, and one of the ridiculous plumes drooped over her eye, partially obscuring her vision as she stepped out of the car.

Temper brewing, she blew her breath upward with enough force to temporarily shift the plume out of her way while silently vowing to burn the hat at the first possible opportunity. Her mother, ever desperate to make a lady out of Laramee, had ordered it specifically for this journey. The monstrous milliner’s nightmare was so wide it could have covered a wagon wheel. It matched the detestable purple traveling suit dripping with flounces and bows that made Laramee feel like she’d been hog-tied and stuffed into a beribboned sausage casing.

It had taken great restraint on her part not to rip off the rows of froufrou, but she’d somehow managed. Barely.

Now that she was here in Baker City, she couldn’t wait to get out of the hated ensemble and hopefully never wear it again.

A porter offered his hand as Laramee made her way down the steps of the car to the platform at the Baker City depot. She had to turn her head to the side to keep the revolting hat from hitting the poor man in the face as she disembarked, thinking of words that would scald her mother’s delicate ears if she heard her daughter utter them. It was a good thing Beatrice Scott was back home in Goodacre, Texas.