drove the buckboard through and she managed to shut the gate.
The snow was six or eight inches deep already. It dragged at her heavy skirts and instantly began soaking her delicate ankle-high lace-up shoes as she headed for the shed doors around back. How did women do it, way back when? She couldn’t help but wonder. There were some situations—this one, for instance—when a woman really needed to be wearing a sturdy pair of trousers and waterproof boots.
There was a deep porchlike extension running the length of the shed at the rear, sheltering the doors. She ducked under the cover, stomping her shoes on the frozen ground and shaking the snow off her hem. Even with gloves on, her hands were so stiff with cold, it took forever to get the combination padlock to snap open. But eventually, about the time she started thinking her nose would freeze and fall off, the shackle popped from the case. She locked it onto the hasp.
And then, though the wind fought her every step of the way, she pulled back one door and then the other, latching them both to hooks on the outside wall, so they wouldn’t blow shut again. She gestured Justin inside and he urged the old mare onward.
Katie followed the buckboard inside as Justin hooked the reins over the back of the seat and jumped to the hard-packed dirt floor. “Cold in here.” He rubbed his arms and stomped his feet, looking around, puzzled, as Buttercup shook her head and the bells tinkled merrily. “What is this?”
“Kind of a combination garage and barn. The Historical Society is planning on setting it up as a model of a blacksmith’s shop.” She indicated the heavy, rusting iron equipment against the walls and on the plank floor. “For right now, it’ll do to stable Buttercup ‘til this mess blows over.” There were several oblong bales of hay stacked under the window, waiting to be used for props in some of the museum displays. Buttercup whickered at them hopefully.
“Go on through there.” Katie indicated the door straight across from the ones she’d left open. It led to the breezeway and the museum. “It’s warm inside. And a couple of ladies from the Historical Society should be in there waiting, with the food and drinks.”
He looked at her sideways. “What about you?”
She was already trudging over to unhook Buttercup from the buckboard. “I learned to ride on this horse, I’ll have you know. I’m going to get her free of this rig and make her comfortable until someone from the ranch can come for her.”
“The ranch?”
“She’s Caleb’s, from out at the Lazy D.”
He stomped his feet some more, making a big show of rubbing his arms. “Can’t someone inside take care of the horse?”
“Anna Jacks and Tildy Matheson were supposed to set out the refreshments for the ‘wedding reception.’ They’re both at least eighty.”
“Maybe someone else has shown up by now.”
Doubtful, she thought. And even if they had, they’d most likely be drunk. “I’d rather just do it myself before I go in.”
He gave her an appraising kind of look and muttered, heavy on the irony, “And you seemed so shy, back there at the hall.”
She stiffened. Yes, okay. As a rule, she was a reserved sort of person. But when something needed doing, Katie Fenton didn’t shirk. She hitched up her chin and spoke in a carefully pleasant tone. “You can go on inside. I’ll be there as soon as I’m through here.”
He insisted on helping her. So she set him the task of searching for a box cutter in the drawers full of rusting tools on the west wall. When he found one, she had him cut the wire on a couple of the bales and spread the hay. Meanwhile, she unhitched Buttercup from the rig, cleaned off the icicles from around her muzzle and wiped her down with one of the blankets from the buckboard.
“Okay,” she said when the job was done. “Let’s go in.”
He headed for the still-open doors to the pasture. “I’ll just shut these.”
“No. Leave them open. The walls cut most of the wind, so it won’t be too cold in here. And Buttercup can move around a little, and have access to the snow when she gets thirsty.”
He shrugged and turned to follow her out—which was a problem as the door to the breezeway was locked from the outside. They ended up having to go out the big doors. Hunched into the wind, with the snow stinging their faces, they slogged through the deepening snow around the side of the shed and back through the gate that enclosed the paddock.
Once under the partial shelter of the breezeway, they raced for the back door, the wind biting at them, tearing at Katie’s heavy skirts.
It was locked. Katie knocked good and hard. No one came.
Justin wore a bleak look. “What now?”
“No problem.” Katie took off her right glove and felt along the top of the door frame, producing the key from the niche there. She held it up for him to see before sticking it in the lock and pushing the door inward onto an enclosed back porch. He signaled her ahead of him and followed right after, pulling the door closed to seal out the wind and snow.
By then, it had to be after six. It was pretty dark. Katie flipped on the porch light and gestured at the hooks lining the wall next to the door that led inside. “Hang up your coat,” she suggested, as she set her gloves on a small table and began undoing the jet buttons down her front. The porch wasn’t heated and she shivered as the coat fell open. “Whew. Cold…”
“I hope it’s warm in there.”
“It is,” she promised as she shrugged out of the long gray coat and hung it on a hook. He hung his beside it. She swiped off her hat, shook out her hair and tossed the hat on a porch chair.
“This way.” Katie unlocked the door and pushed it open into the museum’s small, minimally equipped kitchen area. Lovely warm air flowed out and surrounded them.
“Much better,” Justin said from behind her.
She led him in, hanging the key on the waiting hook by the door and turning on the light.
The long counter was spotless, and so was the table over by the side windows. A few cups dried on a mat at the sink. No sign of Tildy or Anna.
They moved on into the big central room, which a hundred years before had been the only schoolroom. The room was now the museum’s main display area—and pitch-dark. Years ago, when rooms were added on around it, the windows had been closed up. Katie felt for the dimmer switch near the door, turning it up just enough that they could see where they were going.
The light revealed roped-off spaces containing nineteenth-century furniture arranged into living areas: a bedroom, a weaving room, a parlor, a one-room “house” with all the living areas combined, the furniture in that section rough-hewn, made by pioneer hands.
“No sign of your friends,” Justin said.
“They probably got worried about the storm and went home.”
A quick check of the two other display rooms confirmed their suspicions. They were alone.
“No cars out there,” Justin said once they’d reached the front reception area, where trays of sandwiches, cookies and
