She opened her mouth to say something, but he stopped her with an upraised hand.
“—and then, they have to agree to certain stipulations—”
“I know, I know. No drinking, cussing, smoking, gambling and no womanizing.”
Clearly, she’d read the advertisement for employment carefully, even if she’d omitted mentioning that she was a woman applying for a man’s job.
“If you will remember, the advertisements state ‘no women.’ They do not use the term womanizing.”
“I simply assumed—”
“Then you assumed wrong. These men have given up a lot to be here—including tailoring their behavior to a certain code of conduct. But that’s not the most significant sacrifice they’ve made, Sumner. Most of these miners come from back east, the British Isles, Italy and Greece. In order to pay for their passages to the wilds of Utah, the vast majority of them have signed an agreement to work for five years to pay off the debt. Despite the nickname this place has earned, not all of them came to us as bachelors.”
He pointed to the window where the sky was already beginning to turn to gray. “Out there are fathers, brothers, husbands and sweethearts who have agreed to spend years away from their loved ones in order to make a new future, not just for themselves, but for their families. They’re willing to do the job and live with untold privations so that, one day, they can send for them.”
“I hardly think that our group would—”
“They will be a temptation.”
“One we can rebuff.”
“But worse,” Jonah continued, “they’ll be a reminder, Sumner. And sometimes, simply seeing a reminder of what you’re missing can be the cruelest form of torture.”
To her credit, she finally fell silent. For several minutes, she ruminated on his words.
“Are you missing someone, Jonah?”
The question was so unexpected—and far too personal for their short acquaintance—that for a moment, Jonah was taken aback.
Rebecca.
No.
She wasn’t his to miss. She hadn’t been for a very long time.
Jonah could have commented on Sumner’s lack of tact—not to mention her impudence. But he answered honestly.
“No. I’m here for the long haul.”
The words held grim finality when spoken aloud, but he couldn’t take them back. It was the truth. Rebecca, his former fiancée, had found a new man to share her life with. One who was free from unsightly scars. One whose body wouldn’t betray him one day, as Jonah’s was bound to do.
Sumner sighed and said, “Be that as it may, Mr. Ramsey—”
“Jonah.”
She grimaced. “Jonah. The women will still need their belongings.”
He couldn’t prevent a short bark of laughter. “And what’s so important that I should risk the lives of my men on unstable packs of snow less than a day after we’ve already suffered one avalanche?”
She lowered her mug, and he couldn’t account for the way it pleased him when he found that it was empty.
“You’ve spoken of the sacrifices of your miners. But what you haven’t yet acknowledged is that your employees aren’t the only ones sacrificing a great deal. Most of those women were on that train as a group of mail-order brides heading west, and they’ve paid just as dearly for their passages. They have no way to notify anyone about the delay they’ve encountered—so, who knows if they will have husbands waiting for them when they finally arrive at their destinations? Furthermore, the women brought all of their belongings with them—some of them valuable heirlooms and household goods needed to start their lives as married women. The longer their trunks lie moldering in the snow, the more the women will have lost precious ties to families and homes they’ve left behind. I think that even you would have to admit that being stranded here could hold untold ramifications.”
She paused, but it was clear that she wasn’t finished.
“Therefore, I think that it’s only reasonable for you and your men to provide these women with their belongings. As it is, most of them have little more than the clothes on their backs. Indeed, since you force me to be blunt, they have no extra...undergarments to tide them through until washing day. Very few of them have coats or scarves or mittens. And despite this valley’s fondness for its Miners’ Hall, there is a draft. Especially in the upper rooms. Added to that, these ladies will need combs, brushes and other personal items. The sooner, the better.”
“Or...”
“Or the women may find it necessary to protest by marching down Main Street.” She set her cup aside and rose to her feet. “And since many of them now have garments that are completely unwearable, your men may get more of a reminder of what they’re missing than you’d ever anticipated.”
With that, she sailed from the room, slamming the door behind her.
Leaving Jonah wondering what would Miss Havisham be left wearing if she decided to make good on her threat?
* * *
“Sumner!”
Sumner moaned as the voice pierced her consciousness.
“Miss!”
She blinked, vainly trying to focus. But since she’d spent hours mulling over her conversation with Jonah Ramsey—reviewing every word the man had said—she’d wound herself tighter than a spring and sleep had become nearly impossible.
Her eyes drifted shut.
“Dr. Havisham, please!”
A hand shook her shoulder and Sumner’s eyes opened again. This time, she came face-to-face with Willow Granger.
“Willow?” she croaked. “How’s the leg?”
“Fine, fine. I’ve got a bruise big as a dinner plate, but most of the swelling has gone down.”
Willow was one of the reasons why Sumner had felt it necessary to approach Jonah at such an unreasonable hour. After tending to the woman’s leg, Sumner had found the girl crying in one of the rear supply closets. While the other mail-order brides had slipped out of their torn, wet clothing and hung their frocks to dry, Willow had clutched at the shapeless dress she wore. After divining that Willow had spent most of her adolescence in a strict charity school, Sumner had realized that the young woman had been unable to bring herself to strip down to her “shimmies” even if it was only in the presence of other women. Sumner had helped her to fashion a robe of sorts out of a pair of blankets so that Willow could rinse the mud from her hems and allow her dress to dry. For that, Sumner had earned herself a loyal assistant.
Willow regarded her with glittering blue eyes. In the early-morning glare, her skin was pale and spattered with freckles, and her curly red hair hung around her heart-shaped face like a wild mane.
Sumner cleared her throat, then rasped, “What is it, Willow?”
“There’s a man at the door. He says he’ll only talk to you.”
Jonah?
She scrambled up from the pallet on the floor. Automatically, her hands flew to her hair, and she squeaked when she realized that it was a mass of tangles.
“You’d better hurry. He said he didn’t have much time.”
Sumner glanced down at herself and fought the urge to squeal in protest. Besides being ill-fitting, her borrowed day dress was wrinkled,