“Why not?”
“Do you really think I’d make a good father?”
Surprisingly, she did. He might have a wastrel profession but he also had a reputation for fighting for the underdog. He’d be a strong and protective father. And while breath filled his lungs, his children would never want.
Half turning, he pushed the hair that was tickling off her temple. “That hard an answer to come up with?”
“I was actually thinking you’d make a very good father. But heaven help your daughters.”
His brow snapped down, and that hand that had just touched her so tenderly curled into a fist. She had the oddest impression that he was hurt. “You think I’d hurt my girls?”
One would think she’d have the sense to be afraid, but she wasn’t. “I think they’d grow up in danger of becoming old maids waiting for a suitor brave enough to come courting.”
“Damn straight.” His expression traveled from wary to speculative in the space of a breath. “Have you been spending a lot of time thinking on me?”
She didn’t like to admit the truth. She also refused to lie. “Some. There’s not much to do in this town besides look at the local color, and you are colorful.”
“Do you always give a direct answer?”
“I try to be honest.”
“When it suits you?”
She sighed. Life would be so much easier if she could lie. “Even when it doesn’t.”
“Why? Lying’s easier.”
It was her turn to shrug. “People taking the easy way all the time is one of the reasons children like Terrance don’t get a chance, why women get black eyes from the men they love and why men sometimes have to be what they don’t want to be just to survive.”
“The last doesn’t make sense.”
“Sure it does. Not every man’s temperament is suited to a warrior’s life.”
Ace huffed. “Any man worth his salt knows how to fight.”
“I know, and it’s easier to say that rather than to accept differences.”
Ace stared at her for the longest time. “You are one strange woman, Petunia Wayfield.”
She kept her wince internal. “So I’ve been told.”
“By people that don’t appreciate it, I bet.”
“Nope,” she agreed, “no more than you do.”
“Oh?” His fingers skimmed the side of her cheek. “I appreciate this.”
This? This, her face? This, her position? Or this, the all of her?
“It’s just not for me.”
It just came tripping right off her tongue. “Why not?”
And his response came easily off his. “Because under all that spit and fire you’re a sweet, gentle woman who needs a man to hold her place.” Cupping her chin, he tipped her gaze to his. “It just can’t be me.”
With that he turned on his heel and walked away, leaving her sputtering for a comeback.
He was halfway to the saloon before, finally, she found her voice again. “What makes you think I’d want you?”
There was no way he could have heard that muttered utterance. No way at all, but his laugh when it drifted back, still flicked her nerves. The man was impossible. Fine looking, but impossible. Taking a moment to admire the breadth of his shoulders and the narrowness of his hips and, Lord help her, the space in between, she watched until he stepped inside the saloon. The faint sound of greeting followed by a lilt of feminine laughter drifted in his wake. Anger pricked her pride before it dug a wedge deeper. She hated the thought of another woman touching Ace. She hated the thought that he thought she was good and sweet and treated both qualities as if they were something bad.
Rubbing her forehead, she sighed. She’d been hating a lot of things lately. More than usual the past few years. The way Ace saw her was just one more item tacked on to a long list. Truth was, she was frustrated and tired. If she could just get out to California where the rules were so much more liberal, where money made the person, not the gender, it would all be well.
More feminine laughter drifted out along with the faint murmur of Ace’s voice. Petunia would give anything to know what he was saying. She’d give anything to have the courage to march into that saloon and demand that he explain himself. Oh, hell, she rubbed her hands up and down her arm. Who was she kidding? She wanted an opportunity to prove him wrong about her, that she was more than enough woman for him and that being good didn’t make you useless, and being sweet didn’t mean you weren’t passionate. She was so tired of that silliness. She’d seen it so often, it’d smothered her for so long, it just made her teeth grind when somebody applied it to her. Anybody could be sweet when the moment called for it. Anybody could be kind. Anybody could be good. No one thing was the sum total of a person.
Slowly and deliberately she turned her back on the saloon. Through the restaurant window she saw Terrance was almost done with his dinner. Flicking her skirt straight and smoothing her hair, Petunia headed across the street to Luisa’s. Putting off the inevitable wasn’t going to make it go away. There was only one other patron in the restaurant, and he didn’t even give her the time of day when she stepped through the door. He was just shoveling his food into his mouth as fast as he could, some of it catching on his beard. No doubt he was eager to get over to the saloon for some cards and women.
She shuddered. She wouldn’t want to be the one receiving his attentions tonight. Honestly, she didn’t know how those women above stairs did it. Which just went to prove how much society needed to change. Women shouldn’t have to sell their bodies to survive. They ought to be able to make a living wage. They ought to be able to have some recourse to get out of a bad marriage and not be penniless and shunned. They ought to be able to keep their children. They ought to be able to vote, and they truly, truly ought to be able to have some standing under the law.
The anger in her thoughts must have showed on her face because as soon as she stopped beside the table, Terrance looked up at her, and his eyes went wide and he swallowed hard, his fork frozen halfway between the plate and his mouth. Luisa, seated beside Terrance, looked at her curiously. Petunia took a breath and forced a smile.
“Hello, Terrance.”
He nodded. Luisa handed him his napkin. He took it and wiped his mouth and his hands. Someone at some time had taught him basic manners. And he was trotting them out for her, the only thanks he could offer. Wrapped in a red velvet ribbon of hope.
“Hello, Miss Wayfield.”
In many ways they were alike. Struggling to be who they were in a world that wanted to call them something else. She could help him with that. Her smile began to feel more natural. “That sure looks like a delicious supper.”
“The best ever.”
Luisa smiled and ruffled his hair at the compliment. “He has the honey tongue, this one.”
His steak was half-eaten. Petunia would have been hard-pressed to eat a quarter of it. Looking at the thinness of his arms and the bones poking out his shoulders against his shirt, she figured he would probably eat that plate and more if his stomach would hold it. Terrance had the appearance of boy long starved for many things.
A part of her wished she could stay in Simple and fix everything, but she couldn’t. She knew that. It wasn’t practical. Neither the laws nor the community would back her. No, she had to keep her focus. Her future was in California. In California she was going to own her own business, own her own life and she was going to make a difference. But she could get things started for Terrance. It might delay her departure a little bit... She glanced at his bruised eye. He was her student. She owed him