“I haven’t heard that since momma died,” she said to him, blinking back sudden tears.
“That was the hardest thing for me to let go of, your mother’s passing.” He said in a low voice. Amanda thought that she might have heard a hitch in that lament, but she’d probably imagined it. After all, he was Sheriff Addams.
And Sheriffs never cried.
Chapter 9
Amanda had changed directions so many times she no longer knew which way she was going.
From the moment she’d seen Mr. Richman in the saloon with that…that…woman, she’d kept a careful distance. Though as time went by she was no closer to understanding how he could frequent such an establishment…with such a woman. He confused her, as he gave no sign of being a licentious man, nor had she ever evidenced the smell of alcohol about his person.
In fact, every piece of evidence so far proved him only to be what she’d thought him at the start – an honest man. Not unlike her father. Honorable. Upright.
And handsome to boot.
Not that she cared.
As she reminded herself often, she was interested in his horse, not the man. What he did on his own time was his own business. And that had worked to a certain extent. But lately, he’d taken to talking to her sometimes over her work. She found she enjoyed his stories about life back East and even started looking forward to his insights on life in Colorado, which were usually wry and filled with humorous anecdotes. His job took him to some strange places sometimes, when it came time to talk to witnesses for example. And he captured the more colorful characters well with a dry wit she’d come to appreciate.
What she didn’t like so much was the catty little flibbertigibbet that showed up six times now in as many days, trailing French perfume and finding excuses to flash trim little ankles whenever he so much as looked at her. Cynthia Davis was nothing if not persistent and had even so far managed to inveigle two lunch invitations and a promise from Phillip…that is Mr. Richman…to attend a soiree she was hosting on Friday night.
Amanda grew so ill-tempered with these constant interruptions that her sister finally took it upon herself to do something. It hadn’t taken long for her to ascertain that Amanda’s interest was wavering from the horse, more in the direction of the man. Sarah’s solution, of course, was to change Amanda from the skin on out, starting with a bath when it wasn’t even Saturday night, and ending somehow in petticoats and lace. “Fighting fire with fire,” she’d said often enough that Amanda was starting to taste cinders whenever she so much as looked in her direction.
“I don’t see why you’re insisting on these dad-blamed things. Aint no one gonna see my shoes!”
“They may not see them, but they will hear them!” Sarah huffed and crossed her arms, effectively blocking the door with a look that told Amanda in no uncertain terms that she wasn’t going to be allowed to pass until she’d been fitted out in what Sarah felt was proper attire. Which meant all of it. “I gave you a pair of mine to use.”
“They pinch.”
“That’s how you know they fit right!” Sarah was positively red in the face from arguing, and tendrils of hair clinging damply to her forehead.
“Look,” Amanda said, gesturing to the dress helplessly. “I appreciate your efforts, I really do. I’m also real grateful that you stayed up so late and let the hems down and everything, even if I thought they were ok…”
“You’re a good three inches taller than I am, that was a scandalous amount of ankle!”
The mention of ‘ankles’ caused Amanda to blanch all over again. Just yesterday Cynthia had insisted that she’d gotten mud on her shoe and had lifted her skirt right up to check it, in front of everyone, revealing not only the ankle but a stockinged calf that had left Joseph positively agog. He’d had to step out for a drink of water to quiet his sudden bout of coughing.
“You…” Amanda took a breath and started over. Forget Cynthia. Focus. “But since you let all that cloth down, instead of using the dress I had…”
“It was three years out of fashion!”
“Since you let the hem down anyway… can’t no one see my feet, including me. I could be barefoot under here, no one would notice.” She pressed her palms against the skirts, making them billow out behind her. For that matter, she hadn’t seen anyone wear quite so many petticoats in an awfully long time. “Are you sure this is in fashion? The women in town don’t go to this much trouble…and they certainly don’t poof out in all directions like this. I feel like I’m going to blow away in a strong wind. And then where will I be? Everyone will see my ankles and more besides.”
