She allowed Ward to spin her once, just so that his hand would have to reach above her head instead of remaining at her hip. “And if you mean Jack, yes, he helps me
ward
off men with way
ward
hands. Now go away or I’ll tell”—
What is his wife’s name?
Anna hated being so bad with names—“where I found your hat last week.”
Everyone knew Ward prided himself on buying big hats, had them made down in San Antonio at a special shop. One of a kind, they were. If one happened to wind up in a certain saloon girl’s boudoir, then there would have to be plenty of explaining for the man who left it there. That was certainly something that man didn’t want to have to tell his wife.
Not that Anna would ever hurt the wife in that manner. But the man better watch his mouth about Jack or else she might just alter her policy on not informing family members about her customers’ Saturday-night shenanigans.
The floor quivered as those who did not dance clapped their hands and stamped their feet to the lively tune. Several exhausting partners and minutes later, Trey returned to Anna and the last round of the reel ended in thunderous applause.
“I think I’m ready for some more punch or maybe something to eat,” Trey announced. “Will you excuse me while I sit out the next one?”
There was something strange in his tone, and his back was a little stiffer than it had been before. “Are you mad at me?” she asked, realizing that Jack was wiggling and wanted down. She let him go.
“Why should I be?” Trey moved away from the dance floor and headed for the kitchen.
He had no reason that she could think of, but he’d never felt so distant before. His words had never been so crisp and brief.
“I mean, if you prefer to dance with those other men rather than me, it’s certainly your prerogative,” he said over his shoulder.
“You’re jealous,” she announced, surprised by the fact. Deep within her two feelings flared—anger at his audacity and a certain pleasure in knowing that he cared. “I had nothing to do with who I danced with,” she reminded him, following him. “The fiddler called the switch, so I switched. Believe me, some of them I wouldn’t have ever danced with if it hadn’t been for—” She stopped in her tracks, her fists knotting on her hips. He was being possessive, and no man possessed her. “Now, wait just a minute here. Why am I explaining this to you? You’re the so-called expert dancer. You know how a reel goes.”
“So-called?” Something etched in his face that she couldn’t quite determine its source until he added, “I thought you said I danced quite well.”
She’d hurt his feelings and she hadn’t meant to, no matter how miffed at him she was at the moment. Anna noticed people staring at them now, listening. They would think she’d already attached herself to a stranger in a single day of knowing him. That was just great. They would leave this party with more fuel for the rumors that had been spread about her all over the territory.
Let them listen. It wasn’t like arguing with him would make them dislike her any less. They would certainly take his side. He was company. She was old gossip. But she hadn’t meant to make him feel less than he was. “You’re a wonderful dancer. You just shouldn’t have asked me to dance a reel if you didn’t want me to be in other men’s arms.”
Trey stopped and faced her. “I didn’t know how I was going to feel seeing you there. Now, will you stop staring a hole through me and show me where Miss Henton keeps her bowls for the chili? We’ll talk about this later.
Alone
.”
“Fine. We definitely will.” She’d never seen him mad, and he looked a whole lot more manly when he was angry. That appealed to her quite a lot. Maybe she needed to see what it would take to get him really steamed up.
Lord knew you didn’t really know how much a man really cared for you until you had him riled at you. And there wasn’t a man alive who had ever been brave enough to look her in the eye and tell her when she was going to do something.
Merry Christmas, Anna
, she told herself.
Maybe you’ve finally got your wish
.
Someone brave enough to handle your secret. Someone man enough to handle you.
Someone strong and true to spend your life with
.
Chapter 6
James had no chance to talk to Anna alone as he hoped. Everyone had pitched in to help Jane and her father with seeing that all were fed. Some of the men had dared to open the mudroom door and scoop up buckets of the drift that had made opening the door nearly impossible. The snow was packed in so hard that the windows had frost on the inside of them and were bending inward. At least they’d managed to get enough snow to boil and let it cool into good drinking water.
Anna had insisted that she and the women use some of it to clean the dishes so that they would have enough to use for breakfast tomorrow. Most had lent a hand, but there were a stubborn few who didn’t want to help because they didn’t want to get their hands cold. Those guests were in the great room having a good time, from the sound of laughter and stamping of feet to the music.
James had been taught by his adoptive parents that if you ate at someone’s house, you helped with the dishes. So he did what he could one-handed. He couldn’t wash. He tried to dry, but it hurt to hold the dish with the injured hand while he dried with the other. So they allowed him to put away the dishes.
“You’re a real help in the kitchen,” Jane complimented him, handing him another saucer to stack in the top of the cabinet.
