The Measure of a Lady (20 page)

She gasped. He gave her a quick, hard squeeze before releasing her.

She stood for a moment, thoroughly befuddled. ‘‘I need you to stand back-to-back with Mr. Crocker, please.’’

He complied, holding the petticoat wide.

‘‘Can you move the lantern to your right, Mr. Crocker, so your body doesn’t block the light?’’

He did so.

Bugs swarmed against the white undergarment. She looked around, locating the whiskey jar. The piece of fabric had completely absorbed the liquid, but Johnnie could smell the fumes from here. She began flicking insects from her petticoat into the jar.

‘‘I do believe, Miss Van Buren, you are getting those bugs drunk,’’ Johnnie said.

‘‘Insects,’’ she corrected.

He smiled. ‘‘Why do you want inebriated bugs?’’

‘‘Insects. Because they’ll be whole when they die and I won’t damage anything with a pin.’’

His arms began to ache, but he held steady. Finally she stood, then looked at him, wary. Curious.

He winked.

She backed up, hit the basket with her heel, and would have lost her balance and her bugs, but he lurched forward and yanked her against him.

He pressed the petticoat to her waist. ‘‘Gather your things. It’s time to go home.’’

————

Opening on Sundays had been a huge temptation. Especially since the men flocked to the saloons immediately after church.

Still, Rachel could not reconcile herself to working on the holy day. And this Sunday was no different. Pulling on her bonnet, she moved down the stairs and into the dining room.

She stopped short. Johnnie sat at one of her tables drinking coffee and reading the newspaper.

‘‘What are you doing here?’’ she asked.

He drained his cup, folded his paper, and stood. ‘‘I’m escorting you to church.’’

‘‘But I already have an escort.’’

He pulled on his jacket. ‘‘Don’t you want me to go to church?’’

She clasped her hands. ‘‘Well, of course I do.’’

‘‘All by myself?’’

She bit her lip. ‘‘No. It’s just, well, Mr. Crocker is to escort me to church this morning.’’

Johnnie’s shoulders relaxed. ‘‘Oh, is that all? Well, he won’t be able to. He sent his profound regrets. Sorry if I can’t remember the exact words he used.’’

She narrowed her eyes. ‘‘What happened between last night and this morning to change his mind?’’

Flipping his hands palm up, Johnnie lifted his shoulders in a shrug.

‘‘You said something to discourage him, didn’t you?’’

He glanced toward the kitchen. ‘‘Ah, Michael, there you are. Shall we, then?’’ He held out his arm.

‘‘What did you say to him?’’

Johnnie took hold of her hand and placed it in the crook of his elbow, holding it there while he all but dragged her to the door. ‘‘I have no idea what you are talking about.’’

Pulling at her hand, she freed herself. ‘‘I’ll not go to church with you, Johnnie. He’ll think I prefer your company over his.’’

He gave her a look that could melt butter. ‘‘You do, love. You do.’’

Michael opened the door. Both men stared at her expectantly.

‘‘I’m not going with you, Johnnie. I mean it.’’

He studied her for a moment. ‘‘As you wish.’’

She waited until he crossed the Plaza and strode into the schoolhouse before allowing Michael to escort her over.

The men jumped to their feet upon her arrival. Michael walked her down the center aisle to three open seats beside Selma and Frank. Johnnie stood next to one of them.

He smiled and held a chair for her. She had no choice but to sit down or make a scene. Fortunately, Mr. Crocker was nowhere in sight.

The sermon was excellent. She hoped Johnnie was paying attention.

After the service, he secured her to his side and expressed his appreciation to the minister, inquiring about the man’s family. Supposedly, the preacher’s wife was due to arrive in a few months. Johnnie suggested the four of them get together for dinner as soon as that momentous occasion occurred.

It seemed to Rachel that Johnnie knew every man in the room, and he took great pains to speak to each one of them. With the proprietary way in which he introduced her, it looked—and felt—as if they were a couple.

But they weren’t. And she had no idea how to correct the impression. Well, she’d make sure it didn’t happen again. As soon as she got him alone, she’d give him a piece of her mind.