“Don’t be crude. I’ll have you know that according to this, you’re perfect.”
“You’re waving around a fashion magazine that I know for a fact Lettie has had over at the dressmaker’s since we were children. What’s the date on that thing…?”
Sarah pulled the periodical safely out of reach and tucked it in the drawer of her bureau, slamming it shut with a sharp bang. “Whether or not you choose to believe me, I’m telling you right now that Mr. Richman won’t be able to take his eyes off you. So long as you just make sure your feet are safely covered at all times, I don’t want you ruining all my hard work with your manure-laden footwear.”
“Thank you.” Amanda sat heavily on the edge of the bed. This getting dressed thing was downright exhausting. They’d spent near an hour on getting her hair to stay up on top of her head.
“NO! No. No. No. No.” Sarah backed off, her hands in the air, her voice a shrill wail that brought Rachel cautiously to the door to see what was going on. Which was saying something. She’d gotten frightened by Sarah’s intensity and had gone outside to play with the neighbor’s kittens some time ago, especially when Sarah had looked at her rather pointedly and told her that it was time she started thinking about how to tend her hair properly. In one long braid maybe, instead of two.
“Now what?” Amanda crossed her arms, ready to stare her sister down. She knew for a fact she hadn’t done a thing this time.
“You will never sit like that again! EVER!”
Amanda glanced down at herself. “I’m just sitting! How can I sit wrong?”
“For one thing, keep your knees together!”
Amanda shifted awkwardly, bringing her knees together surreptitiously under her skirt. “They are together! Besides, I don’t see what’s the problem. It’s how I’ve always sat!”
“It’s indecent!” Sarah’s face was getting red again. “It’s scandalous!”
“Oh, fine.” Amanda brought her legs together firmly. Maybe it did make the line of the dress a bit nice,r but it certainly seemed like an awful lot of fuss just to make fabric lie straight.
“Now cross your ankles!”
“What?”
“It’s… just do it. That’s the way it’s done.”
This had gone into the world of utter nonsense. “But what if I have to jump up real quick?”
“Whatever for?”
“If something were to happen?”
“That’s what the men are there for, silly!” Sarah shook her head in dismay. “Now, cross ‘em!”
“Oh!” Amanda half growled but did as she was told. It didn’t feel right, and it was putting uncomfortable pressure on her lower back. She looked at her little sister with a great deal of consternation and no small amount of pique. “Is that all?”
“Well, you could stop waving your arms around like you were chasing flies.” Sarah waved off the tirade building in Amanda’s eyes. “Never mind, it’s not important. We can work on the bottom today and the top tomorr… later.” Sarah smiled, her eyes suddenly crafty. “Sure, we’ll work on the rest later.”
There was a whole world of trouble in that gaze. Amanda exchanged glances with Rachel who shook her head and backed away. A moment later she heard the quick patter of feet on her stairs. Smart girl. Get while the getting’s good. Amanda envied her escape.
“I ain’t changing my boots,” Amanda said suddenly recogn
izing where that look was going. In fact, she was regretting this entire discussion. Being a girl took a whole lot more time, time she could have spent outdoors on horseback.
“Well, if no one can see them, why not? I don’t see what you’re so attached to them for!”
“Because I tried the shoes you gave me!” Amanda shot back. “I tripped and fell.” She stared at her hands clasped in her lap. “I broke the washbasin.”
Sarah turned and looked at the top of the dresser. Sure enough, the basin was gone, only the pitcher remained.
“It was full of water too. It dumped all over my head. And I’d washed it already last night. It surely wasn’t needing to be rinsed again. Besides, I don’t like your shoes.”
Sarah’s face looked like it was stuck somewhere between sympathy and howling laughter. “Oh, honey, I am so sorry. Ok, you can wear your boots, just scrape the dung off them, will ya?”
“I did,” she said sourly, but without heat. At least she’s won that argument.
