by Amy Lillard
She turned to leave, so very aware that he was right behind her.
“At least allow me to escort you back to the hotel.”
She sniffed. “I’m not going back to the hotel. I’ve changed my mind. I’m going to see Nelson.”
“I’ll escort you to the mercantile then.”
That was the last thing she wanted. She needed the walk over to Nelson’s store and the time that it would afford her in order to get ahold of herself.
“I’m sure I can find it on my own.”
He cleared his throat. “I’m not sure that’s wise.”
She looked around at the milling streets, the raised sidewalks, and the teaming people. “I’m certain I will be perfectly fine.” She turned to walk away and ran headlong into a man.
“Excuse me,” he grumbled before hurrying away.
That didn’t go very far in proving that she could make it on her own. She couldn’t get two feet down the sidewalk without crashing into someone.
“I feel I must insist,” He eased into step beside her, and Birdie stopped once again.
“I don’t think you should stall in the middle of the sidewalk,” Mr. Evans warned.
She huffed a little but moved to the side closest to the building. “You aren’t in a position to insist,” she said coolly. Well, at least as coolly as she could make her voice. It had been a long time since she had used all the nuances and their opposites in everyday conversation.
“Do you even know where you’re going?” he asked.
“Of course. I have Nelson’s letter and his instructions right here in my—” She stopped once she realized that her purse which had been looped over one arm when she had left the restaurant was gone.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“I seem to have lost my bag,” she said, starting to look down at the ground and the sidewalk around them. They hadn’t gone very far so it couldn’t be far, but there was no sign of it. She started back toward the restaurant intent on retracing her steps. “I had it when I left the restaurant then—”
“The man,” Mr. Evans said, his voice grim.
“I beg your pardon?”
The man who bumped into you. He stole it.”
“I hardly think—” Birdie started.
“That’s the truest thing I’ve heard all day.”
She placed her hands on her hips and gave him a stern stare. “There is no need to be rude. You didn’t lose your stuff; I did. And I’m not being half as rude as you are being at this moment.”
He closed his eyes and several moments passed before he opened them again. “How much money was in it?” he asked.
“Ten dollars or so.”
“And the rest is at the hotel?”
She nodded. “Locked up in the safe just like you instructed.”
He wilted a bit, she supposed in relief, though she didn’t know why he should be relieved. It wasn’t his money, and he wouldn’t take any more from her than what they had agreed upon.
The truth of the situation finally came to her. “He took my purse.”
She started down the sidewalk in the direction the man had gone, intent on finding him. A person didn’t just take something that belonged to someone else without some kind of retribution.
But she hadn’t taken two steps when strong fingers closed around her arm and stopped her progress. “Wait.”
“Turn me loose.” She had started to tremble, and she hated the weakness in herself. Her limp was more pronounced, and she was about to go see Nelson for the first time in five years. What would he think if she went in there dragging her leg behind her like a...an...ordinary cripple?
Suddenly the entire situation bore down on her. Tears rose into her eyes and she blinked furiously to abate them. They only came faster.
“Shhh...”
Strong arms slid around her and pulled her out of the main path of the sidewalk. They were out of the way, but she could feel the people as they moved past. It was entirely too familiar, the way that he was holding her, one arm around her waist and one big calloused hand holding her head to his shoulder. He held her gently but firmly and had she wanted to, she knew she could slip easily from his strong embrace. But she didn’t want to, no matter how familiar his touch was for a public forum. There were cities, smaller cities, where such behavior would be highly frowned upon and censured. But not young, bustling Sacramento. People walked by but paid no mind to the big miner holding the blond-haired woman in the blue dress.
“I’m all right now,” she said, reluctantly pulling away from him.
“Do you want to get the sheriff?” he asked.
Suddenly the day felt cold. Or maybe it was that in his arms she had felt so cherished and warm that it affected the weather once she had been released.
It was time she faced it: she had fallen in love with Jed Evans.
But she was promised to another.
“No.”
Her voice was quiet, thoughtful, as if she had given the idea great consideration. But it also held a note of finality.
“It’s not like I saw him and could give a description of him.”
Jed hadn’t been paying the man any mind himself, too caught up in Birdie and the realization that he had fallen in love with another man’s fiancée. “Do you still want to go over to the mercantile?”
She nodded. “I suppose so.”
“I’ll walk with you for as long as you’ll have me.” The words sounded a little needy even to his own ears, but thankfully Birdie didn’t seem to notice. Once again she straightened her spine and offered him her elbow.
Side by side they moved down the sidewalk, stopping twice to ask for directions.
Finally they turned a corner and there it was. O’Neil’s mercantile. The sign above the door read Bodega Primera. Jed wasn’t entirely sure what a bodega was, but he figured it was just a fancy word for store. Leave it to Nelson O’Neil to give his general store such a fancy name. Jed had never noticed it before when he had been in town, but he hadn’t considered O’Neil to be a rival then.
