“Oh. Yes. I suppose you do.”
Still, he hesitated. “It seems wrong to leave you alone. I didn’t understand so well before.”
“Remington, you have to. I know that. Go on. It’s better now than when you were going to walk out angry with me.”
“I wasn’t angry,” he said.
“Disappointed, then.”
“Frustrated,” he told her. One corner of his mouth lifted. As a smile, it was self-mocking. “And all right, a little angry.”
Phoebe waved him away, but she was smiling, too. “Go.”
As soon as the door closed behind him, Phoebe dragged the pot out from under the bed and used it, thanking Old Man McCauley for leaving it behind. She stepped outside long enough to empty the contents and let the rain rinse it out. She didn’t notice that the tail of her blanket was wet until she came back in. After toeing the pot under the bed, she checked her clothes. The thin camisole was the only article that was completely dry. She dropped the blanket and put on the camisole. She was standing in front of the stove drying the blanket when Remington reappeared.
Phoebe looked him over, saw he was almost as wet as he’d been when they arrived at the cabin, and jerked her thumb in the direction of the clothesline. “You’re going to have to remove your boots yourself.”
“I think I can manage,” he said dryly, “but I suppose it means you’re done courting me. That’s disheartening... and inconvenient.”
She laughed, shaking her head. “I didn’t realize that helping you out of your wet boots could be mistaken for courtship. You have me at a disadvantage. I don’t know the native customs.”
Remington laid his vest over the line, tossed his hat on the bed, and began unbuttoning his shirt. “Do you want to hear them?”
She gave him a wry, over-the-shoulder glance. “Oh, yes. Entertain me.”
“Well, there’s sharing a horse, for instance. Riding double with a fella generally means the gal has her toe in the water.”
“Fella? Gal? Youaregiving me the local color, aren’t you?”
“Aim to please, ma’am.”
“Go on.”
Remington shrugged out of his shirt and then peeled his undershirt off over his head. He tossed both on the line without straightening the wet, wadded fabric. “Then, there’s sharing a porch swing in the moonlight. A fella and gal that do that are reckoned to be sweet on each other, but when the gal rests her pretty little ankle boots in the fella’s lap, most folks would consider them betrothed.”
“Is that right?”
“Hmm.” He sat down on the bed and shucked his boots and socks. He set the boots beside the bed and slapped the socks over the clothesline. “When a gal asks a fella to buy clothes for her, it’s—”
She interrupted. “I gave you money for those clothes.”
He put up a hand. “Do you think I’m talking about you? I am explaining the commonly held opinions regarding courtship.” He added a distinctive drawl as he went on. “Anyway, I’m comin’ around to that. So, like I was sayin’, the gal askin’ is one thing, the fella agreein’ to do it is another, and the fact that there was money passed from the gal to the fella, well, that is acknowledged to be an intimate exchange no matter how it’s sliced.”
“Huh. There is so much to learn.”
“It’s like walkin’ in the grasslands after the herd’s moved on. You have to watch where you’re going every step of the way.”
Phoebe’s laughter came in short bursts. She knuckled tears away from the corner of both eyes. “Of all the things I’ve heard so far, that might be the one worth remembering.”
“It’d be a risk to ignore the others.”
“I appreciate the caution.” Phoebe stepped away from the stove, turned, and regarded the untidy clothesline. It was not that she wanted to do it; it was more that she could not help herself. She had organized the precious space of too many theater dressing rooms to allow Remington’s chaos to stand here. She lifted his socks off the line, wrung and smoothed them out, and then rehung them. “Is that everything?” she asked, removing his wadded shirt.
“Almost. There would be folks who’d point to a gal accepting an invitation to go riding out alone with a fella and say that she’s thinkin’ real hard about her weddin’ dress. Probably about the cake, too.”
“Fiona would say that,” she said, snapping out his shirt. Droplets of water sprayed the floor. “Would Thaddeus?”
“Hard to say. Ellie would. Maybe it’s a woman’s view.”
