a practical affair, dominated by a temperamental wood stove and a square oak worktable. She prepared meals for herself when she could engage the stove’s cooperation, although she didn’t necessarily have to. The Longabachs served hearty fare in their restaurant and better desserts than she had been able to master. The boardinghouse, too, offered three squares, and the Commodore Hotel provided fine food and as elegant a dining room as existed anywhere in Denver or even St. Louis. Fighting with the stove, though, was worth it most days, just because she generally preferred to keep to herself in spite of not always enjoying the company.
Rachel poked at the small fire in the stove, then added another log. She picked up the kettle, felt the weight of the water inside, and judged it sufficient for a cup of tea. She set the kettle in place and took a daintily hand-painted cup and saucer from the china cupboard. She carefully spooned tea from her store in the stoneware jar and placed it in the silver brewing ball; then she set a jar of honey beside the cup.
Having better things to do than wait for the water to boil, Rachel returned to what was now her workroom and began unwrapping packages, inspecting bolts of material, and examining the lace for unfinished edges or snagged imperfections. Fabric was not the only thing she received. She fingered the precious replacement gear that she’d ordered for her sewing machine. After Mr. Kennedy, the town’s blacksmith and wheelwright, had not been able to make so fine and exact a replica, she’d sent to Chicago for the part. She’d made do with Mr. Kennedy’s piece, but the machine jammed too often to make it practical to use for the long term.
In truth, she liked creating her gowns with the industry of her own hands. The delicacy of the stitching could not be duplicated by Singer’s machine, but it had its place, and when one of the men in town needed durable work clothes or a shirt in short order, the Singer was more blessing than curse.
By the time Rachel heard the rumblings of the kettle, the polished surface of the dark walnut dining table was no longer visible for the spread of satin, velvet, damask, linen, and lace. The corners of her mouth lifted as she examined the conflict of colors. The bright peacock-blue sateen did not work in concert with the muted, subtle shades of the sage damask and shell-pink batiste. Rather, the colors seemed to be engaged in an argument, not unlike the one that erupted from time to time between the town’s madam and Estella Longabach. Not that there was any real heat or malice between the pair. They seemed to scratch at each other simply because they could, and Rachel had noticed early on that every observer of their little skirmishes not only expected there would be an exchange of words, but found it entertaining, especially Mr. Longabach, who was frequently the subject of their tiffs.
Rachel poured the heated water into the pot and allowed the tea to steep while she took one of the wooden buckets resting near the back door and went outside to get water from the spring. Depending on how much piecework she had to do, she sometimes hired Mr. Showalter’s oldest daughter to help her with chores, but it was only recently that she’d lowered her guard enough to make this exception for visitors, and then only after Mr. Showalter had assured her most emphatically that his Molly was in no way a gossip like her mother. Thus far, it had proved to be true.
Rachel held the bucket away from her as she walked back to the house, careful not to let the water slosh over the sides and splatter her dress. It wasn’t that the black-and-white pin-striped poplin would have suffered any permanent damage, but rather that she was naturally fastidious—Molly would have said prissy—and that she was more comfortable when she didn’t have to apologize for hair that was out of place or a stain on her skirt. It was easier to stay clean than make excuses for her appearance.
After setting the bucket in the tub, Rachel attended to her tea. She drizzled honey into her cup and gave the tea a gentle stir, then leaned back against the table, wrapped both hands around the cup, and enjoyed her first sip.
It caught her unaware, this fresh wave of loneliness. It came upon her sometimes, but rarely so out of the blue. Perhaps it was because she’d wound the ornately sculpted gold-leaf clock, or run her finger across the scrollwork along the back of the bench, or perhaps it was that Johnny Winslow had made such a gallant offer to carry her packages, but whatever the trigger, she’d felt as if it had been pulled.
Gut-shot.
She’d heard people talk about it, understood it was a hard way to die. Slow. Painful. She thought she knew something about what it must feel like, though not from any buckshot or bullet. Loneliness could do that to a body, she thought. Longing, too. When the mood was on her, as it was now, she knew both, mostly in equal, intimate measure, and she bled a little. Always just a little.
She was assured of living a long life dying.
“Find your backbone, Rachel.” She saw the surface of her tea ripple in response, proof, she supposed, that there was breath left in her. “Else you’re liable to be mistaken for a”—she paused, considering her options for spineless creatures, and settled on—“a mealworm.” Sufficiently disgusted by that comparison, she drew herself up, finished her tea, then set herself to the task of replacing the gear in her sewing machine.
She was studying the fit of the parts that she’d removed, frowning in concentration over the gears spread out before her, when the front door rattled hard in its frame. The sound of it was loud and insistent enough to alarm her. She jerked her head upright and sat poised on the edge of her chair waiting to hear it again before she acted. The next time it came, she rose calmly, walked in the opposite direction, and lifted an empty bucket by the back door. Stepping out, she circled the rear of the house and came around the side.
Her visitor had a distinct height advantage over her even when he wasn’t standing on her porch. Just now he looked more than a little imposing, standing three-quarters turned toward her door and one-quarter in her direction. Not that he’d noticed her yet. He seemed every bit of him intent upon splitting her door from its hinges.
“You break it, Sheriff, you’ll have to pay for it. I like my red door.”
Wyatt Cooper pivoted on his boot heels and stared past the end of the porch at Rachel Bailey. At the angle she presented herself, she looked kind of smallish, trapped behind the vertical porch rails as if they were his jail’s iron bars. He managed to stop his fist from hitting the door again, thus saving the wood and his bare knuckles.
He nodded once. “Miss Bailey.”
“Sheriff Cooper.”
This exchange was what generally passed for conversation between them, so they were on familiar ground. The silence that followed stretched long enough to give rise to discomfort, but neither was inclined to give in. Rachel felt she had offered the gambit when she commented on her door. It was incumbent upon the sheriff to make the next move. For Wyatt’s part, he thought it fell to her to extend an invitation instead of standing there as though she hadn’t just sneaked around the house to avoid opening the door.
He couldn’t very well tell her that he knew that’s what she’d done. She’d realize before he finished accusing her that he must have looked in the window before he knocked—which he had—and that was certain to get her back up. She guarded her privacy closely, obsessively, and he mostly respected that, understood it better than he wished he did, and still he had to stand in opposition to it when it got in the way of what he had to do.
Wyatt reached inside his vest and removed a neatly creased piece of paper. “Artie Showalter hunted me down to hand this to me a little while ago. I thought you’d want to see it.”
Rachel didn’t move. “If it’s for me, I should have seen it first, don’t you think? Mr. Showalter knows where I live.”
“It came to my attention.”
“Then