“Ah… this is just being stupid.” Amanda plucked at the dress, drawing the fabric away from her legs and letting it fall again. It settled in soft folds, billowing down like a cloud. “This isn’t me!”
“No. It isn’t. This is being pretty,” Sarah agreed.
That stung a little. No. A lot. Amada set her jaw and growled the words she’d been holding back all morning. “I mean… I can’t pretend to be Cynthia Davis!” Her hands fisted in her skirts.
“Who?” Sarah asked. “Is that the name of the woman at the saloon? How do you know the name of a saloon women?” Sarah’s eyes had widened into scandalized horror. She reached out and slapped her sister’s leg. “Knees together!”
Amanda shot to her feet, dancing out of her sister’s reach and nearly killing herself when the skirt tangled around her feet. “How did you know about that?”
“It’s only decent, a lady keeps her knees…”
“Not that! About the saloon girl!”
“Oh… uh…”
“Daddy said something, didn’t he?”
Sarah shook her head firmly no and then nodded once. “No. Maybe. Yes.” She sighed and threw up her hands. “Oh, now be fair, you told us both yourself that you just wanted to ride that horse of his!”
“Miss Davis,” Amanda said with all the air and pomp she could manufacture, which wasn’t a lot at this point, “is not a saloon gal. She’s the daughter of some officer at the new…”
“Major Aaron Davis? That Davis?”
“You know her?”
“No.” Sarah said, her mouth a round ‘o’ as she shook her head. “But her father is in charge of creating the fort out here. He’s a big name, and he’s got a lot of money and political connections to boot. Why would his daughter work in a saloon?”
“Forget the saloon! This… Davis woman has been coming over to the office every day and… and… and she throws herself on him!”
“On the horse?”
“NOT THE HORSE! On Phillip!”
“Phillip?” Sarah echoed, blinking a few times as she lit on the one thing that Amanda wished she wouldn’t. “It’s ‘Phillip’ now?” Her tone was all speculation with a hearty dose of insinuation thrown in for good measure.
Amanda covered her face with her hands. “What’s the use. I’m just not that kind of girly girl. Maybe he’d be better off with someone like you. If you married him, I could at least groom Champion from time to time.”
“Champion is the…”
“Horse” Amanda and Sarah finished together.
Sarah stepped forward, taking her sister’s hands in her own. “Amanda, you are a very pretty woman. Don’t make that noise, it’s true.” Sarah thought for a moment and drew her toward the door. “Come with me. Just…come on!”
She led her to Sarah’s room, and she dug through the contents of a dresser drawer until she removed one of her prized possessions. It was a genuine mirror with actual silver backing. Sarah had saved up a long time for this, and unlike most mirrors, it gave a true reflection, sharp and clear, not clouded and vague the way the looking glass over the bureau did.
“Look at that. Pretend that you had never seen this person before. Tell me she isn’t pretty.”
Amanda looked into the mirror and saw someone she’d never seen before. A woman with high cheekbones, a delicate chin, and full lips stared back at her. It was true that maybe a tiny touch of rouge might have been used to put a wee bit of color into her cheeks, but it certainly didn’t create this look from whole cloth.
She, Amanda, was pretty.
She’d never thought such a thing before in her life.
She smiled at her little sister, genuinely smiled at her. “Thank you.” The words were the barest whisper. She wasn’t even sure she heard.
“Now, no one likes a girl who’s late for work, so off with you.” Sarah’s own voice might have been a touch emotional as she reached for her sister and hugged her carefully, then spent a full minute in straightening her skirts and adjusting her hair.
When she’d finished, Amanda smiled and turned toward the door. She felt beautiful. She was beautiful. She put her foot on the first step to head downstairs. Her heel caught in the hem of her skirt. With a shrill cry, she grabbed the railing to keep from falling, hanging on for dear life as her skirt tried to pull free from her dress and her left leg couldn’t find a perch.
She hung like that, bent over, her eyes getting big and her backside pointed tellingly at the bottom of the steps.
“Ah… help?”