“Being tall has its advantages,” he said, taking the tiny china dish and putting it among the others.
“You wouldn’t catch some of the men in here helping.” Anna nodded toward the door that led out of the kitchen. “Unless it’s proving who’s strong enough to pry open a door. Women’s work, they say. Not manly enough for them.”
The moment the door had been opened and the buckets of snow scooped in, the other men had escaped to rooms deeper in the house. Only James and his host remained behind with the women. “If they’re man enough to eat on it, they ought to be man enough to clean it,” James informed, inspiring a feminine “amen” from the women that would have made any preacher proud.
“It’s not that they wouldn’t help, there’s just so much room in here,” Newpord defended his fellow men. “I chased most of them out. James here is new company, so I gave him his choice. Me? I like being crushed between a swarm of aprons and pretty gals. You don’t get this old without getting this smart.”
The women giggled and James eyed the man with fond respect. The widower must miss his wife deeply.
“Which brings me to the next thing we all need to do, not just us do-gooders,” Newpord announced.
“What’s that, Father? The gift giving?” Jane handed James another dish.
Gift giving? James didn’t have anything he could give. Guess he’d have to sit out that part of the party. But what of Anna? She didn’t have anything to offer either. Would she mind being left out?
“I was thinking maybe we better gather everyone and decide a few things before we continue with the party. There needs to be some organizing done, like where we will put everyone down for the night and how we’re going to handle the outhouse needs, to state it bluntly. I don’t think anyone could make it through those drifts to the shack, so we have to decide how we’re going to handle the situation.”
By the look of horrified feminine faces as they contemplated exactly what Newpord was implicating, James thought he might be of help with this particular problem. “Sir, I could offer a solution that might work.”
Newpord held up a hand to stop him. “No, wait. Let’s call a meeting in the parlor and we can all discuss it. It needs to be mutual agreement among us all. Looks like we’re just about done here, so let’s go call a council.”
Everyone put down their dry towels and took off their aprons, following their host into the great room where the others were now visiting and talking, resting from their dancing and meal of chili-seasoned beans, beef, and corn muffins.
“Gather round, folks.” Newpord’s voice echoed over the room and up the stairs to those who rested on furniture there. “We’re calling a powwow.”
It took a couple of minutes for almost forty people to come together. Some were a little slower than others, having imbibed in the punch bowl a little too frequently. The women sat while the men stood behind them.
Newpord repeated what he’d said in the kitchen. “Now, I’d like to turn the floor over to our new friend, Mr. Elliott. Ah hell, let’s call him James. If we’re going to spend this much time with him, then he can allow us to call him James or Jim, can’t he?”
A round of applause welcomed James into their fold. “Call me Trey.” James glanced at Anna and was pleased when she smiled.
“Well, Trey, what did you have in mind instead of using the outhouse?” Newpord plunged ahead with their problem.
Embarrassed titters erupted in the room, then finally laughter, putting everybody a little more at ease about the subject.
“As some of you’ve learned, I’m a bit of a scientist. At least that’s what I profess to be most of the time.” Seeing a few nodding heads, he continued on, “As a scientist, I know that burning off waste seems to be the answer for our problem. I propose that we use the fire you’ve made in the mudroom chimney to burn off the excrement we gather in chamber pots, no matter what its . . . uh . . .
texture
. There are quite a few of us and so the amount may become substantial if the storm lasts.”
“You mean gather our—?” Izora couldn’t finish the words. “And burn it?”
“If we can’t get doors open enough to toss it out, then it seems the logical solution to me. Even if we can get doors open, we should save that snow for use for drinking water and the like. We don’t want anyone having to venture out too far into the snow and get lost.” James searched their faces. “Of course, it won’t be the most pleasant room to pay a visit, but it will do the job and not make any of us sick, should the storm linger longer than we hope. If anyone else knows a better way to accommodate this many people for that task, please speak up.”
Anna raised her hand. “I vote we do as Trey says. It makes sense.”
Other hands followed, and Newpord counted them. “Well, that’s settled. That’s most of us. Thank you, Trey. Now we need to decide where everyone’s going to sleep. Do we take turns in shifts or try to bed everyone down at once?”
“I vote that we all sleep at once. We’ll need to keep dancing when we’re awake to keep warm.” Izora looked at others for support. “It will be difficult to sleep with all that foot stomping.”
They agreed to not take shifts.
“We have four bedrooms, the study, the upper landing, and the great room, the kitchen, and the mudroom,” Jane’s nose wrinkled as her mouth twisted disdainfully, “which now I’m sure we all agree we won’t count. It will be hard enough trying to use the kitchen since it’s next to the mudroom.”
