* * *
“I told them I was married,” I announced, looking up. Casey gave me a look.
“Good for you,” she said with false enthusiasm, and she punched me in the arm. Then she turned back to Tilly and continued to ignore me.
“I was good,” I insisted.
“You lost the damn key,” she growled without looking at me.
“You were good and naked,” added Tilly.
I shut up. They were right about that. But I hadn’t let the lady touch more than my arm. I’d told her I was married and smiled and she kept coming, and then the older woman—her mother, they said—intervened. She reminded her daughter that the west was full of strong men, and there was no need to steal somebody’s husband. And she’d put a hand on my chest defensively and an arm around me while she said it. That was when she took the key from my pocket. I hadn’t noticed then, but I was sure of it now. A moment later she had hold of her daughter’s hands and was sending her on an errand. And I turned to go too, but she stopped me.
“If you won’t take wine, I bet you could use some coffee!”
She turned with a swish of skirts and dashed through the door I had just cleared for her. I followed her to the little room in back, which had a stove in it, but not much else, and she poured me some coffee in that same little cracked cup.
I took it, and I drank it. It had not seemed like a stupid thing to do at the time, and still doesn’t. She talked about her hopes for the dress shop, which I thought were probably high for such a little town without much prospects. There weren’t many women around, and what women there were didn’t often buy dresses—but maybe that’s because there hadn’t been a dress shop. You never knew.
And she did not bat her eyelashes at me once. I did not take off my clothes, and she didn’t try to either. And it seemed to me they must have already got the key from me by then anyway, and the daughter had gone to get the pin....