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They looked up, and the woman gasped. “What happened to you?”
“You can’t pay for her. You already bought a lunch bucket. You can’t have two.”
“Technically, I didn’t come with a lunch bucket, remember?” Ellen spoke, and Travis was grateful. His brain still wasn’t processing at its normal speed. “It was just me.”
That made Mr. Higginbotham close his mouth, and then he nodded. “I guess you’re right. Although, the spirit of the law would be that you can’t have two, but... I suppose that there isn’t anything specifically saying that you can’t purchase someone’s bucket and also purchase a person.” He smirked a little before his eyes went back to Travis’s face. But the man didn’t say anything about it.
“What about Chalmer? Is he going to be okay with that?” the lady asked, apparently deciding that she wasn’t going to say anything more about his face, either. Maybe it didn’t look as bad as it felt. Which was pretty bad. Although the headache was much worse.
“He was trying to drag her away, and she was saying no. He wouldn’t listen.”
“Is that so?” Mr. Higginbotham said.
“That’s terrible,” the lady said.
“It’s true,” Ellen confirmed, like they needed a witness.
“So, he didn’t agree to sell her to you?”
“No. I’m demanding that I buy her. Because she is not going back out with a man who won’t listen to her when she says no.”
The lady nodded her head firmly, but Mr. Higginbotham appeared slightly reluctant. He was a stickler for the rules, probably didn’t care as much about the personal side of things. A typical man, perhaps.
Travis could see himself being the same way, and he hoped he wasn’t.
“All right then. If that’s the way it is, Chalmer has forfeited his right to this purchase, if he couldn’t obey the basic laws of assault.”
Ellen nodded slowly, although he could see her cringing a little at the idea that Mr. Higginbotham was calling what had happened an assault. Chalmer had assaulted Travis. He wasn’t quite sure that Ellen would agree that he had also assaulted her.
But maybe Ellen didn’t understand how quickly the situation could have escalated with her defying Chalmer.
In Brazil, things were a little looser, and Travis had experienced how quickly a man’s temper could escalate and all of the terrible results that could occur. Not often, but enough to know that Ellen was probably in more danger than what she thought she was.
“All right, it’s changed,” the woman said and then named the sum that Travis owed.
He pulled the money out of his pocket, thankful that he typically kept a little cash in his wallet for emergencies. This was definitely something he would term an emergency.
“Thank you,” Ellen said as Travis nodded his head and echoed her words of appreciation.
“You probably ought to get that looked at,” the woman said, nodding at Travis’s face.
“Maybe I’ll assign that task to my new servant,” he said, some of the tension and anger draining out of him at the fact that it was done and Ellen was out of harm’s way.
“Are you serious?” she said under her breath, annoyance and affection and amusement all evident in her tone.
He smiled at the contradictions. It was just like Ellen. Only, now that he had a chance to really look at her, she was all grown up. So much more mature than last time he had seen her in person. He couldn’t believe how much older she looked. Not old as in decrepit, but old as in mature. She didn’t look like a young girl anymore, she looked like a woman. How could he have been gone so long and thought that nothing would change?
“You’re not married, right?” He remembered his fears from earlier, and the question came out unbidden.
“What made you ask that?”
“Some things that you and Chalmer were saying made me feel like maybe you had gotten married and not talked to me about it first.”
“Come on. That would never happen.”
She gave him a look that made him feel like he was being ridiculous. Maybe he was. But the look also made him feel like maybe she hadn’t considered him for a marriage partner. Just that she would tell him if she did. That wasn’t exactly what he wanted to hear.
“You go on outside. Shanna is expecting you. I’m going to go get some ice.”