And not just about this morning. About last night. The very idea of him acting as chaperone was absurd and manipulative. What did he think he was doing?

Yet when they left the schoolhouse, he didn’t walk her to the café; he steered her toward the Parker House.

She tried to dig in her heels. ‘‘What are you doing?’’

‘‘I want to show you my new place. It opens tonight.’’

‘‘You’re opening on the Lord’s Day?’’

He said nothing, just continued steady on their course.

‘‘I can’t go in there,’’ she said.

‘‘Of course you can.’’

‘‘I can’t. It’s a saloon.’’

‘‘It’s my home.’’

‘‘What about your cabin behind the hotel?’’

‘‘It’s still there.’’

And then they arrived. On his porch.

He held the door. ‘‘It hasn’t opened, so it isn’t officially a saloon yet.’’

She hesitated, then walked in totally unprepared for the tasteful and handsome interior. Gas chandeliers hung from the ceiling. An even wood floor gleamed from a recent polishing. Mirrors hung along the walls. A long L-shaped bar stretched along the side and back with an assortment of glassware, wine, whiskey, and she didn’t know what all lining the shelves behind it.

Green felt tables occupied the open area of the vast room. Fresh flowers in a china vase graced a sideboard.

‘‘This must have cost you a fortune,’’ she murmured.

Disappointment washed over her upon spying his statue. It stood upon a raised platform in the corner, shamelessly and unrepentantly displaying its attributes.

Placing a hand against her waist, Johnnie guided her to his kitchen off the back. Larger than hers, it held a stove, a scullery, a storeroom, and work tables. A pot of coffee sat on a hot plate.

He poured them each a cup, then leaned his hip against a table. She collected her cup and took a sip.

‘‘I love you,’’ he said.

She swallowed down the wrong pipe, choking, coughing, spilling the brew she held in her hand.

He gave her a slight smile. ‘‘I see your cup overfloweth.’’

She set the drink down, pulled a handkerchief from her sleeve, and held it to her mouth. Sweet merciful heavens.

Braving a look, she froze. The man was dead serious.

He took another swallow. ‘‘Will you marry me?’’

She didn’t know what to do. What to say. The truth was, she loved him, too. She could admit that to herself now. But never would she act upon it. Not unless he was willing to make some major changes.

And from the looks of that gambling house they’d just walked through, he wasn’t.

‘‘Johnnie, I . . . I . . .’’

He set his coffee down and pushed himself away from the counter. She took a step back, but he had a very long reach and easily captured her waist.

He pulled her ever so gently against him. ‘‘Say yes.’’

‘‘No,’’ she whispered, but her answer did not stop his descent, nor his kiss. And this kiss was the sweetest one yet. Slow, tender, and exquisitely sensual.

Oh, how she would love to learn the secrets of the marriage bed with him. He was such a good man. Deep down. But he was selling his soul for worldly things. And at some point, that would erode any respect she held for him. Any love she held for him.

She broke their kiss and took a step back but allowed his hands to rest against the curve of her waist.

Tears filled her eyes. ‘‘I’m sorry.’’

His hands tightened. ‘‘No. You can’t just ignore what we have. I know you feel it. I know you do.’’

She nodded her head. ‘‘Yes, I do. I do. But I won’t marry you, Johnnie. I can’t.’’

His hands ran up and down her sides. ‘‘Things are different in California. What is a mite questionable in the East is perfectly respectable here.’’

She let the tears fall, not bothering to swipe them away. ‘‘God is still God in California. The Bible is still the Bible. And I am still me. I cannot do what you are asking me to do. I cannot be the wife of a man who nightly robs the last ounce of dust from men who’ve been accumulating it for months with the intention of sending it to their wives and children.’’ The tears streamed, over her cheeks, around her jaw, down her neck, and into her ruffled collar. ‘‘I could never live on the profits of such a thing. It would kill me.’’

His Adam’s apple bobbed. ‘‘It is my livelihood,’’ he pleaded.

‘‘I know,’’ she blubbered.

‘‘If I don’t run this saloon, someone else will.’’

She nodded. ‘‘I know. I know.’’