Rival. Pfftt. Like Jed could compete with someone like O’Neil. He was smooth and polished and sought-after. It was nothing short of amazing that the man had fallen in love with Birdie through their letters. As far as Jed could tell, the merchant could have any woman he wanted. Then again, Birdie was nothing short of amazing herself. She was strong, smart, and capable if not a bit helpless at times. It was a balance that made a man feel strong and needed without making him think that protection was all that a woman wanted from him.
He pushed the thought from his mind. It didn’t matter. O’Neil had found her before Jed. She had fallen in love with him and now Jed was delivering her to him. It was like some sad Greek tragedy.
Her steps slowed as they neared the store and he allowed her the change in speed. But by the time they got to the building next to the mercantile, she stopped.
“Birdie?”
She turned to Jed, her eyes wide with something akin to fear. Or maybe it was fear itself. “What if he doesn’t want me anymore?”
Her words were like a knife stab to the heart. It took everything he had not to pull her close and whisper in her ear how much he loved her and would marry her tomorrow if she would have him.
Instead he cleared his throat. “Why would he have changed his mind?”
She gestured toward herself giving special emphasis on the scar marring her forehead and the leg she had injured in her fall. “What if he is repulsed by my injuries?”
“Then he is a fool.” Jed’s voice was something akin to a bear’s growl.
His words had the desired effect. She pulled in a deep breath and gave him a trembling smile.
“Do you want me to go in with you?” Jed asked, all the while hoping that she would say no. He couldn’t imagine watching their reunion and having his own heart tore to pieces by their restrained affection.
“No,” she said simply. “I’m sure you have other things to do.”
He nod
ded. But nothing as important as Birdie. “I’m sending word home that I’m coming soon.”
“And you’re looking for a job.” Her smile turned encouraging. “Would you like me to ask Nelson if he has something available?”
“No.” He said the word almost before she stopped speaking. But Jed would have to be truly desperate in order to take a job from O’Neil. And he wasn’t in such shape yet. He still had plenty of money left from escorting Birdie down to Sacramento. Just not enough for passage home.
She hitched up the bottom of her skirt and started toward the door of the mercantile. She stopped halfway there, casting a quick look back over her shoulder. “But I’ll see you tonight?”
“I’ll be at the hotel,” he said. It was the only answer he could give. She would be busy tonight, dining with O’Neil and reacquainting themselves. The thought didn’t bear further contemplating. He pushed it away.
“Good.” Then she disappeared inside.
Jed watched her go, then turned and made his way to the stagecoach office.
The inside of the Bodega Primera, despite the lavish sign posted in front, was like every other general store she had been in. It smelled like new wood and turpentine. And it was just the way Birdie remembered it from before. There were a few new displays and items, the fabric had of course changed but the set up and the large wooden staircase that led to the living quarters on the second floor were still the same.
Her heart kicked up in her chest, beating even faster than it had been just seconds before. This was it. The time of reckoning. Now why did she think about it that way? This was a wonderful time. She would be seeing Nelson!
She did her best to hide her limp as she wound her way through the displays of mining equipment and flour toward the counter. She was halfway there before she saw him. She almost stumbled. He was as handsome as ever in that polished way of his. Not a hair out of place, carefully waxed moustache just starting to turn gray at the edges.
He was talking to a young woman, explaining something about the store and Birdie supposed that the girl must be one of his employees. There were several around. She could tell since they all wore dark blue aprons made out of a material that she had never seen before. The girl nodded before slipping her apron over her head and tying it in place behind her. She flashed Nelson a shy smile and made her way over to the fabric section.
Birdie’s steps slowed. She was nervous, worried, anxious, and a bit nauseous. She shouldn’t have eaten all that greasy chicken before coming here, but she had to admit it was delicious. But her stomach was rebelling with every step she took. She took in a deep breath and let it out slowly.
Something must have alerted him to her presence. One moment he was straightening counter displays and the next he was looking up at her.
His eyes narrowed, then widened. His lips under the thick cover of his mustache turned up at the corners. “Birdie? Is that really you?”
She nodded, her nervousness vanishing at his joy in seeing her. He didn’t stare at her scar or ask to see her arm where she had broken it. He merely rushed toward her and scooped her up into his arms despite all the curious eyes watching them. Both employees and patrons had stopped to see what was happening.
Nelson kept a firm arm around her waist as he turned and addressed the store as a whole. “What a joyous surprise,” he announced. “Everyone this is my fiancée, Birdie Banks.”
A spattering of light applause broke out. Birdie knew her face was redder than strawberry jam, but he accepted her. And that was worth all the embarrassment she could suffer.
Jed tried not to think about Birdie and O’Neil as he made his way to the stagecoach office. It was the only way he knew to get word back to his mother and he wanted to tell her that he was coming home. Not that there was much to come home to. She was all he had left. But he had her and that was still a lot. Some folks didn’t have their mother and he should feel blessed that he had his.
He smiled a little to himself as he pulled the door open and stepped inside.
