“Yeah?”
“Calm your britches.” I tossed back the last dregs of my Arbuckle’s, chewed. “If you’re foolhardy enough to work with that wound, I’ll take advantage of you.”
A leer grew across his face. That rogue, he knew what I meant.
“And, um.” I scanned the corners of my one-room. “I’ll bake you a pie.”
He shuddered. “No, thanks.”
He stood and strode toward me, the wood floors swaying with his movement.
I crossed my arms. “I can cook.”
“Mmm.”
His body before mine, gaze on my lips, cheeks, collarbone. He reached out, fingered the ends of my braid. I couldn’t breathe.
“Thank you for taking care of me,” he said.
I stepped back. “I need to change.”
He released the strands. He held the pause a moment, then turned.
I tossed off my nightgown, tugged on my long underwear and flannel petticoat, all sorts of wind caught in my throat.
“But,” he said, “if it suits, you could join me helping the Browns prepare for their barn bee.”
“Deal.” I straightened the band of my petticoat. “You’re friendly with Asa now?”
He shrugged. “He’s practical. I like him.”
“Practical.”
“Sakes alive, you want a sermon? He’s got a good soul.”
A good soul.What in tarnation was that? And that was what he sought in companionship? I buttoned up my shirtwaist, tucked theends, and shrugged into my slicker. I pulled on my wool stockings, slipped into my boots.
“I’m decent.”
He turned. “Are you now?”
I snorted and thrust my hands into my mittens. “And you’re preparing to dig,” I said, gesturing at his armless shirt, “like that?”
I stalked over to my brothers’ laundry, grabbed one of Willie’s gaudy red dress shirts, and tossed it at him. Stot scowled, looked up. I smothered a smirk. I’d never seen the man in anything but white, gray, black. “It’ll camouflage your dripping blood.”
He studied the fabric in his hands. “Your brother’s?”
I faltered tying on my gun belt. “Whose else would it be?”
“I don’t know.”
Was he actually asking whether I’d had some random feller over? “It doesn’t matter to you whose it is.”
I whistled for One Eye to follow, yanked open the door, and stalked out into the bleached winter sunshine.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Ilifted the lid off my pot, tossed flour into the soup. The flour lay atop the broth in lumps. Though I’d followed Ma’s recipe exactly, something was off.