He cinched her to him while she sobbed over the loss of something they both wanted so very, very much.

‘‘I’ll not take no for an answer,’’ he said.

‘‘I’ll never say yes. Please don’t tempt me beyond what I can bear.’’

‘‘I will pressure you every waking moment. I will haunt your dreams. I will slay every competitor.’’

She pulled back, crinkling his lapels in her hands. ‘‘Oh, Johnnie.

If you would only take all that stubbornness and channel it for the good. Then you and I both could have what we want.’’

‘‘I just spent a fortune building that saloon.’’

‘‘Who cares about that when it’s eternity you should be investing in?’’

He swooped down so fast she had no time to prepare. Never had a kiss been so fierce, so possessive, so all consuming. She tried to pull away, but he held her fast. And, truth be told, she wanted this kiss. Wanted something to remember, to take to bed with her at night.

So she answered him with an intensity of her own. But when his hands ventured where they oughtn’t, she knew who must be the strong one.

Help me, Lord
.

Get out of there
. The thought was so strong, so powerful, she could not ignore it.

Yes. Yes
. She wrenched herself from Johnnie’s hold, spun around, and raced out the door.

The miners passing by stopped short. Without pause, she wove through the tangle of men congesting the square. Johnnie shouted her name.

But she didn’t stop. Not until she was through the cafe
door, up the stairs, and in the sanctuary of her room.

Throwing herself onto her cot, she hugged a pillow, pressing her face into it. The downy lump was a paltry replacement for what she really wanted.

chapter
18

R
achel didn’t hear from Mr. Crocker for two weeks. When he finally ventured into the café, he told her he’d been out on an expedition and had several new paintings. She had agreed to look at them the following Sunday.

Which was tomorrow. Already. And still she could not work up any real enthusiasm for their appointment.

Johnnie had been by for coffee every morning since declaring his feelings. Bolting the door did no good; he’d come in the back. Refusing to sit with him did no good; he’d follow her around. Withholding conversation did no good; he’d talk enough for the both of them.

This morning was no different. So she just capitulated, poured herself a cup of coffee from the stove, and entered her dining area to find him reading his paper.

‘‘Morning,’’ he said.

‘‘Good morning.’’

‘‘What’s the matter?’’

She sat down. How could he tell from those two simple words that something was the matter?

‘‘There’s a ship leaving for New York this week,’’ she said.

He folded the paper and laid it on the table. ‘‘Are you leaving?’’

She stared out the window, unseeing. ‘‘No.’’

‘‘Why not?’’

Scraping a loose splinter of pine with her fingernail, she sighed. ‘‘I have a prodigal that needs a place to come home to. To leave her would be unthinkable.’’

He covered her hand with his. ‘‘I’m sorry, love.’’

Swallowing, she nodded and extracted her hand.

‘‘I have something for you,’’ he said.

She blew on her coffee.

Reaching under his chair, he brought out a glass jar with a whiskey-saturated cloth inside and slid it toward her. Setting her cup down, she lifted the jar, eyes widening.

‘‘Oh, Johnnie.’’ Standing, she quickly removed her apron, smoothed it out onto the table, and then popped the lid off the jar. The smell of whiskey burned her nose.

With gentle motions, she gave the jar a series of slight shakes until a dead bee with a bright, shiny green head and thorax tumbled out. ‘‘You brought me a green
Halictidae
.’’

He scratched his chin. ‘‘I did?’’

‘‘Yes, I’m not sure what species, of course, for we have nothing like this at home. I’m confident it’s in the
Halictidae
family, though.’’ Slowly sinking into her chair, she clasped her hands in her lap. ‘‘I can’t accept it.’’

‘‘You can’t?’’

‘‘Heavens, no. I’m trying not to encourage you.’’

She leaned close and examined the black and yellow striped abdomen. Yet it was the sparkly, jolly green shade of the rest of its body that near took her breath away.

‘‘Rachel?’’

‘‘Hmmm?’’

‘‘I risked life and limb to catch that pesky thing instead of squashing it dead.’’

She looked up.

