Clay shook his head. “Hard to find a person who doesn’t like her. What I want to know is if youlikeher.”
“I think what you want to know is whether I offered you the job because of your mother.”
He considered that. “No. That’s not it. I want to know if you like her. I don’t think she made a good first impression, but I still have to wonder.”
Roen’s eyes narrowed ever so slightly. “Why did you invite me to dinner, Clay?”
Clay was spared an immediate reply because the schoolmaster rang the bell again. “I should go.”
“You should answer my question. Let me help you out. Did you invite me to dinner so I could meet your mother?”
Shrugging, Clay said, “Hannah said it was the only way to make an introduction. It was her idea. You can ask her. She’s been conjugating on the idea since you bought her and Lizzie that bag of candy at Hennepin’s.”
“Cogitating.”
“What?”
“She’s been cogitating... never mind. Has Hannah encouraged you to do something like this before? Maybe with a traveling salesman or a whiskey drummer? Maybe with another railroad front man?”
Clay stared, jaw sagging. “You know about them?”
Roen hedged. “I may have heard something.”
“Mrs. Springer, I bet. Well, Ben ran them off, or my mother did, and not one of them was Hannah’s idea. Mine neither. In fact, it’s on account of men passing through, trying to take up with our ma, that Hannah thought she should do something. If you’re known to be on the trail, it’d keep others away.”
Roen felt as if his own jaw might sag. “That’s your plan?”
“Like I said, more Hannah’s plan.”
“Good Lord.”
“Uh-huh. She’s somethin’.”
“Somethin’.”
“Can I go?”
Roen held up an index finger. “In a moment. Why me? Hannah didn’t hatch this scheme solely because I bought her horehound drops and licorice whips.”
“No, sir. You’re right about that. She hatched it when she saw you in church. She liked your profile, at least that’s what she told me. I don’t see it myself, but then you can hardly expect that I would. Nobility in your profile, she said. Especially your nose.” Clay squinted as he studied Roen’s nose. “I guess I see that.”
Roen had an urge to run his index finger down the bridge of his nose. Long and downward sloping at the tip, it was yet another feature that distinguished him from the rest of his family. His mother had remarked on more than one occasion that it was a nose that belonged on a coin. He did not thank her for the observation.
“And then there was the fact that she saw you in church,” Clay said. “None of those other fellows ever went to church, and I think one of them might have been Catholic.” He added this last in hushed accents as if imparting a terrible secret. “Can’t say for sure.”
“Then perhaps you shouldn’t say at all.”
Admonished, Clay shifted from foot to foot.
Roen took pity on him. “Go on. Go. We’ll talk again after school. Chores first.” He watched Clay flee the kitchen and braced himself for the sound of the front door being slammed in the wake of the boy’s haste. Instead, he heard it being quietly closed. Roen smiled. “I’ll be darned.”
Chapter Six
Roen stepped aside and held the door to allow a woman to exit the sheriff’s office before he entered. It was only when a little yellow-haired girl squeezed herself out between the doorframe and her mother’s skirts that Roen recognized that the woman was Lily Salt. She was wearing a straw boater pitched at a forward angle so that it shaded her eyes. It was the same hat she wore to church, but on this occasion, she’d embellished it with a yellow ribbon band and a spray of delicate blue wildflowers that he thought were forget-me-nots.
Keeping the door open with a foot, he tipped his hat. “Good afternoon, Mrs. Salt.”
Lily looked up, startled. “Oh. It’s you. Forgive me. I was woolgathering.” She touched the top of Lizzie’s head. “It’s Mr. Shepard, Lizzie. Say hello.”
