Looking at each of the girls, Callie Mae was struck by how young they suddenly seemed. All of them came from an orphanage in St. Louis and had answered her advertisement. Eighteen years old and about to be put out on the street, they really hadn’t had much choice and she truly felt bad about that. On the other hand, they could have ended up in a much worse situation.
Jane Truby came from a family of wealth and was only at the orphanage a short time. With her blonde hair and mischievous blue eyes, she would have been easy pickings for an unscrupulous employer. She’d been coddled and protected up until her father’s death. Jane had expected to inherit a vast amount of property. Unfortunately, the only thing she received was a mountain of debts. Having no way to support herself, she ended up in the orphanage until she was old enough to be unceremoniously turned out.
Marilee Muldoon was a dark haired, fresh-faced young woman hoping to become a teacher. Her father was killed in what Marilee referred to as the war of ‘Northern Aggression’ and her mother had been a schoolteacher in Atlanta. When Marilee was 10 her mother died of influenza, and she was sent to live with an aunt in New Orleans. By the time she was 12 she was in the orphanage. With her soft southern drawl and gentile manners, she could easily have found employment as a nanny or governess, but she wanted more out of life than taking care of someone else’s children.
Annalise Martin spent most of her life in the orphanage. A shy girl with brown hair and brown eyes, she frequently wore dark clothes as though she were in morning. It seemed to Callie Mae that Annalise did everything she could to avoid being noticed. However, Ty Wainwright had certainly noticed her and had gotten her to agree to his marriage proposal in a shockingly short amount of time. Callie Mae could only imagine Annalise’s heartbreak when as a young girl her father went west near the end of the gold rush and her mother followed never to return. It was no wonder she kept to herself most of the time.
Fancy O’Shea alias Francine Jones, was a flamboyant redhead with the voice of an angel. Her parents were show people and had dropped her off with friends of her mother’s while they went to Chicago to perform. A carriage accident took both of their lives and Fancy had counted the days until she would be free from the restrictions of the orphanage and its matron.
“I thought you girls would be happy to have a few days off, a little peace and quiet. Why are you all sitting around in here? Why don’t you go for a walk or something?” Callie Mae suggested.“AndAnnalise, what are you doing here at all? I thought you were staying at the Wainwrights. That’s a lovely dress you’re wearing. It’s nice to see you in pretty things!”
“That’s what Ty said,” Annalise replied with a blush as she held out the fabric of her periwinkle dress. “Ty said a young woman about to be married shouldn’t look as though she was grieving a loss. He’s purchased so many nice things for me, it was hard to defy him,” she continued with a sigh.
“What do you mean?” Callie asked.
“Well, we had quite an argument about me staying in town,” she admitted quietly, her small hands twisted in the fabric. “He was against it.”
“Yet here you are?” Callie pointed out with a slight smile.
“Yes, I explained to him that you, Marilee, Fancy, and Jane are my very best friends in the world, and I wasn’t going to leave them at the mercy of Lilly,” she stated firmly. “Actually, you all are my family. The Wainwrights are very nice, of course, and they’ve made me welcome. But I belong here, until Ty and I are married,” she insisted firmly.
“I don’t imagine Mr. Wainwright took that very well,” Marilee softly said, setting her needlework on her lap and looking closely at Annalise.
“Well, no, he didn’t,” Annalise admitted, her face flaming. “But I persevered.
“I see,” Callie said kindly. “Are you all right?”
“I am,” Annalise stated with a nod. “Of course, Ty made his feelings on the matter known quite sharply on my backside, but I wasn’t going to budge. Lillian Piersal is a mean old hen,” she said with a sniff. “In fact, when I’m Mrs. Wainwright I may just put my nose in the air when she passes by and snub her. I don’t like how she’s treated us. She thinks we’re all wicked girls when she’s really the wicked one!”
“My goodness, Annalise,” Fancy gasped in surprise. “You seem to have grown a backbone since you became engaged. I’m proud of you.”
“I’m quite proud of myself,” Annalise replied with a grin, her eyes twinkling. “I thought Ty was going to win this round,” she admitted. “My bottom was on fire, but when I told him it didn’t matter how hard he spanked me, I was going to have my way or I would refuse to say ‘I do’ when the time came, he conceded. Not willingly, of course, but just the same, I won.”
Callie Mae and the girls laughed.
“My goodness,” Jane gasped out. “I never would have thought you could be that strong-willed.”
“Some things are worth fighting for,” Annalise explained. “My friends are, and as much as I love Ty, I’m not going to always do as he says. I do have opinions of my own, even if I don’t often say so.”
“Well, we’re glad you’re back. And Callie Mae,we are happy to have a few days off, but it’s like the undertakers in here,” Fancy replied spinning around on her stool. “Every time we set foot outside, Lilly comes running out of her shop to shoo us back in.Now, now, girls,” Fancy mimicked planting her hand on her hip and wagging her finger.“It’s bad enough that you work in the saloon; you don’t need to be wandering the streets.”
“Yes,” Marilee added. “That’s exactly what she sounds like. If she didn’t come over and march us all over to the Blue Bonnet for meals, we’d never see the light of day. She’s like a warden, it’s ridiculous,” she huffed. “If a young man so much as tips his hat to us, she nearly has the vapors!”
“One of these days when she acts like that, I’m going to lift my skirts to my knees and dance a little jig, right there on the boardwalk,” Fancy stated grinning. “I bet she faints dead away.”
“Oh Fancy,” Callie Mae replied with a laugh. “Please don’t make her anymore judgmental. She’ll have the entire town down on us.
“Jane, I thought you were helping out at Dr. Brubaker’s office?”
“I am, I mean I was until today,” Jane replied looking up from her card game.
“What happened today?”
“He had to go deliver a baby and told me I was much too young to assist. I swear he’s only 10 years older than me, but he acts like an old fuddy-duddy, scolding me and bossing me around. I told him if he was going to continue to treat me like a child I may as well forget working for him and return to the school room,” she continued haughtily, her chin in the air.
“What did he have to say to that?” Annalise asked curiously.
“I’d rather not repeat it,” Jane replied blushing furiously. “I mean it’s really not worth repeating such a remark.” Slapping her cards on the table Jane rose and ran her palms down her skirt.