‘‘If you don’t take it,’’ he said, voice low, eyes dark, ‘‘I’ll pitch it back in that jar and carry it up to your private room myself. And that, my dear, would be much more titillating than if you simply accepted this green hali-whatever-you-call-it.’’

She nibbled on the inside of her cheek. ‘‘That’s blackmail.’’

His eyes didn’t so much as flicker.

She turned the bee over with the tip of her finger. ‘‘Well, perhaps. Just this once. But no more. It simply wouldn’t be right.’’

He offered her a noncommittal smile.

————

Rachel laid the individual pudding molds upside down, thinking of all the specimens Johnnie had brought to her these last several weeks. He evidently had half the population in the mines collecting insects for her. Each time she tried to reject an offering, he threatened to carry it personally up to her room.

So she accepted them. And took great care to dry them, label them, and pin them to a board.

‘‘They’re ready for dessert,’’ Frank said, hands full of soiled serving platters.

Quickly tapping the small almond puddings out of their molds and onto a large plate, she tried to suppress her irritation. Selma was doing nothing other than wiping down the stove, yet she would not pause long enough to help with the customers.

Certainly, she was a shy, quiet girl. But she wasn’t timid. Still, nothing could convince her to work the front room. To make matters worse, Saturdays were their busiest and Michael had yet to make an appearance.

Taking the dessert platters, she entered the dining room. Her feet slowed as the men at the end of the table gave up their seats for some late arrivals.

She delivered the puddings, then wavered in indecision. Her ‘‘No Prostitutes’’ sign was quite prominently displayed, so she’d never been put in a position to serve these women before.

She moved not an inch as she stood between the devil and the deep blue sea trying not to notice the women’s full-sleeved form-fitting jackets spreading out over their waists. Nor their bonnetless, half-shingle coiffures that framed their faces with curls while leaving the rest of their manes hanging loose and long.

Was this to be a new form of advertising for them? For they could not, of course, take out ads in the newspapers. Yet that did not keep them from promenading on Sundays, from throwing lavish soirees, from attending public events, nor even from handing out cards printed in fancy script with the location of their rooms. Why, just last week she’d heard of a cafe
owner hiring women to pose without clothing on a special platform in his dining room.

She shuddered. This was to be an establishment run by the respectable for the respectable. To allow these moonlight women to sit at one of her tables enticing men into sin was simply not to be tolerated.

Her clientele quieted as she approached the foursome.

A woman with coal black hair and faintly painted lips removed a glove. ‘‘We’re here for dessert only, though we’ll gladly pay the full three dollars, won’t we, Mollie?’’

‘‘Sure will.’’

The other two looked at Rachel expectantly.

‘‘I’m sorry,’’ she said. ‘‘This cafe
is a family establishment. It does not serve fallen women. I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to leave.’’

The women scoffed in obvious amusement. Silence descended like a guillotine.

Leaning back, the woman with black hair raised a skeptical brow.

‘‘You’re going to toss us out?’’

‘‘I’m sure it will not come to that. You’ll not be served, so there is no reason for you to stay.’’

Black Hair’s gaze roamed throughout the room, pausing to touch on customer after customer. A smile revealing straight but smoke-stained teeth spread across her face. ‘‘On the contrary, my dear, I see about fifty or so reasons to stay.’’

A muffled, deep-throated chuckle sounded from a corner of the room followed by a shushing.

The woman named Mollie captured Rachel’s attention then freed the top buttons of her jacket, producing a profusion of cleavage from the stranglehold of her corset. ‘‘My, but it’s warm in here,’’ she said.

Rachel swallowed her shock. The woman wore no chemise.

‘‘That’s enough, ladies,’’ Frank said.

Rachel let out a slow breath, relief pouring through her. He must have sensed something was afoot when the room quieted. He moved beside her and stood, legs spread wide.

Black Hair cocked her head. ‘‘Surely you’re not suggesting you would actually manhandle us, are you, Frankie?’’ She ran her tongue across the edge of her lips.

‘‘I said that’s enough. If Miss Rachel says you leave, then you leave.’’