Sarah shrieked and ran to the rescue, grabbing her with one hand, and pulling her back around until Amanda had both feet firmly on the ground again.
“Thank goodness there are no stairs in the office,” Sarah muttered, and set about fixing Amanda’s hair for the third time that day.
Chapter 10
Phillip Richman walked out of the stables, still brushing bits of grass off his suit. Champion was settling in with some fresh oats and a large armful of what passed for hay in these parts. Right now, he was thinking he was wearing more than the animal would be eating. It clung with a stubbornness and tickled his nose.
Out on the street, he took his hat off, to tap it against the hitching post. It was going to take some extra attention. It was easy to see why straw was the preferred material for hats out here and not felt, just for the nuisance factor alone of how much dirt and debris tended to cling to the soft material. If he were seriously planning on staying, he’d have to see about changing his mind on fashion and a few other things he’d taken for granted. The thought made him smile. He was starting to like this process of discovering who he truly was in this wild place.
Maybe he could talk the ever-delightful Miss Addams into assisting him in his transition. She seemed to do just fine with her hat, practical and hard-worn as it was. She certainly hadn’t wandered into his office carrying the weight of the world on her hat brim. He thought for a moment. Clean as she kept it, that hat was certainly a bit tattered about the edges. Maybe if she helped him, he would offer to replace her hat in recompense for her efforts.
I wonder if such an action would get her to notice me for once and not my horse.
There was a touch of jealousy in his thought that surprised him. Since his discussion with Marilla the other night, he’d been spending quite a bit of time thinking about the things she’d said. According to his local gossip, Miss Addams had never been taken too seriously. Marilla had pointed out that the town had been indulgent with the young woman. They’d thought Amanda’s tomboy ways sweet initially, but then she’d been very young she came to town. Eventually, people had just gotten used to Amanda in trousers and covered in horse hair. Lord knew that she wasn’t the only woman in town who dressed like a man, there were practical considerations involved, and most of the ranching work couldn’t be done in a dress. Marilla had imparted this bit of news with a certain satisfaction that showed she not only liked Miss Addams but respected her to a certain degree even though they’d never talked p
ersonally.
Marilla had leaned in here, talking a little wistfully. Maybe she’d actually drunk a little of that alcohol that Phillip had been ordering all night to keep her boss off her back. She’d leaned in close, elbows on the table, speaking so none would hear.
She’d told Phillip how Miss Addams was different from the rest. She carried herself with a certain naturalness, without a trace of artifice or guile. Marilla had touched her own painted cheek then, wistfully, as though wishing herself somewhere different, somewhere she could be what she’d wanted to be.
“It never occurs to her that she should wear anything else. Or even behave in any other way. I think Miss Addams just is who she is. Exactly what she wants to be.”
Marilla had sniffled a little there and slammed down the rest of the drink in front of her. When she rose, she stood a little unsteady, and her eyes carried the sadness of a woman who had lived too many lives, none of them good.
“I can see what you’re doing here, lawyer man. You want to know about Miss Addams, you’ve heard all you need to know. A woman like her? She’s too good to give me the time of day. She’s always going to be exactly what you see. And she’ll leave you so intoxicated with her purity and honesty that no other woman will do, will she?”
Phillip replaced his hat on his head and started into the street, thinking deeply of all these things. He’d returned to the saloon twice, trying to find Marilla, but she hadn’t been available. The tacit message conveyed was that she wasn’t available to him, and he realized he’d hurt her somehow in using her to find out about the strange woman who worked in exchange for time spent with his horse.
It bothered him more than a little that Amanda had yet to see him in lieu of the horse.
Marilla was right. Miss Addams is intoxicating. Wildly so. I’ve known her a week, and it might as well be forever. In the short time he’d known her, he’d grown comfortable around her. It wasn’t like being around another man, she was undoubtedly all woman, but she was a very different woman from any he’d ever met.
At First Sight (The Sheriff's Daughters Book 2) Page 6
