If you are a fan of traditional love-stories with a genuine, old-time, rural setting, check out Hand-me-Down Bride. Meet the Wildbach's, both the schemers and the dreamers, and take a cool evening walk alongside the mill pond...
Judge Markham sat at his desk. George Wildbach faced him across the mahogany
surface. A bottle stood between
them. It was the finest Kentucky
bourbon, meant for sipping.
The Judge poured.
Then, ceremoniously, the two men raised their glasses.
"A good day's work, son." It was not just a figure
of speech. George's wife had been born
Sally Markham. The union had made kin of
the two sharpest dealers in the county.
"I don't know how I can thank you, sir."
"Just doing the right thing, m'boy." The Judge's spectacles were misty with
emotion. "You've been a fine
husband to my little Sally, and now there's Teddy and the girls. They come first."
"To think! Just because Papa died so suddenly, Ilga
Bullmaster and her niece would have waltzed off with $2,000 next week, skimmed
right off the top."
"Well, with both wills in my file and the witnesses in
my pocket, it was easy enough."
"A damned handsome girl," George took a meditative
sip. Oddly, he felt a little sorry for
Sophie. She seemed quite innocent,
although Heaven knew that conniving Ilga was not.
"Forgive me for being candid, George, but nothing less
than handsome would have suited your father.
He was a man of the most informed taste.
Ilga had the good sense to offer him a rose as perfect as any in his
garden."
The Judge paused to splash more whiskey into George's
glass. "It's just good
business," he declared, "not to let money get away from the family.
Real family, that is."
George drank the second shot neat and then shook his head in
an attempt to clear it. He wasn't
accustomed to drinking so early in the day, nor was he accustomed to downright
larceny. Theft which could be performed under cover of law, like foreclosing on
that shiftless Washington McNally a few years back, well, that was one thing! To "lose" a signed and witnessed
codicil was something else...
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