‘‘Well, the girls back at the Empire are going to be plenty amused when they hear
Frankie
threw us out in a bid to keep this place respectable.’’ She snorted.

He took hold of Mollie’s elbow and forcibly brought her to her feet. ‘‘Have a good afternoon, ladies.’’

Black Hair hesitated, then must have concluded Frank was serious. She rose. ‘‘My afternoon will be fine. I’m wondering how very lonely your afternoons are going to be when word goes around.’’

‘‘I’ll get along just fine.’’

She pulled on her gloves. ‘‘Ah, that’s right. You work here with your
cousin,
don’t you? So nice to have family in times of trouble. Come along, girls.’’

After they left, Rachel returned to the kitchen, her customers avoiding her gaze. Word must have spread like fire, for Johnnie walked through the back door within the hour.

‘‘You all right?’’ he asked.

She scrubbed a pan in a large tub of suds. ‘‘Yes. I’m fine. Do you know where Michael is? He never showed up for work.’’

‘‘He told me you gave him the day off.’’

‘‘On a Saturday? He knows that’s my busiest day. Why would he think that?’’

Selma slipped between them with a stack of newly dried plates. ‘‘Howdy, Mr. Parker.’’

‘‘Hello, Selma.’’ Johnnie stepped out of her way. ‘‘Well, I’ll send him over.’’

Rachel looked up. ‘‘He’s at your place?’’

‘‘Now, don’t get in an uproar. I said I’d send him home.’’

‘‘What’s he doing over there?’’

Johnnie tugged at his earlobe. ‘‘He said he told you.’’

‘‘Told me what?’’

‘‘That he’s renting a table from me.’’

‘‘He’s what? You mean to tell me he is
dealing
?’’

He held up both hands and backed out the door. ‘‘Listen, I have to go. I’ll send him right over. Okay?’’

But Michael never made it home. Not even by nightfall.

————

Rachel lifted her head from the pastry table, where she had dozed off in the crook of her arm. Michael stood in the open doorway, his youthfulness accentuated by the oversized man’s shirt divided into sections by suspenders that held up his loose-fitting pantaloons.

‘‘Have you been at Johnnie’s?’’ she asked.

He closed the door. ‘‘Yes.’’

‘‘Dealing?’’

‘‘Yes.’’

‘‘Why?’’

‘‘I’m good at it, it’s a lot more fun than scrubbing dishes, and I can make a month’s salary in one night.’’

She turned up the lamp then patted the spot across the table from her in invitation.

He shook his head. ‘‘I’m tired. We can talk about it in the morning.’’

‘‘I could have marched over there and dragged you home by your ear, but I chose not to embarrass you in that way. In return, I expect you to do me the courtesy of answering a few questions. Right now.’’

He took a deep breath. ‘‘I said we’d talk about it in the morning, and that’s what we’ll do.’’

He strode past her and to the stairs.

Jumping up from the table, she grabbed the lantern and followed. ‘‘I’ll not make the same mistake twice, Michael. I’ll not let you be lured into a life of sin, too.’’

He said nothing.

‘‘I mean it.’’

He paused at his bedroom door. ‘‘I’m a man now, Rachel. You need to leave me be.’’

‘‘A man? You are a child.’’

‘‘I’m the only man this family has. It’s time I started acting like it.’’

‘‘By dealing cards?’’

‘‘By cutting the apron strings.’’

He stepped into his room and shut the door firmly behind him.

————

Rachel gave a brief wave to Mr. Crocker, then stepped into the café.

‘‘Where have you been?’’ Johnnie barked.

Rachel jumped, then pushed the front door closed. ‘‘What are you doing here?’’

‘‘Answer my question.’’

She untied her bonnet and pulled it from her head. Mr. Crocker’s ‘‘giddy-up’’ and the jangle of his horse and wagon filtered in from outside as he headed back to the livery.

She smiled to herself. He’d been very careful to come with a wagon instead of a carriage this time. Such a dear man.

She moved to the table beside which Johnnie stood, then sighed and sat down. She’d been looking forward to the sanctuary offered by early Sunday evenings when the cafe
was closed and she had the place all to herself. But that was not to be.