Everyone laughed.
“That makes seven rooms, if we use the kitchen,” she continued. “There are thirty-eight of us here. That puts five or six of us in each room for the night.”
No one disputed the teacher. After all, she’d taught the three Rs.
“We’ll give you women the beds, so you’ll have a place to stretch out,” Newpord instructed. “We men will take the chairs, settees, and floors that have rugs on them near the chimneys. We don’t want anyone catching cold on the floorboards. I’d prefer you figure out for yourselves who you want to share the room with, but if it seems to present a problem, we’ll draw names.”
Voices started exchanging their thoughts on the subject and choices were made. James could hear Izora’s complaint that wives ought to get to stay with their husbands, but if she
had
to, she would share with other women. Finally, Izora insisted that Enoch sleep on the rug near whichever bed she was assigned, and Enoch nodded his agreement silently.
James moved over to Anna and leaned down to whisper in her ear. “Where are you sleeping?”
She looked up at him and one golden brow arched high over her left eye. “Why? Do you have something in mind?”
She was trying to flirt with him. She had been ever since he’d gotten mad at her earlier. All through the meal and dishwashing, she’d done nothing but find ways to accidentally brush her body against his, making him acutely aware of how well he liked the way she fit him.
Anna was playing with fire. He might be a tenderfoot in her territory and not any part Texan, but he was man enough to know when he wanted a woman. And he wanted her. He just didn’t want her in the company of others. He would tell her just how much he liked the way she felt in his arms and brushing up against him, if they ever had a chance to be alone. Which didn’t seem a likely possibility under these circumstances.
“I just wanted to know if you were going to have to spend it in Mrs. Beavers’s room choice,” he told her, realizing he hadn’t answered her.
“Jane and Marjorie and I are taking Janie’s room. We don’t know yet who the other two will be.” Her eyes twinkled like blue sapphires in the firelight. “Since there are more men than women, I don’t know that it won’t be a couple of men. On the floor, of course.”
“Men, in your room?” James immediately excused himself and headed over to their host. “Mr. Henton, may I speak with you, sir?”
Newpord excused himself from the group surrounding him. “Yes, Trey?”
“I thought you and I should take the floor of your daughter’s room for the night, if you have no objection.” He realized how that had sounded when the gray-haired man’s bushy eyebrows formed a V beneath his forehead. “I mean, sir. I assumed if unmarried men would be sharing some of the rooms with the women,” he was stepping deeper into the quagmire of his words, “then you might want someone you trust to guard your daughter’s room. Rather, I certainly would want to guard Miss Ross’s.”
The V eased up and a smile returned to Newpord’s face as James continued, “And Anna just told me only she, your daughter, and Miss Schroeder are sharing your daughter’s room at the moment. They need five people per room, is my understanding. We seemed the logical pair of men, due to the division requirement.”
“Son, stop with all the twenty-dollar words.” Newpord placed a hand on James’s shoulder. “Just say you’ve got it bad for Anna and you don’t want any other man in there.”
James looked across the room at the saloonkeeper in all her sassy glory. “I’m afraid I do, sir. Does it show that much?”
The hand patted his shoulder. “It does to a man who felt the same way about his own woman once.” The widower glanced Anna’s way. “Sure. We’ll claim that floor for us.”
A sense of relief washed over James as that all-important matter was settled.
The hand left his shoulder as Newpord started chuckling.
“What’s so humorous?” James hadn’t seen anything that could have caused such a jolly reaction.
“I was just thinking that she must be at least part of what they claim of her.”
James grew tired of all the innuendo and no one ever really saying what it was that Anna was guilty of. “What is that, Mr. Henton? No one seems willing to actually say it.”
“She’s supposed to be fast on her feet, son. She certainly roped you in. How long have you known her . . . less than twenty-four hours?”
“Fast on her feet?” James puzzled over the meaning. “What does that mean in Texas, exactly?” He knew what it meant up North.
Newpord hooked his thumbs in his belt and rocked back on his feet. “Well, that depends on who’s telling you. Izora and some others think it means Anna’s a soiled woman, a fast ruffle of petticoats. All because she came to town with money of her own and won’t say where she got it. Jane and a group just like her think it means Anna’s a woman who knows her own mind and means not to let anyone change it except herself. Me? This Texan thinks she’s fast at finding the goodness of someone’s heart. I’d say lucky is the man who wins her love.”
James thought maybe she was all three of those definitions, the way she’d been acting toward him since the dance. Could he love a woman who might not be the perfect addition to take home to meet his family? After all, she’d warned him well enough how others thought of her.
How naughty had Anna been?