“Doesn’t your deputy ever go in your place?”
“That no-account Beatty boy strikes out on Mondays.”
“Oh.” She turned this over in her mind. “Well, I imagine I can make biscuits for you every other Thursday and one Sunday a month.”
“Two Sundays. Two Thursdays. Alternating. And on Sundays I get to eat them here.”
“Absolutely not. Two Sundays. Two Thursdays. And I’ll see that you get them.”
“All right,” he agreed. “Just so you know, I strike out pretty early on Thursdays.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.” She went to take another bite of food and realized she’d finished off her plate. She set her fork down. “I didn’t know I had such an appetite.”
“You want another biscuit? Here. I’ll split this one with you and call it my sacrifice for the day.”
That made her smile. “Thank you. I will.”
Wyatt sliced the biscuit, buttered both halves, then held them in his open palms and let her choose top or bottom.
Rachel chose the bottom. She settled back in her chair as she ate. “How long before I arrived was my house built?”
“About six months.”
That meant Mr. Maddox was making arrangements for her departure long before she’d decided to leave, perhaps before they had first discussed it together. She shouldn’t have been surprised that he saw the handwriting on the wall before she did. He’d made his fortune anticipating the mood of the country and the strategies of his peers. She considered herself prescient if she could guess what soup would be served at luncheon.
“How did you explain that you were building a house?” she asked.
“Told everyone it was for me.” He shrugged. “That didn’t cause stir, though some folks were surprised when I didn’t move in.”
“Did you want to?”
“I didn’t let myself think too much about it. I knew Maddox was pretty confident that you’d come here, so it seemed better just to wait and see how things turned out.”
“He maneuvered me about without the slightest indication that he was doing so. I had a lot to consider last night. In hindsight, I know this is where he wanted me to be. There were subtle pressures that I never understood until now.” She brushed her hands together over her plate, ridding herself of biscuit crumbs. “I doubt he would have been so adamant about me leaving if I’d pressed to go anywhere else.”
“Where else did you consider going?”
“San Francisco. Chicago.”
“Big cities. Never Denver? St. Louis? Somewhere back East?”
“No. I never gave them any real consideration, and there’s no ‘back East’ for me. I was born in California. I guess he knew me better than I knew myself. San Francisco was too close. Chicago was too far. And a small town was a better choice than a city. He realized I’d need help that would be hard to come by for a woman alone in places like Denver. Reidsville’s just about perfect.”
“Folks here think so,” he said. “Tell me about ‘too close’ and ‘too far.’”
Rachel knew what he meant, but she declined to answer. “I better see to these dishes. I have plenty of work to do today before I can leave to look at that contract.” She started to rise, but he caught her wrist. It was a light grip, just firm enough to let her know that he could insist that she sit. She set her jaw, unhappy with this turn, but she sat.
Wyatt let her go immediately. “Just one other thing,” he said. “Did you know about the Calico spur before you came here?”
“Not until I began making arrangements to leave and realized I’d have to use the spur to make the very last leg of the journey. I wasn’t certain I’d come here after all.”
“What decided you?”
“The need to be connected, even if that connection is by steel rails and spikes.” Rachel saw Wyatt nod slowly, as if he understood better than she did. “You know, Sheriff, Mr. Maddox tolerated people using C & C when they talked about his western railroad, but he disliked it immensely when they referred to the great California and Colorado as Calico.”
Wyatt raked back his sunshine-threaded hair with his fingertips and shared a slip of a smile with her. “I know.”
Rachel slowed her steps as she passed the bank. She entertained the notion that she could ask Mr. Reston to show her the contract without Wyatt Cooper’s permission or presence, but what reasons she could offer did not occur to her, especially since Wyatt was reclining in front of his office in his familiar, sublimely restful pose.
Sighing, Rachel moved on. She’d chosen her dress with some particular attention today, wanting to appear as a woman who was both careful in her deliberations and confident in her decisions. With that in mind, she’d picked out a brightly colored batiste handkerchief dress, vaguely masculine in its tailoring with its double-breasted jacket and deep pleats. When she had critically regarded herself in the mirror, she was satisfied to see that she looked striking and not alluring. It was the first order of business for a woman who wanted to be taken seriously.
She nodded or spoke to everyone who greeted her, and even risked a proposal from Abe Dishman by acknowledging him first. Ned tipped his hat at her, laughed gleefully, then jumped two of Abe’s red checkers and palmed them. Johnny Winslow offered a cheery hello when she passed him coming out of Morrison’s on an errand for Mrs. Longabach. Rudy Martin stopped sweeping the sidewalk in front of his saloon when she passed, and Mr. Caldwell wandered outside his apothecary shop just as she was going by and bid her good day.
By the time she reached the sheriff’s office she estimated that she’d acknowledged the compliments of some fourteen men and one from that no-account Beatty boy. She stopped at the gate that Wyatt had erected with his long legs and waited for him to move aside or in some other way indicate that he knew she was there.
After a moment he nudged the brim of his hat back and looked her over—slowly—from her ribbon-adorned bonnet to her soft kid boots. “Are you planning to dress every woman in town in that fashion?”
“Why? What’s wrong with it?”
“Nothing, as far as I can tell, but you were accosted upwards of a dozen times once you turned the corner from Aspen Street until you got here. I can’t say that I see Gracie Showalter or Ann Marie Easter putting up with that sort of attention.”
“I was hardly accosted,” she said. “People are friendly here. At least most of them. And this dress wouldn’t suit Mrs. Showalter or Mrs. Easter, so I won’t be suggesting the design to either of them.”
“There’s a relief.” He dropped his legs so that his chair fell hard on all fours, and rose easily to his feet. “Let’s go. Jake’s expecting us.”
“I could have met you at the bank.”
“Sure you could’ve.” He didn’t add what he was thinking, namely that he’d have missed her gliding toward him if she had. The mannish cut of the dress she was wearing shouldn’t have lent itself to her floating walk, but somehow it was emphasized, not diminished.
Wyatt stepped to the outside of the sidewalk, giving Rachel the inside track, and gestured toward the bank. “Are you anxious?”
“A little,” she admitted as they began walking.
“Do you think I’ve been lying to you about it?”
“No. It was just unexpected, that’s all.”
He nodded. “When we get to the bank, you’ll have to read it with me there. I only have the one contract. I can’t risk