• • •
Phoebe was already wearing her robe but still searching for her slippers when there was a knock at the door. The knock was a sure sign that it was not Fiona returning. She padded to the door and opened it a few inches. When she saw it was Ellie Madison, she stood back and let the housekeeper in.
Ellie wiped her damp hands on her muslin apron. “I was washing up,” she said. “Your sister’s corralling a couple of the boys to set up a bath.”
“I know.” Phoebe was apologetic. “I hope it’s not too much trouble.”
“No such thing. Trouble’s trouble. You can’t have too much of it. I just came to make sure you had some privacy for personal matters before they came traipsing in here. Outhouse is in the back, about a hundred feet downgrade from the stream, but like I said, there’s a pot under the bed.”
“I remember. I think I’ll use the privy. I need to stretch my legs.”
“Suit yourself. I don’t know how it is in the city, but there’s a bucket of wood ashes inside. Pour a handful down the hole when you’re done. Keeps things smelling like the good earth.”
“Um. Yes. I’ll do that. Do you know where my slippers are?” When Ellie’s gaze dropped to the bedside, Phoebe realized Fiona must have accidentally pushed them under the bed. “Never mind,” she said. “I know what happened to them.”
“You probably want to put on shoes to go out and keep your slippers for indoors.”
“You’re right. Thank you.” Phoebe found her ankle boots on the floor of the wardrobe. She sat in the rocker to put them on, aware that the housekeeper was waiting to provide an escort at least part of the way. “Has everyone else eaten?”
“That’s neither here nor there. You haven’t.”
“I can make breakfast for myself.”
“Never thought you couldn’t, but it’d give me pleasure to do it just the same. You don’t mind that, do you?”
“No,” she said. “At least not this morning.”
“Good. Come now. Let me point out the way.”
• • •
By the time Phoebe reached the privy, she had met three of the five hands working the ranch since winter passed. Ralph Neighbors, a bow-legged cowpoke in his early forties, tipped his hat and murmured his name as he sauntered by on his way to the house. Scooter Banks, closer to Phoebe’s age, walked like his boots had springs, not spurs, and introduced himself with a firm handshake and a toothy smile. Arnie Wilver’s age was indeterminate, but it fell somewhere between Ralph’s and Scooter’s. He was carrying a coiled length of rope on his shoulder and he merely raised a gloved hand in her direction. It was Scooter who supplied his name.
Working in the close quarters of the theater, rubbing elbows at almost every turn, slipping between actors in various states of dress—or undress—Phoebe allowed that she was on loose terms with modesty. Perhaps it was just aswell if she was going to be presented like a debutante every time she walked to the privy.
She smiled around a bubble of laughter, but that faded as she recalled a moment in the cabin at Thunder Point right after Remington had cut her loose. The first thing she had done was rearrange her skirt so that it covered her legs. She wondered that she had felt the urge at all. Was it because she knew that it was expected or becausehewas watching her?
Phoebe also remembered that her reserve, such as it was, was short-lived. How else to explain that she had allowed herself to be fitted against the curve of his saddle and in the cradle of his crotch? And when he suggested that she put her arms around him? Not a second thought; not a moment’s hesitation.
She sighed. She could not have given him a good opinion of herself. On the heels of that thought, she wondered if that mattered and whether it should. He had been quiet on the ride from Frost Falls to the ranch. Thaddeus asked him some about his business in Chicago, and Remington responded but kept his answers brief. Ben wanted to know more about the men on the train, and here Remington deferred to her. That was when she realized that she preferred the quiet as well.
She thought he had fallen asleep in the saddle, but then they reached the house and he made the leap to the porch effortlessly. His affection for Ben’s mother was real and transparent. It had not occurred to her until that moment that if Thaddeus had come to treat Ben as a second son, then Ellie might feel similarly toward Remington.
It made Phoebe wonder what kind of feelings Remington might harbor for Fiona, but she did not speculate on the subject long. There was a bath waiting for her inside the house and two more hands that she still had to meet.
One of them, Les Brownlee, was shifting his slight weight rather urgently from side to side not above twenty feet from the privy. As soon as he saw her, he blushed red to the tips of his ears, tucked his receding chin against his chest, and mumbled his name as he passed without looking up.
The other, who told her his name was Johnny Sutton, was helping Remington carry pails of water down the hall to her bedroom. He was so young and such a skinny thing, and laboring mightily under the weight of the water, that Phoebe was tempted to take one of the buckets from him. Truly, she was tempted to take both. He was lightening his load by sloshing water each time he took a step.
Phoebe hurried back to the kitchen for a mop, took it over Ellie’s protests, and followed the wet trail to the bedroom. She thrust the mop into the young man’s hand and pointedly directed him to the door. Remington chuckled until she gestured at him to do the same.
He held up his hands, an empty pail in each. “What did I do?”
“You let that boy make a mess.”
Remington lowered the pails. “That boy is seventeen and has to learn to carry more than his weight in water if he’s going to last the summer, and since his ma is depending on him to help support the family, he needs to stay motivated. I swear if you had asked him to hand over a bucket, he would have done it.”
Phoebe pressed her lips together. “Mm. I came close to telling him to give me the pair. I didn’t because I thought it would embarrass him.”
