a blue moon, you probably would have realized it. Where have you been anyway?”
“Around.”
“Not in town, not so folks have seen you much. You leave that no-account Beatty boy in charge. What do you suppose he’d do if there was trouble?”
“Same as me. And you shouldn’t call him that.”
Rose rolled her eyes at his rebuke. “Why not? You do. Everyone does.”
“Everyone else doesn’t say it with the same mean edge that you do.”
“I’m sure you misheard. Is it all right with you if I call him a boy?”
Wyatt drew back and regarded Rose with interest. “Are you sweet on him?”
“Sweet on him? Didn’t I just say he was a boy?”
“He’s twenty-seven. Seems about the right age for a man.”
“No man as far as I can tell, and my girls have been wonderin’ the same. We’re thinkin’ he’s sweet on you, Wyatt Cooper, and that explains why he never visits us.”
Wyatt considered all the responses he could make to the particulars of that statement. “Well,” he said slowly, “I suppose that’s a compliment. Will’s a real fine-looking young man.”
“You’ve only got five years on him, Wyatt.”
“But a lot more time in the saddle.”
“That’s what I mean. No one doubted you were a man at twenty-seven. Will’s still got pink in his cheeks and green behind his ears.”
Wyatt settled his hip against the rail and folded his arms across his chest. “Will does all right for himself, Rose. He likes Denver women just fine.”
“Denver women?” Her dark eyebrows arched dramatically. “Whores, you mean. What’s he doin’, goin’ to Denver? What’s wrong with my girls?”
“Did I say he was bedding whores?”
“There’s no respectable women in Denver that aren’t married. Is he seeing a married woman?”
“No.”
“Ha! Then he’s bedding down in the tenderloin.”
Wyatt laughed. “Is it losing his business that bothers you or something else? Maybe I was wrong about you not having a jealous bone.”
Rose’s mouth flattened. “As if I’d give him the time of day.”
“Maybe not, but you’d wind his clock.”
Pushing away from the rail, Rose spun around and jerked her chin in the direction of the departing Rachel Bailey. “Shouldn’t you be trailing after her skirts?”
Having riled her sufficiently to make his point, he merely gave her his laziest half grin. “I know where she’s going.”
Rose fingered Wyatt’s suspender from his waist to his shoulder. In case the gesture wasn’t obvious to him, she offered a coy come-on. “What about me? Do you know where I’m going?”
“I have a pretty good idea.”
She abandoned the suspender strap in favor of taking a fistful of his shirttail. “Why don’t we see if you’re right?”
Offering no resistance, Wyatt allowed Rose to lead him back inside her fancy house and into her fancier bed. They were satisfied, as they always were, to make good use of each other.
Rachel Bailey dropped one of her parcels. Even as she stooped to retrieve it, young Johnny Winslow was bending to scoop it up.
“Here you are, Miss Bailey.” He held it out to her before he noticed she was having difficulty with her remaining load. As more packages bobbled in her arms, he made another offer. “Better yet, let me take some of these from you. No trouble, I promise you.”
“That’s kind of you,” she said, “but Mrs. Longabach likely has need of you elsewhere. I can hear her calling for you. Just help me rearrange these, and I’ll be all right.”
Johnny regarded her with a mixture of skepticism and disappointment. He glanced at the broom he’d set against the restaurant’s window so he could help her. Sometimes he wished Mrs. Longabach would just hop on and ride it out of Reidsville. “Course, miss. I’ll get them settled in your arms just the way you want them.”
Rachel allowed her arms to relax as Johnny took the weight of the parcels from her. She knew she shouldn’t have tried to carry everything herself, but she’d stubbornly insisted that she could do it even though Mr. Showalter offered one of his boys to share the load. It wasn’t that she didn’t appreciate the kindness; she simply didn’t want the company. She never wanted the company.
The sudden appearance of Mrs. Longabach made Rachel jump and lose the two parcels that Johnny had already put in her outstretched hands.
“Heavens! I didn’t mean to startle you, Miss Bailey. I came out to learn why Johnny was ignoring me.” Mrs. Longabach’s thin face lost its pinched, disapproving expression as she took account of the scene in front of her. “Well, I can surely see that he’s up to good this time, and I can tell you, it’s a nice change. Go on, Johnny, finish helping Miss Bailey. You take some of her packages and see that she gets home without another mishap.”
“No, really—” Rachel’s protest fell on deaf ears. Mrs. Longabach had her own reasons for making certain that the parcels arrived undamaged.
“My batiste came today, didn’t it?” As if she could divine the contents, Mrs. Longabach looked over the plainly wrapped parcels with an eager and eagle eye. “The moss green? Oh, I dearly hope it was the moss green.”
“The moss green and the shell pink.”
Mrs. Longabach’s eyes brightened. “Well, isn’t that just grand? I swear, Miss Bailey, you have the greatest good fortune when it comes to getting what you want.”
Rachel’s smooth brow creased. “I do?”
“Your material, dearie. Seems to me like the train from Denver runs to Reidsville just for you. There’s always something waiting for you when it reaches our end of the line.”
Rachel considered that. “I suppose you’re right. I hadn’t realized.”
“Course the train runs for all of us, doesn’t it just? I’m not the first one to say that we don’t know what would become of Reidsville if Clinton Maddox hadn’t decided we were worth the cost of rails and ties.” Mrs. Longabach tucked a frazzled tendril of nut-brown hair behind her ear. “None of that’s neither here nor there, is it? I don’t imagine you ever give it any thought, what with you being so new to our town and all.”
“I’ve been here more than a year now,” Rachel reminded her. Out of the corner of her eye she saw that Johnny Winslow’s arms were beginning to sag under the weight of her parcels. She snatched two from the top of the pile and shored up the others. “But you’re right, Mrs. Longabach, I never gave it a thought. That doesn’t speak well of me, I’m afraid.”
“I didn’t mean it as a criticism, Miss Bailey.” Her hands fiddled in the folds of her calico apron. “You shouldn’t think I meant it like that.”
Rachel hardly knew what to say. Rather than be caught in an endless circle of apologies where not even one was required or desired, she pointed to the armload that Johnny was barely balancing. “I should see to these, Mrs. Longabach. I’ll call on you when I’ve sorted through the material and schedule a fitting.”
“Oh, yes. Yes, of course. I’ll look forward to that. Go on with you, Johnny. Miss Bailey doesn’t need you dawdling, and I certainly need you back here. There’s pots, pans, and a kitchen floor that needs scrubbing. Now scat.”
Rachel noticed that Mrs. Longabach was primarily speaking to Johnny’s back,