He had lost his brother, all his money, his horse and his girl—two of them, but he still felt blessed. He had been hanging around Birdie Banks too long. Or maybe not long enough if it took him until now to realize that she was right. About a lot of things. About God. The thought sent his feet and his body in two different directions, and he almost fell before he reached the little window where the proprietor waited.
“I need to send a letter home.”
“Where’s home?” the man asked in a bored voice. Jed supposed he would be bored too if all he got to look at all day long was the inside of a little box with black-painted bars and only a small view of the outside.
“Texas.”
The man sniffed. “I got a stage leaving tomorrow at 4 p.m. heading that direction. You got the letter?”
“Not yet.” Jed shifted.
“You’re welcome to compose it at the table over yonder.”
Jed shook his head. “No, thank you. I can have the letter here by tomorrow.” He didn’t want to tell the man that he couldn’t read and therefore couldn’t write the letter himself.
But he had a plan. He would get Birdie to help him. She would and he knew that she wouldn’t pass judgement on him for his lack of learning. Reading had been hard for him in school, so hard that he’d quit and gone to work at the stable instead. What was a boy to do when he could only make backwards letters and mixed up the words until they made no sense at all?
He could only hope that she was being honest when she said she would be at the hotel that evening. He wanted her to be. He wanted to see her every day until he couldn’t see her anymore. It was sad and a little pathetic, but he would take all the tiny parts of her that he could have. That way, when he went back home to Texas, he would have those small memories of her to keep him going.
“Tomorrow will be fine,” the man said. He turned back to the papers in front of him and that was that.
Jed backed away from the counter, then turned and made his way out onto the street. He had hours and hours before he and Birdie would be back at the hotel together. He supposed it was time to head to the livery stable. It was as fine a place as any to start his search for a job.
“I wish you would have told me that you were coming, my dear.” Nelson’s voice was gently chiding as they walked arm and arm to the tearoom next door to the mercantile.
Was he mad? Upset? Birdie couldn’t tell. “It was sort of sudden,” she explained. “I wasn’t certain when Lin Sing would hire someone to help us down the mountain, so I didn’t want to write and give you false information.” Or herself false hope.
“And I take it he found someone suitable?”
Suitable? She supposed it was an accurate enough word to describe Jed Evans, but it was ineffectual all the same. He was so much more than suitable. “Yes,” she finally murmured.
Nelson led her to one of the small, iron tables and seated her there before signaling to the waitress. He sat in the chair across from her and smiled.
He really was handsome. Maybe even more so than she remembered. But unlike Jed, er Mr. Evans, Nelson was polished. Citified her father would say. She found nothing wrong with a man being clean and well kempt. But there was something unexpected and a little wild in the look of Mr. Evans’s beard. Something intriguing that made her wish on some level that he hadn’t shaved it. But he had. And it wasn’t like she would be seeing him much in the coming days. Tonight though, she would see him tonight.
“I can hardly believe you’re really here,” Nelson said with a handsome smile.
Truth was Birdie could hardly believe it herself. “It was quite a journey.” As she said the words, she nearly choked on their double meaning. Attacks in the night, nearly shooting Mr. Evans, then target practice, and falling in love.
She forced herself to look into Nelson’s eyes. Was it possible to love two men at the same time? She had only been in love once. She didn’t have experience in such matters.
Maybe she should ask if i
t was possible to feel such different love for two very different men. And the answer to that was obvious: yes.
Nelson patted her hand where it lay on the tabletop. “You’re here now.”
“Yes,” she murmured in return. She was there, and she was about to start the life she had been dreaming of for the past five years.
Nelson signaled toward the man behind the counter and turned back to her with another one of his beautiful smiles. She had missed seeing them these past five years.
Perhaps she was allowing her imagination to run away with her, telling her that she had fallen in love with another man. Yes, that was it. She smiled a little to herself as the thought wove around her. Her imagination. Of course. She had said so herself: It was quite a journey.
“Where is this guide of yours?,” Nelson said. “I would like to thank him for bringing you back to me.”
“He’s staying at the hotel for the next few days.” From there who knew? But one day soon, Jed would have all the money he needed to go home and he would be gone. She felt as if someone had pulled clouds over her, dark, a little close, and blocked from the nourishing sun. Jed gone.
Their conversation hit a lull as a young woman brought a pot of tea and a plate of assorted cookies over to their table. She poured the tea into dainty cups decorated with tiny roses, then bowed to them and scuttled away. The sight of all those lovely sweets brought a little joy back to her thoughts.
Moody, that’s what she was. Downright moody if one moment she felt all gloomy and the next her spirits were lifted by the mere sight of cookies. She supposed she was only adjusting to the city and being back in civilization after so long. She would think such a change would be a shock to anyone’s system.
“Perhaps I should offer him a job as a stockman in the bodega.” Nelson’s words brought her back, though the clouds lingered in the corners of her thoughts and her mouth watered a bit thinking about the delicious cookies. Even after all the chicken she has just eaten.
“He’s very proud.” Plus she couldn’t imagine—even with an imagination such as hers—Jed working in a store, wearing one of those blue aprons and calmly arranging bolts of calico fabric on display.
