LITMIR.BIZ

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for a hotel dinner.”

      Rydell smiled in spite of himself. Lefty always had a hard time when he couldn’t move around much. Seemed to remind him of that Army hospital when he lost his arm.

      “I never knew who my pa was. Whether he was a good man, or a card sharp. An honorable man or a thief.”

      “So,” the older man said, heaving his weight off the cot. “You’re not so sure who you are, izzat it?”

      “Partly.”

      “Partly! Lordy, Dell, you’d a been a good lawyer. You gonna string this out ’til the dining room closes? Tell me the other part and let’s eat!”

      Rydell stood up and set his cup in Lefty’s spotless dry sink. “The other part is this: The man who marries Jane Davis will automatically be respected.”

      “Shore will. So?”

      “Even if that man turns out to have a horse thief as kin, having Jane as a wife would protect him.”

      “Yup. What’s the problem?”

      “The problem is that it doesn’t work both ways. Such a man couldn’t protect Jane in the same way. Coming from a family like hers, being associated with him would ruin her.”

      Lefty clapped his good arm on Rydell’s shoulder. “Son, I’ve known you since you was sixteen and so skinny-ribbed and knob-kneed you looked more like a baby moose than a man. And I’ve watched you fall for Miz Jane like a felled tree and moon for her these ten years while you turned yourself inside out to grow up and get yerself established.”

      “That obvious, huh?” Rydell grinned at the older man.

      “Plain as a duck’s bill to me, though I doubt anyone else cottoned on to it. You always were good at keepin’ secrets.”

      Rydell flicked a glance at Lefty’s face. How much did the old man know?

      “You’re growed up now, Dell. You’re a finelookin’ feller with half the gals in Douglas County sweet on ya. What the hell else do you want? You want to marry Miz Jane, you go ahead and marry her. If she’ll have you.”

      A fifty-pound lead weight rolled off Rydell’s chest. “Should have been a lawyer yourself, Lefty. You talk just like you know all the answers.”

      “Ain’t the answers that’s important, it’s the questions. An’ the question here is, what the devil’s got into you? No matter about yer pa, you’ve got everything to gain by marryin’ Miz Jane. Now come on, so’s I can get some supper before my stomach caves in.”

      Rydell shortened his stride so Lefty could keep pace with him with his injured knee. With every step he took between the old man’s cabin and the Excelsior Hotel he turned the matter over and over in his mind.

      He wanted Jane. Had always wanted her, ever since that day in the schoolyard. He used to walk out to their place on the hill after it got dark and listen to her play the piano. The rippling notes floated like pearls on the warm air, and he stood for hours outside the trim white picket fence and gazed at a world he knew nothing about. A world that excluded him. He wanted her anyway.

      He stepped off the walkway and started toward the hotel, then stopped dead in the middle of the street.

      “Whatza matter?” Lefty complained.

      “Nothing. Everything.”

      His dream was within reach, now. He wasn’t going to give up. Nothing on the face of the earth was going to stop him.

      Jane dragged herself up the hill to her house as the red-orange sun slipped behind the mountain tops. Just as she reached for the front gate latch, a tall, wellbuilt Negro man stepped out onto her porch.

      “Miz Jane?”

      She stared at him. She’d seen him about town, but she didn’t know his name.

      “It’s Mose, ma’am. Mose Freeman. The blacksmith.”

      “Oh, yes. What are you doing here?”

      “Was jus’ walkin’ home past your house and I smelled somethin’ funny, like hot iron. I know that smell, see, and I knock and I come on in cuz sure as God made sweet corn, I smell fire.”

      “Fire! Is Mama—?”

      “Well, ma’am, your momma, Miz Davis, she boil all the water outta the teakettle, an’ it settin’ on the stove glowing red. So I dunk it into a dishpan of water. No harm done, Miz Jane.”

      “Oh, thank you, Mose. Mr. Freeman. Thank you so very much!”

      The soft brown skin of his face crinkled into a smile. “You better go on in, cuz your momma sayin’ how she wants her tea.”

      “Yes, of course,” Jane managed over the tight feeling in her throat. “I am indeed grateful.”

      With a wave, the man was off down the road, and Jane opened the front door.

      “Jane Charlotte, is that you?”

      “Yes, Mama.” She smelled something sharp and smoky in the air. The scorched teakettle.

      Her mother’s silvery voice echoed from the parlor. “Abner came to make tea, but Ah don’t believe it’s ready just yet.”

      “It wasn’t Abner, Mama.” She moved into the room. “You haven’t laid eyes on Abner since we left home. Or Odelia or Aunt Carrie, either. That was Mose Freeman, the blacksmith.”

      “The blacksmi…What have you been doin’? Your hair looks all windblown, and your skirt! My stars, that hem is simply filthy!”

      Jane gazed at her mother’s slight frame curled up under a crocheted afghan on the settee. “I told you about my shop, Mama, remember? My dressmaking shop?”

      Her mother looked up, a blankness in her pale blue eyes. “Why, no, dear. Tell me all about it while we have our tea. Abner? Ab—?”

      “Mama.” Jane felt her heart squeeze tight. Oh, Mama, please. Please don’t leave me like this.

      She turned away and forced a lightness into her voice. “I’ll fetch the tea, Mama. And then I’ll make us a nice supper.”

      And then I will go to bed and cry until I can’t feel anything anymore.

      “Jane, do call your father. He’s been out all morning and must surely be tired.”

      Try to remember. Oh, please, Mama, just try a little bit.

      The teakettle was ruined. Jane boiled water in the gray enamel saucepan and made hot milk and bread for their supper. It was a pitiful offering, but she was so tired she couldn’t think of anything else. Besides, they were running out of staples.

      They ate in silence. Jane listened to the moths batting against the lighted dining room window, the ting of her mother’s silver spoon against the edge of the china soup bowl. The air was warm and smelled of rain. She closed her eyes and tried to concentrate. I cannot bear this alone. I cannot.

      She had to take care of Mama.

      She had to open her shop, had to stitch up at least one garment to sell—otherwise they would run out of flour and tea and molasses before the week was up. And she had to bake bread, do the washing and then the ironing, scrub the—

      “Jane Charlotte, honey, you look plumb worn out.”

      Jane clenched her fist in her lap. “I’m fine, Mama.”

      Her mother reached across the table and smoothed her soft fingers over Jane’s hand. “We will be all right, Jane. Things are difficult just now, but they will work out. The Beaudry women have always been strong.”

      “I’m only half-Beaudry, Mama,” Jane said wearily.

      The fingers tightened on her hand. “Half,” her mother said, her pale blue eyes looking into Jane’s, “will be

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