Page 58 of The Saloon Girl's Only Shot

In this town, unexpected dangers could show up from all directions. Owen couldn’t help thinking of Sureshot, hoping he’d gone back to Horsefly by now, but what if he hadn’t?

“I checked with Mavis on my way home,” Temperance added. “She said Jane stepped out to buy coffee this morning and didn’t come back.”

“Does she have anyone she likes to visit?” Emmett was also frowning with concern.

Temperance turned a cool look on him. “If you’re asking whether she visits a man, she does not. At least none she’s ever told me about,” she admitted in a quieter voice. “But I honestly don’t think so.” She tangled her fingers together and sighed anxiously.

“We’ll ask around for her,” Owen said. He was bone-tired and ready to eat the dog, but he only had to glance at Emmett and his friend nodded agreement.

“Thank you,” Temperance breathed.

Temperance put on beans for dinner and gave the dog the scraps she’d been saving for him, then tried to sew by firelight, but she couldn’t concentrate. She was worried about Jane.

Thankfully, Owen returned within the hour.

“Jane is fine,” were his first words on coming through the door. “She was on her way to the mercantile this morning when someone said they’d heard she could help with childbirth. A woman employed at the brothel was in labor. It took some time, but the mother and baby are resting and doing well.”

“Oh, what a relief!” On all counts. She covered her heart, then looked past him. “Where’s Emmett?”

“That traitor stayed at the Bijou,” he said with mock insult. “Fritz wouldn’t serve me, but I wanted to come home and put your mind at rest anyway. I think Emmett’s sweet on Jane,” he divulged with a lift of his brows.

“Oh?” She set aside her sewing to fetch their bowls and served the beans. “The way things are going, Mr. Fritz will have to change the name of his saloon from the Bijou to the I do.”

“Well done,” he said with appreciation of her joke as he accepted his bowl.

“I thought so.”

They ate without ceremony, then she helped him bring in the pieces for the bed frame. It went together without any pegs or iron nails. The rails were notched to fit into the heavy square legs.

“That’s ingenious,” she noted as the pieces only needed a few taps with a mallet to fit together.

“That’s Emmett. He owns shares in the mill so he planed and notched these while I was still saying, ‘Good morning.’ I drilled these holes, though. Right after he showed me where to put them. Here.” He fed her the tail of the hemp rope and she carried it across to the opposite rail.

They worked in silence, the only sound the hiss of the rope moving through the holes.

“I wanted to ask you,” he said carefully. “Did we offend you yesterday? Joking about Pearl making moonshine?”

“I wasn’t offended.” She stepped into the middle of the bed frame and brought the length of rope back to him, waiting while he fed it out one hole and in through the other. “I did wonder whether you really need me if you have a woman who can make whiskey, though. I presume she could keep your ledger for you, if you asked her to.”

“She probably could.” He met her gaze as he handed her the tail.

“So why don’t you?”

“She came here wanting a husband. I’m not looking to become one.”

“Ever?” She was both surprised and...unsettled.

“No.” His voice was gentle but firm. “Too much responsibility.”

Did he feel that way because of his brother? An ache sat in her soul on his behalf, wishing she could take away his loss and self-blame.

He wasn’t looking at her. He kept his attention on pulling through the slack of the rope. She stepped out of the way while he tugged to increase the tension on the lines that were already strung across the frame. The wood squeaked against its joints.

At least he was honest about his intentions and lack thereof. Not that she was looking for marriage, either. She had resigned herself to spinsterhood after Adelaide had pronounced her ‘ruined.’

Temperance had been devastated by that label. Her stepmother had spent all of Temperance’s adolescence impressing on her that a woman had no choice but to marry. Working for your father is unseemly. You need to know how to care for children and keep house. You want a family of your own, don’t you?

Temperance had wanted a family of her own, mostly because Adelaide had made her feel as though she lacked a place in her father’s. Kicking her out had put an exclamation point on her painful sense of being an outsider.