Mail Order Bride Leah: A Sweet Western Historical Romance (Montana Mail Order Brides Series Book 1) by Rose Jenster

are you finished?”
    “Yes. It will be ready on Thursday."
    “Why so long? I had expected to find it done tomorrow morning,” Mrs. Calloway sniffed.
    “I apologize for any delay, but there are other customers whose alterations were scheduled first. If I am able to finish it early, I shall send word to you,” Tess said.
    Mrs. Calloway withdrew to the changing area and emerged dressed in her own garments. She had left the new walking dress crumpled in a heap on the floor. Tess hastened to pick it up and smooth the mistreated fabric, checking her chalk marks for smudging. She’d have the dress finished, sponged and pressed in plenty of time, she assured herself, the woman just liked to throw her weight around because her husband had recently been appointed editor of the Albany Gazette. Still, she winced as she heard Mrs. Winthrop, her employer, bid Mrs. Calloway a respectful farewell and ask if she was pleased with the progress on her gown. Tess knew what the answer would be and prepared herself to be admonished about working too slowly. She hung the dress on a wooden frame so the wrinkles would drop out before she set to work on finishing the hem and cuffs, then, her eyes darting left and right, she slipped out the back door to the alley.
    Tess took long breaths of sour city air, her back against the clammy brick wall. Her shuddering sigh startled a rangy cat that hissed at her and backed away from the garbage piled in the alley. She craned her neck upward, trying to catch a glimpse of the gray sky, a cloud scudding by, anything to remind her she was outdoors and closer to nature, not cooped up inside that stale shop. She knew she was lucky to have a decent job but she hated going to work just as the first rays of sun pushed up over the horizon and walking home in the dark. She missed every moment of sunlight and freshness, pricking her fingers with the needle by the light of an oil lamp, stuck indoors. She made her way to the opening out onto the street and took another breath, finding the air just as rancid as it smelt in the confines of the alley between buildings. Shutting her eyes, she thought of the exhibit coming to the museum, the pictures she’d read about, and promised herself a trip to see them. If she couldn’t make her way to the open air of the mountains, she could see paintings of that landscape and imagine herself there.
    Tess crept back into the workroom and tidied her things. She replaced the parasol wistfully on the display shelf. For an instant, she imagined herself an intrepid traveler, strolling along the foothills beneath a majestic mountain range, with that glamorous lace parasol shading her from the pitiless Western sun as she explored—the picture of a clever, brave adventurer. Sighing aloud, she focused on repairing the rent in Miss Deam’s new ball gown, bending low over the work to make a tiny, invisible seam where the young lady’s slipper heel had torn her train during a waltz. Again, Tess’s thoughts wandered, this time to a fantasy in which she wore this silken gown of pale apricot and a pair of cunning heeled shoes to dance in a glittering ballroom, the gloved hand of a handsome gentleman resting lightly on her waist as they twirled. Hers was not that life, but a life of service and modesty. She was bashful by nature and modesty suited her well, but sometimes she longed for excitement, for adventure…even, she blushed to think the word—romance!
    Tess completed the repair and laid a protective sheet over it so as not to singe the delicate fabric while she pressed it to practiced perfection. Next she attached fragile, costly cream-colored lace to the neckline of a day dress in a shell-like shade of robin’s egg blue. She imagined piling her long brown hair atop her head in artful twists, securing it with pearl-tipped hairpins and donning this gown to receive visitors in an elegant morning parlor…just the way the new Mrs. Goldman planned to do when she returned from her wedding